The Creed of Violence (6 page)

The truck was parked in an empty lot behind Burr's house. Justice
Knox was to bring Rawbone there clandestinely. John Lourdes arrived
early as he wanted to meet with Burr alone.

Burr sat at his desk. It was littered with open law books and longforgotten cups of coffee. The needle, as well, lay on a silk handkerchief.
He wore the same ruffled shirt as the night before, and the air was
spiked with marijuana smoke when Lourdes was ushered in by the silent female servant.

Burr's face took on an anguished look as he watched the young
man rest his shotgun and rifle against his duffel.

"They're not here yet, as you are aware."

As John Lourdes approached the desk he removed an envelope
from his coat pocket. Burr took to staring out the bay window. Across
the river the red cut mountains stood out against the windless blue. He
set the envelope down in front of Burr.

"What is this?"

"I'd like to hire you as my attorney."

Burr took the envelope and then turned it over. He saw what was
written there.

"If I was your attorney I would advise against this quixotic
nightmare."

"Are you my attorney?"

Burr nodded with despair; he would take on that duty.

A car pulled into the driveway. Knox and Howell and the murderer,
turned recruit. They watched Howell walk with him to the guest quarters above the garage. Rawbone was still dressed in his suit and derby.

"He looks like a gent being escorted home after a neat bout of
night prowling," said Burr.

"There's a bank book in the envelope." John Lourdes went to
get his duffel and weapons. "I've signed over power of attorney. Take
money for your fee. The rest is for my burial beside my mother."

Burr put the envelope down. His gaunt face looked across the room
and back into a silent collection of years. "I remember how you used
to sit in that chair."

John Lourdes's body arched. "So you know who I am?"

"Yes ... I have my own detectives when I need them. I remember
slipping you money one night and telling you your birth was-"

"A crime of chance."

"I saw the look on your face and regretted having said it."

"If that's an apology, I accept."

"He should never have come back. I warned him."

"Some men just can't help themselves."

"I hope you're not one of those men, John."

AWBONE WAS BY the truck, giving it a close looking-over, when
John Lourdes came out of the house. He still had on that derby,
but now he wore a white Mexican shirt and canvas pants tucked into
some hard-traveled boots. He had a bindle slung over his shoulder and
his hands were pressed flat into a native sash around his waist. Knox
and Howell flanked him and when he saw John Lourdes approach he
tipped his hat and said, grinning, "Doctor ... something or other ...
I presume."

John Lourdes walked right past and began to stow his belongings
in the truck cab.

"What was his name?" said Rawbone to no one in particular. "I
remember reading about it years ago in The Herald. This gent travels
all of darkest Africa looking for some famous doctor and when he finds him he's living in some shantytown with a tribe of spades and he says,
`Doctor so and so, I presume.' What the hell was his name?"

John Lourdes walked past him again. He joined Knox and Howell,
who stood off a few yards, and they finalized plans. While he was alone
Rawbone leaned around and tried to inconspicuously look down into
the back of the cab housing to see if a weapon he'd nested away was
still there.

The men finished their talk and shook hands. Rawbone eased away
from the cab as John Lourdes approached him and said, "Get in the
truck. I'll drive."

"Aye, sir," said Rawbone.

The truck rumbled out of the weeded lot, then down the driveway
and past the veranda where Burr now stood watching. He had a gray
stare for both men, and implicit at the heart of it was how flaws in the
world so shaped human destiny.

Rawbone leaned out the cab window and called to his friend,
"When I've done my penance I'll come back and then you and I can
gent up and get some sinning under our belt."

He sat back and told John Lourdes, "If you ever need a righteous
good attorney, he's your man. That son-of-a-bitch could have gotten
Christ off."

"I can imagine," said John Lourdes, "as he seems to have done
alright for Satan."

THEY DROVE IN silence through the city, then turned onto a road that
led past Fort Bliss. Their destination, according to Rawbone, was somewhere in the Hueco Mountains where the arms were hidden away.

The truck scaled a rutted series of low and gravel-faced escarpments from which they could look back and see El Paso. The Rio
Grande Valley had become a vast keep of civilization, with the thread
of roadways and train tracks etching out in all directions and on into an ocean of heat. The valley, at that hour, on that day, so perfectly marked
the years of Rawbone's wandering that he quietly cursed himself.

John Lourdes noted the vexed look on the father's face but checked
it off as pure self-regard.

Rawbone turned away from the sight of El Paso. "Your name is
Lourdes, right? John Lourdes?"

He eyed the father warily. "That's right."

"How do you like to be called?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It'll be Mr. Lourdes then." Rawbone reached into his pocket for
a pack of cigarettes. "As befitting our stations."

John Lourdes kept to the road. But he was thinking now, I'd forgotten the voice, the tones and inflections. He had the huckster's gift to
make you feel, even as he was unfaithful to anything he said.

Rawbone looked the young man over as he lit a cigarette. The
khaki pants and polished boots. The vest and cravenetted Mallory hat.
He was strictly Montgomery Ward's. An escapee from that blue-collar
catalogue. Except for the automatic he carried in a shoulder holster.

"Is that a Browning?"

"It's a Browning."

"Cigarette?"

"I have my own."

"You from El Paso?"

"I am."

"Lourdes sounds French. Is it a French name? Are you French?"

John Lourdes leaned into the steering wheel. "It's a French
name."

"You have some Mexican blood in you. I heard that."

"I am part Mexican."

"How about Anglo blood? Or is being French now considered being Anglo?"

"I have Anglo blood in me."

"You're a mutt then."

"Why not."

Rawbone set his legs up on the door frame to stretch them out. He
crossed his arms. "Of course, we're all mutts, aren't we? Except for the
damn Hun, who considers himself pure as some nun's noble parts." He
used his cigarette as a pointer now, jabbing at the air. "Even Christ, he
was a mutt. The ultimate mutt. Part man, part god. If you believe in
such nonsense. What do you say to that?"

"I'm fuckin' overwhelmed."

Rawbone laughed right over that dark-eyed malicious stare and
told the whole empty world around them in a booming voice, "Hey,
we got a young man here who can bite without hardly opening his
mouth."

HE HAS NO inkling, thought John Lourdes, not even a breath of remembrance that the one beside him in the truck is his son. John Lourdes was
just another nondescript face in a tide of faces. This should have been
his passport to emotional indifference, but it was not. He wanted the
hard features and steady gaze to be recognized for what they were.

Soon ahead upon the plain was Fort Bliss. First they could make
out the three- and two-story barracks and then row upon row of newly
pitched tents. The camp had increased dramatically over the last months
and there were columns of mounted infantry and supply wagons making slow headway through a steady pall of dust.

"They're getting ready for the revolution to come."

"Is that what you think?" said Rawbone. "How old are you?"

John Lourdes stared, but did not answer.

"Take a look over there. See all that artillery."

Spread out over acres of sand and sage was an armada of caissons
and heavy guns.

"The Mexican is just target practice. An inconsequential. These
boys are down here to drill for the war to come in Europe against the
Hun and his dago bitch. The agents of war need something to practice
on. Who better than some filthy, ignorant peon."

Columns of cavalry approached. John Lourdes veered toward the
shoulder of the road. Rawbone swung out of the open truck and stood
on the cab seat, holding to the frame with his head above the canvas
roofing. As they drove along he pulled off his derby and amidst all that
throated dust began to sing to the passing troops:

That road-tired legion of riders either laughed or hurrahed and
others just stared at Rawbone as if he were some sidewalk pathetic to
be avoided. Yelling out, "The country is proud of you!" he swung back
down into the cab.

He greeted John Lourdes's stare with a burnt wink. "Take a look
at those boys, Mr. Lourdes. A good healthy look, 'cause what you're
seeing there is as dumb a bunch of mules as could ever be assembled.
And you know what else? They're about as equipped for where they're
going as you coming with me."

'OHN LOURDES SAID nothing. He remained fixed on the task at
hand. As a boy he had seen this pattern of subversion in the man.
The pure willingness to destroy, even when it was contrary to his own
best interests. If that's what the father now had in mind for the man
named John Lourdes, then the son would meet the assault with defiant
silence. Draw from that well all you want, but it isn't me, thought John
Lourdes, who'll drink the water.

"That's right," said Rawbone, "pay no attention. I tend to speak
on what I see. That's what comes from being a lifer at this game. Not
that I have anything against those soldiers. In fact, I have a particular
fondness for our military."

He took off his derby and wiped at the sweat on the inside crown
with a bandana. John Lourdes looked at him, and he in turn stared
back at the young man with reasoned disquiet.

"Mr. Lourdes, do you believe love can be as much a poison as
hatred?"

"Very well."

"It's a wisdom alright. I was born in a place called Scabtown. A
filthy pile of sewage and humankind it was. It sat across the river from
Fort McKavett. San Saba County. Mostly it was built by Germans. A
lot of Germans there. My mother was German. She made her living on
her back. The pimp who ran the brothel used to say his girls spent so
much time with their legs in the air he was surprised no one had ever
tried to hoist the flag on one of them."

John Lourdes watched as the father moved through one room after
another of his past. It was part of a shadow world the son had never
heard, never known.

"My father, it turns out, could have been a soldier. There sure was
a parade of them. Enlisted men and officers alike. Of course, he could
have been some creeping Jesus of a clerk with fishbones for a spine. Or
maybe some padre who had to bless his pecker every time he got hold
of it. A crime of chance ... that's what Lawyer Burr calls that kind of
being born ... a crime of chance."