by Johnny Shaw
“Wasn’t your fault, kid,” Frank said. “Worse driver would’ve gotten everybody killed. Some things just happen. Hell of a ride you took us on.”
“Thanks for coming by, Mr. Pacheco. Glad to see you’re okay, but I’m not up for company.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I got a biopsy tomorrow on a fresh lump they don’t like the looks of. Easier to spend the night. I’m down the hall. And I told you to call me Frank.”
“Cancer?”
“Nothing new. Fighting it for years. I’m thinking I can wear it out in the late rounds and win on points.”
“If anyone can, Frank.”
“Don’t mind the cancer so much, it’s my daughter needing to take care of me. Do I look like I need to be babysat?”
Ricky shook his head, his mind heading in other directions.
“There was nothing more you could have done. And from the looks of you—wrapped up like Claude Rains—if any punishing is going to happen, that switch has already struck ass.”
“An arm don’t feel like nearly enough.”
“Arm and a leg is more traditional.” Frank put his hand on Ricky’s good shoulder. “You’re a kid. The hell of it will pass. I done horribler things than you, and I’ve given up on the guilt for those sins long ago. Can’t blame yourself for accidents. That’s why they’re called accidents.”
“Tell that to the people I killed.”
“You didn’t kill ’em. They died. Different.”
Ricky looked toward the window in an effort to dismiss the old man. The blinds were half closed. There was no view. Frank finally took the unmistakable hint.
“I’ll be by tomorrow. If you’re not too glum, we’ll play cards.”
“I don’t want to see anyone. You understand?”
“I understand. See you tomorrow.”
EIGHT
The irresponsible combination of painkillers and Wild Turkey kept Harry in a medicated haze but didn’t stop his rising boredom. In an effort to liven things up, he roamed the halls in a borrowed wheelchair. He liked the sounds a hospital made: robotic beeps, low moans, foul-mouthed nurses, screaming children, crying mothers, and strange interludes of disquieting silence. It calmed him to hear everything as he floated above it all.
Passing an open door, he spotted Ricky. The big kid was all bandaged up. It didn’t take Harry long to do the math. There had been a bus crash. The kid owned a bus. Holy hell. Talk about a bad week. Hospital scuttlebutt put the current death count at five.
Harry rolled into the room. Ricky gave him a blank stare.
“What do you want?” Ricky asked.
“Passing by, saw you. Didn’t expect to see anyone I knew.”
“What happened to your face?”
“Long story,” Harry said. He reached for his missing earlobe and touched the soft gauze taped to the side of his head.
“The wheelchair?” Ricky nodded.
“Just lazy. I can walk, kind of. Toes is broke, so my balance is wonky. They’ll heal though. What about you?”
“Mostly my arm. Everything else is supposed to heal. Everything except my life.”
“I’d say, ‘at least we got our health,’ but I’m not that much of a jerk.”
Ricky almost smiled, but he pushed it down.
Harry looked over his shoulder, dug at his side, and pulled out his half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey. He took a quick pull and held it out to Ricky. Ricky reached over his body with his good arm, took the bottle, and swigged deeply. They passed it back and forth in silence.
“How about a pull for an old man?”
Ricky and Harry turned to see Frank in the doorway. He wore jeans and a hospital scrub for a shirt. The skin of his neck hung loose without a collar to support it.
Ricky handed the bottle to Frank. He lifted it to his nose, closed his eyes, and let the piquant burn hit his nostrils. He took a short pull. With his eyes still closed in bliss, he handed the bottle to Harry.
“How’d the surgery go?” Ricky asked.
“The piece they cut looked suspect to them. Told me to stay the night. Want to run some tests. Tell you right now, I know what that means. Been living with cancer long enough to know my pluses and minuses.”
“Sorry, Frank.”
“Tough news,” Harry said. He didn’t know why, but he immediately liked the old Indian.
“Thanks. Name’s Frank.”
Ricky spoke up. “I’m sorry, this is Shitbur…I don’t know your real name.”
“Harry.”
Frank and Harry shook hands. Frank stepped back and let out a short burst of a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Harry asked, already laughing a little himself.
“Look at us,” Frank said. “You never seen three sadder sumbitches. Ricky wrapped up like a ’gyptian mummy. Harry, you got a metal nose and a face like a jack-o’-lantern in January. Me, I might be pretty on the outside, but I got homicidal lumps uglying up my insides. What’s so funny? Not a goddamn thing. Laughing so I don’t cry.”
Frank let out a big laugh as he grabbed the bottle of Wild Turkey. He took a swig, spit-taking half of it over the front of his hospital scrub.
Even Ricky laughed.
By the time the sun went down, Harry, Ricky, and Frank were solid drunk. Drunk and edging toward maudlin. Ricky had enjoyed that first laugh, but it didn’t take long for his guilt to convince him that he didn’t deserve even brief happiness.
After they had discussed their various injuries, an uncomfortable silence filled the room. Not knowing each other and having nothing in common beyond their misery, none of them could figure out what to say. They wanted to feel a sense of camaraderie but didn’t know how to accomplish it.
Ricky finally found the link.
“Frank knows where there’s a gold mine,” Ricky blurted out.
“What?” Harry had dozed into his drunk and hadn’t quite absorbed what the kid said.
“Well, he doesn’t know where it is, but knows how to find it. Kind of.”
“Did you say ‘gold mine’?” Harry turned to Frank for confirmation. Frank’s nod sat Harry up straight.
“Fat Mary Mine,” Ricky said. “Ain’t that right, Frank?”
“Big Maria. The Big Maria Mine.”
“What are you talking about?” Harry asked.
Ricky laid out the abridged version of Frank’s grandfather’s story. In his drunken state, he got all the dates and names wrong, elaborated on some of the events, and just plain made up a few details. But for the most part, he got the gist of it. Frank was too drunk to correct him, not remembering all the details himself.
“You bullshitting, old man? Or is this on the level?”
“Only know what I know. What my grandfather told me. Truth be told, he may have lied. My grandfather was a bullshit artist. If he didn’t outright lie, he was sure to have made up some of it. To an Indian, a good story is more important than any kind of truth.”
“You believe him though?”
“I believed all his stories, even the ones I knew were lies. If you don’t believe a story, why listen.”
“I need odds. What’s the over-under that he was telling the truth? Forty percent? At least about the gold and the maps and all the important parts.”
Frank gave it some thought. “Fifty-fifty. Maybe closer to sixty-forty against. This is from the man that claimed to have ridden with Hi Jolly’s Camel Corps.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You never saw Hawmps!?” Ricky cut in. “Where’s your history? Ain’t a lot of heroes from out here. Hi Jolly rode camels for the Army. They got a memorial out near Quartzsite.”
“Don’t care. Back to the gold.” Harry’s hands shook from impatience.
“He could’ve rode with Hi Jolly.” Ricky’s voice was mostly slur. “When was your grandfather born?”
Harry raised his voice. “Nobody cares. You’re saying a coin flip on the gold, though?”
“Give or take,” Frank concluded.
Ricky start
ed laughing. His second really good laugh since the accident.
“What’s funny? This is serious,” Harry said.
Ricky had trouble getting words out. “You’re going to look for that gold, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” Harry said sheepishly.
“You got to admit it’s kind of funny.” Ricky tried to stop laughing, but couldn’t.
“No, I do not.” Harry stood up defiantly but fell back in his wheelchair and decided to orate from there. “I got nothing. Less than that. And it just so happens we have this conversation? That’s fate. It’s important to recognize these moments. Chances. Opportunities. You don’t react, it passes. Times when not doing something is stupider than doing something stupid.
“You’re a kid. You’ll have other chances. I ain’t old like Frank, but I ain’t young neither. All that’s left for me are long shots and bad gambles. I start turning my back on the two-hundred-to-ones, I might as well pack it in, buy a nice couch and a big stack of pornography, and wait to die.”
Ricky stopped laughing. “Sorry. It’s the thought of actually doing it. A treasure map hidden in an underwater ghost town that will lead you to a lost Indian gold mine. That’s like the back cover of a Hardy Boys book. It’s a little ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous just means that nobody else has tried.”
Ricky drained the remaining drops of Wild Turkey, and the three men talked about gold for the next half hour until Frank and Harry went to their respective rooms to pass out.
PART TWO: THREE MONTHS DOWN
NINE
Ricky gave Rosie a big hug. Standing at the back door of Anna’s spotless town car, he squeezed her against his chest with his one good arm. He dug his nose into her hair. It smelled like baby shampoo and applesauce.
“When are you coming, Daddy?” Rosie asked, but the tears in her eyes told Ricky she knew the answer. Kids were smarter than grown-ups gave them credit for being.
“Soon.” Ricky looked away. He hated lying to his baby girl.
She held out the frayed corner of her torn blanket. The faded swath was all that was left of the well-used blanket that she’d had since birth. Rosie called it Manta, the Spanish for blanket. Ricky couldn’t remember who taught her that word. Probably Anna. Girl and blanket had been inseparable until about a year before. She didn’t carry it anymore, but dug it out when she was scared or needed comfort. Ricky struggled to reach for it with his dead, withered left arm.
“What if you want Manta later?” Ricky said, taking the small piece of blanket, but keeping it within reach to give her the chance to take it back.
“You need him, Daddy. Don’t be scared.”
He gave her one last squeeze and whispered, “I love you,” in her ear. She climbed in the backseat. The click of the car door sounded like a cell door clanging shut. Rosie’s sad and confused face through the glass crushed whatever hope Ricky had left.
Flavia watched from the driver’s seat, her expression sad in its neutrality. They had said their good-byes the night before. There was nothing more to say between them. Words would only tear off the scabs.
Ricky rubbed Manta’s worn fabric between his fingers as he watched the car disappear in a cloud of dust. He stared into the vacant space for a moment and then turned to his trailer. It looked different. Dingier, rustier, more broken. He wanted to burn the damn thing to the ground.
Flavia and Rosie had to leave. He knew it. The only way to protect them was through distance. It hadn’t been easy to get them to go. Flavia initially refused, but he took it on himself to push her out the door. He had made leaving her only choice. Over the last three months, Flavia had done everything she could to try to help. But with Ricky recuperating and out of work, she was forced to work doubles at the restaurant, and that gave her only enough time at home to watch his accelerated decline. His apathy, self-pity, and eventual drinking all contributed to driving her away. However misguided, in Ricky’s mind, the only way he could save his family was through his own self-destruction.
At first they had prayed together, hoping Ricky would find something—anything—that would give him hope. A shred of good news that would show him that he could move forward. Flavia hadn’t been able to do it. His daughter couldn’t either, and he loved her more than anything. He had lost his faith. And without faith, all that was left was hopelessness.
In the real world, love wasn’t a good enough reason to do anything. It was a romantic excuse to make horrible mistakes. The right decision usually hurt. Flavia was willing to sacrifice herself and her happiness, but neither Ricky nor she was willing to sacrifice Rosie’s future. When Anna had agreed to take them both with her to El Centro, Flavia finally conceded that it was the best choice.
In El Centro, Rosie would be able to go to a better school, and Anna and Mario could give his daughter a chance. She would no longer be around her crippled deadbeat of an edging-toward-alcoholic father. It had all been discussed with the false truth that as soon as all the legal business was done and Ricky was sober and back on his feet, he would join them. The lawyers had been ruthless, and they were only getting started. The cops weren’t any better. There had even been talk of a manslaughter charge. Ricky had dug the hole deep, and this was the last chance for his girls to climb out.
Growing up, Ricky had never had much. Not much that was positive, that is. He had more than his share of foster homes, bullies, and beatings in his past. And he had always risen above it. For all the pain, the future had offered something better, but optimism came at a price. Hope hurt. Every disappointment chipped away at his belief in the future. After too many punches, no matter how much heart a fighter had, there was a point the poor bastard could no longer stand.
Up to that point, Ricky had absorbed his share of heartache and had never lost hope. His faith in himself and God had kept him going. But the moment he learned that he had killed those people, he no longer felt anything. His faith had been destroyed with his bus and those old people’s lives. There wasn’t a God that could justify that much hurt.
Three months later, the guilt held strong. The death toll had settled at six. Six fatalities. Six dead human beings. Ricky didn’t know the exact number of injured or maimed. The deaths were enough.
Ricky sat on the floor of the empty trailer, gutted except for a few empty boxes and stacks of papers and envelopes, mostly unread subpoenas and summonses. Beyond the built-ins, no furnishings remained.
The trailer had been robbed while Ricky had been in the hospital, but luckily there hadn’t been much and they hadn’t found the cash in the refrigerator. He had given Flavia all the money and sold everything else to give her and Rosie as much as he could. There was nothing that he needed, and he knew that the less Flavia had to rely on Anna, the happier she would be.
The emptiness of the trailer felt fitting to Ricky. A shell of the home it once was.
His eyes found one of Rosie’s drawings on the wall. A house and a family. The family in the drawing had a dog. The dog she wanted but never got. It was such a small dream, and yet Ricky hadn’t fulfilled one that simple. Ricky cried until his throat burned and his stomach cramped.
He had nothing. His past had destroyed him, his present was bleak, and his future was empty. He didn’t even have enough money to get drunk enough to forget.
Frank’s daughter, Mercedes, scared the bejesus out of her father. And not just him. She scared the bejesus out of everyone. The fact that she was his daughter didn’t allay his fear in the least bit. And now that he was living with her, the dread of her presence kept him in a constant state of anxiousness.
It wasn’t anything specific. She had a presence. A refrigerator of a woman, her physical appearance mirrored her immovable stubbornness. Against an unstoppable force of nature like Mercedes, you just did your best to stay out of her way. You run from a tornado, you don’t try to stop it from spinning.
It wasn’t that she was abusive. Just the opposite. She was attentive and did everything she could to take care of Frank. Th
e problem was that she took care of him with violent fervor. She took care of him whether he liked it or not.
It was one of the bad days. Mercedes wouldn’t leave him alone. Ever since he had started his most recent round of chemo and radiation, she had treated him like he was a retarded toddler. He would have called it doting, but it was closer to a prisoner/guard relationship. She never let him alone. No more trips to Los Algodones. Not even a walk in the brown-grass park three blocks away. With her and the scattered neighborhood kids she took care of in the small house, he was constantly surrounded. Yet the more people around him, the more alone he felt. Loneliness wasn’t about lack of proximity, but lack of connection.
“Eat your soup,” she said, holding the spoon for him. If she said the train was going into the tunnel, she was going to wear Campbell’s Chunky.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You have to eat. It keeps your strength up.” Those were the words she said, but to Frank’s ears, he inferred, “Eat or die.” Could you effectively stab someone with a spoon?
“Maybe a little bit,” Frank said, opening his mouth. He didn’t want to get mad or yell. After a dozen spoonfuls, he got up and tried to find an empty room in the small house.
No such luck. Around every corner was a kid or a grandkid or a relative that was there to cadge off Mercedes. The only actual assistance that he appreciated from the other members of his family was the copious amount of mota that Mercedes’s boys, his grandsons Ramón and Bernardo, supplied him. Mercedes’s world lost its edges when Frank could find a quiet corner and smoke his weed.
He put on his cowboy hat and went into the backyard. Caliber, a coyote-shepherd mix, ran up to him and sniffed at his shoes. Frank reached down and patted the dog’s head. The dog had gotten big in the five years since Frank had found him. Some bastard had dumped a sack of puppies in the desert to die. Caliber had chewed his way out and lived off his dead siblings until Frank had nearly tripped over him on a hunting trip.
“Good boy,” Frank said. Caliber licked his hand and then returned to whatever dog business he had been conducting.