He pulled over, and I handed him my Winchester. He opened the back of the SUV, lifted a panel in the flooring, laid both weapons inside, then dropped the panel back into place.
“You should come up front with me, Rainy,” he said. “A little more natural looking.”
She patted my hand and climbed into the passenger seat.
A short while later, we turned onto the Magdalena Road, a dirt and gravel track, and almost immediately hit the checkpoint, a couple of wooden barricades manned by several Border Patrol agents. One of them held up a hand signaling us to stop, and Mondragón complied. The agent approached us with a flashlight in his hand. Mondragón slid his window down. The agent shot the light into his face, then across to Rainy, then in back, where I was sitting.
“Where you folks headed?” he asked.
“Ali Molina,” Mondragón said. “But when I was growing up we called it Magdalena.”
The agent moved around to the rear of the SUV and shone the light into the back, which looked empty. He continued circling and, when he came to the window beside me, studied my face carefully.
“What happened?” he asked.
“A little surgery,” I said. “Had a skin cancer removed. Looks worse than it is.”
He grunted, maybe in acceptance of my story or maybe in sympathy. Hard to tell from the stone of his face. He moved to Rainy and took a good look at her. She smiled and said, “Good evening, Officer. Beautiful night on the desert.”
“Yes, ma’am, it is. You folks wait here a minute.”
He returned to the barricade and spoke briefly with one of the other agents.
“What’s the holdup?” I said quietly to Mondragón.
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”
The agent returned. “Where you folks coming from?”
“Phoenix,” Mondragón said.
“What’s your business?”
“Family reunion,” Mondragón said.
“In Magdalena?” The agent didn’t hide his skepticism.
“The family reunion is in Phoenix. We came down to visit my uncle, who’s too old to travel.”
“Kind of late for a visit, don’t you think?”
“Our plane was delayed. We got to Phoenix much later than we’d expected.”
“Got lots of water in the back.”
“Our relatives have warned us plenty about being in the desert without water.”
The agent nodded, then looked into the dark beyond the barricades. “I need to caution you, there’s been significant drug activity reported in this area. One of our agents was attacked out here this morning. I can’t stop you, but if you come across a vehicle off to the side of the road or see anything that looks suspicious, I’d advise you to just keep moving, don’t stop. If it’s something you think needs to be looked into, give 911 a call.”
“Thank you, Officer,” Mondragón said. “We’ll be careful.”
“All right, then. Night, folks. Drive safely.”
The agent returned to the barricades, moved one of them aside for us to pass, and we drove on.
“Rodriguez,” Mondragón said, the name like something foul he’d spit from his mouth. “He conducts his business with all the finesse of a pig in a sty.”
I said, “His business is drugs and trafficking in human misery. How do you expect him to operate?”
“Quietly,” Mondragón said.
“Like you?”
“We are legitimate businesspeople, O’Connor. The holdings of my family, our investments, are international. We have interests in manufacturing, transportation, real estate, electronics.”
“All from laundered money, I would guess, that came originally from the same kind of work Rodriguez is doing. Am I wrong?”
“Carnegie’s money or the money of the Rockefellers, where do you think that came from? The sweat and labor and even the sacrifice of the lives of small people, and from a manipulation of the law and authority. Do you know the story of the Ludlow Massacre? Coal miners in Colorado striking for fair wages and safe working conditions in 1914. John D. Rockefeller owned the mine. What did he do? He had the governor send in the Colorado National Guard to break the strike. They killed twenty-six people, mostly women and children. And now in the United States, the name of Rockefeller is revered. What my family does, what we aspire to, is simply the American dream.”
“And what is Rodriguez to you but competition?”
“Rodriguez has threatened my family,” Mondragón said in a low voice. “I will make Rodriguez pay.”
We turned onto what was little more than a faint track through the cacti. As soon as we were off the Magdalena Road, Mondragón stopped.
“We wait here. If we tried driving any farther, our headlights would give us away. We’d be visible to Border Patrol or Rodriguez’s people, if they’re out there.”
“I want to get to Peter as soon as possible,” Rainy said.
“We’ll move at first light, querida.”
I was beginning to hate that word.
CHAPTER 22
* * *
I slept fitfully in the backseat. Rainy had insisted that I lay myself out, try to rest. She’d given me ibuprofen from a container she carried in her purse, but everywhere still hurt like hell.
In my sleep, I dreamed that she and Mondragón were walking on a beach along the ocean somewhere. The sky behind them was a blazing red, as if from either a sunrise or a sunset. Or maybe even from a huge fire invisible except for the glow of its flames. They were talking.
You have always been beautiful, Mondragón said.
Rainy replied, but I heard only the last part: I loved when you did that.
This? Mondragón said.
He turned to her and cupped her breasts in his hands and kissed her. Then they were lying naked on the beach, red in the glow of the sunrise or sunset or flames. And I woke with a start.
The desert was on fire with a red dawn. Rainy and Mondragón were in the front seat, talking quietly. I lay for a moment, listening.
“Those of us with dual citizenship, we hope our daughters marry American men, because they’re not so macho and won’t hit our daughters. Our sons, we hope, will marry Mexican girls, because they know how to be good wives.”
“And Consuela, is she a good wife?”
“She is an obedient wife.”
“Do you love her?”
“We have a life together. But I have loved, truly loved, only one woman, querida.”
They were both quiet. I heard the grating caw of a crow in the still of the morning air outside. Then Rainy said, “There’s plenty of light now. We should go.”
I sat up slowly. Both my cut cheek and the cigarette burn on my chest felt on fire. My ribs were tender where I’d been punched. I pulled up my rattlesnake T-shirt.
Rainy turned in the front seat. “Oh, Cork. It looks awful.”
“I’ve hurt worse.” Which even to me sounded way too macho.
“If we were on Crow Point, I’d put together a poultice for that bruise.”
“I’ll take some more ibuprofen.”
I swallowed four tablets and followed them with a lot of water from one of the gallon jugs in back.
“If you’re through with your patient, we should be going,” Mondragón said. “Here.” He handed a GPS device to Rainy. “Cell phone reception out here is pretty iffy. I’ve keyed in the coordinates for the Lulabelle. Should take us right to Peter.”
In a short time, the sun was above the horizon, and for a while we drove with it glaring in our eyes. When we entered the shadow of the Santa Margaritas, Mondragón turned south, following the foothills along the western face of the range. The jeep trail was barely a trail at all, and he took it slow.
After forty minutes, Rainy said, “We’re close.” She pointed toward the mountains. “Up there.”
Mondragón braked to a stop and said, “Let’s take another look at that map.”
We stepped from the SUV. The air hadn’t cooled much in the night, a
nd as the sun climbed, I could feel the day heating up, the blast furnace of the desert being stoked. I unrolled the map and laid it on the vehicle’s hood. I studied the contours, then the mountains themselves. I’ve spent a lifetime in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, reading maps of all kinds, including contour maps, but the shadow of the mountains and the distance and the twisting terrain here made it difficult to locate the fold high up where Jocko and I had seen the mirror flash. The one thing I could tell absolutely was that it was going to be a rugged climb.
“Where is it?” Mondragón said with impatience.
I shrugged. “Hard to say.”
“Un momento.”
He opened the back of the SUV, lifted the panel where he’d hidden the rifles, rummaged for a moment, and returned with field glasses and a satellite phone. He gave me the field glasses, and I studied the mountains.
“There,” I said and pointed. “Beneath the big outcrop that looks like a buffalo head.”
Mondragón took the glasses. He eyed the place, nodded to himself, then handed the glasses to Rainy. He walked away from us, far enough that we couldn’t hear, and made a call on the sat phone.
When he returned, Rainy said something to him in Spanish. He answered tersely, and I could tell that she wasn’t happy with whatever he’d said. But she accepted it.
Mondragón studied the mountains. “I can’t get the SUV up there. We walk from here. Let’s get our things.”
He opened the rear door again and lifted the panel. I stood beside him this time and saw that beneath the panel lay a small arsenal of rifles and handguns.
“What’s that Winchester of yours?” he asked.
“A thirty-thirty.”
He handed me a box of cartridges, pulled out his Weatherby and then another rifle, a fine looking Mauser with a scope, and held it out to Rainy.
“No,” she said.
“It might save Peter’s life, querida.”
“I won’t exchange another life for Peter’s.”
“You’ve killed for our children before.”
“I’m not taking the rifle, Berto. I’ll carry water instead. And the first aid supplies.”
He gave her that hard look, which, I’m sure, wilted the backbone of those who served him, but Rainy stood firm. Mondragón shook his head slowly. He put the Mauser back and produced a backpack, which he handed to Rainy. She loaded it with the water jugs and the supplies we’d purchased at the truck stop. Mondragón added the sat phone. The pack was heavy, and I offered to carry it.
“The shape you’re in, O’Connor, you’ll be lucky to make the climb at all,” Mondragón said.
Rainy said, “I’ll be fine, Cork.”
Mondragón put the compartment cover back in place and locked the SUV. Rainy shouldered the pack, and we began our walk into the desolate hills toward the Lulabelle.
Mondragón took the lead. There was no trail. We wove our way among the cacti and scrub desert growth. The slope steepened. We began to slip on the loose rock and had to go more slowly. The ribs on my left side were throbbing. I could hear Rainy breathing hard above me, occasionally gasping as she made her way over difficult rock outcroppings.
“A rest,” I finally called to Mondragón, who was getting ahead of us.
He paused and waited. We caught up and sat.
I could see the desert spread out below, stretching toward another hump of mountains to the west. The ground between the ranges rolled gently. The soil that covered it was yellow, and against that backdrop, the succulents—chollo, yucca, saguaro, pincushion, and God knows what else—and the mesquite and occasional acacia trees were a rich and striking green. I saw, maybe for the first time, that this land, in its way, was not unlike the Northwoods of Minnesota. What grew in Tamarack County was exactly what should be growing there, the kind of life that could thrive in that soil and that climate. The desert was a forest of a kind, a community of life perfectly suited to its home. I’d viewed it as alien, but that was only because I didn’t understand it. There was danger here, but hell, people got lost and died in the Northwoods, and I still cherished the place. I thought I could understand how someone who knew the desert could love it deeply despite the dangers and the difficulties.
“They come looking for sanctuary,” Rainy said. “And this is what greets them.”
“Unforgiving,” Mondragón said. “Deadly if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Peter knows what he’s doing,” Rainy said.
“We’ll soon see. We need to be going.”
Mondragón stood and began again to lead the difficult climb.
It was well over an hour before we reached the fold where the opening of the Lulabelle Mine lay in the shadow of the buffalo-head outcrop I’d seen through the binoculars. When the entrance came into view, Rainy started for it quickly, but Mondragón held her back.
She pulled herself free. “Peter’s there,” she said angrily.
“Maybe,” Mondragón said. “We should be very careful.”
“He’s right, Rainy,” I said. “A few minutes of caution won’t make a difference to Peter now.”
“I’ll go first,” Mondragón said. “You any good with that rifle, O’Connor?”
“I hit what I aim at.”
“Cover me.”
Mondragón walked slowly, his attention jumping from the dark mouth of the mine to the walls of rock that rose around us. All the way up the long climb, I’d heard the calls of desert birds. Here there was no sound. Like Mondragón, I scanned the rock walls, but spotted nothing that moved. I could feel Rainy, tense beside me, her eyes riveted to the mine entrance.
Mondragón reached the Lulabelle. He stood a moment, off to the side of the opening, listening.
“Peter!” he called. He received no reply and called again.
“I can’t wait any longer,” Rainy said. She loped toward Mondragón, the weight of the pack making her gait awkward.
I had the Winchester to my shoulder, a round already chambered, just in case, but nothing happened. She reached her ex-husband and they slipped into the mine. I saw a flashlight blink on, illuminating the dark inside. Then Mondragón stepped out and waved me to join them.
We could see no evidence of anyone having been in the mine recently, at least near the opening. The excavation appeared to go deep, but it wasn’t inviting. Rainy called Peter’s name several times and got no reply. Mondragón shone his light over the scarred rock walls and floor. The beam hit a little stash of cans and debris, but it was clear the trash was old.
“Wild-goose chase,” he said and gave me that stony glare.
“We should go deeper,” Rainy said. “We should make sure.”
“It’s too dangerous, an old mine like this,” Mondragón said. “If Peter were here, he would have answered.”
“Maybe he can’t.”
“He isn’t here, querida. Whatever O’Connor thinks he saw, it wasn’t Peter.”
Rainy unshouldered her pack, grabbed the flashlight from his hand, and started deeper into the throat of the mine.
I agreed with Mondragón about the danger, and I called out sharply, “Rainy, no farther into the drift.”
“Drift?” Mondragón gave me a puzzled look.
“Mining term for a passage like this.”
I didn’t have time to explain to him that I’d grown up on the Iron Range of Minnesota, where anybody who knew anything about underground mining understood what a drift was.
Rainy stopped, but not because of me or Mondragón. She shone the light behind a fallen piece of rock the size of a doghouse.
“Look,” she said.
We joined her and saw what the beam illuminated—a stain the color of rust on the mine floor.
“Blood?” Rainy said.
Mondragón knelt and touched the stain. “It’s dried, but I’m sure it’s blood.” He stood and looked into the black that went deep into the mountain. “I can’t believe he’s in there. Why would he go deeper?”
“Maybe
something scared him,” Rainy said.
“Maybe,” Mondragón said. “I need to make a call on the sat phone.”
He went to the pack Rainy had set near the mine entrance, pulled out the satellite phone, and stepped into the sunlight.
The first shot came like a crack of thunder.
CHAPTER 23
* * *
Mondragón spun back into the mine. The rocks around him exploded in fragmenting lines as a steady stream of bullets followed him in. The rounds ricocheted off the walls, and the roar of the gunfire from outside sounded like Armageddon had arrived. It was automatic rifle fire, and I had no way of telling how many shooters there might be.
“Behind there!” I shouted at Rainy, pointing toward the doghouse rock where we’d found the bloodstain.
Mondragón grabbed the Weatherby he’d brought, and I pressed myself into the questionable protection of a slight indentation in the wall with the Winchester in my hands. I could see most of the thirty yards of open ground in front of the mine and spotted one of the shooters in a tier of rocks on the far side. He was laying down a steady lacing of bullets into the floor near where Mondragón had flattened himself against the wall opposite me.
“You okay?” I called in a momentary lull in the gunfire.
“Not hit. Where’s Rainy?”
“Here,” she called from behind us. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Any suggestions?”
“Just sit tight,” Mondragón offered.
“And then what?”
If he gave an answer, I didn’t hear it. The storm of bullets came again, chewing up the rock all around us. I thought that if they kept that up long enough, they’d run out of ammunition eventually. They must have thought so, too, because in the next moment the gunfire died away.
From the rocks came a voice with a Hispanic accent: “You in the cave. We want Peter Bisonette. Tell us where he is and we’ll leave you in peace.”
“Chinga tu madre!” Mondragón shouted.
A few shots came in return, but not the hail of bullets that had been fired before.
“We can blow you up, if that’s what you want,” the voice informed us.