The Rules of Wolfe (25 page)

Wouldn't be the first thing he was wrong about, the fat Fonseca says.

The clouds thinning.

p

They have just come over a low rise and started to head around a high outcrop when Mrs. Martínez says, Look!

They turn and see her pointing to their rearward left at the pale glow of sun through the waning overcast above a distant range.

They halt and look at it.

It's in the wrong place, Martínez says. His tone chiding, as if the sun were somehow confused.

I don't believe this, the lean Fonseca says.

Neither does Eddie. But disbelief isn't much of an argument against obvious proof.

It should be there, Mr. Martínez says, pointing in the direction they've been moving.

We're going the wrong way, the fat Fonseca says. We've
been
going the wrong way.

That stupid Beto son of a mangy bitch! his cousin says.

Eddie wonders how the guide could have been so wrong about the pass facing east. How they might have veered so far off course. How
the sun could be so high already. The cloud cover is dispersing quickly, the
sky brightening.

That fence we crossed, the lean Fonseca says. Hours ago. That wasn't no ranch fence.

Dear God, says Mrs. Martínez. Where are we?

I think back in Mexico, her husband says.

We're
miles
back in Mexico, says the lean Fonseca. Look how high that sun is! Oh, that goddamn bastard Beto!

What do we do? the Martínez woman says.

I don't know, her husband says. He looks around at the others.

There's nothing to do but go back to the border, Eddie says, and hope somebody comes along on one of those trails.

And if nobody comes along? the fat one says. We'll be fucked.

We'll follow the border to Sasabe, Eddie says, thinking he's the one who'll be truly fucked if it should be Sinas who find them. And in case we have to walk it all the way, he says, we better go easy with the water that's left.

Walk to Sasabe? the fat Fonseca says. How far is
that
? We'll fry to death.

I don't know, Eddie says. What would you prefer to do? Sit here and wait for God to send a helicopter?

My brother's waiting for me back in that pass, the other Fonseca says. I have to go back for my brother.

As soon as somebody finds us, we'll call the Border Patrol and they'll get your brother, Eddie says. Hell, maybe the Border Patrol will spot us before anybody else.

The clouds now scattering. Sunlight flooding the stark world. The heat rising fast.

We were going to Phoenix, Martínez says softly. We have work waiting for us in Phoenix.

Next time, Eddie says.

I have to rest for a minute, for only a minute, the Martínez woman says. She steps down into a wide wash along the foot of the outcrop, the wash bed already drained of the water that ran through it in the storm, and sits down with her back against the rock wall. Her husband kneels beside her and gives her a small drink of their last bottle of water.

Miranda squints up at the sun and then goes to the arroyo and crouches and opens her tote, takes out the Glock and slips it under her shirt into the front of her waistband, then rummages in the bag and finds her cap. She insists that the Martínez woman take it. It's going to be very hot, Miranda tells her. You'll need it more than I will. The woman protests but the husband accepts for her and thanks Miranda very much.

The Fonsecas are ranting about all the ways they would kill that whoreson Beto if he was still alive when the lean one says, Look! Out there, look!

Eddie turns and sees the black speck of a faraway vehicle coming from the north. His hand goes to his waistband before he remembers having lost the Taurus. The speck dips out of sight and then rises into view again as it advances over the contorted landscape.

The others come out of the arroyo to have a look. The fat Fonseca waves his arms over his head and yells, “Aquí! Estamos aquí!”

The lean one calls him an idiot. You think they can hear you? They can't even
see
us yet.

The vehicle again goes out of view behind the near rise flanking them. And then—with a sound none of them has ever heard before—much of Mrs. Martínez's head disintegrates in a red spray an instant before they hear the rifle shot.

39

Martillo and Pico

They are behind rock cover on a ledge near the base of the mountain's north slope. Through the binoculars they can see the tiny figures of the chickens coming toward them from north-northeast under the gray sky. Six of them.

They have decided to take him alive if they can. It's worth the large bonus and out here it shouldn't be hard to do. A crippling shot but make sure he doesn't bleed to death. Get him to Nogales and ship him to the big chief of the Sinas by way of a sub-boss. First take a picture of him with the day's newspaper to prove they had him alive—in case something happens to the kid en route to Culiacán. But even if they have to kill him, they can still collect a bonus for his head. The rest of the chickens of course they will kill.

They could hit them from here but the group is still too far away and the light too weak to let them distinguish—even through the scopes—which one is Porter, never mind be sure of a nonfatal hit. So they wait and watch the group draw nearer as the clouds thin out.

p

The chickens come over a low rise and descend it and stop. Four men, two women—one very shorthaired but with obvious tits. Watching them through binoculars, Martillo and Pico see that only now has the group become aware of the sun's position. They grin at the chickens' gesticulations, their great surprise at realizing where they are. The things they must be saying.

The clouds are beginning to give way to the heat of the sun, the daylight brightening fast. At four hundred yards the chickens look almost close enough in the scopes to hit with a hard-thrown rock but their features are not distinct. One man clearly too old to be the kid, one obviously too fat. They are fairly sure which of the other two is Porter, but fairly is not sure enough, so they will not kill either of the two from here. Cripple both, then go see. They decide which of the possible Porters each of them will shoot. Martillo will then kill the rightmost other two chickens, Pico the other pair.

But now the women and the older man go out of view behind an outcrop, and Pico curses. They would prefer to have all of them in sight and put them down before anyone can even think to take cover. But what the hell, it doesn't really matter. The two possible Porters are among the three men out in the open. When those three go down, the most likely reaction of the three behind the outcrop will be to come out into the open in stunned incredulity and look around. Then it's pow-pow-pow for them.

Martillo bends to his scope. Set?

“Oye,” Pico says. And points north.

A tiny dark dot of a vehicle. Heading toward them but yet miles away. Its speed checked by the rough ground.

Sinas, I'll bet, Pico says. They must've found out the kid's got the tracker and homed on him. One car, though. Can't be a half dozen of them at the most.

Most likely just two or three, Martillo says. Fewer who get him, the fewer to share the reward.

We drop them? Their chief might not like it.

Affecting a tone of self-justification, Martillo says, We had no choice, Mr. Bossman. How could we know they were Sinas? They came driving up like federals, didn't say who they were, didn't say shit, just started shooting. We responded in self-defense, as you would have. I guess they wanted the reward all for themselves.

Pico laughs. You know, you're such a good liar even I believe you. You could write novels, Humberto. Maybe even movies.

Certainly I could. But where's the satisfaction in that kind of life? He looks out at the distant vehicle. They'll be another twenty minutes getting there, maybe more. We'll do the chickens, then deal with these.

They put their eyes to the scopes and see that the chickens have spied the vehicle too and all of them are now out in the open. Very cooperative, Pico says.

Hey now, Martillo says. The black-and-orange cap. It's what they were wearing. The bitch and the kid.

And still together, Pico says. Must be love.

Martillo makes a sound of disgust and says, I'll pop her first, they freeze, you drop the left Porter and the two beside him, I drop the right two. Set?

Set.

Martillo shoots and then Pico—and with the smoothness of swift machines they work the bolts and each shoots twice more and in five seconds all in the group are down.

40

Eddie and Miranda

The abrupt destruction of Mrs. Martínez's head arrests them where they stand—and even as the woman is falling, the lean Fonseca's leg jerks oddly and he cries out and then Eddie's leg is knocked from under him and he falls and strikes his head hard.

When he opens his eyes he senses having been unconscious but cannot guess for how long. A few seconds? Minutes? He is on his back, looking at the white sky. His head throbs. Someone close by is whimpering. Eddie tries to sit up and falls back with a cry at the surge of pain in his left leg.

His next awareness is of being on his side with his cheek in his own sandy vomit. He was out again, and again without an inkling of how long. He can see now a jagged segment of his left shinbone jutting from the bloody wound. The nearby whimpering persists.

A hand closes on his shoulder from behind and he is yanked onto his back and cannot stifle another cry at the jounce of his leg. A rifle muzzle inches from his face. A thin figure in a hat looms blackly over him against the brightness of the sky.

“Este's el!” the figure calls. Then squats and pats Eddie down and strips the money belt off him and peeks into it. My goodness, the man says, what a very well-to-do chicken we have here. He drapes the money belt over his shoulder and removes the belt from Eddie's pants, and Eddie cries out again as the man binds it in a tourniquet directly above the wound. The man grins at him and says, When you run for it, kid, it's best to know north from south.

The thin man looks over at the whimpering man, the lean Fonseca, then rises and walks over to him, the rifle dangling from his hand like an outsize pistol.

Help me, Fonseca says. Please.

Certainly, the thin man says. And shoots him dead-center in the forehead.

The fat Fonseca lies a few feet from his cousin, arms and legs flung wide. Farther off, Mr. Martínez is sprawled half-sitting against a thick creosote shrub, his head at an awkward tilt on a neck nearly severed by the Magnum round, a wide stripe of blood down his shirtfront.

Miranda?

Eddie turns his head the other way and sees her not six feet from him. On her stomach, face toward him but mostly obscured by her arm, one eye visible and closed. The ground beneath her dark with blood. He cannot tell if she's breathing.

He hears voices and turns to see the thin man now atop the outcrop and standing next to a large man crouched behind a pair of boulders, peering out between them. They are looking off in the direction of the coming vehicle.

“Chacho.” Her timbre thin. . . .

Martillo and Pico

They hear her weak call and look over and see her on her stomach, one arm stretched out toward the kid. Who starts crawling toward her.

So!
She's
the bitch, Pico says.

Excellent shooting, Joselito.

She moved, man.

Then this time put the muzzle against her head. In case she moves. I'll take care of these guys.

Martillo returns his attention to the scope. The vehicle is now about 250 yards away. An SUV with two men in it. It's on slightly more level ground and isn't swaying so much now but its route is still winding. He lets them draw closer, sighting on the driver.

As Pico comes off the rise, Martillo shoots—and says
­“Chingado!” as he works the bolt and fires again.

Pico hoots and says, Oh dear, did somebody miss?

They dipped just as I fired.

Yes! That's what
she
did! She dipped. “Pues?”

Hit the driver. Maybe got a piece of the other. They're in an arroyo. I can see the roof.

Martillo detaches the Sako's box magazine though it still holds two rounds and replaces it with a full seven-round box and works the bolt, then glances at his watch and again peers though the scope. Bastards aren't going anywhere, he says. Show me just part of a head and they lose it. We'll give them ten minutes. They don't come out, we'll drive down and finish them.

Whatever you say, my large friend, Pico says. Then turns to watch Porter crawling toward the girl, who says, Chacho, I can't . . . I
can't
.

Bet you a thousand pesos he doesn't reach her inside the next minute, Pico says, and checks his watch.

Just shut her up, Martillo says.

41

Rudy and Frank

The tracker signal hasn't moved in a while and we're wondering what the hell's happening. The signal's coming from less than a quarter mile ahead and on the other side of a low rise, and we're snaking our slow way there. I keep shifting from the receiver screen to the binocs, scanning the little rise but seeing no sign of anybody.

We're little more than two hundred yards from the tracker and I glimpse something on the crest of an outcrop behind the rise—a light reflection? At the same moment, the left front wheel hits a rut and the Cherokee dips to the left as a hole pops through the windshield and we hear the shot. Frank grunts and his right arm jerks off the wheel and he one-hands the Cherokee to the left and a second round smacks through the glass and takes off the top of the gearshift lever.

Frank bounces us down into a wide gully and brakes hard. The windows are below ground level and I'm pretty sure we're out of the shooter's line of sight, but he might still see our roof.