by Jim Nesbitt
A fist punched her shoulder. The bus was stopped. The sky was starting to lighten with dawn, like cream slowly drizzled into coffee. Her neck was cramped. She rubbed it and rolled her head around. Her eyes focused on Big `Un’s back as he shuffled up the aisle, duffle bag hanging behind his left shoulder, bracing one of the cargo bags on his thigh, holding it in front of him so it wouldn’t bang into the seat backs or the lolling heads and arms of sleeping passengers.
She shook herself awake and grabbed her purse and jacket out of the seat next to her. She swung the other cargo bag down from the rack with a grunt and moved up the aisle, choking down an urge to call out. The door to the bus station swallowed him up. She pushed past two cowboys, a mother trying to stack up a stroller with a baby in her arm and three old women gaily chatting about the joys of Metamucil.
He wasn’t in the station. She hustled through the front door. He was to the left of the door, his shoulders and one boot braced against the wall behind him, his face turned away like someone looking for a ride that should be moving up the street but wasn’t. The cargo bag and duffle were at his feet, two Mutt & Jeff sacks of olive drab canvas. Smoke curled up from the Lucky on his lip.
“Don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me. Hit the ladies room. Dig out enough cash to buy us another truck. There’s a car lot two blocks the way I’m lookin’. Kill some time inside. Look like you’re waiting on somebody. I’ll be at Darly’s.”
“Where are we?”
He pushed himself away from the wall and slapped a plaque with the flat of his hand. Raised letters of tarnished brass said: “Bus Station. Van Horn, Texas. Works Progress Administration. 1937.”
“Where we’re at, okay?”
He hoisted the duffle over his left shoulder and bent down to pick up the cargo bag. He straightened and looked at her like she was the world’s sorriest red-headed stepchild.
“You got shit for brains today, sweetcheeks. Start suckin’ it up or we ain’t gonna be loose and crazy much longer.”
She wanted to say she was sorry, but couldn’t. He made that sucking noise against his teeth, setting her nerves on edge, then turned and walked toward the cafe, leaving her standing next to the bus station door, angry with herself for feeling apologetic and with him for being such a stiff prick so early in the morning.
Bob Newhart’s bubba cousin was slow with the paper work. When he finally got done, the day’s heat was set to stun and the view of the brown-black spines of mountain was wavy and broken.
She drove the truck out of the lot and cruised slowly past Darly’s, turning down the first side street and parking halfway down the block, next to a garage of ridged aluminum, freshly painted the color of lemon pie filling. Dark red letters above the wide, double-bay door said: Villabuena. The next line, in smaller letters: Expert Auto Mechanic.
She reached for the long, rectangular mirror that hung from a white metal rack on the truck’s door. It didn’t move easily. She whacked the mirror with the flat of her palm until it budged enough to give her a view of the corner behind her. With one eye on the mirror, she flipped the radio on, spinning the dial, searching for a station.
... Now, don’t it make my brown eyes
Don’t it make my brown eyes
Don’t it make my brown eyes
Blu-hoo.
Jesus. Loretta’s baby sister. The very essence of the limp-wristed pop sound that Nashville tried to pass off as country. No fiddles. No steel guitars. Just swish music from the same family that brought the world You Ain’t Woman Enough To Take My Man. What in hell’s hot acres ever went wrong with the gene pool of the coal miner’s daughter?
She spun the dial past a livestock report, a Spanish ballad, a grocery store spot and a lot of static. She settled in on the back half of a Mel Street tune, “Borrowed Angel.” She jumped when something banged into the back of the cab -- Big ‘Un, slinging his duffle and cargo bag into the truck box, pulling open a passenger side door that signaled its reluctance with a loud, metallic croak.
He handed her a cardboard pop-up tray with a styrofoam cup of coffee and a sausage-and-egg biscuit wrappd in wax paper. His jeans made a soft, rippling sound, like a teen popping the pockets of air in a piece of plastic packing that cushions a new stereo receiver, as he slid his butt across the sticky red vinyl surface of the bench seat and slammed the door.
They took farm-to-market blacktop to Allamore and pulled into a small motel -- Hargrove’s Motor Court, Clean & Cheap! They waited for nightfall. She slept. He cleaned their guns, stared out the window and said only enough to answer functional questions like whether he wanted a Coke or a Dr. Pepper when she went out to find them some hamburgers.
His silence was easier to manage. It no longer unnerved her and didn’t seem like a finger of accusation. Maybe she was getting used to it. Maybe she didn’t care. After eating the burgers, he ducked out to use a pay phone. At dusk, they loaded up their gear and pulled out. As he climbed into the truck, he broke his silence for a simple instruction.
“Drive to Fabens.”
He fell into a deep sleep before they cleared town, his silence broken by his snoring.
Chapter 31
Brown and jagged, the Franklin Mountains thrust at the heart of El Paso like a sword from the gods. Not a Baptist god rambling on about hell’s fiery furnace but something pagan, Stone Age and earthbound, forcing the town to bend around the broad, blunt point, caught between the sharp, rising rocks and the Rio Grande.
Newer subdivisions bravely terraced up the barren, sloping edges, the thickest ranks on the northeast side, next to the sprawling reservation of Fort Bliss, where Pershing launched his fruitless expedition against Pancho Villa, where the Army trained its cavalry, its tankers and its missilemen as the nation’s threat shifted from the Apache and Comanche to the German and Japanese then the Russian.
North of the sword point, a well-paved road runs a pass through the crest of the mountains, linking the west side of town where it sweeps up toward New Mexico, hugging the culverted banks of the river, with the flat desert of the eastern side of town and the bleakness of Bliss, its whitewashed barracks, its earth-colored housing for married personnel.
The asphalt is smooth and black as it cranks into hairpin ascents and descents, its early sections of straightaways marked by the challenge of a suicide lane for those with strong transmissions and muscular engines. He could hear them whine as they started the long grade up the western slope, headlamps arcing up from the river valley and the city lights spreading out below him, bright and closely clustered on the American side, dimmer and scattered randomly on the Mexican side, in the town named for one of Mexico’s few true democratic leaders, Benito Juarez, the country’s saviour through civil wars and French intervention, the Zapotec Indian who set the mark almost none of his successors hit in the century since his death.
He was perched behind the rocks of a chimney-shaped promitory that gave him a good view of the road, the valley as it ran up toward Canutillo and La Union and the long parking lot of the scenic overlook where his pickup sat, a square of dull, white metal in the falling darkness. He got there before sunset, three hours before the meet, armed with two sliced brisket sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, two bottles of Tecate beer, a pair of Bushnell binoculars, a .45 covered by the flopping tails of his plaid rancher’s shirt, a spare clip stuffed down his right boot and one of the MP-5s in the canvas duffle bag he picked up in a Fort Stockton thrift store.
To the tourists who climbed the rocks to look down at the lights and see the sun sink low over the river valley and the table of land that rose up around La Mesa, he looked like a local enjoying a private happy hour, longneck in one hand, sandwich in the other, a sweat-stained Resistol with a cattleman’s crease and a dipped-down brim perched on his head, worn boots braced against the rock. He smiled and waved a longneck at some, nodding a hello as he felt the slide of the Colt wear a groove in his back.
He didn’t feel a particular need to hide. His position gave him a long view of the people climbing his way. They couldn’t see him until they reached the top. By that time, he had them pegged and well covered. A faint goat track fell off the rock face, hidden from the parking lot, a nice backdoor if he didn’t like the looks of the Mex that was supposed to meet him here.
He didn’t feel a particular need to flee. The Mex was a sometime partner of Lefty Moore, not an arc-welded guarantee, but about as good a reference as he could expect in a situation like this. Not someone to trust, but someone who knew the persuasive language of cash and the sure fact Moore wouldn’t tolerate a cross. Not on this side of the border.
But that wasn’t why he felt comfortable and sure, sitting on this hot bare rock, burping up beer and barbecue. He felt good with his guns and the strong will to rise up and take on anything thrown his way. He felt at ease. Not dumb and happy but alert, boosted by the job at hand and how it helped him attain his ultimate goal.
He hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Not since he was working next to Wynn Moore, learning the patient cop’s trade, the slow buildup of a case, the steady sifting and questioning, the grinding determination to stay on track and ride to the end of the line. It was something you never talked about, something you either had or didn’t, something you recognized in others and noticed when it was absent in a man.
For years, he had operated on lukewarm substitutes for this fire -- a professional’s reflexes, the routine of duty and the contrarian’s stubborn desire to prove everybody wrong, from the suits who wanted to bounce him off the force to the ex-wives who discovered he wasn’t the solid guy they thought they married. He did good work this way and could kid himself that he was the same badass he was before Moore got killed and the suits started chivvying his flanks. But he couldn’t kid the exes and couldn’t always hide the hollowness from himself in those hours when he wasn’t working, when he wasn’t standing with his foot on the rail at Joe Miller’s or Louie’s, recycling old stories and pumping Maker’s Mark into his belly and bloodstream.
A man afraid of finding his foot dangling over a long drop tends to pull back and shorten his stride. He tends to narrow his scope and keep things close and simple. A small apartment. A cramped office. Thrift store furniture. A worn groove between office, home and bar. Work that doesn’t challenge and doesn’t force a stretch beyond that invisible border he never wants to cross again. Women who don’t do the same thing.
All because he was afraid someone would crack his crusty shell and find out he was as empty as a painted Easter egg with the yoke drained out. His shell was sure shattered now, his emptiness on display for anyone who cared to look, along with signs that he was becoming seriously unhinged.
It didn’t matter. No one stood up, pointed and made a loud noise about the hole where his guts and pride should be. He found out something others found out a long time ago -- a man can spend a lot of energy hiding something about himself that no one gives half a damn about.
He was on the other side of that shattered shell now, up and roving across the border again, ranging out with the cold, hard sense of purpose that left him a long time ago. After years of trying to rope off complexity and keep things simple and clear, he found himself on track toward a destination that was brutal, violent and elemental.
He hadn’t dealt this play. And it wasn’t a game he asked to be in. But here he was waiting on a coyote, a gun in the bag and one riding above the crack of his butt, with that old, icy sureness in his gut that he thought had died. It was a different feeling from the bring-it-on flush of macho he felt a few days ago, deeper and fully uncoiled by the pain of Juanita’s death. It was not something that would bubble to the surface and evaporate like a slick of alcohol on the skin.
Someone had killed people dear to him. Twice. That someone had to die. Simple and clear.
He watched heat lightning flare across the northern horizon, up toward Las Cruces. The sky above him was clear and dappled with stars. Specks of light scattered across the dark bottom land below, forming a rough, imperfect mirror of the heavens. He could feel rather than see the lonely mountain humps west of the mesa, single and well-spaced domes of rock that looked like they were resting on the desert flatness, rootless and ready to be hauled away.
Headlamps drifted over the crest of the road behind him, catching his eye as the beams broke a line of darkness even with his right shoulder. The lights cut into the parking lot, leading a long white car, then swept over his pickup as the driver cut a rough S across the gravel-flecked blacktop, searching the far corners of otherwise empty blacktop.
A lone figure got out of the car, straightening his jacket, setting his shoulders, walking toward the pickup. Burch watched as the man looked in the windows of his truck. Burch checked the goat trail and the slope below him, then turned toward the man and pitched a low-toned whistle into the darkness. The MP-5 was out of the bag and leveled at the man.
“C’mon up, mister. Keep your hands out where I can see ‘em.”
The man waved and started striding toward the trail that led up through the rocks.
“A fine evening for such a fine view, my friend.”
“I’m not here for the view, mister.”
“Of course not. You’re here to do business. Like me. And I can see you’re a man who takes business seriously. Like me. I like that.”
“You got hardware stuffed down your pants. Let’s see it on the ground. Thumb and pinkie, bud. Left hand. Real slow.”
The pistol was dark, slim and square as the man leaned forward and gingerly placed it on a flat rock in front of him.
“Thank you for not making me throw it into the sand. It’s an old gun and I try to take care of it.”
“And it will take care of you, right?”
The man smiled.
“And it will take care of me. Always. Unless the other has a bigger gun. Like you.”
“Step back and to your right. That’s it.”
The man now stood where Burch could keep an eye on the goat trail, the slope below and most of the lot.
“Where’s Huerta?”
“Right here, my friend. I don’t send errand boys to do business with the friends of Lefty Moore. He is an old and trusted associate. His people I see myself.”
“I appreciate the consideration.”
“This is how I do business. It is how I stay on top of the heap and avoid the fall that happens to so many of my competitors. They get fat and out of touch. Their people betray them or fail them in less treacherous ways. I’m like the general who goes to the front to get the true feel of the flow of battle.”
“No battle here, mister. Just business.”
Burch placed the MP-5 on the rock beside him. The man grinned.
“A courtesy.”
“To you and Lefty Moore.”
“Of course. I understand your situation is delicate. I assume that means the law on this side of the border. And on my side? I assume the federales are not your problem.”
“Federales on any side of the border are a problem.”
“Not in Mexico, my friend. Not for someone who hasn’t commited a crime against the ruling party. Not for someone who gives them their little bite to look the other way. Not for someone who isn’t foolish enough to be on their list of undesireables to be turned over to the American DEA. Unless I am sadly mistaken, you are not a Mexican national, my friend, and you don’t normally do business on my side of the border.”
“True enough. Maybe.”
“Come, my friend, you can see my side of the situation. I am taking a risk helping out someone who may be the sworn enemy of people who could do me great harm. I have to be prepared to meet their threat.”
“It is a gamble, isn’t it?”
Huerta shrugged.
“Si, and one you are about to pay me well to take. But let us just sa
y I’m curious and troubled by your need to be quietly transported down to Matamoros. If your only problem was the federales of my country, there are a variety of soft routes you could take on your own. You have the contacts to tell you how to get to any of them.”
“And the money and guns to take care of myself and mine.”
Huerta grinned.
“That is obvious. So, you make me think there is somebody after you on my side of the border. Somebody who is a great threat. To me as well as you and the woman who travels with you. As an example, there is someone near Matamoros who is very dangerous and very crazy. He is called El Rojo Loco by some. Like you, he is a Texan who chooses to live in my country because it is the land of the truly free. I would want to know if our business involves him in even the most tangental manner.”
“I understand what you’re saying, mister. Let’s just say it would pay you to keep this very quiet. On both sides of the border. I have a family connection to Lefty Moore and, as you well know, he is not a nice man. Not even a little bit. You should worry about him as a threat more than anyone on your side of the border.”
“Nice is not one of Señor Moore’s attributes, that much is true. You don’t have to spell out his guarantee in this transaction and the sanctions that will fall on me should I somehow fail to hold up my end of the deal. It hurts me that you have so little trust that you feel you must spell this out.”
“No offense, mister. This is just the way I do business. Cards on the table. No guesswork. Everybody on the same page.”
“The Yankee way, my friend. No serious offense taken. Nothing that cannot be smoothed over with a drink. Con su permiso?”
Huerta opened one side of his jacket, gesturing toward an inside pocket with a sweep of the hand. Burch eased his gun hand back toward the Colt, freeing it from his back and belt, nodding and smiling as he kept his eyes locked on Huerta’s face.