A Thousand Falling Crows (2 page)

Another bullet hit him, not far from the other, and Sonny screamed with pain, with frustration and fear, as reality left him and his fingers slipped from the wheel, sending the '32 Ford careening into a ditch. He felt like he had been hit twice by a sledgehammer.

The last image Sonny saw before the car rolled and he blacked out was Bonnie Parker laughing like a maniacal child.

CHAPTER 2

JUNE 14, 1933

The volume of the radio was turned down low, the voices distant but decipherable. “The Nazi Party was made Germany's only legal political party today. Any political opposition is punishable by law . . .” the announcer said in a droning voice.

Sonny reached over with his left arm and was about to turn the radio off when he heard the announcer go on to say, “And in local news, the manhunt for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker continues after their car was found wrecked and abandoned just outside of Wellington. They are to be considered armed and dangerous. If you see the duo, or know anything of their whereabouts, contact your local police or the Texas Rangers. Bonnie Parker is reported to be injured.” The announcer stopped for a brief second, allowing the radio to buzz, then continued, “The identity of the girl found on the farm-to-market road leading out of Wellington is still unknown. Funeral arrangements are being postponed until a positive ID can be made. If you have any information concerning this case, please contact the Wellington Police.”

Sonny took a deep breath as he struggled to turn the radio off. His right arm was bound and unmovable. He was right-handed, and any coordination and strength in his left hand was lacking, to say the least. He really wasn't supposed to move, but he didn't want to hear any more news, even though he was reasonably interested in hearing about Bonnie and Clyde and what had happened to them after he had been shot.

It was the first time he'd heard they'd wrecked, too.

The idea that he had something to do with that settled easy on his shoulders, but it didn't make the pain, or the uselessness of his arm, go away. All he really wanted was silence.

He didn't know anything about the dead girl found on the road, and he let the information flitter away. On any other day, he would have been interested, probably involved in the case, but now his concern was distant, difficult to hold onto. He resigned himself to that fact, eased down onto the hospital bed, and stared out of the second-floor window.

Summer had set in with a vengeance.

The windows were cracked open, but there didn't look to be a breeze outside. Every tree he could see was still as a statue, their leaves droopy. The sky was clear, the color of a roan mare he used to know, and the sun was a red hot plate, beating down relentlessly on the earth, scorching everything in sight; the grass had already given up all of its green and browned out. The landscape out the window was desolate, hopeless, but familiar. Hot, uncomfortable summers were just part of the deal when you lived in Texas. Sonny knew nothing else.

The door to the room was ajar, and a murmur of low voices found its way to Sonny's ears. He couldn't make out the words. It was like a small group was consulting three or four doors down, all whispering in soft, professional tones. The hospital was nothing more than a large two-story house with an operating room in the basement and patient rooms, at most four beds to a room, on the top floor.

Sonny closed his eyes. He had a room all to himself and hoped for sleep to come and take him away from the reality he'd woken up to, but that wasn't to be.

The door pushed open slowly, along with Sonny's eyes at the noise. A Mexican man, his black shiny hair just starting to turn gray, entered the room. His skin was as brown and leathery as a hundred-year-old holster, and though the man was probably in his late thirties, early forties at the most, he looked much older. He'd pushed a mop and bucket into the room, trying to be quiet. He was unsuccessful in the attempt. The wheels on the mop bucket squeaked like fingers slowly scraping down a chalkboard when he pushed it inside the room.

The man wore a blue short-sleeved work shirt with a pack of Chesterfields poking out of the pocket. He had the largest collection of keys dangling from his belt that Sonny had ever seen.

It was tempting for Sonny to close his eyes again and let the man do his job, but he couldn't keep himself from acknowledging the janitor's presence. “
Hola
,” he said, his voice weak but steady as he stared directly at the man. The patch on the Mexican's work shirt said his name was Albert, but Sonny doubted that was really the case.

Sonny had startled the man. His shoulders jumped back, then he looked up, glancing over at Sonny sheepishly, then back to the floor, as he pulled the mop out of the water. “
Hola
,” he answered. “
Hablas Español?
”

Sonny nodded and tried to pull himself up. “Yes, I learned to speak Spanish a long time ago,” he said, speaking fully in the Mexican's language.

The janitor smiled, relaxed a bit, then pulled up the mop and let it drain through the ringer. “You speak very well.”

“I was raised by a Mexican woman.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She was with me every day until I grew up and left home.”

“What happened to your momma?”

“She died about a year after I was born,” Sonny said, looking away from the man, out the window. At sixty-two years old, Sonny should have been long past the sadness of losing his mother and his nanny, if the woman who raised him could be called that, but Sonny still thought about Maria Perza every day. She had taught him everything he knew about being a decent, Anglo man, living in Texas. “What's your name?” Sonny finally asked.

“My name is Aldo,” the Mexican said. “Aldo Hernandez.”

Sonny smiled. He knew it wasn't Albert.

“And what is your name,
señor
?” Aldo said.

“Lester. Lester Burton. But everybody calls me Sonny. They have ever since I was four or five.”

Aldo returned the smile. “You are that Ranger that was shot by Bonnie and Clyde aren't you? You are lucky you are not dead,
señor
.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Your arm, will it get better?”

Sonny shook his head. “I‘ll be lucky to feel anything or be able to use my hand ever again.”

“Then you are done working. It is all over for you?”

“Seems that way. Times are tough all over. Another man can take my job. I‘ve had my life, and it's been pretty good up until now.”

“Yes, yes, times are very bad. This Depression seems like it will go on forever. I, too, am happy to have a job, happy that the doctor has kept me employed through this dark time. I have hungry mouths at home who depend on me. What about you, do you have children?”

Sonny nodded. “A son. He's a Ranger, too, down in Brownsville. He's married with a couple of little ones of his own.” A smile crossed Sonny's face, then quickly flittered away. He hardly ever saw his grandchildren. The distance between them was too far to encourage closeness, and that seemed just fine with his son, Jesse. They never seemed to see eye to eye on anything. It had always been that way, and Sonny didn't expect it to ever change.

“You are lucky then. You will have someone to help you when you go home.”

Sonny didn't answer. He looked away and stared up at the ceiling. There was no use telling Aldo that he'd be all alone when he left the hospital. The house was empty, a collection of dusty furniture and a clock that ticked for no one but him. Martha, his wife, had been dead for ten years, struck down in a single, unforeseen blow by a massive heart attack while she'd been out weeding the garden. The emptiness of the house was his sadness to bear and no one else's.

Aldo didn't broach the silence. He let it hang in the air knowingly.

Like his father, Sonny had always been tall and rangy, and he could only imagine how he must look to the Mexican—skeletal, gaunt, each breath a rattle on death's short chain. He closed his eyes then, the strength not in him to push away the memories of the past. Maria, Martha, Jesse, his father, the good times and the bad.

When he opened his eyes again, it was dark and chilly in the room. Aldo was gone.

It was a slow ride from the morgue to the funeral home. No one had claimed the dead girl. She was lost in a world of darkness, with no name, no family, no one to love her as she was prepared for her final rest. More important news had drowned out the cry of the injustice of her death. A small corner on the front page, otherwise loaded with images of Bonnie and Clyde and the Texas Ranger they'd shot, was all the notice the murder had garnered. On any other day in Wellington, the discovery of the girl would have been great cause for speculation, fear, and locked doors.

Only the crows worried over her now. The crows and her killer. The crows watched from close by, then flew away as the hearse passed. They went on with their day, always watching, always listening. Would the killer offer the world more carrion? More of what it deserved?

CHAPTER 3

AUGUST 12, 1933

Bonnie and Clyde's Chevrolet was sitting inside a barn. Three bullet holes had pierced the rear fender. Both of the tires on the driver's side were flat. Straw and dust covered the roof of the car, and a red tabby cat lay sleeping in the backseat, the coils poking up through the brown velvet material that was slowly being carted away, one mouthful at a time, by a herd of opportunistic mice—when the cat was away, of course.

Sonny stood back staring at the car. Hard afternoon light filtered in through the barn walls, and the August heat was so stifling and humid it made him sweat just at the thought of walking the rest of the way inside.

“Been chargin' a nickel a peek,” Carl Halstaad, a dairy farmer the size of a bull himself, said, as he chewed a big wad of Red Man tobacco in his right cheek. “But I 'spect I won't charge you a penny since you're the man who put them bullet holes there.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Halstaad.”

“Carl. You can call me, Carl, Ranger Burton.” He spit a long stream of brown liquid from his mouth, splashing, respectfully, a good two feet from Sonny's boots.

Sonny nodded. “My Ranger days are behind me now. Most folks just call me Sonny.”

“Ah, heck. I can see you got a bad limb, there, but once a Ranger, always a Ranger, right?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.” The doctors had wanted to amputate the arm. They feared gangrene would set in, but so far it hadn't. The arm just hung there, useless and numb, an annoying reminder of the time when he had felt whole and young. Most days he kept busy, didn't allow himself to feel sorry for the loss or grow too angry.

He walked up slowly to the driver's door and peered inside the window. The windshield was shattered, and the battery lay on the floor in front of the passenger's seat.

“People say Bonnie's got a limp now,” Halstaad said. “Clyde carries her around a lot. The acid burned her bad, but maybe not bad enough.”

“Maybe not,” Sonny said.

“Some folks up in Dexter, Iowa, seen them at an amusement park a couple weeks back. Bonnie was bandaged up pretty good. They was surrounded, but somehow they managed to get away again. Must be magicians, or blessed with the dark skills of Houdini's lost spirit. The one they called Buck died after surgery for a gunshot wound. And they just left him, ran from him like thieves in the night. There are no true friends to those two.”

“What are you going to do with it?” Sonny asked, pulling himself from the window, ignoring the news about the Barrow gang's whereabouts. The inside of the car smelled like cat urine, pungent and sour, mixed with acid and dried blood. His stomach lurched.

“The car?” Halstaad asked.

Sonny nodded.

“I suppose I‘ll just hang onto it, keep gettin' my nickels from it for as long as I can. Why? You want to buy it?”

“No, I‘ve seen all I need to.” Sonny turned and pushed past Halstaad. He knew about the incident in Dexter, Iowa. He followed Bonnie and Clyde's every move on the radio and in the newspapers. He'd been practicing shooting left-handed, just in case another chance at them ever came his way.