“Didn’t figure you were.” The bartender smiled and poured him a shot of whiskey. “FBI boys wouldn’t take on those crazies.”
He was glad he didn’t have to shoot, glad the young man had kicked the hippies’ asses. “So what about Raven?”
“I think he and his friends killed one of José Escobar’s steers over in La Cueva,” Sonny answered.
The two rancheros nodded. They had heard about the mutilation, and anybody who was chasing down poachers was a friend of the cattlemen.
Sonny drank down the bourbon.
“This man, Raven, está loco,” the bartender said. “Sheriff Naranjo has him in jail for growing marijuana. But he’s a dangerous man.”
“I know,” Sonny said. “Thanks for the drink.”
“De nada. You did me a favor by getting rid of those hippies. Be careful, eh.”
“Yeah,” Sonny said as he went out.
Sonny squinted at the bright sunlight when he walked out of the bar. It never failed, walking out of a dark, cool bar into bright sunlight was a shock to the nervous system. He glanced across the street where the Jeep now stood. They wouldn’t mess with him, at least not for a while.
He walked down the street to the county courthouse. The main street of the sleepy town was nearly deserted, and yet he had the curious feeling that people knew he was in town. People watched him cross the street from shop windows.
By the time he entered the air-conditioned courthouse, the bartender had already called the sheriff and told him the young man who wanted to see Raven had kicked ass with Raven’s buddies and sent them packing.
Sheriff Naranjo was waiting with a firm handshake when Sonny walked into the lobby.
“I’m Sheriff Naranjo. Heard you met Raven’s boys.” He slapped Sonny on the back. “I’ve been wanting to throw them in jail all week, but the FBI won’t let me.”
Sonny shrugged. “Sonny Baca,” he said.
“Baca,” the sheriff said. “From where?”
“Alburquerque. My father’s family was from Socorro—”
“The Bacas de Socorro? Oh, por qué no dijites, hombre? Not from the Elfego Baca familia?”
“Sí.”
“Well I’ll be a sanamagon! Goddamnit, no wonder you didn’t take any shit from the hippies! Elfego Baca. Pues, you got the blood of the old man. Come on in.” He put his arm around Sonny’s shoulder and led him into his office. “Siéntate.” He offered a chair. “How about a drink?” He reached into a desk drawer and drew out a bottle.
“Gracias, just had one.”
“Coffee, cup of coffee. Maggie,” he yelled out the door, “get this gentleman a cup of hot coffee. Milk? Sugar?”
“Black,” Sonny answered.
“So you’re from the Bacas of Socorro.” The sheriff looked with pride at Sonny. “Chingao, hombre, there isn’t a Chicano around here who doesn’t know about Elfego Baca. You were working with Manuel Lopez. Found that Dodge lady in Mexico?”
Sonny nodded.
“Hombre, they don’t make them any better than Manuel. I knew him when he first went into the business. He couldn’t get jobs at first, but he proved himself. Bringing that woman out of Mexico was the toughest thing he did. And you were with him, damn.”
A secretary with a dimpled smile entered the room with a cup of coffee. “Anything else?” she asked.
“No. Gracias.”
“Any time,” she said and went out.
“My familia was from Socorro County,” the sheriff said when they were alone. “I remember my grandfather, and my father, telling stories about Elfego Baca. People thought that man was Robin Hood. One time, they say, a cowboy from Texas stole a plow horse from a farmer near Lemitar. You know those Texans used to come in and try to get away with all sorts of things. Muy abusivos. So your grandfather tracked down the cowboy brought him back to the county jail. But instead of putting him in jail, he made the cowboy work a week for the old farmer. Made him plow and milk cows for a week to teach him manners.”
The sheriff slapped his knee and laughed. “Piénsalo, one of those tough cowboys working as a farmer. Que insulto, no? But here’s the good part. The cowboy fell in love with one of the farmer’s daughters, so he married her. One of the best families in Socorro County came from that marriage. Coyotes, part Chicano, part Anglos. They’re raza just like us. Just got the Anglo last name. Justice comes in different ways.”
Sonny nodded. It never failed, wherever the old people recalled the stories of his great-grandfather, he heard a new one every time. Justice for his people, the Mexicano farmers of the Socorro Valley that had been part of Elfego Baca’s life, then there were the later escapades in Alburquerque. Someday he would write down all the stories he had heard about Elfego Baca, the Robin Hood lawman from Socorro County.
“What about Raven?” Sonny asked.
“I busted him for growing marijuana,” the sheriff said, “but the FBI told me to let him go.” He leaned forward and whispered. “They say he wants to blow up a WIPP truck. Doesn’t make sense to me to let him loose. I figure they want him to lead them to the explosives. That’s the only way they can prove anything.”
“They can’t trace the stuff?”
“Ah, he’s probably buying dynamite in Mexico. You can buy it by the truckload and bring it up here easy, no records. If he packs it right, he can tear a hole into any WIPP barrel.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“FBI won’t like it”—the sheriff shrugged—“but why not. I’m going to have to let the sonofabitch out in a few hours when he makes bail. Not that I won’t be glad to get the FBI off my ass. I’ll give you ten minutes,” the sheriff said. “Off the record, sabes?”
“Gracias,” Sonny answered.
He led Sonny down a hallway to the cells in the back. “Got a visitor,” he called to the man in the first cell. He was barefoot and bare chested, lying on the bunk in the dark corner of the cell with a backpack for a pillow. When he jumped to his feet and approached the bars, Sonny recognized the smooth way he moved, even before he focused in on the face. Around his neck hung the same gold Zia medallion he’d been wearing the last time they met at the opera fund-raiser. Anthony Pájaro.
20
“Ten minutes,” the sheriff said and left the two men alone. “Anthony Pájaro?” Sonny was too shocked to say anything more.
“Around here they call me Raven,” Pájaro replied.
He laughed, his taunting laughter filling the silence of the cells around them.
Sonny shook his head. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I might not believe it, he thought. Pájaro was the leader of the antinuke group, the leader who spoke in public, Tamara’s lover, the well-dressed, poised, charismatic fighter of pollution. He was also Raven, the man who possessed four wives, who lived in the forest with his cronies and plotted destruction, feeding himself off poached livestock and starving his own children.
“Well, well, Mr. Sonny Baca.” Raven smiled. There was something hard to his appearance, something deadly in his dark eyes. “So we meet again. Sorry I can’t offer you a drink, but the accommodations are a bit slim. What brings you slumming? Last time I saw you, you had a beautiful woman at your side, and you were wearing a tux.”
“You, too,” Sonny responded.
Raven laughed. “This is temporary. In a few hours my attorney bails me out.”
His mood changed as he looked hard at Sonny. “Heard you were snooping around my place, Sonny boy. I don’t like that. You could get shot!” He laughed softly, deep in his throat.
Sonny remembered what José Escobar had said: Raven can fly like one of those old brujos.
“I wasn’t snooping, just visiting,” Sonny replied. “I needed to buy a little dynamite.”
Raven’s face grew dark. “Ah, shit. Now you’re talking like one of the FBI boys,” he snapped. “You working for them? ’Cause if you are, you’re on the wrong side!”
Sonny shook his head. Raven would not be easy to crack. He was too smart; he had bee
n pursued by the FBI for too long. He was a cautious bird. Not a raptor, but a scavenger, moving from one kill to the other.
“They’ve been on my case since the Palo Seco nuclear plant in Arizona got its power lines blown up. I was in Taos. They know that, but they keep bugging me. They plant a lot of what the government calls misinformation. I call it lies! They can plant stuff on you if you make yourself a social nuisance. You know that.”
“Some of the members of your group think it’s a social nuisance to stash dynamite. They’re talking to Garcia.”
Raven laughed. “No way.”
“They’re afraid.” Sonny tested the waters.
“Afraid? Hey, I’m a peace-loving man.”
“Afraid you might blow a truck—”
“People are crazy!” Raven shouted. “They make up stories! They twisted my words!”
He grew quiet, put his face against two bars, and whispered. “But just suppose it could be done. Isn’t it better to blow up one truck and stop the proliferation of nuclear waste? Think about it. One WIPP truck goes up and it will scare the shit out of people. Maybe then they’ll demand a stop to the madness. Yeah, one big accident, Baca, and we could have a nuclear-free earth!”
Would he really do it, Sonny wondered as he looked into the dark eyes of the man in the cell. Or was he crazy, spouting insanities? Raven was fed up with political solutions that hadn’t worked. He and his group were tired of chaining themselves to gates of nuclear power stations, tired of community organizing, and tired of political rhetoric. Raven was ready to implement the ultimate solution: blow up a truck carrying nuclear waste. Create a holocaust that would make the world take notice.
“You blow open a container carrying high-level waste and it’s going to kill a lot of people,” Sonny said.
“That high-level waste already kills people! Did you ever think of that? Tons and tons of it all over the world. Don’t tell me what kills people, Baca! The feds, DOE, Sandia Labs, Los Alamos. They kill people! They killed your father. They’ve been storing high-level shit in this state for forty-five years. Los Alamos has dumped radioactive water into the Río Grande. Sandia Labs has dumped right into the South Valley. Wise up, Baca. We didn’t create the problem, we’re trying to solve it. The DOE and the Defense Department have stockpiled nukes in the Manzano Mountains. All that stuff they’re storing and dismantling is seeping into the water! At WIPP the barrels will be corroded by the salt! It’s poisoning the earth! The old nuclear power plants in Russia are already leaking poison! North Korea is making nukes! How much more is it going to take to get people like you involved?”
Sonny didn’t have an answer. He looked at the medallion hanging around Raven’s neck. Round as the sun and inscribed with the Zia sun symbol. Heavy. The medallion of an ancient priest, or a modern cult leader.
“Like it, huh?” Raven smiled, sensing Sonny’s attention on the medallion. He held it up and kissed it. “The Zia sun, giver of life, protector of the Earth!”
“The same symbol was cut on Gloria Dominic,” Sonny said, the anger returning and mixing with the impotence he felt. He wished he had taken the drink the sheriff had offered. Help steady him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Whoever killed Gloria Dominic cut the Zia symbol on her stomach.”
“And you think—” Raven grinned. “You do have yourself confused with the FBI! You’ve been snooping around my place because you think I had something to do with that? That’s not our thing, Baca. We’re not into murder. We’re into saving lives. Saving the spaceship Earth.”
“Did you know her?”
“The Dominic lady?” He shook his head. “No, no, don’t go making accusations just ’cause they found the sign of the Zia on her. I’ve got one on my jewelry. It’s used everywhere. State flag uses it. Does that mean the state killed her? You’re barking up the wrong tree, Baca.”
“Why do you use two names?” Sonny asked. The man in front of him was Anthony Pájaro, but as he said, up here, meaning on the east side of the Sandias, he was Raven. The man seemed to move in and out of personalities.
“Pájaro’s just a convenient incarnation, you know, someone to please Tamara. She’s a real lady you know, a great woman, a truly great woman. But me? Hey, I’m a mountain man. Tamara wouldn’t have me around her and her fancy friends, but she’d have Anthony. She wouldn’t let me fuck her, but she let Anthony!”
Raven burst out in a fit of laughter. When it subsided, he stared intensely at Sonny again, and the stare cut through Sonny and made him shiver. Raven had become Anthony Pájaro to fund-raise, to put forth a good show, to become Tamara’s lover. Did Tamara control him? Did she control Raven?
“You don’t get it, do you?” Raven whispered. “You don’t know what I can do.”
“Tell me.”
“Ask Tamara. She can tell you about the power of this Zia medallion. Great power, Baca. The power to fly through the forest and see everything. Shit, I’ve got power you haven’t even dreamed about.” He scowled. “We’re not playing for pennies,” he said ominously.
Sonny had a long shot left, so he reached in his pocket and took out the copper earring Howard had given him and handed it to Raven.
Raven took it and looked at it. “My ladies make things like this to make a living. The FBI bought a few, now it plants them wherever they want. They can implicate whoever they want by planting false clues. Fucking Garcia helps them. Yeah, like the crazy stories in the paper. Murderers? Shit, the people I know aren’t murderers. They want peace. They want an Earth free of nuclear weapons and waste. The FBI plants these clues. Falsehoods. Your friend at the police lab knows stuff was planted, doesn’t he?”
Sonny nodded. Howard had warned him the earring was probably planted—probably by the police.
“Anyway, this one is made out of copper, and my ladies use shell casings. You’re not dumb, Baca, you know what the bureau can do. Though in this case they’re not even doing it well.”
He handed the earring back to Sonny. “Give it to your lady. A gift from the sun people.”
Sonny slipped the earring back in his pocket.
“The government’s been feeding lies to the people,” Raven said. “And you’ve been asleep. Time to wake up. Now they’re sprouting a new lie. We’re going to convert to peaceful uses, they say. Make plastic toys instead of plutonium. Can we believe anything they say? Only way to wake people up is to shock ’em.”
“Shock them to death?” Sonny asked.
Raven looked at him, and in his look Sonny knew the man didn’t care how he woke up those he thought were asleep. Idealism or insanity, it didn’t matter what you called it, the man was going to go through with his messianic mission. He believed in it.
“It’s a trade-off, Baca. Fight fire with fire. To remind everyone that the earth should stay nuke free. We’re starting this chapter of the fight tomorrow with a press conference in the morning at Roosevelt Park. I’m giving fair warning to stop this disaster before it starts.” He paused. “Or else, on the day the sun stands still, I’ll go down in history as the man who saved the Earth!”
Sonny felt a surge of energy from Raven. The medallion shone on Raven’s chest. Sonny could almost see his image in it. He pulled away, turned, and headed back to the sheriff’s office.
“Fight fire with fire.…” Sonny mused, shaking his head.
The man was crazy. Blow up a WIPP truck and bring the world to its knees? Damn! But he had convinced himself he was doing it for only the best reason.
“Well?” Sheriff Naranjo asked.
“How serious is his threat?” Sonny asked. He was still unsure. He had felt Raven’s power, and he wondered how far this strange and charismatic man would go.
“I don’t know,” the sheriff replied. “FBI has to take any wild threat serious. The people around him are violent. Those two pendejos you met at the bar, they’re crazy. And this guy Raven, one minute he’s loco like them, the next he’s the most intelligent, smoothest talker y
ou ever met. I can’t figure him. I just want him out of Estancia.”
“I can understand that,” Sonny agreed as they walked outside into the bright sunlight.
“The highway from Los Alamos to Carlsbad is very long,” the sheriff said. “FBI and state cops can’t watch every mile.”
“When does the shipment leave Los Alamos?” Sonny asked.
“June twenty-first. They’re planning a big party. Governor’s going to have the National Guard out, but that’s three hundred miles of road to cover.”
The twenty-first was Friday, Sonny thought, just days from now. But that was the FBI’s concern, not his. Gloria was his concern, and he was still as far from finding her murderers as he had been when he started. Still, her death would pale in comparison to the havoc Raven could create. He thanked the sheriff and got into his truck. He had left the windows open, but it was still stifling.
A glint of metal made him look at the seat. He picked up an earring, looked at it closely. It matched the one Howard had given him, but this was made of brass. The real thing. Yes, any thing could be planted on anyone at any time. Raven was right. Sonny slipped the earring in his shirt pocket and started his truck.
In the expanse of the searing llano the town was a speck, hardly alive. In a week who knew what it would look like? A ghost town, deserted because its inhabitants would have to move. Sonny turned over Raven/Pájaro’s plan in his mind, wondering where the environmentalist and ecoterrorist’s world overlapped with the bedraggled cult.
From the Jeep across the street, Raven’s buddies were watching him. Dorothy sat slumped in the backseat. They must be waiting to take Raven home. Farther up the street two men sat in a Jeep Cherokee. The FBI boys, no doubt, waiting to tail Raven. There were a couple of other cars parked on the street; one of them followed Sonny back to Alburquerque. But were the occupants FBI or more of Raven’s cohorts?
21
The next morning Sonny headed for Raven’s Nuclear-Free Earth press conference at Roosevelt Park, near the university. Anthony Pájaro, alias Raven, alias God only knew how many other names, was pulling out all the stops in his fight against WIPP. The grassy knolls were jammed with people. “Stop WIPP” signs proliferated.