Josie found him on the edge of the river, about a quarter mile from his house. He lived in a three-story, square grain elevator that he converted himself with parts and pieces he dragged home from the dump or from construction sites he worked on. It was painted a deep purple that contrasted perfectly with the blue sky and desert. A series of fifteen windows appeared to be haphazardly installed over the four sides of the structure, but the satisfying visual effect made it clear that Sauly had an artist’s eye and a carpenter’s skills. She thought the scene looked to be somewhere between an Edward Hopper and a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.
“What’s up?” she called, smiling and waving when he realized she was walking toward him.
He rubbed his smooth head and smiled at her, revealing a handful of teeth. She noticed a small paunch in his wrinkled, dark brown belly, above his jean shorts.
“It’s the dangdest thing I ever seen. I’m straight as an arrow. I swear on my grave. I stared long and hard to prove it, and I’m telling you, that old heifer’s got a bellyful a coke.” He pointed across the river. “I swear it. It’s like some old junkie came down to the river and set up shop.”
Josie’s smile faded as she approached the riverbank. A small brown and white cow lay half submerged in the water, tangled in a mess of tree branches on the other side. Her abdomen had either been ripped open or torn when she got hung up in the branches, but there was definitely a gaping hole filled with something. It looked as if the organs had been removed and replaced with bags of cellophane-wrapped blocks, almost certainly cocaine.
“Did you try any?” she asked Sauly, only half-kidding.
He looked hurt. “Never touch it. Shuts your heart down. I do nothing but nature’s own.”
“How deep is the river here?” she asked.
“Eight feet. Want my kayak?”
Sauly disappeared into a thicket of shoulder-high grass. The area of the river around Sauly’s place was thick with clumps of Carrizo cane grass, willow and cottonwood trees, rangy bushes, and soil so sandy, the banks appeared like a beach. Green patches like this one appeared along the Rio throughout Artemis and provided a welcome relief to the miles of earthy brown and gray desert.
Sauly reemerged from the grass with a small kayak balanced atop his head. He bent at the waist and laid it gently on the ground next to the river. He unclipped a paddle from the side and pulled out a fillet knife that had been duct-taped next to the oblong opening for the seat. He laid them both on the ground and told Josie to check the kayak out.
Josie gave him a wary look.
“You can’t tip it. Trust me. It glides right across the top of the water.” He took his hand and slowly slid it through the air.
Trust me, she thought. Josie bent to unbuckle her police boots and wondered about following the advice of a sixty-year-old stoner. She stood and saw he had taken his bandanna from around his neck and laid it out flat in the dirt beside her boots and socks while she was rolling up her uniform pant legs.
“Lay your gun and badge here. I’ll guard ’em for you till you get done.”
She smiled and thanked him, curled her gun belt and set it down, but kept her gun tucked into the front of her pants. She laid her radio and keys on the bandanna and tugged at her cell phone inside her shirt pocket to make sure it was secured to the Velcro.
Sauly dragged the kayak about thirty feet upstream, where a path had been cleared through the cane. He pointed the front of the boat toward the water, keeping the seat over the sandy bank, and held Josie’s arm to help her climb inside. Once she settled in, he handed her the paddle and gently pushed the boat off with his foot. She glided easily into the river, then after a few shaky strokes, paddled awkwardly to the other side, about twenty feet across the slow-moving current and straight into the logjam. She didn’t need to get out of the boat to get the full picture. The gaping hole in the animal’s abdomen was stuffed with around ten bricks of cocaine, about twenty-five pounds’ worth. Josie clipped the paddle onto the side of the kayak and then hung on to a limb of the fallen tree while she snapped pictures using her cell phone. She knew there was no reception; otherwise, she would have called Border Patrol to get them headed this way. Someone was desperate for a missing load of cocaine, and she was certain they were already scouring the river in search of the dead animal.
She maneuvered her boat next to the cow, gagging at the putrid smell and swatting flies out of her face. She struggled to reach across the carcass to pull out one of the bags without tipping into the river. Josie couldn’t swim, could barely stay afloat treading water. She grabbed hold of a bag, slick with a substance she didn’t want to consider, and set it in the kayak between her legs.
Sauly had already walked downstream and was waiting for her on the bank. She started to push the kayak off from the branches but noticed movement through a clump of salt cedar on the Mexican side of the river, just up and to her left. The grass wasn’t as thick, and the land opened into the wide, rocky Chihuahuan Desert, but Josie couldn’t see much while she was sitting low in the kayak. The salt cedar rustled again, and she spotted two male figures dressed in desert camouflage pants and short-sleeved beige shirts. Josie pushed the kayak backwards, using a limb from the tree that the cow was caught in to move herself back under the overhanging trunk for cover.
She pulled the gun out of the front of her pants and ducked her head behind the trunk. The river was approximately four feet below the bank on this side, which had eroded and caused the large tree to fall. The U.S. side of the river was a gentle slope covered in cane grass that she could have easily disappeared into for cover, but the kayak was a slow-moving target, and she couldn’t risk the twenty feet to cross in open sight. She noted that Sauly had thankfully had the sense to disappear, but so had the two figures. The only noise was the water sliding past her boat and two woodpeckers knocking on trees above her. She had no doubt the men had come for the drugs. If she stayed in the kayak, she would become a target, and the number of men with guns would multiply. She flipped her cell phone open in one last attempt to catch a signal, but it was pointless. She was miles from decent reception, and she wouldn’t risk Sauly’s life to flag him down to go get help.
After tucking the gun back into her pants, she grabbed hold of two massive roots hanging from the tree trunk and used her arms to pull herself up and out of the kayak. She kicked the kayak back out into the river, hoping to distract the two men above her as she climbed the bank. The sandy bank gave way beneath her feet, and she was afraid she was headed down into the water. Struggling to find purchase in the dirt, she used her arms to pull herself up the massive root system and onto the bank. Sweat stung her eyes and ran down the sides of her face. The temperature was in the upper nineties, and humidity hung in the air like a wool blanket.
The kayak, along with probably twenty thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine, had already floated twenty feet down the stream by the time she made it up the bank and on solid ground. The grass wasn’t as thick, but there were still clumps of it for visual cover. She had no doubt the two figures had heard her movement and were hunkering down, waiting for her. She was now breaking multiple federal laws, but an armed fugitive on foreign soil was better than an employed cop dead in the water.
She scouted the area around her, and then, crouching low to the ground, she moved behind another fallen tree for cover. Fortunately she had left her vest on. Bending on one knee, she raised her hands and steadied them on the trunk, her eyes scanning for movement in the brush.
“This is Chief of Police Josie Gray!” she shouted. “Move out into the clearing. Put your hands in the air where I can see them.”
No movement.
“Throw your weapons to the ground and place your hands in the air!”
A gunshot rang out and the water to her left splashed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sauly running toward his house at a sprint. Josie remained still, her eyes focused on the direction the shot had come from, probably thirty feet away and slightly to her right. She
heard voices and the rustling of grass and breaking branches, but the sound was moving away from her. Within ten seconds, she heard the doors of a vehicle open and a pickup engine start. Still crouching, she rushed to the edge of the thicket and looked into the clearing in time to see a twenty-year-old two-tone pickup truck take off, following the river east. The truck was too far away to get a license number, but she was betting it had come from the Altagracia Ranch: a seventy-five-thousand-acre working ranch that the Federales had been monitoring closely for ties to the Medrano drug cartel.
Sauly appeared again from the weeds like an apparition, his tanned body and bald head blending in smoothly with his surroundings. He had acquired a shotgun, which hung over his shoulder from a leather strap.
“They’re gone,” she called out.
“Who were they shooting at?” he yelled back.
Josie ignored the question, more worried about getting across the river and getting Border Patrol on-site before two men turned into twenty. “Can you get me back across?”
“Ten minutes!” he yelled.
True to his word, ten minutes later he had rescued the kayak downstream, dragged it back, and paddled deftly across the river, just upstream from the cow, where the bank was slightly more sloped.
“You paddle back. I’ll swim. Slide on down the bank, and I’ll help you in.” Sauly looked up at her with a wide grin, half his teeth rotted out, his eyes bright. Josie cussed, checked that her gun and phone were secure, and started down the sandy bank, hanging on to a skinny tree to keep from sliding into the river. Sauly had already climbed out of the kayak and was waist deep, holding steady. Josie knew the river was about eight feet deep in the center.
“Let’s go, Chief. Have a little faith. I won’t let you get that pretty uniform wet.”
With an arm on Sauly’s shoulder, she managed a quick step into the boat. It rocked back and forth but held steady. Several minutes later, she was safe onshore, where Sauly smiled and handed her the cocaine she had left in the boat.
“You’re a good man,” she said.
While he hid his boat again in the weeds, she contacted the Marfa Border Sector on Sauly’s home phone and talked with a patrol officer.
“I’ve got ten packages. Probably a kilo each. The cow’s abdomen was sliced open. They took her organs out, stuck the coke in, and sewed her back up with what looks to be fishing line. When the cow got hung up, the fishing line snapped and her belly broke open.” The sector agent took off on a cynical rant against the kind of idiots who would route their drugs across the border in a dead cow. Josie didn’t recognize the agent, but he sounded fed up with the job. Josie finally broke in, “The Altagracia Ranch is about two miles upstream from here, Mexican side.” She provided directions to Sauly’s for the agent and said, “Shots were fired. If I hadn’t had a gun pointed in their direction, they’d have been more aggressive. They’ll be back.”
* * *
When Josie arrived back at the police department, a city council member was sitting on the wooden bench out front under the window. Smokey Blessings, married to Nurse Vie Blessings, was thirty-five. Smokey drove a county maintenance truck, and Josie both respected and liked him. A slightly overweight father of two, he had a calm disposition and plenty of common sense. Vie was five years older than Smokey, and ran his life like she did everything else—with bossy efficiency.
He squinted up at Josie and stood as she approached. The noon sun was in his face, and he looked sweaty and nervous. “Chief.”
“Smokey.”
“Can we talk a few minutes?” he asked.
Walking upstairs, they talked about how Vie was handling the stress from the shooting at the Trauma Center.
“I was out at the maintenance barn, and one of the guys came running in. Told me the Trauma Center was under attack. Wanted to know if Vie was working. I said, ‘Hell yes, she’s working!’ She’d just sent me a text saying she couldn’t meet me for lunch. She didn’t bother to mention she’d just lived through a gunfight.”
They reached the top of the stairs, and Josie opened the office door and flipped on the lights. She pulled out chairs at the conference table as Smokey continued.
“I told Frank I was going over there. I was hell-bent on pulling my wife out of that operating room. I knew she wouldn’t do it herself. She’d get herself shot before she walked out on a patient. Frank finally talked sense into me. Told me I’d get in the way. Get myself arrested, if not shot.”
Josie got them both a bottle of water and turned the fan to blow straight at them. The window air conditioner took the edge off, but it didn’t actually cool the room. Smokey sighed and seemed to relax a little.
“I don’t know anyone who handles stress any better than Vie does. She’s a perfect fit for her job. I know yesterday was over the top, but no one could have handled it any better than she did.”
Smokey shook his head. “She brushes that stuff off like lint. Nothing fazes the woman.” He paused and smiled. “Except Donny.”
Josie laughed. Donny was their fifteen-year-old son, who took Vie’s exuberance for life to the next level. Josie didn’t say so, but she was fairly certain she would see Donny in the back of a police car before he graduated high school.
Smokey finally drained his water and grew quiet again, apparently thinking through what he came to say.
“I want to apologize, Josie. About the meeting that the mayor called this morning.”
Josie nodded.
“I had nothing to do with that, but I should have told you and the sheriff about it. When the mayor called me this morning, the whole thing was already done. I was just told to take a seat behind him to support him. All the council was supposed to be up there. I was just the only one that could make it.”
“How did he get the word out?”
“He had a group of volunteers making phone calls last night to get people there. I just figured you and the sheriff already knew about it.”
Josie raised a cynical eyebrow. “The mayor does nothing without an ulterior motive. So, why didn’t he invite the sheriff or me in on his show?”
Smokey shrugged and stroked his chin where the stubble of a goatee was growing in. He cleared his throat but didn’t answer.
“Come on, Smokey. The snub was too obvious and too public. What was his point?”
Smokey tipped his head back and blew air out in frustration. “I asked him why you and Martínez weren’t up there with us. He basically said this is his town. The law officials aren’t doing enough to keep the people safe, so he’s stepping in.”
“I don’t care about sitting on a podium. I care about this town, though. If he has ideas for how the sheriff and I can keep Artemis safer, then he needs to tell us. All he did was undermine what we do.”
“It’s not exactly a secret how you feel about the mayor. I’m not saying what he did was right, but I can’t blame him for not wanting to talk to you about his ideas. You’d have probably shot them all to hell.”
Josie stood and walked to the coffeemaker to pour a cup of burnt coffee and take a deep breath. He was right, and the heat in her face gave her away.
“Josie, I have a lot of respect for you and Martínez both, but you two aren’t helping anything by antagonizing Moss.”
She turned to face him. “His whole persona is designed to antagonize!”
Smokey nodded, his expression weary. “I know that. I just thought you were above it.”
Josie stared, at a loss for words. Her face felt red.
“Look, Josie, you know I support you. I know Moss can be a real jackass. You’re a woman, so to him you’re automatically stupid. Look past that. The man wants the same thing you do. He cares about this town, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to save it. Same as you.”
“I’ve been with this department for nine years, three as chief. I’m tired of proving myself. I need to make decisions based on what’s right, not what’s politically correct.”
“No one’s telling you any differ
ent. You have council support, and you have the community’s support. Just don’t jeopardize your job over a petty grudge with the mayor. We need you. Right now more than ever.”
* * *
After Smokey left, she stood at the window in the back of the office and looked out onto a neighborhood of one-story ranch homes, small and shabby, cared for by people who were giving it their best against unbeatable odds. Following her initial move to get away from her mother, it was the people struggling to make it, the underdogs, who made her call Artemis home. She felt as if she’d found a place where she could make a difference to people who needed it.
She had arrived in Artemis as a twenty-four-year-old woman with a past she wanted nothing to do with, barely able to envision a future, and had applied to be an Artemis police officer. Otto had hired Josie at the end of just one forty-five–minute interview. With Josie sitting across the desk from him, he had called her former supervisor with the Indianapolis Police Department and had a brief, positive conversation.
Otto asked her what had drawn her to Artemis. Uncharacteristically, she shared personal information about her family and her desire to start over. Otto had hired her and invited her to dinner that evening to meet his wife, Delores. Aside from her neighbor, Dell, Josie privately considered Otto and Delores her closest family.
Three years ago, Delores convinced Otto he needed to forgo another term as chief in order to reduce stress in his life. Josie was honored that Otto had recommended her to take his place.
Josie heard a chair scoot across the floor and turned to see Otto sitting down at his desk.
“How’s tricks?” he asked. He wore the standard blue and gray police uniform, minus the bulletproof vest that fit over his midsection only when he forced it.
Otto had just logged on for the noon-to-eight-thirty shift. Officer Marta Cruz would come on at four thirty, when Josie’s shift was supposed to end but rarely did. The three worked staggered shifts, but arranged schedules so that once each week they met as a group to discuss current cases and share information. The city police coordinated schedules with the sheriff’s department in an attempt to ensure at least one officer was on duty at all hours, but with vacation schedules, even that was difficult to accomplish.
The Territory: A Novel Page 6