Devils and Dust (13 page)

His fingers traced along the rough, grime-encrusted inside of the fender. He encountered something that felt as if it was made of plastic. He tugged at it. There was a slight resistance, then the object came free. He pulled it out. It was a flat black plastic box with a pair of black buttons on its face. The back was a magnet to hold it fast to the metal of the car.

“Is that what I think it is?” she said.

“Yep,” he said. “GPS tracker.”

“These guys are high tech,” she said.

“Not really,” he said. “You can buy these at Walmart now. Worried moms use them to track their teenagers. Suspicious wives use them to figure out if hubby’s going to a motel.”

“Or vice versa,” she said. He could tell she was shaken, even as she tried to keep her voice light.

“Yeah.”

“So they know we’re here,” she said.

“Pretty much,” he said. “Just not exactly where.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Depends,” he said. “Are you going to head back north and let me handle this?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Okay, then,” he said. He reared back and threw the device as hard as he could up onto the metal awning of a closed and shuttered pharmacy.

“What was that for?” she said.

“As long as you’re here, I don’t want them to find us.”

“And if you’re here alone,” she said, “you’re okay with that.”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“And what do you think would happen then?”

“Well, I hope we’d be able to have a civilized conversation about where Oscar might be,” Keller said.

“Yeah, because these drug lords and smugglers have such a great track record for civilized conversation.”

Keller shook his head, giving her an exaggerated look of disappointment. “That’s a little bigoted, don’t you think?” he said.

“Don’t joke about this, Jack. These people are killers.”

“So am I.”

“Are we back to that again?” she said.

“No,” he said, “we’re back to the hotel. We need to get some sleep.”

“And what about tomorrow?”

“We do the same thing again,” Keller said. “Ask around. See if anyone’s seen him.”

“And poke Mandujano in the nose some more.”

“That, too. Hey, you got a better idea?”

She sighed. “No. Not right now. I’m exhausted.”

“So let’s go.”

They made the drive back to the hotel in silence. Keller kept checking the rearview mirror to see if they were being followed. A part of him was disappointed that he saw nothing. He could feel the rush building up, the feeling he always got when he was hunting. He felt they were getting close. He wasn’t sure why, but it was a feeling he’d learned to trust.

He pulled into the courtyard and parked. They trudged up the stairs in silence. Keller was unlocking the door to his room when Angela put her hand on his shoulder. He turned around.

“Jack,” she said softly, “let’s both just go home tomorrow.”

“What about Oscar?” he said.

“I don’t think we’re going to find him,” she said.

“You’re just tired. Get some sleep.”

“What if he’s—” She stopped.

“Dead?” Keller finished. “If he is, I want to know how it happened. I want to know why. And if someone did it, they’re going to answer for it.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she said. She put her arms around him. He hesitated slightly, but then hugged her back. She felt good against him. He ran a hand through her hair. She made a small sound, deep in her throat, then gently pushed him away. Her eyes were glistening. “Go,” she said, then turned and walked back into her room.

Keller went back into his own room. He took off his boots and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He knew Angela was probably right. Oscar was probably dead, buried out in the desert somewhere. But he couldn’t stop the hunt. The relentlessness that had made him so good as a bounty hunter was too ingrained. He could no more stop now than he could stop breathing. But what if Oscar was alive, and Keller found him? What then? He still had feelings for Angela. She clearly had the same feelings for him. But Oscar was his friend.

Keller lay there, those same thoughts running round and around in his head. He lay there, aching to get up and go knock on Angela’s door. He strained his ears, waiting and hoping for her knock on his. But there was only silence.
Jesus
,
could this get any more fucked up
? Finally, he drifted off into a fitful sleep.

In the morning, Angela was gone.

I
T WAS
hard for Ruben to decide. For a moment, he considered just cutting Diego down and burying him by himself. He didn’t think he could bring himself to ask someone else to face that grotesque, dangling thing that was once a man. A friend. He didn’t even know if he could get any of the older men to help him, and he knew he wasn’t going to ask his little brother. But he knew that it would take him all night, if not longer, to do the job alone. He hesitated outside the door of the barracks.

“Well,” Bender said, “get on in there, and get you some help. I ain’t got all fuckin’ night.”

Moving like a man in a dream, Ruben opened the door and went in. The men looked up from their bunks. Some of them were startled, as if they hadn’t expected him to return.

He looked at the man on the closest bed to him. His name was Dante. He didn’t say much, but Ruben recalled that he’d said he hoped to make enough money in America to bring his fiancée north as well. All of that seemed so far away now. Dante was watching him curiously, as if puzzled by the look on his face.

“
Que pasa, ese
?” he said softly. “You don’t look so good.”

“I need your help, Dante,” Ruben said. “We have to bury Diego.”

“Bury…” Dante looked around, as if searching for someone else to do the job.

“Please,” Ruben said. “We can’t just let him hang there all night.”

Dante closed his eyes, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll help.”

Ruben heard the bang and rattle of buckets outside. The men sat up, eyes widening in fear. “They’re bringing food,” Ruben said. “Dante and I have to go do something.” He saw the dubious looks on some faces, the beginnings of grins on others. He realized how that must have sounded. “They’re going to let us bury Diego.” He gestured toward Dante. “Dante and I. Will you save us some food? For when we get back?”

The pudgy guard named Bender entered. He was carrying one of the big galvanized buckets their food came in. Ruben could smell the stew that they typically got for dinner. It was a thin broth, with only a few chunks of meat and some shriveled carrots and potatoes, but at that moment, it was enough to make Ruben’s stomach growl. “Please,” he said, “we won’t be long.” The men wouldn’t look at him. Finally, Edgar’s voice piped up from the back of the room. “I’ll save you some food,” he said. “Don’t worry. Hurry back.”

“Come ON, Goddamn it,” he heard Bender shout from outside. Ruben turned and walked out, Dante trailing in his wake.

Someone had left a tattered blanket laid out on the ground next to Diego’s dangling body. A pair of shovels rested on it. Kinney slouched a few feet away, in the shadows, his submachine gun held loosely in his hands. “About damn time,” he grumbled. “
Vamanos, muchachos.
We got shit to do.” His glance in the direction of the women’s barracks left no doubt as to what that was.

Dante looked up at Diego’s corpse and crossed himself. Ruben could hear him whispering something under his breath, “
El Senor es mi pastor
,” he murmured, “
nada mi falta.” The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…

“How are we supposed to get him down?” Ruben asked Kinney

Kinney shook his head in disgust. He drew a long knife from his belt and walked to where he’d tied the end of the rope around the tree. With short, impatient strokes, he sawed at the rope.

“Quick,” Ruben said to Dante, “spread the blanket out. Under him.”

Dante hesitated. “Hurry,” Ruben urged as he rushed to grab the rope. He didn’t expect Kinney was going to lower Diego gently to the ground. He was right. When the rope parted, Ruben gasped as he tried to take the total weight of Diego’s body, then cried out as the rope began to slip through his fingers, abrading the skin from his palms. Dante looked up from where he was spreading the blanket, a look of horror on his face at the ghastly sight of Diego’s body descending almost on top of him. The rope was a line of fire between Ruben’s palms. He sobbed as he let go. Diego’s body collapsed to the ground, almost on top of Dante, who screamed like a woman and jumped back. The body crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. As it collapsed, a long, piteous groan escaped the slack lips.

“
Dios mio
!” Dante cried. “He’s alive!”

Kinney laughed nastily. “No, you dumbass monkey,” he said. “That’s just air leaving the body. Now get to work.”

Ruben walked over and tried to straighten Diego’s body onto the spread-out blanket. He grunted with the effort, but it was like trying to move a bag of wet cement. “Come on,” he panted to Dante. “Help me.” The man shook his head, the whites of his eyes showing like a spooked horse.

Kinney ratcheted the charging lever on his machine gun. “He said
help him
, monkey.”

With a low moan of horror, Dante began to help. It took a few minutes to get Diego arranged on the blanket, after which Ruben wrapped the sides over Diego, obscuring his bloated and ruined face.

“I’ll say this for you,
muchacho
,” Kinney said to Ruben. “You got more balls than this other
pendejo
.” Dante didn’t react to the insult. He stayed on his knees, head bowed, whispering his prayer. Ruben put a hand on his shoulder. “Where can we bury him?” he said wearily to Kinney.

“This way,” Kinney said. He started off across the compound.

“Come on, Dante,” Ruben said. “Please.”

Dante got to his feet. He’d stopped praying. He didn’t look at Ruben as he picked up one side of the blanket. Without a word, the two men carried the dead weight of a man once known as Diego, sometimes dragging him, but mostly managing to get him an inch or two off the ground. They followed Kinney across the compound, moving from harsh white light to black shadow, until they reached the back fence, on the opposite side of the compound from the fields. There was a gate, just wide and high enough for a man to go through, locked with a large padlock. Ruben could make out the outlines of a long, open-sided, shed-like building beyond the fence.

“That’s the sawmill,” Dante whispered. “Do you think they mean for us to cut him…”

“No talking,” Kinney barked. He took a key from a ring on his belt and unlocked it. They carried Diego’s body through the gate and toward the mill. There were none of the floodlights that lit the central compound here; the waning moon, interrupted by the clouds that blew across it at irregular intervals, provided the only illumination. In the dim light, Ruben could make out the shapes of machinery inside the shed. Kinney stopped for a moment by one of the machines. They lowered Diego’s body to the concrete shed floor, panting with the effort. “Keep going,” Kinney said as he straightened up. He was carrying something in the hand not holding the gun. They picked up Diego’s body with an audible groan, carrying their burden through the covered area and out into the open land beyond.

The moonlight revealed a scene like something from a war zone. All the trees were gone, only a few ragged stumps remaining like shredded bones poking from the ends of hacked-off limbs. Kinney led them into this ravaged landscape, under the uncertain and wavering moonlight. Finally, he stopped. “Here,” he said.

Ruben looked. His stomach turned to ice. There were at least twenty places where the earth had been disturbed, laid out neatly in two rows of ten rectangular plots each. Diego would not be the first person buried here. Ruben knew he wouldn’t be the last. There had been others before them. “All of us will end up here,” he thought numbly. “They’ll work us to death, starve us, execute us if we try to fight
.
”
A feeling of black despair washed over him.
Papa, I need you here.
But his father was nowhere to be found. Ruben had no idea where he was. There was no way he was coming to save them.

“Here’s your shovels,” Kinney said. He tossed a couple of short-handled spades on the ground. “Get digging.”

Ruben looked at him. The black despair began to take on a dark fringe of red rage around its edges. He almost charged Kinney right then, blind with the need to wipe that smirk off the blond man’s face. The thought of the dead man at his feet stopped him. He looked over at Dante. There’d be no help from that quarter. All that would happen would be that Ruben would be lying dead from Kinney’s gun next to Diego. That was if he was lucky. If he wasn’t, he’d face the same agonizing death and humiliation as Diego had. And Edgar would be alone.
One more day
, he decided.
Maybe if I live one more day, something will happen.

“Come on,” he told Dante. “Let’s get to work.”

They began to dig, the short-handled shovels making the job more difficult. Kinney paced back and forth, watching them, occasionally glancing up to where the clouds scudded across the moon. They’d been digging for at least fifteen minutes before Kinney began to talk, as if their silence disturbed him. “This shit takes too long,” he said. “We need to come up with a better way of disposing of waste. That’s what you are, you know. Waste. I read about how one of your drug lords used to get rid of bodies. He had a guy called the ‘soup maker.’ Used to dissolve bodies in acid. The guy said he learned the formula from the Israelis. That figures, doesn’t it? The Mexicans learning from the Jews. Maybe we should make up a big old stew pot out here. Save some space.”