“What do you think? Sleeping?”
Keeler looked at the sun, raked sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Doors are closed. Probably empty.” He spat tobacco juice. “I been here half an hour waiting for you and ain’t shit moved.”
“Let’s go.”
The men made their way cautiously toward the vehicle, moving away from each other as they drew nearer. Waves of heat rose from the ground and the van looked unreal in the haze. From about thirty yards it was clear to Cole that the front seats were empty. He fanned Keeler onto the rear. At the van, Keeler stood to the side of the rear door and pounded on it with the butt of his shotgun. Nothing. Cole nodded, widened his stance and raised his rifle. Keeler jerked open the door, took a quick glance, fell back a step.
Cole stepped closer. All four were dead, lying on the floor. One was a kid. “Jesus.”
Keeler pointed at a hibachi next to a wheel well. “Trying to hide and cook,” he said. “Dumbshits.”
The sun was beginning its downward slide. Cole parked in a diagonal space in front of the border patrol station in Henning. Keeler pulled in beside him. They went through the door, Keeler tossing an arm around Cole’s neck, saying, “You can’t let this stuff bug you.”
Vivian, the dispatcher, sat at her board. She leaned back and swiveled in her chair as they walked the length of the counter and around. A thin white hand pulled some of the platinum blonde hair from her face. “Pretty bad?” she asked.
Cole lit a cigarette and nodded, shook the match out, leaned against the inside of the counter. Keeler fell in behind a desk, tossed his hat on the rack behind him.
“Your brother called,” Vivian told Cole.
“Yeah?”
“Wants you to call him back.” She switched the air conditioner in the window beside her down to low. “How many?” she asked.
“Four,” Keeler said.
“One was a kid,” Cole said.
“He said it was important,” Vivian said.
Cole looked at her.
“Your brother.”
“He’s a goddamn lawyer. Everything’s important.”
Keeler laughed. “How’s it feel to be the black sheep of your family?”
Cole exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. “Funny.”
“What do your folks say, black black sheep?” Keeler laughed again.
Vivian shook her head. “Winston, you’re retarded.”
“That’s impossible, Viv,” Keeler said. “I ain’t never been tarded in the first place.”
“Where’s everybody?” Cole asked.
“Tuck’s ridin’ the corner.” Vivian glanced at her pad. “And Bernard, he’s out at Pancho Villa. A couple of campers say they got shot at.” The phone rang and she answered. “Puede hablar más despacio?” She switched the air conditioner off altogether. “Dónde?…Si…Si.” She hung up. “Somebody shot Bernard.”
Cole mashed his butt out. “Where is he?”
“The clinic in Mimbres.”
Keeler was up, hat in hand. “You got gas in your ride?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“You call me you hear,” Vivian said as they left.
Babies cried in the clinic waiting room. Cole and Keeler stood at the unmanned desk. Most of the patients were children. Latin parents were often superstitious about their own illnesses, but conscientious about seeking medical care for their young ones. Cole glanced about the room. Mothers looked away from his uniform. He knew some of them were illegals and they knew he knew. He’d seen most of them for a year or more and had known it.
“Hey!” Keeler shouted down the corridor.
A young woman came from a room and walked toward them. “Que le ocurre?” She tugged at her nurse’s whites.
“I’ll tell you what the trouble is,” Keeler said. “We’ve got a friend here and we want to see him.”
“What’s his name?”
“He was wearing a uniform like ours!” Keeler said.
“Bernard Walker,” said Cole.
The woman didn’t answer, pretended to look through papers on her desk.
Cole and Keeler exchanged glances. Cole tapped on the papers in front of her. “Walker.” He studied her eyes. “Es grave?”
She laughed. She gestured for them to follow her down the hallway. They did. In an examination room they found Bernard, flat on his stomach on a table, his gray beard pressed into a pillow with a paper slip. There was a white towel draped over his rear.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Keeler asked.
“Son of a bitch shot me in the ass.”
Cole pulled up a corner of the towel and peeked.
“Get away from there now,” Bernard said.
“You don’t look very shot.” Cole let the towel down.
“Damn pea-shooter twenty-two.” He scratched his beard on the pillow.
Cole stepped back and looked at the prone figure. “You’re not a very long person, are you?”
“Who was it?” Keeler asked. He was at the window, peering out at the dusty alley through drawn blinds.
“It was a kid.”
The doctor came into the room. “Somebody shot your friend in the ass,” he said.
“So we see,” said Cole. “How is he?”
“I don’t know. How was he before?”
“Comedian,” Bernard said.
“The bullet didn’t penetrate very far. It almost bounced off.”
“It hurts like hell.”
“You’re just embarrassed,” Cole said.
“Am not.”
“Butt-wound Bernard,” sang Keeler.
“Cut that out.”
“That’s a good name for you. Butt-wound.”
“Stop it before it sticks.”
“Lie still,” Cole said. “You might shake something loose. You get a good look at the kid?”
‘“You get a good look at the kid?”’ Bernard repeated. “Hell no. Look at where he shot me. I got eyes in the back of my head?”
“I thought you might have been running away or something.”
“You know, I won’t always be stretched out on this table.”
Cole turned to the doctor. “When can he leave?”
“He can get up now.’ Then to Bernard, “Change the bandages a few times a day.”
“Okay, doc.”
Keeler left the window. On his way by he slapped Bernard through the towel. “Let’s roll, butt-wound.”
“Fuck! Keeler, I swear—”
“We’ll be waiting outside,” Cole said. “Where’s your rig?”
“Out on the road.”
In the waiting room, Cole stopped to call Vivian. Keeler went on outside.
“Border patrol,” Vivian answered.
“It’s me, Viv, Cole. Bernard’s okay.’
“What happened?”
“Bernard’ll tell you about it. You go on home. See you tomorrow.”
He stepped out onto the street. With the coming night a cool breeze was starting up. He found Keeler slipping on his jacket. Cole lit a cigarette.
“You oughta give that shit up.”
“I know.”
“I’ll give ol’ Bernard a ride home,” Keeler said.
“All right.”
“What’s eatin’ you?”
“I gotta call my brother.”
“Why don’t you two get along?” Keeler asked.
Cole fell in behind the wheel of his jeep. “It’s not just him, it’s the whole damn family. They way they stay on me you’d think we were related or something.” He cranked the engine.
Keeler laughed. “See you tomorrow.”
The freshly resurfaced Highway 9 split the desert, which lay poorly lighted by a waxing crescent moon sitting low in the west. All the pink of dusk was gone. Cole looked at the sky, found the pole star, then Cassiopeia. It had been a long day and, like the moon, he wanted to follow the sun into hiding. The mild nature of Bernard’s wound had made the immediate business of the matter light, but the fact remained that he had been shot. That was bad. And the van was strange. Something didn’t sit right with him. He recalled the scene, the bodies, no identification for any of them, the hibachi. The van’s tags were from Texas and were hot, didn’t match the van. The men were Mexican. So what? That didn’t make them illegal. He tried to recall everything. There was a sack of jerky and bread, but nothing to cook. Why the hibachi? To keep warm? Why was the grill on it? And the way the bodies were lying about. It was like they knew they were dying, yet no one kicked over the fire. Cole didn’t like it.