by Mark Reps
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ángel took a long pull on the tequila bottle. He began to feel better. It had been another sad and empty night without his beloved Juanita. His longing for her brought her to life in his daydream. During his prison lockup he counted the days, the hours and finally the minutes until he was paroled. His beautiful Juanita had written him a letter every day. Sometimes she would scent it with sweet perfume. Sometimes he could smell the heavenly fragrance of their lovemaking. He ached to run his fingers through her long black hair. To caress her silky soft skin would be divine. Ángel sighed until his lungs ached with emptiness. His love for Juanita was larger than just about everything else in the world.
But the demonic tequila despised his thoughts of love. Suddenly the devil recoiled in his mind. Tears pooled heavily beneath his eyelids. He had no strength to fight against the Demon Tequila that stole his sense even when he thought of his sainted mother. She had died while he was in prison. His grandfather had written the warden asking for a simple, humble favor. Could Ángel be released from prison for one day so he could go to his own mother’s funeral? His grandfather even promised the warden on his dead daughter’s soul that he would return Ángel to prison the minute the funeral was over. Other men had received this sort of favor. These men had committed much worse crimes than Ángel. The warden had laughed at his grandfather. The warden even spit on him. He said Ángel could not be trusted in the hands of a frail, old man. The boy would “run like a dingo dog”. Those were his exact words. He had called Ángel’s grandfather frail and untrustworthy. He had called Ángel a dog. Ángel knew the warden hated him. The warden hated all the brown skins. He despised the Apache, who he called “goddamned redskins with no souls”. He called any prisoner with Mexican blood “the bastard sons of Spain”. The damned warden knew Ángel was first Mescalero, second Hispanic and last a Mexican-American. Such disrespect roused feelings of vengeance in his heart.
Ángel took one more long drink from the bottle hoping to put a lid on his growing hatred. The effect was quite the opposite. Ángel’s blood was boiling. All he wanted was his dream of a beach life in Mexico. With Juanita by his side he would drink cerveza on the beach and fish in the ocean. He would buy his little mujercita a house on the beach. They would live happily ever after, just like in the storybooks his mother had read to him when he was a child. Ángel’s mind raced between his hatred of the warden and the love of his Juanita.
“Jimmie Joe?”
“Sí, Ángel. You need more tequila so soon?”
“No. The tequila is tasting good.”
“What is it then?”
“I am worried about Juanita driving around in a stolen pickup. It is such a beautiful truck. She is such a beautiful woman. Somebody will notice her. People will wonder why a lovely woman in a fancy truck is without an hombre by her side. It is bound to make someone suspicious.”
“I told you a thousand times, Ángel. You never listen. When the pigs are looking for a stolen vehicle, they only check the license plates. I put a clean set of plates on that little truck before I handed her the keys. She will be just fine in that little baby blue Chevy pickup when she meets you in Tucson. Quit worrying. Have a little more fire water.”
“I’d be feeling so much better if I had been able to see her face and touch her.”
“Ángel, you know that would not be the safe thing to do. If you had taken the truck to her, you two would never come back. You and Juanita would be drinking and partying and having fun.”
“Sí, sí. This sounds so very good. Me and my baby dancing all night long.”
“But Ángel, you would have nothing, no money, no future. Now you wait only three short weeks.”
“But three weeks is a long time, Jimmie Joe.”
“How long were you in the prison, Ángel?”
“Two years, four months, six days, nine hours and forty-two minutes.”
“Then what’s a few more weeks out of your short life if you can be rich?”
“But, my Juanita...”
“You think Juanita won’t love you a whole lot more if you have a million dollars in your pocket?”
“I know she would love me if I had no money at all. She would love me if I was as poor as the little white mouse in the Iglesia Catedral back home. She doesn’t care about money. Juanita only cares about loving me.”
“Bah! Ángel you know nothing of women. You may look like a girl but you don’t think like a muchacha.”
“Cut it out, Jimmie Joe. Quit making fun of me. You shouldn’t do that.”
“Who saved your cute round ass from the homosexuals, Ángel? Huh? Who protected your cute little mouth from being a lollypop sucker?”
Ángel took a deep pull on the tequila bottle to put out the fire in his heart. That day in the shower--would Jimmie Joe never let him forget about it?
“Mi abuelo--my grandfather. You are sure he is okay? I know he is worried about me. Ever since mi madre buena went to heaven he prays from the Bible every day. If I could only have seen him one time, I would feel so much better.”
“How many times do I have to go over this? You could not see Juanita because she would steal your heart. You could not see your grandfather because he would talk to his friends. If one word slipped to the wrong person, then people would know you are in the area. That is exactly the sort of thing that could ruin our plan. We don’t want anyone to know we are anywhere near here. One little slip and we’re back in the big house. Look Ángel, use your head. We don’t want any trouble. I have got this thing all mapped out. We won’t vary from my plan. It is too late now to have it any other way. Don’t go screwy on me, Ángel.”
“I know, I know. I just miss my family so much it hurts me. They are the only ones left--Grandfather Felipe, Juanita…”
“You can’t really count on them. They’re no different than anyone else. They would turn on you like rats if the money was right.”
“That is not true. Family is blood,” said Ángel.
“I know from experience that family members are nothing but bloodsuckers.”
“I can count on my family no matter what.”
“You had better hope so,” said Jimmie Joe. “You had better hope so.”
Jimmie Joe fired a glob of spit next to Ángel’s hand. He pulled a tin of chewing tobacco from his right rear pocket. Ángel watched as the older man stuffed a fresh plug of chew between his cheek and gum. Pulling out the drippy gob of used tobacco the sinister older man held it out to Ángel.
“Chew? Its better the second time around, already broken in, if you catch my drift.”
Ángel turned away from the rancid smell of the stringy brown leaves pulled from between the rotting teeth of the diablo blanco. Why did the big White man insist on playing such stupid little tricks? Maybe his amigos were right. Maybe el diablo es loco.
“Doesn’t go good with tequila, huh? Here let me show you how.”
Jimmie Joe Walker grabbed the bottle from the tightly gripped fingers of his young partner in crime. Slowly he brought it to his mouth. An evil grin, full of black teeth, ran cheek to cheek. With one swallow he chugged down half of what remained in the bottle.
“See? Nothing to it when you’re a real man.”
The big White man with the huge tattoo of a laughing devil on his arm smiled broadly. A rancid display of tobacco juice hung between his widely gapped rotting teeth. The pain in Ángel’s stomach escalated in waves. His gut creaked like a rusty gate. Nausea surged through his body from head to toe. Stumbling out of the run-down trailer house he fell to all fours. Ángel began up-chucking a mixture of bile, tequila and blood. A wave of self-hatred rushed through him as he realized good liquor had barely been given a chance to do its job.
Ángel didn’t hear the footsteps behind him as he used the back of his hand to wipe the red and green brackish fluid from his face. As the putrid smell of the vomited liquid reached his nose, turning his stomach yet again, the big White devil placed a boot squarely in the middle of Ángel
’s neck crushing his face directly into his own vomit. The boot striking his spine sent a lightning bolt of pain through his body. Ángel puked a second time. He struggled for breath. His anxious painful breathing forced some of the vomited liquid back into his stomach.
“Learn to hold your liquor, you stupid little bastard. So help me God, if you screw this up, you are going to be one dead fucker.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Deputy Steele closed the door to her office. She slipped her copy of the bomb threats into the cassette player. Listening to the hum of the rewinding tape she stared intently at a painting on her office wall titled “Where Beauty Begins”. Eskadi had drawn it for her shortly after he had given her the traditional Apache name of Son-ee-ah-Ray--Morning Star. The painting was a lifelike rendition of Jimmy Song Bird, Medicine Man at the San Carlos Reservation. Something caught her eye. Something that she had not seen in all the times she had stared at the painting. Eskadi had carefully constructed an obscure celestial design with the tiniest of stars painted into Song Bird’s dark and mysterious pupils.
The cassette player clicked. Kate rested a lithe finger lightly on the play button. She pressed it on slowly, softly. Her mind replayed the taped conversation a fraction of a second ahead of the actual recording. Every hesitation, every inflection, even the scratchy hang up noise from the caller’s phone was etched into her consciousness and seeping more deeply into her subconscious. The slight slur in his voice--was it alcohol or simply nervousness? Was she hearing regret in the man’s voice or not? The accent was Mexican Hispanic but the thick-tongued inflection carried hints of what she now knew to be Mescalero Apache. Whatever it was, it was definitely not a local accent. The caller’s cadence was neither precisely Spanish nor exactly Athabascan Apache. It was an unfamiliar rhythmic blend.
She looked at the regional map beneath the glass covering her desk. With a magic marker she drew a circle. The telephone company had confirmed the call was local. Thirty miles in any direction was the area she needed to know. That area involved a half-an-hour drive, a mere thirty miles. But it may as well have been the moon…or the stars in Song Bird’s eyes. Lost in thought, Sheriff Hanks’ voice took her by surprise.
“Kate? Mind if I listen to the tape with you?”
“Certainly, Sheriff. Have a seat. Maybe you can hear something I missed.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard everything there is to hear. It’s just that every time you listen to it I can hear it in my office. It sounds all jumbled through the wall. It was starting to annoy me. You know, hearing it without being able to make out what it said. I thought maybe if we listened to it together, we could hear something neither of us heard separately.”
“Actually, Sheriff, I am a little stuck. It might just be helpful if you would sit down with me and have a listen.”
Zeb placed his elbows on Kate’s desk. He leaned forward resting his chin on a closed fist. He gave his full concentration as his deputy replayed the tape.
“The voice isn’t familiar sounding. It doesn’t sound exactly like Mexican-American nor does it sound like Athabascan. Worst of all, it sounds wrong. Something isn’t right about it. The tone, the way it’s worded, something.”
“We need to figure out what it is that we don’t know. Any small hint might be helpful.”
“Wait a minute,” said Sheriff Hanks. “I remember something Delbert told me a while back.”
“Yes?”
“I think that phone call might have come from north and east of town.”
“What? How do you know that?” asked Kate.
“That scratchy sound when the man hung up. You know that squeaky sound when he set the phone down. Did you hear that?” asked Zeb.
Kate mimicked the sound of a phone being put back in its cradle.
“Say, that’s it and a pretty good imitation,” said Zeb. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Just one of my many talents. Actually, Eskadi and I have contests doing mimicry. It’s a long story,” she said with a smile. “When I hear that sound, it seems to me as if he was nervous, like his hands might have been shaking and hung the phone up too fast.”
“That could be,” said Sheriff Hanks. “Remember when we had those big winds about four months ago? The weather reporter on Channel 6 called them dry Santa Ana crosswinds.”
Kate nodded.
“The high winds knocked down a bunch of telephone wires out that way. That funny noise in the telephone wires started right after that. I remember Delbert saying that an uncle on his mother’s side lives out that way. He told me that every time she called him that high pitched sound irritated the dickens out of her hearing aid. Delbert said she was going to sue the phone company for the price of a new hearing aid if they didn’t get it fixed.”
Zeb and Kate suddenly realized how much they missed Delbert’s unique ways around the office. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he had a keener sense of observation than most. To top it off he had a memory that was rock solid.
“Delbert told me none of the other local lines were having that particular problem. I remember he told me his mother asked him to call the lineman supervisor and tell him to fix it. Delbert talked to him. He said the supervisor told him there had not been complaints anywhere else about line interference, but he did say he was surprised more poles hadn’t been blown over in those big winds.”
“So the phone company was fairly certain those are the only lines with that type of static on them?” inquired Deputy Steele.
Kate ran a finger over the map. The huge territory she had been looking at was quickly reduced to a workable area. A call to the local phone company might narrow her search area even further.
“Sheriff, do you remember exactly where the telephone poles were blown down?”
“Sure I do. I did a drive along with Delbert to check and see if any poles had fallen onto the road. Thank goodness, none had.”
“Do you remember what road the poles were downed on?”
“On County Road 6, just off Highway 191. I’d say about nine miles north of the turnoff on the west side of the road. Just a little past an old abandoned cattle corral.”
Kate scoured the map.
“County 6, here it is. It joins up with Indian Route 11 on the lower end of the reservation, near the Gila Box.”
“Yes, that is exactly the spot.”
“Do the telephone poles that were downed serve that area of the reservation too?”
“I don’t think so. I am fairly certain they stop before the reservation land. I can check with the telephone company line supervisor. I know him. He’s a good guy.”
“When you talk with him, would you find out where the line ends? If we can find out who the customers are on the lines, we might catch a break.”
“Good thinking, Kate. You better watch it or you might be next in line for my job.”
Kate was surprised to hear Zeb talk that way. It was out of character to speak so freely to her about something as important as a sheriff’s election.
“Sheriff, do you drive out there often?”
“No, that is, I mean was, Delbert’s turf. Hardly anyone lives out that way. It is sort of a no man’s land as far as people are concerned.”
Kate eyed the map. County 6 joined up with Indian Route 11. From there it angled off to the northwest and ran along the edge of the southernmost tip of the San Carlos Reservation. After a distance it shot back up to the northwest and joined up with Indian Route 8, the major road through the heart of Indian land. Tracing her finger backwards along the same route something caught her eye.
“Sheriff, have you ever driven on the lower end of the reservation?”
“I’ve hunted out there. I think I know it quite well.”
“Are there any roads where County 6 joins up with Indian Route 11?”
“There’s an old washed out road. It meanders through the reservation. I heard it used to go most of the way up to Indian Route 8. You would need a four-wheel drive vehicle with
high clearance--or a horse--to make it through there.”
“Where does it go?”
“It runs up to an abandoned copper mine. It hasn’t been maintained since they shut the copper mine down years ago,” said Sheriff Hanks.
Without speaking Kate continued to eye the details on the map.
“Anything else?” asked Sheriff Hanks. “If not, I think I will call the phone company.”
“No, nothing right at the moment. Once you’ve talked with them, please let me know what you found out.”
“Certainly,” replied the sheriff. “Is the evidence you have leading you down the road to a specific theory?”
“Maybe. I hope so.”
“Work on it. Let me know. I am headed out to tell old man García about his truck,” said the sheriff.
“Good luck.”
Kate studied the detail map of Graham County. At the intersection by the high school she wrote a large X. She put a second X at the grade school. Half way up County Road 6, in the area of the downed telephone poles, she put a third X. It was a long shot at best. Suddenly Kate had the distinct feeling that maybe Delbert had come out of his coma. Maybe he could add something to all this. She could not have been more wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Zeb headed out to see old man García who was not going to be very happy when he heard the news about his truck. Being the bearer of bad news was a part of the job Zeb had come to dislike intensely, but it came with the territory and it was his responsibility.
As he approached the García homestead Zeb saw Lorenzo, his wife and a couple of their grandchildren sitting on a front porch swing. They all smiled and waved as they saw Sheriff Hanks approach.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. Sheriff Hanks parked in Lorenzo's yard. He hesitated a moment and then got out of the car slowly.