GALVAN FOUND HIS way back from the beach by sunup and was promptly caught reentering the barn by Louis’s eldest boy, Manuel.
Take out a hotel full of heavily armed goons? No problem.
Sneak into a barn? Epic fail.
The fact that he was covered in sweat and blood—the former his own, the latter mostly not—didn’t make Galvan’s presence any easier to explain. The kid was eighteen or twenty, short and stocky like his old man but with hard, beady eyes, where Louis’s were gentle and wise. It took him all of three seconds to figure out who Galvan was.
Jess could see him sizing up the situation. He was up early to milk the cows, sure—but he still smelled like last night’s beer, still had on last night’s clothes, and it was a good bet that his head still buzzed with last night’s gossip.
Galvan had a pretty good idea what that was.
New monster in town, yadda yadda yadda.
He was in no mood for finesse, so Galvan cut right to the chase. It would be the last thing the kid expected, and maybe it would throw him off his game, hit the reset button on whatever scheme he was hatching.
“So how much is the price on my head? ’Cause you’re looking at me with dollar signs in your eyes, Manuel.”
Quaking in his boots wasn’t just a metaphor after all. This kid was actually doing it. Looked as if he were experiencing his own highly localized earthquake.
“I’m just asking, Manuel. You ain’t gotta be scared. No harm, no foul.”
The earthquake gave way to aftershocks. “Ten thousand from Sinaloa,” the farmer’s son managed. “And twenty-five from Azteca.”
Galvan squinted in appraisal. “Huh. Seems kinda low. If I was you, I’d wait a few days. The way I’m going, I’m a lock to get it up to fifty by the weekend.”
Manuel was having trouble getting the words out. “I-I-I . . .”
“Relax, kid. I’m pretty sure you know better. Now. Tell me what I can do to help around here. You need some hay baled or some shit like that? I like to keep busy.”
“I see you two have met.”
It was Louis, walking across the field with a steaming mug in each hand. Even in broad daylight, the dude was a fucking master of stealth.
He handed one to Galvan, looked him up and down.
“Interesting night?”
Jess shrugged and took a sip of the strong, rich brew. “Pretty quiet. Just, you know, took a stroll around town, made a few new friends.”
“More than a few, the way I heard it,” Louis replied, over the lip of his raised mug. Galvan must have looked surprised, because the farmer added, “It’s a small town. Word travels fast.” He slurped his coffee, lowered the mug to waist height. “Couldn’t wait, huh?”
Galvan shrugged. “Just kind of happened.”
The blend of affection, bemusement, and disappointment with which Louis regarded him made Galvan feel like nothing so much as the man’s son. It was wholly unexpected, strangely comforting.
Cucuy had a different interpretation.
The rush of sentimentality you feel is the last of your humanity, ebbing out of you like blood from a wound. You are to be reborn in blood, Jess Galvan. The course is set. That you believe you are resisting only makes you more mine.
Not until he opened his eyes and found Louis staring at him with concern did Galvan realize he had squeezed them shut.
“Are you feeling all right?” the farmer asked. “You disappeared for a second, there.”
Galvan shook his head clear. “Yeah, no, I get these headaches sometimes. They come on real suddenly.”
“I see,” the farmer said, his tone shading toward resignation. “Well, there’s no point in hiding you out here anymore. You might as well come inside and have some breakfast. Meet the rest of the family.”
“I could eat,” Galvan agreed and followed him toward the house.
The smell of bacon filled the kitchen. Louis introduced his wife, Concepción; she turned from the stove to greet him and her smile lit up the room. Something about the woman reminded Galvan uncannily of his own abuela: the mirth in her delicately wrinkle-filigreed cheeks, the way she’d doted on him as a child. A moment later two more boys, Alberto and Carlos, stumbled down the stairs, half asleep. Their eyes widened at the sight of Galvan, but they were gracious, welcoming, their father’s sons.
Louis put a hand on Galvan’s shoulder, steered him to the bathroom, handed him a towel and a bar of soap. Galvan took a thorough rock-and-roll shower, face and arms, pits and hands, and when he opened the door he found a clean white T-shirt dangling from a hanger. He pulled it on and found to his surprise that it fit, which probably meant the boys’ preferences ran toward oversized and baggy.
He ambled back to the kitchen, found the family seated around a table laden with eggs, bacon, fresh milk, cereal. They’d waited for him, and now, as he sat down, they joined hands and bowed their heads. Galvan found himself holding Concepción’s dry, smooth palm in his left hand, delicate as a baby bird, and sixteen-year-old Alberto’s farm-calloused mitt in his right.
“We thank you for the bounty of your grace, Lord. And for the help you have sent us, in our time of trouble. We ask that you protect him and allow him to serve your justice upon the wicked. Amen.”
“Amen,” the family chorused. Galvan tried to eat, found he had to force the food past a lump in his throat. When the meal was over, he followed Louis and the boys into the fields, waited until the kids had embarked on their tasks, then buttonholed the old man.
“Look, I’m no avenging angel, Louis. I’m not heaven-sent.”
He smiled. “You don’t have to know you are sent by heaven to be sent by heaven. You are his instrument, Jess, whether you know it or not.”
You are his instrument, Cucuy repeated, with a brittle cackle.
“It’s a nice thought, Louis, but—”
The farmer reached up, took Galvan by the shoulders. “My father was a healer, Jess. A brujo. I see things in people. Maybe that sounds crazy to you.”
“No, it—”
The farmer shook him off. “And you—you have a good soul. I see your struggle. The conflict in you. But, Jess”—Louis tightened his grip on Galvan’s shoulders—“you will triumph. It is your destiny.”
Galvan had no words. Louis didn’t seem willing to release his grip until he said something. And so they just stood there, an unbroken circuit of belief and dismay, until Manuel trudged over.
Louis read the look on his son’s face and turned. “What? What is it?”
“There’s a man here,” he said, voice low and inflectionless. “For him.”
With a speed Galvan wouldn’t have guessed the old man had in him, Louis grabbed the boy by the wrist.
“What have you done?” he hissed.
Manuel tried to jerk his arm free, but he could not.
“Nothing! He just— He knew. He’s by himself. Says he wants to talk.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Louis applied more pressure. “Who did you call?”
Manuel winced, but he wouldn’t give.
“I’m not! No one!”
“It’s okay,” said Galvan. “I’ll go find out what he has to say.” He patted Louis on the back. Reluctantly, the farmer released his son’s arm. Manuel folded it to his chest like a broken wing, rubbed at the reddened wrist.
“He’s at the front door,” the kid mumbled and started to lead the way.
“I’ll go alone,” Galvan said and broke into a jog. He figured he’d flank the visitor—check out his vehicle, make sure he was really solo, then decide whether to speak with his mouth or his hands.
The car was unassuming, a mud-spattered Ford compact that had once been white. No sign of anybody lurking, no whiff of a trap. Just a lanky young dude standing before the closed front door, hands in the pockets of his jeans, close-shorn head bent toward the ground.
“Looking for me?” Galvan barked, striding toward him.
The guy spun, and Galvan stopped short.
“You gotta
be fuckin’ kidding me.”
It was Bosco. He raised his hands, showing Galvan they were empty, then lifted his oversized T-shirt high enough to reveal a strip of belly, and the lack of a weapon on his waistline.
Galvan crossed his arms over his chest. “Really. They sent you. Over here. To talk to me.”
Bosco shrugged and shoved his hands back in his pockets. “It was either me or twenty guys with guns.”
“How’d you find me?”
Bosco pawed at the ground with a sneaker.
“I followed you back last night.”
“The hell you did. I would have noticed.”
“Guess you didn’t, though.”
Galvan came closer, got in Bosco’s face.
“I should choke you to death right now for lying to me. You cost thirty men their lives, you know that?”
Another shrug. He was a cool customer. You had to give Bosco that.
“Better theirs than ours.”
He blinked and fixed Galvan with a pair of eyes as cool and calm as dawn lakes. “Besides, it don’t make no difference to you, does it? You just wanna kill, ain’t that right?”
Galvan’s fingers twitched with violence.
“What I want is all you miserable bastards out of this town,” he said in a low growl.
Either Bosco had a death wish, or his heart pumped ice.
“That’s not gonna happen,” he replied. “If you want peace in Rosales, one side or the other has gotta win. That’s why I’m here.”
He took a step back and pulled a manicured, banded brick of fifty-dollar bills from his back pocket.
“My boss, he wanted to put a price on your head. I said fuck that, he’s more valuable to us alive than dead.” Bosco waved the money. “This is twenty-five grand. You already earned it, when you put in that work last night. Once we win this war, you’ll get a hundred more. A hundred. How’s that sound?”
The kid grinned. Maybe he wasn’t so cool after all, Galvan mused. Perhaps he simply lived in a world where saying no to that kind of money was unthinkable, and the possibility that Galvan might refuse, emphatically, had simply not occurred to him.
He plucked the wad from Bosco’s hand. “I’ll take this as a down payment on all the damage you’ve already done. But I’m not for sale.”
He turned on his heel and started to walk away. For show, mostly. He knew he wouldn’t get far.
Sure enough: “What about your friends here?” Bosco called, and Galvan spun back.
“What about them?” he growled.
Just give me one reason. One fucking word.
And for the second time in twenty-four hours, Galvan couldn’t tell whose thought it was.
Cucuy didn’t really curse, though.
Guess that makes it mine.
Bosco shifted from foot to foot. “I’m saying, carnal. We know where you live now. My boys are already—”
He never finished the threat. Galvan’s arm shot out, and his hand clamped around the base of Bosco’s neck. A moment later, the kid was aloft, legs kicking wildly, face turning red, purple, finally blue.
CHAPTER 24
Galvan released his grip, and Bosco dropped like a sack of rice.
He turned and found Louis and Manuel standing a pace away, eyes darting between Galvan and the corpse.
“Get Concepción and the kids, pack up what you need, and go someplace else,” Galvan told them, walking over. “It’s not safe here.” He stopped before the farmer and added, “I’m sorry.”
Louis shook his head. “This is my home. I’m not going anywhere.”
Galvan studied him, found nothing in Louis’s face that suggested he was to be swayed.
“Me neither,” Manuel said, puffing up his chest. “I can fight.”
“No, Manuel.” Louis put a hand on his shoulder. “I need you to look after your mother and your brothers. Take them to the basement. Lock yourselves in.”
“But—”
Louis cut off his objection. “He was from Sinaloa?” he asked, pointing at Bosco.
“Yeah. Thought he could buy me off.”
“They will come,” the farmer said quietly, and Galvan could see the gears turning. “They may be on their way already.”
“So I’ll take the fight to them,” Galvan said. “Where can I find the cocksuckers?”
But the farmer had already made up his mind. “It is too late. Manuel!” he called. “Bring me my rifle. And all the ammunition you can find.” He paused a moment, sighed, and called again. “And your own, if you are sure.”
Manuel nodded and broke into a sprint.
“Louis . . .” Galvan could barely speak. “It’s . . . You don’t have to . . .”
The old man shook his head. “Even an avenging angel needs a little cover fire.” He pointed to a small triangular window, set at the highest point of the barn’s peaked frame. “I’ll be up there.”
THE SINALOANS TOOK their time, and with each anticipatory minute that ticked by, Galvan hated himself more. He should have forced Louis to evacuate, instead of watching as he and Manuel made a sniper’s nest of their hayloft, standing idly by as Concepción herded the younger boys into the unfinished, dirt-floored basement. They could have been hours away by now, whizzing toward safety in that dirty Ford.
He should have surprised Sinaloa in their lair, like he had Azteca. Mowed them down and given Rosales a breather, a respite from death and terror.
Inasmuch as killing everybody could be considered a respite from death and terror, anyway.
Instead, he sat on the hood of Bosco’s car, watching fat flies browse the kid’s body and trying to ignore the mounting giddiness that coursed through him despite everything he had to feel terrible about—the danger he’d brought to his friend’s doorstep, the imminent arrival of a convoy of armed murderers, the fundamental unsustainability of constant war as a strategy for psychic survival.
Sure was quiet, though. Outside and in.
Galvan felt himself drift, internal and external chaos canceling each other out, and a kind of equilibrium moved in to fill the void.
The sensation was delicious. He’d forgotten what a moment of peace felt like.
“Incoming!” Manuel hissed from his perch, and Galvan snapped out of it.
A line of armored Jeeps approached on the main road, across the field. Galvan tracked their progress until they disappeared around the bend, and braced himself for attack. If it was Sinaloa, they’d shoulder off the highway and onto the dirt road that led to Louis’s front door.
The front door that led to Louis’s family.
Galvan jumped down from the car and sprinted toward the road on the dead run.
If the men in the convoy’s lead vehicle saw the blur speeding toward them from the driver’s side, they didn’t have time to react. Galvan, on the other hand, had a full seven seconds to wonder if he was overestimating his own strength, thinking he could knock a goddamn military Jeep doing twenty-five an hour on its ass merely by throwing himself at it. More than likely, he’d bounce right off. Or throw it into an easily corrected fishtail and shatter a shoulder in the bargain.
The speculation was inconclusive.
Some shit, you just had to learn by doing.
So fuck it.
He kicked it into the highest gear he had, built up a head of steam, and cut a path straight at his chosen point of convergence, a few yards past the turnoff. They’d have to slow down to accommodate the curve, which was a good thing impact-wise, though bad in terms of the follow cars’ increased ability to brake and swerve, avoid a pileup.
Oh well. It was a start, anyway.
And his timing was perfect.
Galvan was in midair and still unseen when he noticed that the dude driving the lead Jeep preferred the gentle caress of a summer breeze to the security afforded by bulletproof, shatter-resistant Plexiglas.
So there was that.
He slammed against the side of the car, feet finding purchase on the running board, yanked the driver towar
d him with one hand, and knocked him the fuck out with the other.
That got their attention.
The body slumped over the wheel, and the dude in the passenger seat pulled a gun, trained it at Galvan. Mighta said some shit, too, “don’t move” or the like, but the cacophony was deafening, the other six or seven dudes crammed into the back all screaming threats and instructions of their own, and it was indistinct.
In any case, dude would have been better off grabbing the wheel.
Galvan got there first, fisted it hard right, two and a half rotations, and the Jeep spun a hundred and eighty degrees, tires protesting, front seat gunslinger thrown hard against his door, unconscious driver’s foot now heavy on the gas, the speed ratcheted from twenty-five to a double nickel. They were barreling straight at the vehicle in front of them now, the reversal too sudden for the driver to evade and no place for him to go anyway.
The Jeeps smashed into each other, head-on, grille meeting grille with a sound Galvan found deeply satisfying. He leaped to the ground, watched his front seat gunman and the other vehicle’s driver and front passenger fly forward in a synchronized ballet of pain and smash into their respective windshields, leaving three matching smears of blood.
That’s why you should always wear your seat belt, boys.
The last Jeep skidded to a halt, inches from the accident, and Galvan raced toward it. He figured the most immediate threat was from the dudes who didn’t have to shake off the impact. In a second they’d have the doors jacked open and pour out from both sides, locked and loaded. They’d have the Jeep to use for cover. It would be a shit show.
The answer to most of life’s problems, Galvan realized in that instant, involved flipping large vehicles upside down. He reached the Jeep just as the rear driver’s-side door opened, and the first guy began to clamber out. Galvan threw his body hard against it, jammed the guy between the door and the jamb, and pressed for all he was worth until he heard a ragged cry of agony, the sharp snap of small bones. A hand, probably. The gun, an M16, dropped from the man’s grip and got tangled up in his legs.
Galvan bent, pressed the flats of his palms to the Jeep’s undercarriage, and strained against the weight. Every muscle in his body was on fire. The tendons of his neck bulged and throbbed; the veins of his arms engorged with blood, wriggled beneath the skin like snakes. His thighs trembled like leaves in the wind.
The Devil's Bag Man Page 16