This Side of Night

by J. Todd Scott

  “Well, goddamn, you two scared the ever-livin’ shit out of me. You kids look about the way I feel.” He shifted against the coche, which was holding him up about as much as he was leaning against it, so Neva could see the pistola at his waist. He took it out and held it up higher, to make sure she understood.

  There was always another pistola.

  The hombre switched to Spanish and his Spanish was good. “I’m going to need you and your boyfriend there to drive me the hell out of here. I don’t care what you’re doing here, or where you’re going, and I’ve got plenty of money. You can even have the damn car when we’re done. I just don’t think I can drive. I’m bleeding pretty goddamn good.” He shook both the keys and the pistola at her, reminding her of that old saying she’d learned growing up—that common refrain in the narcocorridos and the telenovelas she loved: Plata o plomo.

  Silver or lead.

  That was the offer every narco made.

  The hombre shook the keys again to keep her attention. “Like I said, I got money and I’ll pay, but I’m not fucking asking.” He raised the pistola in his other hand, and something else, a piece of metal on a chain around his neck. It was a medalla. “I am a police officer, get it? One of the good guys. Now get your asses over here, now. That’s an order, or I’ll arrest both of you. I have to catch that fucker Roman . . .”

  Neva did not know who the hombre was talking about, and most of what he was saying meant nothing to her. He was policía, and he was hurt and desperate.

  But so was she.

  She started to cry, not because she was afraid anymore, but because she was angry.

  Angry at the hombre, at the noche. At the mundo that would not leave them alone, or let them go.

  He was a policía like those who had hurt her, who’d killed Batista.

  Policía or narco, it made no difference.

  Plata o plomo.

  Chayo moved against her, in front of her. He was swaying, unsteady, but he put himself between the hombre and his pistola and her. De nuevo. Chayo didn’t say anything . . . his lips were pale and trembling and flecked with blood . . . and the hombre laughed at him.

  “Fuck me, I’ll give you an A for effort, kid. But neither of us are in shape to fight it out. And trust me, I only need fucking one of you. I bet that . . .”

  Neva spoke for them both.

  “No,” she said, barely a whisper. It was the first word she’d said in days. It hurt, moving her mouth, and her voice sounded strange, like it was coming from someone else. She didn’t recognize herself.

  “No,” she said again. Louder, clearer, so loud it was almost a yell, and it rolled across the desert and back to her.

  “No,” she said, a third time. Soft, final.

  And then she shot him with the pistola she’d taken off the hombre with the baseball hat.

  There was always another pistola.

  She shot him again and again and again until she was done crying, and Chayo took the empty pistola out of her hands and dropped it on the ground.

  * * *

  —

  TOGETHER THEY TOOK THE KEYS of the hombre muerto and the dinero he had on him.

  They rolled his cooling body beneath some ocotillo and left it there.

  And after she got Chayo settled across the backseat of the coche—jumping at the sound of its big engine—she took the wheel and drove them away from the lights and the helicóptero and into the night.

  EPILOGUE

  DÍA

  I

  After it was over, they all had to do a hell of a lot of lying for each other.

  In the numerous official assessments and inquiries in the days immediately afterward, DEA ASAC Joseph Garrison talked at length about the joint operation he’d been working with the Big Bend County Sheriff’s Department. That operation, code-named Arma de Plata, or Silver Gun, focused not only on corruption in the Terrell County narcotics task force—the Tejas unit—but also on the suspected cross-border movements and activities of one of the most feared and wanted narco-traffickers in the world: Juan Abrego Carrión, better known as Fox Uno. The fact that a man believed to be Fox Uno—identity pending—had been arrested alive on U.S. soil as a direct result of Arma de Plata was a major coup for both the DEA and the Big Bend County Sheriff’s Department. The extremely covert nature of the operation was troubling to some, but it had been necessitated by concerns about local border corruption—as proven by the involvement of at least some members of the Tejas unit—and ASAC Garrison only had to point to the numerous intel briefings he’d conducted and recent inquiries he’d made in Washington, D.C., to validate his version of the events.

  SAC Don Chesney, next in line for DEA’s Chief of Operations, subsequently confirmed his knowledge of and support for the operation, and noted his thanks for the amazing investigative work of both his agents and the local deputies in the Big Bend.

  * * *

  —

  FOR A WEEK, people from news outlets from all over the world descended on Murfee.

  When ASAC Garrison was finally made available to the media, he echoed the sentiments of his SAC, and went a step further: Fox Uno’s capture would not have been possible without the fine men and women of the Big Bend County Sheriff’s Department. More pointedly, Fox Uno, the infamous cartel leader who had shipped untold amounts of illicit drugs into the United States and who was responsible for thousands of deaths, including the most recent horrific attack on a busload of students in Ojinaga, was in custody only because of the foresight and efforts of one man: Sheriff Chris Cherry.

  ASAC Garrison said he’d rarely met someone willing to risk so much, for so long, in the pursuit of justice.

  * * *

  —

  EFFORTS, HOWEVER, to interview Sheriff Cherry himself were met with a polite but firm declination.

  In the only official statement put out by the department, the sheriff thanked the DEA for its long-running support and commended his deputies—specifically Deputy America Reynosa and Deputy Daniel Ford—for their hard work and dedication.

  * * *

  —

  IT TOOK A JOINT TEAM OF THE DEA, the FBI, the ATF, and the Texas Department of Public Safety more than four days to process the crime scene at the Far Six.

  Over 275 rounds were fired during the brief but intense shoot-out.

  The explosive detonated in the satchel—identified as a black Cole Haan Barrington Messenger bag—was a traditional C-4 composite improvised explosive device triggered by a Chinese Huawei Honor 5x 4G cell phone that was recovered from the dashboard of the van.

  * * *

  —

  IDENTIFYING THE DEAD was difficult and required the help of the Policía Federal Ministerial, or PFM—the Mexican Ministerial Federal Police—and the Procuraduría General de la República, or PGR—the Office of the General Prosecutor.

  The shooters in the van were Joaquín Abarco Hernández, Carlos Gómez Gonzáles, and his brother, Vicente Gómez Gonzáles. They were all on file with the PFM as known sicarios of Nemesio.

  The young man who died in the explosion was Xavier Alejandro Robles, and he was the only one of the group with any active border crossings on record. He’d most recently crossed on foot two days before the shoot-out, at the Naco port of entry in Douglas, Arizona.

  It was unknown how Xavier got from Douglas to the Big Bend, but it was noted in more than one news article that if he’d been picked up by a vehicle at the POE, and that vehicle took Highway 80 over to Interstate 10 (the most direct route to El Paso and then Murfee, beyond), he would have most likely passed right through Tombstone—the historic site of the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

  Visitors to Tombstone can pay to see a reenactment of the gunfight three times a day.

  The older female was identified as María Fernanda Pérez Medina. She was a longtime resident of Murfee, Texas, and owned
a small unlicensed clothing and general goods store on the west side of town. The Ford Aerostar van was registered to her.

  It was unclear what association she had had with her apparent captors.

  It was believed she was shot by one of the deputies from the Terrell County Tejas unit.

  * * *

  —

  THE TEJAS UNIT DEAD included Ernesto Chavez, Edward Ortiz, Thomas Ringo, and Johnnie Machado, son of the Terrell County sheriff, Chuy Machado. Like Sheriff Cherry, Sheriff Machado did not give any interviews, and issued a brief statement denying any knowledge of corruption in his department or in the Tejas unit, and offered no explanation for how or why his deputies appeared to be involved with known sicarios from another country.

  Both federal and state probes were opened simultaneously targeting the Terrell County Sheriff’s Department.

  It would be several months later that Sheriff Machado would step aside, citing health reasons, and naming longtime deputy Roman Avila as his successor, until a new election in the spring.

  * * *

  —

  REPORTS APPEARED of a rising tension between the U.S. and a Mexican government that was very eager to see the return of the man identified as Fox Uno.

  U.S. government officials, however, were quick to point out that they were under no obligation to return a man whose identity was still in question, who wasn’t facing any active charges in Mexico, and who’d apparently come to the U.S. freely, seeking asylum.

  These same officials also denied that Fox Uno was cooperating with U.S. law enforcement or that he was receiving treatment for a serious health issue, as some media outlets were reporting.

  * * *

  —

  A FEDERAL INQUIRY was opened regarding U.S. Customs and Border Patrol operations at their checkpoints and points of entry in both Arizona and Texas.

  Many people were troubled by the ease with which assassins, explosives and guns, and the notorious head of a Mexican cartel could so easily cross the border.

  If such men could, then anyone could, including Islamic terrorists, which were a growing national concern.

  And with the capture of Fox Uno, alive, it was also openly asked how a local Texas sheriff and his deputies could do what the combined forces of two governments had failed to do.

  * * *

  —

  IN ALL OF THE ATTENTION immediately after the events at the Far Six, one thing happened that merited barely a few lines in the national media, and not much more in the local Murfee Daily.

  It was such a foregone conclusion, it wasn’t considered newsworthy.

  Sheriff Chris Cherry was reelected for a second full term.

  Word around town was that he won in a landslide.

  II

  Charity Mumford had been a pretty woman once, and probably would be again.

  Danny could tell she was slowly regaining her color—her life—one day at a time.

  There were still all the old signs: the faded bruises on her face, the nails bitten to the quick, the old track marks, and the nervous way she looked around as if she expected something bad to happen to her any minute. For her, there were shadows lurking around every corner and under every bed. The way she didn’t want to make eye contact was another tiny tic, a poker tell, about the life she’d led and the things she’d seen.

  Her eyes were big and wide and a curious shade of blue, and even though more often than not they showed just how afraid she was, at least they were clear.

  She’d been sober since leaving Eddy Rabbit, and word was she doing well at the women’s shelter in Artesia. But she was still a woman who was afraid of what tomorrow would bring, and the day after.

  Danny understood that.

  * * *

  —

  SHE’D BROUGHT EDDY’S ASHES in the small box the mortuary had given her, and she scattered them around Delcia Canyon without much ceremony. The October wind was up, and it caught them and took them skyward, sunward, and for one brief second they were a dazzling white, and then they were all gone.

  Charity watched Eddy go as she lit up a cigarette.

  * * *

  —

  THEY LEANED against Danny’s truck, talking.

  He told her everything that had happened at the Far Six—more truth than he ever told the Texas DPS or federal investigators—about how Eddy had texted him a warning message that only Danny would understand, and how he’d even gone a step further: running right into those killing fields, just to make sure Danny saw him.

  To make sure Danny knew what was happening.

  Danny had no idea Eddy could run that fast, and Danny would have sworn that he’d been smiling.

  Danny told Charity that Eddy had died a hero, but more than that, he’d died clean and sober. And if Eddy could stay clean, so could she. That’s what Danny wanted her to know, to remember and hold on to.

  That, in the end, Eddy had finally made it through to the other side.

  * * *

  —

  “THANKS,” CHARITY SAID, finishing off her cigarette. “It was nice you comin’ out to the funeral, and then bringin’ me out here for this today. This is what Eddy would have wanted, to be left out here, not some hole in the ground. Thinkin’ about stuff like that gave him the creeps.” What Charity didn’t say was that Danny had been the only one who’d come to the funeral, and Danny had paid for it.

  “No, it’s fine. I wanted to do this. I needed to do this. Eddy did right by me, and I wanted to do right by him.”

  She stuck her hands in her Goodwill jacket and looked out into the canyon. “He wasn’t a bad guy, you know? He meant well. He could be sweet, at times.” She shrugged. “He was just kinda broken. He was all jagged-like, but he never meant to cut you. Not on purpose, anyway. It just happened, bein’ around him too much, if that makes any damn sense.” Danny thought Charity was going to cry, but she only wiped a hand on her dry face, and continued. “I don’t know that I’ll really miss him, though. Is that a bad thing to say? Does that make me a bad person?”

  “No,” Danny said. “I don’t think so. I don’t think so at all.”

  She smiled, still clear-eyed, and turned away from the canyon. “It’s okay, Mr. Ford. I think I’m done here. I don’t think I’ll ever be coming out here again.”

  Danny put an arm around her, squeezed her tight. She was small and thin and frail, but he knew her strength was coming back. “All right, then let’s get you out of here. I need to get to town to see the doctor anyway. He gets upset when I’m late, wants to charge me extra.”

  Charity looked at him strange, searching him over. “I didn’t think you got hurt in all that shit that happened.”

  Danny laughed. “No, I didn’t . . . I mean, not physically, thanks to Eddy.” He tapped the side of his head. “But I got plenty of shit up here to work out from before, when I was in the military. I’m no different than Eddy. I’m broken, too. Hell, we all are, right? Eddy helped remind me of that . . . how we need to do whatever we can to fix ourselves, so we don’t accidentally cut those trying to hold on to us.”

  Charity thought about that. “That makes sense . . . a lot of sense.” Then she stopped, before opening the door to the truck. “Say, you never told me what message he texted you, something only you’d understand?”

  Danny laughed again. “Yeah, that. It was something he said the first time we met. ‘Tomorrow is a motherfucker.’ Then he hit me with a frying pan.”

  Charity covered her mouth, stopping a laugh of her own. “He used to say that all the time. Same old shit Eddy always said. Goddamn Eddy.”

  Then she was crying, only a few tears at first, which she didn’t bother to wipe away. And when she looked over to Danny, she was fiercely holding on to a small, but very real, smile.

  “I think tomorrow is gonna be okay for me, Mr. Ford. I think it’s gonna be just fine
.”

  III

  Chris watched her close.

  It was Mel’s first visit out to the house since the shoot-out, and it was the second time in the last few weeks he’d seen doubt flicker across her face.

  The first had been the day he told her about his plan to bring Fox Uno and Amé out here.

  She said, “Oh, Chris . . .” and then just stood for a long time with Jack in her arms, taking it all in, while Rocky ran back and forth.

  “Yeah,” he said, putting an arm around her. “It’s a goddamn mess . . .”

  * * *

  —

  THE ENTIRE PATCH in front of the house looked as if it had been chewed up and spit out, all of it torn apart and blackened by the vehicles that had been out to the Far Six.

  All the ocotillo and purple sage and mountain laurel was crushed. The damianita daisies that Mel had liked so much were gone, and centuries’ worth of yucca had been swept away by the landing skids of Garrison’s helicopter. A thick bed of morning glories was scorched and withered, and there would be no fall blooming this year, or maybe ever again. And although all his deputies had been out to the house to pick up the scattered, spent brass from the firefight that hadn’t been bagged by the FBI and DPS, Chris could see still see a few stray rounds winking in the cool October sunlight. He knew he’d be finding them out here forever, half buried in the scrub like poisonous treasure.