markwildyr.com,
Post #120
*****
GROVE
A Curt Huntinghawk Story
Four vultures circling
over the hot Sonoran Desert caught the two Red Rezes attention. As Curt
Huntinghawk and Grover Whitedeer watched, more birds joined the quartet and set
up a slow spiral descent.
“Whatever it is, it’s big,”
Grove observed, gunning the four-wheel drive vehicle across the hard desert
pan. They were only two hours into their patrol of a stretch of the Mexican
border on the lookout for drug runners.
Hawk’s deep baritone
filled the cabin. “Hope to hell it’s not another illegal.” His biceps rolled as
he tossed a twig he’d been idly chewing out the open window. The pair seldom
used the air conditioner because it made exiting the vehicle more insufferable.
Grove flapped a hand toward
the twenty or more buzzards now wheeling in the sky like a black-feathered
tornado. “Where’d they all come from?”
“They’re just trying to
earn a living, Grove,” Hawk joked grimly.
After Grove halted the
truck at the top of the rise, they got out with rifles at the ready. Fifty
yards down a wash, something lay unmoving. One turkey vulture contemplating it
from a perch on a nearby rock dropped to the ground. Hawk fired his rifle into
the air, but the carrion bird only retreated to a more remote roost.
“Oh, shit!” Hawk said as
they drew closer.
As two-year veterans of
the Rezagados Colorados, or Red Rezes, an elite
unit of Indian trackers used by the Border Patrol to hunt drug runners along
the Mexican border, they had seen dozens of wetbacks left to die on the desert
by their coyotes or guides. But this was different. The man lying in the
arroyo had been murdered, his chest ripped apart by a high-powered rifle.
Hawk went back to the
truck to radio his boss Amadeo Tomé to contact the county sheriff. While they
waited for the deputies to arrive, Grove remained close to keep the vultures at
bay while Hawk walked a big circle. By the time Sheriff Adam Reed arrived an hour
later, they had a story to tell.
“The bad guy parked up
here, Sheriff,” Hawk explained, indicating indistinct tracks in the hard pan. “After
he shot the man, he walked down the slope to the body, keeping to the rocks. On
his way back up, he wiped out all his tracks. You can see smudges but not a
clear print.”
The Sheriff grunted. “Left
us nothing, huh?”
“There’s something over
here,” Grove said. The something was a three-foot length of tire track where the
killer crossed a sandy spot.
“This far out in the
desert, had to be a four-wheel rig,” the lawman observed. “You fellows see any
sign of one on your patrol?”
“Nothing. Not even a dust
plume,” Hawk replied. “But see that chink out of the tread. We’ll know that
tire when we see it again.”
Sheriff Reed glanced down
the slope to his men working the crime scene. “So you figure the victim was
shot first, then the killer went down to the body… for what? To make sure he
was dead?”
“Wouldn’t have climbed
down for that,” Grove said. “He’d just pump another couple of rounds into the
man. He went to get something.”
“Drugs,” the sheriff
suggested.
“That’s what we figure,”
Hawk confirmed. “We didn’t get too close to the body; didn’t want to mess up
the crime scene. But when your people are finished, we can take a look for signs
to read.”
An hour later, the two
Rezes searched the area, now thoroughly trampled by sheriff’s deputies and the medical
examiner’s people. Hawk was the one who found an impression almost obscured by the
deputies’ footprints.
“Something about the size
of a duffel bag was dropped here. That’s what the killer came for.”
“How you know?” a deputy
demanded.
Hawk eyed him coolly. “Because
it’s not here.” Their unofficial part of the investigation over, the two
Indians resumed their patrol.
“Hey, bro,” Grove broke
the silence after a mile or so. “Aren’t you tired of living like a monk? How
about we go across the border tonight.” To Grove ‘going across the border’ meant
only one thing…poontang, as the southeastern Woodland Indian called it.
Hawk recognized a ploy to
get a gruesome murder off his partner’s mind. “You ever think about settling
down?”
“Nope.”
“What’s the matter with
us. Man, we’re twenty-three years old—”
“Not me, Tonto. Still a
young buck at twenty-two.”
“Yeah, for another month
or so. Seriously, why haven’t we found somebody to get serious about and settle
down. You know, have kids.”
“Overrated,” Grove
quipped.
“You got any kids?”
“Not that I know of. No
matter how drunk I get, I’m kinda careful about that.”
“Don’t gimme that, I’ve
seen you ride bareback.”
“Yeah, if she’s using
something.”
“That’s putting a lot of
faith in somebody.”
“Ain’t that the truth. How
about you?”
“Kids, you mean? Nah.”
Hawk glanced out the
window to study a pile of rocks known as Dragon’s Back where he’d met and
fallen in love with a young illegal Mexican national. Ramon Aquila had introduced
Hawk to his secret life. Hawk spoke in a near whisper. “Wonder if we’re looking
in the wrong place?”
“What do you mean?”
Hawk’s mind returned to
the truck from wherever it had gone in time to cover his gaffe. “Crap, we find
them in bars and on the streets.”
“Where you wanna find
them? In church?” Grove seemed his question serious consideration. “You figure
church chicks fuck?”
"You’re impossible! Every
conversation ends up about screwing.”
“Answer my question? You
wanna go across tonight? We’ve got the weekend off.”
Hawk pumped enthusiasm
into his words, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Sure, let’s go.”
Hawk and Grove frequented
Mama Maria’s when they looked for a woman across the border in Mexico because her
prostitutes were inspected regularly and thoroughly. They picked a couple of
decent looking women of a proper age and got their ashes hauled. On the drive
back across the border, Hawk felt prickly and vaguely dissatisfied. While he’d
been in the middle of the act with the girl, his thoughts strayed to Ramon. And—he
turned to glance at his partner—to Grove.
God, he looked great!
Nothing better’n a good-looking Woodland Indian. Unless it was a good-looking Plains
Indian, or… oh, hell, a good-looking Indian.
“What?” Grove asked.
“Nothing.”
“You were thinking about
my girl tonight. You wished you were with her instead of the one you ended up
with.”
Close, but not on
target. “She did seem like a hot tamale.”
Grove grinned. “She had a
hot little twat, I can tell you.”
“Hot what?”
“Twat.”
Hawk laughed aloud.
Grove went defensive. “It’s
good word. What we called it back home, anyway.”
Hawk snickered. “What are
you, a redskin or a southerner?”
“Both! No law against
that.”
Hawk’s
morale took a nosedive as soon as he opened the door to the rented adobe house
where he lived alone. He almost regretted turning down Grove’s invitation to
the Blue Mesa, a bar many of the Red Rezes frequented. He’d been afraid to go.
Given the wild thoughts filling his head, he couldn’t chance alcohol unleashing
his tongue.
He missed Ramon Aquila… longed
for the boy with every fiber of his body. But Ramon was gone and wouldn’t be
back. He was a fugitive from the INS, and risked prison if he returned. So Hawk
had sent him back to Durango, Mexico, ending that sweet part of his life
forever.
And now? Now, he was
slowly, but surely falling for his best friend. Although Grove was adventurous
and might do a lot of things out of curiosity, something like that would get in
the way of his macho self-image. Danger lay in that direction.
*****
It’s
pretty clear that Curt Huntinghawk, the man usually in control, has a
problem. How’s he going to handle it? Let’s see next week.
As usual
when I have a three-part or more story, I’ll post weekly until it’s ended. Then
I’ll return to first and third Thursday of the week.
Tell your
friends to order a copy of Cut Hand and
Johnny Two-Guns from Dreamspinner Press. I’d like to convince
them to publish the rest of the Cut Hand Series, including the unpublished
manuscript Wastelakapi… Beloved,
It’ll take some help from readers to get Dreamspinner interested.
My contact
information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:
Website and blog: markwildyr.com
Email: markwildyr@aol.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr
Twitter: @markwildyr
The
following are buy links for CUT HAND:
And now my mantra: Keep
on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!
Until next time.
Mark
New posts at 6:00 a.m. on each Thursday
until the story is finished. Then we’ll return to first and third Thursday of
the month..
No comments:
Post a Comment