Her grin faded. “No more tribe. All fat and stupid and frighted. You, me, we make new tribe. Go warpath, scare shits from everybody, ha!”
I said, “Well, first we’d better get the hell out of here, before they start calling up their boy and get no answer.”
She said, “Wait. You come to see Piedras Negras. Por favor, the little spyglass?” When I gave it to her, she peered through it for a moment. “Yes, look down there.”
She pointed. There was no village. There was only a clearing among the tumbled black blocks of stone, a small amphitheater, far below us to the south; and at first I thought I saw three fat men in formal black suits walking around it in an odd, drunken manner, which didn’t make sense. I put the liberated binoculars to my eyes. I had to give one ocular some spit and a swipe with my own handkerchief before I could focus. Then the magnified scene became clear, and I could see that the creatures waddling around the clearing weren’t men at all, but birds. Very large black birds with ugly red heads. They were pecking at some sprawling objects down there that seemed to have been pretty well picked over already.
“Let me introduce.” Antonia’s voice, from behind me, was expressionless. “A la izquierda, most left, is Señor Enriquei Serafin Ruiz. In back, far back, Señor Bernardo Bustamente, who try to run away but not enough fast. More a la derecha, right, and more closer, Señor Eloy Miera. And most right, Señor Santos Delgado, who seem to have lose the head, que lástima…”
27
I studied the distant scene thoughtfully through the liberated binoculars. Instinct told me that casual was the way to play it; the kid was watching me and, pretty tough herself, she wasn’t going to respect a man who got all upset about a few dead bodies.
I said, “Well, you can’t say Arturo isn’t a man of his word. He was paid to direct us to the current place of residence of those truck drivers; and there they are. I suppose that’s what Will Pierce and his Millie saw when they drove in there, although the bodies were fresher then.”
“Sí, much more fresher, much more zopilotes eating; more cuervos—crows. Very disgusting sight, I think. Horrible, yes? Big joke of Arturo. He say so-proud Yankee woman much histérico, much vomito, much fonny, much scream and sob. ‘Fuck your lousy guns,’ she scream, ‘get me out of this dreadful country.’”
So much for the theory that Pierce had found a clue here. All he’d found was a charnel yard that had turned his handsome, ambitious lady inside out—there would have been a solid black mass of scavengers on the bodies back then, ripping and tearing—and transformed her into a sick, frightened creature concerned only with home and safety. There’s a breed of civilized predator that can perpetrate all kinds of ruthless atrocities as long as there’s no blood involved; however, faced with true, gory, deadly ruthlessness, these dainty menaces, male or female, invariably react by losing their lunches and scrambling for the nearest exit.
It appeared that Arturo, whose humble abode Mrs. Charles had scorned, had followed the couple to see the result of his big joke and had undoubtedly found it most satisfying. Yielding to his lady’s panic, Will Pierce had renounced all hope of retrieving the lost arms—with the drivers as dead as Medina and unable to reveal the hiding place, it wasn’t much of a hope anyway. Knowing that they were probably under surveillance, he’d fled with her south to Mazatlán meaning to swing east through Durango and Torreón where they could pick up the main highway back north to El Paso and so complete the detour around the area in which the insurgentes operated. However, Mondragon had followed, and they hadn’t made it. Scratch one William Walter Pierce, elderly and susceptible and not excessively honest, and one Millicent Charles, whose stomach hadn’t been as strong as her ambition.
Antonia had some pertinent questions to answer, of course, but this wasn’t the time to ask them. Instead I asked, “Can you find me a spot from which I can study the whole mountainside? I want to see if there are any of this character’s friends stationed around here.”
“Yes, sure, you follow.”
Scrambling along behind her, I noted that she was pretty well loaded down with firearms now, having quietly appropriated the dead man’s revolver, which seemed fair enough, since I had his rifle. She found me a better vantage point with good cover near the top of the knoll. It let me survey most of the big bowl through which the molten lava had poured before spilling over into the valley below. I couldn’t locate the source of the flow; erosion had pretty well ground down these mountains, leaving no easily recognizable cones or craters. Well, I wasn’t hunting volcanos. But it was Antonia who spotted the next watcher, about a half mile along the slope, when he got careless with his binoculars.
“I’m afraid he’s a dark-faced local lad,” I said after making a careful study through the 7x50s. “And that bandido mustache. No open season. Find me a gringo, please.”
“Yes, I think Mexicano.” Antonia lowered the little telescope. “But if he hunt you, why you care?”
I said, ‘I’ve got a boss in Washington, sure; but locally I’m working for a gent with a certain amount of clout… influence. He can help me get away with a reasonable amount of rough stuff; and nobody on this side of the border is going to worry too much if a bunch of Yankee thugs, who’re probably here illegally, and who’re certainly carrying illegal arms, and undoubtedly engaged in illegal activities, go and get themselves quietly terminated. Too bad about them. As you say, qué lástima, what a crying shame. But we’ve got four Mexican corpses over there already. To be sure, they weren’t real solid citizens, and they died running guns for the revolution, but I’d better not crowd my luck, or the tolerance of my patrón, by giving him too much additional Mexican blood to wipe off the record. If that character over there was coming at me with hostile intentions—like the karate lady in the motel in Hermosillo—I wouldn’t hesitate to take him out; but as long as I can pick and choose I’ll keep on hunting the extranjeros and let the nativos go.” I glanced at her. “That must have been quite a massacre down there. I suppose I should have realized that Medina wasn’t going to trust those truck drivers to keep their traps shut after they’d helped him hide the arms, no matter what they promised and how much he paid them. Fine old custom. Hell, the legendary buccaneers of the Spanish Main always slaughtered the crews that helped them bury their treasure chests.”
There was a little pause; then Antonia said, “Jorge gorgeous man but not much smart. Trust anybody. Other peoples must think for him always. Sooch a beautiful baby, my Jorge.”
I was a little startled. I suppose I’d assumed right along that Jorge Medina, kind of a shadowy figure, had been a moderately clever operator who, even in death, had outsmarted his murderers by withholding from them the merchandise they wanted so badly, the weapons he’d acquired as agent for Will Pierce. But apparently I’d credited Señor Medina with more brains than he’d possessed.
I said, “So hiding the arms was your idea.”
She laughed shortly. “Hey, I sit in Jorge’s peekup when they talk. I look at tall sneaky político, so much handsome, so much stupid, so much ambitious, so much greedy. I think he now crying big tears inside because he must pay first-money to Jorge or there will be no weapons. I see he will never pay second-money like promise, not with other men to help him, no way, José. Take arms, laugh at my poor foolish Jorge. Maybe kill.” She shrugged. “I must protect, okay?”
I said, “As a matter of fact, Mondragon apparently never got his hands on the final payment, so he couldn’t have handed it over even if he’d wanted to.”
“No difference. Money, no money, take guns anyway. Like I say before, I tell Jorge first he big fool to get mixed up with man like the Cody you call Pierce. Much big dealer, use Jorge for risk while he for safe, always. But my Jorge no listen, he want rich. Shiny car for him; for me pretty dresses, shoes. I say to him, how many cars you drive dead, how many shoes I wear dead? You think deal guns with crazy insurgentes is game like baseball, football? But my Jorge no listen.” She gave her expressive shrug again. “So he want ri
ch, I try make rich. I tell what he do, careful no hurt the big pride, you know. Very proud man, my Jorge. I make think idea all his, you know. Say how smart, how brave. Sit in peekup while he makes negotiate with Arturo. Negotiate, right?”
“Negotiate is correct,” I said.
“Sooch big word. Antonia no come with to Bahia San Cristóbal to get weapons from ship, man’s work, ha! Wait at Piedras Negras with peekup hide in rocks. Wait. So much wait. But now come the four big empty camiones, Jorge signal all hiding done safe, such relief, imagine.”
She was getting to the tough part, and the narration was slowing down; I had to keep nudging her along.
“I can imagine,” I said.
“Jorge pay off men. Money for the load, the drive, the unload. And the keep quiet. Much money for the silencia, yes? Tell men leave trucks here at Piedras Negras, ride to El Mirador in peekup, never tell, promise. Much promise. Promise on the blood of the Christ, the nails of the Cross, the robe of the Virgin, the gray hairs of the mother, ha! I go bring peekup, stop twenty meters away, men turn from Jorge and come to ride, my Jorge shoot Miera first like I tell him, most big and dangerous. I, Antonia, shoot Ruiz who try to grab and use for shield. No more shoot from my Jorge on knees, cry like baby, sooch a gentle man. Bustamente run, I shoot not much good with little gun so far. I shoot Delgado very good and go finish Bustamente. Finish Miera, too, tough man, not die so easy. Leave moneys on dead men for Arturo like bargain.”
Well, it was what I’d sensed, wasn’t it? The kid was dangerous, a natural killer. Considering my own profession, I was hardly in a position to criticize. In fact, I found it an intriguing picture, professionally speaking: the slim, pretty, brown girl with the big dazzling grin shooting three men with her toy .22 and then calmly finishing off a fourth who’d been badly shot by her incompetent lover—not to mention working out the homicidal plan in the first place and selling it to the handsome, weak-kneed Medina. On the other hand, I’d learned that what I’d sensed about her, what had disturbed me, had apparently been the danger-aura of past deaths, not of deaths to come, including mine. At least I could hope so. As far as moral judgments were concerned, this was no place for them, and they’re outside my field of competence anyway.
I said, “You mean Arturo was in on it?”
She shrugged. “He find to drive camiones bad men he no like and promise no interfere, sí. For that we leave the moneys we pay the drivers.” She giggled. “Better he should get from deads than me. Much sangre, blood, not nice. Jorge very much the sick, very much the unhappy, say he should never have let persuade—persuade?—such a terrible thing, we must leave terrible place pronto. I have much trouble make him finish plan, but is necessary, I make him see. He drive one big truck to place near Kino; I drive him back in peekup. Do same three more times, Jorge cry all the time, sick again, such a lovely, sensitive fellow. Call Antonia ugly names, leave Antonia in Kino, poosh out of peekup, say take bus, walk, fly, he never want to see Antonia again, bad, bad girl. Then he go with other drivers and be stupid kill. All kill.” She spread her hands in a questioning gesture. “Why Jorge say rich if blood make sick? Never rich without blood, everybodies know. Not peoples like us. Why hate Antonia only try to help? Sooch beautiful, foolish man I love, all dead now.” Her voice was harsh, and when I glanced at her, I saw that she was crying silently; then she sniffed, cleared her throat softly, swiped the rough serape across her face, and said, “You see the one by dead Cottonwood?”
“I see him.”
“That one is gringo for you.”
I’d already determined that, mostly by the hat: Yankees seem to crease and wear their hats differently from Mexicans, who manage to make everything they put on their heads so squarely look like stock movie sombreros. The range was too long for a shot with the .243, although a well-sighted-in 7mm or .30 Magnum could possibly have reached that far effectively; but it was too early to start shooting anyway.
“Lead the way,” I said. “Take us well behind your nearby countryman; we don’t want to risk alerting him.”
The radio on my belt cleared its throat. “Alpha, Alpha. This is Gamma calling Alpha.”
“Come in, Gamma.”
Fortunately the gent from whom I’d got the thing had set the intercom volume quite low; but it was still a startling amount of sound to be hit with when you were trying for stealth. I should have anticipated it, of course. Blame the crack on the head, or just plain stupidity. I sank down among the rocks and fumbled with the controls, reducing the volume of the next transmission. I saw that Antonia remained standing, in the shelter of a bush, glassing the nearest sentry, the Mexican, to see if he’d been disturbed. Well, at least somebody in this idiot expedition had a few brains.
The radio whispered, “Gamma reporting. Stationed at pass, keeping red GMC truck under surveillance, as instructed, heard vehicle approaching. Maintained cover, watched four-wheel-drive Subaru station wagon appear, color silver; although how the hell anybody got such a low-slung little heap up that lousy road is beyond me…”
“Never mind the irrelevant comments; continue report.”
“Yes, sir. Vehicle stopped, driver got out, female. High brown boots, snug white jeans, loose blue shirt, lots of Indian jewelry. Examined GMC, tried door, found it locked. Studied ground, started to follow tracks of subject and female companion, which unfortunately brought her too close to my station. Figured I’d better get the drop on her before she spotted me. Took her by surprise, no trouble, although she was packing a loaded Beretta nine emm emm. ID in the name of Joanna Charles Beckman, M.D. Instructions?”
“Handcuff her and hold her there. Don’t come in. Repeat, don’t come in. Subjects should be getting close to us here; indications are they left the pickup you’re watching several hours ago. We don’t want any suspicious traffic on the road to spook them. Stay clear.”
I had the voice identified now, even though the fidelity of the tiny speaker left a good deal to be desired, particularly at the low volume I was using. Alpha was Marion Rutherford, the big, boyish gent called Tunk whom I’d first seen through the telescope at Cananea and later encountered very briefly, at close range, in Hermosillo before young Charles blew the lights out—well, my lights, at least—with the same 9mm Beretta that had, apparently, just been taken from his sister. I realized that I was disappointed; I’d been hoping for another voice.
“Received and understood. Gamma out.”
The radio went silent. After a little, Antonia, who’d come to crouch beside me, asked, “What Alpha, Gamma?”
“They’re using the Greek alphabet for code names. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, and that’s as far as I remember it. Why they don’t just call the guys Joe and Bob, I don’t know. Some people simply have to be fancy.”
She was studying my face intently. “We go help your medical lady?”
I drew a long breath. I said, “We don’t perform heroic rescues of irrelevant females around here, small fry. She got herself into trouble; she can get herself out. That goes for you, too, as I told you. Nobody invited either of you babes on this picnic; you’re both just excess baggage as far as I’m concerned. Now let’s see about the gringo under the tree… What the hell are you grinning about?”
“Good man,” Antonia said.
It was clear that she’d expected me to chicken out; she’d thought I’d drop everything and rush off breathlessly to get the nasty handcuffs off my beloved. Well, I wasn’t sure how much love was involved—after all, except for a sweet quickie in front of the fire, I hardly knew the woman except as my stern doctor and efficient nurse—but the impulse had been there, all right. I’d tried to kid myself that I should find out what the hell Jo was doing here, but it really didn’t matter, and it was impractical anyway. I had more important concerns right here. Didn’t I?
“Good man, hell,” I said. “Just pure golden bastard clear through.”
“Good bastard,” Antonia said. “We go kill gringo now?”
28
Crouching
behind a rock, watching the man under the dead tree, I wondered how many other lookouts they had stationed around—three seemed already redundant, indicating either that somebody was pretty nervous, or that he didn’t trust his observers not to go to sleep, or both. Then I wondered how the kid planned to go about it.
“Is my turn,” she’d said.
We’d paused for breath in a little stand of aspens that overlooked the skeletal cottonwood that was our target, over a hundred and fifty slanting yards below us. I’d taken out my knife to recheck the edge; but she’d placed a hand on my wrist.
“Is my turn, hombre. You go down to big gray stone, easy shoot if I have problema, okay?”
There was a nice eagerness in her small face. She wanted the job very badly; but I wasn’t happy about her request. This wasn’t a training mission put on to break in the rookies, for Christ’s sake. The fact that she’d once been lucky enough to overcome some unarmed men in a few blazing seconds of gunfire didn’t mean she was qualified to tackle a trained, armed agent like, probably, the character under the dead tree. If I let her go, and she goofed and forced me to shoot to bail her out, we’d wind up in a general firefight sooner than I’d planned. On the other hand…
On the other hand, she was a unique specimen in a world of tender ladies who couldn’t bear the thought of guns or violence. Keeping her leashed would be an offense against nature, like calling a beagle off a rabbit or asking a good pointer to ignore a covey of quail. Besides, I might as well learn if she was really up to the job before I sent her off to deal with General Southpaw.
I said, “Okay, I’ll be by that rock if you need me. Good hunting.”
Now I was waiting to see her or hear her, but the mountainside remained undisturbed. Well, I told myself, that just meant she was making her approach properly, meaning invisibly and silently. The man under the tree made a careful sweep with his binoculars, which seemed to be identical to the ones I’d taken from his colleague. He leaned forward to pour himself a cup of coffee from a camouflaged Thermos that I also recognized—hell, they might as well be wearing uniforms, the amount of standardized equipment they were packing, but the weapon leaning beside him was an automatic M-16 assault rifle, not a scope-sighted Ruger bolt-action. This was a dark-haired specimen who kept it cut fairly short, as opposed to the flowing George Armstrong Custer hairdo of the other. No hat.
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