Neither did the Chief. He and John sat at the station, boots kicked up on their respective desks, and chewed on the topic almost daily. Wes and I kept fairly quiet about it.
“Musta died out there,” John said, every chance he got.
“Maybe.”
“Not enough water, ’specially this time of year. And him on foot?” John shook his head. “Naw, he’s buzzard food.”
“He coulda found water. Or come across somebody,” the Chief said. “Coulda circled around and gone ’cross the Rio.”
“Never make it.”
“He coulda.”
Then they’d fall silent and think on it a while, both chewing and spitting.
Turned out the Chief was right.
I knew I’d be the one to get the call. Call it God’s way of giving me a second chance, or call it fate, but as soon as we turned our horses away from Pete’s disappeared trail, I knew in my gut that I’d see him again.
The night was clear and still. I’d parked out on the edge of town and swung my door open wide to take in the wide expanse of stars above. Isabella’s dark eyes were on my mind, when Molly’s voice erupted through the radio.
“Sam-25!”
I keyed the mike. “Go ahead.”
“Carl! Get over to the Tres! Pete Trower’s back, and he’s got a gun!”
I pulled the door shut and started the Explorer.
“Carl! You hear me?”
“On my way,” I told her.
“Copy. I’m calling the Chief.”
I made it to Tres Estrellas in less than a minute. Four Mexican men burst through the front door as I jumped out of the truck. Jack Talbott hurried behind them, hauling a strawberry-haired waitress by the arm.
“That sumbitch is crazy, Carl!” he hollered at me.
“Who else is in there?”
“Hell if I know! Everyone bolted as soon as he pulled the gun.”
I pushed past him and went inside.
Isabella stood behind the bar, stock-still and staring straight ahead. Her eyes were flat and her face impassive. Pete stood on the opposite side of the bar, a small revolver leveled at her.
I eased my.45 out of my holster and took up a position behind a four-by-four post. “Pete,” I called to him, keeping the sharpness out of my voice.
Pete didn’t turn away from Isabella, but I saw his eyes shift in the large mirror behind the bar.
“Ain’t your business, Carl,” he said in a flat tone.
“Maybe not mine,” I said, “but it’s police business.”
“Have it your way,” Pete replied, and turned his eyes back to Isabella. “I wish it could have been different between you and me.”
Isabella didn’t reply. Her eyes didn’t soften.
“Because I would have treated you right,” Pete said, his voice thick with emotion. “I would never have treated you like a whore. Not like those guys did. Not like all of them did.”
I raised my barrel slowly, drawing a bead on Pete’s upper back, aiming center mass.
“Could you have loved me?” he pleaded with her. “Ever?”
I didn’t want her to answer that. I didn’t want him to hear the truth if she said no, and I didn’t want to hear the truth if she said yes.
Isabella shook her head slightly. “Lo ciento, Pete. I’m sorry.”
Pete’s gun hand wavered. In the mirror, I saw tears spring to his eyes. Huge drops rolled down his cheeks.
“Pete…” I tried to get his attention.
“Gitana,” Pete croaked. “Gitana cara.”
The blast exploded from the barrel of his gun and Isabella disappeared behind the bar. I fired immediately after, double-tapping. The force of my rounds hurled him into the bar. His gun clattered to the floor. Pete slid down the side of a barstool.
The biting odor of cordite stung my nostrils. I approached Pete carefully. He lay motionless.
“Senorita? Are you okay?”
No answer.
“Isabella? It’s safe.”
“?Seguro?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
Isabella rose from behind the bar and her eyes scanned the room. “Pete?”
I didn’t answer.
Tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. She ran around the end of the bar to where Pete had fallen. I started to stop her, but with Pete’s gun outside of his lunge area, I let her go. While she touched his face, I secured his weapon.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Isabella, wondering if she were really grieving for a man she just told she could never love. “I didn’t have a choice.”
She ran her hands across Pete’s forehead, smoothing a lock of his hair. I stood silently, listening to the slowing trickle of alcohol dripping from broken bottles behind the bar and the wail of sirens in the distance.
Isabella stood and pushed her own jet-black hair back. I waited for her to turn to me for a comforting embrace, to thank me for saving her life. Instead, she shot me a glance of pure venom, turned and stalked away.
Gitana, Pete had said. Gitana cara.
Enchantress. Dear, precious enchantress.
Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to shoot her and had fired into the booze rack instead.
At least, things were clear for him now. At least, the woman had loved him for a moment, even if it were his last. I stood in the empty bar, the odor of gunpowder in the air, watching blood seep from Pete’s dead body, and waited. For what, I don’t know.
Like I said, things are blurred along the border.
Jack’s Town
“Sam-25?” the radio crackled.
Molly’s voice cut through the still night air. I was parked out on the edge of town with my boot lodged against the wide open door of the police Explorer, staring up at the expanse of stars across the West Texas sky. I’d been thinking about Isabella’s dark eyes and her hair falling down.
I grabbed the mike. “-25, go ahead.”
“I have a call,” she said, then paused. When she spoke again, her voice held a tone of reluctance. “Can you Signal 8 Dispatch, please?”
My eyes narrowed. Why’d she want me to call her on the phone? Why couldn’t she just broadcast the call over the air?
I turned the ignition key and the Explorer’s engine rumbled to life. The cell phone mounted in the center console booted up and beeped its readiness. I punched in the number for Dispatch from memory. She answered on the second ring.
“Carl?”
“What’s going on, Molly?”
She sighed. “I just got a 911 call.”
I put the Explorer in gear. “Where?”
“It sounded like a domestic,” Molly said.
“Where?”
Molly hesitated. Finally, she said, “It came from the Talbott house.”
I cranked the wheel left, driving in that direction.
“Carl?”
“I heard you,” I said, and turned on my overhead lights. “John and Wes still on duty?”
“Wes is driving John home. But-”
“Send them to back me up.”
“Copy that,” Molly said. “Carl-”
“Who called it in?”
“Doris.”
“What’d she say?”
Molly hesitated again. “Not much. Just that Jack was worse than usual.”
“Was there anything physical?”
“I asked her that. She just told me to never mind and hung up.”
“Could you hear anything in the background?”
“Just music.”
“All right. I’ll be on scene in about forty seconds. Get Wes and John up here.”