Zia Summer, Rio Grande Fall, Shaman Winter, and Jemez Spring

  “Señores y Señoras de la Luz, protect me,” he said.

  Now he knew he had to flush out Stone, find out how he was connected to Gilroy, and there was only one way to do that. Tell him he had Alisandra Bustamante-Smith’s photograph. Make a deal. Raven for the photo.

  He called Rita.

  “You’re back. Gracias a Dios. How are you? Have you eaten?”

  “Marcos and his wife fed me like a king. I’m fine. I want to see you.”

  Lord, how he wanted to see her. The burning warehouse loomed in front of him. He had come close to buying el rancho. He needed to feel connected. He needed her love.

  “And I want to see you.”

  “I’ll come over.”

  “No, let me come to your place,” she said.

  He remembered Marta and Cristina were staying with Rita.

  “Hurry.”

  “I’m on my way, amor,” she whispered.

  Minutes later he drove into his driveway. Across the street a light burned in don Eliseo’s kitchen. The old man was still up. Sonny honked twice and a shadow appeared at the window. Waved.

  Sonny waved back as he alighted from the truck. The old man was watching out for him, but on La Paz Lane, all was peaceful.

  He went in, leaving the door unlocked for Rita, turned on the furnace, and headed for the shower. He stood a long time in the hot water, washing away the smoke smell. It had been a long day, a harrowing day. If it hadn’t been for Marcos …

  He toweled briskly then reached into the medicine cabinet. The Zia medallion lay on the bottom shelf.

  An inner voice had told him not to wear it today, and so it was safe from Raven. He put on his robe and stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. He smelled perfume. Rita.

  “Welcome home,” she said. She was waiting for him in bed.

  “God, I’m glad to see you.” He shivered.

  “Ven,” she said, and lifted the covers. He slid in beside her, feeling her naked body as if it was the only reality he really knew. A reality that created a great hunger deep inside, a hunger to be satisfied.

  He kissed her and pressed his body over hers, feeling the warmth of her curves, the passion of her kisses.

  “I missed you,” she moaned.

  “And I missed you, amor,” he whispered, surrendering to the magic of her love.

  18

  Later, Rita rose and tended to his wounds. Then he slept like a baby in her arms.

  Before the sun rose, he felt her stir, and reached for her. Her love was the dawn light, a pearl gray in which was born the desire, then the exploding brilliance of sunrise. The satisfaction was so complete, Sonny felt something of a miracle happened between him and Rita.

  “Happy, amor?” he asked.

  “The happiest,” she replied.

  They lay quietly under the covers. As sunlight filled the room, he told her about the leads he was following, apologized for not telling her about the flight he had planned with Madge. He didn’t want to worry her.

  “I worry anyway,” she replied. “It’s part of love. You care for someone and you worry.”

  They talked, whispers in the room, then Sonny slipped back to sleep. Sometime later he felt her rise, heard the shower, then she sat by his side. “Sleep, Elfego. And take care of yourself.”

  He felt her warm kiss on his lips, reached up to pull her back under the covers, wanting her again.

  “Malcriado,” she whispered, patted his cheek, pulling away. Then he heard the front door shut.

  She had work to do, a restaurant to run. All over the city people were going to work. Workers expected their hot coffee, huevos rancheros, hot tortillas.

  He smelled the aroma of coffee. Ah, she had made him a pot of coffee before she left. Que mujer. It wasn’t just the way she made love, the desire she kindled in him, it was a lot of other things. He was going deeper into her, her love, and it was good.

  He got out of bed, put on a terry-cloth robe Rita had brought him for his last birthday, and went to the kitchen to drink his first cup of coffee.

  He looked out his kitchen window. It was, what day? Tuesday. A crisp October morning. The air was calm; the brilliant spears of sunlight were breaking over the Sandia Mountains.

  “Grandfather Sun,” he prayed. “Bless all of life. Fill us with clarity. I offer your light in the four directions, to the world. I wash myself in your light.”

  It was a prayer don Eliseo had taught him.

  The old man called the shafts of morning light the Señores y Señoras de la Luz. The Lords and Ladies of the Light. This was the phrase he used to name the male and female sunlight. He taught Sonny the Lords and Ladies of Light came from the rising sun to give birth to the day to create the dance of sunlight, a dance he called the dance of life. The sunlight came to create life, to bless life.

  This was the vital force of the sun, penetrating the earth. Across the road he could see the shimmering of the sunlight on the leaves of the huge cottonwood, don Eliseo’s tree, a tree that had been in the valley over a hundred years.

  He stood entranced at the window. The old man knew something. He knew the essence of the light and how it brought things to life. The light played on the leaves—gold that made the autumn green shimmer. A mist rose from the irrigation ditch; the earth sparkled with light; pebbles became diamonds; the filaments of spiders shining in the sunlight equaled the Milky Way with their marvel. It was all the same mystery, one mystery unveiling itself before his eyes, and he was part of it.

  Don Eliseo stood in the middle of his cornfield, his arms raised, offering the light of dawn to the world. Praying for peace. Around him the yellowing stalks of spent corn bowed to the ground, the juices of summer gone.

  The old man was singing now—his prayers of blessing. The sound carried in the cool morning air. Sometimes Sonny heard old Spanish alabados filter across the street; sometimes the chants were songs don Eliseo had learned from his vecinos at Sandia Pueblo. Morning songs for the sun.

  For a long time Sonny watched, and finally don Eliseo became part of the glistening light, the breeze that stirred the leaves, the sounds of morning.

  The phone rang and woke Sonny from his reverie.

  “Sonny, have you looked out your window?” It was Madge Swenson.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

  “Sonny! Balloons are up!” Madge shouted into the phone. “But they’re not lifting from our field, they’re lifting up over the West Mesa!”

  Sonny moved into the living room, opened the front door, and stepped out. In the west he spotted the colorful dots. About a dozen.

  “It’s John Gilroy,” Madge continued. “He got a bunch of crazies together late last night. They got drunk and he persuaded them to go fly. He called me after midnight, wanted my board to clear it. We can’t be responsible, but he got a few crazy cowboys to go up anyway. What do you think?”

  Sonny couldn’t tell Madge about Juárez, not yet. He had no evidence on Gilroy, only a scene without witnesses that took place in a warehouse. He had to catch Gilroy with the drugs.

  He couldn’t tell her that the whole thing was a ruse. First they sent Raven out to raise hell, kill Secco, and fire on Sonny and Madge, and now Gilroy himself had gone up. They wanted to focus as much attention on the balloon fiesta as possible. Let the DEA think the coke would show up there, bring in the police dogs, even stir up the local cops, and in the meantime they slipped around the very net they helped create.

  “Can I tell my board it’s safe?” Madge asked.

  “It might be safe for Gilroy, but there’s still a murderer loose, you know that.”

  “Damn!” Madge swore. “So Gilroy’s up there flying, and I’ve got seven hundred pilots hanging around my office demanding to know if the fiesta is on or off. Jerry Stammer calls me every hour, and you were gone all day yesterday. Where were you?”

  “I took a little trip,” Sonny answered. There wasn’t much he could say to her or to the Duke
City cops. The DEA was following Gilroy, and the FBI was following Raven, and persons very high up in government, or governments, had invested in the shipment and wanted their profit.

  “Do you have anything new?” Madge asked.

  “No,” Sonny answered.

  “We don’t have much time,” she said, clearly agitated. “When I make the announcement in just a few minutes that our pilots can’t go up, they know I’m saying it’s not safe to go up. Some of them will break with us and follow Gilroy up, but most are going to pack up and leave town. We’re headed toward disaster. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  Sonny watched the balloons. Dots glowing with color in the bright blue sky. Perfect days for flying were predicted for the entire week, perfect days for balloon games.

  Gilroy’s move would be seen as a stunt. Like Madge said, a few others might also fly but it wouldn’t convince the majority it was safe, those who flew with their families. There were just too many smart pilots who wouldn’t risk themselves, passengers, crews, or their balloons.

  Gilroy was only causing more confusion, which is exactly what he wanted to do.

  But Sonny knew Madge wanted him to make things right. One word from him, and Madge would clear the pilots for flying; everything would return to normal. He couldn’t do it. Gilroy and Raven were going to turn on each other, he was sure. At a certain point the distrust would bubble over and they would have it out. Once the dope was delivered, all hell would break loose.

  “Hunches,” he said, and shivered. “That’s all I’ve got.” He closed the door.

  “Come by today,” Madge said. “We have to talk.”

  Sonny walked back into the kitchen and poured a fresh cup of coffee, which he sipped on his way to the bathroom. He took a quick shower and shaved. When done, he opened the medicine cabinet, took out the Zia medallion, and put it around his neck. Today he needed all the power he could summon. As satisfied as he felt after the night with Rita, he still felt a presentiment in the air.

  “The change of seasons.” He shrugged. Early October would be mellow; the gold would imperceptibly creep across the cottonwoods. Then toward the end of the month, a storm would come roaring down from the Rockies, dispelling the easy mood.

  If they were lucky, October weather would last nearly till Thanksgiving, freezing nights of course, but mild days in the sixties. No wonder those from northern climates wandered south in search of homes. Californians in search of a quiet lifestyle. The time was driving people to move, creating great social and cultural changes. The don Eliseos of life had their days numbered.

  Not if I can help it, Sonny thought. But what could he do? Marry Rita, preserve themselves, preserve something so lovely it sometimes made him feel like crying.

  His thoughts turned to the fire in the warehouse. Near death one moment, and in the arms of the woman he loved the next. Death and life. Could he go on taking chances and still have Rita?

  Don Eliseo would say that death sharpens the senses. Like love sharpens them. Meditating on the meaning of death sharpened the soul, and taking in the light of clarity created peace within.

  He was frying eggs and bacon when he saw Diego cross the road from don Eliseo’s and knock at the door. “Entra,” Sonny greeted him. “Cafe?”

  “You betcha.” Diego shivered and rubbed his hands together. “Pretty chilly out there.”

  “Reminds me of the joke of the Tejano and the Mexicano who went out in the cold night to take a leak, and standing there, the Tejano says, ‘It’s pretty chili,’ and the Mexicano says, ‘Thank you.’”

  Diego laughed. “So where you been, hermano?”

  Sonny told him his story as they ate.

  “That was too close,” Diego said.

  “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Marcos.”

  “It’s a good thing the guy wasn’t a loco,” Diego said. “He might have taken the dope and let you burn.”

  “And you?” Sonny asked.

  “I’ve been all over town. Nada. Everyone whispers there’s a big score coming, but nobody knows where. They’re not using local people. So like a good detective”—and here he grinned at Sonny—“I went back to first base. I wanted to get a good look at that place by the river. He had to bring in the balloon in a jeep or a truck. I found tracks, followed them up to the ditch road. Lost them. But I kept looking around. I knew there was a homeless family in that area of the river, and I finally found them. They saw a truck. A UPS truck.”

  “A UPS truck,” Sonny repeated. “Gilroy said the dope would be delivered courtesy of UPS.”

  “The men I talked to laughed. They’d never seen a UPS truck down there.”

  “It may be the only lead we have.” Sonny slapped him on the back. “They had to buy the trucks. That means they have to have a garage somewhere!”

  “Or rent the trucks,” Diego said.

  “So we look for a garage, check the car dealers, here and in El Paso.” Sonny scribbled his brother’s number on a paper napkin. “Armando is in used cars. Give him a call. He can call around and maybe find something on the van. He also knows who to call in El Paso. Pero cuidado. Gilroy and Raven are bad news, entiendes?”

  “Ten-four,” Diego answered. “Y tú?”

  “I’ve got to see a woman.”

  “La blonde with the balloon?”

  “Yeah, la blonde,” Sonny replied. “Can you get downtown?”

  “Hey, I own a fleet of city buses. I can take the one I like.” Diego laughed, and said good-bye.

  Sonny washed the breakfast dishes, then backed his truck out of the drive and headed down the dirt road toward Fourth Street. He called Rita to tell her he wouldn’t be coming for breakfast, but she didn’t answer. Probably delivering Cristina to school.

  On the way toward Fiesta Control he called Howard.

  “Did you hear?” Howard said. “Just came over the wires. The Mexican federales busted the coke shipment in Juárez. The whole thing went up in a blaze.”

  Sonny told Howard his story.

  “Damn!” Howard exclaimed. “It looked good from here. Garcia’s bought it, hook, line, and sinker.”

  “A Juárez capitán reports to Gilroy. He’ll let them know there was no body in the burned warehouse. So they will know I’m alive.”

  An agitated feeling coursed through Sonny. He sniffed the air. Raven was about to strike again, close to home.

  “Sonny?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.” He told Howard about the van.

  “’Bout as good as any other theory,” Howard said. “The DEA is definitely following Gilroy, but they’re not giving any information to the local cops. Now they’re advertising the heat’s off.”

  “Except Raven and Gilroy don’t trust each other,” Sonny said. “I expect a blowout.”

  “With Orejuela in jail, the Cali people are running scared. Maybe that’s why the shipment is so big, they want to make a big score then spend some time regrouping.”

  “They’ll be back. Their junk buys a lot of silence,” Sonny replied. Someone in a very powerful place was protecting Gilroy.

  “By the way, the mayor called the chief on the carpet,” Howard said. “Garcia is spending a lot of time getting chewed out by the mayor, and Marisa gets hers from the Chamber of Commerce. They don’t want to lose the business.”

  “It’s a bad show all the way around,” Sonny replied.

  “Hasta la vista, Elfego,” Howard said. “Remember: a wet bird never flies at night.”

  “Good advice,” Sonny answered.

  Trucks and vans were pulling out of the balloon fiesta grounds when Sonny arrived. The dejected faces of the people told the story. Madge Swenson had already announced that in spite of the Gilroy group flying, the fiesta board did not sanction any flights, and it couldn’t be sure if anyone would fly tomorrow. The radio and television stations were pulling out their reporters, for the story that might have developed out of the small group that flew that morning was suddenly dead.

  Over the West Me
sa Gilroy’s cowboys had already disappeared from view. The bright and clear skies over the city were empty. Gilroy’s stunt had not drawn out an en masse ascension, and that meant he had to try another tactic.

  Jerry Stammer met Sonny at the door. “Anything new?” he asked immediately. Sonny shook his head.

  “Listen, Baca, we need results. The whole thing is falling apart. We don’t have time!”

  Sonny’s frustration also surfaced. “I know about time. I’m not sitting on my ass! I just—”

  He stopped short as Madge Swenson stepped out of her office.

  “Look,” he said, calming down. “I know the pressure you’re under. I’ve got a few leads.”

  “That’s not enough!” Stammer sputtered. “We need results, Baca. That’s why we hired you. This may be our last day. Half our balloonists are gone.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and stalked back into the board meeting room.

  “Sorry, but we’re all bent out of shape,” Madge apologized. “Hope is fading. Garcia promises nothing, and it’s not because he’s not under pressure. Come on in,” she said, ushering him into her office.

  She looked into his eyes, and Sonny understood that if Stammer hadn’t jumped down his throat, it would have been Madge. She was fighting for existence, and because she was a survivor, she would fight with all she had.

  “I don’t know whether to let Stammer fire you or—”

  “Or what?” He could smell her perfume. A very expensive fragrance now mixing with frustration.

  “We need to know what’s happening!”

  He sensed her nervousness. She was in a tough spot, afraid of losing it all. Okay, he would level with her.

  “Raven’s going to deliver a shipment of cocaine into the city,” he said, cautiously withholding Gilroy’s involvement, waiting for her reaction.

  “So?”

  “It’s big, really big, and you may be sitting on it.”

  “Say again?”

  “The fiesta draws thousands. The potential for using the fiesta as a cover is there.” He said no more.

  She had worked the dope fields when she was serving lines to her art clients in Santa Fé. She wasn’t dumb. He looked at her and waited.