An American Outlaw (17 page)

“Why? Why there?”

“Couple hundred thousand dollars. In cash. Maybe more.”

Joe stepped out of his truck. He stood, scanned the hills.

“What's he looking for?”

“To see if anybody followed.”

A door opened in a wall of the main building. A man stepped out. Hispanic, wearing a gray coverall, and carpenter belt.

“Who the hell's that?”

“A friend.”

I turned to her. “What's going on?”

She says; “Why tomorrow? Why all the way up there?”

“We planned this shit, right? All of it. Michael and me. It ain't random.”

“I can take his place.”

I didn't answer.

Joe Tree approached the man in the coverall.

“Come on,” she says. “We're getting out.”

I climbed from her truck. Kept my jacket on. SIG in the pocket.

Joe Tree turned back to scanning the hills. Light cover on them. Sotol and tanglehead.

The man in the coverall approached Tennille.

“Hola,” she called. She stepped away from me, towards the house.

The man turned, but stared over his shoulder at me. Then he walked with Tennille to a wooden slat door. 

They stepped inside.

Joe Tree stood in front of me. “Not you.”

Black Mesa.

Whicher loosens his neck-tie. He leans forward in the seat of his truck—pushes his shirtfront into the cold air streaming from the vents.

He steers across the broken up ground.

“Sometimes I wonder how they could stand it.”

“What's that, sir?”

“Folks out here. Before, you know...”

“AC? Cold beer?”

“It's like the surface of Mars.”

“Take that track,” says the sergeant. “Other side of that emory oak...”

“That's a
track
?”

Baker grins.

“I'm sure glad I brought y'all along.”

“I guess you ride horses, y'all learn your way about.”

“That it? You a horse ridin' feller?”

“Mainly.”

Whicher nods. “Come out here a piece?”

“Time to time. Labrea's used to run a few. Joe Tree's got a couple of head.” Baker turns a fraction to Whicher. “Marshal? I ask you something?”

 “Go ahead.”

“Why the shotgun. Just now. And that .357. What's Joe Tree about to do?”

“Not him,” says Whicher. “Gilman James. You mind telling me which way I'm supposed to be heading?”

“See that rock? Up ahead?”

“We taking a bearing?”

“Just head towards it, sir. There's no reason to think Joe's caught up in any of this, is there?”

“Y'all prefer him not to be?”

“I mean, he's a local guy...”

“Yeah. But if he found that truck we're looking for, how come he never reported it?”

“Maybe he didn't know—that all of this has been going on.”

“Maybe.”

“No sign of anything at Joe Tree's place...”

“Tire tracks, though,” says Whicher. “Alpine police department are putting Gilman James in a robbery up in Reeves County, yesterday.”

Baker gives a low whistle. “That's a long damn way from here.”

“Right. It's impossible, too. Unless someone's helping him.”

“Head over to the right, sir. Around the side of that bluff.”

Whicher steers on. Thinking on Gilman James. No way he got that truck out of west Texas. Not on any road. They would've caught him. Between the Brewster County sheriff and Alpine police department, they had the road network taped. Either James was still out there. Or he took to the backcountry—somebody showing him how.

Ahead, through the windshield, Whicher sees an adobe house. Raised porch around it. A few scattered trees. Outbuildings. A line of fence.

“That's the place,” says Baker.

“Alright, same routine, Sergeant. Take the shotgun.”

The marshal steers the truck up to the gate at the front of the property. He switches off the engine. Reaches for the revolver.

He steps out, finger on the trigger guard.

Baker holds the shotgun at his midriff.

The two men walk forward, toward the house. Their feet crunch on gravel. A path winds out in front of them, bunch of cacti, set out like a garden.

“That robbery,” Whicher says, “up in Reeves County. If it
was
him, he had an accomplice. A young woman.”

Baker climbs the porch steps. He stops in front of the door to the house. Looks at Whicher, a question in his face, now.

Whicher shoots him an eyebrow.

The sergeant moves to a window, tries to peer inside. 

He steps back, staring at the frame. 

“Bunch of marks around this, Marshal. Somebody's forced it.” He lowers his shotgun, hand against the glass. “It's closed now. But somebody done broke in...”

“Y'all sure?”

“Yes, sir, Marshal.”

Whicher climbs the stairs and knocks on the front door. 

“Hello?
Hello in there
?” He takes off the Resistol. Wipes at the sweat on his brow. “Police officer. Anybody home?” 

He tries the door. It's locked. 

“This girl live alone?”

“She's got a young daughter.”

“Any husband?”

“She's separated from the father, far as I know.”

Whicher lowers the Ruger. “Let's take a look around back.” 

He puts on his hat. Climbs down the porch steps. Baker behind him, with the shotgun.

No sign of anyone. But maybe James had been up there—looking to steal something, get a vehicle? He could've broke in. 

At the back of the house, Whicher stops. The wall's burned, right up to the roof. “The hell's that?”

Baker moves forward. He kicks at the mess of charred wood on the ground. “Looks like they had a pretty good fire back here.”

Whicher takes a long look at the house. A break-in, a fire. 

“What else you know about these folk?”

“Max Labrea built the place. I think Leon Varela owns it now.”

“Who?”

“Father of the little girl. Reckon Leon bought him out after he married the daughter.”

“But he doesn't live here any more?”

“He lives in Lajitas. She stayed on, with the girl.”

“He left, they stayed?”

“That's all I heard.”

“No sign anybody's here.”

“No, sir.”

Whicher steps from the house towards a ridge at the front of the property. He sees a rooftop on a barn down a sloping field. 

“How about there. On down in that field?”

Sergeant Baker follows his gaze.

“Take a look, sergeant. I'll check the house again. Make sure nobody's home.”

Baker holds the shotgun at his waist. He walks into the sloping dirt field, scanning the ridge of mountains rising in Mexico.

Whicher holds the Ruger loose in his hand. He walks to the front porch, climbs the steps, bangs on the door. 

“Anyone home?”

On the porch floor, in a shot glass, is a measure of bourbon. Untouched. Against an upright stud. 

He stands and listens. Silence. Nothing from the house.

From the porch, he can just see the sergeant, at the side of the barn. Coming around the front, to where its doors are open. 

Baker steps back sharp. “
Sir!
” he shouts.

He swings the shotgun out before him. “
Over here, sir!
”

But Whicher's already running.

CHAPTER 20

Casa Piedra.

I stared at the bleak land surrounding the homestead. The disused rail track running north south, between the hills. The track bed was on a bank of crushed stone above the dry creek. A line of switchgrass growing from the hard-baked dirt. 

Nothing moving, no sound. Just the sand blowing down the draw. Tennille's black and red 350, ticking heat.

Joe Tree stood by the Dodge Dakota. A sour look on his face.

“You think there's somebody out there?”

He leaned against the truck. Marlin on the roof of the cab. “Leon, maybe.”

“Leon?”

“Or one of his.”

I looked at him.

He says, “They want to know where she is.”

I put a hand in my jacket, on the 250 SIG. Closing my fingers around it. “They want to know where Tennille is?”

He shook his head. “Maria.”

“She's got her daughter out here?”

“Been here a week.”

I turned to look at the group of buildings. Mud brown walls. An outpost, all it was. End of the line. One brick had a date stamp; 1932. It wasn't hard to picture, it couldn't have changed. Mules. Sheep, maybe. Desolate, my reckoning. The day they built it, and every day since. 

“She has to hide her daughter,” I says. “A place like this?”

Joe leaned into the truck roof. Raised the rifle. “You think she wants this?”

“What's that mean?”

He looked along the barrel. Eyes squinting into the sights. “This. You.”

I broke off looking at him. Stared at the waves of heat above the hard pan.

Behind us, there was a noise from the house. The rough wood door was opening. The guy in the coverall was coming out. He had his hands in his pockets. 

Beside him, a woman, Mexican-looking, her hair tied back from her wind-burned face. Rebozo over a worn cotton dress.

Joe turned from the Dakota. Rested the butt of the rifle on the ground. “Esteban,” he says. “Elaina...”

The man nods. There's no smile on the woman's face. She scans the outlying hills. Barely glancing in my direction.

Behind them, Tennille steps out through the door. With a girl, maybe seven years old. She has a mane of hair, eyes too big for her face. Tennille takes the girl's hand, kneels in the dirt. She puts both arms around her, kisses her face.

“Tomorrow night, baby,” she says. “Just till then.”

The little girl looks at her. She steals a look at me. And Joe in turn.

“Tomorrow, I'll come. And we'll go find him. Tu abuelito. Yes? Your Grandaddy. In Mexico...”

But her daughter only holds her. And leans in closer. And doesn't answer.

Lajitas.

At the border, the Rio Grande sits low in the flood plain. The settlement of Lajitas deserted in the mid-day heat. 

Whicher parks the Silverado by a freight yard down near the river. Through the mesh wire fence, a truck mechanic in a baseball cap works the axle on a stepdeck.

According to Sergeant Baker, Varela owned a freight business as well as the ranch in the hills. Whicher'd left him back at a trading post on the highway; the sergeant after making a couple of calls, to see if he could raise a friend, some school teacher, on account of the kid.

At one edge of the freight yard, there's a flat-roofed site office. A red Camaro parked alongside it. The marshal makes a note of it. Leon Varela's car.

He steps from his truck and crosses into the yard. The mechanic working on, no word, no kind of greeting—watching, from the corner of an eye.

At the site office, a big Hispanic stands in the door-frame. Six two. A hundred ninety pounds. In jeans. A tight black vest. Silver cross and chain on his chest.

“Mr. Varela?”

The young man rocks back on his boot heels. Around thirty. Good-looking, matinee type. King in his own yard.

“My name's Whicher. US Deputy Marshal. Y'all know where your wife is at?”

Varela flexes his neck, the silver cross drawn tighter. “No.”

“How about your kid?”

The veins on the man's neck stand a little higher. “She better be alright.”

“Y'all still married?”

“Separated.”

“You own a ranch property up in the hills, correct?”

“So what?”

“We found a vehicle. Belonging to a suspect on a bank robbery.”

Varela gives a flat, disbelieving laugh.

“Know anything about that?”

“Are you for real?”

“Just answer the questions...”

Varela bugs his eyes.

“Y'all don't know where your wife was at yesterday? How 'bout your daughter?”

Whicher sees the reaction, at the second mention of his child.

“I haven't seen either one of them. In weeks.”

The marshal turns sideways in the young man's stare. Watching the mechanic, working the axle on the stepdeck. 

“You don't have much to do with 'em? This point in time? That about it?”

Varela doesn't answer.

“But you do own that ranch?”

“I hate the place.”

“That right?”

“I've been on the road. If you're asking. Yesterday, I was driving a flatbed load down from Clovis, New Mexico. If you want to check it, man, I'll give you the number for the yard.”

“Somebody broke in the house up there, Mr. Varela. That property of yours. Y'all know anything about that?”

The young man's eyes narrow.

“How about that house fire they had?”

Varela runs a hand through his slicked back hair. Face blank now, eyes guarded.

“Bad luck,” says Whicher, “fire out there. No help. The middle of no place.”

“Hey, man. What the hell's that mean?”

“I'm asking the questions, son.”

Varela's hands twitch by his sides. 

The marshal stares at the younger man's muscled torso. Let him twist. Son of a bitch.

“So y'all ain't seen 'em. Don't know nothing.”

“I got work to do.”

“That it?”

“Why don't you get the hell out of my yard.”

“Guess I know where I can find you.” Whicher tips the rim of his hat. “Y'all have a fine day, you hear?”

Varela turns back into the site office. Head side-on, he spits into the dirt. And pulls the office door closed behind him.

Whicher crosses the dusty yard back towards his truck. 

The mechanic looks up from his set of wrenches. Underneath the cap, his skin is weathered dark. 

“She's afraid,” he says, Spanish-sounding, more than Texan.

The marshal looks at him.

But the man pulls down his cap. Picks up a wheel nut. Turns back to working on the trailer.

Whicher strides from the yard and climbs in the Silverado. He fires it up—heads along the grit road back to Lajitas. 

He hits the radio frequency for Alpine police department. Waits while they find Lt. Rodgers for him.