Monkey on a Chain

by Harlen Campbell

  She looked at him. “Is that right?”

  He nodded, watching me.

  “Then I’ll go with him.”

  “I don’t like it,” I told Roy. “I don’t like it at all.”

  “Just show up. She’ll be fine.”

  “You know the score. She better be smiling when I get there.”

  “For God’s sake, Rainbow, she’s Phoung’s daughter!”

  “I remember. See that you do.” I hugged her before I left. She was stiff in my arms and pushed me away before I was ready to let go.

  It took half an hour to walk back to the border and collect the car. I drove to the hotel and called Tierra Amarilla. Sissy listened without comment as I described the change in plans.

  “We’ve got no choice,” I told him. “It’s Roy’s game now, and he’s right. Las Colonias is better. You don’t want to crap in your own backyard. Think about how Anna would feel, living at the ranch after that.”

  “My family is here,” he said. “We’d have all the people we need.”

  “You’d have to bury him on your own land. You really want him there?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s do it Roy’s way.”

  He agreed, reluctantly, and said he would be in town by noon tomorrow.

  “Are you coming alone?”

  “Don’t be crazy.”

  “Who are you bringing?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  After we hung up, I went down to the car and carried up the weapons. I spent the afternoon cleaning them and repacking the clips, just for something to do. I ate in the hotel. After dinner, I called the El Paso number and asked for Señor Rodgers.

  “No esta aqui,” the woman told me. I told her to put him on or else.

  Five minutes later, Roy picked up. We spoke for Corvin’s benefit. “Who is this?” he asked.

  “It’s Rainbow,” I told him. “Look, we’ve got to talk.”

  “We talked this morning. There’s nothing more to say.”

  “Bullshit. I’m bringing Sissy and April over the border tomorrow night. You either see us or things are going to get unpleasant. Very unpleasant. You understand me?”

  He got belligerent and then caved in. He gave me directions to Las Colonias, just in case Max hadn’t gotten them from the dead detective. When the charade was finished, I hung up and went to bed sweating. The hand had been dealt. I hoped I could figure out which cards were up which sleeve before the betting started.

  There was no telling if the call to Roy had been necessary. At least not yet. Tomorrow night would answer that question, among others.

  Sissy showed up at eleven AM. When he knocked at my door, his son, Juanito, and the brown bear of a deputy who had hassled us in Tierra Amarilla were standing behind him, along with another man, about thirty. The boy looked both excited and frightened. The others were grim. I let them in.

  Sissy introduced us. The deputy’s first name was Andrew. The other man was Steve, the cousin from Santa Fe Roy used as a contact. He had been in the infantry during ’Nam, but stationed in Korea, and he’d never seen action. Still, he looked like he could do what had to be done. I wasn’t sure of the boy. I gave Sissy a questioning glance.

  “He has a right to be here,” he told me. “This is a family matter.”

  “And his mother?”

  “She isn’t happy,” he said simply.

  “You remember Freddy, from Luzon?” I asked.

  He nodded. I told him about the last time I had seen Freddy’s son, lying in the clearing in the forest. He looked sick. “This is not cowboys and Indians,” I added. “Men are going to die. I don’t want your son on my conscience.”

  “It will be as God wills,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  The war conference lasted about an hour. I described the layout at Las Colonias as Roy had described it to me. “It’s about twenty miles off the main highway south. The dirt road is graveled past the turnoff. From that point, it’s about five miles to the ranch. The road runs straight most of the way, then does a dogleg to the east and enters a canyon. The house is about half a mile up the canyon. According to Roy, the walls of the canyon are pretty steep at the entrance and turn into cliffs thirty or forty feet high before you get to the house and buildings. We’ll make our stand in the rocks below the cliffs.”

  “Wait for Corvin to come to us?” Sissy asked.

  “Right. And then close with him.”

  “How do we draw him in?” the deputy wanted to know.

  “You don’t,” I told him. “I want you and Steve and the boy to watch at the turnoff. Pick up food and water on the way out of town. When you reach the turn, get out of sight and wait for Corvin. He may come tonight, or he may come tomorrow morning. Try to get some rest, but keep one man on watch all the time. After Corvin comes in, you close the road behind him. Then wait ten minutes, no more, and follow Corvin as far as the dogleg. Come the rest of the way on foot. Come slowly and cautiously.”

  I pointed to the deputy. “You will be in charge,” I told him. “Spread out. Move quickly, but not too quickly. I think they’ll take about half an hour at the entrance to the canyon to make plans. Then they’ll start in. They’ll probably move slowly, hoping for surprise. Be sure you don’t overrun them. If possible, disable their vehicles, then come in slowly. Stay to the sides of the canyon. You don’t want to be in the line of fire.”

  He nodded. “What do we do if there’s shooting?”

  “This isn’t a police action,” I told him. “There isn’t any if about it. We aren’t here to arrest Corvin. This is going to be an ambush. The shooting will happen. I’m going to make it happen.”

  His face showed that he didn’t like it, but he said nothing.

  “When you hear the firing, you move forward. Take a defensible position. Don’t close with Corvin right away. He’ll try to withdraw when we spring the trap. He should be exposed at that point, because he’ll be trying to cover his front. That’s when you open fire.”

  “We shoot them in the back?”

  Juanito looked sick. “I won’t shoot anybody in the back!”

  “This wasn’t a game,” I told him. “This is real life and real death. What matters is that I don’t have to tell your mother that she’s lost a son. Or a husband.”

  I turned to Sissy. He was just beginning to realize what he had gotten the boy into. It was a family matter, he had said. He hadn’t remembered that funerals were family matters, too. “What kind of weapons did you bring?” I asked him.

  He cleared his throat. “Rifles and pistols,” he said.

  “Hunting rifles?”

  All three of them nodded.

  “I was afraid of that.” I picked up the AR15 from the bed and tossed it to Steve. “You remember how to use that?”

  His training took over. He checked the weapon expertly, then nodded.

  “Corvin’s crew will have automatic weapons,” I told them. “When you take your position, your job will be to turn them back to us. I want heavy fire. Try to sound like there are more than three of you. They won’t expect anyone behind them, so they’ll be confused. Keep them confused. I expect about six of them. Try to take out as many as you can, but pin them down. We’ll move on them from the front when you start firing. We’ll have them surrounded. With luck, it’ll be a turkey shoot.” I didn’t believe that for a moment, but it didn’t hurt them to hear it.

  I looked each of them over in turn. They looked like they needed a pep talk. “One thing to remember,” I said. “This has been going on for twenty years, but it’s going to stop now, one way or the other. Corvin will put an end to it, or we will. I want to drive back across the border with you. All of you. I want to buy you a drink in Tierra Amarilla someday. You’re good men. If you do as I told you, that day will come.”

  We packed the weapons and headed for the door. I pulled the deputy to one side. “Keep Juanito out of it if you can,” I told him. He nodded.

  We split up in the parking lo
t. They had driven down in a Chevy pickup. Andy, Steve, and the boy took the truck. Sissy and I took my car and led the way.

  It took half an hour to navigate through Juarez and find the highway. The drive south was through the same sort of country you see in southern New Mexico. Dry. Barren mountains that look as though they haven’t seen shade in centuries. The heat rose off the blacktop in waves and formed a little mirage on the pavement way ahead of us that looked like a puddle of water, a puddle that you could never reach, no matter how fast you drove or how thirsty you were.

  I’d bought a pack of cigarettes the night before to keep me company at the motel. Sissy and I worked on them while the mountains crept slowly northward around us. He had smoked in Saigon, but he hadn’t lit up while we were in Tierra Amarilla. I supposed that Anna would have one more thing to thank me for. An hour passed while we followed the blacktop south.

  We found the graveled turnoff without any trouble. We’d lost sight of the pickup somewhere along the way. I drove quickly, kicking up a cloud of dust that rose twenty feet behind me and drifted south in the slight, hot wind. You wouldn’t call it a breeze. The word sounds too cool.

  Sissy rode in silence. He was sweating heavily, despite the hot air blowing through the open window beside him.

  “When we get there,” I told him, “don’t say anything about the others.”

  He looked surprised. “Why the hell not?”

  “Just because.”

  The road to Las Colonias was on the right. It had been graded recently, but not well. Dust from the grading lay in the old ruts like fine powder and kept pulling my wheels to one side. I hadn’t expected this. Our passage was too well marked. I slowed and looked behind us. There was no dust on the road as far back as I could see. I hoped the deputy would realize what was happening and slow down to avoid advertising himself. I hoped he hadn’t missed the turn.

  It was almost three when we arrived. Las Colonias wasn’t a true ranch. The land around there would take at least a hundred acres to support a steer, and it’d be a damned tough steak you cut off it. But there was a corral with five horses watering at the trough attached to an old stable. The house backed up to the cliffs on the left side of the canyon, facing the corral and stable. It was a large hacienda with a mission tile roof and walls plastered white. Behind it, a rough trail cut up through the red sandstone of the canyon wall toward the top of the mesa. There must have been water close to the surface. A stand of cottonwoods towered over the house. I could not see a windmill, and only a telephone line led to the house. No power lines. That puzzled me at first, but when I shut off the engine I heard the low drone of a generator coming from somewhere up the canyon.

  As soon as the dust settled around us, I crawled out of the car. “April!” I called.

  She came running from the front door and flung herself at me. I caught her and held her tightly. When I asked if she was okay, she nodded into my neck. Roy came up behind her, followed by three men carrying machine pistols. He had a pistol of some sort in a brown leather holster strapped to his belt.

  “You didn’t have to worry, Rainbow,” he told me. “She’s just fine.”

  “I wasn’t worried.”

  He laughed at me.

  Sissy limped around the car. “Hello, Roy,” he said.

  Roy lost his smile. “You’re looking good, Sissy.”

  “Still alive, compadre.” There wasn’t much friendliness in his voice.

  “Well, let’s try to keep it that way.” Roy turned to me. “How long do you think we have?”

  “I think they’ll get here around sunset, do a bit of scouting, and then wait. They’ll have about half a moon, starting after midnight. I think they’ll come in late, block the canyon after dark, and then hit us when they’ve got the moon, probably a couple hours before sunrise. That’s the way I’d do it, but Max may be playing by a different rule book. We have to be prepared for action anytime after sunset. That’s when he expects us to arrive. He won’t start shooting until he’s got all his fish in one barrel.”

  Roy made a face. “Your imagery sucks, Porter.”

  “Tough. Show me what we’ve got to work with. Start with the ordnance.” I tossed my keys to Sissy and told him to bring in our contribution. April stayed with him to help.

  Roy led the way into the ranch house. It was an old adobe one story with walls two feet thick. There were only a few windows facing the outside. The main door was of heavy wood, hand-carved and stained a dark, almost black, mahogany. It opened onto a central courtyard that had been paved with native stone and decorated with trees and plants set in large clay pots. The rooms were built in a U-shape with doors and windows that opened off the courtyard. We followed Roy to the right and through an open door into a large den, about forty feet by fifteen, that seemed to take up that whole leg of the building. It was reasonably well lit by two large windows that opened onto the courtyard. The walls were white plaster, broken only by furniture in the heavy Spanish colonial style. It was a good room, comfortable.

  The weapons were piled on a table in the center of the room. Four M16s, an AK47, an Uzi, two service automatics, extra clips for all of them. He also had a small stack of grenades, both concussion and fragmentation. I picked up one of the grenades and hefted it, feeling the old familiar weight.

  Roy was watching me carefully. I winked at him. “It’s been a while,” I said. He just looked at me.

  Sissy and April came in, moving slowly, with the .45 I’d brought and two 30.06s. Roy looked at them in silence, then said, “This is what you brought? Not what I expected, Rainbow.”

  “The rifles are Sissy’s,” I told him. “I had confidence in you.”

  He nodded, but looked puzzled. April was standing behind him. “Would anyone like a drink,” she asked. “It must have been a hot drive.”

  Sissy asked for water. I said I was fine and went about checking the weapons. “I’m going to have a beer,” she told us. “I think I’ll have a Bohemia.”

  I glanced over at her. She was staring directly at me.

  “All I’ve got is Carta,” Roy said. “I told you last night.”

  “I really feel like a Bohemia,” she insisted.

  “No beer,” I said. “No drinking until this is over.” I went back to the job at hand, but my mind wasn’t on it. The last few pieces of the puzzle were bouncing around in my head, almost eager to fall into place.

  Roy stood near me by the table, radiating tension. I finished with the weapons, selected one of the 16s for myself, and stuck my .45 in my belt. I turned to him.

  “We have to get something out in the open,” I told him. “Sissy said you promised to keep an eye on Miss Phoung when he came home. She was killed. He’s pissed. So the question is, can you two work together? If the answer is no, he’s got to leave now, before we start this. I have to know where all the bullets are going.”

  He looked at Sissy. “I’ve got no problem,” he said.

  Sissy was antagonistic. “I’ve got a problem,” he said. “You promised to take care of her.”

  “I couldn’t do it. She blamed me for your death. She wouldn’t have anything to do with me. With any of us.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” I offered.

  Sissy didn’t look away from him. Roy put his hand casually on his holster. “There was nothing I could do,” he said. “I tried, but she just…faded away. She kicked me out. I did all I could. Gave her title to the house. Money. But she didn’t want any of us around.”

  “You could have told her I made it.”

  He shook his head. “We agreed about that, Cisneros. Nobody was to know. Only Corvin.”

  “You really couldn’t do anything?”

  “Not a thing. Believe me, I tried. But she slowly cut us all off. She was even hanging around with Corvin.”

  “You’re a fucking liar!” But he was no longer certain.

  “We all tried, Sissy,” I said. “I saw her with Corvin myself. Nothing could be done.”

  He s
ighed and shook his head. “Something should have been done. Something.”

  “What happened, happened.” Roy said. “We’ve got to put it behind us.”

  Sissy nodded slowly and I took my hand off the butt of the .45 in my belt. “So you’re okay?” I asked.

  “For now. Let’s get this over with. I want to see the last of this son of a bitch.”

  I distributed the weapons. April got one of the pistols. I told her I’d give her a lesson later and took Roy outside to look over the terrain.

  He started to tell me how we should play the coming battle. I cut him off. “I’ll tell you how it’s going to go,” I said, “after I’ve seen the land.” He bristled. It was his land and his troops I was using.

  “You remember why you hired me?” I asked. “You think you’re better at what has to be done than I am?”

  It took a moment, but he calmed down. “No.”

  “Then let me get on with it.”

  His men were standing under one of the trees, smoking. We walked over and Roy introduced us. Jorge, Nestor, and José. Hughie, Dewey, and Louie, I thought. They were all in their late thirties, lean and tough. They handled their weapons with casual familiarity.

  We walked around the property, scouting positions. The canyon was about eighty meters wide at that point. The central forty meters, where the house and stable had been built, were flat. On either side, the ground sloped up to the yellow cliffs. Jumbled rockfalls lay at the foot of the cliffs. They would provide good cover. I gestured toward the path I’d seen behind the house.

  “What’s up there?”

  Roy was terse. “Landing strip.”

  “Let’s look it over.” I told Hughie, Dewey, and Louie to put together food, water, and blankets. Three packs. They looked to Roy for confirmation. He nodded at them. I started for the path. He hurried along behind me.

  “What’s the idea?”

  “We’ll have to spend the night in the rocks. We don’t know when Corvin will get here.” I took the path at an easy lope. It was almost like jogging up my mountain back home. The side canyon narrowed quickly and soon we were twisting through a deep, winding cut in light brown stone that zigzagged as it climbed. Roy was breathing heavily and sweating when we reached the top.