The Carrion Birds

by Urban Waite

  “You hear I was married, too, you hear about my baby boy?”

  Ray watched Sanchez. The younger man wouldn’t meet Ray’s eyes—Sanchez just looking at the window now, at his own reflection. “I heard about that,” Sanchez said.

  “Mistakes,” Ray said. He put his window down and watched his breath curl in the early-morning cold. It was one thing to do a job with the idea that it was business and nothing more. It was another thing altogether to take it into someone’s home, into the kitchen where they ate their dinners, where their wives cooked their meals and their children roamed the floors on hands and knees.

  “But you dealt with it,” Sanchez said. “You handled it.”

  “I’m not that man anymore, you understand?” Ray said, his eyes scanning the darkened landscape, searching back over a history he’d run from ten years before and thought that he’d left far behind. “I gave it all up.”

  “And my uncle had it all cleaned up for you?”

  “He was good about that sort of thing,” Ray said, “taking care of things.”

  “I’m sorry about your family,” Sanchez said, finally. “But still, it doesn’t change anything, you should know that.”

  “I’m not that man anymore.”

  “Whatever you are or aren’t,” Sanchez said, “you were given a call because you know this country, and you’ll play your part just like you always have.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all we’re asking.”

  “You think this guy will just stop for us?”

  “Sitting in this thing with the flashers going, he’ll think you’re a cop. If he tries to run it’s probable cause for a search, and he won’t want that. All you have to do is go up there and ask him for his license and registration. Play your part, shine your flashlight in his window, and take the load from beneath the bench.”

  Ray drew himself up in the seat. He was looking out on the road still, listening to Sanchez. Behind him in the dark of the Bronco, Ray knew there was a long-range hunting rifle. He knew, too, that it was a lot of rifle for a talk on the side of the road. “You going up there with me?” Ray asked. His own Ruger nine-millimeter tucked into the pocket of the padded canvas jacket he wore.

  A shotgun rested against the side of the door where Sanchez could reach it, and as they’d driven down, Sanchez had flipped the safety off, then on, repeating it every ten seconds or so, the metallic click of the metal counting out the time. “You wouldn’t want that,” Sanchez said. “Before I went away on a charge a few years back I worked with this man pretty regular. He’ll know why I’m here and, more importantly, he’ll know you aren’t a cop.” Sanchez looked over at the shotgun, pausing to reach a hand out and flick the safety from on to off. “If I get out it will mean something altogether different.”

  “You really think he’s just going to let me take the dope?”

  “Keep the flashlight on him, don’t let him see your face or mine,” Sanchez said. “You play it right, take the dope and let him off with a warning, he can’t do anything about it. He’s not going to come after a cop, and he’s not going to go back to Coronado looking for a resupply. He’s stuck.”

  “Who are these people?” Ray asked.

  “The truck we’re waiting on comes up from Coronado once a month. They take the drugs up from the border and they move it north to Deming, then east on Interstate 10 to Las Cruces or west to Tucson. All this through a man named Dario Campo, who has a bar in town.”

  “So that’s what this is, a shakedown?”

  Sanchez swept the line of cigarettes off the dash into the envelope of his hand. “This used to be our territory,” Sanchez said.

  “I thought it was still your territory,” Ray said. “Isn’t that what all this is about? Isn’t that why my cousin lost his job and shot that woman, because Memo was trying to play everyone against everyone else?”

  “I don’t know what you heard, but the cartel is taking over everything these days. Our territory is half what it used to be.”

  “You ever think maybe there’s a good reason it’s not yours anymore?”

  Sanchez put his finished cigarettes in with the loose tobacco and began work on another, Ray just watching. After a time Sanchez said, “You’ve been out of the loop. I’ll give you that. You think you know how things are down here, but you don’t know shit. You’re going to need to be careful when you walk up there, when you take the dope. Don’t get cocky because you think you’ve been around longer than me.” Sanchez paused, admiring the half-finished cigarette in his hand. “Be careful with anyone who works for Dario. Dario is a real piece of work. Don’t leave him with anything. Don’t show your face when you take the dope. Just do your job and we’ll both be fine.”

  “I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Ray said.

  “That’s true. My uncle says you’re the best. He told me there was no one better. But I think you should know that Dario is no one to feel comfortable with. He’s out of Juarez and he’s cartel. The last guy who tried to pull what we’re about to pull had both hands skinned wrist to fingertips. They say Dario keeps them in his desk and wears them around like gloves when the weather turns cold.”

  “Sounds like Memo has been tucking you in at night.” Ray laughed. “What is that? One of your favorite bedtime stories?”

  Sanchez wouldn’t look over at him; he just sat there shaking his head, tightening the cigarette in his fingers.

  “Did Memo tell you that?” Ray said. “Did he think that would keep you in line?”

  But Ray knew that sometime in the last few minutes everything had slowed. Cartel, Ray thought. There wasn’t anything entertaining about this lifestyle anymore. Not like it used to be.

  Before his eyes the light had grown grainy and pink as the red dirt road took form out of the shadows. “This guy better be along soon,” Ray said.

  “He’ll be along,” Sanchez muttered, fitting the last of the tobacco onto the paper and then sealing it with his tongue.

  “We’ll see,” Ray said, looking out at the thicket and marking where the dirt road ran perpendicular to his vision. “I’m not interested in making more of a mess out of this thing than I’m willing to clean up.”

  “There’s not going to be any mess.”

  Through the window Ray heard the early-morning birdcalls, the wind pushing through the locust, and the hollow clack of the branches as they met, then bounced apart. Government BLM land and the smell of cows and dust—all there was now of this place, his father’s old oil property only a few miles to the south, closer than he’d been in years, and most of the land now rented out as grazing range to the surrounding cattle farms.

  With his arm out the window, Ray let his hand dangle there near the mirror. The whole thing made him nervous. This close to his former life and a family he’d never been completely honest with.

  He leaned forward and played with the spotlight, wanting to get it right, wanting it to look official. If he could just get this right he’d be free at least until the money ran out, and if he was smart, maybe longer.

  He went on adjusting the spotlight and watching the road until the old Chevy pickup went by about fifty feet in front of them with just its parking lights on.

  It took them only a minute to chase the truck down, Ray driving and Sanchez sitting shotgun as the pale flash of their headlights alternated in front of them, highlighting the back of the truck bed. Ray had the spot turned on and through the back pa
ne of glass he saw a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. His skin pale beneath the spotlight. Another man beside him that neither Ray nor Sanchez had been counting on, but the man was there regardless.

  Ray thumbed the Ruger’s safety off. “You know something about this?” he asked. He leaned forward and slid the pistol beneath his belt, watching the old Chevy where it sat a hundred feet in front of them, the faint outline of the parking lights visible through the early-morning haze.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Sanchez said. “It’s the same as it was before.”

  With his forearm, Ray leaned into the door and pushed it open. He was carrying in his left hand a flashlight, hitting it in rhythm against his leg. The thick light of the spot falling everywhere and the shadow he cast before him, into which he stepped, deep and dark as an abyss.

  Nothing out there except the smell of desert flowers, dirt, and cow dung. A slim line of yellow tree tobacco growing like a weed along the side of the road, barely visible in the coming dawn. He clicked the flashlight on, holding it over his shoulder as he came to the truck. Ray knew men like this could be jumpy when it came to police.

  He was near even with the cab now. The light raised as he came forward. Ray knew this man. His name was Jacob Burnham and he’d been working this land since Ray had been a kid. And in a rush, he knew, too, why Memo had been so insistent on having Ray work this job.

  Ray had known Burnham all his life. They’d run drugs together when Ray was just getting into the business. The first meeting he’d ever had with Memo’s family had been set up by Burnham, twenty years Ray’s senior, pale skinned, with his veins showing blue beneath his flesh and his hair silver as mercury even all those years before.

  Burnham was the local guy. The one who had been in Coronado all along, moving the dope up across the border. He was the one Ray would hear stories about as a boy, whispered to him as Burnham turned a corner a block up and fell out of sight. Now Ray worked in the same business as this man. Had for more years than he cared to admit. Doing the same type of work, the same profession, and he knew those same people down in Coronado probably still whispered Ray’s name, just like they had all those years before with Burnham.

  He never let his eyes drift away from Burnham, who sat waiting in the driver’s seat. The beam of the flashlight held up to the driver’s-side window, blinding the old man. When he was satisfied Burnham wasn’t holding anything, he rapped on the glass with his knuckle and waited while the window came down.

  “Morning, Officer.”

  “You have any identification on you?” Ray said, flattening his voice till it was unrecognizable as anything Burnham might remember.

  The man dug around in his back pocket. The beige cowboy hat he wore shifted to the side, wide brimmed and flat in a style Ray couldn’t remember seeing on any other man outside Coronado. Burnham pulled up his wallet, thumbed out the driver’s license, and handed it over to Ray.

  “Jacob Burnham,” Ray said. He ran a thumb over the ID, looking at the picture of the man on the card. Stone white and skin wrinkled, with gray-silver hair combed to the right and cut at odd angles like he’d done it himself. “And who’s in the passenger seat over there?” Ray saw Burnham’s eyes dart toward the other man, then come back to rest on Ray.

  “His name’s Gil Suarez,” Burnham said.

  “Is that right?” He handed back the man’s ID. “Would the both of you mind just stepping out of the vehicle?” Ray said, still holding the light over his shoulder.

  Burnham hesitated. His eyes turned up on Ray and his breath moved steady through the beam of the flashlight before falling away again into the darkness. “You’re not dressed like any sheriff’s deputy I’ve seen.”

  “I’m not any ordinary sheriff’s deputy,” Ray said. The old man squinted out past the light, trying to figure Ray, but looking to the side where the light wasn’t as strong. “Sorry,” Ray said, “you just don’t know these days who’s traveling around on these roads. I’d rather have you out here where I can see you and I don’t need to go guessing what you have in your hand or under your seat.”

  The old man sighed, letting his breath out in a long whistle like he was about to take a high fall into a cold lake. “We weren’t doing anything illegal,” Burnham said. “And we’re within our rights just to stay here.”

  “I know what your rights are,” Ray said. He shifted his eyes to where Gil Suarez sat in the passenger seat, judging whether the younger man was going to be a risk, then he ran them back over to Burnham. He watched the old man and when he moved to get out, Ray already had his hand resting close over his hip. “I’m just checking to make sure about something,” he said.

  Burnham was halfway out the door when Gil Suarez made a run for it, the gun up out of Ray’s belt as he came around the cab looking for a clear shot. Gil keeping low, angling toward the protection of the locust thicket at the side of the road. Burnham up out of the cab now, his arms outstretched and going for the pistol in Ray’s hand. Ray shoved the old man to the ground and came forward along the truck looking for his shot. Gil almost at the thicket. There wasn’t anything else to do, Ray squeezed down on the trigger and the muzzle flash lit the truck cab up like a yellow flare, the bullet ricocheting off the metal roof and caroming into the early-morning gray.

  At the sound of the shot, Gil ducked and kept running. Ray was aiming too low. He didn’t know if Gil had a gun, or what he might be carrying. Burnham now up out of the dirt and making his own escape around the back of the pickup, keeping low in his stride as he tried for the thicket. Ray fixed his sight on the old man and came around the side of the truck.

  He didn’t want to shoot Burnham, but he knew he would if Burnham didn’t stop. Ray was almost around the edge of the truck when the big boom of the shotgun caught Burnham midstride. He saw the old man fly sideways and disappear over the edge of the road. When he turned he saw Sanchez, up out of the Bronco, pump the twelve-gauge once and then fire again toward the running figure of Gil. Gil fell in the dirt ten feet out from the road. Splatter of buckshot all through the dirt where he’d tripped.

  Lucky son of a bitch, Ray thought.

  Sanchez pumped the shotgun a second time as the kid got up and ran forward across the sandy wash between the road and the wall of brush, half falling as he disappeared into the thicket of green-brown locust.

  Ray stood there with the Ruger pointed into the bushes. The sound of the shotgun fading away down the valley as the wind clattered through the dense roadside growth all around them.

  He turned and looked to where Sanchez stood next to the Bronco. “Get that rifle out of the back,” Ray said. He sheathed the Ruger in his belt, turning to mark the place the kid had gone from sight. Trying his best to discern a path through the locust. He waited with his hand held out for the rifle.

  Sanchez leaned back into the Bronco and came out with the hunting rifle. He was holding the rifle and he one-handed the shotgun to Ray over the open passenger door. “I’ll take the younger one,” Sanchez said.

  Ray held the shotgun in his hands. He’d caught it high on the barrel and he could feel the hot metal on his skin, the sulfur scent of gunfire fresh in the air. “You hit him anywhere?” Ray asked.

  “Not that I saw.”

  Ray stood looking at the place Gil had gone into the thicket. He didn’t think the kid would get far, knew he would run out of cover in the lowlands after a few hundred meters, where the highway cut north along the valley floor. Still, it was nothin
g but shadow in there and dense brush. Light seeped up off the horizon to the east and bled into the sky. Everything above a gray-blue haze and their own shadows stretched away long and skinny to the west. “If he gets out of the bush, he’ll see the valley highway.”

  “Nowhere to hide on that bottomland.” Sanchez held the rifle in one hand and with the other he dug out three shotgun shells from his pocket. Cupping them in his hand, he gave them over to Ray.

  Sanchez pushed the bolt back on the rifle, looked into the chamber, and then pushed the bolt forward again. The rifle took .308s, almost two inches in length and shaped like miniature missiles. Each of them big enough to take down a four-hundred-pound mule deer, and powerful enough to rip through skin and muscle and snap bone. “Did you see me wing the old man?”

  “I saw it,” Ray said.

  Sanchez took a few steps toward the ditch where Burnham had fallen and the soft gurgle of his breath could be heard. “He’s still alive.”

  “I can see that, too,” Ray said, following Sanchez to where Burnham lay.

  Sanchez turned around, looking for approval. “Pretty good, eh?”

  “You better get going. That kid’s just out there running and you’ve got less than a thousand meters on that scope,” Ray said. He was holding the spare shotgun shells in his palm, and he started to feed them down into his pocket, waiting to see what Sanchez would do. “Memo wanted me on this job because he wanted Burnham to recognize me, didn’t he?”

  Sanchez nodded. He was looking toward Burnham where he lay in the dust.

  “I told you it was going to be a mess,” Ray said.

  “No mess,” Sanchez said. The flash of a smile and the brief pride Ray hated to see on the younger man’s face. “My uncle set this up pretty good, didn’t he?”

  Ray paused, letting that sink in.

  “There’s a shovel in the back of the Bronco.”