The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists Read online

  ‘You really ought to sit down,” John Wallace Johnson said. ‘You’re a mess.”

  ‘Yeah,” Tate said. “But I clean up real good.”

  Then he turned his back on the dead bandits, and John Wallace Johnson shrugged and did the same, and together they started for the main road. The sky above held only clouds, and rain poured down on the corpses as they lay all alone in a twisted red tangle, their blood washing away in braided rivulets that left pale trails on dead flesh.

  And when they were washed clean, the earth puddled darker than earth should.

  COYOTES

  I was out past the dump, digging a grave for a coyote, when I spotted the van with the naked Mexican chained to the bumper heading my way.

  Nothing unusual about that. The van belonged to the border patrol. It didn’t take a college degree to figure that the Mex had crossed the line and got himself noticed by the wrong folks. And in a town like Amigo, that meant trouble served up plain and hot and plenty of it.

  That’s trouble, pure western style.

  I mopped sweat from my brow with a dirty bandana and watched the van bumping over the rutted dirt road. The tires kicked up dry rust-colored dust. What didn’t stick to the Mexican clouded the crisp blue horizon, hiding Amigo from view.

  There wasn’t much to hide, really. Like my daddy used to say before he up and vanished, “Amigo’s a one-horse town, scratch the horse.”

  Most folks like it that way, I guess. Around here we keep to ourselves, and the rest of the world doesn’t bother us much. Amigo isn’t exactly a tourist magnet. Oh, once in awhile we get some magazine writer or amateur historian who wants to know about the time Billy the Kid rode through. And every now and then some university kid shows up and drives around the desert for a week or two hunting after Native American artifacts and such. But historians and archaeologists are pretty harmless, as long as they don’t go poking their noses into places they don’t belong. The sheriff and his deputies — with a little help from the border patrol boys — are pretty good at making sure that doesn’t happen.

  Other strangers are a little more persistent. Like the flying saucer nuts who want to dredge up those stories from the fifties. Now, I don’t like to stereotype, but in the case of these so-called UFOlogists, it’s hard not to. In my experience they’re generally male and overweight. They’re as familiar with talk radio as they are unfamiliar with personal hygiene. Around here we don’t cater to them much. Mostly, we just shoo ’em on to Roswell. That town likes tourists.

  But back to the van and the Mexican. I leaned on my shovel and watched both come my way. There was no sense trying to look busy. When you’ve got a job like mine, it doesn’t matter if you’re good at it or not. Putting on some eager beaver act isn’t likely to impress anyone, especially not the hardcases who pull down checks from the border patrol.

  Animal control, that’s my line. All kinds of animals, all kinds of problems.

  Jesus, here I go. Off the point one more time, but we’ll just have to let that naked Mexican keep for another minute or two. I promise I’ll keep it short.

  If Rover’s got rabies, I get the call. Rattlers nest under a house, my phone rings. Sure, it’s a long way from a big fuckin’ deal. But that’s not to say the job doesn’t have possibilities. Say we had an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease hereabouts. Then my job would be a mucho grande fuckin’ deal. If I did something like quarantine some cattle, something where a few dollars were involved, the good people of Amigo would show me some respect.

  But it never comes to that. Things go on around Amigo the same way they’ve been going on for years. As for my job, I know my place. I like it that way. I deal in roadkill mostly. Like the coyote, or anything else that gets caught between a set of headlights on the highway. I shovel what’s left off the blacktop and bury it out by the dump.

  I’ve shoveled up Chihuahuas and Gila monsters. Rattlers and French poodles. One time I even shoveled up a dead alligator… at least that’s what I think it was. It was big and blackish green and scaly. If it was a gator, I sure as hell can’t figure out how it ended up in New Mexico.

  Doesn’t matter to me. I figured out a long time ago that there’s no use trying to figure out anything at all. You ask me, the best thing to do is mind your own business and stick to your job.

  I try to take my own advice. I answer my telephone when it rings. I drive around a lot. And when I come across something dead, I shovel it up and bury it out past the dump.

  Dead is dead. As long as it doesn’t move, I’m not squeamish. And if it does move… well, I carry a gun.

  See, I hate to see things suffer. There’s no cause for it, really. That’s what bothered me about the naked Mexican. There’s no need to be cruel. Just watching him made my stomach do a little flip-flop. The way he trotted along on bare, bloody feet behind the van, his shackled wrists clicking together, his arms outstretched, those pitiful screams tearing his sandpaper throat.

  Christ, the poor bastard sounded like an animal or something. What’s that they say? Like a lamb going to the slaughter. It was a hell of a sound, especially with noon coming on. Not the kind of memory a man wants rattling around in his head when he’s just started thinking about lunch.

  My guess is that the border patrol boys were of the same opinion, but I have my doubts. But whatever their reason, it seemed that they were tired of the naked Mexican, too.

  The van picked up speed. The Mexican tripped. For a second he looked like a man diving into a swimming pool.

  Only for a second, though.

  The rest of it didn’t take long. The road, all sand and grit and gravel, skinned the Mexican raw in the time it took me to swallow around the lump in my throat.

  I was quiet. The Mex kept on screaming, though. I could hear him above the smooth purr of the van’s engine. And then the driver cut to the left, tearing through a tangle of mesquite and golden brittlebrush as he picked up speed, and pretty soon the Mexican wasn’t screaming anymore.

  The van didn’t head back to the dirt road, though.

  It came in my direction.

  I glanced down at the hole I’d dug. I did some quick calculations. The hole was big enough for a coyote, but something told me that it was going to have to be a whole lot bigger.

  I picked up my shovel and got busy.

  Rudy Duran unchained the Mexican’s corpse. Rudy’s dad was born in Mexico, but Rudy was born right here in Amigo. I’d known Rudy since we were kids. To me, he was hardly like a Mexican at all.

  Rudy’s partner, Wes Baker, watched me work. At least I think he watched me. Those mirrored sunglasses make it hard to tell sometimes.

  “You should have seen it, Roy.” Wes shook his head. “Me and Rudy are sittin’ in Carmelita’s, watchin’ the strippers and havin’ a couple beers — ”

  “We’re off duty,” Rudy put in, as if it mattered. “We worked graveyard last night.”

  “Yeah,” Wes said. “Anyway, I had barely blowed the foam off my first Bud when this scraggly-ass wetback comes stumblin’ in, nekkid as a jaybird.”

  “Lookin’ all around but can’t see a damn thing,” Rudy said. “He’s desert blind.”

  “The Mex bumped into Conchita Morales, who was doin’ a lap dance for Ted Miller. ’Chita barely got out of the way.”

  “And Ted ended up with a couple hundred pounds of naked Mexican in his lap.”

  “Yeah,” Wes said. “And you know how jumpy ol’ Ted is. Christ, he shoved the Mex this way. Then that way. But he couldn’t budge the wetback. And all the while Ted’s holdin’ onto one of those froo-froo drinks of his. Somethin’ all green and frothy with a swizzle stick in it. Ol’ Ted didn’t want to spill a drop. Those drinks cost money.”

  “Five bucks a pop.” Rudy shook his head. “Unless it’s happy hour.”

  “This sure as hell wasn’t happy hour.”

  “Except for the Mex.” Rudy laughed. “Roy, you should have seen him. Hoppin’ around like a fat jumpin’ bean, yellin’ and screamin’ t
hat same shit they all yell.”

  “As if the whole damn world’s comin’ to an end.” Wes paused, like he was waiting for the story to settle in. He gave me just enough time to roll the Mex into the grave and cover him with a coyote blanket before asking, “Roy, you know why that Mex stuck to Ted’s lap?”

  “No,” I said. “Why?”

  “Well, the boy might have been blind, but he could feel. And after gyratin’ on top of Ted’s tent pole for a minute or two, the Mex figured he deserved that twenty Ted had slipped Conchita for the lap dance.”

  Wes stared at me. I think. Like I said, with the mirrored shades it’s hard to tell.

  I figure he wanted to see if I’d laugh or not. I didn’t laugh, though. I just stared up at the blue sky and thought it over.

  “Twenty bucks,” I said finally. “Damn. I’m in the wrong business.”

  Rudy nearly split a gut. Wes joined in, hee-hawing like a damn burro. I kept quiet and shoveled dirt into the grave.

  “Twenty bucks,” Rudy said when he’d calmed down. “Man. You should have seen the look on ol’ Ted’s face. I wonder if the faggot actually came. I’d give twenty and then some if I could see it all again.”

  “Well, the world ain’t gonna end for a long, long time,” Wes said. “I bet you’ll see it again. Sooner or later.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And for free, too.”

  By the time I finished working, I was good and dirty.

  Wes wasn’t. He was all spit and polish, crisp uniform creases and not one stain on him.

  Looking at us, you’d figure that Wes had been the high school quarterback or the star baseball pitcher. Some kind of jock, anyway. But the truth was that Wes wasn’t much on sports at all.

  I was. Hell, I was a three letter man in high school. Baseball, football, and track.

  I was the one who went to college, too. Not that it did me much good.

  I went to college because I figured they’d teach me the things I needed to know. But they hardly taught me anything. All they did was ask questions, and pretty soon I got to thinking that no one at college knew anything. Not for sure, anyway.

  Crazy questions. I couldn’t see the point to them then, and I can’t see the point to them now. Like this one professor I had for a philosophy class. He asked us all kinds of nutty questions. You know the kind of stuff I mean. Like: if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

  I mean, who gives a flying fuck?

  But I stuck it out. I’m not a quitter. Four years. Then I went out in the real world, and pretty soon I forgot those questions, because there just didn’t seem much use for that stuff in everyday life.

  I stayed away from Amigo for about ten years. I went through three jobs. Got married, got divorced. I can’t tell you why a lot of it happened. Sure, I could give you an explanation. I could tell you my side of the story. I could blame my bosses or my wife. I could blame caffeine or stress or the fact that my dad hit the road when I was ten years old.

  Think about it. People look you straight in the face and tell you things all the time. Television newscasters, politicians, preachers and pundits. Even your best friends. But you never know if they’re telling the truth.

  It’s no different with me. No one has to tell the truth. It’s real easy to lie. That’s one thing I learned all on my own. The truth is elusive. It’s slippery.

  And the way people talk about it, like it’s the holy grail. Like they have an INALIENABLE RIGHT TO KNOW THE TRUTH.

  Jesus. Some people want to know everything. But it’s probably best to forget the truth altogether. That’s what I think, anyway. Because the truth can be an anchor around your neck. Forget it, and keep moving the best way you know how, and you’ll be a whole lot happier.

  But there are some things you never forget, no matter where you go, no matter how long you’ve been there. Like for instance I never quite forgot the things I learned growing up in Amigo. The farther away I got from it — in time, in distance — and the more I saw of the world removed from Amigo, the less I understood why I ever left at all.

  Amigo is a simpler place, with simpler rules. Maybe that’s why I came back. I understand how things work here.

  In Amigo, everything is black and white.

  Except for the wetbacks. They’re brown.

  They’re the color of the dirt that I heaped on that coyote’s grave.

  Yeah. That’s right. I said “coyote’s grave.”

  See, there wasn’t any naked Mexican. Not anymore. In fact there never had been a Mexican, now that he was tucked away under a dead coyote and dirt blanket.

  Ask me. Ask Rudy. Ask Wes.

  No Mexican at all, amigo.

  Rudy chuckled one last time. “So what d’ya say, Wes? We take our buddy Roy to Carmelita’s? The three of us have a couple of beers and see what ’Chita and the other girls are up to?”

  Wes stared at the grave. “No, Rudy. We don’t got time for that.”

  The news didn’t break my heart. Carmelita’s is all right if you don’t mind your women with bite marks on their asses, but it’s not exactly my kind of place. The border patrol boys like it, though. But guys who drive around with Mexicans chained to their bumpers tend to develop some pretty7 strange quirks.

  “Shit,” Rudy complained. “It ain’t like they’re payin’ us overtime.”

  “You’re forgettin’ comp time,” Wes said.

  “Fuck that. I got so many hours of that shit, I could retire now if they’d let me take it.”

  “You should have thought of that before you killed the wetback.”

  “I was tired of listening to him scream. Jesus. I just got mad, is all. I couldn’t help it.”

  “Whatever,” Wes said, digging in his heels. “The simple fact is this: we come up short, and we have to do something about it.”

  I stopped listening. The conversation didn’t have anything to do with me anymore. I tossed my shovel in the back of my truck and dug my keys out of my pocket.

  Wes stepped in front of me. “Where you think you’re goin’, cowboy?”

  “C’mon, Wes — ”

  “Hold your horses. I got a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Did you see anybody else out here today?”

  I nodded. “Some guy drove by, heading toward the buttes. Usual idiot. Looked like a saucer nut, if you ask me.”

  “Sure he was a saucer nut?”

  “I didn’t get a real good look at him, Wes. He didn’t even stop. But he looked like the type.”

  “What was he driving?”

  “He had a van.”

  “What kind?”

  “Dodge. Solid-panel — ”

  “Solid-panel, huh?” Wes smiled. “That’s interesting.”

  “Coyotes use solid-panel vans,” Rudy said. “Gringos who haul illegals. They pack ’em in like sardines. Haul ’em as far north as Chicago.”

  “C’mon,” I said. “This guy was a saucer nut. Believe me, I know the type like the back of my hand.”

  “Yeah,” Wes said. “I forgot. You went to college. You’re smarter than idiots like me and Rudy.”

  I laughed it off. I had to. Most people who grow up in Amigo never leave, let alone come back. I’d done both. I was pretty sure that Wes didn’t trust me because of it. At least not the way he trusted Rudy, or other guys who’d stuck it out the way he had.

  “I don’t think I’m all that smart,” I said. “Elsewise, I wouldn’t be going around with a shovel and a truckful of roadkill.”

  “Yeah, well… ” Wes sighed. “Maybe you are smarter than us. Maybe the simple fact is that we need your help.”

  “I haven’t had lunch, Wes.”

  “Sorry, son. But I need me a bird dog.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not one bit.” Wes straightened. Sunlight glinted off his polished badge, and I was fairly blinded by the golden brilliance of authority.

  Wes said, “This kind of work, you can�
�t just show up in a uniform. Folks tend to get nervous, change their plans all of a sudden.”

  “What makes you think he’ll treat me any different?” I asked. “I wear a uniform. I carry a gun.”

  Wes stared at my dirty khaki outfit. Gas station attendants looked more intimidating. As for my gun, there was no use showing off the .22 target pistol I kept in the glove compartment of my truck. The truck itself was bad enough — Wes stared at that dented hunk of Detroit steel with a smirk simmering on his face.

  “It ain’t exactly the Batmobile,” he said. “And you ain’t the caped crusader, neither.”

  I tried one more time. “C’mon, Wes — ”

  He shook his head. “You know how it works around here, Roy.”

  “Damn,” I said, because Wes was right. I did know.

  Wes didn’t have to say anything else. Rudy handed me a walkie-talkie. “We’ll be close. You won’t see us, though.”

  I tossed the walkie-talkie into my truck and opened the door. “And if I’m right?” I asked. “If the guy is just a saucer nut?”

  Wes scratched his chin. “Got a tip for you, Roy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t think positive. It’s a waste of time.”

  The longer I talked to the guy in the solid-panel van, the easier it was for me to believe that Wes was right.

  Not that he wasn’t different enough. For starters, he had a weird accent. The kind that made him sound smarter than he probably was. German, or Austrian — like Schwarzenegger in the movies — but with a hint of something else, too.

  And on first glance the guy certainly looked the part. That was for sure. Like the hardware he was packing. He had a pair of expensive binoculars slung around his neck, and a video camera mounted on a tripod stood next to his van along with a couple of gizmos that might have been Geiger counters or electric juicers, for all I knew. Plus he had a pasty complexion and a nervous tic at one corner of his mouth, like he spent too much time indoors engaged in compulsive behavior. Covering all the electrical outlets in his house with aluminum foil to protect himself from alien transmissions. That kind of thing.