by Steven Gould
She splashed water in his face.
“Prepare to drown,” he said.
The battle raged from one end of the pond to the other, with great gouts of water, and more than one dunking. A family of outraged ducks climbed out of the reeds and scolded them from the bank. She cried quarter first, out of breath.
“See?” she said. “It’s been that way the entire trip. You don’t give up so soon.”
“Is that what’s got your panties in a twist? Aren’t you from Kansas City?”
“Yeah, so?”
“What’s the altitude there, two thousand feet?”
“Not even. It’s nine hundred feet.”
“You’re a git.”
“If I weren’t so out of breath I would drown you some more.”
“As if. Why on earth do you think you’re out of breath?”
She looked down again. “Well, it’s obvious. I don’t practice enough.”
He yelled at her. “We’re at seven thousand feet! You don’t have the red blood cells for this altitude! No matter how hard you train, you won’t get enough blood cells without waiting at least six weeks!”
She stared at him. “It doesn’t seem to bother Karen Sensei.”
“Karen Sensei is taking it easy. Karen Sensei is taking frequent breaks. Karen Sensei isn’t trying to impress anyone. And unlike some people, Karen Sensei isn’t a total dork!”
Breathless or not, she caught him and held him underwater. He struggled, but not very hard. It’s not every day a naked woman lays hands on you. Again she had to give up to catch her breath but she got her revenge by dressing very slowly, in full view.
The walk back to the dojo was very uncomfortable for Kimble.
For the rest of the week, Athena stopped trying so hard, saying cheerfully, “Sorry, Sensei, need to catch my breath,” when she needed to. Her shoulders dropped during weapons class and Kimble was able to work with her almost as fast as he worked with Ruth.
The evening before their departure, Ruth asked Athena to teach. She did basics, emphasizing footwork. Kimble took her ukemi, half expecting her to throw him very hard, but she did the techniques slowly, with precision, gently.
It was a good class and Kimble saw Karen and Ruth smiling at each other afterward.
The next morning Athena hugged him when he tried to bow farewell to her. To his surprise, so did Karen Sensei.
“Thanks,” Karen said. “Thanks for your help with Athena.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he mumbled.
“Sure,” said Karen. “But that’s not what she says. So thanks.” She turned to Ruth and hugged her one more time. “I’ll be back for the grand opening. I’ll spread the word.”
Ruth and Kimble watched until the last pack mule went around the bend. Ruth gave Kimble a nod. “Right, then,” she said, and smiled a smile of surpassing sweetness. “Chores.”
Kimble sighed.
“Yes, Sensei.”
8
The Peddler’s Assistant
On the day they set the last tile in place on the dojo roof, Captain Bentham rode into the yard on a dusty brown horse, a lightly loaded sumpter mule following behind. Kimble, sealing the juncture of the roof and the chimney, did not recognize him at first for he was out of uniform and his broad-brimmed Panama hid his face. It wasn’t until Ruth, talking to Captain Bentham in front of the cottage, pointed up at Kimble and the captain looked his way that Kimble recognized the beaky nose and the bushy eyebrows. He flashed back to their discussion on the road between the capital and the Costillos’ ranch.
No hearing necessary if I never recognized you in the first place.
Kimble wondered if the captain had decided to “recognize” him. He thought of his father, and his stomach suddenly began to hurt.
He finished pressing the ceramic flashing into the cement, then carefully made his way down the sloping roof and dropped easily onto the kitchen compost heap.
He looked at Captain Bentham warily. “How are you, Captain?”
Bentham dismounted. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“Captain?” said Ruth.
“Rangers, Sensei,” said Kimble.
“Oh. I guess you know him from when you lived in the capital?”
Bentham glanced sharply at Kimble. “No. We met last month, on the road. In the matter of the bandits.”
Kimble squeezed his eyes shut. He had not yet mentioned the bandits. When he’d returned, Sensei was still having trouble with her asthma. He had mentioned traveling part of the way with friends of the Kenneys and overnighting at their ranch, but the bit with the ladrones and hostage and cinch strap he’d omitted.
Ruth looked sharply at Kimble. He started to open his mouth and she said, “Go clean up. That roofing cement is the nastiest stuff to get off. When you’re done, water the captain’s animals.”
She smiled austerely at Captain Bentham. “Jeremy, was it? Come have some tea.”
The cement was hard to remove. He used sand and soap and water, repeating the cycle many times. Then he took the horse and the mule to the spring, unsaddled them and, reluctant to go back to Ruth, rubbed them down with straw and tied them below the spring where they couldn’t reach the garden but could reach the green tender grass.
When he’d delayed as much as possible, he came back to the cottage. Captain Bentham and Ruth were sitting on the stone bench before the cottage. He approached and sat seiza, on his knees. “I unsaddled your beasts and rubbed them down and put them on the green grass by the spring.”
Bentham looked at him intently, but when he spoke he just said in a mild voice, “Thank you, Kim.”
Ruth stared at Kimble. After a moment, she poured a cup of tea and gave it to him. “Your trip to the capital was a little more exciting than I realized. When was I going to hear about it?”
He gulped his tea. “When I first came back, you were still wheezing, Sensei. Marisol told me to avoid undue excitement.”
“Oh, really?” Ruth’s brows drew together like a gathering thunderstorm.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
Ruth looked away and covered her mouth. Kimble could see her eyes crinkle. After a moment she turned back and said, “I’m glad to hear that the young lady wasn’t injured. Jeremy tells me that her father has made a full recovery from his shoulder wound.”
“Oh. Excellent,” Kimble said. It had happened before he’d intervened, but guilt is a sticky thing, adhering to all manner of events, and it surprised Kimble how relieved he was.
She looked up at the sky. “I like to think that even wheezing as I was, I could’ve handled the story.”
“Yes, Sensei. Sorry, Sensei.” Kimble turned to Captain Bentham. “I meant what I said, on the trail. I won’t go north.”
Jeremy nodded. “And my answer, especially if you could see your way clear to helping me out, is still ‘What are you talking about?’”
Kimble rocked back on his heels. “Oh.”
Ruth looked puzzled again. “Okay, now what little detail did you leave out?” Her voice had hardened again.
Kimble licked his lips. “He knows who I am. About my father, about me being a runaway. When I was up at the capital they had a new flier with an age-adjusted picture.”
“Oh,” Ruth said in a surprisingly small voice. Her expression puzzled Kimble until he realized it was fear.
But she’s not afraid of anything!
“Why are you here?” Kimble asked Bentham. “To check up on my story?”
Bentham sipped the last of his tea. “I checked up on your ‘story’ three weeks ago. I didn’t have to leave the capital to do it.
“In my own building I found the transcript of the trial of a Mr. Samuel ‘Sandy’ Williams. One Kim Monroe led the posse to where Mr. Williams had fallen down a cliff and broken his arm.” He tilted his head forward and looked at Kimble from under his bushy brows. “Very convenient, that. As convenient as a certain bandit falling off his horse.” He cleared his throat. “Also crossing my
desk was a report of outlier bug activity which came to me from your village council with a note doubting the veracity of the report, but listing the members of the group and stating that they are ‘not known to drink excessively.’ Last, I walked over to the Territorial Medical Service and read the monthly case summary for Perro Frio.”
Ruth looked irritated. “Isn’t that a violation of privacy?”
“The report is anonymized, but it lets the service track trends in epidemiology. All I really needed was a line that said ‘one incidence of asthma, probably allergy induced; treated and prescriptions written for the central pharmacy.’”
Kimble didn’t care about that. “What outlier bug activity?”
Ruth jerked her head. “The odd dog with the feral dog pack.”
Bentham nodded.
“Bugs? That was bugs?”
“It seems to be related to the phenomenon known as ‘bugs,’” said Bentham. “I gather such reports. That’s all I’m allowed to say. Anyway, your story was verified a while ago. There were additional inquiries made as my agents passed through. Both of you are very well thought of locally.”
“That’s just creepy,” said Ruth. “How long have you been in intelligence? Doesn’t this blow your cover?”
He turned his hand palm up. “It’s not, shall we say, a state secret. However, I would appreciate it if you didn’t spread it around, either. A quid pro quo, if you like.”
At Kimble’s expression, Ruth said, “Latin: something for something. I take it he means we don’t rat on him, he doesn’t rat on you. The runaway posters and all.”
Captain Bentham said, “The last thing I want is for Kim to get sent out of the territory. After all, I’ve come for his help.”
* * *
IT was a small thing with no danger, at least that’s what Captain Bentham said. “Just get to know some kids over in Parsons. There’s some drug use and we want to find the supplier.”
“You want him to narc for you,” Ruth stated flatly.
“It’s not the kids we’re after. It’s the supplier.”
Ruth sent Kimble off to swim at the beaver pond. He heard voices raised before he reached the bluff’s edge. When he returned to the cottage wet and clean, Ruth told Kimble, “It’s up to you. If you do it, there’s pay, but we don’t need it. If you don’t, that’s all right, too. Captain Bentham won’t rat on us, uh, on you.”
On the ride east, Captain Bentham briefed Kimble a bit more thoroughly than he had Ruth.
In the territory there are several indigenous drugs: marijuana, which can be grown nearly anywhere, mescaline in peyote from the Chihuahuan desert in the southern part of the territory, psilocybin mushrooms grown by man and nature. But recently, Bentham told him, there was a growing problem with methamphetamine use. “And it’s not coming from inside the territory.”
“How can you tell?”
“While you could theoretically make it in the territory, using only glassware and keeping your chemicals in glass carboys, it’s usually a high-metal process. We watch the checkpoints, though, for that sort of thing. It’s far easier for them to make it outside.”
“Don’t you watch the checkpoints for that, too?”
“Of course, and all the borders. But someone’s still running it in. We want to know who and we want to know how.”
He delivered Kimble to Lujan, a wiry man with a tall peddler’s wagon drawn by two sandy mules.
“That’s him?” Lujan said doubtfully.
“Yep,” said Bentham.
“I was expecting someone … older.”
Captain Bentham looked at Kimble and lifted his bushy eyebrows.
Kimble said, “That sure is a big wagon. Do you sell candy? Captain Bentham, can I have some money for some can-dee? Pleeeease? What kind of candy do you have, Mister?”
Bentham laughed. “Stop it, Kim.”
Kim fell silent. He dropped off Captain Bentham’s mule and untied his roll of belongings.
Captain Bentham touched his finger to his forehead, turned his horse and the mule, and rode off, heading north.
Lujan shrugged and said, “Put your stuff behind the seat. You’re my assistant. Prices are chalked inside the compartment doors. You can read, can’t you?”
Kimble nodded.
“Math? Enough to figure change?”
Kimble nodded again.
“You always this talkative?”
Kimble shook his head.
“All righty. Let’s go.”
Parsons was three times as big as Perro Frio. Divided by the Rio San Jose, it had cattle ranches to the south, Dineh shepherds and farmers to the north, and a two-year community college in town. There was also a Ranger barracks, but its troopers patrolled a six-hundred-square-mile area.
Lujan told him, “There’s a two-man security force at the college and a sheriff with four deputies. The deputies are pretty rough—stay away from them.”
Kimble was in town for three days. The evening of the third he and Lujan left, driving west out of town and, after dark, turning into a grove by the river. Captain Bentham was waiting, in uniform this time.
Bentham looked expectantly at Lujan. “Well?”
Lujan jerked his thumb at Kimble. “His work. His story.”
Kimble glared at the peddler, but Lujan just looked back blandly. Bentham turned his attention to Kimble.
Kimble took a deep breath and began. “The regional operation is run by the chief deputy. The sheriff knows something is going on but he takes a cut to ignore it. All the other deputies are in on it. Local distribution is handled by the chief deputy’s cousin, ‘Dash’ Dashefsky.”
“How the—do you know where it’s coming from?”
“It’s Mexican meth, made in Chihuahua but airdropped from a Texas-California overflight. They drop it at fifteen thousand feet with small drag chute. It’s crystal meth. They don’t care that it hits the ground hard. They’re going for accuracy.”
“Where? Where do they drop it?”
“At the south end of the Stevens Ranch, just short of the old refinery.”
The refinery was an active bug site. It was avoided by day, but especially by night, when you could crush a bug accidentally in the dark.
“Night drop?”
“Just before dawn. Next one is Thursday morning, in three days.”
“Are the Stevens involved? Any of their people?”
“Don’t know. It’s the biggest ranch in the area and they’ve lost cattle before. The deputies have blanket permission to sweep for rustlers. No one would think it odd.”
“Anything else?”
“They’ve mostly been selling out of town, wholesale. But they figure they can make a bigger profit getting into retail. They’re eyeing the college kids, figuring they can sell it as a ‘study’ aid. They plan on busting one of them for pot dealing and blackmailing him into dealing for them. That was Deputy Pritts’ idea. He’s a real asshole.”
“How on earth did you learn this?”
“The idiots use their own product. Practically everyone I talked to said what assholes the deputies were. Aggressive. Some of them thought it was a good thing. That they were tough on the ‘criminal element.’”
“You’ve seen meth users before?”
“Sure, in the capital. Street people do all sorts of drugs. I was on the street for over a year.”
“Okay, so what about all those details? You heard that?”
“They have a clubhouse—the Deputies Den, they call it—a two-story building behind the town hall. The sheriff doesn’t go there. The off-duty deputies practically live there, even the married ones.” Kimble looked uncomfortable. “They have women there, too. You know how meth users get their thing on?”
Bentham nodded evenly. “Right. Hypersexuality. Where were you, Kimble?”
“On the roof.”
Bentham closed his eyes. “On the roof.”
“It was the best place to listen.”
“Your teacher is going to kill me. I want
ed you to look for kids, teenagers, who were using. Whoever sold them the drugs. We would’ve traced back from the users.”
Kimble turned his hands palm up. “I looked. I hung out. I talked to rich kids and poor kids and two homeless kids. There’s a little local weed and a lot of underage drinking, but no real stimulants. Then I found a fifteen-year-old girl coming off of crystal, down by the river, crying up a storm.”
“From withdrawal?”
Kimble clamped his mouth shut and looked down at the ground. He started hyperventilating.
Bentham took a step forward, concerned.
Lujan spoke. “She’d been raped.”
Kimble lifted his head and spat out, “It was Pritts. He took her back to the clubhouse and got her high and went at her. He told her no one would believe her. That all the deputies would hang together.” Kimble’s face was almost completely unrecognizable, contorted with rage.
“Ah,” said Bentham, stepping back again. “What’s her name?”
“Francesca Cruz. Her father is a migrant worker, probably from Mexico. She’s terrified of his reaction and terrified he’ll be targeted or deported. That’s just sick.”
“Where is Ms. Cruz?”
Lujan said, “Outside of town, at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy. They run a shelter for battered women. They aren’t going to talk to the deputies. In their experience, the deputies tended to side with abusive husbands. Also, one of their previous clients was the former Mrs. Pritts.”
Bentham reached out and touched Kimble’s shoulder. “The girl told you about the clubhouse?”
“What the hell do you think? Of course she told me!” Kimble’s voice didn’t rise at all but Bentham’s head jerked back.
“What do you want, Kimble?”
“I want it never to have happened!”
Bentham nodded. “Right. Barring that?”
“I want to cut his balls off! I want to shove a cactus up his ass!” He took a deep breath and said in a quieter voice. “I want him to die.”
Bentham nodded. “Understood. Then help me get him. The girl told you about the clubhouse. Next?”
Kimble stared off into the river bottom. “I went up at dusk. There’s a wisteria trellis on the back. The trellis is rotten and brittle but the vines are massive. Pritts and two others on the day shift got there about eleven. Pritts and one of the others started using—smoking rock, I think—and they began discussing the whole scheme. They talked about whether they’d have enough for the local market. Pritts said they’d have plenty after the Thursday drop. One of the others pointed out that the delivery could overshoot and hit the old refinery. Pritts said that hadn’t happened since the second drop and there’d been thirty since then that went off without a hitch.
