The Truck Comes on Thursday

by Sue Hardesty

  TO: Sandi@gmailyahoo.com

  DATE: July 19

  SUBJECT: Maybe looking a little

  I had an outstanding day with my friend Lola. We explored an old motel we might renovate where illegals can stay until they're able to move on. We have an agreement with Mexico that says anyone who helps catch a coyote can apply to stay in the U.S. I'm going to find many ways to use that law. Won't the conservative right shit over that? I am so tired of their family values crap when it is so obvious they don't give a shit about any other family but their own. What kind of value is that?

  The day ended having supper with the family. Shiichoo even let Lola help her cook. Willie actually talked to her, eye contact and all. I nearly fell off my chair watching.

  Kiss everyone goodnight for me.

  Loni

  Loni began to dream of Maria again. Loving in the night. They were sweet talking as tongues locked and hands moved over soft breasts, down stomachs to the dark triangle of ecstasy. She lifted her head in her climax and was shocked awake when she found Lola smiling back at her. As her breathing finally settled, she hoped she was climbing up from her pit of despair from losing Maria.

  CHAPTER 20

  July 20, 10:15 a.m.

  PAINT WAS DOWN. Tears ran down Willie's brown face as he held the horse's twitching head in his lap. Bahb ran water up and down Paint's body with a spurting hose, working to cool him.

  Loni knelt down beside Willie and reached out for Paint. He felt on fire, his sides heaving and panting for breath. Saliva bubbled out of his mouth, and muscle spasms racked his beautiful painted body. "Bahb! What the hell happened?"

  "Indin chase with pickup. Paint got too hot."

  "Did you call the vet?"

  "She on way wit ice."

  "Where's Roanie?" A streak of fear shot through her.

  Bahb didn't answer.

  "Bahb!" Her voice shook.

  "He gone." Loni heard the sorrow in Bahb's voice.

  "Five came in two pickup. One with trailer. I could not stop." His sorrowful voice stabbed through her. "I could not stop." The tremor in his voice broke Loni's heart.

  "Who, Bahb?"

  "They gone now, two hours."

  "Goddamn it, Bahb. Who? Please tell me it wasn't the Pimas." Loni was shouting.

  "No. Not Pima."

  "You sure? You haven't heard of any funerals?"

  "No."

  "Please, Bahb, I can't let them push him off a cliff," Loni said frantically.

  "No, I tell you." His face rock hard, he insisted, "They bad boys running the wild Santa Cruz over on the Colorado. They come before. They know the best horse."

  "Why are you so sure?"

  "One in rust-covered pickup had painted face. He running at Paint." Bahb scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand. "At Topaz Tank fixing gate when your grandma call. Not back in time."

  Loni sagged against the corral railing and buried her face in her arms. "Roanie can't do that anymore." Pushing herself up from the railing, she trotted back to her truck, swearing, "No one's going to steal my horse again."

  "Hela! They hurt you," Bahb shouted at her back.

  Ignoring his command to stop, Loni jumped in her truck. Not if I see them first, she thought grimly. She shoved the truck into first, and her spinning tires shot fine silt everywhere as the truck fishtailed its way back to Old Highway 85. Turning west, she slammed a portable red and blue flashing light to the roof as she picked up speed. She was breaking the law, and she didn't care. She would bring Roanie home.

  Ninety minutes later, Loni saw the village ahead and stopped. She bunched her hair into a tangled mass and unbuckled her gun belt. Removing her gun and Tazer, she tossed the belt behind the seat. She kept the truck at a crawl, watching for any movement.

  Square, government built cement-block houses clumped together and surrounded a church and school building. Fifteen or sixteen in all, painted in a variety of pastel colors badly faded from the sun, all empty.

  Sandwich houses were scattered among ironwood trees behind the clump of houses. Loni's truck dipped down a wide gully as the road crossed the dry sandy wash. The brilliant yellow blossoms barely hanging onto the palo verde trees followed Loni up and out to the edge of the village. No visible name, no street signs. Missing doors and windows left dark, empty holes in the block houses. Below the blank spaces, broken glass sparkled in the hot sun. A skinny red chicken hopped up on a window sill and cocked its head, watching Loni drive by.

  With no breeze, people couldn't sleep inside, so beds sat under sparse mesquite and ironwood trees. Furniture and abandoned cars littered the ground wherever Loni gazed, and a trash mound rose behind the Catholic church. Pickups and horse trailers crowded around the schoolhouse ahead.

  An old woman in a long, dark blue dress threw scratch to the few scraggly black-spotted hens hurrying toward her. Two of them flew out of an old, crooked mesquite tree, and one ran out from under an old faded couch, ticking hanging out, that leaned against the side of a house. What her granddad called overstuffed. The old woman kept her head down as the truck passed her by.

  Loni smelled cooking. She spotted a fire under a huge old mesquite tree, built under a grocery cart on its side with a big aluminum pot sitting in it. The odor of menudo wafted through the stench of hot dust. No dogs barked at her, and she wondered what was in the stew. She remembered the time she went with Willie and Bahb and ate at a Le Paute village. They were miles away before Willie told her that she ate dog. "Didn't see that old blue hound around, did you Bahb?" She vomited and stayed angry with him all day.

  She gave a sigh of relief when she saw Roanie's ugly tail hanging out of a horse trailer hooked up to an old Datsun king cab. Stopping a few car lengths back, she got out, facing the schoolhouse. Focus! she told herself. She eased past Roanie and opened the door to the pickup. Crawling behind the driver's seat, she crouched down, curled up, and waited, sharing the seat with a saddle. God help her if they're already on peyote, she thought.

  It seemed like forever before the schoolhouse door opened, releasing a stream of dogs, kids, and adults. Sweat rolling down her body covered with a smelly horse blanket, Loni waited. The driver's door opened, and someone sat down heavily, bouncing the pickup. The pickup started, and voices faded. Careful of the mirrors, Loni pressed her gun into the hollow where the head connected to the neck. "Stop!" she ordered. "Don't move! Put it in neutral. Take your foot off the gas. We're going to talk."

  The Le Paute started to swing at her, and Loni jabbed him hard in the throat, stopping the arm in midair. "What's your name?"

  She could feel the anger and fear radiating off him. "Name!" Loni jabbed him again.

  "Merve," he grunted. Loni glanced around again. The dust from the cars and trailers pulling away was so heavy that they probably wouldn't notice he wasn't following them.

  "Ok, Merve, hands on your head. Then get out." Unwinding her long, lean body, Loni followed him. Gun in his back, she handcuffed him to a palo verde tree on the side of the road. Trading her truck for his pickup, she locked the hitch on the ball as Merve's dark eyes sullenly watched her every move.

  Fear replaced the arrogant, angry expression on Merve's face when Loni walked toward him and stuck her gun in his face. "Your trailer will be at the Caliente Police Station with your pickup keys. Take this horse again and you will not live to ride him." She watched him struggling with his handcuffs in her rearview mirror until the village disappeared from view. The ride home was uneventful.

  Loni unloaded Roanie and opened the gate. With a fast walk, he went directly to the water trough. She leaned against the rails, exhausted, as the surging adrenalin faded. Her grandparents came toward her with sorrowful faces.

  "Paint's dead." Shiichoo turned and went back into the house.

  Loni turned to Bahb. "He drink too much before we find."

  "Where's Willie?"

  Bahb shrugged. "He broken now. He go off to die like old dog."

  "No. I'll find him."

&
nbsp; Entering Willie's house, Loni checked around. Most of his treasures were gone except for his tomahawk on the kitchen table and the biggest two ollas in his pottery collection. Loni checked his secret hiding places. The stack of gold coins, the pocket watch she never saw him wear, and the few Pima trinkets she didn't understand, were all gone.

  She checked his closet. All his gaudy turquoise string ties, even the expensive ones, were missing. She went out into the field and stood near the hump of dirt, Paint's home now. She fell to her knees and cried.

  * * *

  Tears continued to fall as she drove back to the hangar and settled in, eating cold tamales while she read from her grandmother’s notebook.

  THE 7E MARE

  It is beautiful and cruel on the desert. It was such a nice day. The early morning breeze was cool, the palo verde trees were starting to bloom, the mesquite were brilliant in their own special shade of green, and the cacti were in bud with their promise of a riot of color of white, yellow, gold, and magenta due in a week or so. The wild flowers were blooming each a sun worshiper, their heads uplifted to the first warm rays. The horses also felt the happy spring spirit. They wanted to run. They pranced and arched their necks as if to say, "All's well today." And so it seemed to us. This is the day the Lord made and we'll rejoice and be glad in it.

  Then we encountered a scene that turned our gaiety into a sudden realization that like life, death is always very near us. As we rode up to red tank waterhole and windmill, we saw one of our beautiful desert brood mares dead, within just a few feet of water. Someone had carelessly thrown the barbwire gate in the gateway and the mare had her front foot entangled in the wires. So she died of thirst. A mockingbird above seemed to be singing in sympathy and the white wings were cooing their mournful soothing song. It was a sad and silent ride home. Thoughts of the torture she endured, the whys and ifs that might have changed things, but too late. We lost our beauty and her unborn colt. And her needless suffering filled my thoughts.

  All the cattle and horsemen know the rule of the gate. There should be a bounty on people who disregard it.

  FROM: Loni Wagner

  TO: Sandi@gmailyahoo.com

  DATE: July 20

  SUBJECT: Still here

  Reason # 6 why I don't ranch: Losing old friends is too hard.

  Willie lost Paint today and I almost lost Roanie. Bahb says we may lose Willie too, but I'm going to find him and bring him home.

  Been reading my grandparents' history and the last one almost broke my heart. I'm not repeating it, but the horse's suffering jogged a memory from my childhood when Bahb was teaching me how to treat a horse. He said gentle treatment was important because if you are good to a horse and you get sick or hurt, then the horse will come to you and you will get well. But if you mistreat a horse and you are sick or hurt, then the horse will not come willingly, and you will probably die. I'm guessing that applies to all pets. However, after I stood by Paint's grave, Bahb's loving attitude didn't help. Sorry, I can't deal right now.

  Take care of you and yours.

  Loni

  CHAPTER 21

  July 21, 12:27 a.m.

  LONI TOSSED AND TURNED, too sick over Willie to sleep. She decided to search the bars in town before she started her shift. As she bent over to put on her boot, a bullet exploded through the window and scattered glass shards everywhere. She crawled to the light switch and flipped off the lights. A single head light turned onto the road to town. A motorcycle again! Damn! Already too far away to chase.

  She flipped the lights back on and ordered Coco to stay on the bed while she swept up the sharp fragments. She found the bullet buried in the wall over the bed. Its path was not even close to where she was standing. She dug it out of the sheetrock and bagged it. A warning shot? Rebecca still at it? It was time to check on the DNA.

  Loni put her gun belt on last. Checking her gun one last time, she re holstered it before she grabbed her tamale lunch and slipped down in the dark, still worried. It would be so easy to pick her off anywhere, anytime, especially on patrol. She sent Coco out to sniff around before they drove back onto the road.

  She stopped at every bar in town but learned nothing. Signing in at the station, she asked Bobby to push for the DNA from the snake. "Got shot at again. It's getting old."

  "Think whose DNA is on that snake is your shooter?"

  "Who knows?" Loni tried to shrug it away, although her worry still showed on her face. "Gotta start looking somewhere." Loni thrummed her fingertips on the counter. "Still nothing back on Rene's plane stuff? Nothing on the blood or fingerprint in the epoxy?"

  Bobby was shaking his head before Loni finished talking. "Nothing yet. I'll call in though, before I leave."

  "Thanks, Bobby. I still think Rene is involved somehow with what we're working on."

  "Listen." Bobby was upset. "You be careful out there. Don't take your usual route."

  "I won't." She nodded goodbye and was soon heading north toward the bars out of town to search for Willie. She found him at The Oasis.

  Willie leaned his head on her shoulder. "Loni. Paint dead."

  "I know, Willie." Loni hugged him. He reeked of alcohol but Loni didn't care as she tried to absorb his pain.

  "My Paint gone." Tears ran down his face.

  "Come on, Willie. Time to go home."

  "Ni, ni, ni, ni." Willie stumbled away from her and crawled back onto a bar stool.

  Loni wrote her cell number on the back of her card and handed it to the bartender. "Call me when he passes out."

  For the next few hours, she drove around sick at heart, feeling the depth of Willie's despair. Surges of fear and grief spiked through her, slamming her like a sledgehammer and freezing her to the steering wheel.

  Adrenalin smacked Loni in the chest as a man stepped out into the road, hailing her down. Jamming on the brakes, she got out, waiting in the dark behind her door for him to approach. Was it a trap? Did someone have a wreck? Lost? Illegal? She shined her flashlight in his face and watched his hands as he stopped a few feet away. Sighing with relief, she recognized him. "Hey, Gerald, what's wrong?"

  "Ran out of gas," he said.

  "Want me to take you back to your pickup and call your wife?"

  Gerald hung his head. "Already did that."

  "She wouldn't get out of bed?"

  "Nah. She brought me a gallon of gas. I guess I was still drunk."

  "What happened?'

  He pulled at his hat and looked way off. "I poured the gas in her car."

  "What did you say?"

  "I poured it in her car."

  "What happened then?" Loni tried hard not to giggle.

  "She thanked me and drove off."

  "She didn't come back?" Loni couldn't help it. She started laughing almost hysterically, despite her sorrow over Willie. Or maybe because of it.

  Gerald gave Loni an exasperated shrug. "Would I still be here?"

  "Why didn't you call someone else?"

  Gerald dropped his head again. "Dropped my cell phone the other day and my horse stepped on it."

  "How'd you call her tonight?"

  "Gene Berrington came along and called for me." He leaned against the front of her SUV. "God, I'm tired." He took off his hat and rubbed his head. "Didn't want to leave my truck to go with him. It's full of tools. Then I thought, to hell with it. Nobody would want that junk anyway. So I started walking."

  Trying to stop laughing, Loni said, "Get in. I'll take you home."

  Gerald stared out the window. "Man, it was dark out there."

  "I know," Loni answered him. "The moon's riding with the sun. Guess you won't be planting tonight, huh?"

  Gerald glanced at her sideways and sighed. "You have no idea."

  Loni let that one pass. "Still live up the tracks?"

  "Yep."

  "How's the stockyard business doing these days?"

  "Good thing people still eat beef or I'd be on the food line." Gerald squirmed. "Had to fire two men with families today,
so I got drunk."

  "Did it help?"

  "No, but you shoulda seen the look on my wife's face when she saw me pour the gas in her car. It was almost worth it."

  "I'd rather seen yours when she drove away."

  Loni dropped Gerald off . He opened the back door and she heard a chorus of dogs barking. He yelled "Shad'up!" as she backed back out onto the road.