“Thank you.”
“You can take your truck.” Igancio opened the door and started to get out, stopped and spoke without looking back. “Martin was not buried in a box.”
“Okay.”
Ignacio shut the door. Lewis slid across the seat. His whole body ached and the cool night air was stiffening him. He could not see Ignacio cross the yard to the morada, but he saw him when he pulled open the door and the strange light shown behind him.
Chapter Twenty-six
Lewis started the engine and realized as he pulled away that he didn’t know where he was. He drove back the way they came and travelled the muddy road, looking for anything familiar in the darkness. The clock in the truck read one-thirty. He reached the main highway and turned north toward his place. He needed a shovel and a light.
The road up to his house was a mess. He slipped and slid his way up the dark trail. The rain let up some. He prayed he wouldn’t meet any headlights. He could imagine his heart failing him at the sight. He had never seen his house so dark and it seemed like ages since he’d been there. The vapor lamp on the barn flickered over the corral.
He walked through the rain to the house, stomping mud off his feet as he climbed the steps. He opened the door and stepped in, switching on the kitchen light without pause. He kicked his shoes off as he closed the door. He put water on to boil and went to his bedroom where he found dry clothes and boots. He realized that someplace along the way he had lost his shotgun. It didn’t matter, he figured. It would do more to get him shot than anything else. The kettle whistled.
In the kitchen, he poured the hot water into a bowl and stirred in a package of instant soup. He turned on the radio and ate while he listened to a call-in talk show. People complained and asked what could be done about workers’ compensation, which was not commensurate with the limb lost and missing baggage for which the airlines refused to take responsibility and pit bulls terrorizing a neighborhood. Lewis listened to the host ask for calls and considered picking up the phone. “Hello,” he would say, “my friend’s been kidnapped and will be killed if I don’t come up with a dead old Mexican. What should I do?” He swallowed the last of his tea and laughed. He was losing his mind.
He put on his raincoat over a sweater, grabbed a flashlight and left the house. The rain was light now. As he drew nearer the barn, he could see it. One of the horses stood over something large in the mud. The light on the barn flickered like a strobe. His legs became rubbery as he realized the gelding was standing over the mare. He went to her. Water stood in the mud around her. Her legs were folded awkwardly beneath her body. He shined the light on her. There was a hole in the middle of the race mark on her face. There was no blood; she had been washed by the rain. Lewis vomited up his soup and staggered to the barn door for support.
He didn’t have time to think about this now. He didn’t have time to think. Thinking was a bad idea. He went into the barn and got the shovel and a tarp. He trotted out toward the truck without looking at his fallen animal.
It was three-forty when Lewis turned off the main road and drove toward Lobos Canyon. This muddy road was worse than the one up to his house. He wondered if it had ever seen a grader. The rain had picked up again. He came to the arroyo. It was full and flowing quickly. He hesitated only briefly, then plowed forward. The water was deeper than he’d guessed and the flow stronger. The truck dipped down and the water pushed the back of it, but he made it across. The road ended.
He got out and shined his light up the foot path. He grabbed the shovel out of the back and started to count out the forty yards. If it had not rained, it would have been simple to find the freshly dug grave. Forty yards about. He moved the beam of the light through the trees and over the ground. There was a dead tree not far from him. The ground beside was muddy, no pine needles and grass. In the mud was a discarded can which had contained Vienna sausages.
Lewis started digging. At least the rain made digging easy. He threw the mud and dirt gently as if that made the action less disrespectful. He balanced the flashlight on the log and had it shine down into the hole. The smell hit him, then the shovel caught on something, but it wasn’t hard and he remembered that Martin had not been buried in a coffin. He put down the shovel and dropped to dig with his hands. He found Martin. He grabbed the light and shone it on him. Maggots crawled on his face, in his mouth, around his eyes. Lewis looked up at the sky and screamed, screamed as loud as he could. He tried to throw up, but nothing came. He just dry heaved, the muscles of his entire body pressing to release something that was not there.
He shouted at himself. “Do it! Just do it!” And he reached down and tried to free the body from the earth. “Do it! Don’t think! Oh, God!” He pulled the body from the hole and fell back, panting. He could not stop. He had to keep moving, not thinking. Get him to the truck, into the back of the truck and you won’t have to see him, he said to himself. He draped the naked body over his shoulder. He wasn’t heavy. Death wasn’t heavy, he thought. He was surrounded by the stench and hoped the rain would wash it off.
He dumped the body into the truck and covered it with the tarp. He stood and held his arms wide and let the rain rinse the mud and maggots and stench of death off of his raincoat. He got into the truck, leaned his head forward against the wheel and cried.
He sat there for a long time. He looked at the clock. It was five o’clock now. The rain had stopped. He turned around and went back toward the arroyo. Without the rain he could see the flow and it didn’t look so bad. He drove through the water and plowed through the mud to the highway. So, where was he going to take the body? He half-cried, half-laughed to himself. He could feel tears on his face. His nose was running. He rolled down the window to let air push the smell out of the cab.
Blue lights flashed behind him. Lewis pulled over and Manny appeared at his door. Lewis wiped his face and looked at him.
“Early for you to be out,” Manny said.
Lewis looked out over the flat. Some hint of the day to come was there. “You know what they say about the early bird,” Lewis said.
“Yeah.” Manny looked into the back.
“I’m sorry about your office.”
“It’s been messier than that. So, just what got into you? What were you saying about Maggie?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m sorry, Lewis. I thought when you called you were just over-reacting. She still hasn’t shown up?”
“No, she called.” Lewis didn’t feel he could trust Manny. If Manny knew he had the body, he might take it, might have to take it. Lewis became more nervous.
Manny looked again into the bed of the pickup. “You told me she was missing over the radio.”
“I said she had been missing. I was just mad because you hadn’t looked for her. She stopped to visit a friend in Santa Fe. Sorry, I didn’t tell you.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“All this stuff about Martin, it’s making me crazy.”
“I didn’t know about your temper.”
Lewis rubbed his palms together. “Yeah, it can get out of hand.”
“Want to step out of the truck, Lewis?”
“Was I speeding?” Lewis chuckled.
Manny shook his head. “No, but there is a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s your tailgate.”
“What about it?”
“It’s down. It’s got to be up.”
Lewis pushed open the door and got out.
Manny fell back a step. “Jesus Christ, Lewis, what’d you get into?” He fanned the air with a hand. “You smell like a dog that’s been rolling.”
“I found a dead coyote in my pasture and I took him to the dump.”