TWELVE
It was a matter now of the crossing into Mexico. The main bridges over the Rio Grande with their immigration agents and customs officers posed too much of a threat and so were out of the question. And finding shallows you would gamble a truck might navigate would be a marvel of stupidity. But Rawbone knew of a rope ferry south of El Paso near the old Socorro Mission. The river had changed course there near a half-century before, and was a place of isolated sandbars and lonely stretches of shoreline.
They drove through the chilly hours before dawn. A smoky oil lamp hung from the roof frame above the son's head. The father's upturned derby rested on the cab seat between both men. It was filled to the brim with what Rawbone had scavenged from the dead as John Lourdes had ordered. Rawbone watched as John Lourdes meticulously studied each personal item, every bit of identification, holding them up to the trundling light, eyes squinting from the grainy smoke to better read ink that had faded with wear. He would then write certain details down in a pocket notebook he carried. His concentration stayed exact and his hand steady even as the truck pitched and rose on that worthless road.
It seemed to Rawbone he himself did not even exist during these hours. He was, in fact, left to his own private maelstroms and outside the fitted plan. This fed a sense of disadvantage and that always left him uncertain and wary. "Why all the looking and writing, Mr. Lourdes?"
He glanced up from his notebook. "I noticed," he said, "there's no paper money in that derby of yours."
"You didn't order me to grub the dead for your salary."
"I suppose you left it to the buzzards as a charitable donation."
"As a matter of fact, my notion was to buy you something when we're done. In memorial of our time together."
John Lourdes went back to his notebook.
"You didn't answer me, Mr. Lourdes."
"I didn't answer."
"That much I know."
John Lourdes looked up again. He slipped the pencil behind his ear, set the notebook in his lap. He began with the girl at the fumigation building, then following her into Mexico and sketching in a series of strange incidents that took him to that morning at the Mills Building.
Rawbone leaned back and scratched at his cheek with the edge of a thumb. "If I ever meet her, I'll have to remember to thank her for the introduction."
"One of the dead back on that mountain. The Mexican. That was her father."
That detail was like a stone dropped into a pond of still water and the ripples it sent through Rawbone's mind. He said, "I see now."
"Do you?"
"If you want to get to the heart of something, cut away."
John Lourdes had been thinking out how the dead back up on that mountain came to know about him and the truck. It seemed apparent. Mr. Simic and his associates had come upon an alternate way to resolve their unfortunate problem-they notified the people they were supplying that the truck and its cache of munitions had been taken. Rawbone leaned into the steering wheel and listened with unsettling intensity. They had to know the truck had been taken somewhere between Carlsbad and El Paso, so it was likely the munitions were hidden away somewhere not so easily discovered. With only one road between the two cities, how difficult would it be to watch for a truck painted up with lettering like the top of a birthday cake, well—
He was staring toward the dark mesas that stood between him and his immunity when John Lourdes said, "There's something else that you ... we ... need to consider."
"Have at it, Mr. Lourdes."
"Any advantage you ... we ... had is gone. When some of theirs don't return and you come driving up with that truck-"
"It will sure make for conversation, won't it?"
"You know where we're going in Juarez and who we're to talk to. That was part of the deal. Alright. But my responsibility is to discover the names and/or identities of anyone and everyone involved or connected to this criminal enterprise. That's why I had you grab up all those men's personals." He held up the notebook. "That's what I'm writing here. That's why I'm telling you all this now. Those dead back up there in the mountains will have some say on what is going to happen when we reach Juarez."
When John Lourdes had his say, he went back to his work without so much as another word, leaving Rawbone with a reality for which there was no apparent solution. He took a cigarette from its pack. He struck a match on the steering column. His mind was being drawn into the unseen ahead, and the survivor in him began to coolly plot what would best serve him.
"Are you a schooled man, Mr. Lourdes?"
John Lourdes finished what he was noting and then looked up. The question went to the flashpoint of his life. "Oil boy in the roundhouses at thirteen. Railroad detective for the Santa Fe at twenty. Then the BOI. A few night classes in between."
"All that with only a notepad and some native instinct."
"You're never at a loss, are you?"
"I've misfired a time or two."
"But you're always right there and ready to help someone drown."
"With a smile and good cheer."
"We'll have this done in another day, so let's not stumble-fuck over each other. Then you can get on with your miserable existence as a free man."
"I couldn't have said it better myself."
John Lourdes returned to his notebook. He took up the last wallet from the derby.
"I think you misunderstood me," said Rawbone.
"Did I?"
"I only meant you've a clear mind, and it's carried you well."
Even before the sun, came the heat. It was going to be that kind of day. The shadows fell away behind them as the sun rose over the rim of the world and bore light down upon their road.
The last wallet belonged to the man who'd spoken to John Lourdes at the roadhouse. His name was James Merrill. In a side pouch was a tiny print of him in uniform standing before a harbored warship with other members of his squad.
"The one from the roadhouse," said John Lourdes, "must have served in Cuba during the Spanish-American War."
Rawbone leaned back to try and get a look. He asked for the photo. He held it against the steering wheel. The dun-colored print was badly beaten at the edges and deeply faded. It was a moment caught bare. Soldiers laughing and at the ready. Serve a cause, change the world. It was not worth spit now. That's what death had to say about it all. There is only the ever selfish present to consider. Yet even so—
He handed back the photo. "That warship is the China," said the father, "and that's not Cuba, but Manila harbor."
His gaze returned to the road. It was an impossible leap for the son to imagine the father anywhere people embark upon a cause. Yet how else could he have known so quickly?
He went back to the wallet. In another pocket he found a cache of business cards all neatly printed and fairly new. What was written there was sobering to a fault.
They were driving in a region where the earth had been thrust up through the faults of time and the ragged line of rocks the road divided looked as if they had been shaped by a hostile blade saw. The son turned the business cards over and over in his hand.
"There's something here that falls short."
Rawbone glanced at John Lourdes, who handed him the business card. The father held it up and read:
JAMES MERRILL