Mojo and the Pickle Jar

by Douglas Bell

  Narn’s eyes narrowed. This was getting to be too much. Narn was raised in a solidly Baptist corner of East Texas. In East Texas there was only one Jesus.

  “And this is the Madonna of Juchitán … and beside her the Lady of Talpu … and—”

  “Who are you? Really?” Narn interrupted.

  “I just told you. The Lord of Chalma.”

  “You said you were Jesus.”

  “The Lord of Chalma is Jesus.”

  “If you’re the real Jesus, then how come you’re black?” Narn asked pointedly.

  “Many Christs are white, it’s true, but not all. There are manifestations of the Christ for every race on earth.”

  “I’m not talking about manifestations,” Narn persisted. “I’m talking about Jesus. The real article. Either you’re him or you aren’t.”

  “I am him. I am the real Christ,” the black Christ said. “If I weren’t, could I appear to you in this manner? Could any of us?”

  Narn thought it over, but he had no answer. He shook his head. He had him there.

  “We’ve come to seek your help.”

  “My help? You want me to help you?” This seemed highly unlikely to Narn, who had never been visited by heavenly apparitions before, but had always assumed they came to help you and not vice versa.

  “Yes.” The black Christ nodded solemnly. “Will you do it?”

  Narn looked around at the rings of Jesuses and Marys, all of whom stared expectantly back at him. Finally he shrugged. “Well, sure,” he said. “I mean, how can I refuse?”

  “Good. We must move swiftly, then. You are pursuing the ones who carry the heart?”

  “The what?”

  “You’re following the old woman? The one who calls herself Grandmother?”

  “The Montoya woman? Well … yeah … in a way. I’m not after her, though. I’m officially after these two punks she’s traveling around with.”

  “It makes no difference. We need you to help them.”

  “Help them? You want me to help a couple of dopers? I thought you wanted me to help you?”

  “It’s all the same. We need your help to restore the heart of the world.”

  “The heart of the world?”

  “Listen carefully…” the black Christ began.

  * * *

  Sunlight shining through chintz curtains woke Mojo up. He groaned and tried to twist his head away but the light followed him. He groaned again. What time was it? Crack of dawn? He felt like he hadn’t gotten more than twenty minutes of sleep in two days. He raised his head and blinked his eyes open. He was in a strange bedroom. He was growing tired of strange bedrooms.

  Mojo rolled over. A head of black hair was asleep on the pillow next to him. Cold black, sleek hair. Chuy.

  Mojo sat up and rubbed his eyes. There were two cots against the far wall of the bedroom. Both were occupied. From what little Mojo could see, the sleepers had to be children. Probably Chuy’s younger brothers. The rest of the room was empty except for a chest of drawers.

  Mojo sighed and stretched and remembered the night before and smiled. What a feeling! He was just sorry Uncle Ort couldn’t have been there to see it. And Juanita too, of course. Juanita most of all. If only Juanita …

  Juanita! It hit him then. In his excitement over the demon, he had almost forgotten about Juanita!

  Mojo sat up straight. Rubbed his face, trying to get the blood going. They had to find Juanita! And quick! Castillo had said he was going to kill her!

  Mojo piled out of bed and scrounged his clothes from the floor. He slipped quietly down a short hall and into a small living room. The living room was neat and bright. One wall was hung solid with photographs. Mojo went to examine them. All of the people in the photographs had brown eyes and dark hair. There was a marine in full dress uniform who looked like he might be Chuy’s older brother and a girl in a perfectly white dress who might have been Chuy’s sister. Chuy’s father was there in an old army uniform. Chuy’s car was off to one side, shining lacquer red, with the entire Los Lowriders Club gathered around it. There were dozens of photographs of weddings and first communions and graduations and family ensembles. The largest picture was not a photograph, however. It was a colored print of the Virgin of Guadalupe hung right in the center of the wall with all of the family photographs radiating from it.

  Suddenly Mojo smelled something good.

  He turned away from the photographs and sniffed the air. His stomach growled. Something was cooking and it smelled delicious. He sniffed again and his stomach rumbled like a freight train over loose tracks.

  Surely Juanita could wait until after breakfast?

  Mojo let his nose lead him out of the living room and through an open door and into a small but warm kitchen.

  “You must be Joseph! Come in. Sit down. I’m Mrs. Garza, Chuy’s mother.” A short, bubbly little grey-haired woman was standing over the stove, an iron skillet in hand. “Can I fix you some breakfast? I’ve got scrambled eggs and chorizo. How about some scrambled eggs and chorizo burritos?” She had a plump, smiling face.

  Mojo’s mouth watered. “Please. That’d be great!”

  “And a glass of milk? And some homemade salsa? The tomatoes come right out of my own garden!”

  “Both, please.” Mojo seated himself eagerly at the breakfast table. The table was Formica with two extra leaves to stretch it out to double length. There were eight chairs spaced around it. He pulled a paper napkin and a metal fork from glasses in the center of the table and set his place. He had apparently hit the jackpot here.

  “Mrs. Montoya told me all about last night,” the little woman said as she worked the eggs and sausage with a spatula. “About how you brave boys defeated that demon. I was surprised at first. Surprised that such a thing could happen in this day and age. But then she showed me the heart, and of course I could see that it must be true.” She paused and pulled up two fat tortillas from a stack on a plate next to the stove and tossed them onto a grill. “These aren’t store tortillas either. These are fresh. My sister made them. Two?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Mojo’s stomach flung itself angrily against his belt buckle.

  “It just goes to show that there are still miracles in this world. No matter what anybody says, miracles still do occur. Of course, I guess a demon coming into the world isn’t really a miracle. I guess it’s really more of a curse.” She flipped the tortillas onto a plate and began to fill them. “You want salsa?”

  “Please.”

  Mrs. Garza spooned sausage and eggs onto the tortillas, then ladled salsa from a bowl over them. She deftly rolled the tortillas, poured a glass of milk, and brought both over and set them down in front of Mojo.

  * * *

  It took an extra glass of milk to wash everything down, but in only a few minutes Mojo’s plate was sparkling clean.

  “More? There’s plenty.”

  “Well…”

  “Of course you do!”

  “Well, maybe one more.”

  She fixed him two and he ate them both.

  Mojo downed the last sip of milk from his glass, then leaned back contentedly in his chair. He let the warm sun from an open window above the sink fall across his face. He could smell roses from the garden just outside. He sighed. Having a full stomach always made him feel better.

  “It’s frightening,” Mrs. Garza was saying, shaking her head as she went to the refrigerator to fetch more eggs. Mojo could hear a chorus of chattering female voices coming from a closed bedroom door. Probably Chuy’s sisters.

  “Frightening that a demon could threaten you boys like that. I tell you, things just haven’t been the same since they did away with the Latin service!”

  “Where’s Grandmother?” Mojo asked. “Did she go somewhere?”

  “Oh, no. She’s right outside. Sitting on the front porch with that man.”

  “Man?”

  “I forgot to tell you. He came earlier. He’s from El Paso, I think. He was asking about you.”

&nb
sp; Warning signals went off in Mojo’s head. Lights flashed and whistles blew.

  “What does he look like? Does he have a moustache and grey hair? Looks sorta like Cesar Romero?”

  “Cesar Romero!” Mrs. Garza gave Mojo a puzzled glance. “Oh, no, nothing like him, though I suppose he’s old enough to be Cesar Romero.”

  “I’d better go see him.” Mojo pushed back from the table. “Thanks for breakfast. It was delicious.”

  “Wait until you see what we’re having for lunch. Homemade tamales! One of my other sisters is bringing them over. And I’m making a fresh salad from my garden to go with them and…”

  * * *

  Mojo moved cautiously into the living room, then tiptoed over to the front door. Cracked it. He could hear voices. He peeked out. Grandmother was sitting in a porch swing with a strange man. The man was wearing a small-brimmed Stetson. White hair cascaded out from under the Stetson and down the back of his neck. The pickle jar was seated on the swing beside him.

  The man in the Stetson turned quickly. His eyes bored into Mojo. His face was as hard as stone. Mojo knew immediately he was the law.

  “Joseph!” Grandmother looked up and smiled. “Come out here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Mojo smiled back and strolled out the door as if that was what he had intended to do all along.

  “This is Mr. R. K. Narn. He’s a Texas Ranger. He’s going to help us.”

  Mojo had to work to keep his smile from collapsing. All of his worst fears were confirmed. Not only a lawman, but a Ranger to boot.

  “Birdsong.” Narn nodded to him. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Especially from your uncle.”

  “I can explain all that,” Mojo said hurriedly. “It was all a big misunderstanding. I just borrowed the Cadillac. I was—”

  “Cut the crap,” Narn said evenly. “You stole that car. You and this Juanita Vásquez woman stole it to transport drugs. I know it for a fact, so there’s no point in you trying to lie your way out of it.”

  A vision of prison swept through Mojo’s head. In this vision he was bent over a hard metal table while a long line of large black men formed behind him.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Mojo protested. “It wasn’t like that at all. We—”

  “But I’m not here to arrest you.”

  Mojo paused in surprise. “You’re not?”

  “No. I’m here for something else. This heart deal.”

  “Heart deal?”

  “Mrs. Montoya and I’ve just been talking about it.” Narn nodded to the old woman.

  “The Lord of Chalma appeared to Ranger Narn last night!” Grandmother said excitedly. “He sent him here to help us. To help us restore the heart!”

  “The lord of who?”

  Narn waved it off. “Never mind that. The main thing is, we’ve got to get the heart back to where it belongs before this demon gets it first.”

  “You know about the demon?”

  “Sure. I oughta know about it; I’ve tracked the damned thing across half of West Texas and southern New Mexico. I knew it had to be supernatural even before Mrs. Montoya told me about it. Either supernatural or some kind of space alien.”

  “A space alien!”

  “Could have been.” Narn shrugged. “Makes as much sense as a demon.”

  This about R. K. Narn: He was a determined man. He had been determined from the first moment he heard the beast howling in the night. Even more so after he found the tracks. It was why he had followed Mojo and Juanita to New Mexico. He didn’t really care about arresting Mojo and Juanita. Was only slightly more interested in Ray Castillo. Couldn’t have cared less whether the Lord of Chalma was real or a dream or the aftermath of the bowl of chili verde he’d had for supper. It was the beast Narn was after. He had to see for himself.

  “Look, maybe Grandmother didn’t tell you everything,” Mojo said. “We killed the demon last night. Fried it with light.”

  “You may have fried it, but it’s not dead,” Narn told him. “You can’t kill it. Lord what’s-his-name told me that. Light can send it back to where it came from, but you can’t kill it. Not permanently anyway.”

  Mojo frowned. The demon not dead? This was definitely food for thought.

  “But first things first,” Narn said. He rose stiffly from the porch swing. “I’ve been told it’s important to snatch this Vásquez girl back from Castillo.”

  “You’re going after Juanita? Good. I’m going with you,” Mojo said.

  “But how will you find her?” Grandmother asked Narn. “He could have taken her anywhere.”

  “No. Not just anywhere. He’s got a place up here in the mountains. An old hunting lodge. I’m pretty sure that’s where she is.”

  “Will you call the police first?”

  “The police? About Ray Castillo? Not likely. Calling the police about Ray is like sending him a telegram you’re coming. No, if we were to try and bring the local cops into this thing, then the best we could hope for is he wouldn’t have time to dig her grave too deep.”

  Mojo blanched. “Let’s not call them, then.”

  “I didn’t intend to. Now, come on, if you’re so hot to trot. My Bronco’s parked right out here and we don’t have any time to waste.” Narn spun away from Mojo and stepped off the porch.

  “You coming with us?” Mojo turned to Grandmother.

  “No, I’m afraid I’m too old for such things. As I learned last night,” she said with a wistful smile. “No, I’ll stay here. Mrs. Garza has offered to drive me back up to the old church. I must try and find Captain Benegas again.”

  “I thought Benegas was the name of the guy who stole the heart?”

  “It was,” she said. “And is.”

  “So you think they’re the same? That would make the old man … what? Three hundred years old?!”

  “Strange, isn’t it? But that’s why it’s so important that I find him again.”

  “You coming, boy?” Narn called. “I haven’t got all day.”

  11

  “That’s it?” Mojo asked.

  “That’s it,” Narn confirmed.

  They were hidden in the shadows of some tall pine trees off to the side of a long, rambling building that resembled a Holiday Inn. A sign in front of the building called it a lodge. The sign said “Welcome to Los Piñons Lodge.” They had parked the Bronco a mile or so down the road from the front gates and approached on foot through the woods. They had passed two different trees with “Chuy + Lupe” carved into them.

  The lodge was built mainly of stone with some wooden trim. It looked old. It had a long front porch and two upper balconies. The wooden trim around the balconies was carved into ornate hearts and deer’s heads and hunter’s horns and fir trees and other alpine symbols. The trim was painted with bright flowers and curling vines. The lodge looked like something out of an old black-and-white movie. The kind of place where men always wore dinner jackets and women pearls.

  “People came here to hunt? “Mojo asked Narn.

  “They used to, back in the twenties and thirties. Used to come on the train from back East. But not anymore. It’s a private club now. Closed to the public. Castillo’s own little private hideaway.”

  “Look at all those limos.” Mojo pointed to several long black cars parked in front of the lodge. “Whose are they?”

  Narn shrugged. “Dunno. Friends of Castillo, I guess.”

  “They must be important friends. Those two guys on the front porch are carrying rifles.”

  “They’re not rifles,” Narn said. “They’re AK-47s. Heavy-duty stuff. Your nearsighted grandmother could blow your butt off with one of those.”

  “Then how’re we gonna get past them?” Mojo asked.

  “Damned if I know,” Narn answered.

  There was a big black crow perched over a basement window. Mojo looked the crow’s way and the crow immediately began to caw loudly. The crow stared directly at Mojo as it cawed.

  One of the guards strolled to the end of th
e porch and peered around the corner. When he saw that it was only a crow making all the fuss, he sauntered back to his post beside the front door.

  The crow continued to caw.

  “What the hell’s wrong with that bird?” Narn grumbled. “I can hardly think with all that squawking.”

  “Maybe it’s trying to tell us something,” Mojo ventured.

  Narn took a long, slow look at Mojo. “Tell us? You think a bird is trying to start a conversation with you?”

  “Could be. An owl saved me just the other night.” The crow took wing. It lifted from the top of the basement window and floated over to the pine tree. It landed on a high branch and began cawing and flapping one wing in the direction of the lodge.

  “An owl?”

  Mojo squinted up at the crow. “I think it wants us to try that rear basement window.”

  “It wants…? It’s a bird, for Chrissakes!”

  Mojo looked upwards. “Okay. We’ll do it,” he whispered to the crow. “Just go back and wait for us.”

  The crow stopped cawing immediately. It spread its wings and flew back to the basement window. Landed. Cocked its sleek head expectantly towards them.

  Narn stared at the crow. Then at Mojo. Then back to the crow.

  * * *

  There were two guards at the rear of the building. The guards were leaning against the wall and smoking cigarettes. They had the same kind of automatic weapons as the two in front.

  “Any more bright ideas?” Narn asked Mojo. They were crouched behind a bush opposite the basement window.

  “Make a run for it?”

  “No good. They’d see us. What we need is a distraction. A diversion.”

  Mojo thought for a moment. “Like blowing up a car?”

  “You’ve seen too many movies. No, it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. Just something to draw their attention away for a few seconds.”

  “Throw a rock?”

  “No, all that’d do would be put them on their guard. They hear a noise out in the woods, they’re gonna be waving those guns in every direction. Including ours.”

  One of the guards glanced over towards their bush. They crouched even lower. The guard looked away.