I shrugged. “What’s to know?”
“A year ago, we found the bodies of four illegals in that mine. They were Guatemalans. Two men, two women. They’d all been shot.” He waited for that to sink in. “Just a coincidence you’re up here?”
“Just a coincidence,” I said.
“Mr. O’Connor,” Vega said, “we know there’s a significant pipeline of drugs running through Coronado County and we’re pretty certain the Rodriguezes are running it.”
“The Guatemalans who were killed here, were they mules?”
“We think it’s possible. What often happens with the illegal immigrants from Central America is this: They come with their children. They’ve already paid for the passage, but when they get to the border, their children are taken from them, kidnapped. These people are told that they have to work for the Rodriguezes, as mules or in other ways, if they ever want to see their children again. In our investigation, we discovered that the people we found here had, indeed, come with children.”
“What happened to the children?”
“Unfortunately, your guess is as good as ours.”
“Who killed the Guatemalans?”
“We don’t know,” Agent Sprangers said. “It’s still an open case. It could have been the Rodriguezes. It could have been one of the other drug interests. It could have been locals fed up with the drug traffic and the illegals.”
“Why did you come looking for me?”
“I want to know what you’re not telling us.”
“Peter Bisonette,” Vega said. “What’s his connection with the Rodriguezes?”
“I don’t know that there is one.”
“What is it about him that would make the Rodriguezes go after his mother?”
“I’ve been told they’re just those kinds of people. They kill you right down to the last member of your family, cut down the tree to the roots.”
“Even they have reasons. Revenge?” Vega offered. “Leverage? Information?”
“I have nothing to give you,” I said.
Sprangers stepped to the back of the pickup and peered into the bed, where I’d laid the Winchester. “Nice old piece. But Las Calaveras use AK-47s and Uzis and M16s.” He looked up at the sky. “I know it feels hot already, O’Connor. Trust me, if Carlos Rodriguez has his sights set on you, it’s only going to get worse. When you finally decide it’s too hot, let me know. You have my card.”
The two agents returned to their SUV and headed back the way they’d come. I watched until they hit the main road and turned toward Sulfur Springs. Then I went over the pickup very carefully. Under the rear bumper, I found a transmitter, a tracking unit, which I decided to leave in place for the moment.
I picked up the Winchester and, with my next four shots, sent the final boxes of baking soda flying. I climbed back into the truck and headed down the mountainside.
CHAPTER 17
* * *
I drove slowly through Sulfur Springs. The place had awakened. Cars and trucks were leaving Gallina Town, heading north toward Cadiz, probably to jobs there. I came to a little open area near the taqueria where a couple of kids were kicking around a soccer ball. They stopped as I passed, seemed to recognize me, and took off running as if I was El Diablo himself. I crossed the bridge and rolled down the main street past the Mustang Properties office, where I caught a glimpse of Marian Brown inside, her back to the window. She didn’t see me. The post office hadn’t opened yet. The parking space in front of the little police department was empty. Up ahead, I saw the barmaid Sierra standing in the shade of the front porch of Rosa’s Cantina. I can’t say that she beckoned to me exactly, but I got the feeling that she’d been watching for me. She glanced up and down the street, then stepped back inside as I parked.
When I walked in, the place was deserted, but she was waiting with a menu. She nodded toward a table at the back, and I sat down. Without a word, she dropped the menu in front of me, turned around, and vanished into the kitchen. She came back a minute later with a cup of coffee.
“The huevos rancheros,” she said. “Best thing we serve this time of day.”
“Over easy,” I said.
“Saw you come through town earlier. Then saw the Border Patrol follow a little while later.”
“I was up at an old mine in the mountains.”
“Which one?”
“Don’t know its name. Place where some undocumented immigrants were killed last year.”
Her face looked pained. “The El Dorado. I heard about your wife. Is it true?”
“What did you hear?”
“That she’s missing, too.”
“You heard right.”
She looked like she wanted to say something but thought better of it.
“What?” I said.
“I don’t want to shoot down your hopes, but when somebody disappears around here, they usually stay disappeared.”
“It’s happened before?”
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“The Suazo brothers. From Gallina Town. Everybody pretty much figured they were involved with the Rodriguezes. That was the word anyway. They never tried to deny it. Then they just vanished. No trace.”
“When?”
“After the car bombing.”
“Nice peaceful little community you’ve got here.”
“It was, once.”
The door opened and a man walked in. He wore a Stetson. Or a cowboy hat, anyway. To me, they’re all Stetsons. He glanced our way.
“Billy,” Sierra said. “Qué pasa?”
The man took a stool at the bar. “Nuthin’ a drink won’t solve.”
She gave me a wink. “Be right back with those eggs.”
She slipped behind the bar. Without a word to Billy, she poured a shot of Jameson and set it in front of him, then went into the kitchen. Billy tipped his head back, and the whiskey went down in one big gulp. He got up from the stool and walked to the men’s room.
Sierra came back with silverware and a napkin.
“You know the old-timer?” I asked. “Sylvester?”
“Everybody knows Sylvester.”
“Know where he lives?”
“Up on the hill above town.”
“Walkable from here?”
“Sure. Head out, take a right, go two blocks and take another right on Palomino Street, then just keep going.”
“Which house?”
She laughed. “Believe me, you’ll know it when you see it.”
Billy came from the men’s room. Sierra poured him another shot, went back to the kitchen, and returned in a few minutes with my breakfast.
“Gracias,” I said.
She gave me a thin smile. “De nada.”
When I’d finished eating, I left the truck parked in front of the cantina and walked to Palomino Street. I turned west and followed between desert willows and Russian olives and other trees that lined the fences and walls erected around every home. They were small, these things they called trees here, fragile compared to the great, graceful beauties in Minnesota. Like everything else in the desert, they were covered with thorns. Past the last house, the road climbed above Sulfur Springs. A quarter mile farther, nestled into a little cup of rock, was a small, flat-roofed house built of adobe into which had been pressed pieces of brightly colored glass, ceramic tiles, seashells, God knows what else. Scattered among the cacti in the yard and set into the rocks on either side of the house were bleached cow skulls, a whole herd of the dead. A wooden animal shed with a corral stood off to one side. Through the open window of the shed I could see movement. I walked that way. When I peered through the window, I came face-to-face with a mule, staring at me with his big, brown eyes.
“His name’s Franklin.”
I turned and there was Sylvester, once again popping up behind me without a sound.
“Franklin cuz I bought him with a hundred-dollar bill. Worth that to me and a whole lot more.”
“Use him in your prospecting?” I ask
ed.
“More reliable than a vehicle and lots better company. What can I do for you?”
“How’d you know I would be at the El Dorado this morning?”
“There’s a movie I never saw but the title fits this area, mister. The Hills Have Eyes. Got ears, too. The El Dorado, it’s not far from here the way the crow flies. Is that all you wanted?”
“You said you’ve prospected most of the mountains in southern Arizona. You know the Santa Margaritas?”
“Know ’em well. The Oro Rico Mining District.”
“Think you could pinpoint some old mines for me?”
“Lots of excavations there. Any one in particular?”
“A place someone coming from the west might use for shelter.”
“Someone coming illegally?”
“Maybe.”
He stepped up next to me and, while he thought that one over, reached through the window and ran his hand gently down the long, broad face of the mule.
“Or maybe a place somebody might want to dump something where nobody’d ever find it?”
“That’s not what I’m hoping for,” I said.
“There you go. A pile of horseshit and you’re digging for a pony. Come on into the house.”
It was dark inside and cool, but not unnaturally so, the way it probably would have felt with air-conditioning. The shades were drawn. I had trouble seeing at first, but my eyes adjusted quickly. Unlike the outside, where the walls were a mash-up of everything under the sun, the inside was Spartan, clean, organized. The furniture looked handmade. What few items hung on the walls were all framed photographs, desert shots, some in black and white, some in color. They belonged in a gallery.
Sylvester saw me noticing. “Sierra’s work. Has a real eye for beauty, that girl. Have a seat.” He nodded toward a small table, where there were only two chairs.
I sat down, and he opened a cabinet made of fine polished wood. Inside was shelving that held rolled documents. He ran a finger along a shelf and pulled down one of the rolls. He closed the cabinet and brought the roll to the table, where he spread it out. A contour map.
“I’m thinking that the area around Oro Rico itself might be too popular for something like you’re thinking of. Lots of folks get back in there to explore the ghost town. So maybe a bit farther north. More rugged and less visited, even by the Border Patrol. They figure it’s too rough for illegals. But three old claims were worked there for a while. I know, cuz my father worked one of them and I helped him in my youth.”
He put a finger on the map. I knew how to read a contour map, and I could tell from the close proximity of the lines that the spot he indicated was high up on a steep rise.
“He called her the Lulabelle, after a girl he was sweet on before he married my mother. It was hard getting in and hard getting out. But we pulled enough gold from the Lulabelle to make it worth our while. Least ways back then. No way I could do that kind of hard packing in and out these days.”
“A lot of people know about the Lulabelle?”
“My secret as far as I know. But who knows what a desperate man coming out of that desert to the west might stumble onto? Especially if he’s savvy to begin with and maybe got a desert angel sitting on his shoulder to boot.”
“Los Angeles del Desierto?” I said.
“Got no idea what you’re talking about,” Sylvester said. “But I’ll give you the coordinates for the Lulabelle, if you want them.”
He wrote with a pencil on a slip of paper.
“How do you keep so cool in here?” I asked.
“Adobe,” he said. “There’s a reason the people of this desert been building with it for centuries. And them rocks behind the house, they give shade all afternoon. At night, I open the place up and let it cool down, then seal it back up in the morning. Kind of like living in a cave. Or a mine. Feels pretty familiar to me. I gave you something, mister, but I want something in return.”
“What?”
“A promise. When you find who you’re looking for, you keep him safe.”
“Done,” I said and held out my hand.
I walked down the hill into Sulfur Springs, through the sparse shade of what in the desert passed for trees. The heat made me tired. I wouldn’t have minded just curling up somewhere for a nap until things cooled off. But there was much to do.
I’d had my cell phone off all morning. I turned it on to check if I’d had any messages. I saw that Michelle Abbott had tried me, twice. I called her back.
“You tried to reach me,” I said.
“I heard about Rainy,” the minister said. “I’m so sorry, Cork.”
“Thanks.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“A prayer wouldn’t hurt.” I meant it, but it probably didn’t come out that way.
“I’ll do that. Look, I know you must be worried. Would you like some company?”
“I’m fine, really. And thank you.”
“Any word?”
“Not yet.” I hated lying to a woman who’d been kind to us and in doing so might even have put herself in harm’s way, but what could I say that wouldn’t put her in more danger?
“Promise me you’ll call if you need anything. Or if you hear anything.”
“It’s a deal.”
She was quiet a long time on her end.
“Michelle?” I said. “You still there?”
“Just saying that prayer I promised you. Please, please be careful, Cork.”
The sun was well above the Coronados now. The turnoff for the Old Douglas Road was another quarter mile north. I punched in a number on my cell phone. When the line picked up on the other end, I said, “Old Turtle, I need wings.”
CHAPTER 18
* * *
I’d become familiar with the back road out of Sulfur Springs, a snaking byway that rose and dipped among the desert swales. Beyond the trailer community that called itself Paradiso, it became a solitary stretch. I hadn’t seen any sign of life along there at all, except for Sprangers and the other Border Patrol agents we’d encountered on our first day in Coronado County. And the circling vultures.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a black pickup truck a couple of hundred yards back, coming up on me fast. I’d turned off my cell phone, but because of the transmitter I’d found, that didn’t mean I wasn’t being followed. I made sure the Winchester and the box of cartridges were in easy reach. I maintained my speed, mindful of the curves and dips in the road ahead, and keeping a watchful eye on that approaching vehicle. As it neared, it pulled to the left to pass. The sun glared off the windshield so that I couldn’t see inside the cab. The pickup didn’t slow as it came abreast, and I finally saw the driver and the single passenger. They were both Hispanic, with thin black beards carefully sculpted along their jawlines. They paid me no attention at all as they passed and then disappeared over the rise ahead. When I crested that hill, I caught sight of the tail end of the pickup vanishing over the next.
I let myself relax and returned to thinking about the flight I was going to make with Jocko. I figured we’d buzz Sylvester’s Lulabelle Mine. Although he hadn’t said it outright, I was pretty sure the old prospector considered the Lulabelle a good bet if Peter had been seeking sanctuary.
I was deep in thought when I came over the next rise. Blocking the road ahead was the black pickup. I hit the brakes and came to a stop fifty yards shy of the truck. The two men were no longer inside. They stood in front of it with what looked like assault rifles cradled in their arms.
I shifted into reverse and started to back up fast. Over the rise behind me appeared a black SUV, blocking any retreat in that direction. I killed the engine, grabbed the Winchester and box of shells, and lit out for cover.
An upthrust of yellow rock lay north of the road, maybe fifty yards. High ground. I made for it as fast as I could. I expected the assault rifles to open up on me any second, but nothing happened. I clambered up the rise, lay flat, and took stock. The SUV had come to a halt behin
d my pickup. The two men inside met up with the guys from the first vehicle and held a little war council. I took the opportunity to fill the Winchester’s magazine with cartridges.
The four men separated, one flanking me far to the left and one to the right. The other two stayed central. Those two came slowly up the rise, staying to cover as much as possible. They stopped a good thirty yards out, behind thick cactus cover. The men on the flanks kept moving.
“Hey, mister,” one of the men below me shouted in a heavy accent. “We only want to talk.”
“So talk.”
“Give us the answer to one question, and we will leave you alone, promise.”
“What’s the question?”
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Where is he?”
The two men on the flanks were drawing even with me. I took aim and sent a round near the man to the right, and then did the same with the guy to the left. They both hit the ground. I saw movement behind the cactus in front of me, but couldn’t see exactly what that duo was up to.
“You come any nearer, any of you, and I’ll put a bullet in you,” I called. “That’s my promise.”
I saw the man to the right leap up and dash for higher cover. Prone as I was, I couldn’t get a good shot off quickly. I glanced east. That guy rose to make a run. I swung around, took aim, and caught him just as he started to drop for cover.
“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.