Peter knew the desert. He directed me along a network of jeep trails south of the Santa Margaritas that kept us off main roads as we headed toward Arivaca. It was clear his leg was giving him a lot of grief. The rough ride didn’t help. He listened as I filled him in on all that had happened since the night he’d left the message on Rainy’s phone. I told him that in the firefight in the desert, Carlos Rodriguez had been wounded and his son Miguel had been killed.
“I tried to be so careful,” Peter said. “I didn’t want anyone getting hurt because of what I do.”
“You’ve set yourself a pretty difficult task.”
“Somebody had to.” He shut his eyes for a moment, against the pain, I thought. When he opened them, he said, “A little over a year and a half ago, I was hiking in the desert, scouting safe routes. I came across a skeleton, very small. A child. There was nothing around it, nothing to tell me how it had got there. Lost, abandoned, murdered? However it had happened, I couldn’t help imagining that child, dying alone and afraid.” He looked at me with those dark eyes that reminded me so much of his mother’s eyes. “If it was in your power to prevent it, could you let that happen to one of those children back at the Jesus Lode? I’ve done all I can to keep children like them, and their mothers, from falling into the hands of a coyote who might leave them to die in the desert. Or worse, sell them into a life that’s so bad they might as well be dead. But I never wanted killing to be a part of it.”
“Unless we can figure out who’s been feeding intel to Las Calaveras, the killing probably isn’t over. I think they may be playing two sides against each other.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whoever started the shooting in the firefight that night in the desert knew about the rendezvous location and probably knew Rodriguez would be there.”
“Yeah,” Peter said, nodding. “I’ve been thinking about that. At first I wondered if it might have been Border Patrol. But they opened up without giving any warning and without a lot of regard for the fact that there were women and children in the line of fire. It was just lucky I was the only one hit.”
“What do you know about White Horse?”
“They’re not happy with what I do, or the others trying to help the refugees crossing into the desert.”
“Have they ever threatened you?”
“Not me personally. I’ve tried to keep a low profile.”
“I think you haven’t done a bad job. If it was White Horse who started that firefight, I don’t think they necessarily knew it was you guiding the Guatemalans. I’m pretty sure you didn’t pop onto everyone’s radar until Rainy and I showed up. That includes the Border Patrol. They believe Rodriguez has been stashing drugs in one of the old mines down here, and they think you might know where that is.”
“Jesus, are they barking up the wrong tree.”
“They’ve put together some kind of task force—DEA, the Coronado Sheriff’s Department, probably FBI, among others—with Carlos Rodriguez especially in their sights. They’d love to get their hands on him. You too, now.”
“I’m compromised. My work with the Desert Angels is finished. I just want to get those women and children we left at the mine somewhere safe, get them to sanctuary. After that, I don’t care what happens to me.”
“Your mother cares. Your father, too.”
“Mom would understand. My father?” He shook his head. “Who knows?”
I’d known Rainy for years and loved her deeply, but her two children were grown and had been away all that time. I’d met them only once, all too briefly, at our wedding in April. I’d liked them well enough, but they were Rainy’s family, not mine. Peter had simply been a smart, handsome young man with a tough history. I hadn’t made a place for him in my heart.
That was changing. What I knew of him now, his passionate willingness to risk everything to help all these desperate people who were strangers to him, struck a deeply familiar chord in me.
We entered Arivaca, a ramshackle little town nestled among hills with mountains to the east and desert to the west. Peter directed me to an old ranch house off the highway just north of town. When I pulled up and parked, a border collie leaped off the front porch and began to bark. Although it wasn’t a big dog, it set up one hell of a ruckus.
“That’s Duke,” Peter said. “We’ll stay here until Papa Doc comes out.”
A moment later, a tall man with a long, white ponytail and a substantial paunch stepped outside. He stood eyeing us but made no move in welcome.
Peter rolled down his window and hollered, “It’s me, Papa Doc. Peter Bisonette. Call off your bodyguard.”
The man gave one sharp whistle, and the dog returned to the porch and sat down beside him, quiet but still watchful.
I got out of the truck, helped Peter down, and gave him my shoulder to lean on as he hobbled to the house.
“Don’t suppose you shot yourself,” the man said when he saw the bloody gauze bandaging on Peter’s thigh.
“Papa Doc, meet Cork O’Connor. Kind of saved my ass.”
The man barely acknowledged me. “Come in before God and everybody spots you here. Last thing I need is Border Patrol swarming all over my place.”
Papa Doc, whose real name turned out to be Dave Salisbury, was a retired veterinarian. He’d moved to Arivaca years before to escape a world he’d become pretty disgusted with.
“Out there, it’s all about money and fame. We’re a culture of celebrity. We bow down before the gods Kardashian. Fuck Wall Street and fuck Hollywood. The only real people left in the world are the ones standing on street corners with a sign asking for a handout.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that last comment, but he had a needle in his hand and was sewing up the wounds on Peter’s leg and I wasn’t about to argue some vague point with him. He gave Peter a shot of something and then some pills to fight infection.
“I need to use your phone, Papa Doc,” Peter said. “I’ve got folks in the desert that need help.”
“My kind of help?”
“Nothing that serious. I just need to get them to sanctuary.”
“I’m not sure what’s going on, and I don’t think I want to know the details, but there’s been a shitload of Border Patrol activity around here the last few days. You have anything to do with that?”
“Maybe. About that phone?”
While Peter made his calls, I stepped out onto the ranch house porch and turned on my own cell phone. I found that I had three bars. I texted the number Mondragón had used to set up my meeting with him and Rainy at the Goodman Center. The text read simply, Got him.
The phone rang moments later.
“Where are you?” Rainy sounded a little breathless.
“Arivaca.”
“We’ll be there in a couple of hours.”
I told her how to find the ranch house, ended the call, and turned off the phone. Peter joined me. He was wearing different pants, a little big around the waist, but with both legs intact.
“A pair of Papa Doc’s,” he explained.