The Right Side of Wrong (24 page)

“Hang on, son.”

“I will.”

The hug was brief, and they stepped back.

Cody cleared his throat. “Tell J.T. Boone I'll drop by as soon as I get back home. He and I have a lot of catching up to do.” He raised a lip in what could have been a smile, or a snarl. “Lot's to talk about.”

Without missing a beat, Ned nodded. “I will.”

Cody stepped back and put his hands behind him. Ordaz snapped the cuffs back on.

Ned took two steps toward Guerrera who was leaning against the door leading into the hall. “Move.”

With an insolent gaze, Guerrera slowly shifted his weight and stepped to the side.

Their eyes were locked as Ned reached for the handle, opened it, and started through.

Cody once again spoke in Choctaw. “
Chi hollo li
!”

Still maintaining eye contact with the crooked Mexican lawman, Ned paused when he heard the rusty steel door creak open behind Cody. Footsteps told him they were through, and then the door slammed with an echo. Through two heartbeats, he and Guerrera squared off.

John's deep voice rumbled in the silent room. “Let's go, Mr. Ned.”

With Cody gone, there was no reason to stay. Ned paused. “We'll speak again some day, Guerrera.”

The
capitán
smiled. “I look forward to it.”

John put his hand in the small of Ned's back and gently shoved. The pressure was enough to send Ned out the door. As he passed, his shoulder caught Guerrera hard enough to let him know it wasn't an accident. Slightly off balance, Guerrera placed his hand on the wall and thought about arresting Ned for assault. That thought disappeared quickly when John moved past like a dark thundercloud, filling the space with much more than the threat of violence.

Guerrera watched them walk down the hallway. The guard rose from the rickety table when Guerrera flicked his hand, and unlocked the metal door.

Ned and John found Yolanda and George still waiting in the reception area. The young guard had been talking with them, but he stopped suddenly, picked up his magazine, and winked at Yolanda.

When the lawmen were almost to the exit, she snapped a long string of Spanish that caused the guard to frown. She started to leave, and halfway to the door, she stopped and unleashed another verbal assault until he slapped the magazine down and stood. Aware she'd pushed the man to his limits, Yolanda grabbed George's hand and joined the numb Americans in the vacant, dusty street.

Back in the sunshine, the men unconsciously sucked in deep breaths of free air to empty out the poisonous fumes of misery and corruption. John felt empty, and Ned shook from fear and anger, leaning against the rough wall.

John barely registered the kids' presence with them in the street. “What was that y'all was talking in there, Ned?”

Ned took a deep, calming breath. “Choctaw.”

“Didn't know you talked it.”

“We don't. Every now and then when we set in the yard, Miss Becky'll teach the kids a word or saying she learned from her Mama and her people, more for fun than anything else. I've picked up some through the years, up in the Territories. Cody was always good at remembering what she said, and Top and Pepper both know some, so they like to trade words. I'm not sure I understood everything Cody told me, but I understood enough.

“John, they're gonna take him out of there tomorrow morning and kill him, not take him to a Mexican pen. I believe Cody found out where them drugs are coming from, and probably who's running the whole shebang, and it starts with some of these people. They think he knows something that'll bring the laws down on 'em, and they intend to stop it. I don't know how he found out, but he did. We have to get that boy out tonight.”

John studied the building's crumbling stucco facade for a long moment. “We'll take care of this.”

“I hoped that's what you'd say.”

“We will. Let's go.”

The kids stuck right on their heels as the Texas lawmen silently retraced their path to Main Street, each alone with his own thoughts. When they reached the bridge, Yolanda tugged on Ned's pants. “You're leaving now,
señor
?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Did you forget anything?”

Feeling bumfuzzled, Ned unconsciously rubbed his face. “I don't know what…”

John remembered. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thin, worn wallet. He thumbed it open, withdrew two limp bills, and handed one to each child.

Their eyes widened, because instead of five dollars each, they held ten-dollar bills.

“Hold it, John. That was my deal.”

“You done spent a sight of money, Mr. Ned. Let me do this. Besides, I might not need it later, and they shore do.”

Understanding John's meaning, Ned deflated. He knelt beside the youngsters. “C'mere and give me a hug.”

Without hesitation, George and Yolanda stepped into Ned's arms. They recognized the grandfather for what he was. He held onto the kids for a long moment and then released them, his eyes wet with tears. “Now listen to me. You two hide what's left of that money after you buy your shoes, hear? Don't let your mama know you have it.”

“
Si
. After we buy some
pepitoria
.”

“What's that?”

“Peanut candy.”

“All right, then. Now, y'all go on back home.”

Ned rose, dusted the knees of his pants and glanced toward the bridge. The guard who warned them away from Boy's Town gave them a smile that was more of a leer.

Understanding the implied meaning, Ned felt his temper flash once again. He choked it down and started across the bridge. “
Damn
this country, and
damn
these people.”

“Looks like some of them already are.” John stepped quickly to match his pace. He glanced back at the prison over Ned's hat. “What was that last thing, that
chi
thing, Cody said back there when we was walking out the door?”

Ned's eyes glistened once again. “I love you.”

They crossed the river in silence. Once back on U.S. soil, John finally broke the question. “So what now, Mr. Ned?”

He wiped the tears, set his jaw, and pulled out a tightly wadded piece of paper from the right-hand side of his waistband. As John watched, Ned carefully unfolded the grimy square to reveal a crude, but detailed map drawn in thick pencil.

“He slipped this in beside my belly when I hugged him goodbye.”

It was a rough but fairly accurate drawing of
Las Células
, and the X marking Cody's cell was smeared with a drop of blood.

“Like I told Cody.
Tanampi humma
.”

“What was that Mr. Ned?”

“It's a Choctaw phrase.
We'll go to war red.
Let's get our guns.”

Chapter Thirty-eight

I thought Mr. Tom was fixin' to beat our butts when he found us.

Well, he didn't really
find
us. Pepper woke up on her side of the car when the sun came up and got bored, so she decided to listen to the transistor radio she hadn't yet given back to Christine Berger. When she rolled the little on/off volume dial with her thumb, the car hit a bump and she spun it way too far.

The loud, tinny sound of Chuck Berry singing “Maybelline” nearly caused Mr. Tom to lose control of the car. We got shook up pretty good in the floorboard until he stopped the car on the shoulder.

He threw one arm over the back seat and twisted around. “What the
hell
are you two doing in here?”

Had I thought of those spooky eyes of his and how they'd pop out when he got mad, I wouldn't have even given a second thought to stowing away in his car. Stowing away looked fun when The Three Stooges did it on that ocean freighter with the Russian guy smuggling watermelons, but that steaming man on the side of the highway scared the pee out of me.

Well, truthfully, I had to pee so bad I was about to bust anyway. I couldn't decide whether to get out and unzip my pants while he yelled at us, or wait until he finished. He didn't say another word, so I knew he was waiting for an answer.

We used the long cord stretched across the back seat to pull ourselves up. “Mr. Tom. I know you're mad, but can it wait until I pee?”

“That ain't fair,” Pepper argued. “I gotta pee just as bad as you, but I can't just pop a squat here on the side of the road. You have to wait like I do until we get to a town or a station, or something.”

“I think I'll leave you two right here and you can hitch a ride by yourselves.” Mr. Tom was madder'n a wet hen, and I wasn't sure he wouldn't do it.

“We just want to help Uncle Cody and Grandpa.”

“We won't get in the way.” Pepper batted her eyes in a way that works for her most of the time. Mr. Tom's own eyes trumped her Betty Boop look, and Pepper quickly examined the tangled quilts at our feet.

“What exactly do you think you can do?”

“Make calls, take notes, run errands?”

Instead of answering, Mr. Tom took out his pocket watch and checked the time. With a sigh, he returned it to his jeans. “Well, it's a sure thing I don't have time to take y'all back.”

He studied us on the side of that empty highway. For the first time I took stock of my surroundings through the window. The oaks were different than we had back home. They grew wide and low in the pastures. Cactus was thick in a nearby wash. Stringy old range cattle watched us through a tight bobwire fence on cedar posts.

It looked like they had a good crop of rocks to me, too.

Without expression, Mr. Bell faced the front. “There's a town about five minutes away where y'all can pee, and me too, I reckon. I ought to leave y'all at the bus station. I don't suppose you left a note or anything, right?”

“Nossir.”

“We'll call your mama and daddy, Pepper, and Miss Becky for you, Top. You'll tell them what you did, but I'll take over from there.”

I examined the tops of my legs.

When he shifted into third gear, Mr. Tom spoke into the rearview mirror. “The only reason I don't give you two a good belt whipping is I did something like this myself, when I was your age.”

We passed a wooden sign that said Cotulla when a rear tire blew on the hot highway. Neither of us was dumb enough to say anything. Once again, he pulled onto the shoulder and opened the trunk.

The spare was flat, and he slammed the lid.

I couldn't take it anymore. I opened both doors and peed between them, shielded from the highway.

When I was finished, Pepper stared at the doors for a long minute. “Well, shit.”

I was surprised when Mr. Tom pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and handed it to her. “Me and Top will just look back down this highway for a minute.”

He was right. We were wayyyy too far to turn back.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Las Células
wasn't visible from the motor court parking lot, but the Mexican fortress-like jail was all Ned and John had on their minds that afternoon. The hot sky was cloudless. Cicadas sang in the cottonwoods along the river. The air smelled of sewage, dust, onions, and diesel.

The owner frowned when Ned checked them in and John knew it was because even down in the Valley, white and black men didn't room together. Money ruled though, and he reluctantly gave them a key.

John rested uncomfortably in one of the small chairs provided by the little motel while Ned made two collect calls back to Chisum. The first one nearly scared him to death and added another layer to a nearly smothering sense of dread.

Ned had a white-knuckled grip on the receiver. “Them two kids did what?”

He shook his head at John while Miss Becky explained. When she paused, Ned held his hand over the speaker. “You ain't gonna believe this, John, them two little shits snuck into the back of the car Tom Bell borrowed from O.C., and by the time he found them, he said he was south of San Antonio.”

“Tom's coming here?”

“That's what Becky said.” He returned to his conversation. “Yeah, we talked to Cody. He's in bad shape, but he's alive.”

John heard Miss Becky's tinny voice shout through the speaker. “Thank God!”

“We talked to them that have him, but the police down here are as crooked as a dog's hind leg. We tried to buy him out, but they wouldn't have none of it, so we're gonna get him out the best way we know how.”

He didn't want to, but figured Miss Becky had a right to know Guerrera's plan. She was silent for a long time, and he thought she'd hung up. “You still there?”

“I'm here.”

“I don't know no other way. Mama, they've been pretty rough on that boy.”

He heard her breathing, then a sharp intake breath. “Ned, the good lord gave us the sense to know what's right and wrong. I don't know no scripture that says you can't save our own kin.”

“You know what you're sayin'?”

“Get him back.”

“You know what I may have to do.”

“I know, but don't you let them kill that boy, nor John, nor you. I couldn't bear that.”

“All right. We're stayin' at The
El Sombrero
motor court.” He read off the phone number handwritten in the center of the dial. They talked quietly for several more minutes, and then he hung up.

John was waiting for him. “What did Tom say he was going to do with the kids?”

“He's bringin' 'em with him. Norma Faye is on the way to get Becky right now, and they'll drive down here and get 'em.”

“What about James? Why don't he come?”

“James and Ida Belle are both down with some sort of stomach bug. They been sick as dogs, and neither one can get out of bed. I swear, Becky needs to be over there taking care of them, but said she'd come get the kids.”

“James must be
some
sick to keep him off the road.”

“He tried, but he couldn't even drive to the house. He had to pull over twice in a mile to puke. The doctor came out and said that if they didn't get any better, he'd put them in the hospital by dark. It's a mess back there.”

“When it rains, it pours.”

“I know it. They'll tell Tom where we are, if he checks back in. We'll need to let the manager know they're coming, so they can get in if we ain't here.”

He made a second collect call, this time to Judge O.C. Rains in his office in the Chisum courthouse. Though the conversation was one-sided, the deputy knew the snowball was rolling.

There were no games this time. O.C. was anxiously waiting for the call and answered on the first ring.

“It's Ned, O.C.” He listened for a long moment.

John rose, opened the blinds, and returned to his chair to look out on the playground and tiny swimming pool in the center of the horseshoe-shaped courtyard. Both were empty, so he watched the cars pass on the street.

“He told me they're going to kill him tomorrow.”

As he listened, his face began to redden.

“Hell no, he didn't say it out loud. The damn
Federale Comandante,
or Captain or whatever the hell he is was-a standing right there. Cody told me in Choctaw so the son of a bitch couldn't understand.”

O.C.'s tinny voice wasn't understandable. John rose and paced the room like a nervous cat. He pulled the switch to turn on the television sitting on a stand made of metal tubing. The picture tube still hadn't warmed up by the time he crossed the room and punched a button to turn on the water cooler. It blew hot air for a time until the pump kicked in to wet the straw, finally giving some relief in the stifling room. The TV picture was starting to form when he sat back in the chair.

“O.C., I know the law as well as you, but we don't have time for all that. The sonofabitch plans to move Cody deeper into Mexico in the morning, but the boy says they're gonna kill him instead. I believe him. You should have seen his face. He's beat black and blue, he ain't et good in days, and I think we're out of time.”

He told O.C. how the
capitán
stole the bail money. O.C.'s angry voice was louder at the news.

“Of course they're crooked, and you know how I am about such things. You are too. I need to tell you what I intend to do, so somebody will know when it's over. We have a plan to get him out, but it ain't exactly legal. Hell, it ain't legal a-tall! It's barely on the right side of wrong.”

He spent the next several minutes outlining his plan and finally listened while O.C. talked. “Yeah, John's with me on this.”

He listened some more. The fuzzy picture on the television was a soap opera, in Spanish, and John didn't like to watch the stories even in American. He rose, twisted the dial in a series of loud chunks, and found another station. It too was fuzzy, so he fussed with the rabbit ears, trying to get a better signal.

“You can call whoever the hell you want, O.C., but it won't do no good down here. This place is a regular Sodom and Gomorrah. You won't believe what you can buy, and I think that's how Cody found what he came for. He dug around and the connection leads to somebody in Chisum that I won't say over the phone, because I don't have any idea who's listening, but I know what's going on. Cody learned something, and it got him buried in this Mexican jail.”

On the television, Dick Van Dyke said something to Mary Tyler Moore in Spanish, but the laugh track was the same John recognized from back home. Disgusted and uneasy, he slapped the switch with the palm of his hand. The picture shrank to a pinpoint and then winked out. He returned to his chair and settled in with a sigh.

Their guns were scattered across the worn blue bedspread. John picked up a pump Browning twelve-gauge and quickly took it apart for cleaning, which gave him something to do while listening to Ned's conversation.

“This might all go wrong, and I imagine it will, but I don't know what else to do. If anybody asks, tell 'em we did what we thought was right, and that's about all I can say.”

The air conditioner's wheeze filled the silent room as O.C. talked.

“All right, then. One more thing. There's some money buried in a quart fruit jar beside the northwest post of the kitchen porch. You might need it to…for us later. It oughta be enough to do the job. I don't want to be a burden on anybody…shut up and listen! There's another fruit jar buried on the south side of the bodark tree beside the chicken house. There's enough in there to take care of Miss Becky and Top for a good long while.”

The timbre had changed in his voice, and in O.C.'s also, enough that John once again felt uneasy.

“All right then. Bye.”

Ned replaced the receiver and watched John clean the shotgun. “You don't have to do this. I can do it myself.”

“No you cain't. I doubt the two of us can do it together, but we're family.”

Ned started to answer, then stopped. He swallowed a lump and wiped his nose. “And we're lawmen, going up against lawmen.”

“They ain't the law, Mr. Ned, not like we know it.”

“We're gonna break the law. It's tough for me to think about doing that…again.”

“There ain't no other choice.”

Without conscious thought, Ned picked up a dented can of 3-in-1 Oil and a scrap of cloth tied onto a string. He squirted oil on the cloth, dropped the line through the short barrel of his .38 and pulled it through. “You stay on this side of the river. I'll get Cody out and you wait with the car so we can make a quick getaway.”

“It's easy to see why you on this side of the law, cause that idea won't hold water.”

“I'm trying to keep you safe, John.”

“We're going with your first plan, and don't worry 'bout me. They's one thing, though. What if them Meskins shoot at us?”

“Why, we shoot back, I reckon.”

“That'll come as close as anything we can do to make us the same as them.”

The room was silent as they digested the implications of that statement. John's face was blank, masking his unease despite the necessity of their plan.

Ned set his jaw and placed a drop of oil to run down on the hammer strut pin, then cocked it several times to lube the hinge. “When my granddaddy was a Texas Ranger, he crossed the border into the Oklahoma territories to bring back murderers and robbers. While he was there, he did what he had to do to stay alive. I believe we'll do the same. This might not be right in the eyes of some, but to me, it's the right thing to do. In my opinion, some folks just need killin' for what they done, or
are
about to do to Cody.”