“Go on in and tell Charlie you’ve got a dog on for tonight,” the man who was guarding something that wasn’t a copper mine said.
“How will I know it’s Charlie?” Greg asked.
“He’s the biggest biker you’ve ever seen,” the man said. “And he’s got the biggest gun you’ve ever seen too.” Then he waved us through.
Greg drove in. There were some abandoned mining buildings, some industrial equipment and covered conveyors. A couple of pickup trucks were parked next to the buildings. There was no mining going on here.
“Smell that?” Greg asked. I nodded. It was a strange mixture of gasoline and ether. “Copper mine my ass,” Greg said. “This is the biggest crystal meth plant in the world.” I reached down, got the whiskey bottle, and took a sip. Ahead of us was a crowd of men, mostly lounging around on the backs of pickup trucks, talking and drinking beer. Most of them had some type of dog, ranging from German shepherds to Huskies. Once in a while, a dog barked. A huge biker, Charlie I assumed, sat behind a table in front of an entrance to a mine shaft. We heard the small roar of a crowd coming from inside the shaft, along with the sounds of dogs. Greg parked the truck and got out with Mister Lucky on the leash. “You take the gun,” he said quietly. We walked up to the table. Mister Lucky dwarfed all the other dogs we saw. We stepped up to Charlie.
“You want to fight that dog tonight?” Charlie asked. He was huge, even sitting down. He must have weighed more than three hundred and fifty pounds. On the table in front of him sat the wickedest-looking gun I’d ever seen. It was a nickel-plated shotgun, short-barreled, but with a cylindrical magazine attached at the butt end. Charlie noticed my gaze. “That’s a Streetsweeper. Nineteen shots as fast as I can pull the trigger, one in the chamber, eighteen in the clip.” He looked at me. “Evens things up pretty fast, know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean,” I answered.
He turned back to Greg and Mister Lucky. “So how about it?” he said.
Greg shook his head. “No,” Greg said. “We just used him to get through the gate.”
Charlie’s face did something that it probably considered a smile. “Got to get better help around here.” He spit into the dust and looked up at Greg. “If you’re a cop, this is your grave.”
“Do I look like a cop?” Greg said.
Charlie shrugged. “They look different nowadays,” he said. “Used to be easy — anyone with shiny shoes and a short haircut. But now—” He paused. “Well, it’s not so easy.”
“Sure,” Greg allowed. “I’m just looking for somebody.” He took the picture of Mike Ryan out and put it on the table in front of Charlie. The terrible sounds of dogs fighting came from inside the mineshaft, echoing out over the buildings. “Ever seen him?” Greg asked.
Charlie was quiet and then he coughed. “That kid’s gone,” he said. “Forever.”
“How did it happen?” Greg asked.
“He stopped breathing, that’s how it happened. Like it always happens.” He looked at Greg. “Pure accident,” he said. “Lots of accidents in this life.”
“Right,” Greg said. Lightning moved slower than Greg in that next instant, and I was the thunder only a second behind. He had Charlie down on the ground, his right foot on Charlie’s throat and Mister Lucky’s mouth less than an inch from Charlie’s right eye. I had the Streetsweeper, safety off, and was keeping an eye on the men behind us. “Whisper it to me,” Greg said to Charlie. “Tell me about the accident. And don’t do anything to disturb the dog. He’s edgy.” A low growl, like a distant airplane engine, was coming from Mister Lucky. Charlie whispered.
“The kid was on probation in Boise. He worked up here for three weeks, transporting meth and winning with his dog. Then we caught him wearing a wire.” Charlie’s breathing was shallow. Greg increased the pressure of his foot. Charlie croaked it out. “We put him in with the dogs.”
Greg took his foot off. Mister Lucky stayed ready until Greg tugged on the leash. The crowd of men behind us was quiet. Charlie got up slowly.
“No hard feelings,” Greg said. “I had to know.”
Charlie rubbed his Adam’s apple. “Your nights are going to be very dark and scary,” he said. He gave Greg a hard stare. I turned around with the Streetsweeper and my tough kicked in.
“You drugged-out freak!” I shouted. “I’ve got about ten of my buddies from ’Nam within an hour of here. You want me to call in a hail storm from hell?” I was shaking, the Streetsweeper less than an inch from Charlie’s nose. “They’ll feed you your own ass,” I said. “You want some?” I stared at him. “Do you want some!” The trigger pressed against my finger and the whiskey tough wanted to squeeze it.
Charlie shook his head. He watched us as we walked back to the truck and pulled away. We waved to the man at the gate as we passed through. He’d probably be dead by morning for letting us in. He waved back.
The sun started to set as we drove back to Moscow. Greg cleared his throat as we reached the outskirts of town.
“Do you have buddies that were in Vietnam?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“You even fooled me,” Greg said.
We pulled into Harry Ryan’s driveway and Harry Ryan came out of the farmhouse. We got out of the truck. The older white-haired woman was sitting on the porch steps. Harry, Greg, and I walked over by the lentil field. It seemed to stretch out forever. Harry had his back to us, looking at the field.
“How’s my boy?” he said. “Did you find him?”
Greg looked at the ground and then at Harry Ryan’s back. He looked up at the sunset blue sky. “He’s working,” Greg said. As soon as Greg spoke, Harry Ryan started to gently cry. “He’s working up north for the copper kings, just like he wrote you,” Greg said.
Harry Ryan nodded. I could hear him crying as he spoke. “Lie to me again,” he said. “Lie to me, tell me the best one you’ve got.” He was sobbing. “The money’s on the picnic table,” he said, turning around. Harry Ryan started to walk toward his farmhouse. When I turned to look, the old woman on the porch was gone. I picked up the money as we walked back to Greg’s ugly truck and drove away.
Contributors’ Notes
John Biguenet has published fiction in such journals as Book, Esquire, Granta, Playboy, Story, and Zoetrope, where “It Is Raining in Bejucal” appeared. Oyster, his first novel, was published earlier this year, and his first collection of stories, The Torturer’s Apprentice, was widely praised. He has published three books on translation and served two terms as president of the American Literary Translators Association. The winner of an O. Henry Award for short fiction, he currently holds the Robert Hunter Distinguished Professorship at Loyola University in New Orleans.
• Zoetrope commissioned me to write a 10,000-word story based on an idea by Francis Ford Coppola: A man named José Antonio witnesses, at age five, the murder of his mother by his father; fifty years later, he wins a lottery and uses the prize to track down his father. Mr. Coppola was particularly interested in whether the money would lead to justice.
Though I chafed a bit at first under the restraints of the commission, the sensitive and perceptive responses to my work by Adrienne Brodeur and the other talented editors at Zoetrope encouraged me through five drafts. I worked with them on “It Is Raining in Bejucal” for nearly a year and learned yet again that a published piece of fiction is a collaborative work of art.