Nothing but Trouble (9 page)

Eventually, at the turn of the twentieth century, the railroad had been built not to California, but to the copper mines in Arizona. Just as eventually, some sixty years later, the tracks were abandoned and dismantled, thrusting the small towns that had grown up along the right of way into free-fall decay.

The night before the tech scout was to start, Kerney drove to Deming, a small city on Interstate 10 west of Las Cruces, and stayed in a motel. Although he wasn’t due to meet up with Johnny and the movie-people party until late in the afternoon, he’d come down early so he could poke around and take a quick tour on his own.

On a bright, cloudless Friday morning Kerney rolled into Hachita, one of the Bootheel villages devastated by the loss of commerce after the railroad had pulled out. An old locomotive water tank perched on tall steel pillars stood next to the raised rubble of the railbed, still visible under the weeds and shrubby bushes that had gained a strong foothold amid the rocks. Fronting the highway that passed by the settlement stood a low-slung white building that housed a cafe and store. Next to it was a garage that sold gas, and a boarded-up structure that, according to the sign above the door, had once been a food mart.

The cafe consisted of a half-dozen tables crammed into a narrow room. At one end a passageway led to the kitchen, and a small area directly behind the diner served as a grocery store of sorts, offering a few basics such as sugar, flour, bread, and canned goods, and a wider selection of snack foods and soft drinks. On the wall of the cafe were sport plaques and framed certificates that had been awarded to teenagers from the village who attended high school in Animas, some thirty miles distant.

At a window table in the empty cafe, Kerney ate breakfast. From the time it took to place his order and finish his meal, not one vehicle passed along the two-lane blacktop. The bill came to pocket change, and Kerney tripled the tip for the young woman who had served as both waitress and cook.

Back in his pickup truck he made a quick tour of Hachita, which sat almost squarely on the Continental Divide. In among the derelict buildings, broken-down trailers, and trashed-out, sandy lots filled with the skeletal remains of cars, trucks, and miscellaneous pieces of cannibalized heavy equipment were a few tidy, well-tended, occupied dwellings. Kerney figured no more than sixty people lived in the village proper.

Aside from the post office, a small, stuccoed structure with a pitched roof, the only other buildings of substance were an old brick schoolhouse now used as an occasional community center, and a Catholic church with a mortared stone vestibule and bell tower that soared above whitewashed adobe walls.

Beyond the village, at a distance much farther than the eye imagined, the raw and barren-looking Little Hatchet Mountains jutted up from the valley. The mining town of Playas, where the film company would be headquartered, sat due west on the slope of desert scrub hills, out of sight.

With hours to kill, Kerney turned south, away from Playas, and drove the state road that would take him to Antelope Wells, the most remote port of entry into Mexico along the entire international boundary. The chill of the early desert morning had long passed and the day was heating up. Kerney rolled down the windows to allow the sharp smell of dry air to wash over him, cruised down the empty highway at a leisurely pace, and let his gaze wander over the valley.

By western standards Kerney’s two sections of rangeland outside Santa Fe hardly qualified as a ranch. Although it contained some good pastureland and live water, a great deal of it consisted of rocky soil that had been overgrazed and invaded by pinon and juniper woodlands.

Kerney had little knowledge of modern land conservation practices, so to get up to speed he’d enrolled in a series of weekend workshops on restoring western rangeland. Using what he’d learned, he had begun to institute changes on his ranch. Last year he’d cut, lopped, and bulldozed over a hundred acres of woodland that had intruded into a pasture. He would burn the piles later in the fall and reseed the acreage the following spring with cool-season grasses. With that accomplished he planned to create some swales at the lower end of a pond where an arroyo was forming, so the water could spread out slowly and allow the marsh grass and cattails to stabilize the banks.

What Kerney had in mind to do was only a start. He had a great deal more to learn about good stewardship of his land. But he’d met a number of smart, well-informed people he could turn to for advice and information.

Along the highway Kerney could see the effects of drought and over-grazing on parts of the valley. Vast acres of gray rabbitbrush and broom snakeweed stretched across the plain under thick stands of greasewood and mesquite. To the untrained eye the landscape looked lovely. But, in fact, it no longer resembled the open grasslands settlers had found over a hundred and twenty years ago.

At a pasture that had been brought back to life, Kerney stopped the truck and walked to the fence line. A rancher had restored the sandy soil as far as the eye could see with Indian rice grass, blue grama, little bluestem, burro grass, and a few varieties Kerney didn’t recognize. In some places grass stood in waist-high clumps, seed tips waving gently in a slight breeze. Close to the faraway mountains a herd of cattle moved slowly across the valley in the direction of a stand of trees that signaled a water source.

Only the song of a blue jay on a nearby fence post and the lowing of a cow broke the silence. The growing sound of an engine drew Kerney’s attention to the road and soon a noisy, rattletrap panel truck came into view, traveling at a high rate of speed. Headed north to Hachita, it passed Kerney without slowing.

Back on the highway, Kerney continued in the direction of Antelope Wells with the Big Hatchet Mountains guiding his way south, announcing the border and Mexico beyond. The road curved sharply at Hatchet Gap. Kerney came through the pass and saw a small flock of crows converging over the blacktop. On the center stripe, a quarter mile distant, he spotted what appeared to be the carcass of a large animal, perhaps a yearling calf. Kerney drew near and hit the brakes as soon as he realized it was a body facedown on the pavement.

He grabbed his first-aid kit from under the seat of his truck, ran to the body, and rolled it over. Blood bubbled from the smashed mouth and nose, and the skull had been crushed at the temple, exposing the cranial cavity. Teeth protruded through the lower lip, and Kerney couldn’t force the mouth open. He ripped open the shirt, took a small penknife from the kit, probed for the soft spot beneath the trachea, and punched a hole in it. Bloody fluid gushed out, splattering Kerney’s hands and face.

He dropped the penknife and started CPR, but it was too late. He sat back on his haunches and stared at the body. From what Kerney could make out from the mangled features and the clothing the victim had been a young man, maybe a teenager, probably Mexican, and most likely an illegal immigrant worker.

Had he been dumped out or accidentally fallen from the back of the panel van?

In the silence of the sun-drenched morning, as the crows circled noiselessly above, Kerney sat next to the body for a moment on the empty highway, thinking that he’d seen, in both war and peace, far too many dead people.

He got slowly to his feet and used his cell phone to call for police assistance and an ambulance. He got a tarp and some road flares from the toolbox in the bed of his truck, covered the body, and set out the flares. Above him the crows called out in protest as they floated down to the side of the road and pranced noisily back and forth, while Kerney kept them away with his silent vigil.

Forty minutes later an EMT from Hachita arrived on the scene, closely followed by a Border Patrol officer up from Antelope Wells. Kerney identified himself to the men, and the officer took his statement while the EMT inspected the corpse. Soon after, a state police officer from Deming appeared with an Animas volunteer fire department ambulance trailing behind. Two cowboys in a pickup truck, hauling a horse trailer filled with hay, stopped to watch the proceedings.

Kerney gave another statement to the cop, a senior patrol officer named Flavio Sapian, whom Kerney knew from his days as deputy chief of the New Mexico State Police. Sapian put out a radio bulletin on the panel van and took photographs of the dead man. He checked the roadway, the shoulder, and Kerney’s truck for any sign of a collision before releasing the body for transport. As the ambulance pulled away and the Border Patrol Officer left, Sapian walked to Kerney, clipboard in hand.

“Does this happen often?” Kerney asked.

Sapian, a stocky man with a fleshy face and deep chest, waved at the cowboys as they drove off. “Not like this. Sometimes a rancher will find a body on his land, or the coyotes-the smugglers who bring the illegal immigrants across the border-will abandon them in the desert. But mostly that happens west of here, where the copper smelter is located. It’s forty miles north of the border. The coyotes and immigrants use the flashing lights on top of the smelter stack as a beacon to guide them into the United States. They call it the Star of the North.”

“Do you think the dead man fell or was pushed?” Kerney asked.

“It’s hard to say,” Sapian replied. “If he was riding in the panel van as you suggest, you’d think there would be skid marks or other evidence to indicate that something happened to cause the rear door to pop open and the victim to fall out. On the other hand the coyotes pack their customers in trucks like sardines to maximize their profits. The victim could have been leaning against the door and it just gave way.”

“That may not be what happened,” Kerney said as he walked to the spot where the body had landed on the highway. “He hit facedown, and the only bruising and blunt-force trauma was on the front of his head and torso. There’s nothing here or on the body that shows he either tumbled or slid along the pavement.”

“That doesn’t prove murder,” Sapian said.

Kerney looked at Sapian. “You’re right, but homicide can’t be ruled out either.”

Sapian shrugged. “Maybe the autopsy will tell us something.” “Yeah,” Kerney said as he stared at the bloodstained pavement.

“You did the best you could to save him,” Sapian said.

“He was just a kid.”

Sapian nodded solemnly. “When I was first married, I’d come home from work and my wife would ask me how my day went. Some days I’d just say that she didn’t want to know. Once she asked and I told her. She doesn’t ask that question anymore.”

“There are days it just gets to you.”

“I know that feeling, Chief,” Sapian replied, eyeing Kerney’s blood-splattered face, hands, and shirt.

“I look a mess, don’t I?” Kerney said. “Is there anyplace nearby where I can clean up?”

“Not until you get to Hachita. But there’s a ranch a few miles north of here. Sign on the highway says Granite Pass Cattle Company. I’m sure the owners wouldn’t mind if you used one of their water tanks. I’ll give them a call, if you like, so you don’t get run off for trespassing.”

“Who are the owners?”

“Joe and Bessie Jordan,” Sapian replied. “An older couple, pretty much retired now. Joe’s gotta be pushing eighty. Their manager, Walter Shaw, and their daughter run the operation.”

Kerney smiled at the thought of seeing Johnny’s parents and sister. “Joe, Bessie, and Julia.”

“You know them?”

“You could say that,” Kerney replied. “I’d appreciate it if you’d give them a holler for me.”

A mile in on the ranch road the mesquite and greasewood shrubland gave way to open range that swept north and south along the flank of the Little Hatchet Mountains. Just off the road on the edge of a grassy pasture stood a rodeo grounds, complete with an elevated crow’s nest. A sign on it read: JORDAN ARENA.

The arena, enclosed by sturdy railroad ties and wire, had chutes at one end, gates at the other, and electric light poles outside the perimeter. Not that many years ago ranch rodeo arenas were a common sight in many rural areas of the state. Once or twice a year ranch families and working cowboys would come together to socialize and show off their skills in friendly competition. Folks would back their pickups against the fence and set up folding chairs in the truck beds to view the action. Events usually consisted of team penning, wild-horse catching, team branding, team roping, and wild-cow milking.

Kerney was glad to see that Joe and Bessie Jordan were keeping the old tradition alive.

Behind the holding pens was a stock tank fed by a windmill. Kerney stripped off his shirt and stuck his head and arms into the clear water, raised up, and started scrubbing off the dried blood with his hands. His moist skin dried almost immediately in the arid heat of the day. He stuck his head in the tank again and splashed water on his chest, shoulders, and back. He came up for air and a voice behind him said, “Remember when we used to go swimming in the stock tanks on Daddy’s Jornada ranch?”

He turned and looked at the woman who stood in front of a three-quarter-ton flatbed truck. “Hello, Julia.”

“Hello, yourself,” Julia Jordan said. “I understand you tried to save somebody who died on the highway.”

Kerney nodded as he gazed at Julia. Although now a bit more full figured, she still retained her good looks, and her laughing eyes, which always seemed to be a bit mocking, hadn’t lost any luster. Her long, curly hair, more gray than dark brown, cascaded onto her shoulders.

“I didn’t help much.”

“You look good with your shirt off,” Julia said slyly. “Care to go skinny-dipping with me?”

“I don’t think so.”

Julia laughed as she glanced at Kerney’s wedding band. “I’m not surprised. You always were the straight-arrow type.”

Quickly, Kerney slipped into his blood-splattered shirt. “Was I, now?”

“My God, were you hurt?”

Kerney buttoned up. “No, it’s not my blood.”

“Do you have a fresh shirt to wear?”