I drove slowly through Sulfur Springs. The place had awakened. Cars and trucks were leaving Gallina Town, heading north toward Cadiz, probably to jobs there. I came to a little open area near the taqueria where a couple of kids were kicking around a soccer ball. They stopped as I passed, seemed to recognize me, and took off running as if I was El Diablo himself. I crossed the bridge and rolled down the main street past the Mustang Properties office, where I caught a glimpse of Marian Brown inside, her back to the window. She didn’t see me. The post office hadn’t opened yet. The parking space in front of the little police department was empty. Up ahead, I saw the barmaid Sierra standing in the shade of the front porch of Rosa’s Cantina. I can’t say that she beckoned to me exactly, but I got the feeling that she’d been watching for me. She glanced up and down the street, then stepped back inside as I parked.
When I walked in, the place was deserted, but she was waiting with a menu. She nodded toward a table at the back, and I sat down. Without a word, she dropped the menu in front of me, turned around, and vanished into the kitchen. She came back a minute later with a cup of coffee.
“The huevos rancheros,” she said. “Best thing we serve this time of day.”
“Over easy,” I said.
“Saw you come through town earlier. Then saw the Border Patrol follow a little while later.”
“I was up at an old mine in the mountains.”
“Which one?”
“Don’t know its name. Place where some undocumented immigrants were killed last year.”
Her face looked pained. “The El Dorado. I heard about your wife. Is it true?”
“What did you hear?”
“That she’s missing, too.”
“You heard right.”
She looked like she wanted to say something but thought better of it.
“What?” I said.
“I don’t want to shoot down your hopes, but when somebody disappears around here, they usually stay disappeared.”
“It’s happened before?”
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“The Suazo brothers. From Gallina Town. Everybody pretty much figured they were involved with the Rodriguezes. That was the word anyway. They never tried to deny it. Then they just vanished. No trace.”
“When?”
“After the car bombing.”
“Nice peaceful little community you’ve got here.”
“It was, once.”
The door opened and a man walked in. He wore a Stetson. Or a cowboy hat, anyway. To me, they’re all Stetsons. He glanced our way.
“Billy,” Sierra said. “Qué pasa?”
The man took a stool at the bar. “Nuthin’ a drink won’t solve.”
She gave me a wink. “Be right back with those eggs.”
She slipped behind the bar. Without a word to Billy, she poured a shot of Jameson and set it in front of him, then went into the kitchen. Billy tipped his head back, and the whiskey went down in one big gulp. He got up from the stool and walked to the men’s room.
Sierra came back with silverware and a napkin.
“You know the old-timer?” I asked. “Sylvester?”
“Everybody knows Sylvester.”
“Know where he lives?”
“Up on the hill above town.”
“Walkable from here?”
“Sure. Head out, take a right, go two blocks and take another right on Palomino Street, then just keep going.”
“Which house?”
She laughed. “Believe me, you’ll know it when you see it.”
Billy came from the men’s room. Sierra poured him another shot, went back to the kitchen, and returned in a few minutes with my breakfast.
“Gracias,” I said.
She gave me a thin smile. “De nada.”
When I’d finished eating, I left the truck parked in front of the cantina and walked to Palomino Street. I turned west and followed between desert willows and Russian olives and other trees that lined the fences and walls erected around every home. They were small, these things they called trees here, fragile compared to the great, graceful beauties in Minnesota. Like everything else in the desert, they were covered with thorns. Past the last house, the road climbed above Sulfur Springs. A quarter mile farther, nestled into a little cup of rock, was a small, flat-roofed house built of adobe into which had been pressed pieces of brightly colored glass, ceramic tiles, seashells, God knows what else. Scattered among the cacti in the yard and set into the rocks on either side of the house were bleached cow skulls, a whole herd of the dead. A wooden animal shed with a corral stood off to one side. Through the open window of the shed I could see movement. I walked that way. When I peered through the window, I came face-to-face with a mule, staring at me with his big, brown eyes.
“His name’s Franklin.”
I turned and there was Sylvester, once again popping up behind me without a sound.
“Franklin cuz I bought him with a hundred-dollar bill. Worth that to me and a whole lot more.”
“Use him in your prospecting?” I asked.
“More reliable than a vehicle and lots better company. What can I do for you?”
“How’d you know I would be at the El Dorado this morning?”
“There’s a movie I never saw but the title fits this area, mister. The Hills Have Eyes. Got ears, too. The El Dorado, it’s not far from here the way the crow flies. Is that all you wanted?”
“You said you’ve prospected most of the mountains in southern Arizona. You know the Santa Margaritas?”
“Know ’em well. The Oro Rico Mining District.”
“Think you could pinpoint some old mines for me?”
“Lots of excavations there. Any one in particular?”
“A place someone coming from the west might use for shelter.”
“Someone coming illegally?”
“Maybe.”
He stepped up next to me and, while he thought that one over, reached through the window and ran his hand gently down the long, broad face of the mule.
“Or maybe a place somebody might want to dump something where nobody’d ever find it?”
“That’s not what I’m hoping for,” I said.
“There you go. A pile of horseshit and you’re digging for a pony. Come on into the house.”
It was dark inside and cool, but not unnaturally so, the way it probably would have felt with air-conditioning. The shades were drawn. I had trouble seeing at first, but my eyes adjusted quickly. Unlike the outside, where the walls were a mash-up of everything under the sun, the inside was Spartan, clean, organized. The furniture looked handmade. What few items hung on the walls were all framed photographs, desert shots, some in black and white, some in color. They belonged in a gallery.
Sylvester saw me noticing. “Sierra’s work. Has a real eye for beauty, that girl. Have a seat.” He nodded toward a small table, where there were only two chairs.
I sat down, and he opened a cabinet made of fine polished wood. Inside was shelving that held rolled documents. He ran a finger along a shelf and pulled down one of the rolls. He closed the cabinet and brought the roll to the table, where he spread it out. A contour map.
“I’m thinking that the area around Oro Rico itself might be too popular for something like you’re thinking of. Lots of folks get back in there to explore the ghost town. So maybe a bit farther north. More rugged and less visited, even by the Border Patrol. They figure it’s too rough for illegals. But three old claims were worked there for a while. I know, cuz my father worked one of them and I helped him in my youth.”
He put a finger on the map. I knew how to read a contour map, and I could tell from the close proximity of the lines that the spot he indicated was high up on a steep rise.
“He called her the Lulabelle, after a girl he was sweet on before he married my mother. It was hard getting in and hard getting out. But we pulled enough gold from the Lulabelle to make it worth our while. Least ways back then. No way I could do that kind of hard packing in and out these days.”