Fatal Divide

by Jamie Jeffries

  How could he find out if she really did want to help him get away? And if she had a plan that could succeed? He would have to think about it. Maybe he would stay with Sophia until Wanda caught up with him, and then decide what to do. It could take a while.

  Jimmy moved quietly into the house where Sophia and her kid waited — Sophia with apprehension, he was sure.

  “Did your grandmother give you my message?” he asked. She nodded, apparently afraid to speak.

  “Then where is my food, woman?” Sophia jumped and edged toward the kitchen, with Jimmy following.

  The baby, secure in a car seat, sat atop a wooden table with three mismatched chairs arrayed around it. He was awake, cooing to himself. When he spotted his mother, he began to fuss. Jimmy went to the table and jiggled the car seat, making the baby laugh. He was a cute little guy, with a tiny scrap of a nose and dark brown eyes that looked like buttons in his round face. A moment’s regret that this wasn’t really his kid startled Jimmy. He thrust it away. There was no time for sentimentality.

  He had to think. With both cartels and now Wanda Lopez looking for him, nowhere near Sells was safe. Nowhere on the rez, really. It was surprising what intel was wafting on the wind through even the most remote villages. Already he’d heard it whispered that he was the reason Herman Alvarez was dead. It was true, but the danger lay in others knowing it.

  Sophia set a bowl of menudo and some fry bread at the table, and with a grunt of something like thanks, Jimmy began to eat.

  EIGHTEEN

  Thursday, 5:30 p.m.

  Dylan didn’t hear from Wanda the next day, which was hardly surprising, considering the size of the rez. He pictured her going from mud hut to mud hut to physically inspect them for Jimmy’s presence. Logically, he knew that was silly. He’d seen houses in Sells as modern as any in Dodge, but that wasn’t saying much.

  Construction on any scale in Dodge had stopped in the nineteen-seventies, and most people lived in houses constructed by the mines for their workers, back in the fifties. Even though Sells was the only town of any size on the rez, Wanda was probably activating the tribal equivalent of Dodge’s very efficient grapevine, the bane of Alex’s existence.

  Thinking of the grapevine reminded him he needed to find out if there was anything like a motorcycle club or gang in town. He hadn’t seen a group of them since that night in the bar before Alex went missing, but it didn’t mean they weren’t here. He kept pretty much to himself or over at Alex’s house, rather than taking part in Dodge’s sparse nightlife. Since it was Alex’s late night at school tonight, maybe it would be a good idea to snoop around a little.

  Before he went out, though, he took some time to sit with his mom and give Ange a break. He didn’t ask Ange what she did in her spare time, but he suspected it had to do with church functions. Like his mom, Ange was raised Catholic, and always had some mysterious social thing to attend, help prepare for, or clean up after. As often as he could, he was there to sit with his mom while Ange took an hour or two for herself.

  There wasn’t much to do for his mom; her mind had shut down, for the most part, and her body was on the way to doing the same. Ange took care of unpleasant personal details, assuring him that it wouldn’t be right for a son to see his mother’s last indignities.

  Sitting with his mom entailed just that - sitting. He usually had his laptop with him at those times, but now and then he pulled a kitchen chair close to her recliner and held her hand. It seemed to comfort her in some way, or maybe he was projecting his own feelings onto her.

  Dylan wished he knew more about cartel enterprises this side of the border. He’d been operating with blinders on. Wanda seemed to know more than he did. He resolved to pick her brain about it, and had opened his laptop to make some notes when Ange came in.

  “Okay, Dyl, you’re free,” she called as she put down a large platter on the kitchen sink.

  He got up and wandered into the kitchen to see what goodies she brought home. If the church was having a bake sale, it could be anything from brownies or cookies, to saltwater taffy. Ange slapped his hand as he reached for an aluminum foil-covered package. “That’s for Thanksgiving, leave it alone.”

  “I thought we weren’t having Thanksgiving dinner here. I promised Alex...”

  “I know you did. You don’t want to go empty-handed do you? I’m putting it in the freezer, and you’d better leave it alone if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Dylan said, not from respect for his elders, but because he knew it would annoy her. Ange was only about ten years older than him.

  “Hey, Ange, do you know anything about a Jimmy Chaves?” he asked, intending to deflect any questions she asked as a result.

  “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Nothing. His name came up.”

  Ange was bustling around the kitchen, opening a can of chicken noodle soup for his mom. “I ate at the church. Do you want anything?”

  “No, I’ll get something at the Rattler,” he said, distracted by a small cry from his mother. “Is she okay?”

  Ange went in to touch Maria’s forehead and squeeze her hand. “I need to give her the evening pain meds. Get on out of here, I’m busy,” she said, shooing him toward the door. “You’re distracting me. Behave yourself.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said again.

  Ten minutes later, Dylan walked into the Rattler and spotted Alex’s dad, Paul, at their usual table. It had become a standing date on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when her classes kept her late at school, for the two men to have dinner together and maybe play a game or two of pool before Dylan went home.

  Paul often stayed until closing time, to keep Jen company, he said. Alex slid into his seat opposite Paul and greeted him. Paul smiled and lifted his hand to signal Jen, who sent a new server to their table with the burgers and fries she’d been getting ready for them.

  “What’s new?” Dylan asked Paul.

  “Not a damn thing,” he answered. That was the only conversation until the food was gone and Paul invited Dylan to play pool.

  “Another time, Paul. I’ve got some snooping to do.”

  “Oh? What this time?”

  “I’m trying to run down a hunch I have, is all. Something to do with the drug trafficking that goes down around here. Why don’t we ever hear anything about it?”

  Paul shrugged. “I guess they go right through here and do their buying and selling somewhere else. We’ve never had a big problem with it.”

  “Do you think that’s right, Paul? Having a live and let live attitude about it, and letting them poison the bigger towns?”

  “What’s got into you, Dylan? Big bust at the park?”

  “No, just thinking about some stuff I’ve learned recently. Forget I said anything. I’m just keyed up from this business out at the park.”

  Paul sat up, more alert. “You think that had something to do with the drug cartel? Bad buy or something?”

  Too late, Dylan realized he’d been talking out of turn, and Paul was smart enough to put things together if he said any more. “Who knows? It was just a random thought. Hey, Paul, thanks for dinner. I’ve gotta run, see you later.” Dylan threw a five on the table, and made his escape, unaware that Paul was staring after him with the light of curiosity in his eyes.

  Dylan’s next stop was the other bar in town. He didn’t frequent it, since the few times he went out were spent with Paul or Alex in Jen Mackey’s bar, the Rattler. But, he had followed a beat-up Jeep with the wrong plates and a Harley from the Rattler to the other bar, the Stars and Garters, on the night Alex was taken. He’d seen the parking lot full of serious-looking bikes. And then he’d forgotten all about them in the search for her that started later the same night.

  That night, he hesitated to go in, the encounter with the men who drove those vehicles too fresh to believe they wouldn’t recognize him. By now, he doubted if they’d remember him.

  NINETEEN

  7:15 p.m.

  Alex st
opped by her journalism professor’s office after her last class to discuss the extra-credit project she’d been working on. In July, a man had been found dead in the desert outside of Dodge and remained unidentified until a hunch of Dylan’s led to his identification as Rufio Mendez, Dylan’s stepdad and the father of Dylan’s half-brothers.

  It led to her learning there were thousands of partial to complete human remains in the US waiting for identification and closure for their loved ones. Over a thousand of them were in the state of Arizona. Alex had decided she could make a difference, so she started a blog with an attached database of cases.

  With just one case closed, she was still committed to the project and arranged for extra credit for the op-ed pieces. Her journalism professor was one of the teachers who told her to show him when it was further along, so he could decide if what she was doing met the standards of journalism.

  Alex had researched several posts since then, and was eager for her professor to read them and pass judgment on her work. Her meeting proved fruitful, as her professor was impressed with the work she’d done, especially the articles she’d posted.

  “This is all your work? No guest bloggers?” he asked.

  “I never thought about guest bloggers,” she answered, wondering if it was too late to ask some other people to contribute.

  “Well, you’ve done a fine job. How are you going to monetize it?” he asked.

  “I haven’t quite figured that out.”

  He laughed. “This really is a labor of love for you, isn’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, he asked, “What’s the point unless you use your content as a draw for followers, and then advertise to them? How many followers do you have?”

  “Um, I don’t know?” she said, unable to stop the last word sounding like a question.

  “I’ll tell you what, Miss Ward. Use the Thanksgiving break to research how to drive traffic to your blog and then bring me a plan for how to monetize it by the end of the semester. If you’ve made enough progress, I’ll count it as your semester project. It’s quite a bit more creative than some of the project proposals I’ve had. But for it to be viable, you need readers and a way to at least support the costs, if not make a profit.”

  Alex left his office wondering if she really wanted to make a profit off other people’s misery, and then realized it was very little different from what her dad’s newspaper did. The key was to balance the bad and the sensational news with good news. It gave her a better understanding of her dad’s quest to have something spectacularly bad to report. Most of what went on in Dodge was, at best, bland news, and necessarily stale because of their status as a weekly.

  The discussion about monetizing the blog was pertinent, she realized. She’d been trying to get her dad to think about an online presence, and he’d thrown up a lot of objections, especially the one about why anyone would pay for a weekly if they could get the news for free on the internet. But, they didn’t survive on people purchasing the paper; they survived on ads. This gave her a whole new perspective on how to make it profitable.

  She had a lot of work to do. Using the blog as a research project, she envisioned overhauling the Dodge Desert Times when she had enough knowledge. If she could bring in ad revenue from further afield than the local businesses, she could justify asking her dad for a raise, and maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to stand living in her little backwater home town long enough to figure things out with Dylan.

  The biggest hurdle was going to be those boys. The older one, Juan, would be nine soon. In a few short years, he’d be a teenager, and that would be when the trouble started if she were their stepmom. Four years to thirteen, and Davi would be ten by then. She’d be twenty-four.

  Could she assume enough authority to keep them under control? It seemed doubtful, but then, she didn’t know much about teenage boys, except what she observed as a teenage girl. They were big, rowdy, stinky and clumsy until they were fifteen or sixteen, and then trade sex-crazed for stinky. It seemed daunting. How much would Dylan help?

  Almost as big a hurdle was where they’d live. Dylan had talked about getting the boys out of Dodge, but that was before he discovered his heritage. Would he want to stay now? They hadn’t talked about it since Wanda’s revelations. Alex had promised him she would make up her mind before he brought his brothers home about being with him. He hadn’t said it, but she assumed being with him meant marriage and mothering his brothers after his mom was gone.

  Suddenly, their homecoming seemed imminent, and there was too little time for her to consider every angle. She was going to have to go with her gut. Alex hated that phrase. Wasn’t that what everyone did, ultimately, when there were too many variables to make a reasoned decision?

  At least she could talk to him about moving away from Dodge and where he might want to go. Was he committed to the Park Service, or were there other places where he could use his skills? She thought there were National Parks near bigger towns where she could pursue her dreams as well, but would that suit him?

  There were too many questions, too much for her to remember, when she had over an hour to let her thoughts wander on her commute home. She thought again about getting a little digital recorder. Now it looked like an essential item to have. She would ask her dad for one for Christmas. One more thing to remember.

  Frustrated at her failure to come to any decisions, Alex deliberately turned her thoughts to what she could do to help Dylan and Wanda. Since research was her forte, she decided that digging into whatever she could find on the internet about the cartels, especially Los Reyes del Desierto, would be the best help she could give him. Maybe talk to a few law enforcement people for the perspective of someone who had direct experience.

  It was strange her dad hadn’t covered much about them in the paper, if they were that active in town. Hell, she could be talking to cartel people all day long and she’d never know it. She hadn’t seen many scruffy, shifty-looking Latinos in town. Plenty of Latinos, but they dressed like everyone else, were well-groomed, drove the same kinds of cars, and sent their kids to school. Would cartel members send their kids to school?

  Alex had reached the point of paying more attention to her inner dialog than the road when the intersection between Interstate 8 and Arizona highway 85 came up. This was her turn; she’d be home in forty-five minutes. Her dad was probably still at the Rattler. He usually was, on her school nights, these days.

  She wasn’t in the mood for a burger, and Jen didn’t have much else that resembled dinner on the menu. Alex decided she’d have a bowl of canned soup when she got home, and then get started on the research she needed to do on web traffic.

  TWENTY

  8:00 p.m.

  Dylan realized that his first mistake was not looking behind the Stars to see if motorcycles were there and to get an idea who was inside. His second one was walking in alone.

  Light was dim inside the unfamiliar bar, but he got the impression of quite a few people inside. He’d already had his limit of one beer at Jen’s, so he didn’t have a good plan for what came next. If he had a companion, he could have ordered water and the server would have assumed he was the designated driver. Since he didn’t, he tried the next best thing, a Coke.

  “A Coke,” said the server, making it sound like a ridiculous request. Several people turned around and looked at him and, as the server walked away, one of them came over to Dylan’s table and sat, uninvited. The guy had to be pushing three-hundred, but he was tall enough the weight didn’t make him look sloppy. The long, tangled gray hair and beard did, though. Dylan had never seen him before.

  “Maybe you didn’t know, sonny, but this is a bar. If you aren’t old enough to drink, you should probably go somewhere else.”

  Dylan considered his uninvited guest for a moment, before offering a mild reply. “Something wrong if a guy just wants a Coke? It quenches my thirst better.”

  At that, more people turned, and some of them began laughing. The guy at his table leaned forward, jabbing the
table with his forefinger to make his point. “It’s a pussy drink. Let me get you a beer, buddy.”

  A hush in the laughter gave Dylan the idea that his next answer would be important, though he didn’t yet understand what was happening. “Uh, sure. A beer sounds great.” He’d nurse it along. “Coors Light?” he asked.

  A loud guffaw from several people meant he’d made another blunder. What the hell was this? Had he stumbled into a frat party? Taking a good look at the man sitting at his table, he reconsidered that. The guy had to be pushing three-hundred, but he was tall enough that the weight didn’t make him look sloppy. The long, tangled gray hair and beard did, though. Dylan had never seen him before.

  “I’m Dylan Chaves,” he said, holding out his hand to shake. The big man just looked at it. Finally, he took it in a paw that resembled a bear’s and squeezed Dylan’s hand until Dylan thought the small bones might break. “JT,” he said.

  “Nice to meet you, JT,” Dylan said, feeling a bit more comfortable. “I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

  “You live in town?” JT asked.

  “Just recently moved back. I grew up here. Thought I knew everyone.”

  “You must not be a big drinker,” said JT. “I bought this bar six months ago.”

  Dylan concealed his surprise that the other man owned the Stars. He wondered what had happened to the previous owner, who he remembered as being old and frail when Dylan was in high school.

  “Fred die or something?” he asked.

  JT apparently found that amusing, as he emitted another guffaw, echoed by his posse who now surrounded the table. A server slammed a pitcher of amber-colored beer on the table, followed by a tall mug that was almost as big as the pitcher. JT poured down the middle as a head formed, and stopped just in time.

  The beer in front of Dylan was at least twenty ounces, he estimated. One and a half over his limit. And the pitcher still had some in it. He picked up the mug, raised it in JT’s direction, and sipped. The flavor was good, he had to admit, but it was a much stronger brew than he ever allowed himself to drink. With his mother’s alcoholism and the general difficulty his people had with handling alcohol, he didn’t take chances.