“If we turn him over to Sprangers and Carlson, it won’t take much for them to break him,” I said. “He’ll tell them everything about the shootings at the El Dorado.”
“You sound like that’s not a good thing,” Rainy said.
“It means Sylvester gets dragged into things officially. You never know about the legal system. Even when you think you’ve got a slam dunk, it can be unpredictable.”
“Whatever they charge his son with, Rodriguez will buy his freedom, querida,” Mondragón said. “The jury, the judge, the prosecuting attorney, someone will have their price and Rodriguez will pay it. And Sylvester and your precious Cork are the only witnesses. Carlos Rodriguez would never let them live to testify. He’s crude and cruel. I can guarantee they wouldn’t die quickly. Or alone. I don’t really care about Cork, but you, Rainy, I would worry about greatly. And you,” he said to Peter.
“If we return Joaquin to his father, he can explain things,” Peter said. “Once Carlos Rodriguez knows the whole truth, he might see things differently.”
“Maybe.” Mondragón glanced toward the ranch house. “I trust Joaquin like I would trust a scorpion. Me, I’d just kill him, leave his body in the desert for the vultures, then I would kill Carlos Rodriguez and his whole family.”
“We’re not going to do that,” Rainy said.
He gave a simple nod in acquiescence. “I can guarantee that no matter what his simpering son says, if Carlos Rodriguez wants revenge, Carlos Rodriguez will seek revenge. And he won’t stop until we’re all dead. Or he is.”
Rainy said, “I think we should turn Joaquin over to the authorities, let them deal with him and with Carlos Rodriguez.”
I looked at Mondragón and he looked at me, and I could tell that a rarity had occurred. We were in agreement.
“That creates more problems than it solves, Rainy,” I said. “Things could get really mucked up, legally. A good defense lawyer might be able to twist everything around to make us the bad guys. And, who knows, maybe Gilberto is right. A judge or jury or prosecuting attorney could be bought.”
“You certainly have great faith in the legal system,” she said.
“This is Coronado County,” I reminded her. “I have no faith in how anything operates here.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“If I were a different man, I’d agree with Gilberto, that Joaquin and the whole Rodriguez family end up vulture food.”
“Gracias,” Mondragón said.
“But all things considered, I think the best course is to return Joaquin to his father, as we’d initially planned. We take the chance that it will end our involvement in this whole affair. We go back home and put Coronado County behind us forever.”
Mondragón said, “There are problems with this, but fewer than with our other options. Who knows? Maybe there is a little something human even in Carlos Rodriguez, and returning his son to him will appeal to that. After all, Peter didn’t kill Miguel and he will have helped Joaquin return home.”
“All right,” Rainy finally said but clearly not with a full heart.
Peter nodded his agreement.
“Jocko?” I said. “You’re the one who’s got to live here, a stone’s throw from the border and Las Calaveras. What do you say?”
He considered, then replied, “I say live and let live whenever possible. But always sleep with a rifle handy.”
“Let’s go deliver the verdict,” I said.
When we told Joaquin Rodriguez our decision, he didn’t thank us. He said, as if we’d finally come to our senses, “A wise choice.”
Mondragón bent to him, put his face inches from the young man’s, and spoke quietly in Spanish in a voice as threatening and venomous as I’d ever heard a man speak. At the end, he said, “Lo entiendes, cabrón?”
I could see Joaquin Rodriguez struggle to maintain his composure, but his eyes, which had become huge, white pools of abject fear, gave him away. He managed a nod.
“I will drive you to Nogales,” Mondragón said, speaking in English for my benefit, I figured. “Your father’s people can pick you up there.”
“Gracias,” the young man said softly.
Mondragón turned to Rainy. “Will you be here when I return? I would like a few moments alone with you before we say good-bye.”
“I’ll wait,” Rainy promised.
“And you?” he said to Peter.
“I’m taking Jocko to the hospital, but I’ll come back.”
We helped Joaquin Rodriguez, still bound with duct tape and making pained noises whenever we jarred his injured arm, into the SUV. Mondragón kissed Rainy, “Hasta luego, querida. You will always be the love of my life.”
It was the kind of thing a player might say to any woman. But I knew Rainy, and she wasn’t just any woman.
Mondragón gave his son an embrace, then he turned to me. “I don’t like you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I assured him.
“But I believe my wife and my son are safe in your keeping. Thank you.”
He reached out, and I took his hand. Then he got into the SUV and drove off toward Nogales.
Peter sat beside Jocko on the porch steps. “Well, partner, you ready to have the doctors look you over?”
“They already did. Not excited about going back.”
“I’d feel better if they monitored you a little longer. And if I take you back, we can check on Frank. I know we’re both worried about him. I’m sure he’d be grateful to see a couple of familiar faces.”
That seemed to convince him, and Jocko rose slowly. He stood before Rainy and me, pulled himself up straight and tall. “Been a pleasure to ride with you, Cork. And, Rainy, I can honestly say, I’ve never met a finer woman.”
She hugged him and kissed his cheek, and I shook his hand.
“You okay to drive with that leg of yours?” I asked Peter.
“Pain sometimes cleanses the spirit,” he said and grinned at his mother. “I’ll be fine.”
Rainy said, “There’s something I want to give you, Peter.”
She stepped inside the ranch house and came out with a photograph, which she handed to her son.
Peter stared at the picture a long time, and I couldn’t read his face. Then he shook his head. “The ones you don’t save, their faces stay with you forever.”
He put the photo in the pocket of his shirt, kissed his mother, got into the Jeep with Jocko, and they headed up the dirt lane.
I sat on the porch steps, finally alone with Rainy. I put my arm around her and drew her to me. She laid her head on my shoulder, and together we watched the sun drop below the Coronados. The sky was clear and pale blue, with no sign left of the storm that had earlier battered the land. The air smelled fresh and clean, and although there was not a hint of evergreen, which was the perfume of the North Country, I still felt the kind of peace I might have felt if I were home. Because I was with Rainy. And wherever Rainy was, that was home to me now.
EPILOGUE
* * *
Arizona was a dangerous place for Peter, so he came home with us. But not for long.
All our children rendezvoused in Aurora after our return. Stephen came back from driving cattle in Texas and Annie came from San Francisco. Around the kitchen table, with chocolate chip cookies and milk, as was our habit, we told our stories. Annie seemed particularly taken with Peter and his commitment to helping the refugees, who’d come so far seeking only a place they hoped might offer something better than the violence and poverty they’d left behind. She was impressed to hear that he could make himself understood in many of the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica. She shared with him her own experience working with the poor in Central America, when she’d been considering taking vows with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Over the next several days, they talked intently. Rainy led them both in sweats. Henry Meloux listened and offered his well-considered two cents. And in early August, Peter and my younger daughter left together for Guatemala, where Annie still had
friends working among the poor.
Life in Aurora returned to normal, blessed normal. Fall came, and the leaves turned, the colors so beautiful there were times my heart ached, it was so full of gratitude.
We learned about what happened in Mexico almost by accident, from a story buried in the Saturday edition of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which I nearly missed because I wanted to get to the sports section. The article reported that there had been a massacre at the compound of the man who headed the cartel known as Las Calaveras. Carlos Rodriguez, his son Joaquin, his wife, Carmela, and several other family members were among those killed. Authorities in the United States believed it was simply part of the brutal struggle between cartels for control of territory. Rainy and I believed otherwise. The next day at St. Agnes, we both said prayers for the dead.
In news reports, we watched the wall along the Mexican border expand, the folly of a belief that what we had to fear came from the outside. I thought often about the Guatemalan women and their children. I prayed that they’d found the sanctuary they’d come so far seeking and for which they’d risked everything. I thought about little Juan, and I hoped that someday he would pitch for the Dodgers.
Winter came and winter passed. And in April, on the first anniversary of our marriage, I presented Rainy with a gift I’d made myself. It was a frame constructed of yellow birch, which I’d sanded and varnished and fashioned. Inside the frame, on velum parchment, I’d put the Pueblo prayer my wife had long ago taught me and that had sustained me during my periods of doubt in Coronado County. Rainy loved it, and she hung it above our bed. Some nights when life has seemed particularly difficult, we say the prayer together and it gives us comfort:
Across the dark night, we are not afraid.
Our love is the star that guides us.
Through the empty desert, we do not thirst.
Our love is the water that refreshes.
On the long journey, we do not weary.
Our love is the truth that offers strength.
As the mountains rise before us, we are not discouraged.
Our love is the hope that waits on the other side.
When we are together, let us hold hands.
Our love is the promise that is never broken.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER is the award-winning author of fifteen previous Cork O’Connor novels, including Manitou Canyon and Tamarack County, as well as the novel Ordinary Grace, winner of the 2014 Edgar Award for Best Novel. All are available from Atria Books. He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. Visit his website at WilliamKentKrueger.com.
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Thunder Bay
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Red Knife
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Heaven's Keep
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Vermilion Drift
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Northwest Angle
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Manitou Canyon
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Tamarack County
Ordinary Grace
Trickster’s Point
Northwest Angle
Vermilion Drift
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Thunder Bay
Copper River
Mercy Falls
Blood Hollow
The Devil’s Bed
Purgatory Ridge
Boundary Waters
Iron Lake
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by William Kent Krueger
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Krueger, William Kent, author.
Title: Sulfur Springs / William Kent Krueger.
Description: First Atria Books hardcover edition. | New York : Atria Books, 2017. | Series: Cork O’Connor mystery series ; 17
Identifiers: LCCN 2017018005| ISBN 9781501147340 (hardcover) | ISBN
9781501147449 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: O’Connor, Cork (Fictitious character)--Fiction. | Missing
persons--Investigation--Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective /
General. | FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / General. | GSAFD: Mystery
fiction. | Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3561.R766 S85 2017 | DDC 813/.54--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017018005
ISBN 978-1-5011-4734-0
ISBN 978-1-5011-4744-9 (ebook)
Sulfur Springs Page 30