Wild Penance (13 page)

Now I moved to make a list of people for Momma Anna’s strange assignment to ask forgiveness of everyone I cared about. I wrote four names: Roy, Momma Anna, Bennie, Regan. I tapped some more with the pen, realizing that I did not have many people in my life that I truly cared about. I wondered if I would be on their lists if any of them had been given the same task to perform. Roy, maybe, I guessed. So perhaps even fewer people cared for me than I had listed here. And then I remembered Father Ignacio holding my hand and looking into my eyes, saying:
I think, Miss Wild, that you are very lonely.

I got up from the horse blanket, shook it out, and rolled it up. I kicked the embers of my fire apart, outward toward the ring of stones, and then used the side of my boot to push dirt over the top of the stones. I emptied part of one of my canteens over it all to extinguish all the live fire. “Come on, Redhead,” I said, as I picked up her saddle. “We’re going back on patrol.”

I wasn’t the one who spotted Santiago Suazo in our section. I had spent the night pretty close to my base camp, making only short forays. In the morning, I had broken camp, and was riding Redhead down to the Forest Service road, when I saw Kerry Reed’s truck speeding up to where I had parked the truck and horse trailer. He got to me before I could load Redhead in.

“Suazo just eluded me again!” He whomped the back door of the trailer with the side of his fist in frustration. “I spotted his truck down by some off-road tracks. He saw me coming and blazed off down the four-wheel-drive road. I had to backtrack quite a ways before I found a safe place to turn around, and by the time I did, he was long gone. He had to have lost his oil pan, the way he was driving.”

“Yeah, well, you know Suazo. He probably keeps baling wire and duct tape on hand for wiring up mufflers and taping up holes in things to get him down to the next village where his cousin or someone has a welder.” I thought for a moment. “Just curious—was Suazo on your side of the fence or mine?”

“Yours.” He shook his head, still chagrined, his lips pressed into a tight little frown.

“That’s funny. I rode over that piece early last night. I can’t imagine what he’s doing in there. He can’t be getting wood out; there’s only scrub on this side of the fence line. And we would have heard him if he was cutting.”

“I don’t know what he’s doing either, but it can’t be anything good.”

“So you think it was Suazo who cut down that section of fence?”

“I don’t know, but if he didn’t, he knows who did. You remember, his truck was pulled over a good ways west of there the other night, like he knew better than to try to drive on any farther or he would have gotten stuck. But he wasn’t with his truck, and that fence wasn’t down the night before that when I checked it. It’s a safe bet that Suazo was back in there on foot or some other way then, since he wasn’t in his truck.”

“Why don’t we go pay him a friendly visit?”

“You mean go to his house?”

“Why not? We’ll make it official. We’re conducting an investigation into vandalism and destruction of federal lands. And we’re off for the weekend now. If we don’t go intimidate him, he’ll just come back tonight and get away with whatever it is he’s doing while no one is here. I’ll make a courtesy call to the sheriff’s department to let them know before we go.”

“We can go, but he’s not going to tell us anything. And he’s not easily intimidated; laws don’t mean a thing to that guy. He always finds a way to weasel out of whatever he gets himself into. I don’t think it’s going to deter him one bit to see us at his place.”

“I want to find out what he’s doing up by the Boscaje morada,” I said. “I think he was headed up there.”

“I’m guessing there’s no chance that he could be a member there.”

“No, trust me, Santiago Suazo doesn’t have a penitent bone in his body. But we might find out something by seeing him on his own turf, whether he’s willing to talk or not. And I do think it would rattle him.”

“Okay, then, I’m game if you are.”

“I have an appointment I have to keep first,” I said. “Let’s meet about noon at the BLM.”

I called the sheriff’s office to make what is known as a “courtesy call” from one agent or officer to another. Technically, I had no authority outside of BLM land, and even there, only for the purposes of resource protection. But, as a courtesy, I was commonly permitted to question anyone with respect to issues related to my jurisdiction, provided that I informed the local law enforcement agency of my intent to do so. I asked for Deputy Padilla, hoping to find out if they had made an identification of the body on the cross and if there had been any developments in the case. But Jerry Padilla was not in, and I had to leave my courtesy advisement that Kerry and I would be going by Suazo’s house with the dispatcher.

Number Six

When I pulled up at the Golden Gecko, the parking lot was full. The front door had been propped open with a large rock. Bennie was outside trying to coordinate as a half-dozen women loaded clothes racks and garment bags into the club.

“Hey, kiddo,” she said when she saw me get out of my car, “could I talk to you for just a second?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

Bennie scratched her head. “I just want to say thanks. For doing this, I mean.”

“Yeah, you’ll never be able to play the wounded bear card again after this, I’m warning you.”

She laughed. “It was the only way I could get you to do it. You know I’m right.”

“True. Listen, Bennie, I . . .”

“What?”

Inside the Gecko, the band began checking their instruments through the sound system, and the noise blasted out the open front door of the club, the bass booming, a saxophone honking, cymbals crashing—nothing coordinated—each of them producing clamor at once. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the cacophony. “I . . . if I’ve ever hurt you or offended you, I want to ask for your forgiveness.”

Bennie squinted at me, as if she was trying to see me better. She had to shout over the din. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about forgiveness,” I shouted back.

Bennie shook her head and put a finger in her ear and twisted it. “Look, kiddo, it sounds like they’re ready to start. You better go get into your outfit.”

The lights on the stage changed from red to blue to yellow, and spots came on and went off as the technician tested his lighting sets. A dozen young women bustled around with cosmetic bags and hat-boxes. A woman named Wynetta was in charge, and she wielded a clipboard to prove it. She wore enormous, red-rimmed glasses with a beaded chain on them. “Who are you?” She looked at me, then at the clipboard in her hand, as if the answer might be there.

“I’m Jamaica. Bennie asked me to fill in for the girl who—”

“I see,” she said, pulling her glasses down slightly with one hand and scanning me up and down over the tops of them. “Were you going to get your hair done this afternoon before the show tonight?”

“My hair?”

She shook her head back and forth. “Well, you can’t go on like that. Do you have an appointment to get it styled today?”

“No. This is how I wear my hair.”

She raised her chin up now and looked down through the big lenses at me, her lips pushed out in a disapproving pucker. “Well, this is not how we wear our hair in this fashion show. We’ll have a wig backstage for you tonight. Did you bring some heels?”

I gave a little snort. “I don’t wear heels.”

She widened her eyes. “You don’t wear heels?”

“No.”

Just then, Bennie—who had been watching from the sidelines—interceded. “Jamaica has probably got some cute cowgirl boots. That would be more her style. You have some cowgirl boots, don’t you, kiddo?”

“You want me to wear western boots with a nightgown or pajamas?”

Wynetta laughed out loud. “Pajamas? You’ll find the ensemble you’re wearing over on that rack.” She pointed a pen. “You’re number six.”

There were only a few garment bags left. I found the one with a tag with the number six on it and took it off the rack.

“Come on, Jamaica,” Bennie said. “I’ll show you which dressing room you’re in.”

In the dressing room, a whole lot more undressing was going on than what the name indicated. There were twelve models in the show, and half were assigned to each of the club’s two large backstage rooms. I worked my way down the aisle, meeting a few of the other gals as I went, and found myself a spot at the long counter in front of the aging mirror. I laid the garment bag on the counter and unzipped it. Inside, I found a black leather bustier that laced up over a wide opening in the front and a tiny V-shaped item made of black see-through lace with some strategically placed bits of the same leather as the bustier was made from. “Bennie!” I yelled.

She came running. “Now, Jamaica, it’s only for this one day. Just rehearsal now and for an hour or so tonight.”

“You expect me to wear this?” I held up the thong. There wasn’t enough fabric in the thing to blanket a butterfly.

“Just put it on. Let’s see how you look.”

“I thought I would be wearing a nightgown. Or shorty pajamas. I didn’t agree to trounce around with my behind exposed in a roomful of people!”

Right then, the band struck up a rocking rhythm out front, and Ailsa Ten’s distinctive bass drove the beat. The music was so loud that the mirror on the wall vibrated. The girls in the dressing room began to swing their hips and snap their fingers. Knowing there was no way we could continue our conversation over the band’s high-decibel din, Bennie looked at me with a pleading expression and mouthed the words
Remember the bear
.

I wasn’t the only one with a backside in plain sight. During a lull in the music, Wynetta instructed us all to line up by number and I counted five of us with derrieres on display. Of course, the other seven made up for what wasn’t exposed in the back by having more flesh uncovered in front. The other girls wore elaborate jewelry, strappy stiletto heels, scarves, tiaras, and other accessories, as if they were all dressed for the prom. I noticed the tan line where I wore my watch, how naked my bare feet looked without polish on the toenails like the other girls had.

Ernie, the sound and lights technician, came by and made notes on his own clipboard, determining what color lighting to use based on the color of our lingerie. When he got to me, he said, “Okay, number six. You’re blonde wearing black.” He looked me over. “Is that a tattoo?”

“What?”

“On your . . . uh . . . you know, back . . . there.”

Wynetta hurried over and gave a big gasp. “Is that a bruise?”

I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. “Probably,” I said. “Is it on the right side?”

Ernie didn’t speak, but with wide eyes, he nodded yes.

“My horse threw me—”

“This just won’t do!” Wynetta threw up her hands. “You’ll have to put some makeup on that tonight to cover that up.”

“I’d rather put some clothes on it to cover it up,” I said.

Wynetta gave me a seething look. “These lingerie ensembles,” she said, pronouncing each word with a brief pause afterward for emphasis, “were provided by a prominent designer from his Dallas showroom. We do not have time to get another outfit for you before the show tonight.” She looked down at my bare feet. “You’ll be wearing boots, right?”

“Sure.”

“Do you have makeup?”

“A little.”

“Never mind. We’ll find some. And we’ll see if we can get you a rope or something to carry at the hip.”

We ran through the program twice, Wynetta referring to each of us by number instead of by name. She coached us to place one foot exactly in front of the other when we walked, and to take long strides, thereby emphasizing the swinging of our hips. This was actually much harder than I ever could have imagined, and I had to concentrate intently to time my steps so that I made it to the points on the stage on cue.