A Thousand Falling Crows

by Larry D. Sweazy

  “You’ve done what the sheriff asked you to,” Jesse finally said.

  Sonny didn’t flinch. He grunted, “Um,” and didn’t blink, either. “You haven’t seen Frank Hamer around these parts, have you?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Just asking.”

  “Last I heard he was in Dallas.”

  “Word of him comes around the office, you’ll let me know?”

  “Yes, sir, I‘ll be sure to do that.”

  Sonny studied Jesse’s face and tense body language and knew right away that his son was lying to him. “All right, Blue, I suppose it’s best to get you and Aldo home. There’s a storm brewing, and I don’t want to be caught out in it. Jonesy,” he called out, “You know where I‘ll be if you need anything.”

  “Sure enough, Sonny. Thanks for callin’ Hugh for me,” the sheriff said, as he bit down on a short stalk of perfect grass, a dead seed head dangling at the end of it.

  “You, too, as far as that goes,” Sonny said to Jesse. “I‘ll be around if you need anything.”

  Jesse offered a grunt back, mocking Sonny’s earlier response without offering anything else.

  A sudden thrust of energy pulsed through Sonny’s body, and, for a brief instant, he felt the tips of his right fingers. It was like he was clenching his hand into a fist but when he looked down there was nothing there. Phantom pains. Only now, he really wished his fist was there. Or at least, the back of his hand.

  Instead of offering anything more, Sonny ignored the impulse and walked away. He headed directly into the wind, his head down so his eyes were safe from blowing dust. Blue followed along the best he could.

  It didn’t take long to reach the truck. “Get in the cab,” he said to Aldo. “You don’t need to be out in this crap any more than I do.”

  “Sí.” Aldo eased himself out of the bed of the truck and into the truck like he had been instructed. A person would have had to have been deaf to mistake the tone or offer an argument to Sonny of any kind.

  The wind whistled and cut along the ground with a growing intensity. Sonny’s pant legs flapped harder, and the sand and dust felt like insects stinging through the fabric. He opened the door, scooped up Blue, and helped him up to the seat as best he could. The dog hustled over and sat down next to Aldo without an ounce of hesitation.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sonny said, as he watched the sheet fly off the dead girl’s body. It blew up into the air like it was a soul departing for heaven.

  “This dust storm looks like it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better,” Sonny said, as he went through the motions of starting the truck.

  They drove without speaking for a long time. Blue sat comfortably between Sonny and Aldo, staring straight ahead, turning his attention to them every once in a while, but mostly just content to be in the truck.

  The wind had not subsided, nor had the dust storm that it had created. It was like driving inside a brown cloud. Sonny had his headlights on and could only see about a car length ahead of him. He drove very slowly.

  “Your son looks like he is uncomfortable,” Aldo finally said.

  Sonny shrugged without taking his eyes off of the road. “He’s just trying to do his job. I understand. Me and Jonesy go back a long way. Jesse is just trying to stake out his claim. I get it. My time is past.”

  “It is something we must all face.”

  Sonny looked over to Aldo. “Regret’s a heavy burden to bear.”

  “Sí, it is. I‘ve made plenty of mistakes with my niños.” Aldo looked away, out the window, then back quickly. “I have a confession to make, señor.”

  Sonny focused his eyes on the road ahead even more than he already was. They were getting close to Aldo’s house, and the Mexican knew that. There was no letup in the storm. The dust swirled around them like it was plentiful, here to stay, never leaving. There had been storms like this before, but not as long in duration. They were getting worse, lasting longer in Texas and Oklahoma, offering more misery than was necessary. He had nothing to offer Aldo. No forgiveness, no absolution, nothing. He had no power of any kind. If that was not evident to Aldo by now, then there was nothing Sonny could do to enlighten him.

  “I have done some bad things in my life, señor. Things against the law. Man’s law and God’s law.”

  “We have all made mistakes, Aldo.”

  “No mistakes. I ran gin for a lot of years.”

  “But those days are over.”

  “Sí, they are. But there will be other ways to sell under the law. The Clever, Clever boys, they are runners, too. They will have to find another way to make a living now that Prohibition has ended. They are desperate.”

  “They’ve taken to armed robbery. The change has already come.”

  “A very bad thing. Especially since my Carmen is with them.”

  “If she is there because she wants to be, Aldo, it will be a problem. You know that, right?” Sonny looked as far ahead as he could and downshifted the truck. He had to nudge Blue out of the way. He turned slowly onto Aldo’s road and missed the shift. The gears ground loudly, and the gearshift jumped away from Sonny’s left hand. “Goddamn, it,” he said, wrestling the handle back in place, while trying to orchestrate his foot on the clutch at the same time. It took a second or two, but the gear slipped into place, and the truck lurched forward to the third house on the road.

  “I know, señor. It is because of me that Carmen is with them. She stole my recipe for gin and gave it to Eddie, the oldest. Ella está enamorada. She is in love. It was her way of showing me up, of getting even.”

  “And you forbade her from seeing him?”

  Aldo nodded yes and held his head down. “I wanted to keep her away from him. I was very much like him when I was young. She could do better, my Carmen. Better than that pandillero and his half-wit brother.”

  “I don’t have a good feeling about this, Aldo; I have to be honest.” Sonny brought the truck to a stop in front of Aldo’s and let the engine idle.

  Just as suddenly as the dust storm appeared, it ended. The wall of brown dirt passed by, and the wind died down, like it had run out of energy, just plain tuckered itself out. There was dirt and sand everywhere—on the floorboard, in the seat, on the dash, even in Blue’s ears. But the sight of everything had come back, and the sun shone again, beating down on the earth with the same ferocity as before the storm had come on. The sun looked like it was determined to burn up everything it touched—or crash into it, if it could break away from whatever was holding it back.

  “I‘ll call around and see if I can’t get ahold of Frank Hamer. My son’s not going to be any help with that at all.”

  “You do not think it is too late?”

  Sonny exhaled deeply, then looked at the floor between his knees. “Those boys have to pay for killing Tom Turnell, and your daughter might have punishment coming for her part in it, you know that. But there’s a family out there, Aldo, that doesn’t know their girl is dead. All they know, I imagine, is that she is missing, and they want nothing more than for her to return. When she does return, it will be in a pine box, and that will have to be enough. They will consider their regrets, just like you have,” he paused, then looked directly into Aldo’s eyes. “We’ll bring your chica back home, Aldo. One way or another, we’ll bring her back home. I promise you.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The crows had gathered at the base of a dead sycamore tree. The wind-torn bark looked like white skin that had been violently peeled off the tree in spots, exposing dark brown bits of bone. Like a lot of things in this part of the world, the tree had most likely died of thirst, brought on by the unrelenting drought. The crows, on the other hand, weren’t worried about finding drinking water. There was plenty of moisture to be found inside the carcass of a fresh kill or something that had died from natural causes. The birds were mostly worried about surviving the dust storm. Stray grains to the eye could permanently blind them, making it more difficult to hunt, to see danger coming the
ir way. One-eyed crows never lived long.

  As it was, they were all huddled together, a black apron of death around the trunk of the sycamore, waiting for the wind to subside. They were afraid. Being on the ground with their heads tucked down made them vulnerable. Coyotes, or a man, could sneak up on them unseen, unheard in the thrusts and groans of the wind. It would be too late for them to take to the air. They felt safe in the sky, nervous on the ground.

  Fear was as unnatural to the crows as a white feather among all the black. They would do anything to get rid of it. Even kill one of their own, if it came right down to it, if it meant surviving another day. But for now, they had no choice. No choice but to wait and hope nothing came along with the intention of killing them, eating them, using their feathers to down a nest.

  Carmen raced up the trail, hoping that her childhood memory was accurate, that there was a hunter’s shack just over the rise. She couldn’t be sure, since most of the markers she thought she could rely on were gone, but the high, rounded rock at the top of the trail looked vaguely familiar.

  A quick glance over her shoulder didn’t make Carmen feel any better. Eddie was struggling to keep Tió upright, on two feet. He was nearly dragging him. Tió looked pale and weak. The blood on his shirt was unmistakable in the bright overhead sun. Vultures circled to the west, inching closer with every rotation, and there had been no one on the trail. They hadn’t seen anyone since they’d left the fisherman. It was like they were on the moon, or lost in the desert—alone, without any idea of what was waiting for them around the next bend. They could hope for water, but it would most likely be a mirage.

  Carmen pushed on up the hill, carrying the two bottles of Dr. Pepper and what was left of the bread. She was out of breath, sweating, tired, and scared, but she had no choice but to continue to climb. Time had faded away. She wore no watch, had no idea how long it had been since they’d abandoned the beat up Model A at the base of Quartz Mountain. It seemed like hours, but it had probably been less than that.

  She finally crested the rise of the hill, and, much to her dismay and disappointment, there was no shack. There was nothing but more hills to climb. A few trees along the path, mostly dead or dying. Nothing green. Nothing to offer her any hope—not even a shadow.

  Fear shimmered through her entire body from head to toe. Carmen was afraid Eddie would be mad, would scream at her, hit her. She had seen what he had done to Tió when he’d crossed him. Tió’s eye was still black from the hit he took from Eddie after they’d robbed Lancer’s Market. Still, she stood and waited for the brothers to catch up to her.

  Eddie was sweating as heavily as Carmen was, maybe more. His shirt was soaked all the way through, like he had stood out in the rain without an umbrella. His hair was wet and his bronze skin shiny, like it had been waxed. Any resemblance to an Aztec god had left him long before he stepped out from behind the steering wheel of the car. Tió looked pretty much the same, except that he was frail, looked like he was ready to surrender to the fight to stand, to breathe, to live.

  “I can’t go on. We have bad luck because we left Mercury behind,” Tió said. He bent over and grabbed his knees. Every time his lungs heaved, more blood eased out of the wound on his arm.

  “It’s just a little farther, me’jo. That thing wouldn’t have made a difference.” Eddie looked over to Carmen questioningly. She lifted her shoulders slightly, offering a negative shrug, hoping Tió didn’t see it—but he did.

  “Maybe we are on the wrong trail,” Carmen offered. “It’s been a long time, and mostly it was my father in the lead.”

  “He was on a run, wasn’t he?” Eddie asked.

  “I didn’t know it then, but probably. What do we know of vacations? People like us. We were barely lucky enough to have enough masa to make tortillas.”

  Eddie held onto Tió so he didn’t teeter and fall forward. “We can only hope this is still a gin-running route. That there’s still a trail through here. It’s isolated enough. I see why Aldo was drawn to this place, used it. You have to figure out where we are, Carmen.” There was concern in Eddie’s voice. He was afraid for Tió. But there was a hard edge to it, too. The hint of the threat she feared.

  Carmen closed her eyes and tried to remember the path to the shack. There was a round rock in her memory, a rock like the one at the top of the rise. “I am pretty sure it was here. But maybe it is farther up. I had little legs then, and I was afraid. I had never been to a place like this. But who knows? There was once a town below. Now there is a lake. Things change, Eddie.”

  Eddie stared at Carmen unfazed, then said, “Go on, go up and see what you can find. But leave me one of them bottles of Dr. Pepper.”

  Carmen handed him a bottle and the bread and thought about offering an encouraging word to Tió but said nothing. She marched away with her unopened bottle, looking straight ahead, hoping upon hope that she was right. Time was not on Tió’s side. He couldn’t last on the trail much longer, she was sure of it.

  It didn’t take long for Eddie and Tió to be out of sight. If she had ever thought of making a run for it, this was her chance. Except there was nowhere to run. Sooner or later, Eddie would find her. She knew that as certainly as she knew that the sun was nothing but a big, round rock, set afire for eternity. Eddie would be as persistent as the sun. He would rise tomorrow and the next day to find her if she ran. So she pushed on, her quest certain.

  About ten minutes into her trek, she came to another rise and a similar rock formation. To her relief, a small shack sat in the shadow of a high outcropping. It was smaller than she remembered, but it was there—a place for them to hide, to recover, to figure out where to go next.

  Before heading back to Eddie, Carmen made her way to the shack. The door was closed, and the windows were covered with dust and grime. It didn’t look like anyone had been around for a long time. There weren’t even any coon tracks to be seen around the door or under the windows. Which meant there was no food to be found, inside or out. A determined raccoon would have had no problem making its way into the shack if it really wanted to get in, if there was a smell of the smallest bite to eat. But then she thought, maybe there’s not coons up this far. What do I know?

  Carmen pushed her way inside the door, easing it open as carefully as she could. She held the remaining bottle of Dr. Pepper by the neck, like it was a miniature club.

  There was no sign of life inside the shack, except maybe a startled spider. The window sills were lined with dead moths. Two bunk beds, an old Franklin stove with the exhaust pipe dangling from the wall, and a water pump next to a sink that looked like it had rusted up pretty much took up all of the room inside the small, one-room shack. A tall locker stood between the bunks. It looked like it was once used for storing clothes and guns. The shack smelled musty and a little pungent, like maybe something had crawled into it and died. But there was no sign of a skeleton or pelt to be seen. Carmen left the door open when she left to find Eddie and tell him the good news.

  It didn’t take long for her to the find the twins. They were right where she had left them. Tió looked a little stronger. The empty bottle of Dr. Pepper sat at his feet, and Eddie had refashioned the tourniquet on his arm.

  Tió wobbled when he stood up, and Eddie was there to catch him if he fell, but he didn’t. Tió walked the rest of the way to the shack on his own.

  Once inside the shack, Eddie made sure that Tió was settled on the bottom bunk and stood back. “I‘ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Carmen put down the Dr. Pepper, and Eddie handed her the bread and a bottle opener. It was all they had. “I‘ll get things straightened up. I hope that water pump works,” she said.

  “I won’t be gone long. Into Vinson and back. It’ll be after dark.” Eddie dug into his back, and pulled out the handgun. He offered it to Carmen. “Take this. You might need it.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want that. I never want to touch another gun in my life, Eddie.”

  Eddie stared at her hard and p
ushed the gun at her, pressed it barrel down against her chest. “You’ll need to protect yourself.”

  “What if I killed that cop, Eddie? I‘ll go to jail. They’ll electrocute me.”

  “You don’t know if it hit him or not. Don’t matter. Nobody’ll find us. I promise.”

  “I don’t like your promises, Eddie.” Carmen couldn’t restrain herself any longer. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Thick tears that had had time to build up and break the dam of her eyelids and fall to the dusty floor in a splatter.

  Eddie pushed the gun harder into Carmen’s chest, and she stumbled backward, coming to a stop at the threshold of the door. “Take it,” he demanded.

  Before Eddie could say another word, Tió jumped up from the bunk and put himself in between them. “Give me the gun, Eddie,” he said. “Ain’t the girl’s job to look out for me. I‘ll shoot if I have to. You know that.”

  Eddie exhaled, let his own cheeks collapse from their tenseness, then pushed the gun at Tió. “Shoot to kill.”

  Tió took the gun and glanced over at Carmen. “Ain’t nobody gonna need to get shot, ’cause ain’t no one that knows where we are. But if they come lookin’, I‘ll do what I have to. Ain’t none of us goin’ to jail.”

  Eddie nodded. “All right, then.” He pushed by Carmen and walked out the door.

  She said nothing, just looked at the floor and tried to pretend like she didn’t exist as Eddie stalked by her.

  There was little of use in the locker. A couple of old rags, a half-burned candle, an empty crate that had once held ammunition, and a bunch of cobwebs that disintegrated upon being touched. But luck had smiled on them with a few things that could be of use, most notably, outside of an old coat, was a box of safety matches and another small box that held a couple of spools of thread and a sewing needle.