“Where’s her money come from?”
“Her family settled here way back when, owned one of the big spreads along the border. The truth probably is that they stole it from the Mexican landholders, who’d stolen it from the Apaches. The story around here is that they ran guns, liquor, you name it across the border. Their legitimate enterprises were ranching and mining, then the mines gave out. When Marian took over the operation, she gave up running cattle and took to land speculation. Like I said, she owns most of this town. Have you seen those big houses up on the mesa above Cadiz? Million-dollar-plus places? Marian built those.”
“So, bringing big mining back, that’s probably right up her alley?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Have you seen Sylvester today?”
“Not so far. You never said what happened to your face.”
“Got kicked by a white horse.”
She gave it a beat then said, “Those bastards.”
The burrito and the beer almost did the job. I left the cantina feeling much fortified. When I walked into the cool of Marian Brown’s real estate office, she was scrutinizing a map laid out on her desk. She looked up, then folded the map.
“Afternoon,” I said.
“You look like you were in a car accident.”
“I don’t think there was anything accidental about it.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Nothing.”
“Why are you here?”
“Just wanted to hear the sound of your voice. It makes my day. And, by the way, I love that fragrance you’re wearing. Cinnamon and something else. Jasmine? Smells expensive.”
“It is. I have it custom made.” She gave me a puzzled, then slightly irritated look. “I’m rather busy.”
“Buying up old mining claims?”
“I buy lots of properties.”
“You own most of Sulfur Springs, as I understand it.”
“Your point?”
“I guess I don’t have one. Just thinking that in my experience, the more you have the more you want. Kind of a vicious circle.”
“I really don’t have time for this, Mr. O’Connor.”
“Found the young man we were looking for, by the way.”
She didn’t blink. For a long time. “I’m happy for you. Where is he?”
“Been nice talking to you, Marian.” I turned and left her office.
I walked up the hill to Sylvester’s adobe house. I knocked on the door and got no answer. An old, dust-covered, red jalopy of a pickup was parked nearby. It was a quiet place, this small cove in the rock where Sylvester had built his odd little home. In that quiet, I heard a strange sound, a low keening. It came from the animal shed with the attached corral where, on my first visit, I’d met Franklin, Sylvester’s mule. I walked to the open window of the shed and peered in.
The mule lay on a bed of straw. The straw was splashed with blood. The blood had come from a great slash across the animal’s throat. Sylvester sat beside his dead mule, his back against the shed wall, a bottle of Old Crow in his hand. He looked up at me.
“You think it’s ridiculous to cry your heart out over a dumb animal?” he said.
“It’s not ridiculous to cry your heart out over a friend.” I ducked between the rails of the corral fence, walked into the shed, and sat beside Sylvester. “What happened?”
He took a long draw off the bottle. “Came back from a run into Cadiz, found him like this. You know, there’s people in this world don’t come near a mule for the quality of company they provide. Franklin here, he was one hell of a companion. Never complained. Never asked to borrow nothing. Never talked behind my back.”
“Any idea who did this?”
“Could be anybody for any reason. Warning. Punishment. Maybe just purely for the mean hell of it. This is the wild west, mister. Out here, reason don’t always apply.”
“Is it because you helped me?”
“Maybe. But I don’t see how anybody would’ve known that. Less you told them.” He gave me a look that would have been more penetrating had he not been halfway through the bourbon.
“I told no one, Sylvester.”
“The hills have eyes,” he said and drank.
“I understand you work for Marian Brown, helping her locate old mining claims.”
“Not no more.”
“What did she want with the claims?”
“The old leases, if they were ever filed, lapsed a long time ago. She wanted to file new leases on the land. Thinks mining’s going to come back to Coronado County in a big way. Who knows, maybe she’s right. There’s ore in these mountains yet.”
“Is she planning on entering the mining business?”
“Not directly, I don’t think. When I located a mine and verified that the lease had lapsed, she would file in the name of Southwestern Geotech. It’s a drilling and mineral exploration company out of Chandler.”
“What’s that get her?”
“Search me. Maybe a share in the profits, if there are any. Maybe she’s just working on commission, kind of like I was with her.” He took a swallow of bourbon. “You find him? The young man you were looking for?”
“I found the Lulabelle. If he was there, he’s gone now. Tell me, how’d you come to know Peter?”
“While I was scouting the lapsed claims for Marian, I stumbled across him squatting in one of the old diggings up in the Coronados. He’d made himself quite a home there. Nothing new in that. A lot of hippies did the same thing back in the day. Got to talking to him and over time, well, he grew on me. He told me he was interested in the old excavations. He wasn’t the prospector type and it wasn’t hard to figure out what he was up to. He was looking for places to give those poor folks coming across the border some shelter on their way to whatever they hoped might be a new life. You don’t meet a lot of people like him, who are doing what they’re doing just because they believe it’s the right thing.”
“So you quit working for Marian and started helping Peter?”
“Least I could do. A lot of wildcat mining went on in most of the mountains down here. No legal claim ever filed. No way to know where they are, unless you understand this country and have spent a good deal of time wandering the mountains and hills here.”
“Like you have.”
“I gave him some leads. He filed the claims.”
“So he was competing with Marian in a way.”
“She rules the roost around here. Made her hopping mad.”
“The Lulabelle, was that a wildcat operation?”
“Yep.”
“You told me there were a couple of other old diggings near the Lulabelle. No official claim filed on those?”
“That’s right.”
“Did Peter know about them?”
“I might have mentioned it.”
“I’m thinking that if he decided the Lulabelle wasn’t safe for some reason, he may have gone looking for one of those others.”
“Reasonable speculation.”
“Did he know where they are?”
“Not sure anyone knows exactly where they are.”
“Not even you?”
“It was a long time ago I worked the Lulabelle. I knew about the other diggings only in general. The men who worked them were pretty secretive. Near as I could tell, one of them was somewhere south of the Lulabelle, maybe seven miles or so. The other was north a few miles. Back when I was a young buck, I did some drinking with the man worked that particular dig. We were both operating out of Ark.”
“Ark?”
“Arivaca. Little town way to the west. When he was two sheets to the wind once, he told me he called his diggings the Jesus Lode. Told me it was because there’s this big rock formation above the mine looks just like Jesus wearing a robe.”
“What about the one to the south?”
“I got nothing.” He looked at me, focused. “You know anything about hunting?”
“I’ve stalked deer all my life.”
Which seemed to me an excellent idea.
He finally noticed my face. “You look like you tangled with a wildcat. What happened?”
“Some people asked me about that young man we’ve been discussing. Asked if I knew where he is.”
“Didn’t ask very politely. And I’m guessing they’re still in the dark. Any idea who they were?”
“They blindfolded me, so I only heard voices. But I’ve been going over it again and again in my mind. I just confirmed that one was Marian Brown, your mayor. That expensive perfume she wears was a dead giveaway. And if I were a betting man, I’d lay down good money that your town cop Mike Sanchez was another.”
Sylvester capped the bourbon bottle and threw it on the straw. “Shoulda guessed.”
“Don’t quote me until I confirm it,” I said. “Look, I’ll be happy to give you a hand here, if you need it.”
He shook his head. “My responsibility. You go see to yours.”
CHAPTER 25
* * *
Something strange was going on with the sky to the east, black clouds piling up along the horizon. If I’d been in Minnesota, I’d’ve sworn there was a storm brewing. But this was Arizona in July, the desert in the middle of a blazing summer. Did rain ever come to this country, and did it ever come in summer?
On my way to the Lulabelle, I’d hit an outdoor store at the edge of Tucson and had bought a good topo map of southern Arizona and a handheld GPS. Because I didn’t know how long I might be searching the Santa Margaritas, I also picked up a hydration pack and two gallons of water, a thermal blanket, a pair of field glasses, a hunting knife, a Maglite, a ton of jerky, and some protein bars. I had plenty of ammo for the Winchester.
I was driving the same road Mondragón had followed the night before. I was thinking about the ambush that morning, going over in my mind how Rodriguez’s men had known about the place and that we would be there. I didn’t believe Sylvester was the leak. If Mondragón followed up with his own men and was able to vouch for them, that left two possibilities. One was Jocko. I hated to think that I’d misread the man. I couldn’t imagine what might have motivated him to be working with people like Rodriguez. I considered the other possibility—the Border Patrol helicopter that had been hovering over the desert when Jocko and I spotted the mirror flashes from the Lulabelle. Was it possible someone in Border Patrol, Agent Jamie Sprangers maybe, had struck a deal with the devil? The Border Patrol had been tracking me. How, I wasn’t sure. I’d gone over the pickup once more and hadn’t found a transmitter. That didn’t mean there wasn’t one, so well placed or so sophisticated that I couldn’t see it. I figured that when I reached the Santa Margaritas, Sprangers probably wouldn’t be far behind. So I had to do whatever I did quickly and carefully. If that was possible.
As soon as I turned south onto the Magdalena Road, I came to the checkpoint we’d hit the night before. The barricades had been pulled off to the shoulder, where a couple of BP agents leaned against a parked truck. As I drove up, they glanced my way. One of them raised his arm and, with a couple fingers, waved me on. I was a middle-aged white guy. No visible threat. If Mondragón or Rainy had been with me, I probably wouldn’t have been given such an easy pass. I understood that. What other criteria would you use to enforce such racially motivated fears? I’d seen it in Minnesota all my life. If you looked Native, if you looked like Rainy, you caught the eye of white people, and many, many white people thought things about you that were absolutely untrue. Often, the laws that white people ignored without a second thought were the ones that got flashing lights and a siren on the ass of someone of color.
I’d keyed in the coordinates of the Lulabelle, and when I came to the place where Mondragón had parked his SUV, I got out. I filled the hydration pack with water and loaded it with the supplies I’d bought, locked the pickup, and started quickly into the mountains.
The Santa Margaritas blocked my view of the eastern horizon, and although the sky above me was perfectly blue, I knew those black clouds I’d seen earlier were on the march. I climbed as fast as I could, as fast as my beat-up body would allow me. My ribs were still sore and there was a little fire burning along my cheek, but I pushed myself. I’d left Cadiz without communicating to Rainy or Mondragón what I was up to. I didn’t have time to leave a ribbon tied to the angel’s finger, and I probably wouldn’t have anyway. I still didn’t know where the leak was, and I thought it was best to go on this particular expedition alone.
I made it to the Lulabelle much faster than I had that morning, not only because I knew the way now, but also because I knew that I had to stay ahead of both those storm clouds and whoever might be tracking me. Although we’d found blood in the mine, there was no telling if it was Peter’s or that of someone who was with him. There was no guarantee I wasn’t on a wild-goose chase. But it was the only lead I had, so I followed it. I began, as I often did when hunting deer, moving in a careful spiral outward from the mine entrance, looking for sign. The firefight that morning had disturbed the area a great deal, and it took me longer than I’d hoped to find what I was looking for. Fifty yards north of the mine entrance, I spotted a partial print left in soft dirt. It looked as if it had been made by the sole of a cheap athletic shoe. A child’s shoe. I had my sign.
Nikki Edwards had told me that Peter was good at covering his tracks, making it difficult for the Border Patrol to follow him. If that was true, something was terribly wrong. The trail Peter, or the people Peter was leading, left when they fled the Lulabelle was not hard to follow. Even in the rockiest of terrain there’s loose dirt, and I found multiple prints leading north. Some were small, some larger, but none as large as a man might leave. Although I couldn’t tell how many were with him, Peter was leading a group of women and children. Either they were moving too fast for him to cover their tracks or he was not able to. I tried not to think about the large bloodstain on the floor of the mine.
I’d gone maybe three miles, most of the way listening to the growing rumble of thunder, when a raindrop finally hit my face. I’d been focused on the ground, and when I looked up, I was startled to see that the great black chest of the storm had appeared over the Santa Margaritas. The temperature, I realized, was dropping rapidly. Something big was coming, and it was coming fast. I took the field glasses and scanned the rugged landscape in front of me.
Henry Meloux was a man surprised by almost nothing. The old Mide had once told me, “When you open yourself to spirit—of the land, of the creatures, of other human beings—what comes to you is always what’s to be expected.” When I’d asked him what that was, he’d smiled, had spread his arms wide, and said simply, “Bounty.”
Standing with the field glasses to my eyes, I understood the truth of my old friend’s words. Because what I saw, maybe half a mile ahead, glowing in the sunlight not yet eaten by the storm clouds, was a singular rock that stood tall above all the others and that, to those who were spiritually inclined, might resemble the blazing figure of a robed Jesus.
“Find what you’re looking for?”
The voice at my back was as startling as a clap of thunder, and I jerked in response. I’d been so intent on the ground and then on the scene in front of me that I’d paid no attention to what might be coming at me from behind. I turned and faced the four men who’d trailed me.
“Agent Sprangers. And it’s Vega, right?” I said to the hulking man beside him. I glanced at the other two and waited for them to identify themselves, but they were mute.
“Just out for a stroll?” I asked.
Sprangers looked up at the sky. “All hell’s about to break loose, O’Connor.”
“In the middle of summer. Go figure,” I said.
“You don’t know about the monsoons?” Vega said. He was sweating bullets, the underarms of the khaki shirt he wore dark and wet.
A crooked finger of lightning hit the mountains
uncomfortably close to us and the thunder that followed was deafening.
“They always come this time of year,” Sprangers said when the din had died away. “We should find some shelter and have a talk.”
The shelter we settled on was a narrow overhang of rock facing west. From our precarious little perch, I could see the desert below stretching toward the next range of mountains miles and miles distant. The land turned dark as the clouds gobbled up the last blue of the late afternoon sky. No sooner had we pressed ourselves beneath the little eave of rock than, as Sprangers had predicted, all hell broke loose.
I’ve been in my share of storms, but what rushed at us down the western slope of the Santa Margarita Mountains was truly amazing. The lightning became almost constant. Like a violent hand, thunder shook the rock at our backs and the ground beneath our feet. In the sky, a battle between gods seemed to rage, the charcoal-colored clouds lit from within by great explosions of white light. The rain came in sheets, and the sheets were pushed nearly horizontal by the wind. A waterfall gushed over the eave just above our heads, and we pressed ourselves against the rock. Below us, a thousand liquid snakes invaded the desert. If Sprangers and his cohorts had hoped to question me, the storm put their intentions on hold for nearly an hour.
The battle of the gods moved southwest and the rain let up gradually. The waterfall eased to a trickle, and we stepped into the open.
“Quite a coincidence, running into you guys out here,” I said.
“Where were you headed?” Sprangers asked.
“Headed? Nowhere. I heard the Santa Margaritas were a lovely area to hike. Gotta tell you, I haven’t been disappointed.”
“I’ve been doing a good deal of digging in the last day or so, O’Connor,” Sprangers said. “I’ve found some interesting things. Your son, Peter Bisonette, for example.”
“Not my son,” I said. It came out harsher than I’d meant. “My wife’s son.”
“Exactly,” Sprangers said. “His birth certificate lists his last name as Mondragón, not Bisonette. His father’s name on the certificate is Gilbert Mondragón.”
Sulfur Springs Page 18