Bad Country: A Novel (9 page)

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A few blocks south from Katherine Rocha’s house on Mark Street was the local sweat lodge near Black Mountain. At the Fire Station Rodeo steered off pavement onto a faint dirt road and onto holy ground that looked like a dump with mattress carcasses and car seats deteriorating in the heat. Glass glittered the ground. Plastic shopping bags flagged creosote bushes like the Res equivalent of prayer flags.

Rodeo parked between the men’s and women’s sweat lodges and sat his truck for a while looking at the fire pit charred with remnants of half-burnt shipping pallets, the scroungy half-sphere sweat huts covered in carpet scraps and blue plastic tarpaulin and at Black Mountain overshadowing all this neighborhood and the Reservation.

Rodeo exited the truck and walked to the twelve-foot-wide, four-foot-deep fire pit. Some heating stones that had cracked too much to be carried into the tent, cracked too soon to serve, rimmed the fire pit. He kicked at one of these stones until it turned nearly to dust and then he moved to the men’s lodge, got on his knees and peered into the round tent and searched the low-slung bent branch rafters.

Rodeo looked for the mobile of aged deer bones he had made when his mother died. The prayer bundles had been held together with leather thongs chewed between his teeth. Depended from these bones had been small canvas sacks filled with tobacco and each bundle tied by a separate ribbon—black for west and yellow for east and red for north and white for south, blue for father heaven and for mother earth green. But Rodeo’s prayer bundles were gone, stolen by culture poachers as “art” or by local kids for the high-priced tobacco in them or the costly feathers on them.

Rodeo crawled backwards out of the men’s lodge and stood and then trudged all around the fire pit and walked past the women’s lodge without looking in. He paused under the crude ramada ten yards away and pulled the small spiral notebook of Samuel Rocha’s poetry out of his back pocket and read.

The Guilt Spirits

     Are all around within and beyond

     Waiting for me always waiting always

     I breathe them in as I breathe them out

     They soak my brow and crack my throat

     And coat the length of my arms and legs

     My shoulders shoot lightning

     My spine is molten lava

     My guts spew white fire

     My lungs twin lodestars exploding

     They carry me out

A mystery of big, black crows were hopping in a circle nearby the men’s sweat lodge. Some birds picked at raw bones of fried chicken but others only cried their call and their raucous caw-caws awoke the dog in the truck who barked, straining hoarsely to make his old presence in the world still felt.

Cállate!

When the dog stopped barking the crows lifted in unison like a ragged black curtain. Rodeo pocketed Samuel’s poems and kicked through a pile of household garbage and went back to his truck, laid a reassuring hand on his dog and drove back to pavement.

*   *   *

Tucson Famous Pets and Aquarium Design Center had been for most of Rodeo’s life a general farm and ranch store called Salge Feed and Seed. There was only one other vehicle parked in front of the Quonset hut, a flare-side Dodge pickup with copper plates designating it as a Historic Vehicle. When Rodeo cut his truck’s engine the dog woke and sniffed the air.

You do still got a good nose, Rodeo said. He laid a hand on the dog’s head. Let’s go get some overpriced food for you.

The dog wandered the several aisles of the pet store until he came to a stop in front of the Orijen display and started to whine. Rodeo hefted the largest bag of “Adult Formula” to the checkout counter where the store clerk sat on a barstool browsing through a veterinary supply catalogue. She pulled white-blond hair behind her ears and looked at Rodeo in a friendly way.

That’s good dog food for an older dog, the woman said.

You know a lot about old dogs? Rodeo asked.

I should, I guess. The woman closed her catalogue. I ran a sort of hospice for old dogs. That’s why I don’t practice pet medicine anymore because I was just mostly putting down old dogs nobody wanted to deal with. The woman again fiddled with her hair. I had a little breakdown if you want to know the truth. My name’s Summer Skye. I’m from Ojai, she said. In California? My girlfriend and I just moved here last year.

This place used to be owned by Roy Salge, Rodeo said. Mr. Salge was one of my first sponsors when I started rodeoing.

I don’t know who owned this place before my girlfriend Hudson bought it for me, the young woman said. She frowned but in a friendly way. And I don’t really like rodeo. It’s not a real sport and it’s cruel to animals.

I know it was cruel to me, Rodeo said. He put a credit card on the bag of Orijen.

The erstwhile veterinarian checked out the name on Rodeo’s MasterCard and crinkled her nose as she processed the card purchase and slid the receipt toward him to sign.

You are from around here, I guess? she asked.

Born and raised out on the San Xavier Reservation near the Mission.

Well, it was nothing personal, the woman said. She showed off the gap between her central incisors as she returned the credit card. What I said about the rodeo I mean. I’m sure there’s some nice people in the rodeo.

Not many that I ever noticed, Rodeo said.

The clerk leaned over the counter like a yogini and stroked the dog’s head. His tongue lolled out of his mouth. When the woman resumed her seat the dog whined. The storekeep leaned over the counter again and spoke to the animal. Well then, you and your old master come back and see me again, won’t you. The dog attempted a bark and wagged his chewed-up tail.

Rodeo left the pet store, loaded the dog food in the back of the truck and the dog in the front, took his own seat then frowned at the dog.

You just plain embarrass me sometimes, Rodeo said. Did you know that?

The dog barked and stuck his head into the breeze as the pair aimed back at Arizona Motel.

*   *   *

Back in the golden days of automobile travel, Arizona Motel had been a real tourist oasis of palm trees with swimming pool and barbeque and playground, rooms complete with kitchenettes and air-conditioning and wall-to-wall carpeting. But the horseshoe-shaped motel with parking in front of each unit was now mostly low-rent, semipermanent housing for those without start-up money or backup funds.

When he was working in Tucson, Rodeo stayed at Arizona Motel because it was cheap and located near the bank where his little bit of money was, the police station where his few official law-enforcement contacts were and Barrio Historico where his (former) lawyer was. But Arizona Motel was also a contact spot for Rodeo, a local depository of information for the private investigator, bounty hunter and warrant-server because amongst The Regulars at the motel was always some variety of retired military, local cowboys and Indians, dopers, derelicts and day laborers, prostitutes and a pool hustler who had lived at the motel for twenty years. And since these people often had nothing better to do than drink and gossip, cruise the Internet all day and the bars all night, they were about as likely as anyone to know what was going on in and around Downtown and Armory Park, along the Santa Cruz River around the Reservations and especially in the separate smaller municipality inside the city called South Tucson, “the pueblo inside the city” where a high percentage of local crime occurred and bail jumpers and missing kids on dope were most often found.

Rodeo let the dog precede him into the lobby of the motel. The air inside was just slightly cooler than the outside air. An old man slept in a wheelchair, an oscillating fan on the wall raising and lowering the American flag duct-taped to his Vietnam Vet cap. A cracked voice called to the dog, who wandered into the “billiards room and loungette” area. No one was behind the reception desk, so Rodeo pushed past the swinging partition and peeked into the one-room apartment where the manager, Abishiek Chandrakar, was soundly asleep on a Budweiser beach towel spread on the unfinished concrete floor.

Rodeo selected his preferred room key and went to his room leaving the dog to visit with the old people, who seemed to consider him a gift from God. In #116 Rodeo turned on the anemic air-conditioning, stripped and flopped onto the bed then stared at the water stains on the ceiling until he drifted deeply into a shallow afternoon nap.

*   *   *

Two hours later Rodeo sat on the edge of the pool at Arizona Motel. He wore a pair of old gym shorts he kept behind the seat of his pickup and otherwise was naked. His skin was naturally dark but much darker from elbows to wrists and in a V around his neck. His feet were blanched virtually colorless since he had worn cowboy boots almost every day of his life since he was only months old.

The rectangular swimming pool was crystal clear but Rodeo didn’t know how to swim, so he was only wet below the knees. The dog, a great swimmer, was curled up beside his master, his wet pelt steaming stink in the hot sun. It was early in the day and late in the summer, so the motel was mostly empty except for the marginally solvent, semipermanent residents, mostly male, who rented rooms at Arizona Motel so they could be near the VA Hospital a few blocks south on Sixth. In the evening, action at the motel would pick up as the transient workers who bunked six or seven to a room returned to share twelve-packs and prostitutes but for now it was a peaceful place to be.

Local traffic cruised down Sixth and the roar of interstate traffic sounded a few blocks away not unlike waves breaking continuously ashore. Rodeo kicked at the water with his fish-belly feet and used his cell phone to call Luis at Twin Arrows.

You started your job already? asked Luis.

More or less, said Rodeo.

What does TPD say?

I hadn’t called Tucson Police yet, said Rodeo. Thought I’d call you first, Luis, just to make sure you didn’t mind me digging around in this case because when I searched the old Rocha lady’s house I found a photograph of a bunch of Res types elk hunting in the Whites and one of these Indian types is you. So I was just wondering if you got something to tell me, Luis?

You know all us Indians look alike, brother. So that might be a picture of me and it might just be an Indian that looks like me.

Who’re these guys in the photo with you and Samuel Rocha? asked Rodeo.

Just some guys, said Luis. Some of us who used to powwow back in the day. A couple of us old ones we were in Nam together and a couple of the others were vets from the Gulf. But mostly just powwow pals, you know. This one time we camped up near Springerville and shot at some elk. That’s probably that picture you got.

Who is the one that shot the big elk?

Ronald Rocha they call him, said Luis. Nobody really knows who he is or where he comes from. Says he’s related to the Rochas on the Res but none of the Rochas claim him. He used to work some for the Millers down here in Los Jarros on Slash/M Rancho a few years back. Maybe Ronald he served with Randy Miller that politician guy in the Gulf War. Some kind of Special Forces sniper guy or something what they say.

What do you say, Luis?

I say the man can shoot, said Luis. So don’t get to be a target around him.

You seen this Ronald Rocha character lately? Rodeo asked.

Me and him we met up again at a powwow in New Mexico a few months ago, Luis said. And he still had this kid Sam Rocha with him, tied at the hip. Ronald said this kid was his nephew but it didn’t look like all they were sharing was turkey around Thanksgiving.

And it seemed odd later on when this kid Samuel Rocha turned up maybe shot off a bridge and there was this sniper guy, Ronald with the high-powered rifle, who maybe was a different sort of uncle to this Samuel Rocha…? asked Rodeo. Is it like that, Luis? Was Ronald a different sort of “uncle” to this kid who got shot off the bridge?

They struck me queer.

Where is Ronald Rocha to be found recently, Luis?

When he wanted company Ronald he used to like The Buffet on Ninth, near Fourth.

Who does Ronald hang out with?

He hangs out with the government conspiracies, personal-rights wingnuts. But Ronald he’s not really political. Not like a regular person is at least. And he don’t want company as a usual thing and usually just lives rough what I hear.

Is Ronald a character, Luis?

Don’t get in no pissing contest with him, brother, or you will definitely get your boots wet.

Water stirred around Rodeo’s calves and feet as the swimming pool filtration system kicked in. The traffic hurtled by on Sixth like it had to get north or south before all the lights in the world turned red. Rodeo looked up at a sky free of clouds. The old dog slept peacefully beside his man like there was no place to be but where he was.

Anything else you want to tell me, Luis? Rodeo asked.

Badge-and-Haircut he came by this morning and this Anderton of yours he wanted to look at the AMexica Wall. He was taking notes and asking after you. This Statie’s got some ideas, I guess, about there being another serial killer loosed in Los Jarros County. And I think he’s got a hard-on for you or something, brother, so maybe he’s one of those groupies like came after you once you got famous for taking care of Charlie Constance.

What did you tell Anderton? Rodeo asked.

I told him like I would tell anybody who asks that I don’t know nothing about you or anybody else, Luis said.

Was anybody else around Twin Arrows asking about me, Luis?

Nobody that’s good for you to know about or care about, Rodeo.

If Sirena’s looking for me, she’ll find me, Luis.

Second Wife Silk Snowball she’s got a couple of cousins in Tuxson ready to date, said Luis. Both easy in bed and the fat one she’s got a job with Social Service, so that would be a paycheck. And that fattest one she can cook.

Thanks for thinking of me, Luis, but you and me are tied up enough together just on the pawn shop level as it is without me hooking up with one of your second wife’s relations. Hasta luego.

Always hope so, brother.

*   *   *

Rodeo led the dog back into their room, sprayed him with Lysol then rubbed him down with a motel towel, fed and watered him and forced supplements and medicine down his throat and then got himself dressed in his Wranglers, snap-button short-sleeved shirt and walking boots. He put his old straw hat on and walked the dog out of the motel room, loaded him into the truck, drove north on Sixth several blocks to Twenty-second Street, turned west until Twenty-second became Starr Pass Road at the bridge over the Santa Cruz under which Samuel Rocha had died his slow death.