The man who hadn’t shot Sanchez pulled an ugly-looking blade from a sheath on his belt. He stepped to Rodriguez and handed it to him, hilt first.
“Since I was a boy, I have hunted elk in the mountains of Colorado,” Rodriguez said. “I remember the first bull I brought down. When my father and I had hung him from the branch of an aspen, I gutted him. It was a very cold morning. I remember how the animal’s entrails steamed as they fell onto the ground. I have the head of that elk mounted on the wall in my den. Perhaps I’ll do the same with yours.”
We were separated by half a dozen feet. I took a step back, putting more distance between us. I was thinking that I would run, thinking with that odd calm that being mowed down by a stream of bullets would be infinitely preferable to a slow gutting.
“Grab him,” Rodriguez snapped.
Before any of them could move, the still of the morning air was broken again by the sound of gunfire, and Manuel slumped to the ground. The shot had come from the north. Eduardo turned himself in that direction and brought his rifle to his shoulder. Rodriguez also looked that way. When he did, I leaped at him, grabbed the wrist of the hand that held the knife, and twisted it violently so that I felt something snap. Rodriguez cried out, and the knife fell to the ground. I fisted my right hand and slammed it into his face. He stumbled back and fell across the pile of railroad ties. I turned to Eduardo. He was no longer standing but, like Manuel, lay bleeding in the dirt. When I looked north, I saw Sylvester appear like an old, bearded angel. Instead of a harp, he carried a rifle in his hands.
I grabbed the assault weapon Rodriguez had given up in favor of the knife. He looked at me and tried for bravado.
“You shoot me, my father will kill you and everyone you have ever loved.”
His arm hung uselessly at his side.
“Kill you?” I said. “I’m not an animal. I only kill when I have reason to.” I lifted the rifle, the barrel level with his chest. “And I have pretty good reason now.”
“What do you want?” he said, breathless and desperate.
Sylvester joined us.
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re beautiful?” I said to him.
“Never anyone of the male persuasion.”
“Back road?”
“Wouldn’t call it a road, but it got me here quick. So, what are you going to do with him?”
“Not sure yet.”
I studied the man in front of us, his eyes apprehensive and dark, his face handsome, a young man who was clearly afraid he wasn’t going to get any older. I figured this was the first time Joaquin Rodriguez had ever really stood at the edge of dead. I bent and picked up the knife he’d been holding only minutes earlier.
“In Minnesota, we hunt deer,” I told him. “But we gut ’em just like you did your elk.”
CHAPTER 36
* * *
The trail that led into the Coronado Mountains above the El Dorado Mine was a rough one, better suited to a mule than to the borrowed pickup truck I drove. I took it slow, working over and around the rocks that littered the way. More than once, I was sure I was going to tear off the oil pan.
“You’re certain about this?” I asked Sylvester, who was in the seat beside me.
“Trust me,” he said.
He was one of the few in Coronado County that I did, so I kept following his directions.
“It might almost be faster on foot,” I said, after twisting the truck around an especially precarious curve on a narrow shelf of rock.
“Reason Peter chose it,” he said. “Not particularly welcoming to the casual traveler.”
“He found this place without your help?”
“Resourceful young man. One of the things I like about him.”
We came to a flat that looked across a small desert valley several hundred feet below. A familiar black SUV was parked there, and beside it stood Mondragón, cradling his scoped Weatherby.
“Rainy and Peter?” I asked when I got out.
“Waiting in the mine,” he said. “I wanted to make sure of things.”
Which I understood and appreciated.
“You’re Sylvester?” he said to my companion.
The old miner nodded. “You must be Peter’s father.”
“Gilberto Mondragón.” It was said with formality and a note of respect, and the two men shook hands. Mondragón looked at me. “Rodriguez?”
After the incident at the El Dorado Mine, I’d called Rainy’s first husband, and we’d discussed options. The decision had been to bring Joaquin Rodriguez to the place Peter had been calling home for many months. Sylvester knew the way. We’d bound Rodriguez with duct tape and blindfolded him and tossed him onto the hard bed of the pickup. The ride hadn’t been a smooth one and, considering his broken arm and judging from his screams, must have been quite painful. Didn’t bother me in the least.
I dropped the gate on the pickup bed. Mondragón and I slid Rodriguez out and stood him up. I cut the tape from his ankles, but left his wrists bound and his blindfold in place.
“So you’re Joaquin Rodriguez,” Mondragón said, placing himself directly in front of the man.
Rodriguez tilted his head, as if trying to place the voice.
“Gilberto Mondragón,” Rainy’s ex said.
Rodriguez spit at him, and Mondragón responded with a blow that sent the young man to the ground.
I helped Rodriguez up. “You’re not doing yourself any favors.”
“Bring him.” Mondragón started across the flat.
Sylvester took an arm and escorted him on one side, while I took the other. Mondragón disappeared around a tall jumble of boulders, and when we followed, I saw the low entrance to an old digging. Rainy stood in the sunlight there. Although I’d seen her almost every day since we were married, my heart still did a little dance of joy. Peter limped from the dark of the mine tunnel and lifted a hand in greeting.
After Rainy had given me a good long hug, we took Rodriguez into the tunnel. I was amazed at how Peter had made it a serviceable headquarters for himself. Two battery-powered lanterns supplemented the light that came in through the entrance. A two-burner propane camp stove sat on a large, flat stone. A cot with a sleeping bag stood against one wall. Canned and packaged goods were stacked neatly against the other wall, along with various other necessary living and medical supplies. Next to a collapsible camp chair stood a stack of books. Two more sleeping bags had been unrolled on the tunnel floor atop a foam mattress. The bags lay side by side. Rainy and Mondragón, I understood. I wondered what had happened to the safe house in Nogales and decided it must have been abandoned because of Peter. No comfortable safe house for him. And Rainy would not desert her son. So here they all were. One big happy family. I felt the demon of jealousy trying to whisper to me, but this time, that voice wasn’t so hard to silence. I loved Rainy deeply. I trusted her.
We sat Rodriguez on the floor, his back against the tunnel wall, and left him blindfolded.
“I interrogated him,” I said. “Got some interesting answers.”
“Interrogated?” Rainy studied the man’s face in the lantern light. “How?” she asked with a suspicious note.
“I had to cut him,” I admitted.