Bad Country: A Novel

by CB McKenzie

  * * *

  Rodeo used the local El Paso phone book and his cell phone to locate Jane O’Neal at Saint Ignacio Hospital but was told by a the hospital telephone operator that nurses’ shifts would not be divulged to anyone without proper clearance. When Rodeo was done with his several cups of coffee and his dog was through with his morning constitutional, they drove to the small, private hospital on the northside of El Paso.

  At the Information Desk of Saint Ignacio, Rodeo was informed that Jane O’Neal was an ER nurse, so he found his way to the Emergency Room and asked for her.

  I’m Jane O’Neal. Rodeo turned toward the voice behind him. The woman addressing him was plain featured, Anglo, scrubbed clean and dressed in white.

  I have something from your brother to give to you, Rodeo said.

  My brother? The woman raised a gray eyebrow over a granite eye.

  Rodeo thrust the worn envelope and letter into the woman’s hands. She took it and examined the old LA Olympics commemorative stamp on it and the address then extracted and unfolded the pungent letter with some care. When the woman had read the letter she seemed clearly perplexed.

  I guess this is a letter my mother sent to my brother Billy, the nurse said. But that was years and years ago when I was only a kid.

  I think Billy is dead. Rodeo blurted this out. I think someone murdered him because Billy witnessed practice for a fake assassination attempt …

  The nurse interrupted Rodeo’s ramble with a raised hand.

  Billy’s not dead, Jane O’Neil said. Billy is right here. In the hospital.

  Rodeo rubbed his sore face with his hands.

  Could I see him?

  What in the world for? Billy’s sister asked. I don’t even know who you are. And frankly, you don’t look much better or sound much saner than Billy did when he was admitted here.

  Rodeo nodded slowly.

  I had a spot of trouble recently, Rodeo said.

  You look injured, the nurse said. Her face softened and she beckoned toward a plastic chair. Were you in a car wreck or something?

  You could say that, said Rodeo.

  Let’s sit you down and get you some water, the nurse said. Her voice was professionally kind now. How would that be?

  Rodeo allowed himself to be led to a plastic chair. He took a paper cup of water and drank it down and handed the cup back to Nurse O’Neal.

  And now I think you should explain yourself, the nurse said. Let’s start with your name.

  Rodeo. Rodeo Grace Garnet. I’m a private investigator from Tucson more or less. But I work all over the southwest.

  What do you want from my brother?

  I don’t want anything from him, Miss O’ Neal, Rodeo said. Billy was just part of an investigation I was doing lately. He witnessed something and when I looked all over his old haunts and couldn’t find him I thought he probably got killed for some crime or potential crime he had witnessed.

  A crime? Well, Billy will not be able to testify, his sister said. Don’t think that you’re going to haul my brother back to Tucson after all he’s been through. We’ve just gotten him stabilized.

  I don’t care if he goes back or not, Miss O’Neal. I was just doing a good deed. Rodeo pointed at the worn letter in the woman’s hand.

  And where on earth did you get this letter from my mother to Billy?

  I found it, Rodeo said. In his sleeping place. He lived on a concrete shelf above a drainage ditch near the Santa Cruz riverbed in Tucson. When I went looking for him I found some things of his. I thought he had been killed and … I don’t know. I just thought seeing the letter, knowing that he had kept it all these years, might give his mother or you or whoever some … Rodeo shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

  Closure?

  Yes. Rodeo sat back in his chair. I guess that’s the word I’m looking for.

  You seem sort of disappointed that Billy’s not dead, the nurse said. She did not sound scolding but only honest.

  No. I’m very glad Billy is alive, Rodeo said. And that he has a good sister to look after him. It just ruins a theory of mine and an idea I had about somebody I thought was a real bad guy who might not be so bad. And I am a little confused about all this myself now, said Rodeo.

  Jane O’Neal put her hand on Rodeo’s forearm.

  You’re a very sweet man to have thought about us in this way, the nurse said. To come all this way to bring an old letter back. To have thought about other people that way … Well, it’s unusual. You see that, don’t you?

  I probably didn’t do it for y’all, said Rodeo. I’m probably the one who needs some closure.

  On what?

  On a lot of things that are never going to get closed, said Rodeo.

  The nurse considered this and then nodded.

  Is there anything I can do for you before you leave? Would you like to see an ER doc or a physician’s assistant? I can arrange that.

  Could I see Billy? Rodeo asked. Could I visit for a minute with your brother?

  Billy’s sister considered this for a moment then nodded briskly.

  Billy’s still in the ICU. We are trying to detox him slowly enough so he doesn’t go into shock. He’s medicated heavily. He probably won’t recognize you.

  That’s all right, Rodeo said. A lot of people don’t.

  * * *

  Billy O’Neal seemed younger than Rodeo remembered, now a diseased and dissipated fifty instead of a diseased and dissipated sixty.

  Who cleaned him up?

  I did of course, his sister said. When Nurse O’Neal tucked the sheets more tightly around her brother he opened his eyes and smiled at her. He’s a sweet boy, she said. He has just had some troubles during his life. But he’s better now. He’s home again. Isn’t that right, Billy?

  Better now … Billy’s words were slurred but understandable. Home … Elpasotexas …

  How did he get here? asked Rodeo.

  Billy shifted his gaze toward Rodeo when he heard the man’s voice.

  On Greyhound, the nurse said.

  How was he capable of that?

  I don’t know, Jane O’Neal said. It’s a miracle. He said some Indian man—the soldier Indian, Billy calls him—bought him a ticket and put him on the bus in Tucson. Billy had a tag pinned to his jacket with his name and El Paso written on it. He had a bag of Fritos in his hand and a ten-dollar bill in his pocket. People along the way helped him. Good Samaritans are not unheard of, even in these days.

  How did he get to this hospital, to you?

  When he got off the bus here in El Paso he was dazed and confused and a police officer took him to another hospital where they managed to get his name. An ER doc who knows me and knew vaguely that I had a lost brother transferred Billy here to Saint Ignacio. The nurse brushed at her wet eyes. It really is a miracle, she said. The woman seemed to believe this. I had just started nursing school when he ran away, she said. I hadn’t seen my brother since I was a teenager but I still recognized him. Didn’t I, Billy? Jane O’Neal patted her sibling’s arm. I did recognize my big brother.

  Missedyou, Billy said. He smiled weakly.

  Can I ask him a few questions? Rodeo asked.

  Billy’s head shifted again toward Rodeo’s voice, though the patient seemed unable to focus on Rodeo’s face.

  Not if you’re going to upset him.

  I just want to ask him about Samuel Rocha, Sam, the kid that used to visit him at the River Park, the kid that fell off the bridge.

  Well, you got all that in, didn’t you? The nurse frowned.

  I help him, Billy said. ‘Member? I tol’ you I help him.

  Who did you help, Billy? his sister asked.

  That boy. I took his letters and was gonna deliver his mail for him. His name was Sam but he was inna sand and so hot so I dragged him inna shade to cool and I forgot.

  Rodeo sighed and rubbed his face with a hand.

  What is it? Billy’s sister asked. She moved from her brother’s side to Rodeo’s and pulled on Rodeo’s arm.
She lowered her voice. Tell me, the sister said. Did Billy hurt someone? If he hurt someone I have to know.

  When Rodeo looked at the woman’s hand on his arm she removed it. He shook his head.

  Billy didn’t do anything wrong, Rodeo said. He was just trying to do a good turn. Be a good Samaritan. It didn’t work out like he planned. What he did didn’t help Sam. Rodeo looked at the homeless man who had returned home. But Billy’s a good boy. Take care of him now.

  Rodeo moved toward the door.

  I still gottaten, Billy said.

  What did you say, Billy? his sister asked. She went to her brother and when she bent her face near his their family resemblance was unmistakable.

  Tellimistillgottaten, Billy said. The man in the hospital bed looked at Rodeo. His words were slurred and his head drooped. Earnedit, didn’t I?

  Billy’s sister looked sharply at Rodeo.

  Rodeo stared at Billy, the person who had probably, actually killed Samuel Rocha by dragging the damaged and paralyzed kid into brush in the Santa Cruz riverbed, where he was hidden from view and where Samuel had perished because no one had cared enough to miss him and look for him.

  Billy earned ten dollars for helping me with one of my investigations, Rodeo said. He looked at the nurse. I gave Billy a job and he’s just remembering that because it was probably the high point of his life in Tucson but for leaving the place. And a man needs a job of work sometimes.

  * * *

  Billy started blubbering then and his sister jerked her head at the door so I left the room, left the hospital, left El Paso and took my dog on a road trip in search of my own daddy.

  And except for the Grand Jury hearing, me and the dog stayed out of Los Jarros County, Arizona, for a long while, a long enough while anyway to allow the Locals’ opinions to settle and all of the spilled blood of the murdered to dry to dust and their dead flesh to cure to hide in this bad country I call Home, El Hoyo, The Hole.

  * * *

  Sirena Rae Molina never stood trial for the murder of her father or for conspiracy to murder her father or anyone. On the last day of August she was killed by a gunshot wound in the back, probably from very long range, while she was standing on the steps to the side door of my casita. The slug hit her in the left rib cage and slammed her against the Mexican screen door so hard she then fell back into the side yard with her arms outstretched as if on a cross. The images of her falling back and dying were captured by the game camera affixed to the roof of my house. The woman’s flesh was in that Mexican screen door of mine for a long time, until it dried out completely and then flaked away as just a little more dirt in a desert of dirt.

  * * *

  When she was killed Sirena had been armed with one of her daddy’s .38 caliber Police Special revolvers, drunk on her daddy’s Jim Beam, high on his oxycodone and at the morning-end of an all-nighter that started with a couple of regular unknown cowboys at BoonDocks in Tucson who moved with Sirena onto the Dairy Queen at Sells and then to the Molina Rancho and then ended, finally, with Sirena, alone, at Vista Montana Estates around daybreak.

  * * *

  In the last live image of the woman, Sirena Rae is staring at the game camera affixed to my rooftop. The chief AZDPS-SIU-CSI investigator and the attending Los Jarros County ME, Dr. Emanuel Boxer, concurred that Sirena had been alive and most probably conscious for at least a short moment after she was hit by the .448-caliber slug. You can detect the slightest flutter of her eyelids in her death shot. Her mouth is open as if she is screaming but her lips do not move.

  * * *

  Sirena Rae was wearing work clothes and cowboy boots, leather gloves and one of her daddy’s cowboy hats, an old Resistol Cattleman’s that I had seen Ray wear many times when he was off duty. His initials were stamped on the hatband—R.A.M. I don’t know what the “A” stood for but I don’t think it stood for Apache. Sirena had a watering can in one hand, a burred copy of my housekey in the other and the loaded Los Jarros County Police Department .38 revolver on her hip. She bled to death in a few minutes.

  * * *

  During a routine patrol the next day, the interim Los Jarros County Sheriff, Buenjose Contreras, found her, though I never knew any Law Enforcement of any sort to have ever before come to my place on a routine patrol.

  * * *

  Sirena’s killer has never been found. I testified at the Grand Jury hearing and I don’t believe I perjured myself overmuch since I had nothing much to say beyond the obvious that everybody Local would know. I don’t know why Sirena was at my place using a copied key to get into my casita. I don’t know why she was armed. I don’t know why she watered the garden.

  * * *

  On the day of her death I was checked into the America’s Best Value Inn in Van Horn, Texas and I had the cheese enchilada plate for both lunch and dinner at Chuy’s. I paid cash at that Mexican restaurant both times that day and paid cash for my motel room and so did not leave any paper trail but there were plenty of witnesses to a large Indian or Native-American or Indio-Mexican or Mexican-American or Mexican or very tanned Anglo man staying at Best Value and having lunch and dinner at Chuy’s in Van Horn, Texas, on the day Sirena Rae Molina was killed on a corduroy byway known as Elm Street, which is just off the Agua Seco Road and deep in the place known as El Hoyo which remains smack in the middle of Los Jarros, the smallest and southernmost county of Arizona.

  * * *

  I didn’t tell anybody official about Ronald because it wouldn’t protect me to do so and somehow I think Ronald probably saved my life with his sharpshooting because Sirena Rae would have probably gotten to me eventually, one way or another.

  But then Ronald will probably kill me one day that way too.

  * * *

  And I don’t know why Ronald Rocha shot Sirena Rae and not someone else. Maybe dressed like she was, Ronald thought she was me and he was sore at me for giving him Carlos Monjano but then giving Carlos Monjano to the cops as well so he could not exact his own brand of revenge. Or maybe Ronald thought Sirena was someone that I cared about. Maybe he just wanted to jam me up.

  * * *

  Or maybe he killed her because sometimes a man like that just has to kill something.

  The sicario made his exit from Los Jarros by retracing the route he had used to come into the country. The first night of his return journey he spent in the cave at La Entrada. In this shallow cave he rested and ate from the supplies in the metal footlocker just as he had been instructed to do on his ingress. There was the slight tang of fearful sweat and piss in the cave but he slept soundly, curled up in himself as an animal.

  Early the next morning he started slowly to make his way back toward the border with food and water from the locker in a plastic trash bag slung over his shoulder. He kept to the shadows, even more cautious now of being caught on his egress from this country than he had been on his ingress since he now had money in his pockets, American dollars, one thousand for each man he had killed … the two under the bridge, the one at the Boulder Turn-Out, the one near the pile of bricks in the desert, the one on Wells End Road.

  He had waited one week in the safe house but when he heard nothing from his jefe, as instructed he left with nothing but the money in his pocket and the clothes on his back, trusting there would be food and water in the shallow cave waiting for him when he achieved the gap in the rugged Theatine Mountains. From La Entrada the man kept to his conservative schedule, walking only in the shadows at dawn and at dusk.

  * * *

  His first day south of the cave he found the sniper rifle and picked it up and carried it for a while before he discarded it as too heavy and potentially incriminating. He wiped his fingerprints from the black graphite stock with his shirttails and threw the gun into a steepsided arroyo. The second day south of the cave he found the GI pack and the old Schrade pocketknife and the dry canteen. He rummaged the near-empty pack and found a bag of corn chips as the one thing useful, ate them and then buried the foil bag under some rocks and buried the pack
under some other rocks and then moved on. He tucked the old pocketknife into his pants pockets but later discarded the knife into a steep-sided ditch. Later that day he found camo pants and soiled underwear and a desert brown T-shirt stained with blood and he simply walked past these.

  His final day in Los Jarros the sicario found a dead man, naked and barefoot, on his back, staring at the sky, white foam dried around his mouth. The dead man’s eyes were sockets picked empty by crows. Ronald Rocha clutched a photograph of a young brown-skinned man, Samuel Rocha, to his chest. The eyes of the boy in the photograph were dark and luminous as black clouds. As the sicario walked by the dead man he crossed himself, but only from habit.

  * * *

  Very near the border a line of quails like a convened row of nuns moved across the rough trail the man trudged upon and hurried under the cover of thick creosote bushes and because there was no sound from the air of hawks or no other movement or sound of other earthly predators about but him the sicario took this as a sign that he was now safe since he was the greatest predator.

  But then a brace of hawks screeched as they sighted the quails and the man swiveled his head to watch the birds flying together for a while and then the pair singled themselves and parted as if they had not come to a decision to separate but had simply been separated by the fate of winds.

  And then with a cry as long and piercing as a siren, one hawk lost altitude and departed the scene by just plunging down into an arroyo as if into the ground itself while the other one flew up, flew against everything … gravity land wind clouds even fate … and kept on silently until it was beyond sight and the sicario thought it was as if these birds of prey had split the world in two, the one claiming with her scream, the earth and the other claiming with his silence, the sky.