High White Sun

by J. Todd Scott

  He was standing in the gravel just outside the nearest circle of sodium light from the overheads in the parking lot when it cruised past, heading back into Murfee. It was coming from the direction of Beantown, and looked no different from any of those shitty vehicles some of the ranch hands and other Mexicans drove: more rust and primer than anything else, held together with duct tape and wire. At his angle he couldn’t quite see the plate, but it wouldn’t have surprised him if it was from Chihuahua. If he’d already been in his truck, he might have pulled it over just to have a little look and maybe luck out and grab a few illegals he could turn over to the green shirts, but it was going on down the road and would be gone before he even got his door open.

  He was about to forget it until he got a quick glimpse of the driver.

  Buck Emmett was too big and more than a little clumsy, but he had the eyes of an eagle, far better than his brother Birch or his daddy, who had loved to take him hunting for that very reason. Buck could pick out the breathing of an elk through a thick stand of oak or juniper, and could spot a fear-frozen rabbit in ground cover. Hunting wasn’t just about the shot, it was about seeing, and Buck had a gift for it. He could block out all of the background noise and color and movement and just focus.

  So even in that one fast look, he recognized the driver, and he wasn’t just some beaner. It was that old man who’d come with Jesse Earl for the DNA test . . . Bob or something. And he was white-knuckling the steering wheel, his head on a swivel, peering into the dark.

  He looked scared . . . scared shitless.

  And then the van was gone—just a pair of taillights driving toward Murfee.

  Toward the bank.

  Buck fumbled for his keys and trotted out to his truck, breathing hard already, hoping he could catch up to the van. He hadn’t liked the way Jesse Earl had mouthed off to the sheriff, or how he’d later walked into the bar and had words with Mel, too. The older man, Bob whatever, hadn’t been as difficult, but Buck had no idea who or what else was in the van with him.

  And as good as his eyes were, he couldn’t see through the van’s rusted flanks, no matter how hard he tried.

  50

  Chris was already on the long drive out to the Far Six, as lightning stuttered and shook and the long-awaited storm rolled down over the Chisos from Mexico, when his phone rang, once. He didn’t even have a chance to pick it up before it went silent again, another victim of the dead areas that dotted the entire Big Bend. He didn’t check to see if it had even captured the number, too busy marveling at how the world outside his windshield was slowly disappearing, going blacker than black and then falling off the ends of the earth. The storm wouldn’t have to last long to swell the washes and gullies, and in the aftermath, everything that was copper and rust and bone would get new life again; turn green and breathe, at least for a little while.

  He wondered how the dog was doing; if he was burrowed under the bed in fear or had already destroyed the bedroom while waiting for him to get home. They’d had the damn thing barely forty-eight hours and he was already worried about him. He was a puppy but would get big fast, and with a little training would be a serious handful for anyone or anything unwanted approaching the house. Chris was more relieved than he’d first realized that Mel wasn’t going to be out here alone anymore.

  He searched the distance for house lights, but the house itself was all gone, lost behind the approaching rain.

  A hard wind hit the windshield, then a wave of raindrops, almost as if someone had tossed a huge bucket of cold water against the truck. He held on tight; felt the wheels rise as the storm wrapped itself around him and his truck. Everything rattled and he slowed down, finally coming to a stop, as his wipers became useless and his headlights washed away to nothing. He was caught inside the storm’s furious heartbeat and counted out the passing thunder and the lightning, trying to figure out how fast it was moving and how long it would take to sweep all the way northward toward Murfee. The rain was desperately needed but it would tie things up for a while, since it wasn’t unusual for a storm like this to flood the draws and pummel campers up in the national park, even sweep away the cars they’d parked too deep in a wash, despite the warning signs. He was about to call Mel and tell her to hang tight at Earlys until it blew past, when his phone rang again.

  Then it rang a third time, fast, like the phone itself was desperately trying to hold on to the call.

  It was a number he didn’t immediately recognize, an unfamiliar area code, but the voice—distant, struggling; sawed in half by static—he knew right away.

  Amé.

  He was having a hard time hearing what she was saying . . . something about Harp . . . something about trouble. She said Danny Ford’s name as well, or he thought she did, and one other thing, her last words before the call dropped, and they were the clearest of all.

  The Lights.

  He’d just been out that way an hour ago, a little more than that. He passed right by the roadside tourist attraction and hadn’t given it a thought, before sliding onto one of the ranch roads to get out here without having to detour through Murfee. He didn’t remember seeing anything out there, but hadn’t been paying any goddamn attention, either, and it didn’t matter. Amé was there, with Harp and Danny Ford as well. He didn’t know what was going on, but it couldn’t be good. He’d try to raise his other deputies on the phone on the way, or pick them up on the truck radio once he got closer to town, but it was clear where he needed to be. Now.

  He flipped on his emergency lights, smearing the watery night red and blue. He still couldn’t see much, but he couldn’t sit and wait for the storm to pass. He had to try to get ahead of it and race it all the way back to Murfee.

  With lightning on his heels, he pushed the truck as fast as it would go.

  51

  Fifteen minutes after Buck Emmett left Earlys, following the white van into Murfee, Mel was standing outside in almost the exact same spot he’d been in when it first caught his attention, taking a short break.

  She liked to step out into the night air like this every now and then, rinsing off the smell of beer and breath and cigarettes and dust that defined the old bar. Sometimes she smoked out here, but tonight she’d left her Marlboros in her purse, and had her hands in her back pockets, trying to see if the moon was out or if the clouds she had spotted gathering at the Far Six had followed her to town. Chris would be getting home soon if he wasn’t there already, and she was looking forward to seeing him. The last time the two of them had driven back from the city together, he’d been bleeding next to her in their car, still suffering badly from the wounds he’d received at the place that was now their home. She’d been driving so Chris could call Caleb Ross, desperately trying to track down Caleb before he confronted and possibly killed his father. Chris had then faced off with Sheriff Ross himself in the sheriff’s old office, while Mel had sat in their bloody car with a gun of her own she’d stolen from the sheriff’s collection. That’s all that horrible night had been for her: one long, held breath—everything on pause—waiting to find out what would happen to Chris and Caleb and Sheriff Ross.

  Waiting to find out what was going to happen to her future with Chris; their lives together suspended in midair, ready to fall.

  She’d prayed since then to never go through another night like that, knowing all the while it was foolish and futile. That was the nature of being in love with a man who carried a badge and gun: forever and always waiting. Ben had talked enough about Jackie for Mel to understand all the sacrifices that poor woman had made—the worry and the sleepless nights and the fear that had followed every ringing phone. And she’d experienced that already here, too, at Earlys, whenever Buck or Ben or the other deputies stepped through the door with their hats off—a moment of pure, cold terror that they weren’t there for just a beer or a cup of coffee, but for her. That they’d then have to walk her outside, gently, calmly—maybe even steadying her b
y the arm—to stand in the spot she was in now, so they could deliver through gritted teeth their bad news about Chris, away from the prying eyes of everyone else at the bar.

  It was a hell of a way to live, always waiting to die, but it was the life Chris had chosen. More fairly, after that night she’d driven him back from El Paso, it was the life they had chosen together. She had to own that, but some days and nights were easier than others.

  She wished she had brought out her cigarettes, but if she’d been drawing on one of the unfiltered Marlboros, she might not have caught the smoke that was already on the breeze. Maybe it was someone sitting in their car having a smoke . . . waiting . . . and for a second she thought about those men from Killing that had come into the bar, the men Chris had been so worried about. She looked around for a telltale cherry spot hovering behind a windshield, but there were so few cars in the lot she soon came up empty. Given how conscious everyone around Murfee was of the summer drought, she wouldn’t expect many folks to be tossing their half-lits into the gravel or grass, but the smoke was now thicker than just one cigarette anyway. It had a deeper smell, almost metallic, like someone had flicked a butt into some grass along the ditch and started a small brushfire.

  She walked off the porch out into the lot, looking up and down the street, when she found the glow.

  It was back toward Beantown, that horrible name some of the folks in Murfee had given the Hispanic neighborhood clustered at the far end of town. There, against the darkness, was a ruddy smear, flickering wide, getting higher. It was more than a little grass fire, it was like a whole house was burning, maybe even more than one. She knew that Amé lived back over there somewhere, but was ashamed she had no idea where exactly the deputy’s house was.

  She walked a little farther, trying to get a better look and trying to gauge exactly how serious it was. She’d left her phone in the bar, but Buck Emmett hadn’t driven off that long ago, and she could call him to go check it out, if not 911.

  That’s when she heard the sirens.

  52

  America didn’t want to look into Ben Harper’s face.

  It was there, right beside her, eyes closed, like he was sleeping over Danny’s shoulder, even though she knew he wasn’t. He hadn’t been a big man to begin with and seemed even smaller now; getting smaller the longer they walked. She was afraid he would disappear before they made the highway again.

  She held on to the SureFire and the pendant he’d given her in one hand and her gun in the other.

  She and Danny hadn’t spoken in some minutes. There was so little to say, so there was only the sound of their joint breathing, their boots on the scrub. She kept the SureFire aimed low, sweeping the beam across the ground in front of Danny so he’d see where he was going without tripping. She’d been switching between her own phone and Danny’s trying to get ahold of Sheriff Cherry, and she thought maybe, finally, the call had gone through. Despite what Ben had warned, they were angling their way back to the pavilion where the shootout began, and where the sheriff could find them, and she kept searching the night in that direction, looking for fresh headlights. But it remained stubbornly, agonizingly, dark.

  Danny stopped, shifting down to one knee. “Please, give me just a sec, gotta catch my breath.” Like her, he was looking ahead where the highway should be, searching, and she could see the strain in his face, from his own injuries and from carrying Ben. Still, he wouldn’t put the other man down on the ground. He kept him held off the dirt and the cracked desert floor.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, still looking straight ahead.

  “You’re hurt, it’s okay. We can take a break. It’s still going to take a while for the sheriff to get to us, or whoever he sends.” She knelt down next to him on the side opposite Ben’s closed eyes.

  “No, that’s not what I mean. You all risked so much for me. I didn’t know all this would happen. I just . . .”

  She shook her head. “We can never know. That’s what I tried to warn you. Sangre exige sangre. We never know the price of our revenge, and the cost is higher because we never have to pay it ourselves. That falls to everyone around us.”

  “Blood demands blood,” he repeated. “You told me that in the car when we talked in town, with . . .” She knew he was going to say Harper, but stopped himself. He turned to look at her and saw the pendant still grasped in her hand. “Firsthand experience, right? That’s really what you were trying to tell me in Murfee.”

  She hesitated. “Mi hermano. He was murdered by men like your Earls. They buried him in a place like this, forgotten, like a dog, until Sheriff Cherry came and . . .” She stopped, stood up. “And it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone.”

  Danny stood as well, slowly, making sure Ben didn’t slip from his shoulders. “What did it cost you? What price did you have to pay?”

  She turned the small flashlight ahead, pointing him the way to go. “Who said I’m not still paying it, Danny Ford?”

  * * *

  • • •

  NOW HE TALKED AS THEY WALKED, about a place called Wanat and some sort of battle, and a man named Sergeant Wahl who died there. He told her how parts of the Big Bend reminded him of Afghanistan—the mountains and the harsh earth. He then talked about a girl who’d asked Danny to watch over her while she slept, to keep her safe, but something had happened and the girl was now gone. That story didn’t make any sense to America, but she listened anyway, and let Danny keep talking as much to himself as to her. He needed to say all these things, maybe because he was trying to explain to himself how he’d ended up here, walking through the dark and sour creosote, carrying a dead man he barely knew across his back. He’d already said he was sorry and that was enough for her, since she didn’t, wouldn’t, blame him. How could she, given all she had unleashed trying to avenge Rodolfo’s death?

  Sangre exige sangre.

  Unlike Danny, she knew the price. She’d learned it the hard way, so she clutched Ben’s pendant tighter, unwilling to let it go. She’d told Danny the men who’d killed Rodolfo—like the men who had sent Azahel Avalos—were no different from the Earls, hombres malos. Ben had also called such men lobos. Wolves. They were dangerous, never to be trusted. They were always out there, circling, and there were always more of them. Look at what had happened to her brother, then Billy Bravo, and now Ben Harper.

  When did it ever end? How could it end?

  Sheriff Cherry wanted to believe in the law, in this right thing. His experiences with Sheriff Ross, a wolf all his own, made him hold tight to the idea that such a thing existed and the idea of anything else was unthinkable. Her experiences with Duane Dupree and the boy sicario Máximo, with Vianey Ruiz tossing the ashes of Billy Bravo into the river and with Azahel Avalos in his cell, and, now, with her dead friend draped over Danny Ford’s back, made her afraid such a thing was impossible.

  She’d tried, but there was no right thing; no cosa correcta.

  There was only what had to be done—whatever it took to stand against the wolves.

  That’s what Ben had been trying to teach her all along—that once started, blood demanded blood, forever. That it never ended and you could never wash your hands of it, so you just accepted it. That was the real price of fighting the hombres malos and keeping los lobos from the door . . . that was the burden of wearing a badge and carrying a gun.

  Like Vianey’s prayer to Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte. She tried to remember the words, and with each step, a few more came to her. By the time the pavilion was in sight, she thought she had it all.

  Santa Muerte, le convoco. Santa Muerte, te invoco. Give me justice, justice against my enemies . . .

  * * *

  • • •

  DANNY’S BIKE WAS STILL THERE, crushed on its side, but Jesse Earl was gone. He’d put a couple of bullets through it, drained the tank, and then cut the tires.

  In the SureFire’s beam, all the spent shells
glittered like gold coins, like fallen stars. They extended beyond the light, trailing off into the darkness. There were also darker stains that had to be blood. She and Danny walked up to the benches of the pavilion and Danny, at last, stretched out Ben’s body on one of the tables, above the earth.

  She started to reach for their phones, but Danny touched her shoulder, pointing down the highway, where emergency lights were speeding toward them.

  They watched the lights for a long time before they heard the sirens.

  53

  Buck had heard the phrase All hell was breaking loose.

  He thought it pretty much described Murfee at the moment.

  Beantown was burning.

  * * *

  • • •

  TILL GREER WAS OVER THERE handling that with Murfee’s Fire Department, and hollering over the radio that they were taking gunfire from one of the burning houses, which didn’t make any sense at all, but Buck had heard it himself—all muddied up with the sirens and background squall and the sound of someone yelling over Till’s open mic.

  But even before that, Sheriff Cherry had reached out to him on the phone and then on the radio. The sheriff was hauling ass from the Far Six back toward town, where something bad had happened to Amé and Harp, maybe involving the Earls, which is why no one had been able to reach the two of them all night. One or both of them were injured out by the Lights and were waiting for help, and the sheriff had been heading that way, until Buck had told him right at that moment he was following a van driven by those damn Earls that had just come from the direction of burning Beantown. With the sheriff still on the radio and Buck giving him the play-by-play—almost whispering even though he was alone—the van had circled the department’s impound lot a couple of times, lights off, while Buck had pulled in along the street, hunkering down in his seat. Not before seeing someone jump out with a set of bolt-cutters, headed for the lot’s lone gate.