Harp stopped the car, backed it up, as the man flicked his cigarette into the dust and ground it out with a boot. He shrugged his shoulders and came out from under the shadows to meet them as if he’d been expecting them all along.
He wasn’t big, but rangy, and didn’t quite fit any of the descriptions the Mex girl had given. He had a thick head of hair, going gray, slicked back and held in place by pomade and sweat. He wore dark jeans circled by a thick belt he didn’t need, and a blinding-white T-shirt and black Justin boots. His arms were long, almost too long, ending in thick-knuckled hands. The sort of hands that had dealt out more than their share of harsh punishment—always bruised, always swollen and sore. But what stood out the most were the tattoos, just as they had for Bravo’s girlfriend. This man’s skin was a blue-green canvas from his wrists all the way to where it disappeared beneath his shirtsleeves. Crosses and skulls and playing cards and Nazi symbols and the entire length of a naked pin-up girl across his left forearm, sprawled backward with her arms behind her head, huge breasts almost three-dimensional on the skin. Prison tattoos, and he’d been in a prison a long time to have that much ink. Running around his throat was a knotted noose, and just visible at his sternum was a huge map of Texas wrapped in flames and inside that a four-leaf clover, with the thick letters ABT in the center.
Harp recognized the letters and knew what they meant . . . the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a longtime prison gang.
One hundred percent bad men.
Harp got out of the truck, as did Amé. She had her right hand loose, above her holstered gun; obvious, and with intent.
One cover, the other contact. Just like out on the road when they’d stopped Avalos, but this time Harp was going to do the talking.
The man stopped short of their truck and half raised his arms. Even beneath the ink, there were lines across his forehead, the crow’s-feet deep in the corners of his eyes. The ABT was at least Harp’s age, probably older. His eyes had the faded laziness of someone who was used to being outside in the Texas heat without sunglasses. The bright light didn’t bother him; he could look straight into the damn sun forever. His years in the prison yard had given him eyes in the back of his head, too, and he probably saw everything without even trying.
“Damn hot,” Harp said.
The ABT shrugged. “Don’t bother me none. A little heat never did.”
From behind her sunglasses, Amé scanned the sheeted windows, looking for movement.
Harp motioned to the man. “You got a name and something to prove it?”
“The first I got, the second not so much. I can’t say I’ve driven a car in a while. I’m JW Earl.”
“None of those bikes yours, that Marquis or the RV?”
He pointed at one of the older bikes. “That one there, but I’m what you call naturally gifted. I ain’t got no license for that and never had one. My daddy taught me to ride and that was good enough for me. Rest of them’s with me, but they aren’t mine.” JW Earl took in Amé with one look, then ignored her. “Gonna get my smokes and lighter from my back pocket if it’s all the same.”
“Go ahead.” Harp came around the side of the truck, got within a few feet of Earl as he fished around in his jeans for his lighter. He lit his cigarette without cupping it against the wind and did it all with one hand, with practiced ease. “Where’d you do your time?” Harp asked.
Earl blew smoke. “Coffield, Dalhart, and Walls.”
“Walls” was a common nickname for the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, due to its bright red brick walls. Huntsville also housed the state’s execution chamber.
“Long stints?”
Earl shrugged. “Long enough.”
“Ben . . .” Amé interrupted, pointing to the front of the house where the door had opened and another man . . . men . . . had appeared.
The first two were quite a bit younger than Earl, closer to Amé’s age. One was shirtless and whip-thin, his head completely shaved and his naked skin a billboard, like Earl’s, and his dirty jeans hung low, revealing the white band of his underwear. The second was taller and just pulling on a black T-shirt. His whole right side, from his triceps to his shoulder and down his arm, was colored in: a giant eagle in mid-flight, talons raised; an American flag; a pair of crossed rifles. There were other tattoos here and there across his torso, but it was clear he’d done his time somewhere in the military before ending up in Killing. His head was cropped close but not bald, his blond stubble shining gold in the sunlight. His strong arms were veined.
And the last was big, a walking slab. He was shirtless, too, like the first, his entire chest dominated by a skeletal bird, the wings stretching up to his shoulder blades. It was perched on a swastika in a ring of fire, with the letters NLR half circled beneath that, stretching across his massive abdomen like a cliff face.
If Harp had to bet, this was the one called Joker. Bravo’s girlfriend had put him at the Wikiup when Billy got into his argument, but not last night.
Underwear and Eagle took up positions beneath the side porch, as the one Harp had decided was Joker came and stood next to Earl, arms crossed, towering over him.
Harp turned back to Earl. “There was a problem last night at a bar over in Terlingua, a place called the Wikiup. Now a man’s dead. I know some of your folks have spent some time over there.”
Earl nodded, unconcerned. “Yep, they have, off and on.”
Harp continued. “I also got a witness who says there was an argument a few days back between our victim and him”—Harp pointed at the big man—“as well as some others. Two of those same folks were in the bar last night. I need to talk to them.”
“Well.” Earl slapped the shoulder of the man at his side. “Joker here was with me last night, that’s for sure, watching TV. As for the rest of ’em, you might be talking about my brother, T-Bob, and my oldest boy, Jesse. I think they was over in Terlingua last night. I mean, if you have a witness who says that and all, and we know a witness ain’t never wrong.”
“Depends on the witness, but it doesn’t matter, I’m going to need to talk to your brother and son anyway.” Harp pointed again at the man Earl had confirmed as Joker. “And this one here, too.”
Earl laughed. “Well, hell, that’s gonna be a damn short conversation. Ole Joker don’t talk, not a lick. Cat’s got his tongue, so to speak, hasn’t even cracked a smile in ten years.”
Earl poked at the big man, who slowly opened his mouth, revealing a black, empty cavern. There was no tongue.
Harp shook his head. “What about the other two I’m looking for? You cut their tongues out, too?”
Earl winked. “Naw, but your luck’s still not so good. They’re both out about now. But you leave a card and I’ll send ’em up your way. And where’d that be?” Earl looked hard at the badge on Harp’s chest. “Big Bend County Sheriff’s Department, right? Up the road, in Murfee?”
While Earl was talking, Underwear slid down from the porch and moved toward them. He didn’t walk so much as slouch, his hands down in his jeans pockets, pushing them lower. Once he got within orbit of Joker, he whispered something to the big man, but kept his eyes on Amé.
“You all been here long? Going to stay long?” Harp asked.
Earl shrugged. “Hard to say. My older boy is visiting some friends here, the Joyces, and others might stop by. Me? I’m probably just passing through. Not sure the locals are all that friendly.”
“Until I talk to everyone, you shouldn’t plan on going anywhere, how’s that sound?” Harp pointed at the house “How many more you got in there? Mind if I go in and look around?”
Before Earl could answer, Underwear spoke up. His voice was higher, softer, than Harp would have first thought. It was a kid’s voice, trying to play grown-up. He was still looking at Amé. “You let any little señorita around here carry a big ole gun like that?”
Harp turned and felt ang
er spark behind his eyes; gave his full attention to Underwear. “You watch that mouth, son. That señorita is the law here, just like I am. Yesterday she near knocked the teeth out of someone else just passing through, and now he’s passing time in our lockup. You want to join him? You keep it up. Other than your name, I don’t want another fucking word out of you.”
Earl raised his hand, trying to pull Harp’s attention back; trying to play peacemaker. “Don’t pay him no mind, Deputy. That’s my younger boy, Bass, but we call him Little B ’cause he acts like a little shit sometimes. He ain’t got no damn sense and don’t mean nothin’ by it.” Earl looked through his son. “Do what the man says, Little B, shut your mouth, or I’ll goddamn shut it for you.” Earl waved at the last man under the porch. “And that over there is Hero. Hero, why don’t you get Little B inside now, while I finish this up? I think we’re almost done here.”
The one Earl had called Hero, whom Harp had thought of as Eagle, detached from the shade and came up on Little B, cocked and ready to grab his arm if he said more. The two didn’t look that different in age, although Hero seemed older. Little B had hints of his father’s face and eyes, but not half his composure. He was jittery, his eyes and hands all movement. When he’d worked patrol, Harp had rolled up on hundreds of kids like him hanging out in alleys and on street corners in Midland and Odessa. One of his old partners, Revel, used to call them TV outlaws, because the only thing they knew about being tough they’d learned from some damn show or movie or a rap song. They were mostly bark, no bite. No real threat at all if you smacked them once or twice in the mouth.
But not like Joker, or the one Earl had called Hero. Or even ole JW himself. Each was very different but all three had the same casual, dangerous air, and they were all capable of causing serious trouble if they had a mind to.
Earl was still talking around a mouthful of cigarette smoke. “Now, as for comin’ inside, unless you got a piece of paper sayin’ otherwise, I’m gonna have to respectfully deecline. I’m sure you can understand. I’m a free man, mindin’ me and my own out here.” Earl left it at that, smiling as bright and open as the sun.
But it was still a standoff all the same.
Harp nodded, realizing he was soaked with sweat. It was in his eyes, salty, stinging. And he was all of a sudden tired and damn heavy, like the dry ground itself was pulling him down.
Too little sleep, too much drinking, and too many thoughts of Jackie. Getting too old for this shit.
He felt ancient and worn-out and didn’t want to keep sparring with Earl and didn’t like where this was going anyway. Although he did need to talk to Joker and the others—Jesse and T-Bob and whoever else was holed up with them—he wanted more deputies here and wanted a better handle on just who these fuckers were and why they were in Killing. He couldn’t guess at everything hidden behind the sheets and blankets and dust-fogged windows of the ranch house, but he felt there were eyes there, watching them. Maybe even a gun—with a finger on a trigger—aimed at his face or Amé’s. Walking away now was bad police work, and he hated losing precious hours they’d never get back, but he hated his other choices more, as well as having to admit that right now he really didn’t want Amé here.
There was a real threat of violence in this dead place, where the rocks were the color of long-dried blood and the sand was as pale as bleached bone. He could taste it, feel it thick on his skin, like the sweat that was going to take two cold showers to wash clean.
As real as this JW Earl smiling at him.
Harp wasn’t scared for himself. He was calm and in some ways welcomed whatever might happen—even death on its dark wings, like the skeletal bird on Joker’s chest. But Amé was standing next to him, trusting him, and he knew this wasn’t the time or the place.
Check, checkmate.
He finally returned Earl’s smile. “Fair enough. I guess we understand each other, then.” He was about to reach for a card with his name and number on it, when Amé beat him to it. She slipped one of her own out of her breast pocket and took a step toward Little B, none of the others, and held it out to him. He looked at it like it might as well have been a live snake, but when she flicked it at him, he caught it, fumbling with both hands.
“There’s a phone number on that card,” Harp continued. “And an address. Use either, it doesn’t matter to me, but I expect to hear from your son and brother. If I don’t in the next day or two, I’m coming back, and I’ll have that paper you were so concerned about. All legal, all real, and with a judge’s signature. And if they or anyone else leaves before then, I’m finding them. Are we clear?”
Earl watched his son, who was turning the card over and over, moving his lips, reading it. “We’re clear, Deputy. Like goddamn glass.” He made an imaginary gun, cocked a finger at Harp, and pulled the trigger; Harp thought he heard a whispered bang. “Loud and motherfuckin’ clear.”
“Goddamn . . . America?” Little B said, holding up the card for the others to see; they ignored him.
Harp waved Amé into the truck and she turned her back on the men without a word.
As they were driving away, watching the men behind them disappear in the rearview behind a wall of dust, Harp would’ve sworn the one called Hero—who’d never said a word—was trying to hide a smile of his own.
8
I killed my first person on my eighteenth birthday.
There was no cake and no presents that morning, no one singing “Happy Birthday.”
Only Sergeant Wahl punching me awake before dawn, night already turning into a gray afterthought on the horizon.
I opened my eyes with him breathing all over me, his helmet at a funny angle because it was always at a funny angle. It never quite sat right, making his head strange . . . weird. I thought he was the end of a dream, until he told me loud and clear to grab my dick and my gun and get the fuck up.
But it was a dream, just the beginning, not the end, and a bad one. A dream I’ve had a thousand times since.
The sergeant swore to me he’d heard something.
And he must have had the ears of a goddamn bat or dog, because it came out in the after-action report that someone in the village had been pumping water from an irrigation ditch into a field the whole night before, just to hide the sounds of the insurgents moving up on our positions. Still, somehow Sergeant Benji Wahl, from Flint, Michigan, had heard them. Or maybe he’d fucking smelled them, but thanks to whatever sixth sense he had, we were both awake, looking east into the place where the sun would come up, when the attack came.
I was still struggling to stand when an RPG hit the mortar pit, taking out the 120mm and the mortar stockpile. It went skyward and all the way to heaven, with a light and a peculiar sound I had never heard before and have never heard since. The blast sucked everything inward, pulling anything not nailed down into its arms, before throwing it all up in the air again. That noise wasn’t explosive, not like TV or a movie. It was high, almost musical. My mom, who got a lot more religious after my dad died, would have sworn it was the first trumpet blast, the beginning of the end, and for a half-second I thought the same thing. The TOW missile launcher went next, and then the observation post itself was hit. I was seventy meters away but still saw Stafford blown clear of his position, backlit against the rocks and tree he and the rest of the company had dug in under.
The insurgents had also taken the village’s hotel roof and were using that to fire down into our post, as well as the patrol base itself. Our Bobcat had broken down the day before, so most of our barriers weren’t to seven-foot spec, not even close. Everything topped out at four feet, and we’d dug out a lot of that, including our trenches, by hand. In some places we’d just laid out the concertina wire along the ground, where we left it spread out on the dirt like silver snakes, sunning.
It was a cluster fuck from the get-go.
I turned in time to catch Sergeant Wahl get hit and go down to one knee. That d
amn helmet of his had been knocked off and was rolling around on the ground between us, so I thought at first it was his whole head, until I saw him holding his throat, tight, looking surprised; looking right back at me and his eyes as wide as dinner plates. There was blood all over his hands even though it was still too dark for me to see that. I know it, though, because in my dreams I see it still—red from the heart that had pumped it, just turning black in the air.
The second shot took his legs completely out from under him and he fell face forward into our shitty concertina. He was like a bird trapped in all that wire, his wings broken.
Then there were men running in the darkness toward me.
I first raked my Minimi over the hotel roof, keeping heads down even though I didn’t hit anybody. At about seven hundred rounds a minute, I turned most of the roof to dust.
My radio was screaming at me like a living thing . . . but it was just my friends, screaming on an open channel, scared and dying. Apaches and Predators were inbound and the big arty from Camp Blessing was starting to zero in on us, but for a while it would only be us . . . each man hanging on to another.
I was moving toward the sergeant when an insurgent crawled over a barrier. He was small and struggling with an AK nearly as big as him, and I had this weird thought how that gun was a lot older than him as well. He was just a kid, younger even than me on my birthday, and he was sweeping that gun in big arcs and firing off the odd round—not really at anything or anyone—just hoping to get lucky. He was a diversion, a sacrifice, so his buddies could continue dropping unguided RPGs into our position. I learned later the kid and a few others like him had also been chosen to run forward and throw rocks into the observation posts as they came—fist-sized rocks that in the dark and craziness looked exactly like grenades; turning end over end, dropping into the dirt. Just more diversions. But those rock grenades had forced our guys to retreat from their trenches, not wanting to get blown to hell, only to come under concentrated small-arms fire.
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