by Johnny Shaw
“What about him? You?”
“I got it. Go,” I said.
Buck Buck and Snout took off toward the hole in the fence. Juan looked confused, but stayed silent. Buck Buck made fart noises into Juan’s ear until he started laughing. It took them less than a minute to be completely out of sight.
“You should go too,” I said to Bobby.
“The fuck,” he said, ending the debate.
Bobby pulled Alejandro’s hands behind his back, running a zip tie around his wrists. I took off my boot, pulled off my sock, and shoved the sweat-soaked sock into Alejandro’s mouth.
By the time we hefted Alejandro to his feet, I could hear the sound of the quad in the distance. Alejandro struggled and threw elbows, but three short punches to his ribs pacified him.
Voices rose in the distance. I closed the door of the double-wide. Bobby and I dragged Alejandro around to the back, out of sight. We threw Alejandro to the ground. I sat on his hamstrings, holding his ankles down with both hands. Bobby sat on his lower back, his back to mine, one hand pushing Alejandro’s face in the dirt, the other lifting his arms to the point of pain. The voices of the guards grew louder as they approached.
“Knew something like that would happen. I been telling Bub. When we got Colombians, we got to keep them apart. Motherfuckers are serial-killer crazy,” one guard said. “Not like there was a clear winner. What a mess. Wonder what the fuck started it.”
“You hear engines? Like bikes or quads? Out that way.”
“Fucking cares? Unless they ride in here, let them have their fun. Too hot to ride in the day—probably just a couple jackasses getting stupid.”
“They might have heard the shots.”
“You ever been on a quad? Can’t hear shit above the motor.”
“What the fuck we going to do now?”
“Grab the fucking mops and buckets like Bub told us to.”
With the sound of the office door opening, Bobby gave me an elbow to the back. After a moment the voices returned.
“You take the mops and that cleaning shit. I got to find some rubber gloves. I ain’t going near none of that blood. Who knows what disease those fuckers carrying?”
“Where you think the Mex with the kid went? They was just here.”
“Who the fuck cares? He paid up front.”
Alejandro started to kick with his legs, but I had him pinned. Bobby pushed his face harder into the rocky ground. He stopped struggling.
“Found ’em,” the guard exclaimed. And we listened to them talking bullshit as their voices receded and they returned to the warehouse.
Bobby and I rose. Alejandro squirmed like a fish on a ditch bank.
I took a look around the side of the double-wide. The guards were gone.
With a foot in each hand, Bobby and I dragged Alejandro facedown across the pavement and hardpack to the hole in the fence.
Bobby slipped through the chain-link and then grabbed both of Alejandro’s heels and roughly pulled him through. I followed and we dragged him to the cover of the tamarisk.
“Now you can take off,” I said to Bobby.
“What?”
“I can’t ask you to do this,” I said.
“You don’t even know what you’re going to do.”
He was right. I didn’t.
“Exactly why I should be here,” Bobby said. “I started this with you. Whatever happens, we’re doing it together. You can fuck yourself if you think different.”
It took some doing, but we got Alejandro on the back of the quad. Luckily he wasn’t a big man and comfort wasn’t a concern. With enough baling wire and duct tape, anything is possible. We treated him as cargo, laying him over the back above the rear axle. He would have to flex his neck slightly during the ride or his face would scrape against the tire.
I took the quad, Bobby took the bike, and we headed back toward the lot and Bobby’s Ranchero. We followed the stars, or at least tried to. I tried to attack the situation and figure out my next move. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get a fix on it.
At what I assumed to be the halfway point, I rode into a gulley and stopped the quad. After about fifty yards, Bobby turned and saw that I had stopped. He rode the dirt bike back to me and killed the engine. The silence of the desert was a sharp contrast to the Oasis and the bikes.
“You trying to ditch me?” he said.
“Wasn’t thinking about you. I’m just not sure what happens now,” I said.
“Slapdash, but not half-ass, brother.” Bobby tried a smile.
“The Veeder promise,” I said with little joy.
We undid all the tape and wire that held Alejandro in place. One cheek was black from where it had grazed the back tire. Bobby and I dragged him off the quad. I didn’t see any more need for the gag. There wasn’t a living thing within earshot that could hear us or give a shit. I took my sock out of his mouth. It was saturated pink.
On his knees with his hands still zip-tied behind his back, Alejandro looked up at me and Bobby. His face was scraped and bloody, sand sticking to the dark red wetness. The front of his shirt was shredded, revealing his abraded chest.
If it was anyone else, I would have felt sympathy. But Alejandro wasn’t the kind of guy who brought that out in a person.
“Motherfuckers. You’re dead, motherfuckers,” Alejandro spat, proving my point. I kicked him in the stomach. He bent over, heaving a mouthful of yellow liquid.
I leaned down. “That’s the best you can do? Threaten us? Fucking idiot, this isn’t a movie. There’s no one to impress out here. We’re going to talk.”
“Fuck you,” he countered. I kicked him in the stomach again.
I looked over to Bobby.
He shrugged. “You’re doing fine.”
I said, “We’re going to let you go. But I set the terms.”
Bobby gave me a look.
Alejandro spit on the ground and opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. That was a start.
I laid it out for him. “You can’t go back to Mexicali. You know that. Hell, you can’t stay anywhere near here with Tomás looking for you. That works for me because it looks like I’m staying down here. After tonight I don’t want to see you again. I’m taking the Imperial Valley. You can have anywhere else. The fucking whole rest of the world, for all I care.
“I’m trying to unfuck this situation. If Tomás wants, he’ll find you and kill you. Matter of time, you know it. Who knows how far his reach goes? I can tell him to let it go. He’ll listen to me. If he’s convinced you’re no longer a threat, he’ll listen. Right here, right now, one-time offer. I’m giving you an out. All I got to know is that this bullshit is over.”
Alejandro rolled his neck around, cracking it. “I can go?”
“Yeah.”
Alejandro turned to Bobby. “Like that? I walk out this desert, soy libre.”
“Whatever Jimmy says.” Bobby nodded.
“Where the fuck I’m going to go?” Alejandro spat.
“You were heading to LA,” I said. “Go there.”
“You get that from Rocio? Tomás get him to talk? Gave me up,” Alejandro said with a hint of regret.
“It’s not like you got options. You see where we’re at, right? What’s out there? Tomás wants you dead.”
“Fuck that pocho cabrón.”
“Don’t start that shit again. Easy solution. Go to LA.”
“What I’m going to do there? Wash dishes in a pinche taqueria? Rather you fucking shoot me. I ain’t starting over. All the money I had is gone. I ain’t got shit. Used it all with them fucking Oasis pendejos.”
“That’s why you grabbed Juan? For money? You grab a fucking kid?”
“You do what you do. Shit, give you credit. Didn’t even give me a chance to call you. Hadn’t figured the ransom shit and all that, but here I fucking am. Fucked in the fucking desert. You got over on me.”
“What made you think I had money?” I said.
Alejandro shrugged.
“You’re white, ain’t you?”
“You aren’t dumb. Might act it, but you got a better reason.”
Alejandro smiled at me. “I know fucking farmers. Farmers hate taxes. Always got cash. Need cash to pay illegals, so you make a couple of hay deals maybe. Keep as much shit off the books you can.
“That puta got money off you. Don’t know if she blackmailed you, if she stole it, whatever. She got your money. She got it, I can get it. Anyone got eight grand cash sitting around, they got to got more.”
I froze.
“Jimmy?” Bobby asked.
I held my hand straight out to Bobby without looking at him. My body was stock-still. I lowered my hand, walked to the quad, and got my shotgun. I broke it open and checked both barrels.
Alejandro smiled at me. “She worked you. A fucking puta.”
“And you’re a fucking punk,” I said and hit him in the face with the stock of my shotgun. He landed on his side in the sand, his shoulder audibly dislocating. He yelled in pain. I put the barrel of the shotgun to his head.
I turned to Bobby. “He killed Yolanda.”
“Do it,” Bobby said.
Alejandro mumbled at my feet, and then he started laughing. I kept the barrel of the shotgun a few inches from his head.
“Something funny, asshole?” I said to him.
“I didn’t have to kill her. She would have given the money. I could’ve just took it. Didn’t even need the money really. I wasn’t even supposed to be there. Went to give Tomás a message. Saw her across the street.”
I interrupted him. “You think I give a shit about why you did it or what happened? I ain’t the police or some fucking detective. I don’t care why or how or any of that shit. All I care about is that you killed her. That she’s dead because of you.”
“You ain’t going to shoot me.” It was a statement.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
“I’ll wait by the bikes,” Bobby said, turning and walking through the thick sand.
“You can’t do it. Go with your friend. You ain’t hard enough to kill no one.”
I glanced over my shoulder, making sure that Bobby was out of earshot. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Something no one else knows.”
I took a breath, not sure if I was ready to say it aloud.
“I killed my father.”
I waited until his expression changed in acknowledgment that I wasn’t bullshitting.
“I killed my father. And I loved him.”
Alejandro said, “I should have…”
I pulled the trigger.
I didn’t push the quad driving back through the dunes. Bobby drove the dirt bike at my side, maintaining whatever pace I chose. When I slowed, he slowed. When I sped up, he sped up. Bobby stuck by my side, no matter what.
Driving slowly along the crest of a dune and staring out at the starlit inclines of sand, I tried to convince myself that I was on another planet. A planet of nothing but sand like the movies they shot out there. A different planet. Because on earth, I had killed two men. I had traveled all over the world, but it wasn’t until I came home that men died by my hands.
It took me a minute to get Pop’s face into my mind. It’s amazing how quickly something that familiar fades. Luckily the image that came to mind wasn’t the drawn features of his disease, but the laughing countenance of Big Jack. The Big Laugh. It made me smile. What had he said? You can’t save a man’s life. You can only postpone his death. Or hurry it along.
Then the thought of Yolanda rushed in there. Unfortunately, it was the sight of her at the bottom of the cistern. Alejandro had taken her life far too early. For nothing. For no reason. For that alone, I felt little guilt for what I had just done. He had destroyed a life, and that impact was going to carry down to Juan. I took from him what he took from her. It was simple.
And now I was going to try to undo some of the damage by looking after Juan. It wasn’t a matter of responsibility. I had no problem shirking those. It wasn’t out of duty. It was Pop’s mistake, not mine. It was simply that I could do a tiny bit of good. If I made the effort, Juan could have a chance. A life. He could have opportunity. For all the shit that went down, he deserved at least that. I couldn’t save the world, because I didn’t give a shit about the world. I gave a shit about a handful of people, and Juan was now one of them.
In the distance a flat surface exposed itself in the starlight. Something angular and out of place in the sand. There weren’t supposed to be corners in the dunes. I squinted at the shape, trying to make it out.
I turned to Bobby and said, “Does that look like a fort to you?”
But he couldn’t hear me over the sound of the engines, pointing a finger at his ear. When I turned back, I could no longer find the shape in the sand. Just as well. Some things were meant to be buried.
Like a good friend, the desert keeps its secrets.
The aroma of wet grass filled the air. The alfalfa smelled sweet and good.
I walked the row the full half mile, looking out at the expanse of three-inch-high grass. The growth looked even with no thin spots. It still had some time before the next mow, but I was doing my best to be attentive to my new vocation. Still getting my farming legs beneath me, I found that I could be incredibly protective of my crops. I doted on them when all they needed was time to grow. I wasn’t comfortable calling myself a farmer yet, but I was doing the work and I could see myself doing it for a while.
It was the first day under ninety degrees since I’d been back. The Imperial Valley had skipped fall and made a dash right to winter. The hot, muggy, and buggy days had passed. Finally the desert climate shifted to the kind of weather that brings the snowbirds down from up north.
Walking the field, smelling the hay, and feeling the sun, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. It was a strange feeling. I wanted to be there. I wanted to see this all through.
I walked back slowly to my truck. My piece-of-shit Mazda. The one I had been forced to abandon in Mexicali. In a frightening display of his reach, Tomás had retrieved my truck from a Mexicali chop shop’s maw. When I saw it parked in my drive, it sent chills through my body. The stock gearshift knob had been removed and replaced with a scorpion in clear resin and there was a small statue of the Virgin Mary glued to the dash, but that was the only evidence of its absence.
I took my time and picked up the occasional rock that had no place on the beautiful dark soil of my farmland. I placed the stones in the front pocket of my jeans. I’d give them to Juan when I got home. Currently rocks were his favorite toy. For all the brightly colored plastic shit I bought him, a few scraps of wood, a cardboard box, and a pile of rocks was all he needed to entertain himself for hours. Simple tastes. Like me. Like his father.
That’s what I called myself. His father. Not just on paper or for simplicity’s sake, but that’s the role that I was trying to fill. I was trying to be everything my father had been for me.
Tomás had helped me with all Juan’s paperwork. More official than the real thing, he had promised me. According to the birth certificate, Juan was born in the same Brawley hospital that I had been born in. I was listed as the father and Yolanda as the mother. Once we had the birth certificate, all the other paperwork fell into place. No one ever doubted it. After all, the kid looked like me.
I hadn’t found any of Yolanda’s relatives in Guadalajara yet, but I hadn’t given up looking. I was considering going down there and poking around. That was, if I could convince Bobby to join me on another misadventure.
Bobby and Griselda were still going strong. While she had to have guessed that something not quite legal had gone down, she never asked. Yolanda’s murder eventually went into the “Inactive Investigations” categorization. Officially unsolved to this day. At least, on paper.
I buried Yolanda next to Pop in what I had learned was a plot Pop had bought for me. It hadn’t been a practical purchase or a morbi
d one. It was the product of some kind of three-for-two deal that he had gotten when my mother died. Yolanda would forever be on one side of Pop, my mother on the other. I think he would have liked that. The two women that he loved. And although I didn’t really know either of them, I was convinced that they would have gotten along and liked it, too.
My cousin Mike got me up-to-date on the farm and the status of the crops. He helped a lot at first, but I was close to the point that I was pretty much on my own. Pretty much. With his help and Bobby, Buck Buck, and Snout, I almost had everything under control. It amazed me how much time my friends were willing to give. No matter the time or task, their usual response ended up being either a shrug or something along the lines of “You’d do the same for me.” In the city people bitched when you asked them to help you move. Out here a neighbor would help you shovel shit for eight hours without batting an eye and still pick up the tab when you went to dinner.
Angie had been staying at my house a lot lately. We were taking it slow, but quickly enough that we were having fun. She acted like it was to help me with Juan, but there was still something very strong between us. I’m not sure if our history made our relationship stronger, but it made both of us feel like we’d already made it through the tough part.
Nobody had asked or said a word about Juan. Maybe there was gossip floating around, but nothing had gotten back to me. I had shown back up, gotten myself a Mexican three-year-old, and nobody cared. Luckily, most people are so involved with their own lives that they couldn’t care less about mine. It didn’t matter, because once most people met Juan, they fell in love. He’s a funny little guy.
The biggest surprise was that I hadn’t thought once of leaving. That was a first, but there wasn’t another place that gave me the people or things I had in the Imperial Valley. It was home, and it was where I needed to be. I chose my responsibilities and loved every one of them. I don’t think I’d changed, because I don’t think people can. But I’d learned to enjoy what I thought I couldn’t.