Sulfur Springs

by William Kent Krueger

  “His birth father,” I said. “Mondragón and my wife divorced after Peter was born. My wife legally returned to her maiden name, Bisonette, and changed her children’s names as well.”

  “Gilbert Mondragón is the son of Santiago Mondragón. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  I gave him a blank stare.

  Vega took it from there, using his huge hands in surprisingly graceful gestures to frame the points he was making. “Santiago Mondragón is the head of a powerful cartel, operating for the most part out of Hermosillo, Mexico, in the state of Sonora. Carlos Rodriguez also operates out of Sonora. Rodriguez wields a good deal of power in the area just south of the border along Coronado County, but we understand that he’d like to extend his power. That’s where he bumps heads with Santiago Mondragón.”

  “We thought your Peter Bisonette might be involved in the drug trade that we know Rodriguez conducts here in the States,” Sprangers said. “But we’re beginning to believe there’s something else going on.”

  “Like what?”

  “We’re hoping you might enlighten us,” Vega said.

  “That’s what you followed me up here for?”

  “The Santa Margaritas are part of the historic Oro Rico Mining District,” Sprangers said. “They’re honeycombed with old excavations. We suspect that Rodriguez has used these abandoned mines to hide his drugs. He might also be using them to hide someone he’s kidnapped. Your wife, for example. The blood that was found at Robert Wieman’s ranch house was not your wife’s blood. We’re not sure whose blood it is, but we think she might have been taken as a pawn in this power struggle between Rodriguez and Mondragón. Same with her son.”

  They didn’t seem to realize Peter’s true part in all this, and I was not about to enlighten them.

  “If you’re right,” I said, “that means Rainy is still alive somewhere. That’s wonderful news. But if it’s true, why haven’t I been contacted by Rodriguez?”

  “That she’s your wife means nothing to him. If there’s communication taking place, it’s probably between Rodriguez and Mondragón.”

  “Why don’t you talk to Mondragón?”

  “If we could, we would,” Vega said, unconsciously clenching one of his hands into a fist as big as a sledgehammer head.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “We need answers, and you’re the only visible lead we have,” Sprangers said.

  “Which is why you’ve been tracking me?”

  “You wore a badge once,” Sprangers said. “What would you do if you were me?”

  I studied the four men. They stood together, their backs to the storm still raging in the distance. The lightning, white in the black clouds, gave them an occasional halo.

  “Border Patrol. DEA. What about you?” I said to the two men who hadn’t yet spoken a word. “FBI? State cops?” I turned to Sprangers. “You’re all part of some kind of multiagency task force?”

  “It’s a big enemy we’re fighting,” Sprangers said. “Their crimes cut across all kinds of jurisdictions.”

  “I wish I could help you fellas, I really do. But . . .” I gave them only a shrug.

  “That’s the way it is?” Sprangers said. “In that case, you’ll be coming with us.”

  “Where?”

  “Back to Cadiz for some more questioning.”

  “If I refuse?”

  “That’s not an option, O’Connor.”

  I was half a mile from Peter. If I led them to him, and if he had, indeed, killed someone, I had no idea what the legal consequences might be. I also wasn’t absolutely convinced that I should trust any of these men. Still lingering out there was the question of who’d leaked to Rodriguez the location of the Lulabelle. Mondragón might have been right when he told me that anyone can be bought. And the one piece of advice everyone had so far given me ran in a loop through my head: In Coronado County, trust no one.

  “One more thing maybe you should know,” Sprangers said. “Your pilot friend, Robert Wieman? Somebody beat him up last night.”

  “Who?”

  “He couldn’t say.” He nodded toward my bandaged face. “Maybe the same people did that to you.”

  “Where is he?”

  “The hospital in Sierra Vista. He’s in pretty bad shape. You probably want to see him, and you can. Just as soon as we’ve had a good long talk. So, what’ll it be?”

  The storm was distant but still battering the sky above the land called Desolation.

  “Back to Cadiz,” I said.

  CHAPTER 26

  * * *

  In an interview room in the Coronado County Law Enforcement Center, they worked me over with their questioning. Sprangers and Vega did all the heavy lifting. Deputy Crockett was there, too, although he said almost nothing. He’d taken off his tan cowboy hat, the one with the colorfully beaded band, and I saw that his hair was jet black. I figured he was another member of the task force, maybe representing the local jurisdiction, and maybe a part of it because of his Native heritage—Apache? Tohono O’odham?—and the unique perspective that might offer. God only knew who else might have been watching from the other side of the mirror on the wall. It was clear they thought Rainy had been kidnapped, although they didn’t have an explanation for all the blood at the site where they believed she’d been snatched. They thought the same thing had happened to Peter. Their working assumption was that Rodriguez was using both Rainy and Peter as leverage in some kind of power play against Santiago Mondragón. I didn’t disabuse them of the notion. Mostly, I played dumb. About my face, I told them that I’d cut myself shaving. Which was probably a line I’d picked up from a Humphrey Bogart movie.

  “You and your friend Bob Wieman flew over the Santa Margaritas yesterday. Shortly after that, in the same general area, one of our agents was attacked.” Sprangers leaned toward me across the bare table. “Coincidence?”

  “I don’t have another explanation,” I said.

  “Tell me you weren’t up there looking for your wife or her son.”

  “Believe whatever you want to believe. It’s a free country.”

  “Has Rodriguez or his people contacted you?”

  “No.”

  “No? They didn’t give you that shave?” Vega said. He’d been pacing the little room like a caged animal with a great deal of pent-up energy.

  “A lot on my mind these days,” I said. “My hand’s a little unsteady.”

  “If Rodriguez has your wife and her son, why lean on you? What can you give him?”

  “No one’s leaning on me.”

  “Are you some sort of intermediary?”

  “I’m some sort of nothing.”

  “Then maybe you have something they want,” Sprangers said.

  “What could that possibly be?”

  Sprangers glanced at Vega, who stopped his pacing. Vega gave a nod of approval.

  Sprangers said, “We know that Carlos Rodriguez has been moving a significant amount of drugs through Arizona. We believe that he’s been caching them somewhere this side of the border until he ships them out. Maybe he’s been using one of the old mines as a storage depot. We thought it might be in Coronado County, there are so many of them here. But maybe it’s in the Santa Margaritas. And just maybe your Peter Bisonette knows where that is.”

  “And why would Peter know something like that?”

  “We’ve been aware for some time that a humanitarian organization calling itself Desert Angels has been operating across the border. They’ve been good at keeping a low profile, so we don’t know much about them. Peter Bisonette wasn’t even on our radar until you showed up. Since we’ve started looking at him, he’s become more and more interesting to us. We’re pretty sure now that he’s a Desert Angel. Because a lot of the illegals function as mules for the cartels, Peter has quite possibly dealt with some. Maybe they told him something about Rodriguez’s operation, maybe something he passed along to his father or his father’s people. And maybe his father saw a way to take a bite out
of the competition. Maybe Peter was going to help his father steal that cache. Maybe he already has.”

  “And Rodriguez has grabbed him and Rainy as leverage to get the drugs back? That’s your theory?”

  “One of them. Look, we don’t really have a problem with Peter. We’re after the big players here.”

  I’d handled interviews on that side of the badge for a good long while, and although I figured some of what he’d told me was true, there was probably a lot more to this than he was saying. He was giving me a nugget of truth, maybe so I would overlook what was not true.

  I decided to give him my own nugget.

  “I can’t imagine that Peter’s involved in drug trafficking. I do know he’s been helping guide undocumented women and children safely across the Arizona desert. That’s his only interest in all this. We’d been told, Rainy and I, that Peter often used the old mines as temporary sanctuaries for these people. That’s what I was looking for. One of the mines.”

  “What mine?” Deputy Crockett asked, his first and only question.

  Now my own untruth. “The Vermilion One.” Which was actually the name of a mine on the Iron Range in Minnesota.

  “How’d you hear about the mine?” Sprangers said.

  “Rainy had heard of it. I don’t know how. Maybe from one of her conversations with Peter at some point. That’s why I asked Bob Wieman to fly me over the Santa Margaritas.”

  “And then he gets beat up and you get that bad shave,” Vega said. “If I was you, I’d be thinking there’s a leak somewhere. Someone’s been giving inside information to Rodriguez. Who did you trust that you shouldn’t have?”

  “You think I haven’t been asking myself that same question?” I wanted to use my fist to wipe that smug look off his big face.

  “We’re not the enemy, O’Connor,” Sprangers said. “We’re just trying to do our jobs, which is to enforce the law. You wore a badge once. You get that. Do we always agree with the laws? Did you? So cool down for a moment and think. Who sold you out?”

  Once again, I gave them names, the list of people I’d talked to: Michelle Abbott, who’d loaned me her pickup; the Harrises; Jeanette Saunders from the Goodman Center; even Marian Brown. When they figured they’d got everything from me they could possibly squeeze in the interview room, they told me I was free to go.

  “The two men I took down yesterday with the Winchester. You get anything out of them?”

  “Nothing yet,” Vega said.

  “No IDs?”

  “They were clean, carrying nothing. Their prints aren’t in the system. We’ve traced the vehicles they were driving to a leasing company in Nogales. Company claims the vehicles must have been stolen, that they didn’t know about them being missing until our people contacted them. We’ll lean on them, but it’ll take a while to get anywhere, if we ever do.”

  As I left, Sprangers said, “Unfortunately, that monsoon downpour this afternoon washed out any signs that might lead us to this Vermilion One Mine. But BP agents are scouting the Santa Margaritas even as we speak. If we find the mine, and if Peter Bisonette is there, we’ll let you know.”

  I had a parting comment for him as well. “Let me ask you something, Sprangers. Could the leak be coming from your own people? I don’t know who all is involved in this big operation of yours, but it seems to me you ought to be asking yourself the same question you asked me. Is there someone you trust but shouldn’t?”

  Although his face remained stolid, I saw in his eyes that I’d struck home.

  It was near dark when I left the law enforcement center. It was cooler, too—the effect of the monsoons. I drove to the parsonage and parked in front. I went directly through the house and paused only long enough to cut a short length of red ribbon and pencil a note that read: May have found him again. I left by the back door, circled the block to the church, quickly tied the ribbon to the angel’s finger, and put the note under the cross on the altar. Then I retraced my steps to the pickup.

  I headed to Sierra Vista to locate the hospital where they’d taken Jocko. The whole way I went over everything I knew at the moment. It was a confusion of information in which I couldn’t see any pattern yet. My movements were being tracked. Certainly by Sprangers, who claimed to be interested in bigger fish than Peter. Perhaps by Rodriguez, who had a bounty on Peter’s head. Maybe even by the vigilante group called White Horse, whose interest appeared to be either misplaced patriotism or, more probably, simple racism. Much of the information I was operating on had been leaked to others besides me. Two good things: No one seemed to know that Rainy was safe and with her ex-husband, and they seemed to be as clueless as I was about Peter’s current situation.

  I found Frank Harris sitting in the hospital hallway outside Jocko’s room. Harris looked beat to hell himself, emotionally anyway. He was drinking from a vending machine coffee cup.

  “How’s he doing?” I asked.

  “He’ll live. But, God, did they work him over. If I hadn’t showed up when I did, they might have killed him.”

  “Tell me what happened?”

  “After you left last night, Jocko came to our place for dinner. We ate, drank some good wine, talked about Peter and Rainy and this whole mess. Then I took Jocko back to his ranch and dropped him off. I didn’t see anything unusual. When I was almost home, I realized that he’d left his rifle in my truck. With everything that’s going on these days, he’s been pretty careful to keep it with him. I figured the wine had made him forgetful. I turned around, and when I pulled up to the ranch house, I saw some men take off running through the pasture to the south. I found Jocko, beat to hell and unconscious. I called 911.”

  “Has he been able to talk?”

  “They’ve had him pretty sedated. He’s mostly been out.”

  “You get a decent look at these men?”

  He shook his head. “Just caught a glimpse of them in my headlights. How about you? Any luck finding Peter?”

  Who have you trusted that you shouldn’t have?

  “No,” I said. “I spent much of the day talking to law enforcement. Where’s Jayne?”

  “She couldn’t take it, seeing Jocko this way, the waiting. She had to go home. She has no stomach for this kind of thing.” He laid his head back against the wall. “I should never have brought her out here. She’s a businesswoman. To her, this is all the wild west.”

  “You both seem to be doing all right,” I said.

  “Thanks to her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We lost more than half our vines to disease two years ago. We weren’t alone. The other vineyards on the south end of the plateau got hit, too. They sold and left. But Jayne’s made some really savvy investments that have kept us afloat. Sonora Hills is coming back. Some of it’s me, sure. I’ve been working with some guys in California, and I’ve got new vines growing now. More disease resistant. But it was Jayne’s doing that bought me the time.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s not just God we fight with out here. It’s people like Rodriguez.”

  A nurse passed us and went into Jocko’s room. She came out a few minutes later. “He’s awake, Mr. Harris, and asking for you.”

  “May we see him?” Harris asked.

  “Just for a minute or two. He needs to rest.”

  Jocko’s face was swollen. His eyes were at the centers of purple circles. Both lips had been stitched. Above the sheet that lay over him, I saw white bandaging across his chest. An IV ran into his left arm. Monitor wires had been attached to him like the strings of a puppet.

  “Jocko, I’m so sorry,” I said.

  When he spoke, it was little more than a mumble. “They tell me I’ll live.”

  I think he tried to smile.

  “What did they want?” Harris asked.

  “To know where I flew Cork yesterday.”

  I could barely hear him, his voice was so soft. I leaned closer. “Did you tell them?”

  He was quiet, then his head rolled a little. “Don’t rememb
er. Sorry, Cork.” His eyes focused. “Find him?”

  “He wasn’t there, but I think I know where he might be.”

  “Good,” Jocko said. “Bring him home safe.” He closed his eyes and I thought he was out again. But he said one more thing: “Hate to think I got beat to hell for nothing.” His lips twitched, and this time his smile was definite.

  Out in the hallway, Harris said, “Where do you think he is? Peter, I mean.” When I didn’t answer, he raised his hands. “That’s okay, I get it. Better I don’t know.”

  While I drove to Cadiz, the moon rose at my back. It had been filling since I’d left Tamarack County and was beginning to look like the belly of a pregnant woman. For some reason, I found that promising. I parked a block from the parsonage, walked a roundabout way past the church, and checked the finger of the angel. The ribbon was still there. I wanted to get back to the Santa Margaritas as quickly as I could, but there was nothing I could do in those mountains at night. It had been a long day, and I was tired and needed sleep.

  I returned to the parsonage and checked it carefully. No one was waiting to jump me. I brought the hydration pack in from the truck, then propped chairs beneath the knobs of the front and back doors and made sure the windows were locked, although there was nothing I could do about the pane in which Mondragón’s bullet had made a big hole. I thought about showering. I hadn’t cleaned up good in a couple of days and figured I smelled pretty ripe. But bed sounded better, so I lay down with the Winchester for company.

  I wondered where Rainy was laying her head that night and tried to trust that she was safe in Mondragón’s keeping. I wondered what they were up to in their long absences, but tried not to wonder too hard. Before I drifted off, I whispered a part of the Pueblo prayer she’d taught me, “Across the dark night, we are not afraid. Our love is the star that guides us.”

  And then I was asleep.

  CHAPTER 27

  * * *

  I woke early, still in the dark, and with an idea in my head. Sleep does that sometimes, clears the fog so your brain, which never really shuts down, can see things more clearly. I’d been trying to figure how Sprangers had been able to track me, and now I had a speculation. I knew Customs and Border Patrol in Minnesota were using drones to patrol our border with Canada, which often ran through long stretches of remote wilderness. It made sense to me that they were probably using drones along the Mexican border in the same way. If that was true, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Sprangers had one monitoring me. It seemed extreme, yet the sense I’d got from Sprangers was that he and everyone else in law enforcement in Coronado County were desperate to net Carlos Rodriguez. If they thought I was good bait, they might well figure the allocation of a drone to track me was justified. I didn’t know much about drones, so I turned on my cell phone and Googled them. There was a lot of technical information, but it took some time to find what I was looking for, which was how to elude detection.