Bad Country: A Novel (38 page)

He had waited one week in the safe house but when he heard nothing from his jefe, as instructed he left with nothing but the money in his pocket and the clothes on his back, trusting there would be food and water in the shallow cave waiting for him when he achieved the gap in the rugged Theatine Mountains. From La Entrada the man kept to his conservative schedule, walking only in the shadows at dawn and at dusk.

*   *   *

His first day south of the cave he found the sniper rifle and picked it up and carried it for a while before he discarded it as too heavy and potentially incriminating. He wiped his fingerprints from the black graphite stock with his shirttails and threw the gun into a steepsided arroyo. The second day south of the cave he found the GI pack and the old Schrade pocketknife and the dry canteen. He rummaged the near-empty pack and found a bag of corn chips as the one thing useful, ate them and then buried the foil bag under some rocks and buried the pack under some other rocks and then moved on. He tucked the old pocketknife into his pants pockets but later discarded the knife into a steep-sided ditch. Later that day he found camo pants and soiled underwear and a desert brown T-shirt stained with blood and he simply walked past these.

His final day in Los Jarros the sicario found a dead man, naked and barefoot, on his back, staring at the sky, white foam dried around his mouth. The dead man’s eyes were sockets picked empty by crows. Ronald Rocha clutched a photograph of a young brown-skinned man, Samuel Rocha, to his chest. The eyes of the boy in the photograph were dark and luminous as black clouds. As the sicario walked by the dead man he crossed himself, but only from habit.

*   *   *

Very near the border a line of quails like a convened row of nuns moved across the rough trail the man trudged upon and hurried under the cover of thick creosote bushes and because there was no sound from the air of hawks or no other movement or sound of other earthly predators about but him the sicario took this as a sign that he was now safe since he was the greatest predator.

But then a brace of hawks screeched as they sighted the quails and the man swiveled his head to watch the birds flying together for a while and then the pair singled themselves and parted as if they had not come to a decision to separate but had simply been separated by the fate of winds.

And then with a cry as long and piercing as a siren, one hawk lost altitude and departed the scene by just plunging down into an arroyo as if into the ground itself while the other one flew up, flew against everything … gravity land wind clouds even fate … and kept on silently until it was beyond sight and the sicario thought it was as if these birds of prey had split the world in two, the one claiming with her scream, the earth and the other claiming with his silence, the sky.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This novel was not assembled by committee or built by workshop; but I do really appreciate the following:

Readers-of-Drafts: Mathew Madan (thanks for everything, Brother), Karen “KP” Peirce, Simone “Si” Gers, Seth Stroupe, Gene Jerskey, Theresa Jarnigan “T” Enos, Claudia (
Fort Starlight
) Zuluaga, Andrea “AG” Graham, Ben and Ann McKenzie.

Editing: Peter Joseph, Executive Editor, Thomas Dunne Books, with Melanie Fried and the Thomas Dunne/Minotaur/St. Martin’s Crew—thanks for respecting my voice and my “rust.”

The Tony Hillerman Prize and the Tony Hillerman Writers’ Conference: Jean Schaumberg and Anne Hillerman—thanks for making us a part of this great family.

Research Assistance: Erin Lee Mock, Ph.D., James J. Helmer, M.D.

Promotion: Corinne Cooper and Michael Longstaff—Professional Presence: Communication Consulting, Tucson.

Poetry: Alexander Long (
Still Life
;
Light Here, Light There
) wrote the “Samuel” poems—thanks Bud, since you are better accidentally than I am on purpose.

General Support Crew: Marta Helmer, Ventura, CA; JB McKenzie Stroupe and her boyz—Sam, “Little” McKenzie, Seth, Ernie, assorted canines and All Related People—Aunt Juanita and Jarvie in Texas; Betty Brown in Topsham, and Anna, Eve, Robin on RoundTop, Rick Lathrop and Crew at LongWind, in Vermont; the Woodsides and “Brick” in New Hampshire; Professional and Staff Congress-City University of New York; Richard (late, but not forgotten) yoga guru, Tuxson (and beyond).

Locations: Lee Public Library, Gladewater Round-Up Rodeo Association Arena, Gladewater Books, Guadalupe’s, The Fork and Gym 101, Gladewater, Texas; Chuy’s Restaurant, Van Horn, Texas; Las Tortugas, Costa Rica; Lazy-8 Motel and Arizona Motel, The River-park Inn, Che’s Lounge, BoonDocks, The Buffet, Pima Community College-Desert Vista and PCC-Downtown, Bookmans, Arizona State Musuem (“Paths of Life”), Tohono O’odham Nation, Pascua Yaqui Reservation, San Xavier Mission School and THE University of Arizona, Tuxson; The Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza, Hotel St. Francis, Collected Works Bookstore, Santa Fe; Claudio’s Barber Shop and Applebee’s in East Harlem, Harlem Social and Riverside State Park in West Harlem, Molly’s on Third, The Green Door in Hell’s Kitchen, and all New York Public Libraries, NYC.

Every artist wants a respected peer who will “help the boy”: my “Peer Guide” is Maximilian Werner (
Crooked Creek
,
Black River Dreams
,
Gravity Hill, Evolved)
—thanks Maxo, I owe you mucho.

I also thank the hundreds of student writers I have worked with—at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Pima Community College, Flowing Wells High School, Fairleigh Dickenson University-Metro and the City University of New York—who, by their patience with me and enthusiasm for what I love, have made me a better writer.

Most thanks to Kimberly Adilia Helmer, who not only endured me in the house while this book was being written and rewritten, but who also loves me the whole sky.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A native Texan, CB M
C
K
ENZIE
has through-hiked the Appalachian Trail and worked as a housepainter, haute couture model, farm hand, and professor in a wide variety of locales around the world including New York and Vermont, Miami and Milan, Tokyo and Tucson. He earned both an M.F.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. Though he currently lives in California, he still keeps his pickups in Tucson and Texas.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.

An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

BAD COUNTRY.
Copyright © 2014 by CB McKenzie. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover photographs: truck © Curtis G. Perry; desert © welcomia/
Shutterstock.com

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

McKenzie, C. B.

    Bad country : a novel / CB McKenzie.—1st ed.

           p. cm.

    ISBN 978-1-250-05354-1 (hardcover)

    ISBN 978-1-4668-5600-4 (e-book)

  1.  Private investigators—Fiction.   2.  Murder—Investigation—Fiction.   3.  Indians of North America—Crimes against—Fiction.   4.  Arizona—Fiction.   5.  Mystery fiction.   I.  Title.

    PS3613.C55566B33 2014

    813'.6—dc23

2014027776

e-ISBN 9781466856004

First Edition: November 2014