“Berto,” Rainy began.
“Just to make sure that he goes,” Mondragón said, then called out, “Muchachos,” and delivered his orders in Spanish.
They carried the bodies of the dead men deep into the mine and, while there, searched for more signs of Peter. They found nothing. While this was going on, Rainy removed herself and sat high on the rocks. I finally joined her there.
She didn’t look at me. Her dark eyes were taking in the desert far below. “So many deaths. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“Everybody here calls it a war, Rainy,” I said. “And you didn’t start it.”
“I haven’t done anything to stop it. We haven’t done anything to stop it.”
“We? You and me?”
“All of us, Cork. We erect fences. We build walls. And what does that invite? Hostility breeds hostility. Fear breeds fear.”
“And love breeds love,” I said, because I knew where she was going. “If you’d stepped outside that mine and offered those men love, do you know what would have happened?”
“How many of them were just like Pedro, do you suppose?”
“That’s not a question I ask myself when someone’s shooting at me.”
I looked back toward the Lulabelle. Near the entrance, Mondragón was counseling with the man who seemed to be in charge of the others. The man gave a sharp whistle, and all those in camouflage followed him into the rocks in the same direction Pedro had gone.
Mondragón climbed to where we sat. “We’re done here. Get your pack, Rainy. It’s time to go.”
She left the water, just in case Peter or someone else came and needed it. Then we started down out of the mountains, putting the Lulabelle behind us. Riches had come from the mine once upon a time. Now, for a while, all that would be coming out was the stench of rotting flesh.
CHAPTER 24
* * *
“What now?”
We were returning to Cadiz, Mondragón at the wheel of his SUV, Rainy in the seat beside him, me in back. We’d been a quiet crew since leaving the Lulabelle. So much death behind us. I’d seen it on that scale only once before, an incident I’d told no one about, not even Rainy. In that profoundly disturbing circumstance, I’d killed several times over. I didn’t know exactly what the events of our morning had done to Rainy. She stared out the window at the desert streaming past us. She was one of the best, one of the kindest, spirits I’d ever known. In all this, she’d wanted only to find her son. But that search had brought terrible death. And there was no guarantee that the dying was over.
“What now?” Mondragón repeated.
“How did they know we’d be there?” I said.
“I asked Pedro that,” Rainy said. “He didn’t know.”
“Rodriguez has eyes and ears everywhere in his little kingdom,” Mondragón said.
“No one knew where we were going except Jocko and Sylvester,” I said. “And your people. Who are they anyway? They looked like real military.”
“Perhaps they are,” Mondragón said. “Mexico is no different from any other country. Money buys everything.”
“Loyalty?”
“Anyone can be bought. That is why you trust no one but family,” Mondragón said.
“So maybe one of those men?”
“I will have someone look into that, but I think not. The price of betrayal is very high. I think it would be better to talk to your Jocko and Sylvester.”
Which I’d already decided to do.
“What else did Pedro tell you, Rainy?”
“He said there’d been bad trouble a few nights ago. Lagarto—Carlos Rodriguez—and his oldest son, Miguel, went out with some of their men. Lagarto came back badly wounded, but Miguel didn’t come back at all. Many of the men who went with them also didn’t come back. Those who did were ordered not to talk about what had happened. Pedro thought maybe it had been a skirmish with another cartel.”
“Not another cartel,” Mondragón said. “Peter.”
“Peter wouldn’t have shot men,” Rainy said.
“He called you and confessed, querida.”
“I don’t know what he confessed to.”
“Don’t know or just don’t want to accept? He is not your little boy. He is a man. A man does what he must.”
“Oh, Berto, give me a break. What movie did you lift that from?”
*
It was just after noon when we reached the outskirts of Cadiz. Mondragón dropped me at the side of the road. Before I left her, Rainy lowered her window. I saw such a shadow over her face that it nearly broke my heart.
“He only wanted to help people,” she said. “Now all this.”
“Not his doing, Rainy.”
She surprised me with a faint smile. “What you told Pedro about his journey always being before him, was that from Uncle Henry?”
“Almost verbatim.”
“I hope Uncle Henry’s spirit is with that child.”
“Henry would probably say that we never walk our journey alone.” I reached in and held her hand. “Are you all right?”
“I need to process.” She leaned to me and kissed my lips briefly. “And you need to be careful.”
“Enough,” Mondragón said. “Someone will see us.”
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
“I’ve told you before, best you don’t know. Just in case. It’s safest for Rainy.”
“Bye, love,” she said to me.
“You find out anything, tie a ribbon.”
Mondragón pulled away, and once again, I watched Rainy disappear with him.