“Carajo!” the spokesman from below shouted. And in the next moment, the whole area around me exploded.
The shots came fast but wild. My immediate concern was the man still trying to take the high ground to my right. If he got behind me, I was in trouble. The biggest advantage I had over him at the moment was that the sun was in his face. It’s hard to take good aim when you’re blinking against that blinding glare. Instead of patiently moving himself to a good vantage, he stood recklessly and hit my position with a spray of bullets, chipping away at the little hump of yellow rock that gave me modest protection on that side. I focused on him, and when he let up on his trigger, I laid the Winchester barrel atop the rock hump, took aim, and squeezed off a round. He staggered back and fell. I levered in another cartridge and swung toward the two guys below me. They were already in the black pickup leaving dust behind them as they sped away. The first man I’d shot was up and trying desperately to hobble toward his SUV, his weapon no longer in his hands. He stumbled and was reduced to crawling. I thought about putting another round into him, but his agenda, at least as far as it concerned me, had clearly changed.
I saw another rooster tail of dust rising in the west, the direction of Sulfur Springs. Lord, give me a break, I thought.
Then, in that quiet after gunfire which always seems so immense, I heard the sirens.
*
“You actually had the presence of mind to note the license plate on the pickup that took off?” Sheriff Carlson’s brows met each other in a deep V of consternation. Or, more probably, doubt.
“I made a mental note of it as they passed,” I said. “Kind of a habit, especially in circumstances like these.”
He sat back. We were in his air-conditioned cruiser.
“Sheriff once yourself, I understand,” he said. “Back in Minnesota. I talked to a colleague of yours this morning. The current sheriff there, Marsha Dross.” His tone had changed, taken on a note of collegiality. Two guys who’d worn the same kind of badge, chewing the fat. “She said you go by Cork. Okay if I call you that? She vouched for you. Lucky. Because from where I’ve been standing, you’ve looked ass deep in the business of the Rodriguezes.”
“Just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The paramedics were carting off the two men I’d shot. They weren’t dead, but neither was in good shape. I’d explained in detail what had occurred. The assault rifles, the expended shell casings, the torn-up yellow rock that had given me shelter, all lent credibility to my story.
“How’d you know to come running?” I asked.
“Got a call from Border Patrol.” He nodded toward my pickup; Agent Sprangers and the DEA agent Jesús Vega were carefully searching the vehicle inside and out. The sheriff laid his arms over his steering wheel and peered up at a couple of vultures that were circling high above us. “Where were you headed, Cork?”
“The Sonora Hills Cellars,” I said.
“Business there?”
“Peter Bisonette worked for them. I just wanted to ask a few questions.”
“We already interviewed them.”
“I’m sure you know from your own experience it pays to cover the same ground more than once. Given a little time, people remember things.”
He nodded, as if allowing that could be true. “I was thinking you might be headed to Robert Wieman’s place. Maybe for another sightseeing trip.”
“I might have been considering it.”
“And where, if you might have been considering it, would you have had him fly you?”
“Big county. Lots to see, Chet.” I gave him a collegial smile.
Agent Sprangers walked to my side of the cruiser. Vega stood looming huge beside him like a wrestler waiting to be tagged into the ring. I slid the window down. Sprangers held out his hand. In his palm was the tracking transmitter.
“Somebody was very interested in where you might be going, O’Connor,” he said.
“Where’d you find it?”
“Under your back bumper. No telling how long it’s been there. But it explains the men who ambushed you.” He eyed me from the shade his hat brim cast across his face. “And you say all they asked you was ‘Where is he?’ ”
“That’s it.”
Sprangers looked past me at the sheriff. “Peter Bisonette.”
“Lucky you had that Winchester,” Carlson said.
“And that you were so accurate with it,” Vega added.
I knew that tone, all deep and weighty with cop incredulity. I understood the why of it completely. But the thing was this: If that transmitter wasn’t planted by Sprangers, how the hell had he tracked me to the El Dorado Mine? And if it was true, as Carlson had said, that Border Patrol had alerted him about the ambush, how did Sprangers know?
Suspicion and secrets. We were mired in them.
“If I were a betting man,” Sprangers said, “I’d bet the men you shot are Las Calaveras. They work for Carlos Rodriguez. And I’d also bet they’re responsible for the tracker under your bumper.”
“Am I free to go?” I asked.
“After a shooting? Oh no, Cork,” the sheriff said. “You’re following me back to the department. We’ve got paperwork to do.”
CHAPTER 19
* * *
They kept me at the Coronado County Law Enforcement Center until well after noon. We went over the same territory again and again. One of the things they hammered on was Rainy’s cell phone. The last call she’d received had come around the same time she vanished. It was a number that appeared several times on her call log since she’d arrived in Arizona, both incoming and outgoing. Did I recognize the number? I swore to them I knew nothing about it.
“This new wife of yours seems to have kept a lot from you, O’Connor,” Sheriff Carlson observed.
Agent Sprangers said, “Chet, if you ever get married, you’ll probably keep secrets from your wife. All married people do. What’s important is the nature of the secret.” He gave me a pointed look. “Some secrets can get you killed.”
Amid all the questions, they offered me a piece of information. They’d found an abandoned Jeep parked south of Jocko’s ranch. It had been reported stolen in Nogales. They didn’t know what it might have to do with whatever had happened at Jocko’s place, but they worked me pretty hard to find out if I might. When they got tired of asking, they finally gave up, and let me go.
The first thing I did was drive past Grace Church. No ribbon on the angel’s uplifted finger. I was hungry, so I pulled into a little drive-in joint called Burger Billy’s and ordered a cheeseburger and fries. While I waited for the food, I turned my cell phone on and tried Old Turtle’s number. When he answered, I explained my delay. He said he’d be waiting for me when I arrived.