The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid (43 page)

“
That’s CSI. But you’re right, we need real CSI guys to do this. So we’ll have to go back to Albuquerque and report it so they can bring a team out here.”

“The police are not going to waste time and money sending a CSI team out to the middle of nowhere to investigate… what, illegal parking? There’s no crime here.”

“There was a murder, Hubert.”

“Maybe. But the police are not going to buy that. There’s no body.”

“There is a body. We just don’t know where it is.”

“And have no way to find out where it is.”

It was sad to see her deflate. “I guess you’re right. Even if you tell them there was a body back there, they won’t treat it as a murder.”
S
he perked up. “We need to find the body.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but maybe we can figure it out.”

She agreed to let me drive the Bronco back to Albuquerque
but insisted
I
place
Kleenex tissues between my hands and the steering wheel.

The b
attery was dead. S
usannah
used
jumper cables
from
the truck
. I
heard the
familiar rurrer-rurrer-rurrer
of the starter motor
.

45

We stayed on paved roads the next morning until we hit the dirt one that runs to La Reina.

I tried to convince Susannah to delay the
return
trip a day or two. My
shop had
recently
been closed so
often
that people
probably thought I
was out of business.

She said there isn’t much to choose
from
between a store that is out of business and one that just doesn’t have any customers.

We pulled up in front of
El Erupto del Rey just past noon and went in for lunch. Ernesto was not on duty but Baltazar
de los ojos
was. I ordered the same thing I’d had the first time, green chile stew.

Susannah’s order was partially in Spanish and bizarre. It took me a minute to figure out why she ordered as she did.

In keeping with her professed desire to learn some Spanish, she asked me what ‘
el erupto del rey
’ means.

“
’
The King’s b
elch
’
I answered, and she laughed.

After lunch we drove the s
h
ort distance to the home of
la curandera
because I didn’t want to go uphill using crutches.

La Viuda de
Cheche Zaragosa Medrano
greeted us at the door and told me
again
in Spanish that Susannah was not welcome because she was a
bruja
. I explained
how that misunderstanding arose. I’m not sure she
completely
understood the explanation
,
but she allowed us
both
to enter.

I asked her to tell me about
Carlos Campos Castillo
.

Being a person of honor, she asked why I wanted to know.

“
Porque creo que está muerto
.
”

She crossed herself. Then she told me
about
Carlos Campos Castillo
.
I
also
asked her a few questions about The Hunting Guide.

Susannah and I sat in the truck afterwards.

“I really do need to learn Spanish, Hubie. Do you know how hard it is for someone lik
e me to sit there
knowing
you’re getting valuable inform
ation that might solve a murder
and not be able to understand a word of it?”

Given her personality, I did have an idea of how antsy she must have been
,
but I didn’t tell her that.

“And why did you say
está
muerto
?
” she asked. “
Should
n’t
it be
es
muerto
?
”

“
I can see why you would think so.
E
s
is normally used for a permanent condition whereas
est
á
is used for temporary situations.
”

“Death is about as permanent as it gets, Hubie, so it should be
es muerto
.”

She had a point. When you learn a language growing up, the grammar comes naturally. You don’t need rules
. Y
ou just know what word to use. So how could I explain it?
“
E
st
á
is Linotyp also used when a change has taken place.
I
would say
Susannah
es feliz
because you are happy by nature. But if you were
not normally happy, but something made you temporarily happy, I would say
Susannah
está feliz
.”

“Let me see if I’ve got it,” she said. “Since death is a change, you say
est
á
muerto
. So I assume you say
es viva
for someone who is alive because they haven’t yet changed to dead.”

Oops. “No, it’s
est
á
viva
.”

She stared at me with furrowed brow.
“That makes no sense.”

“Okay,” I said, “forget
ser
and
estar
. That’s a complicated
lesson
for later. What you need to know first
is that the Spanish word for ‘ice’ is ‘
hielo
’, not ‘
ojos
’.”

“You gave me the wrong word
when I asked you for the Spanish word for ‘ice’? I thought you spoke it like a native.”

“
It wasn’t my speaking that was the problem. It was my listening. I thought you asked for the Spanish word for ‘eyes’
, so I told you ‘
ojos
’.”

“Well, ‘eyes’ and ‘ice’ do sound alike, so I guess that’s understandable. No harm
done except… Oh my God. That’s
why she thought I was a witch. I ordered my Pepsi with eyes. Baltazar did give me a funny look, but I figured it was because my pronunciation was bad. He must think I’m an idiot.”

“Or a witch,” I said.

“So what did she tell you about The Dead Guy?”

I took a deep breath.
“
She said he was a gentle young boy who was always qui
et
and polite. He loved God. He loved the church. He loved learning the catechism and making his first confession. She always imagined he would be a priest. But after he reached puberty, he became i
ncreasingly obsessed with sin. He went to confession so oft
en that the old priest
started limiting the days and hours he would take confessions because he
didn’t have enough time to attend to h
is other duties.
He eventually joined the Penitentes.”

“The old priest joined the Penitentes?”

“No, Carlos did. It was on
e of those village secrets
everyone knew and no one talked about. After his parents died, he lived alone in t
h
eir house. He became
increasingly
reclusive. No one ever saw him except at church
.
The house began to deteriorate. He didn’t have a job, didn’t want one. He would have starved b
ut neighbors brought him food. H
e wou
ld thank them and tell them he w
ould pray for them.”

“This is a sad story, Hubie. I can picture him alone in a falling down house praying day and night. So what happened next?”

“That’s all she told me.”

“Shoot. It’s like a story without an ending
.
I hate that.”

Her face sagged.
“He’
s dead, isn’t he?”

“I think so. Remember what Whit told me about
Carlos
leaving town?”
I didn’t want to call him The Dead Guy now that I feared he
actually
was. It seemed disrespectful.

“
Yeah
,” she said
.
“
His booby-trapped piece of firewood blew up in The Hunting Guide’s face
, so he ran away to avoid revenge.”

“
I think t
hat story is false.”

“
Why
?”

“
Two reasons. First, Carlos doesn’t sound like the sort of person who would
put gun powder in a piece of firewood.
He was a gentle soul.
Second, w
hen The Hunting Guide report
ed the incident, he said he had started growing a beard to cover the scar the ember left on his face.
But beards don’t grow on
scar
tissue.
”