The Far Empty

by J. Todd Scott

  She stayed silent, her face turned away from the cold or from him. He wondered what she was thinking, what lay ahead for her—for all of them—despite all of his promises.

  “Ya veremos.” She started to walk past, but whispered to him as she went by—urgent, honest. “Be careful. Our town is a very dangerous place . . . even for you.”

  Inside Mancha’s he’d wandered the shelves, finally picking up a six-pack of Mexican beer he’d never had, while Eddie eyed both him and a busted-up TV turned down low. The store was tight, brightly lit, filled floor to ceiling with packages and things he couldn’t read, didn’t understand. In the back there was an old air hockey table, scuffed, unplugged, where some ranch hands played dominoes.

  The cooler where he got the beers wheezed and chugged, pissing water on the linoleum floor. The beer bottles were warm in his hand when he placed them on the counter. Eddie looked at them, eyes bloodshot, waved him off.

  “Take it, you don’t pay here.”

  “I do.” Chris fumbled for some bills, far too many, slipping them between the long necks of the bottles. Eddie shrugged, picked at the money with a finger and a tipless thumb before deciding to ignore it all and going back to whatever he was watching on his TV.

  Chris tapped the counter. “Okay, I’m not paying for the beer. I’m paying for you to talk. I want to know about Rudy Ray . . . Rudy Reynosa. Did you know him? Ever see him around? Who did you see him with?”

  Eddie looked over Chris’s shoulder at the men playing dominoes, who ignored them.

  Again: “I’m asking if you ever saw him with Duane Dupree. Did they know each other?”

  Eddie bit his lip, showed teeth as dirty as his hands, smiling. “You say you care about Rudy Ray? Now? Ha estado fuera mucho tiempo. Anyway, go talk to his little hermana. She was just in here. Pretty, yes? Sexy?”

  “I’m asking you, Eddie. Just fucking you.”

  Eddie winked in slow motion, a clown. “No, I think you are really here to ask about Dupree, verdad? Nothing to do with Rudy, not anymore.” Eddie made a disappearing motion with his hand, turning a closed fist into waving fingers, waving goodbye. “He’s gone forever. Por los siglos de los siglos.”

  “Just tell me what you know.”

  Eddie took a sip of his own beer, hidden behind the counter. “Nothing changes, mi amigo.”

  “You’re right, nothing changes if you don’t talk, right now.”

  Eddie pulled the money out of the beer bottles. “Are you sure you want to know these things, gringo? I can get you drogas, mujeres . . . niñas.” He arched his eyebrows as if he knew all about Chris’s talk with Amé in the lot. He counted the bills, pretended to. “All cheaper than what you ask.”

  Chris waved at the money. “That’s all I have now. I can get more.”

  Eddie neatly arranged and folded the bills, tore them in half, shoving the ripped money back into the six-pack.

  “No todos somos a la venta. But okay, gringo, the price is you answer my questions. ¿Claro?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like why Señor Dupree made me pick him up one night smelling of gas. So bad I had to wash my truck out with a hose. Like a fucking barbecue. La parrillada.”

  “What the fuck? What are you talking about?”

  Eddie took one of the beers out of Chris’s six-pack, popped it open, and slid the rest over to Chris as torn pieces of money drifted to the ground. He gulped most of it, turned back to his TV that was little more than static, the sound of whispers, but not before raising the beer bottle, a mock salute; another wave goodbye.

  “Gasolina, mi amigo. Gasolina.”

  • • •

  This is our goddamn town.

  He waited as long as he could, giving Garrison every chance to call him back, but when he didn’t, and when Dupree started reaching out for him on the truck radio, wondering where he was, he knew his time was up. He thought about Mel and Caleb and Anne and dark-haired Amé Reynosa.

  Be careful. Our town is a very dangerous place . . . even for you . . .

  And he thought about his mother—I have to do this my way—searching the sky with clear eyes. Without tears . . . without fear.

  He pulled the truck back onto 67 and drove on, with one hand on his Colt.

  29

  DUANE

  He picked up Cherry by the Lights, made him leave his truck since they didn’t need both.

  He’d gotten the call from Inez Mason, then Matty Bulger—the sound of a low-flying plane, maybe ground lights too, or a fire. It made sense; you could draw a straight line right from the Rio Grande past the Mason property and then up toward Indian Bluffs, over the Far Six. It was a hop, skip, and a jump for even an unskilled pilot. Of course he’d gotten the call first from the Judge, a day before.

  He drove with his lights off, picking his way across the fields. Even with his wolf eyes, it wasn’t easy. So it was a good thing he’d been out this way before—not the first time he’d made this drive, although it had been a while. It also wasn’t the first time he’d brought someone with him, either. There had always been Rudy Ray, no one else. But the Judge had been very clear. Bring Cherry. Nothing more to be said.

  Cherry, however, wasn’t a complete rube. Maybe he thought that Duane hadn’t seen it, but when he got into the truck, he already had his Colt unholstered, ready. It was still there now, in his lap, covered by his hands, aimed across the cab at Duane.

  • • •

  “I think I see something,” Chris said, almost surprised, pointing through the dark. There was a flicker out there, a distant glow. A little fire, another. Pie tins filled with oil, spaced out to create a makeshift landing strip. Duane had been amazed too, the first time he’d seen it like this. At how beautiful it all was, like fallen stars, burning on the ground.

  Duane brought the truck up short, killed the engine. They both could see the small plane looming, barely visible by the light of the oil fires. There were men too, standing around, flickering back and forth, in and out of existence.

  “Holy shit,” Chris said, and Duane could hear him breathing hard. Duane could smell him too, the beer he’d been drinking and the toothpaste he’d used to cover it up. His nervous blood hot and rising close to the skin. Chris shined almost as bright as the oil-pan fires, he was so afraid. He had good reason to be.

  Duane told him what to do. “You move a little left, I’m gonna move right. Creep closer, stay down, wait for me to yell out policía. They’ll probably scatter your way, and then you pop up, let ’em know goddamn good and clear that you’re there. Send a round skyward if you need to.”

  “What if they keep running?”

  “Don’t chase. Shit, it’s dark and cold and they don’t know where the hell they are, even less than you, although they got a good sense of where the river is. Like a goddamn radar. We’ll scoop up the ones who get lost in the morning.” Duane pulled his own gun and Chris flinched, just a hair. “Keep your eyes open for other trucks showing up, they’re out here to meet someone.”

  “You mean someone other than us?” Cherry asked, giving Duane a look so knowing, something so much more than instinct—like Cherry had already caught a glimpse of his own future—that Duane almost put a bullet in him right there.

  “Yeah, other than us. Another reason not to run around after ’em is they might crank a shot over their shoulder while running, and damn near certain they’ll hit you. That’s the luck of it. Most times these beaners don’t want to fight anyway.”

  Chris nodded. “And if they do want to fight?”

  Duane barked, laughed. “Well, by God, shoot every last damn one of them. That’s what you got that big ole gun for.”

  • • •

  They were out of the car, moving their separate ways, and Duane’s eyes glowed. It wasn’t just that he could see, it was all the things he could see. Like the plane still vibrat
ing, its propellers still turning, moving the flames on the pie plates. Like the men not even pretending to take anything on or off the plane, no shitty off-load truck anywhere to be seen. And of course, no Rudy Ray either, to put out the lights. These men—definitely not Chava’s people—deathly quiet, silent and near still. Not talking and not laughing; smoking, but careful to flick their dead butts into the open hatch on the plane and not on the ground. Every one of them with a small ugly rifle slung over his shoulder, hands near the trigger. Professional. And there, right over there in the ocotillo, two of them settled into the deeper darkness; scanning, looking, waiting; using scopes . . . hunting.

  Duane could see their hearts beating right through their damn skin and shirts; could read his future written there, saw it. Exactly who and what these men were waiting for.

  • • •

  Of course he’d known it when Cherry had come back from El Dorado with the Judge, all safe and sound. Duane knew he was mightily fucked then, expendable; that’s what his daddy had whispered—one of his ten-cent words, throughout a lifetime where Jamison Dupree had less than a dollar’s worth to spend. Still, Duane had seen his daddy’s truth in it and was set to kill both the Judge and Cherry when the Judge met with him first and told him not to worry—it was all just being handled a different way, promising things were going to be good again. Duane just had to get Cherry out here tonight when the call came and then they were back in business, like old times. He was handling business. And if things were going to be good again, that meant Duane was going to be good too—the free foco was gonna flow, and maybe he wasn’t so fucked after all.

  He’d hung on to the Judge’s words with both hands, hung them like a noose around his neck. Because now he needed that foco so fucking bad that he would have crawled on his hands and knees out here for it—sucked nigger dick too, right on Main Street, right at the fifty-yard line of Archer-Ross Stadium. Even as it became clear and bright to him now—bright as the oil burning on the ground—just how the Judge had decided to handle their business together once and for all, just how expendable both Cherry and Dupree really were.

  • • •

  They’d already spotted Cherry, pretty much no way they couldn’t. Duane, though, had barely left the cover of the truck, hanging back and expecting the shots; leaving Cherry out there exposed, alone. The original plan—and it probably saved his life, at least at the start.

  The rifles sounded like whipcracks, then the bang of the hangman’s trapdoor. Glass shattered over Duane’s head, a window gone, pieces of it falling into his hair, into his open hand like he was trying to catch them. Muzzle flashes nearly blinded him, and he had to turn away as a second round, then another, all searching for him too, skimmed off the truck, throwing sparks into his face. He kept turning and ran off into the night. There was so much shooting he couldn’t tell if Cherry ever had the chance to shoot back.

  30

  AMERICA

  It was late, really late, when she got the texts, so she knew it was bad, really bad. They flew in one right after another, Caleb panicking. Deputy Cherry had been shot out past Indian Bluffs. Out past where he’d found Rodolfo. He was dying, probably already dead.

  im sorry. im sorry. wat do we do?

  Caleb kept texting until she turned off her phone.

  But she lay awake for a long time, remembering Deputy Cherry. Tall, strong, the gold star at his belt shining even in that thin, cold sun. He’d seemed nice, determined, in the handful of moments they had spoken outside Mancha’s. A good man. She understood then why Caleb had wanted to trust him. He’d promised to do everything he could for them . . . for her. And she had trusted him, like she’d finally let herself trust Caleb and this whole idea. Let herself believe in all of their promises. Tonight Deputy Cherry had died alone.

  She got Rodolfo’s phone from under her bed, where it was in a box tucked underneath the last of the money. She’d stopped carrying it after Caleb had convinced her it was evidence, that she needed to keep it safe. When she showed it to him, he didn’t want to touch it.

  Safe—that word meant nothing to her now. Deputy Cherry was dead and Caleb still had to deal with El Juez, who must know all the things he’d told the deputy, all the things she had shared. Caleb would run, sooner or later, and that left her with Dupree, far worse than before. That left her with almost nothing again . . . except for the ranch across the river.

  She’d tell them about Dupree, about El Juez, about everything. Maybe they’d come here for them or take her away once and for all to the place with the peacocks—a place where Dupree would never reach her, a place where even he’d be afraid to go.

  She was crying when she turned it on. She held it tight, warming it with her hands, bringing it to life. There wasn’t much of a battery charge, but there was enough. She scrolled to the only number she had ever called, where that secret voice had asked her for Rana over and over again, and hit send.

  ASHES

  1

  MÁXIMO

  He went to the border wearing his Avengers T-shirt. He’d seen the movie, badly dubbed, although his English was good enough. He liked Viuda Negro the best—he didn’t know any girls or women in Ojinaga who looked that way, had strength and spirit, and when he was done he would go to Los Angeles and find her, meet her. How hard could it be?

  He crossed at Boquillas del Carmen, the water nothing but spit in the sand that he could have waded through. But instead he waited his turn for the ferry, practicing his English by reading the little cardboard signs by the side of the road, where children not much younger than him sat in the dust.

  PLEASE PURCHASE TO HELP THE PEOPLE OF BOQUILLAS MEXICO.

  WALKING STICKS

  6.

  ROADRUNNERS

  6.

  SCORPIONS

  6.

  OCOTILLOS

  6.

  BRACELETS

  6.

  ROCKS

  6.

  He wanted none of those things, but gave a dirty boy an American five-dollar bill all the same, peeling it from the small, tight roll that had been given to him. Americans came the other way, a couple of old people with copper skin beneath big floppy hats even though there was very little sun, struggling to get up on burros to ride to Boquillas, one mile away. He’d been dropped by a truck in town, bought a street taco and a Coke, and walked to the river on his own, refusing to pay for a burro or horse ride. He waited his turn, listening to Victor the boatman sing “Cielito Lindo,” and although it took another five dollars to use the ferry, he gave it and went across. Returning home in style.

  • • •

  They chose Boquillas rather than Puente Ojinaga, because the port here was unmanned—just the park rangers every now and then and a little kiosk where he could walk up and scan his papers, and then talk through a camera to a border agent a hundred miles away.

  They wrote out for him what to say and he’d practiced hard and could repeat it without mistakes or looking at his little piece of paper, both in English and in Spanish. He knew how he looked in the big fish-eye of the camera—a skinny niño in torn jeans and an Avengers T-shirt, visiting family. Smiling, happy to be here, still drinking his American Coke. He was no problemo, no threat, and he was a hundred miles from anywhere.

  He waited another hour for the truck on this side to get him, an old man and woman together, who said nothing to him as he climbed into the back. He had no idea what threat had been made for them to drive all the way here to pick up a boy that they did not know. In the old straw scattered in the truck’s bed he found a small brown sack, still warm with handmade tortillas wrapped in paper, and a small plastic container of frijoles and cheese
and a bottle of water. The old woman watched him through the back window and nodded when he smiled at her, chewing one of her tortillas. She was old, beyond old, more weathered than even the rocks and hills they drove past.

  He wondered if they had been threatened, but couldn’t be sure. Promises or threats, silver or lead. Plata o plomo. The colors of his life.

  He lay in the straw in the back, with the sky streaming above him. Except for the clouds, he might not be moving at all. And he saw things in them—faces, a burning tree, a rearing horse. There were times when he thought about writing down all these things, like in a story or song. He could sing such a song to girls he knew, one better than silly “Cielito Lindo.” His songs would be dark and beautiful and they would be all his secrets and dreams for everyone to hear.

  A song about crossing the ferry and children sitting in the dust, selling little toy scorpions to a boy just like him.

  Then he remembered this place he was going and the things he was supposed to do, and knew that no one would ever want to hear songs about him. No one could bear his secrets or his dreams. He put his arms over his head, shutting out the weak light and all the pictures in the sky and clouds. He wanted to sleep, if he could, before he arrived in this place they called Murfee.

  2

  CHRIS

  He was covered in blood.

  The dream goes like this. He walks in darkness, toward flame. Small fires burn the ground, casting monstrous shadows of men. A constellation he uses to navigate, tacking toward them—left, right, left. He breathes hard and he’s as scared as he’s ever been and his knee starts to throb and then all the stars flare, so bright they nearly blind him—do blind him—and the night turns metallic and something parts the air by his face, fingertips drawn across his skin, startling him so much he leaps back, like he’s been touched by a ghost. Another puts a fist through his chest and his heart nearly stops. Then his father is there, at his ear, telling him to just let ’er rip, Chris, just let ’er rip . . . and he does.