by JT Sawyer
“Lo siento, Miguel,” were the last words he heard. His mouth hung open, staring into the familiar but impassive face as the swing of the machete sped towards his neck.
Chapter 2
One Year Later
Kearns Ranch, Thirty-Three Miles North of the Border
A blonde finger of sunlight was pushing past a narrow opening in the white curtains of the bunkhouse as Mitch woke up. He heard the pleasing sound of a purple finch on the back porch as he stared up at the twelve-inch beams in the ceiling. He could recount every crack and nuance in the weathered pine supports as if he had carved them himself. Many a morning in his teens he had spent staring up at those logs, wondering where they had been cut and about the cowboys who hauled them to his uncle’s ranch when the Kearns family first settled into this region during the 1920s.
He took a deep breath and let his senses soak in the familiar surroundings, his mind racing over the details of his youth. Until his parents’ untimely death when he was twelve, Mitch had mostly spent weekends and summers at the ranch, helping out and learning from the older cowboys. Afterwards, his uncle became a father figure and Mitch moved permanently into the main house with his three cousins, spending his youth growing up in a way of life that had all but disappeared from the modern world.
Mitch thought about the events that had led him to live here, pushing away the heartbreak of losing his parents and focusing on their good times together instead. Over the years, he had whittled back the visits to their graves to no more than a few minutes even though they were located in a grove of trees not far from the main house. He was grateful for everything his uncle had taught him and the kindness that he had imparted, but he had left for the army as soon as he could to be free of the pain associated with this place. Even when he worked a few hours away with the FBI in Phoenix, Mitch only came back for brief visits and family get-togethers. Now, he felt a sliver of that loss seeping back in and knew he would only be able to stay a short time lest he be swallowed up by old memories. He and Dev were taking a much-needed vacation from work in Israel and he wanted to show Dev some of his childhood haunts along with having her meet his uncle.
He felt a hand slide across his chest and turned to look into Dev’s brown eyes.
“You seem so intent—are you planning what you’re gonna make me for breakfast?” she said with a smile, pressing her lips into his neck.
“Knowing my uncle, breakfast was three hours ago but I’ll see what I can scare up for you.”
“‘Scare up’—I love when you talk romantically like that.” She chuckled then nibbled on his ear. “Besides, nobody eats breakfast that early.”
“Don’t get any ideas about keeping me in bed. My uncle and the other cowboys won’t like it if we slack off,” he said with a smile before continuing, “But I’ll be happy to oblige you later.”
She swung her body on top of his, pinning his wrists on the bed. “You don’t decide anything today, mister. This is my vacation too and I just got in late last night so what happens today is up to me.”
“Is that so?” he said, feigning like he was resisting her grip as his smile widened.
She lowered her head to kiss him while slowly releasing her hold on his wrists. Mitch slid his hands along her back, brushing one of the thin shoulder straps on her black nightgown so it slid down. Then he kissed her while rolling his hips to the side. He flung her onto her back and began tickling her ribs with his fingers.
“It just wouldn’t be right if I let you boss me around all day. You do enough of that back at Gideon.”
Dev began writhing, pressing her forearm to her lips to contain her laughter. “Stop; your cousin’s kids are going to hear me.”
He slid on top of her and kissed her tan shoulder. “Wait, Dev Leitner is acting shy?” He lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at her while holding back a grin as he continued to tickle her.
She lightly jabbed a fist into his side then coiled her arm back for another strike while laughing. “Stop or the next one will cost you a rib.”
As Mitch taunted her with his poised fingers, they heard a knock on the wooden door followed by a young man clearing his throat. “Uhm, pardon me, Uncle Mitch, my dad wanted me to check and see if you’d all be joining us for breakfast.”
Dev jabbed him in his side, her lips forming a wicked smile as she whispered, “See, I told you they hadn’t eaten breakfast yet.”
Mitch slid to Dev’s side, flicking her in the shoulder with his finger. “Alright, Travis, but Dev is still pretty groggy so tell ’em we’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Dev patted him on his cheek then turned and sat on the edge of the bed, removing clothing from her suitcase with a scrutinizing eye. “What the heck should I wear today? We going in the field, we staying put here—and what are the temps like this time of year?”
“Any of your clothes there will be fine. Save the shorts, sandals, and tank tops for when we go to Tucson though. Everything in the desert out here pierces, pokes, stabs, or impales so long pants and boots are in order.”
Mitch had slid on a pair of blue jeans and was tucking in a green, long-sleeved button-up shirt as he craned his head out the window. “Looks like blue skies to me on the weather report—and as far as what we’re doing, I thought we’d hang out here and visit with my family since they only talked to you for a couple of minutes last night, then I wanna give you a tour of the grounds. There are some cool prehistoric ruins out back too that we can check out once it cools off towards the evening.”
“How hot does it get this time of year?” she said, pulling on a navy blue tank top over her sports bra, then a pair of jeans over her underwear.
“Mmm, it’ll be around a hundred here by eleven, maybe a little beyond that by midday. Nothing you can’t handle.” He pointed to her boots near the door, which she was reaching for. “And always check your footwear for scorpions.”
She chuckled. “Haha.”
“That’s no joke. This bunkhouse has probably been sprayed but it’s still a good habit to get into.” He smacked his weathered cowboy boots against the stones of the fireplace then turned them upside down. “Why, one time I even got nailed by a scorpion in my bed there—two jabs right on my back.”
Dev froze in place and scanned the sheets where they were just lying, then took a step back and darted her eyes along the floorboards while clutching her boots. “And you will be providing me with a firearm soon, yes?”
Mitch removed a tattered brim hat from the closet shelf and slowly slid it over his head, remembering all the years he’d spent under its protection from the elements. “Now that’s exactly why I won’t be giving you a weapon for a while, because you’d be shooting at every lizard and snake around the place.”
She flung her head back then slid her boots on after the inspection. “You must know how much I love you if I’m willing to brush aside my hatred of these creepy crawlies to be here.”
He moved up to her, pulling her to him by the waist. “Believe me, darlin’, I know. I promise this’ll be a two-week break from work for you.”
Mitch kissed her then opened the bedroom door and walked into a small foyer which was lined with tack gear. This led out to a screened porch that hung off the twelve-by-twenty stone bunkhouse which overlooked the main ranch. He noticed some fresh lizard tracks in the dust along the baseboards. The diminutive size of the angled feet and the S-curve of the tail drag indicated it was a small spiny lizard.
Walking out into the sunlight, Dev adjusted her new cowboy hat as Mitch pointed out the different buildings. His deep attachment to the place was evident in the way he spoke. As they strolled along, he kept averting his eyes from a small knoll in the distance where two gravestones were visible. The sight of his parents’ final resting place made him feel like a black hole in his chest was dilating. He liked to dwell on the happier times of his childhood before they died and just couldn’t bear to go there as he neared the age of his own father when he’d passed.
“Whe
n my grandparents bought this land in 1928, there were only three buildings on it, including that old bunkhouse of mine which was built by the first ranchers here in 1891. Over the years, we’ve added onto the main house where my uncle and his kids lived and many of the other smaller structures were built for the ranch foreman and cowboys we hire on seasonally.”
He paused to gently kick a small tumbleweed out of the way. “The original deeded land in our name is 3,400 acres but it takes a lot of land to feed cows in Arizona, around 640 acres for eight cows actually, so we lease around 43,000 from the forest service areas adjacent to us. That’s just to run five hundred head of cattle each year. If this were Montana, we’d need a third of that spread.”
“You said your uncle’s kids ‘lived’ here,” Dev said, pointing to a large house they were heading towards. “Are they not doing the ranching?”
Mitch bit his lower lip and sighed. “Well, no, most of them except the oldest one have moved to Tucson or Phoenix and have regular jobs, you could say. My uncle hires on other cowboys during the peak season now.” He stopped under the shade of a large willow tree. “That’s kind of a real sore spot for him actually, so I wouldn’t bring it up.”
“How come they didn’t stay and take over the family business?” Dev waved her hand to her right, tracing her fingertips along the ridgeline of an immense canyon. “Seems like a beautiful place to make a living.”
“Ranching’s not what it used to be. Most beef now comes out of South America, where it’s cheaper to raise cattle. But even before that, when I lived here, it was a hard life.” He shook his head and gazed at the cactus-strewn terrain dotting the hillsides. “Ranching was just brutal—it’s a rough way to make a living, bein’ out in the elements trying to take care of a herd of cattle when it’s hard enough just getting yourself through a triple-digit day. Then the roundup comes, usually from the first week of May to July fourth and you’re gathering up all these free-range cows that have been livin’ wild for ten months then getting them back here to ship off.” He put his hands on hips. “It’s back-breaking work. Most cowboys around the U.S. only make $750 a month so it’s not a job you get into for the paycheck.”
“You join the army instead if you want to get rich,” said a familiar voice to Mitch. They both turned as they heard the crunching of gravel under someone’s boots to their right. Mitch’s uncle emerged from around the corner of the main house, his gait revealing a slight limp. “At least that’s what I was told in younger days,” said Douglas Kearns as he came up beside Mitch and patted him on the shoulder. The older man leaned in towards Dev, extending his thick hand.
Chapter 3
“Doug Kearns, and you must be Devorah—the lovely lady my nephew is always talking about when we chat. Why, I can just hear him smiling through the phone—as happy as a little dog with two tails.” He winked at Mitch and grinned, then returned his gaze to Dev. “Sorry I missed you last night when you got in. I usually turn in after that dark spell hits in the evening.”
“Mitch was just filling me in on the history of the place and the fascinating world of you American cowboys. We don’t have anything like this back home.” She pressed a finger into her chin. “In fact, I can’t think of anywhere else outside of maybe Australia where there are cowboys.”
“Dyin’ breed and all that, though there are some in Argentina left too—hell of a bunch of ropers,” Doug said. The deep furrows in his tan face wrinkled further every time he spoke. “But we’ll all be dyin’ soon if we don’t get inside and snag some morning grub before my cook gets ornery.”
They walked beside each other under the shade cast by the numerous trees surrounding the single-story house with its wraparound porch.
“Ole Diego is still on board as the cook, eh?” said Mitch.
“He is—can’t seem to get rid of him. Plus, we’d all get skinny if I was in charge of fixing the grub.”
Mitch always enjoyed the comic banter between his uncle and Diego, who acted like an old married couple whether they were on the trail or back at the ranch. Both men had buried their wives in younger days and never remarried, seeking instead the solace that comes from working under open skies in the company of trusted friends.
Mitch pointed at his uncle’s right leg. “What slowed you down this time—you get bucked off a horse?”
“Nah, slipped on some rubble out at Cigarette Springs last week. I was fixing the pipe that comes out of the back of the cave so the water wouldn’t get hung up in all that gunk in the catch basin, and I lost my footing on a bunch of rocks piled to the side.”
“Cigarette Springs?” Dev said with a quizzical expression.
“It’s a water source near one of our remote line camps, about three days’ ride from here,” Mitch said, pointing at a mesa over his shoulder. “In times past, the older cowboys would sleep in the cave during bad weather and they’d toss their cigarette butts in the rubble. After a hundred years of people doing that, you can imagine the sight.
“Why were you up there—that’s not even a place we use until the fall,” he asked his uncle.
“Damn mules wrecked the spring.” He paused to glance back at Dev. “Mules are what we call drug runners—they transport the bails of marijuana from Mexico to their guys waiting up north.” He patted Mitch on the arm. “Didn’t you regale her with that tale of us finding that poor Mexican boy who was strung up from the tree by the spring all those years ago?”
Mitch tilted his head and frowned. “Nah, I figured she’d be getting an earful from you and Diego.”
“Thought you might’ve forgotten about that.”
“Not likely; that’s one thing you can’t ever get out of your head.”
His uncle laughed then looked back at Dev, who wore a puzzled expression. Dev folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t the border forty miles from here though? How do they get up this far without getting caught?”
“My dear,” said Doug, touching the side of her arm. “There’s the border on the map and then there’s the actual border where the cartels run their operations, and that is between Tucson and Phoenix these days.”
Mitch nodded his head in affirmation. “I should take you down south sometime and show you how porous our border is here. You’d be shocked. It’s nothing like the militarized zones in the urban regions back in Israel. This is just wide open desert and the cartels have a lot of unmonitored crossing points to choose from with little more than a three-foot-high barbed wire fence separating our two countries.”
“Or they tunnel under the more fortified regions near the cities or even use ultralight planes, landing on tribal lands, where the locals give them access in exchange for funds,” said Doug as they stepped onto the front porch.
Mitch piped in again. “And the current director of Homeland Security back in DC wants to make it look like we don’t have any border security issues for her boss’s re-election, so she has been reducing agents at key crossing points, which means fewer arrests.”
Doug sighed. “Now, many of the ranchers feel like they have to turn their places into fortresses and always be on the lookout for bandits—like raising cattle out here ain’t hard enough as it is.”
Doug put his arms around Dev’s lean shoulders. “But let’s put all that aside for now and go enjoy some breakfast.” He led her into the house. “And I want to hear more about what you do. Mitch has told me so much about you, I feel like this isn’t the first time we’ve met.”
Mitch smiled at her as she was whisked away and told to sit beside Doug near the head of the table as the other ranch hands gathered to partake of Diego’s sumptuous spread of food.
***
After breakfast, Mitch accompanied Diego out on the back porch. The older Mexican cowboy was hand-rolling a thin cigarette while staring ahead at two black-chinned sparrows perched on the branch of a nearby tree.
Though Diego conversed infrequently, the man’s silence spoke volumes and Mitch had learned a lot about what it meant to be a self-reliant
man from watching this accomplished cowboy over the years. Whether it was blacksmithing, shoeing horses, fixing saddles, or campfire cooking, the weathered figure moved with a graceful efficiency that was born from a lifetime spent on his particular fieldcraft skills. However solo the ranching lifestyle was at times, Diego was also a devoted family man and he looked out for the other cowboys like they were his own kids. This sheepdog mentality stemmed as much from his rugged way of life as it did from Diego’s adherence to traditional family values which arose from his upbringing in a small village in central Mexico.
Diego pulled his eyes away from the birds and tucked the rolled cigarette between his lips. He removed a strike-anywhere match from his shirt pocket and used a swift stroke across the side of his jeans to ignite it. After he’d taken a long drag on his cigarette, Diego glanced over at Mitch who was looking at the tarnished knife in a leather sheath attached to his belt.
“Still got that old blade I gave ya all those years ago, eh?”
Diego nodded slowly. “Cuts like it did on the first day. A tool like that ya never leave out of your sight.”
Mitch’s lips formed a faint smile, remembering how much he enjoyed Diego’s pragmatism.
“You get back across the border much to visit the town where you grew up?” said Mitch.
Diego spat out a tiny fleck of tobacco that had become dislodged from the end of his cigarette. “Nah, those days are gone, I think—too dangerous now.” He tilted his head, pointing with his chin over his shoulder. “Besides, my home and family are here.”
He rested his meaty hand on Mitch’s shoulder. “What about you, my boy—ever find a place you could call home after all your wanderin’ around the globe?”
Mitch looked up at a single cumulus cloud passing over the rim of the canyon in the distance then he let out a long sigh.
Diego patted him on the arm. “You will—we all do eventually. And you’ll know it deep in your bones like a horse kicked you in the side. Until then, you keep your hands busy doing some honest work and enjoying the sunsets.” He nudged Mitch with his elbow. “And preferably with a fine woman like your Devorah. I like her—she’s got a mean handshake.”
