When the truck turned away from the pit and headed toward a large pile of limb wood and similar burnable trash far in the back of the open, graded area, Kurtz slapped the clipboard for some sort of emphasis, and turned to look at Estelle. “You just cruisin’?”
“As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Estelle said.
“Don ain’t here just yet,” Kurtz said as if he didn’t actually believe the undersheriff’s answer. He ambled over to the office door and hung the clipboard on a nail.
“That’s okay,” Estelle said. “Everything been quiet up here?”
Kurtz laughed. A dentist would have recoiled at the sight. “That’s the truth,” he said. He squinted into the sun, watching as the pickup backed up to the massive pile of branches. A man and small boy pulled the elm limbs off the truck, sailing them onto the edge of the pile.
“Is that your bike?” Estelle asked.
“Nah. That’s Don’s. That’s his toy.”
“Nice machine.”
He turned and looked at Estelle. “You ride, do you?”
“No.”
One of the village garbage trucks groaned off the county highway onto the dirt road to the landfill. “You might want to step over this way,” Kurtz said, and Estelle did so. The truck pulled onto the scale, the driver expertly centering the eight rear wheels on the plate. The driver looked as if he might have been one of Mauro Acosta’s classmates. He lifted a hand in salute, then lurched the truck forward when Kurtz signaled.
When the big diesel was far enough away that Estelle could make herself heard without shouting, she asked, “Everyone weighs?”
“Everyone. All the time. But if it don’t come up to five hundred pounds, we don’t charge. Like them over there.” He waved a hand at the pickup with its load of tree trimmings.
“I didn’t think so. I don’t ever remember paying. Did the county manager come by here earlier this week?”
Kurtz wiped his hands on his county-issue dark green work clothes, then groped a cigarette out of his breast pocket. He took his time, examining the little butane lighter before lighting it as if it were a complex operation requiring all his skill and attention. “You mean yesterday?”
“Whenever.”
“Didn’t see him yesterday. Nope.”
“How about Tuesday?”
“We aren’t open on Tuesdays, so I wouldn’t know. You’d have to ask Don.”
The large white sign on the chain-link gate, now pushed open against the fence, announced landfill hours for the public from 7 AM to 5 PM, Wednesday through Sunday. “The boss is here on Tuesdays?”
Kurtz sucked on the cigarette, inhaling deeply. “Well, sometimes he is,” he said, as if loath to give away too much information. “Paperwork and the like. He takes care of all of that.”
“Are you part-time, or…”
Kurtz shook his head. “Wish I was. No. I’m here, all the time.”
“Don, too?”
“Well, sure. He generally takes Saturday off, though. Makes up for coming in on Tuesdays, I guess.” He examined the cigarette, ticking off the ash with his little finger. “He don’t like to miss the flea market.”
“You’re talking about the one down in Pershing Park sometimes?”
“Oh, hell, no,” Kurtz said. “He goes on down to Cruces for that big one. Hits it every week.” He nodded at where the village truck was disgorging its load, like a giant insect expelling a large, compact dropping that crashed out onto the graded apron just short of the pit. “You wouldn’t believe the things that some people throw away.”
“Oh, I think I would,” Estelle said agreeably. “You said Don’s coming in today?”
“Oh, he’s already been here. We got a blown hydraulic hose on the Cat.” He stepped out from the building. “He just ran down to pick up a new one at Clark’s.”
“There’s always something, isn’t there,” Estelle said. The bulldozer was parked beside an amazing pile of junked appliances. Impressive as it was, the dozer was dwarfed by the collection of hot-water heaters, stoves, refrigerators, washers, and dryers. “I always supposed that with the number of appliances we see shot full of holes out on the mesa, there wouldn’t be many left for you guys,” Estelle said, and Kurtz grunted a derisive chuckle.
More traffic turned into the landfill road, this time a small station wagon followed by another pickup truck sagging under a load of old lumber.
“I’ll get out of your way,” Estelle said as Kurtz reached for his clipboard.
She walked out along the northern fence line, taking her time and paying attention to her footing. Bits of metal, wire, plastic, and rotten wood littered the ground, churned and mixed with the red soil by the constant working of the dozer and dump traffic, presenting a thousand ways to puncture a tire.
The appliance graveyard formed a white mountain, beside another mountain created by discarded tires, and Estelle headed for that. The village garbage truck pulled away from the pit, its fat tires churning up thick clouds of red dust.
Skirting the foot of the appliance mountain, she stopped to look at a stove that had either tumbled off like a loose rock after a rain, or had been set aside. The kitchen range was so new that the manufacturer’s stickers were still affixed to the enameled top, but the fancy stove was junk. Perhaps it had fallen from a truck, smashing its delicate glass face and circuit boards against the pavement.
The tire mountain was several times larger than the one at the county maintenance yard, the bulk of the collection from passenger cars and light trucks.
Estelle skirted the pile and stopped beside the dozer. Sitting in the hot sun, the mammoth machine exuded its own body odor of diesel and grease. The two great frost hooks were poised like stingers from the bulldozer’s rear end. A toolbox rested crosswise on the polished, raw steel of several track cleats, a selection of wrenches scattered around it.
The hose that had blown was small, no larger in diameter than a finger. The rich fluid, jetting out under pressure, had soaked a fan-shaped stain on the dozer’s yellow flank. She started to walk around the front of the machine, missed her footing, and managed to catch herself by slamming a hand against the top edge of the blade.
“Careful there,” a voice behind her called out. She turned, brushing off her hands, and saw Don Fulkerson walking toward her. He carried a length of black hose, the fittings on the end clean, bright brass. “You gotta watch where you’re putting your feet around this place,” he said, and winked.
“I got to looking at other things,” Estelle said. She extended a hand in greeting, and Fulkerson tossed the new hose into the toolbox, then shook hands. His grip was firm, his hands rough and work hardened. He had cultivated an impressive spade-shaped beard, just starting to turn white around the edges. Estelle could picture him leaning back on his rushing motorcycle, the wind cushioning his beard upward like a platter.
“You thinking of taking up diesel mechanics?” Fulkerson said, and winked again. He pulled at one of the wide suspenders that held up his Carhartts.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Bart said it blew a hose?”
“That’s what she did. No big deal, though. We’ll have her goin’ here in about ten minutes.” He patted the track affectionately.
Estelle stepped away from the dozer and watched an elderly man unload his Volvo station wagon, sailing one item at a time onto the pile. “I don’t think most people understand what a big operation this is,” she said.
Fulkerson leaned comfortably against the dozer’s left track, crossed his boots, and fished out first a pack of cigarettes, and then a bag of tobacco and sheaf of papers. He slipped the ready-mades back into his pocket and proceeded to roll a cigarette. “Keeps us busy,” he said. “You want some coffee?” He nodded at the thermos, nestled in a jacket stuffed in a bed of hydraulic plumbing under the dozer’s seat.