Sulfur Springs

by William Kent Krueger

  The first man, I didn’t recognize. The second man I knew well. He was wearing a tan cowboy hat with a colorfully beaded band around the crown. Deputy Crockett.

  They stood facing us, with the storm behind them in the distance still battering the land.

  CHAPTER 39

  * * *

  Deputy Crockett. The mole. It made perfect sense. The task force had been trying for some time to intercept Rodriguez’s shipments, always in vain. With someone like Crockett on the inside, with the knowledge of where the Border Patrol agents stationed themselves and when and where the rolling checkpoints were to be set up, it wouldn’t be difficult for Rodriguez to move his product through Coronado County. In the Santa Margaritas, he’d been the one to make the call on the sat phone for backup just before Rodriguez’s men fled from the Jesus Lode. He must have called Rodriguez at the same time. Probably the only reason they’d been there in the first place was because Crockett had relayed the report from the Border Patrol helicopter that had put me in the area. And when Marian Brown had come under suspicion, he must have relayed that information, and the next thing you know Brown is dead.

  “Let’s get out slowly,” I said. “Put the Jeep between us and those guys.” When we were out and positioned, I called, “So what now?”

  “Now we negotiate,” the first man called back.

  “Ernesto Rivera?” I said.

  “Corcoran O’Connor?”

  “Talk to me.”

  “It’s very simple. You hand over Joaquin Rodriguez and we give you these three. Three for one, quite a bargain.”

  “What about all the drugs in the mine?”

  “I don’t care about the drugs. You want them, take them. Believe me, there is so much more where that came from. Where is Joaquin Rodriguez? In the mine?”

  “Jayne!” Harris called suddenly. “Jayne, are you all right?”

  “She is perfectly fine, Mr. Harris. And she will stay that way so long as we settle our negotiation.”

  “Jocko!” Peter called. “You okay?”

  In truth, Jocko looked in pretty bad shape, swaying a little as he stood, but he gave a nod, exaggerated so that we could see it clearly.

  “You okay, too, Michelle?” I called.

  She nodded.

  “A requirement in our negotiation, O’Connor,” Rivera said. “Put down your rifle.”

  “And lose all my leverage?”

  “Leverage? You have no leverage. Because this is what I’m going to do if you don’t put that rifle down. I will kill one of these three people. And then I will ask you again to put your rifle down, and if you do not, I’ll kill another. And then we’ll repeat that process one more time. And then, if we have to, we’ll use our rifles on the three of you. I understand that you’re good with the Winchester. But I’m sure you realize your antique is no match for a couple of American-made M16s.”

  “Kill any of us and you’ll never get Joaquin Rodriguez alive.”

  He smiled, broadly enough that I could see his white teeth, and for a moment, that look of satisfaction confused me. Then another piece of the puzzle fell into place. No matter what happened here, Joaquin Rodriguez would never make it back to Mexico alive. I heard from a great distance the continuing rumble of thunder, but the sky above us was clearing rapidly. In the wake of the storm, a kind of peace had settled. Once again, I felt the calm that, in the past, had come to me as I stood at the edge of dead.

  “You’ve been the money handler, haven’t you?” I said. “The man behind the laundering, behind diversifying the Rodriguez holdings. An upscale housing division in Cadiz. Major investments in mining interests. A silent partner in what was to become the biggest winery in Arizona. And that’s just in Coronado County. God knows what you’ve arranged in other places.”

  He didn’t reply. He seemed, in fact, to be enjoying this recounting of his activities.

  “But that wasn’t enough. You wanted it all. So you arranged for the ambush that you hoped would kill Carlos Rodriguez and his son Miguel. You used the people you’d bought in Coronado County to do your dirty work. People like Deputy Crockett there, and Marian Brown.”

  Part of the reason I was talking was to lay it all out, finally to put the pieces together in a way that made sense. But another part of the reason was that I was stalling. I had no plan, no idea how, with a single, old Winchester rifle, I was going to save any of our asses.

  “Sending Joaquin into Coronado County, now that was genius. You’d hoped, I’m sure, that he would bungle things, just as he did, and get himself killed. That way, once Carlos Rodriguez was out of the picture, you’d be set to head Las Calaveras yourself. You’re not here to negotiate for his return. You’re here to see that he doesn’t go back at all.”

  He continued to look pleased with my assessment of his accomplishments. But I was sizing him up in other ways, wondering if he’d ever stood at the edge of dead.

  That’s when Frank Harris tried to leave the cover of the Jeep, to go to Jayne. Peter grabbed him and wrestled him back. He shook himself free and stood staring toward his wife, as if not sure who he was seeing. “Cork says you’re involved in all this, Jayne. Is it true? Have you thrown in with these thugs?”

  The question was left hanging in the air for a long while, until Rivera broke the spell. He took a knife from his pocket, opened the blade, and cut the duct tape that bound Jayne Harris’s wrists. Once freed, she pulled the tape from across her mouth.

  “Frank, you have to understand.”

  “Understand what? That you climbed into bed with the worst kind of people?”

  “Climbed into bed,” Rivera said with a laugh. “You don’t know the half of it, Frank.”

  “How do you think I kept your vineyard alive?” she said. “You were ready to fold up and walk away. I found the money. I bought the land. I was doing it for you.”

  “Found the money?” Harris said. “You make it sound like it was just lying there waiting to be picked up.”

  “She has made some wonderful investments for us, Frank,” Rivera said. “And made you wealthy in the process.”

  “And the drugs in the Jezebel? Are we getting rich off that, too, Jayne?”

  “Go ahead,” Rivera said. “Explain to your husband our financial relationship.”

  I was beginning to hate his smile.

  Jayne opened her hands toward her husband. “Frank, I did what I had to. But it was for you, for us, don’t you see?”

  “And killing Marian Brown?” Rivera said at her back. “Was that for him, too?”

  She turned. “You bastard.”

  Rivera laughed and waved the barrel of his rifle toward Frank. “Tell your husband exactly how easy it is to go from money laundering to murder.”

  “Murder, Jayne?” Harris spoke like a man in shock.

  She turned, looking desperate. “Frank, please. You have to understand. They knew about her. She would have spilled everything eventually.”

  “Joaquin Rodriguez,” Rivera demanded, that irritating smile finally fading. “Where is he?”

  It was clear there was no way to negotiate out of this situation. I was sure that from the get-go Rivera had planned to leave us all dead at the Jezebel. No witnesses. Simply another slaughter in the war along the border. My attention had moved to Deputy Crockett. He might have been a man who’d faced death before, and that made him, in many ways, more dangerous than Rivera. I eased the barrel of the Winchester in his direction. But he stood directly behind the hostages, and there was no way I had a clear shot.

  “Crockett,” I called. “Have you thought this through?”

  He tilted his head, said nothing.

  “Do you think Rivera intends to let you leave here alive? You know his plan now, this whole scheme he’s hatched to take over Las Calaveras. Do you think he’s going to trust you with that?”

  “I warned you, O’Connor,” Rivera said. “Give me Joaquin Rodriguez. Now.”

  “Why did he bring only you, Crockett?” I went on. “Why not a
whole bunch of Rodriguez’s men, make certain this thing went down right? While you’re busy getting rid of us, you better believe that M16 Rivera is holding is going to take care of you.”

  “Enough,” Rivera said, with a note of what could just as easily have been desperation as anger. “Now someone dies.”

  When he pulled the trigger, Jayne Harris jerked, as if she was a rag doll in a child’s tantrum. She dropped to the ground, her blouse a pale white field where what looked like red poppies had suddenly bloomed.

  “Jayne!” Frank screamed.

  This time Peter could not hold him back. Harris darted from behind the Jeep, and Rivera cut him down with a burst from his automatic rifle. But Frank Harris wasn’t dead. He crawled through the mud toward the body of his wife.

  “Who will be next, O’Connor?” Rivera called in a high-pitched voice. It was like an animal howl, as if the killing had triggered something primordial in him.

  Crockett must have heard it, too, or maybe what I’d said about Rivera and that M16 had finally sunk in. While Rivera was focused on the Harrises and me, Crockett began to back away, cautiously retreating toward the big black truck they’d come in. Rivera didn’t seem to notice.

  “What about Joaquin, O’Connor? Three seconds and the next one dies.” Rivera sounded positively hungry for what was ahead.

  I prayed for Jocko and Michelle to drop to the ground, for them to give me a clear shot at Rivera. Because in a few seconds, one of them was going to die and I had no way to stop it. I opened my mouth to scream out that directive, the only chance I thought I had to keep them—maybe all of us—alive.

  Before I could speak, the shot came as a surprise. The right side of Rivera’s head exploded in a crimson spray, and like an empty feed sack, he folded to the ground. I looked toward Crockett, thinking the deputy had bought my logic and decided to sever his relationship with Rivera. But Crockett seemed as astonished as everyone else.

  “Deputy Crockett, drop your weapon.”

  Although I couldn’t see him, I recognized Sheriff Chet Carlson’s voice. It came from somewhere in the wash.

  “Over here, Jocko,” I hollered, and he and Michelle dashed to the Jeep and crouched behind it with Peter and me.

  Crockett maneuvered to put the big truck between himself and the direction from which Carlson’s voice had come. I sent a round from the Winchester into the grille near Deputy Crockett, then turned the barrel directly on him.

  “Squeeze play, Crockett,” I called. “The sheriff tags you or I do. Either way you’re out of the game.”

  “Now, Crockett, or I take you out!” the unseen Carlson hollered.

  Crockett wavered a moment more, then set down his M16 and laced his fingers across the back of his head.

  “On the ground,” Sheriff Carlson ordered. “Away from the rifle.”

  Crockett prostrated himself and waited.

  The men, Carlson, Sprangers, and Vega, wet and muddied, came loping from the wash. Sheriff Chet Carlson was in the lead, a scoped rifle in his grip. When he reached his deputy, he stopped and pulled out cuffs. Agents Jamie Sprangers and Jesús Vega jogged to Ernesto Rivera and checked him. Vega stayed there, but Sprangers moved on to where Frank Harris lay with his arm across the body of his wife. The agent pulled out a cell phone, punched in a number, and requested assistance. Finally, he looked up at Jocko and Michelle and Peter and me. “You folks okay?”

  CHAPTER 40

  * * *

  Justice isn’t always about the law. Full disclosure doesn’t always reveal the deeper truth. And so, in my interview with Sheriff Carlson and Agents Jamie Sprangers and Jesús Vega there at the Jezebel, I didn’t tell them everything. Nor did Peter, who was the only other one among us who knew all the facts. We didn’t tell them, for example, what we knew about Officer Mike Sanchez and the two other dead men at the El Dorado Mine.

  “We got an anonymous call about the bodies out there and that one of them was Sanchez,” Carlson explained. “Crockett told me he wasn’t feeling well. Puked, in fact, in the office wastebasket. Said he needed to go home and lie down. Hell, O’Connor, you were a sheriff. A call like that comes in, you’re not going to let an upset stomach keep you from going to the scene. Besides, he wasn’t looking sick before that. Agent Sprangers had shared with me your concern that one of the task force might be leaking intel to Rodriguez. I gave him a call.”

  Sprangers looked at me and shrugged. “I had to trust someone. You know that drone I put on you? We decided to put it on Crockett.”

  “Few hours ago, we spotted him picking up Kong at his house,” Carlson said.

  “Kong?”

  “What he calls that monster truck of his. Another man was with him. They came out this way. The drone followed them, we followed the drone. There was no way we could come up that wash in our truck, so we hoofed it. Arrived in time to see Rivera gun down Frank Harris. That’s when I . . .”

  Carlson eyed his rifle. He was drained of color. He’d just killed a man, someone he’d trusted, had thought was one of his own. I suspected the killing was a first for him. I wasn’t versed in the protocol in Coronado County, but in most law enforcement, a thing like that would require time with a shrink. Maybe a priest, too, or a minister.

  I looked where Michelle Abbott sat comforting Frank Harris. Because of his work with refugees in the desert, Peter kept basic medical supplies and blankets in his Jeep. In her years as a Marine, Michelle had been cross-trained as a medic. She’d done what she could in a rudimentary way while we awaited the chopper that had been called in to medevac Harris to the hospital in Sierra Vista.

  Jocko sat in the Jeep. For an old guy who’d been through hell, he seemed to be holding up pretty well. After we’d all given our initial statements, I joined him. He seemed to be nodding off but opened his eyes at my approach.

  “How’re you doing?” I asked.

  “Haven’t had this much excitement since the war. But I could do with some rest.”

  My cell phone rang. I recognized the number.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “At the ranch house where we were supposed to meet,” Mondragón said. “Where are you?”

  “Can’t talk right now,” I said.

  “Police?”

  “I’ll explain when I see you. Stay where you are.”

  “Rainy’s okay, by the way. Rodriguez probably needs his arm looked after.”

  “Thanks,” I said and ended the call.

  I headed back to Carlson and the two agents, who were talking to Peter.

  “I think Mr. Wieman could use some medical attention,” I said. “We’ve given you what we can. Is it okay if I get him out of here?”

  Carlson said, “I need formal statements from everybody.”

  “Tomorrow morning?”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Solid gold. Your office. Nine a.m.”

  In his way, he looked as beat up as Jocko, and he gave me a weary nod of approval.

  Vega said, “One thing, O’Connor. Your wife and Gilbert Mondragón?”

  “They had nothing to do with this,” I said.

  “They’re safe?” Sprangers asked.

  “They’re safe.”

  “Any way you could convince them to accompany you tomorrow?”

  “I can try.” I waited a moment. “Not thinking of putting that drone on me, are you?”

  Sprangers smiled, slowly. “Still don’t trust me? After all we’ve been through together?”

  I walked to Michelle and sat down beside her. Frank Harris was lying quiet, his eyes closed. He seemed to be out.

  “How is he?”

  “Lucky Rivera fired low. Leg wound. Missed the arteries, but might have hit bone. Peter had some morphine in his medical supplies. That’ll help keep him comfortable until they get him to Sierra Vista.”

  “Peter and Jocko and me, we’re leaving. Want to come?”

  “I think I’ll stay with Frank until the chopper arrives.”

  “Thanks f
or everything.”

  “Me? I just loaned you a pickup.”

  “Semper fi,” I said.

  “Vaya con Dios,” she replied.

  * * *

  On our way out of the Sonora Hills and back to Jocko’s ranch house, we met several vehicles belonging to Border Patrol and the Coronado County Sheriff’s Department speeding toward the wash that would lead them to the Jezebel. The storm was long past, and the gush of water had diminished to little more than a trickle. The sun was low in the sky, breaking golden through scattered clouds, and the air that rushed in through the Jeep windows smelled fresh and promising.

  The black SUV was parked in front of Jocko’s ranch house. As soon as we pulled up, Rainy rushed out to meet us. I think our senses must be hardwired to our hearts. When I saw Rainy, she was more beautiful to me than anything I’d ever seen before, and although she hadn’t been able to shower or wash her hair in days, when she nestled her head against my chest, she smelled better to me than any flower I’d ever come across.

  She hugged Peter and Jocko, too, and we went into the ranch house together. Mondragón waited inside with Joaquin Rodriguez, who was looking far worse than the last time I saw him.

  “Get me to a doctor,” he insisted. “My arm is killing me.”

  “It could be worse,” Mondragón said. “I could be killing you.”

  I explained to them all what had gone down at the Jezebel Mine. When I finished, Rodriguez spit on the floor. “Cabrón. He deserved to die.”

  “You see?” Mondragón said to Rainy with great satisfaction. “Trust no one but your own flesh and blood.”

  Rainy’s response was a glare as cold as steel in winter.

  “What do we do with him?” Peter asked, nodding toward Rodriguez.

  “Let me go,” Rodriguez said. “I can talk to my father, explain things. I am all he has now. I am the one he’ll trust.”

  “Let’s talk outside,” I said to the others.

  The sun had settled on the tops of the Coronados in the west. We stood with our shadows long across the ground, all of us except Jocko, who sat on the porch steps, looking beat.