The road up to his house was a mess. He slipped and slid his way up the dark trail. The rain let up some. He prayed he wouldn’t meet any headlights. He could imagine his heart failing him at the sight. He had never seen his house so dark and it seemed like ages since he’d been there. The vapor lamp on the barn flickered over the corral.
He walked through the rain to the house, stomping mud off his feet as he climbed the steps. He opened the door and stepped in, switching on the kitchen light without pause. He kicked his shoes off as he closed the door. He put water on to boil and went to his bedroom where he found dry clothes and boots. He realized that someplace along the way he had lost his shotgun. It didn’t matter, he figured. It would do more to get him shot than anything else. The kettle whistled.
In the kitchen, he poured the hot water into a bowl and stirred in a package of instant soup. He turned on the radio and ate while he listened to a call-in talk show. People complained and asked what could be done about workers’ compensation, which was not commensurate with the limb lost and missing baggage for which the airlines refused to take responsibility and pit bulls terrorizing a neighborhood. Lewis listened to the host ask for calls and considered picking up the phone. “Hello,” he would say, “my friend’s been kidnapped and will be killed if I don’t come up with a dead old Mexican. What should I do?” He swallowed the last of his tea and laughed. He was losing his mind.
He put on his raincoat over a sweater, grabbed a flashlight and left the house. The rain was light now. As he drew nearer the barn, he could see it. One of the horses stood over something large in the mud. The light on the barn flickered like a strobe. His legs became rubbery as he realized the gelding was standing over the mare. He went to her. Water stood in the mud around her. Her legs were folded awkwardly beneath her body. He shined the light on her. There was a hole in the middle of the race mark on her face. There was no blood; she had been washed by the rain. Lewis vomited up his soup and staggered to the barn door for support.
He didn’t have time to think about this now. He didn’t have time to think. Thinking was a bad idea. He went into the barn and got the shovel and a tarp. He trotted out toward the truck without looking at his fallen animal.
It was three-forty when Lewis turned off the main road and drove toward Lobos Canyon. This muddy road was worse than the one up to his house. He wondered if it had ever seen a grader. The rain had picked up again. He came to the arroyo. It was full and flowing quickly. He hesitated only briefly, then plowed forward. The water was deeper than he’d guessed and the flow stronger. The truck dipped down and the water pushed the back of it, but he made it across. The road ended.
He got out and shined his light up the foot path. He grabbed the shovel out of the back and started to count out the forty yards. If it had not rained, it would have been simple to find the freshly dug grave. Forty yards about. He moved the beam of the light through the trees and over the ground. There was a dead tree not far from him. The ground beside was muddy, no pine needles and grass. In the mud was a discarded can which had contained Vienna sausages.
Lewis started digging. At least the rain made digging easy. He threw the mud and dirt gently as if that made the action less disrespectful. He balanced the flashlight on the log and had it shine down into the hole. The smell hit him, then the shovel caught on something, but it wasn’t hard and he remembered that Martin had not been buried in a coffin. He put down the shovel and dropped to dig with his hands. He found Martin. He grabbed the light and shone it on him. Maggots crawled on his face, in his mouth, around his eyes. Lewis looked up at the sky and screamed, screamed as loud as he could. He tried to throw up, but nothing came. He just dry heaved, the muscles of his entire body pressing to release something that was not there.
He shouted at himself. “Do it! Just do it!” And he reached down and tried to free the body from the earth. “Do it! Don’t think! Oh, God!” He pulled the body from the hole and fell back, panting. He could not stop. He had to keep moving, not thinking. Get him to the truck, into the back of the truck and you won’t have to see him, he said to himself. He draped the naked body over his shoulder. He wasn’t heavy. Death wasn’t heavy, he thought. He was surrounded by the stench and hoped the rain would wash it off.
He dumped the body into the truck and covered it with the tarp. He stood and held his arms wide and let the rain rinse the mud and maggots and stench of death off of his raincoat. He got into the truck, leaned his head forward against the wheel and cried.
He sat there for a long time. He looked at the clock. It was five o’clock now. The rain had stopped. He turned around and went back toward the arroyo. Without the rain he could see the flow and it didn’t look so bad. He drove through the water and plowed through the mud to the highway. So, where was he going to take the body? He half-cried, half-laughed to himself. He could feel tears on his face. His nose was running. He rolled down the window to let air push the smell out of the cab.
Blue lights flashed behind him. Lewis pulled over and Manny appeared at his door. Lewis wiped his face and looked at him.
“Early for you to be out,” Manny said.
Lewis looked out over the flat. Some hint of the day to come was there. “You know what they say about the early bird,” Lewis said.
“Yeah.” Manny looked into the back.
“I’m sorry about your office.”
“It’s been messier than that. So, just what got into you? What were you saying about Maggie?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m sorry, Lewis. I thought when you called you were just over-reacting. She still hasn’t shown up?”
“No, she called.” Lewis didn’t feel he could trust Manny. If Manny knew he had the body, he might take it, might have to take it. Lewis became more nervous.
Manny looked again into the bed of the pickup. “You told me she was missing over the radio.”
“I said she had been missing. I was just mad because you hadn’t looked for her. She stopped to visit a friend in Santa Fe. Sorry, I didn’t tell you.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“All this stuff about Martin, it’s making me crazy.”
“I didn’t know about your temper.”
Lewis rubbed his palms together. “Yeah, it can get out of hand.”
“Want to step out of the truck, Lewis?”
“Was I speeding?” Lewis chuckled.
Manny shook his head. “No, but there is a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s your tailgate.”
“What about it?”
“It’s down. It’s got to be up.”
Lewis pushed open the door and got out.
Manny fell back a step. “Jesus Christ, Lewis, what’d you get into?” He fanned the air with a hand. “You smell like a dog that’s been rolling.”
“I found a dead coyote in my pasture and I took him to the dump.”
“Hmm. That where you coming from, the dump?”
Lewis nodded. “Long way around, but yes.”
Manny frowned.
“About this tailgate,” Lewis said, “I didn’t know it was down.” He walked to the back with Manny. He looked at the lump under the tarp and tried to push up the gate. The wind played with the tarp and caused it to flap.
Manny stepped back and looked at the bottom of Lewis’ truck. “Where have you been? Look at all that mud. On your boots, too.”
“Like I said, the dump.” The gate wouldn’t latch. Lewis became frustrated, stepped back and kicked it hard. “Piece of shit,” he said.
“What’s wrong, Lewis?”
“Nothing.” He grabbed the tailgate and pulled on it for a check. “It’s up,” Lewis said. “Is that all.” He walked up and tucked the tarp under the load.
Manny followed Lewis to his door, looked at him like he wanted to say something.
Lewis got back into the cab and left. He viewed the sheriff in his mirror, just standing and staring at the lump under the tarp.
Lewis
got gas in town and drove on out to Martin’s place. He wrapped the body in the tarp and managed to carry it to the shed behind the cabin without seeing it again. The morning was full. He walked around to the front of the cabin and looked up the canyon. He halfway suspected that Maggie was being held up there somewhere. He went into Martin’s cabin and sat in a chair. It was cold inside. Things were already getting dusty. He looked at the old man’s fishing gear in the corner. Lewis put together a forecast for the place. No one knew about it really, so no one cared. Taylor had gone, so there was no one to claim anything legally. More dust would collect and the place would become stiff with age, a thing or two disappearing along the way. Martin had been a gentle man, meaning no harm to anyone, and certainly no one found him threatening. But there he was, dead and decomposing in his shed, with so many people wanting him. He had lived a long life without causing trouble and now. What could he have seen to make so many bad things happen? Lewis used his finger to draw a line through the dust on the table.
Lewis walked out and drove down to the cafe at the river. He sat on the deck of the empty restaurant for a while, watching the rapid river below. He wished he were fishing. He had the body in a place he could get to. What now? They were going to kill Maggie and then him. He looked at the pay phone under the overhang. He had to try something. He couldn’t let Maggie die. He stood up and went to the phone. He got the number from the operator, but no one answered at Peabody’s office.
Lewis left the deck and made his way down to the water’s edge. He imagined pulling out a brown trout and taking it up to a campsite where Maggie and Laura waited. He looked downstream and saw where Plata Creek emptied into the flow. He looked up the mountain and again at the confluence. If there was something bad in the ground up there, it was in the river now. Lewis sat on the bank and considered it. People swimming at Cochiti. People eating trout, catfish, crappies out of the river and the lake. Elephant Butte was below that. He rocked with his confusion. Jesus Christ, everyone was being exposed.
He got up and went back up to the deck and the pay phone. He dialed the number.
Peabody answered.
“I’ve got the body,” Lewis said.
“Very good.”
“But you don’t get it until I have Maggie. I want to know she’s all right.”
“She’s not here with me,” Peabody said.
“Well, I don’t want to talk to her anyway. I want her released. Then, you can have the body. If I don’t get her, alive, I’m taking this dead Mexican to the State Capitol steps and we’ll see what kind of attention he gets.”
There was a silence at the other end which made Lewis feel lighter.
“Do you understand?” Lewis asked.
“I’m not going to deal with you, Mason.”
“Do you think I’m stupid? You’re going to kill both of us. I don’t have any fucking thing to lose. Fuck you, Peabody, or whatever your name is. Maybe I’ll just take the body to the Capitol now, or to a television station. Do you have any suggestions? And I’ll stand beside it and point out the burns on his legs, complete with maggots, and tell the cameras and everybody about how there aren’t any animals up in that canyon. And I’ll ask them if they know why there’s a chain-link fence in the middle of the forest. Think they’ll have an answer for me?”
“She’ll be on the plaza in twenty minutes,” Peabody said.
“Fifteen.” Lewis slammed the phone down and leaned against the wall. He took a deep breath and smiled to himself.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Apparently, Maggie was alive. Lewis drove to town, thinking along the way of what he would do if Peabody pointed a gun at him. It had felt good to speak to the man that way, but he had not given the matter a thorough hashing out. Peabody might well just kill them or have his apes kill them on the plaza in front of everyone. The sun was bright and the sky showed no new rain. There would be many people out early. He thought of his friend Martin. Had he seen that body as Martin Aguilera, he never would have been able to dig it up. He shivered and fought an urge to brush himself off with his hands. His hands. He needed to wash them. Mud was dried under his nails and he imagined maggots on his palms. He stopped at a gas station, took off his raincoat and threw it in the back of the truck, then ran to the restroom where he tried to cleanse his hands with blue powdered soap from a dispenser. He rubbed at a spot on the back of his left hand that would not come off. It started to sting so he left it alone. The room was filthy, disgusting and Lewis belonged there. Someone else’s waste floated in the toilet.
He returned to the sunlight and pulled his sweater off over his head. He considered calling Manny, have him be there on the plaza. The sheriff had him confused. He looked down at how muddy his boots were. He stomped his feet.
Lewis didn’t have a plan when he turned onto the lane which circled the plaza. He parked in a diagonal space in front of a jewelry store. He stood out of the vehicle and looked across the square, starting at the stage. A hand waved to him. It was Maggie. Peabody sat beside her on the bench.
Lewis glanced about, continued to do so as he approached them. Maggie looked okay and he felt faint from happiness, he guessed, but probably from exhaustion. He had to hang on now. He sat by Maggie and she fell against him, tears flowing.
“Are you all right?” Lewis asked. He held her tight.
“She’s fine,” Peabody said.
“I didn’t ask you anything,” Lewis said to him. “Maggie?” He raised her face with his hands and looked at her eyes. “It’s going to be all right.”
Peabody looked straight ahead at the shops across the lane. “I’ve held up my end of the deal.”
Lewis looked around, turning to see behind him. He saw Ernesto trot down an alley.
“Where’s the body, Lewis?”
But Lewis was occupied with Maggie. “Did they hurt you?”
She managed to shake her head no.
Lewis looked at Peabody and realized that he was not very bright. Someone had given him a long leash, but he was not a smart man. He’d handled the matter badly. Lewis didn’t know what to do, but he could see that Peabody wasn’t all that clear on it either.
“We’ll be going now,” Lewis said and started to stand with Maggie.
“Sit down,” Peabody said with some authority. “I don’t want it to come down to this.”
Lewis considered Maggie and sat again.
“Tell me where the body is, Lewis,” the man said calmly.
“Why do you want it? I mean, I’ve seen the burns. If that’s what you’re worried about, you’re going to have to kill me.”
“You know, I could just shoot you and forget about it. You’re right.”
Lewis sighed. “The body is buried in a shallow grave in Lobos Canyon. There’s a road that goes up the canyon off the main highway. It crosses Arroyo Azul, then stops. Forty yards up the foot trail. You can’t miss it.”
“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble,” Peabody said.
“Come on, Maggie,” Lewis said.
The woman stood with him and they walked across the plaza. Lewis saw the two men step out of the van and approach them. He led Maggie on at a normal pace. “Relax, Maggie, this will be over soon.”
The men were twenty feet from them. Then there were bodies between them. Six, seven. Ernesto was in the middle of it all. The two apes stopped. Tourists standing outside of shops pointed and grew frightened. The Mexican men surrounded the two white men. Lewis got Maggie to the passenger side of his truck before she passed out. He put her in and closed the door. More Mexican men crossed the plaza to stand with Ernesto and the others. Lewis got in behind the wheel, backed out of the space and drove away.
At the intersection, he turned north. A couple of lights later, he began his circuitous route over the back roads of town so that he would be headed south toward Martin’s place. He stopped at a Giant Burger fast food restaurant, parked in the back by the dumpster.
He attended to Maggie. He shook her gently. “Maggie? Magg
ie?” Maybe she wasn’t all right. Perhaps they had poisoned her. He needed some water for her. He got out and ran into the Giant Burger.
A teenager met him at the counter.
“I’d like a large water.”
The kid turned around, scooped ice into a cup and poured the water. He came back and put it down. “I’ll have to charge you for the cup,” he said.
Lewis reached into his pockets and realized he’d spent his last money on gasoline. “I’ll owe you, okay?”
“A dime, sir. Company policy.”
Lewis leaned forward and grabbed the teenager by the front of his purple and gold uniform. “I’ll pay you later, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lewis took the water out to Maggie, opened her door and stood by her, helping her sip. She came around.
“Did I faint?” she asked.
Lewis nodded.
“Shit,” she said. “What a wimp. I’m sorry.”
Lewis just smiled. “It was just your turn. You okay?”
She nodded.
“What is going on?”
“I don’t really know. I had to dig up Martin’s body in order to get you back.” He looked at the sky. “Maybe I didn’t. Jesus. I should have just lied to them in the first place. I didn’t think they were stupid. But they are, Maggie.”
“You had to dig him up?”
“You don’t want to hear about it. Anyway, I know they still want us dead. At least, I think they do.”
“So, what now?”
Lewis shook his head. “We’ve got to show Martin to as many people as we can and tell them everything. There’s a chain-link fence, ten feet tall, in the canyon beyond Martin’s. I saw men looking for something with a metal detector.”
“You’re not making anything clearer to me,” Maggie said.
“You can understand my problem then.”
Lewis closed the door and went back to his side, got in. He drove them across the river and up to Martin’s He turned off the engine and looked at the cabin. He didn’t know if he could keep going. This was where it all started, he thought.
The Body of Martin Aguilera Page 11
