He swung the ATV around and headed back the way he’d come.
I drove south through Gallina Town, which felt deserted with so many of its people off working in Cadiz or wherever. Well outside Sulfur Springs, I turned onto the winding road that led up to the old mine works. I couldn’t help thinking about the Guatemalans who’d been found slaughtered inside the tunnel there, and I glanced at the Winchester on the seat beside me, which I’d made sure was fully loaded before I left town. When I pulled onto the big flat where the rusting mining equipment and abandoned materials lay, I saw Mike Sanchez’s cruiser, but I didn’t see the man himself. I grabbed the Winchester and stepped from the pickup, keeping the truck between me and the dark mine entrance.
A few moments later, Sanchez emerged with his hands open in front of him, showing me that he wasn’t armed. He came to the place where the old railroad ties were piled.
“You don’t need the rifle,” he called. “In fact, if you want answers, you’ll put your Winchester down.”
“Turn around,” I said.
Sanchez turned. I couldn’t see any evidence of a handgun, so I started toward him around the pickup.
“The rifle,” he said. “Leave it. I know what happened to Marian. I’m not going down the same way.”
I set the Winchester on the hood of the truck and walked to Sanchez.
“A bunch of badges out looking for you right now,” I told him.
He lowered his hands. “They’ve got nothing on me. I didn’t kill Marian.”
“Royal Diggs is in custody. They’re sweating him as we speak.”
“Diggs? They’d have better luck sweating a rock.”
“Did he kill Marian?”
“Doubt it. She was his bread and butter.”
“How so?”
“Who do you think supplied him with the drugs he peddles?”
“I thought that might be you.”
He shook his head. “I’m just paid to turn my back.”
“Paid well, are you?”
“Was. Things are different now.”
“That’s why you’re willing to talk?”
“I want protection.”
“You think I can protect you?”
“You can help me get that protection. You’ve got connections with Sprangers and that task force of his.”
“You know about them?”
“I’m not stupid.”
I could have argued the point but saw no reason. At the moment.
“How did it work?” I asked.
“You’ll help me?”
“I’ll help you in any way I can.”
“Let’s sit,” he said, indicating the stack of old railroad ties.
“Long story?”
“Could turn out to be.”
There was something in his demeanor that wasn’t right. Maybe it was his eyes, which kept looking everywhere except at me. Or his hands, with his fingers working themselves as if trying to rub off glue. Or his suggestion that we sit, which would have made it difficult for me to bolt if I had to. I looked behind him toward the mine entrance.
“You alone?”
“Of course,” he said in a way that told me it was a lie.
I stepped back and made a half turn toward my truck.
Sanchez leaped at me and wrapped his fat fingers around my arm. I wrenched myself from his grip, and as I did I saw three men break from the shadowed tunnel entrance of the mine. They were all dressed in black, looking like pieces torn from the dark of the El Dorado itself. They carried assault rifles. For an instant, I considered trying to make it back to the truck and to my Winchester, but between the three of them, they had enough firepower to cut me into a hundred pieces.
When they saw that I had no intention of running, they slowed their approach. Two of the men were very young, early twenties at most, Latino. The man in the lead was older, maybe thirty. They spread out in a triangle that enclosed me and Sanchez.
“O’Connor,” the older man said.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” I said.
“Joaquin Rodriguez.”
“Any relation to Carlos?”
“My father.”
We faced off in the shadow of the mountain that rose above the El Dorado, the sky overhead a clear, painful blue, a slight breeze blowing out of the northeast, the smell of creosote from the old railroad ties drifting around us. It could have been a peaceful moment, if I’d been alone.
“How is your father?” I asked.
“Doing well. Better, I think, than you.”
“Better than Marian Brown, too.”
“We heard about that.”
I was surprised. “Not your doing?”
“Why would we kill her? We’re not animals. We only kill when we have reason to.”
“I did what you asked,” Sanchez said. His nervous demeanor hadn’t changed. “He’s all yours.”
“You did exactly as I asked,” Rodriguez acknowledged. “Manuel, give this man his reward.”
One of the young men pointed his assault rifle at Sanchez, and a burst of gunfire killed the still of the morning and along with it the only cop in Sulfur Springs. The suddenness and the sound were startling, but not really the action itself.
Rodriguez looked at me and shrugged. “We had a reason.”
I’d been at the edge of dead before and had looked down at that long fall, but so far I’d always managed to keep my footing. One of the things that has happened to me when I’ve thought that I could see my own end has been the blessing of an odd calm. It was there in that moment, a quiet place inside me, and I spoke from it, not caring about the consequence, which was pretty obvious.
“You want to know about Peter Bisonette. You want to know where he is.”
“Oh, yes,” Rodriguez said. “Very much.”
“Because he helps poor people slip through that greedy net you have along the border?”
“There is a much bigger reason.”
I thought about it for a moment, and the pieces fell into place. “You think he has your stash of drugs.”
“They are not where they should be.”
“What makes you think Peter took them?”
“He filed a claim on the land. And after he took what belongs to us, he tried to kill my father.”
“That wasn’t Peter’s doing. That was the work of Marian Brown. And if your drugs aren’t where they should be, I have it on pretty good authority that she’s the one responsible.”
He squinted at me, and his eyebrows came together like little black leeches mating. “What authority?”
“Royal Diggs.”
“Diggs.” The name wasn’t new to him.
“A bunch of men with badges are talking to him right now.”
He turned his face from me and stared toward the desert that stretched into Mexico. There were mountains in the southern distance, looking blue and cool. I wondered if, like me, he would rather be home.
“Maybe that’s true,” he said, his gaze returning. “But I would still like to get my hands on your Peter Bisonette.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“I think I cannot take your word for that.” Rodriguez laid his assault rifle against the pile of railroad ties. “Eduardo, your knife.”