Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  “Por favor,” she said, and moved down the bar a bit. From there, she leaned forward, resting her elbows onto the bar. The position pushed up her breasts and accentuated her cleavage. She beckoned me with a head movement. My mouth went a little dry and I stepped closer to the bar. Her perfume hinted at oranges and spice. She reached out and tapped my badge with a tapered, red nail. Her voice lowered to a husky, conspiratorial whisper. “It is nice to have the law around to keep things from getting loco.”

  My face grew warm. “Now you’re teasing me.”

  A smile played on her full lips. I looked into her dark, smoky eyes and held her gaze.

  “Tal vez,” she cooed.

  “Perhaps,” I repeated back.

  “But you’ll still look around, won’t you?” she said, and turned to leave.

  I watched her go, gliding around the end of the bar and to a table in the corner. Two young Hispanic cowboys, whom I didn’t recognize, sat in the booth and followed her with their eyes, just like I did.

  “I hate them,” muttered Pete from his barstool.

  “Aw, they’re just having a couple of beers,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “They look at her.” The word dripped off his tongue like poison.

  “Everyone does.” I pulled a five dollar bill from my pocket and put in on the bar next to Pete’s beer.

  He turned away from the cowboys and regarded me. “What’s that for?”

  “Next one’s on me, that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  “I gotta have a reason?”

  Pete’s expression remained hard and he didn’t answer.

  “Who bought me my first beer in La Sombra?” I asked him.

  “Dunno.”

  “Hell you don’t. It was you, right here at the Tres. My hair hadn’t even grown out from the Army yet.”

  Pete shrugged and flicked his eyes back at the cowboys as they bantered with Isabella. Her laughter tinkled through the air like tiny bells.

  “Pete,” I said.

  He shifted his gaze to me. “What?”

  I smiled my best Texas grin. “Just enjoy your beer. All right?”

  He stared at me for a few moments, then lowered his eyes to the beer in front of him and nodded. Tres Estrellas was famous for its potent Mexican tequila and weak American beer. I was glad Pete was drinking the latter. He spent too much time on that barstool, night after night, dreaming about what he could never have. I knew, because I sometimes dreamed the same foolish dream.

  I left Pete and strolled toward the back rooms. One contained three pool tables and two dartboards. On a busy weekend night, I could barely jostle through and smoke would hang in the air like a thundercloud. Tonight, Jack Talbott shot a game of nine ball, alone except for his newest girlfriend, a platinum blonde. She might have been twenty-two and with an IQ to match. Instead of cigarette smoke, the air was full of her perfume.

  “Carl,” he said, chalking the tip of his cue.

  I gave Jack a neighborly nod and stepped into the back room.

  At first, I thought it was empty, but then I saw two Mexicans in the nearest booth, hunkered over their drinks. Neither one made eye contact. One pulled the bill of his dirty ball cap low over his eyes. The other squeezed further into the corner.

  “Buenas noches,” I said.

  They muttered the words back to me with thick accents. One cast a quick, wary glance up at me before returning his eyes to his tequila.

  I thought about it for a second, checking them over. Dirty clothes, rough hands. Hard workers, I figured, and not likely to be any trouble. I touched the brim of my hat, turned and headed back to the main bar.

  “You check them two for green cards?” Jack asked me as I strode past. “’Cause my money says they’re wetbacks.”

  Miss Twenty-two giggled at his witty word choice.

  “They’re legal workers,” I said, and kept walking.

  Jack wouldn’t let it lie. “Bullshit. You weren’t in there long enough to check.”

  I turned back to face him. “What’s that?”

  “You heard me, Carl. Ain’t no way you checked them boys for green cards or any other damn thing.” His jaw jutted out, challenging me.

  “I suppose you’re an immigration expert,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No, but I am an expert on spic lovers. And you, my friend, are one.”

  Heat flushed my face. The roof of my mouth itched. People with Jack’s way of thinking were part of the reason things never changed down here. I thought of a dozen responses and not all of them involved words. Finally, my eyes settled on the blonde at his side. “Your wife meet your new secretary yet, Jack?”

  His face blanched and his mouth hung open for a moment before snapping shut. “You—”

  “Wife?” the blonde screeched. “You have a wife?”

  I turned on my heels and headed back to the bar.

  Isabella stood in the corner at the cowboys’ table. She rested her palms on the edge and leaned forward coquettishly. A smile played on her lips. Both men bore huge grins. A small flare of jealousy burned in my gut as the song on the jukebox trailed off.

  Pete was halfway from his barstool to the corner table when I walked in. He pushed up the sleeves of his jacket as he strode purposefully.

  “Pete!” I barked.

  It was a mistake, raising my voice like that. All eyes turned to me. Now if I gave Pete an order, he’d never live it down.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked him, softening my tone.

  Pete stared at me for a moment, then back at the table. I used the time to cross the distance between us, took Pete by the arm and led him outside. He pulled against me once, but I jerked his arm close to my body and kept walking.

  Once outside the bar, Pete pulled away again and this time I let him go. We stopped a few paces away from the door. The odor of gas fumes from the parking lot and manure from the stockyards across the street replaced the bar smell of cigarettes and beer. All four smells burned my nose and would likely hang on my uniform for the rest of my shift.

  Pete stood with his shoulders slumped, all hang-dog and pushing gravel rocks around in the dust with the toe of his boot.

  “Those boys don’t need any trouble,” I said.

  “Don’t reckon so,” he mumbled.

  “And she’s just being friendly with the customers.”

  “Bit too friendly, way I see it.”

  “Friendly folks spend friendly money,” I said. “Isabella knows that.”

  “’Spose.”

  I hitched my thumbs in the front of my belt and appraised him. “What were you figuring to do, Pete? Take on both of them?”

  He shrugged. “Guess so.”

  “Not really a fair fight.”

  He shrugged again.

  “Where them boys from, anyway?”

  “Over New Mexico way,” he said. “Leastways, that’s what Isabella told me.”

  “See, that’s my point.”

  He looked up at me quizzically. “What point?”

  “They’re from New Mexico. Any Texan can whup at least three New Mexico boys. Not even close to a fair fight.”

  Pete grinned grudgingly. “I ’spose not.”

  I reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. “You just let things lie, all right?”

  He pressed his lips together, but nodded. “Sure, Carl. It’s just hard, that’s all. She’s so beautiful, and…,” he trailed off.

  “I know,” I said, and I did.

  Pete sighed heavily. I gave his shoulder a squeeze. He turned and went back inside Tres Estrellas and I went back on patrol.

  “Sam-25.”

  I jumped. Molly’s voice from the radio surprised me. I’d been parked near the edge of town with my door swung open, staring up at the desert sky. The huge expanse of stars let me dream a world of possibilities and the clean desert air washed away some of the bar stink.

  “Sam-25, go ahead.”

  “Carl, you need to head ove
r to the Tres right away. We just got a call about some arguing going on.”

  I keyed the ignition and started the engine. “Talbott’s wife come by looking for him?”

  “No,” Molly transmitted. “It’s Pete Trower.”

  I cursed and hit the lights.

  I skidded into the parking lot in a cloud of dust, jumped out of the police Explorer and ran toward the door. As my fingers wrapped around the handle, I heard two loud bangs. Gunshots.

  I cursed again, released the handle and drew my .45.

  The screaming started as soon as I went through the door. The shrill sound came from Miss Twenty-two. I moved deliberately in that direction, my gun at the low ready. Two steps further in, I encountered Jack pulling Miss Twenty-two along. Her mouth hung open in a silent scream and she jabbed her finger wordlessly toward the main bar room.

  “Son of a bitch shot him!” Jack yelled on his way past.

  As soon as I cleared the entryway, I saw the mess. Right in the middle of the bar room, a cowboy lay flat on his back. Isabella and the cowboy’s New Mexico partner knelt beside him. The partner held the wounded man’s head in his hands. The cowboy’s jaw was slack and his partner bore a look of disbelief while he muttered comforting words.

  I scanned the room. No Pete. The back door beside the bar stood half-open.

  “What happened?”

  Isabella turned toward me, her expression tight but without any tears. “Él lo mató,” she said simply. “Pete shot him.”

  I didn’t need to ask why.

  “That way?” I pointed to the open back door.

  She nodded.

  “Call an ambulance,” I told her and hurried to the back door.

  I nudged it open carefully. I didn’t think Pete would shoot me, but I wasn’t so sure he’d recognize me in the doorway.

  “Pete?”

  I was answered by the sound of a dirt bike engine kicking to life about a hundred yards away. The sound came from the stockyards.

  I ran around front just in time to see Pete’s blue denim jacket flash past me in the parking lot. I made a frantic grab for him, but he leaned away and gunned it, throwing a spray of gravel on my legs as he sped away.

  I got in the Explorer, punched the lights and headed after him.

  “Molly?” I said into the mike. “Get an ambulance over to the Tres.”

  “Copy. What kind of injuries?”

  “Gunshot wounds. I’m in pursuit of Pete. He’s on a dirt bike and wearing a blue denim jacket. We’re westbound from the bar.”

  “Copy.”

  Pete must have seen my lights and known that he couldn’t outrun the Explorer on the road, because he turned sharply north off the roadway and cross-country.

  I slowed, and followed, keeping sight of the shadowy rider as he lanced through the night. I chased him with my spotlight. Unseen rocks and dips in the ground tossed the Explorer around and jostled me in the cab.

  “This is bad,” I muttered.

  For twenty minutes, I followed Pete, barely able to keep a visual on him. The spotlight bounced and jiggled as I drove over the terrain, and the red and blue rotators cast a surreal light onto the desert night. Pete used every obstacle that came along to his advantage, putting it in my way by going over it. As we neared the rocky foothills, I knew it was only a matter of time before he got away. My only hope was that he wiped out long enough for me to catch up to him and grab on.

  It didn’t happen.

  Molly called out the Chief and two other officers and kept feeding them my grid coordinates. When I finally lost sight of Pete, I stopped driving and waited for them.

  The Chief arrived first. I filled him in while he stood rocking on his heels, hands resting on his precious silver-studded gun belt, and alternately spitting tobacco and wiping his drooping mustache. His .45 revolver hung low on his right side like an old-style gunslinger.

  “I’ve been on the phone with Earl,” he said, when I was finished. “He’s at the Tres securing the scene. Apparently, Pete didn’t take too kindly to them New Mexico boys flirting it up with Isabella.” He gave me a hard look. “Says you were in there earlier tonight when a fight almost started.”

  I swallowed. “Yes, sir, I was. I thought I handled it.”

  The Chief spit and drew his sleeve across his mouth. “’Parently not.”

  We stood in silence for a long while, staring out in the direction Pete had gone. The only sounds were the desert at night, the ticking and cooling of our vehicle engines, and his occasional spitting. As we waited, the first shimmer of pre-dawn light appeared in the eastern sky.

  “Where the hell can he go?” the Chief finally muttered. “Nothin’ but desert and rocky steppes to the north, now. I ’spose he could cut east or west and backtrack, but does he even have enough gas in that thing to make it anywheres?”

  I didn’t answer.

  The Chief sighed and we waited some more.

  Thirty minutes later, Wes Perez and John Calhoun rumbled up in the big Ford truck, hauling the horse trailer.

  I blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  The Chief glanced at me. “’Bout what?”

  “We’re going after him on horseback?”

  “Listen, rookie,” the Chief said, “you think you can follow his trail in the Explorer? He ain’t gonna git far on that dirt bike. When that craps out, he’ll be on foot. I want to get him before the sun does.”

  I’d been a cop in our little town for three years, but the Chief still considered me a rookie. I figured that wouldn’t change until he hired someone new. Maybe never, seeing as how I wasn’t a son of La Sombra.

  Wes climbed out of the truck and headed for the trailer. John exited the passenger side, moving gingerly. His iron gray hair was combed impeccably and even his jeans were sharply creased.

  “Give Wes a hand,” the Chief ordered. “Unless you want to stay here with the trucks and I’ll take John along.”

  I shook my head and walked away. Riding in the heat wouldn’t do old John any good. I didn’t dare suggest we give El Paso PD a call or the County Sheriff or even the Texas Rangers. The Chief didn’t believe in outside help.

  John put on his hat and tucked it into place. “Carl,” he nodded.

  “Mornin’, John.”

  “Fine day for a posse.”

  I gave him a weak smile and went to the back of the trailer.

  Wes led the Chief’s white gelding down the ramp. He met my eyes and nodded his hello. His deep brown skin seemed almost black in the pre-dawn light.

  Wes and I unloaded all three horses, saddled them and made sure the canteens were filled. The Chief’s saddlebag contained a GPS device and a cell phone. When we were finished, I led my red roan and Wes led his mount and the Chief’s to where the Chief and John stood, engaged in palaver.

  The Chief took the reins from Wes without a thank you and looked around at all of us. “They took that cowboy to the hospital in El Paso. It don’t look like he’s gonna make it.” He had himself a spit while we mulled that over. Then he continued, “John will stay here with the vehicles. He has the other cell phone. We’ll follow Pete’s trail. Simple as that.”

  Nothing was simple on the border, but I couldn’t tell the Chief that any more than I could tell him that four-wheelers would do the job better than horses.

  We swung up into our saddles. The sun peeked over the eastern horizon. I figured Pete had a good two-hour head start on us.

  The trail was easy enough to follow. The knobby tires of the dirt bike tore up the desert ground. Wes rode in front, appointed as scout. I don’t remember him ever saying anything about having special abilities in tracking, but he was at the front anyway. The Chief was in charge of this expedition, so he wasn’t going to do it. And I was the rookie, so that left Wes.

  The morning sun crept over the horizon and within an hour, my shirt was soaked through with sweat. We fanned out instead of riding in a column so that we didn’t have to eat the dust kicked up by the horses’ hooves, but desert
sand still lightly caked my face. Wes rode silently, his head tilted to the left and watching the ground.

  The Chief followed, ignoring me. When his cell phone chirped, his gelding whinnied and started, so he had to bring the horse under control before he could flip open the phone.

  “Yeah?” Silence. Then, “All right.” He turned off the phone and replaced it in his saddlebag. “That New Mexico cowboy didn’t make it,” he said, not looking at either one of us.

  No one replied. I took a slug of water from the canteen. It was already warm and brackish.

  We found the dirt bike an hour later, dumped unceremoniously in a shallow arroyo. By then, a light wind had kicked up and the footprints leading away from the Kawasaki were partially wiped away.

  The Chief uttered a curse and looked at his watch.

  Wes turned in his saddle and looked at me. “How tall is Pete?”

  I shrugged. “Five-ten or so.”

  He pointed at the footprints. “He’s got a powerful stride here. It’s controlled, too. He’s not panicking.”

  “How the hell can you tell that?” the Chief asked. “Or are you part Apache, too?”

  I winced a little. The Chief considered me a rookie, but I think he considered Wes a necessary evil, a concession to the Hispanics in town.

  Wes ignored the jibe. “I can tell from the distance between his steps.”

  The Chief glanced down at the sandy bottom of the arroyo. “Maybe he’s running. Maybe he’s frantic.”

  Wes shook his head. “The footprints look different when someone runs. There’s a more powerful impact with the ground. The print is more ragged at the heel and the toe. And there’s more distance between the steps.”

  The Chief eyed him and the footsteps a moment longer. Then he spit, wiped and shrugged. “Walking or running, won’t be long ’fore we catch him now.

  “Unless the tracks disappear,” I muttered.

  “What’s that?” the Chief asked me.

  “I said, unless the tracks disappear.”

  The Chief grunted and spurred his horse forward.

  Twenty minutes later, we came across a small waterhole. Wes dismounted and walked around, eying the bank carefully. He spotted something and pointed. “Allá. Someone knelt in the mud next to the water.”