by Jim Nesbitt
She told him who saved him that night in Reynosa -- the Lonely One, the old woman. He smiled, but knew better than to laugh. He attended their ceremonies, but she knew better than to see him as a true believer.
They lived the life of a relaxed standoff, each profiting from the other side’s particular skills and powers, but never becoming one, a family united in spirit and commerce. For a long time, this had not mattered. But now it did and she could feel it.
Her eyes were closed. The sun bathed her eyelids in an orange warmth she could see and feel. She felt something else, close by her side.
“Tedero.”
She smiled as she heard him suck in his breath.
“Madrina.”
He kissed her outstretched hand.
“Sit.”
She heard him settle on the dirt in front of her. His shadow darkened the glow warming the insides of her eyelids.
“I told you I would bring a gift, a great sacrifice that would give us power and keep the gods happy.”
“I remember.”
He paused. She kept her eyes closed.
“Something went wrong. I cannot give what I promised.”
“I know about this. I know of your loss as well.”
She heard him suck in his breath. His voice sounded strained.
“It’s painful. She meant a lot to me. I need to avenge her death.”
“A small matter to someone who believes.”
There was a long silence. She started to enjoy the warmth of the sun again.
“I need your help. I’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest and don’t know how this will play out. There are men here and over the border who wish me dead now. Others too, from Columbia.”
“It will happen the way the gods want it to.”
“That’s why I’m coming to you. I want the gods to want me to win.”
“I can only ask for their help and a vision of what is to be.”
“You can use your power.”
“For my sons and me. For believers. You have never believed. Hear me -- I can protect myself and my sons. I can ask the gods about this matter. But only you can decide to walk the path or walk alone.”
“As you say. There is the body of a man. I’ve had it placed by the cauldron.”
“Lead me there.”
The shed had a roof of corrugated tin, a dirt floor and thick cypress logs anchoring each corner. The walls were plywood, framed by rough pine boards. T-Roy lit an oil lamp. The body of the ex-contra, stripped and faceup, stretched the length of a thick-legged butcher’s table, a blood groove running along one side of its stained, oak top.
Two men poured water into a heavy iron cauldron to the left of the table. The water hissed and steamed as it hit metal heated by a fire that burned in a pit dug beneath the cauldron.
“Leave me.”
The men turned to the door. So did T-Roy.
“Stay, Tedero.”
Feeling her way along the long edge of the table, she worked her way to an altar covered in oilcloth. She pulled the cloth away. Candles, a cross, the open mouths of cowrie shells with their row of tiny teeth, beads of red and yellow and several smooth stones of gray and black stood on the shelves of the altar. She lit the candles and a long double corona wrapped in dark, maduro leaf.
Puffing hard, she blew smoke onto the altar, then turned and blew smoke along the length of the dead man’s body. She bent over what was left of his face and blew more smoke into his nostrils. She took a knife from the altar and held it toward the ceiling, flashing its blade in the light of the oil lamp.
With her free hand pressing down on the dead man’s chest, she sawed an opening. Blood sprayed onto her blouse. She puffed more smoke into the open wound.
“Tedero, come beside me.”
She told him to hold the chest open. He watched as the knife flicked around the heart, severing the arteries and veins. With a grunt, she cut the last vein and lifted the heart out of the chest cavity. Her hands were slick with blood.
“Hand me those bowls.”
He reached for two wooden bowls on the altar. She placed the heart in one and drained blood from a cut in the man’s neck into the other. She carried both back to the altar.
“Tedero, hand me that bottle of lamp oil.”
She poured lamp oil into the bowl of blood. She sprinkled gunpowder on the slick surface. She struck a match and watched a small flame and a smoky plume rise from the bowl. Puffing hard on the cigar, she blew smoke through the plume, sending a swirl across the altar.
She held the bowl with the heart high above her head, blood inching down her arms. He was amazed how strong she seemed and how long she could hold the bowl aloft. She kept puffing the cigar.
A long, thin wail escaped her lips. Her eyes were closed. Twin jets of cigar smoke shot from her nostrils. She put the bowl back on the altar and looked at him.
“Now what happens?”
“You know what happens now. Leave me.”
He moved slowly, like stitches of scar tissue pulling apart. He wanted to ask another question, one he knew she wouldn’t answer. She willed him to leave, turning her back on him, waiting until she heard the shed door shut.
She reached for a small gourd of chili paste. She would taste the heart flesh and the hot, dry chili. But not for Tedero. He was alone now, as she had dreamed, as the voice of the Lonely One told her.
This was for her sons and herself.
Chapter 27
Mano watched T-Roy move across the dirt yard toward the porch where he sat in a wicker-bottomed chair, canted back against the adobe wall, cleaning an Uzi, taking short pulls on a bottle of mescal that caused the sweat to pop on his forehead.
Dust rose up to cover the fancy stitching of T-Roy’s handmade boots as he covered the distance with a quick, choppy stride, slapping a thigh with his palm, his lips forming words that Mano couldn’t hear.
Mano knew to wait. He concentrated on oiling the weapon and piecing it back together, lips pursed around the cigar, ignoring the sound of boots pacing on the porch planking beside him and the muttered curses that were starting to build in volume and intensity.
“Fuckin’ dried-up crone -- tellin’ me I walk alone. I been walkin’ alone since I was born and I’ll walk alone a long time after she’s dust. I sure as hell ain’t gettin’ much help from a bag of bones who sits in the sun until someone gives her a stiff to do her knife work on.”
T-Roy spat over the railing and ran fingers through wiry red hair.
“Fuck her and that voodoo shit. Fuck palo and Vision Serpent and the old woman. And fuck her sons, too. Stupid, worthless bastards -- we been carryin’ them because we think they’re useful. I tell you true, Mano -- they just gettin’ in the way, vato. Just gettin’ in our way and cuttin’ into our action.
“We don’t need ‘em. We don’t need her. We don’t need all this weird Stephen King shit. Cut ‘em loose. Let ‘em drift.”
Mano said nothing. He looked at T-Roy and arched an eyebrow.
“I know, I know -- it’s their fuckin’ rancho. Their fuckin’ land. Their fuckin’ spirits and ceremonies. Bad medicine to fuck with all that. Bad to even talk the way I’m talking. But goddam, Mano -- we lost Astrid to Ross and that Burch fuck. And that whore Carla Sue -- she been playin’ both Ross and me off each other. You were right, there, man. Called that bitch a long way off.
“And I got all this heat comin’ down on my ass. Can’t go north because I fucked up so bad every alphabet shit the feds have got is lookin’ for me. The federales aren’t pleased to have someone so fuckin’ notorious right on their front porch. And the fuckin’ Cali boys don’t even want to hear about the war I started in their Texas briar patch.”
T-Roy paused and reached for the bottle of mescal sitting underneath Mano’s chair. He tilted it back against his lips and let the liquid bubb
le down his throat until his eyes and nostrils burned.
“Heeeee-yahhhh, but we are truly fucked, Mano my man. We can’t even get the spirit woman to sic the voodoo dogs on anyone who would do harm to my skinny ass. Here, you’re workin’ too hard. Have a drink. We ain’t dead yet. We still got the boys. We don’t need the old woman’s sons. We don’t need her and her spirits.”
Mano took two quick pulls on the mescal, thudding the bottle onto the porch planking. He opened and closed the bolt of the Uzi, working the oil into the innards of the weapon, turning words slowly in his mind.
“We may need them more than we think, patrón. There aren’t that many of us boys you can trust, if you think about it. Camarillo wasn’t that popular with los contras, but he was their jefe and they know you iced him.”
“I pay those fucks a damn good dollar. Keep ‘em in tequila and pussy -- all they want.”
“So we got drunks who been laid. You sure they watch your back? You sure you want them in a firefight?”
“They tore hell out of Ross’s little fortress.”
“Camarillo ran that show.”
“What are you sayin’?”
“We need to shorten our odds and keep our friends friendly, is all. Don’t need to kill any more off. And definitely don’t need to get on the bad side of La Bruja.”
Mano turned and smiled as he said these last words. T-Roy was staring at him, palm slapping thigh, the checkered grip of a Colt Python curving above his belt.
“You sayin’ I was wrong to ice Camarillo?”
“Definitely not one of your better moves, patrón.”
No words for a long time. Mano wished he had a full clip for his oiled and empty Uzi. He met T-Roy’s glare, focusing his eyes on the other man’s brow, an old schoolyard trick from the days of dozens and staredown.
T-Roy broke first.
“You fuck. I never could outstare you.”
“Es verdad, patrón. But it’s a small matter -- a cheap parlor trick.”
“We don’t need this old woman and her sons. We got the Badhair. We got money and guns and all the anejo we need.”
“We ain’t heard from Badhair in a long, long time. Not since Kenny called about the chopper ride to Uvalde. He got more gadgets than cojones and he calls us by now, usually.”
“You got no faith in the guy. You and him never did get along.”
“Patrón -- how to have faith in a guy who looks like he got a fuckin’ poodle stuck on his head? Makes me wanna shoot it off his damn skull every time I see him. Patrón -- I gotta tell you -- gettin’ him on this is another mistake. That guy kills first and thinks later. Bet we have bodies scattered from here to Houston by now and more fuckin’ heat on our ass.”
A big speech for Mano. More words than T-Roy had heard him say in ten or twelve years. He thought he saw a glitter in his friend’s eye, the cold flash of a snake’s gaze, a look that caused him to shudder.
“You sayin’ I should let that Burch fuck live after what he did to Astrid? That what you sayin,’ Mano, mi vato?”
“Fuck no. Should have scoped it out first, then call in a shooter. Don’t leave it all to Badhair. We don’t know shit about this Burch other than he was a cop and you killed his damn partner.”
Another long speech. More words T-Roy didn’t want to hear. Another shudder passed through T-Roy’s body. He felt Mano move the eye of the snake over him.
“Astrid’s dead and Burch did her. That’s all I need to know. All you need to know.”
“You got to let her go, patrón. Play it smart. Play it the way I know you can.”
T-Roy’s mouth broke into a grin, lips pulled back across clenched teeth. His eyes sought Mano’s -- a hot, crazed glare against cool and steady sleight of eye. There it was, that cold glitter.
The only sound was T-Roy’s hand whacking against his thigh. He wanted to beat that stare and hold off the shudder it sent through his body. He broke again.
“Cheap parlor tricks might get you iced one day, vato. Or a smart mouth. I seen you go days without sayin’ dick to nobody. Barely a grunt to me. Now I can’t shut you up.”
“I’m sayin’ stuff you need to hear. None of these other cabrons will tell you when you fuckin’ up. And you fuckin’ up, patrón. You losin’ it. You need to get back on top of this situation and ride it, not let it ride you.”
“What I just say?”
Mano held up his hand.
“I know, I know. I said it. I shut up. Patrón -- we’re twins, joined at the hip. I saved your life. You own mine. Somebody waste me someday, but not you. Somebody waste you one day, but not me.”
“You forget, my friend, but I know you now.”
T-Roy was grinning again, eyes glittering. Mano smiled back, trying to figure out what was meant by that last line while watching his boss, watching how he held his hands and how close they were to the butt of his pistol.
“Let’s hook ‘em up again. I feel lucky. I feel strong. I feel like a snake who can watch his prey all day. I feel like you’re gonna be the one that breaks first.”
“Never happened before. Won’t happen now. Why bother? Too fuckin’ hot, patrón.”
They locked eyes for the third time. The gun was up and in Mano’s face in the same split second he heard the heavy, metallic click of the hammer being thumbed back. It was the last sound he ever heard.
T-Roy listened to the echo of the solitary shot flatten out and spread across the dusty yard of the rancho, past the stable, the shed and the other outbuildings. As men started running toward the porch, he stood with his head cocked to one side, like a man watching a bank of television sets in a department store window.
One by one, the sounds and images of killing his best and only friend registered, each checking in at a slow speed and a sharp clarity -- the clatter of Mano’s freshly oiled Uzi hitting the weathered planking; the blood spraying across the light tan of the adobe wall; the scuffed soles of Mano’s boots, hooked up and over the cane bottom of his overturned chair.
He bent down low over the dead man, his face close to the other man’s face, close enough to smell the blood pooling out from the back of his friend’s head, close enough to smell his own sour breath bounce back from the skin of the dead man’s ruined face. T-Roy whispered like a lover.
“I warned you, vato. I told you to shut up. I told you I felt lucky. I told you it was my turn to win.”
He looked into Mano’s eyes and felt a sudden tilt of vertigo. He would fall into that stare and lose his soul. He would tumble into those eyes and never come back. He had to break away. He had no choice.
T-Roy turned. Men crowded the top step of the porch, silhouetted by the strong sun at their back. He saw something else, quick and flashing -- the head of a snake, fangs bared, flying toward him from the sun.
“No fuckin’ choice.”
His words sounded thin and dry. So did his laugh. He emptied his pistol at the snake in the sky. The men scattered.
Chapter 28
El Paso, he said. Dump this ride, he said. She started to argue. She had her mind on a fast run to Mercedes and Lefty Moore’s little tarmac airstrip. But Big ‘Un wasn’t someone to argue with right now.
“This is the last time I’ll ever do this and this time may be enough to make me dead.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I heard you awright, Big ‘Un. But I got no goddam idea what the hell you’re talkin’ about.”
“Just words that been runnin’ through my head. Like one of those, ah -- chants -- they do.”
“Who?”
“Those TM characters. Yogis.”
“You mean a mantra.”
“That’s it. These words been runnin’ through my brain, over and over again -- this is the last time I’ll ever do this and this time may be enough to make me dead.”
&n
bsp; “Are you awright?”
“Shit yeah. Keep movin’.”
Carla Sue didn’t know which was worse -- this sudden babbling about anything that popped into Burch’s head or the odd mix of sobbing and cold, brooding silence he showed during the long, nervous ride out of a rabbit hole that had turned into a trap, out toward I-10 and their sudden turn westward.
The sobbing she could take -- soft and quiet as he leaned toward the passenger side while she stared straight through the windshield, giving him as much privacy as is possible in the cab of a pickup.
The silence was another matter. It was strong and seemed like it swirled up from a hole deep inside of him, sucking all the time and sound out of the cab, leaving only heavy tension and a sense of dread. It caused the skin on the back of her neck to crawl.
She tried to shake the feeling by counting the segments of white centerline that whipped into the arc of the headlights. The silence deepened. Maybe he isn’t even in the cab anymore, she thought. Maybe a black hole just ate him up. Maybe that seat is just empty now.
She glanced toward the passenger side and jerked her eyes quickly back to the road. He was staring at her, his face lit from underneath by the dashboard light, his lips pulled back across his teeth, his eyes wide and fired with hatred, looking like a killer admiring the pulsing veins of her neck for a quick bit of carving.
“We’re dead, you know.”
The words startled her. The truck swerved slightly. She straightened it out, anxious to fill the broken silence with her own words.
“That’s not so. Not by a long shot. We get down there, we get the sumbitch, we get out.”
“Won’t matter. I’m dead already. You are too. We’re ghosts. We ain’t even here.”
He laughed then. That shut her up and made things worse.
Chapter 29
Silva Huerta gunned a shot of well-carameled Pedro Domecq brandy with a loud smack of his lips. Old Pedro made a poor grape distillate that never saw the inside of an oak cask. Like a bottled blonde on the bad side of forty, it leaned on illusion to soften its edges -- jolts of sugar and coloring to make up for the aged attributes it didn’t have.