Bad Country: A Novel

by CB McKenzie

  Do you think this vic on Mr. Garnet’s property is an Undocumented Alien? The trooper pointed his thumb again at the dead man in the shadow of the Vista Montana Estates sign.

  You might ask Garnet that one, Ted, said Sheriff Molina. He puts water and supplies all over The Hole all the way up to La Entrada on the top of the mountain because he says he don’t like people dying in his own backyard.

  And yet here is one, said the trooper. A dead man practically in Mr. Garnet’s backyard.

  So he is, said the sheriff.

  This crime scene is not on my property, said Rodeo. My property doesn’t start until past these gates here.

  You mind if I have a look at the deceased, Sheriff? asked the Statie.

  Have a gander, Ted. It’s still a free country for Police.

  Officer Anderton removed a squeeze tube of Mentholatum from his shirt pocket and spread a smear under each nostril then moved around the corpse. He pointed at an object just under the right thigh of the dead man.

  You recognize this, Sheriff? he asked.

  The sheriff moved next to the Statie and looked carefully then shook his head.

  Looks like a wing of something, said the sheriff. Wood? Or is it metal?

  Is it yours, Mr. Garnet? Ted Anderton asked. Something that could have been in your yard or in your house or could have flown out of the back of your vehicle? An angel wing perhaps from a religious icon? the state policeman asked.

  I’m not religious to speak of, said Rodeo. And Apache Ray’s the only icon we got around here.

  Anderton stooped near a teddy bear cactus beside the body and touched his gloved fingertip to a small bit of blue plastic.

  What you got there, Ted? asked the sheriff.

  Butcher’s apron maybe? Anybody doing a slaughter around here lately?

  They’re always killing goats for the Mexican meat markets over at Slash/M, said the sheriff.

  You know anybody at the Miller Ranch, Sheriff Molina?

  There’s not many people in this little county so I pretty much know everybody there is to know, Ted. That’s why I’m still sheriff.

  We’ll need to bag this as evidence. Anderton stood and put his hands on his hips. Because if there’s blood other than human or alongside human on this plastic that might be interesting.

  It might be, Ted, said the sheriff. It’s always funny to me what you procedural types find interesting.

  I want to get to the house and get my dog fed and my AC turned on so we can sleep tonight, Rodeo said. So unless y’all need my services further or want to arrest me I’d care to be on my way now, if that’s all right?

  I’m just a traffic cop, said Anderton. Here to stretch out some yellow tape and wait for the Big Boys from the Special Investigations Unit.

  Just come on by the courthouse tomorrow, Garnet, and make your statement to Pal Real, said the sheriff. If my other deputy even shows up to work, that is.

  You gonna be in the office tomorrow, Ray?

  If I’m feeling better I will be. Mercedes might be bringing some chicken and fry bread for lunch I heard, the sheriff said. I’ll tell her to save some for you either way, so ask after it.

  All right, Ray. Rodeo nodded at Ted Anderton. The state cop nodded back and watched Rodeo leave.

  * * *

  Rodeo and his dog rode the quarter mile to the casita and parked next to the “front” door on the side of the house. Rodeo got out and began unlocking the stainless steel gear box in the truck bed to get to more of his weaponry. The toolbox was standard heavy duty from Sears but was welded onto the bed of the truck and protected by heavy gauge Master locks defended in pig-iron cages. Rodeo raised the box lid on well-oiled hinges and pulled a modified 10-gauge Browning pump loaded with rubber buckshot from a pile-lined nylon case bolted to the cabside of the storage box. He also extracted from the truck lockbox his compact defense pistol, an aluminum frame NightHawk .45 and slid its nylon clip holster onto the back right side of his tooled leather belt. He shut down the gear box and relocked it, jacked a 10-gauge shell into the chamber of his abbreviated shotgun, slung his Leica binoculars around his neck and began his reconnaissance.

  He walked around the house. Several new rabbit corpses were curing in the dirt at the bottom of the dry swimming pool alongside the turquoise remnants of the fiberglass diving board and a couple of deflated basketballs. The basketball goal he had set up on the shuffleboard court was still leaning sideways where his former girlfriend, Sirena Rae Molina, had plowed one of her sheriff daddy’s vehicles into it and the plywood backboard was strafed with shotgun pellets where she had unloaded a double barrel.

  Rodeo unlocked the storage shed, filled his generator with gasoline from a fifty-five-gallon pump drum, removed the air filter, cleaned and replaced it and then primed and started the antique Coleman. He left the barn doors of the shed open to allow ventilation and fetched the ladder from the hooks on the side of the shed, extended the aluminum ladder up a wall of his casita and climbed to the top. The game camera affixed to the raised edge of the flat roof of the casita seemed in order and fully charged by the solar cell. The weatherproof digital camera aimed at his side yard was typically used to record the activity of game animals around a feeding site or salt lick so that guides could gauge the regularity and type of animal activity in a very circumscribed but representative area in order to plan their hunts with intelligence but, along with a motion-activated spotlight directed at the side yard, the camera constituted Rodeo’s poor man’s version of security surveillance. The camera recorded digital images that were fed through a cable strung from the roof into a kitchen cabinet, where they were stored on a compact hard drive.

  Rodeo leaned over the four-foot-high adobe wall that ringed the rooftop and looked down at the kitchen garden, which was mostly used to grow ingredients for Pico de Gallo—tomatoes, carrots, onions, cilantro, chives, peppers. He had planted it for Sirena when she had been in an “organic foodie” phase and when he had decided to leave her, for a while or forever, the woman had plowed through the little garden in one of her father’s biggest 4 × 4s. Rodeo had replanted in the spring, though he did not much tend his garden other than to sit on his roof and shoot rabbits away from it. Monsoon season officially started on June 15 and ran until September 30 and since tanked-in water was so expensive, the garden lived or died according to the weather. According to weather reports it hadn’t rained in El Hoyo during the last week, so the garden should have been nearly dead. Yet the garden seemed relatively lush. The gauge on the gravity-powered water tank read significantly lower than it should have but there were no leaks in the tank. He wondered who had come to his place and watered his garden while he was gone.

  Rodeo switched his Leica binoculars to 10x magnification and glassed the golf course which remained mostly as the original owners had laid it out, with fairways still only defined by survey stakes in the dirt and “greens” made of flat-topped mounds of oil-soaked sand with plastic pickle buckets Rodeo had buried in them to serve as holes. When he played golf Rodeo hit balls off a driving range mat attached to the tailgate of his truck, using the pickup as both golf cart and fairway.

  When Rodeo noticed a reflection flare from near the entrance to the Estates, he adjusted the Leicas and used the laser range finder to spot the state trooper who was glassing him through his own binoculars from the gate. Rodeo lowered himself gingerly down the ladder.

  * * *

  The building that was Rodeo’s home had only been the on-site sales office of Vista Montana Development Corporation and so was never intended to be a residence. Though it had no regular plumbing or a septic tank, the rectangular adobe had a room in the middle with a dining area and a kitchenette and a bathroom in which there was a seldom-used portable chemical toilet and a rusty tin shower stall that was gravity-fed water from the rooftop tank. The gray water from the sink and shower drained directly into the garden, the chem toilet was dumped at the trailer park Luis operated behind Twins Arrows Trading Post. Another room of the
small house served as sleeping quarters for the man and his dog and the third housed a mechanic’s bench and shell-loading equipment, gun safe, punching bags, weights, saddles, tack and gear and all the library books and LPs Rodeo’s mother had stolen over the years from libraries. The only door and the several windows of the casita were protected by Mexican screens since the developers had feared vandals and thieves. But not even vandals and thieves had ever been interested in Vista Montana Estates.

  Rodeo removed the rest of his travel guns and gear from the truck lockbox and took them to his house and replaced them in his gun safe. He turned on the swamp cooler in the work room and the AC window unit in his bedroom and then investigated the house thoroughly. When he found nothing amiss he swept the floors and wiped down all the surfaces inside the house, fed and watered the dog, locked his door, took a short, tepid shower, re-dressed in an old sweat suit and heated a can of SpaghettiOs mixed with a can of ranch beans. He percolated a fresh pot of coffee, then removed the compact hard drive from the cupboard, plugged it into his laptop and examined the week’s worth of images from the game camera as he ate his dinner and drank his coffee.

  Rodeo deleted through dozens of shots of cottontails and jackrabbits and coyote packs until he stopped on an image captured two days into his vacation at 23:09 hours, a single shot of one oversized tire and then one shot of a boot and jeans’ leg. It was only one cowboy boot in a country full of cowboys, but he saved it, then shut down his computer, checked his window screens and door locks and peered under his bed and in the several small closets of his casita. He had a spoonful of Eagle Brand, brushed his teeth at the kitchen sink, then he carried the sleeping dog into the bedroom and placed him on the pile of blankets near the foot of the cot. He had replaced all his armament and ordnance in the gun safe but for his father’s old revolver. He spun the load in the .38 S&W Special and placed it atop his mother’s Bible on the bedside table, stripped naked, crawled under a thin sheet, flipped his pillow to the cool side and within minutes was asleep.

  * * *

  At five the next morning Rodeo woke, dressed, splashed water on his face and had his first cup of coffee. He filled two recycled plastic jugs with tank water and dripped enough Clorox into the jugs to keep the water potable for at least a week. All he could afford to give away with the water was a bag of Dateland dates, a bag of marzipan, a few hard apples, an empty garbage bag and half a roll of duct tape. He packed these provisions into his daddy’s old Vietnam-era rucksack then slung his holstered snake gun on the right side of his belt. Then the man and his dog hiked slowly but steadily until they achieved their destination just as the day was heating up.

  * * *

  La Entrada was a shallow cave in a natural gap between two unnamed peaks of the Theatine mountain range of southern Arizona. The cave had a south-facing vista and on a clear day Mexico was visible from the vantage. The surrounding sky billowed like an overwashed blue bedsheet on a clothesline suddenly snapped belly up by a gust of wind and still solid blue in the middle but faded white and gone ragged along the edges where it was more in contact with the dirt of the world.

  This was one of the emptiest places in the world but there was still a lot to look at.

  Rodeo stood on the rim of this world for a few minutes just staring into desert space with his bare eyes. Then he glassed a far ways into the Sonoran Desert, scanning with his binoculars for human movement or the trash bags and empty jugs, clothing and other discards that would mark the comings or goings of human beings. When his eyes wearied he moved back into the shade of the cave and ascertained what had been taken from the Army surplus ammo boxes—a water jug, a garbage bag and the hard apples. He left what little he could afford to give and headed back down the mountain.

  * * *

  Halfway down the steep trail the dog whined and Rodeo stopped and doffed his hat, wiped sweat off the headband with two fingers then licked that sweat off his fingers. He replaced his battered straw and squinted toward the sun, which seemed moving that day fast and with destructive purpose as if trying to get on top of Arizona Sonora and do the most damage it could as soon as it could. The temperature would reach over one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit on the basin floor by afternoon, which would be hot enough to kill a weak man.

  The dog circled three times and then assumed his resting position with his chin on his paws.

  So that’s it, Rodeo said. That’s the exact spot idn’t it.

  The dog raised his head toward the sound of his man’s voice. The dog’s eyes were cloudwhite with cataracts.

  Lay down then, the man said. I don’t care what you do.

  The dog settled and the man twisted off his GI rucksack. His khaki shirt was soaked down the back in a wide wedge where the pack had been and in dark stripes down his chest where the shoulder straps had hung and under his arms to the elbow where his shirtsleeves were rolled up. His Wranglers were soaked through at the crotch and at the backs of his knees. He used the edge of a walking boot to smooth level a spot on the faint sidecut in the mountain then hitched up his jeans and squatted on his bootheels. The dog yawned.

  What I want to know is how you pick the exact right spot to lay down on every time? Rodeo asked.

  The dog whined his answer as the man drizzled water from a blanket-sided canteen into his cupped hand and pressed it against the dog’s dry muzzle. The dog lapped the water until he was licking the sweat off the man’s skin. The man turned his hand over so the dog could lick more salt then withdrew a piece of fry bread from the army pack and unwrapped it from wax paper. The paper was ripped out of his hands by a gust of wind and kited out over the precipitous yawn of canyon below them called The Hole. Rodeo tore off a piece of bread for himself and chewed it slowly while watching the wax paper sail up and down on thermal drafts. He tore off a bigger piece of bread and fed it to the dog, drank from the canteen and then poured a little more water into his hand for the dog. He capped the canteen and rubbed the dog’s head. The spot where he rubbed was almost bald to the dog’s skullbone.

  Whole world to lay down on and you circle around like it’s one place better than any other, Rodeo said. For fifteen years you been thinking picking a spot to lay down on is some great and unusual talent you got on me, don’t you? The man said this like it was part of a longstanding and ongoing argument between the pair. The dog barked feebly his side of the argument. But you are right per usual. This is a good spot, said Rodeo. Nice sight lines.

  The man extracted his binoculars from his pack and just held them for a moment near his chest like he was divining. Rodeo was looking for humans walking through El Hoyo and to the roads that would lead to the interstate, but Rodeo did not know exactly where to look because the immigrants often did not know where to go. Even with official maps and electronic and federal and state and county backup nobody on government salary would venture into The Hole except on forced overtime much less vigilantes come there on their own free time. Even drone planes, public and private, seemed repelled by the local airspace, got disoriented by the heat, lost their bearings in this isolation and often simply drifted up and down in airspace until they crashed. Still, poor people entered the USA through The Hole because it was the hardest place to get caught in.

  And Rodeo had been informed lately that a small group of Undocumented Aliens were soon due through La Entrada to meet their Americanside coyote and get trucked out on the nearby interstate to parts unknown around the USA. That was why the man and his dog had risen before the sun to set supplies in the shallow cave in the landmark gap in the mountains. The day had turned from tolerable to hot. Anyone walking in that heat would suffer, so Rodeo was glad to see that no one obvious traversed the steepsided valley.

  To reorient himself Rodeo looked toward his own property. A vehicular dust cloud moved from Agua Seco Road down Elm Street and toward his homeplace. Rodeo watched the dark SUV until it stopped abruptly near his isolated casita. The dust the vehicle had raised swirled over it and rolled past the casita to dive into
the empty swimming pool. Only after the dust had fully settled did the driver exit the vehicle.

  Rodeo refocused his Leicas. The visitor was dressed in khaki slacks and a dark T-shirt, wore Aviator sunglasses under a gimme cap. The visitor walked to the house and knocked, waited and then peered through the available windows, then went to Rodeo’s truck and looked into the cab and into the bed, tested the locks on the lockbox. He then walked the ten yards to the storage shed and disappeared into that space for several minutes then exited the shed and continued a slow circuit around the house until he stopped again at the side door of the casita where a crooked REAL ESTATE sign still hung.

  When Rodeo shifted his position his binocular lens flared and the visitor stopped and looked up the hill, returned to his SUV, leaned past the open door, pulled out his own pair of binoculars and aimed them at Rodeo. When the driver waved his gimme cap broadly from side to side, Rodeo recognized State Highway Trooper Ted Anderton and walked down the hill until he stopped several yards from Anderson’s SUV.

  * * *

  This is not official business, Mr. Garnet, the state cop said. It’s my day off from Traffic and I was just touring around the area.

  Why?

  The cop thought for a moment. I like the desert. This simple statement he delivered as if profound.

  Rodeo turned away from the cop and waited for a minute for his dog to catch up to him, bent and scratched the dog’s ears.

  You are a real trooper, aren’t you, boy? Rodeo asked.

  Yessir.

  I was talking to the dog, Mr. Anderton.

  Rodeo stood. His dog whined. Rodeo turned to the state policeman. You running a rogue investigation, Mr. Anderton? Rodeo asked. That what you’re really doing out here in the middle of noplace? You think Sheriff Molina’s not doing something he ought to be doing?

  I didn’t say anything against Sheriff Molina, said Anderton.

  You here for some specific reason then?

  I want you to take a look at something, Mr. Garnet. The cop reached into his vehicle and pulled a manila folder from the dash.