Monkey on a Chain

by Harlen Campbell

  “Sorry about that, Mr. Porter. I had a report of a stolen car. The description was sort of like yours.”

  “Report from the state police?” I asked.

  He looked at me carefully. “No. It was a verbal report. The state police don’t have it.”

  I didn’t believe him. “Be sure you pass it on.”

  “If I confirm it. No point in passing on a mistake.”

  “No point in shooting a man over a mistake either,” I said.

  “Yeah. That would be sort of regrettable. You planning on being around long?”

  “Depends on how long it takes to find my friend.”

  “I asked around. Nobody of that name in town.”

  I looked at his name tag. It said CISNEROS.

  He caught my glance. “Different branch of the family,” he said. “Don’t bother people, Mr. Porter. We’re very serious about disturbing the peace around here.” He nodded and returned to his car.

  April was shaking when I opened her door. I didn’t feel exactly calm myself. She put her arms around me and hugged me. That helped some. I hugged her back. I could feel the monkey sharp between us.

  We ate at a restaurant on the highway to Chama and sacked out early. The food was terrible but filling. The mattress was lumpy, but the company was good. The next morning I drove to the Sheriff’s office and left April in the car with the keys and instructions to find the state police if I didn’t return in half an hour.

  The sheriff was a short thin man named Peña. He didn’t smile when I introduced myself and offered my hand, but he shook.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Porter?” he asked.

  He didn’t offer me a chair. I took one anyway. “I think your deputy has a problem with me. I’d like to get it straightened out before someone gets hurt.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  I described what had happened at the motel the day before. “I haven’t broken any laws,” I added, “and I’m not here to make trouble for anyone. I just want to find an old friend.”

  “I checked around. Your friend is buried in Santa Fe. His family moved away from here over forty years ago. There is nothing here for you, Mr. Porter. I think you would be smart to look somewhere else.”

  “The grave is empty. You know it and I know it. And I think the family moved back. I want to talk to them.”

  He looked at me expressionlessly. “Suppose they did,” he said. “You have no right to bother them. If they don’t want to talk to you, it is my business, the business of my whole department, to protect their right to privacy. And we will do that.”

  “Have you spoken to them? Did they say they don’t want to talk to me?”

  He smiled at me. “I can hardly talk to people who don’t exist, can I?”

  “If they don’t exist, I’m hardly bothering anyone by looking for them, am I?”

  “Don’t nitpick, Porter. You’re bothering people. You’re bothering me right now. Stop it. Leave town.”

  “I’ll leave when my business is done,” I said. “In the meantime, if I have another run-in with your department, I’ll file a complaint with the state police. If you want to cover your ass, you’d better play by the book from now on. That means protecting law-abiding citizens like me. Your deputy frightened my friend badly last night. Don’t let that happen again.”

  He glanced pointedly at his watch. “My ass is very well covered, Mr. Porter,” he said quietly. “If you want to avoid trouble, you should begin by avoiding trouble. And I’m afraid there is only trouble here in Tierra Amarilla for you. Goodbye.”

  He stared at me until I left.

  When I described the conversation to April, she acted as though I should be outraged.

  “They’re just protecting their own,” I told her.

  “But we aren’t threatening anyone!”

  “You don’t know that. If Sissy was involved in those killings, I’m a threat to him. A serious threat. And he knows it.”

  “So you think he was involved?”

  “I think he’s alive, somewhere in Rio Arriba County.”

  We drove up to Chama and found a survey map of the county. I studied it long enough to locate the land that had been owned by Quintana Holding Company and sold to Felix Romero.

  Since we were having trouble finding the front door, I planned to hike around to the back. We did a little shopping. Jeans, boots, wool shirts, and heavy jackets for each of us. A small backpack and a canteen. After lunch in Chama, we drove back to Tierra Amarilla. The deputy picked us up on the way and followed us to the motel. He parked out front for forty minutes, but didn’t come to the door. Eventually, he drove away.

  We spent the afternoon in our cabin, going over the map and discussing the plans for the night. I’d wanted to leave April behind, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She maintained that her presence might provide a hold of some sort over Sissy. I had to agree that she could be right. If he turned out to be her father. And if he wasn’t doing the killing. Anyway, if there was an effective way to leave her behind, I hadn’t found it.

  The property wouldn’t be hard to find. There was a turnoff near a place called Nutrias. The map showed it as a primitive road. I hoped it wasn’t too primitive for the car.

  We left at dusk. I had hoped to be unobserved, but a patrol car was waiting across the street. It escorted us when we pulled out of the parking lot. When we turned south on 84 and started out of town, it fell back and paced us from a distance.

  Nutrias was no more than a collection of homes with a small store. I drove past it. The patrol car pulled off there and we drove on, alone in the night.

  April turned in her seat and stared back into the dark as the headlights diminished behind us. “He stopped,” she said. “Why did he stop?”

  “It’s an old tradition in the west. We’ve just been escorted out of town.”

  “We’re a long way out of town.”

  “That was the turnoff to Sissy’s place. He followed us long enough to make sure we didn’t take the turn.”

  Ten minutes later, I pulled over and turned out the lights. We climbed into the backseat and changed into the jeans and boots. I got the weapons from the trunk, checked the clips, and put them on the front seat. Then we turned around and headed back toward Nutrias.

  It was almost nine. There were lights in several of the houses scattered around the turnoff. There was no sign of the patrol car.

  I cut the headlights and made the turn slowly, trying to minimize our engine noise. We moved up the dirt road at fifteen miles an hour. The terrain was rugged and climbed steadily. We were soon surrounded by tall pines that nearly met overhead and blocked what light the moon gave. I had to turn the lights back on. I rolled the windows down and tried to listen for other vehicles, but the sound of our own passage prevented that.

  The road hadn’t been graded in years, though it showed signs of regular use. In several places it was no more than two ruts winding between the boles of the surrounding trees. The car bucked when the tires climbed out of the ruts and then fell back in. A couple of times I heard or felt earth scrape on the undercarriage when the mound between the ruts rose too high.

  April found the second turnoff. I would never have seen it. It was hardly even a pathway. The ruts split and a faint trail cut into the trees on the right. She said, “There!,” and pointed. I had to back up to make the turn.

  A hundred yards up, the trail widened abruptly. It was graded again. I stopped and turned off the lights and engine. The silence was overwhelming. We sat in the dark for a few minutes, listening. An owl hooted in the distance, and a faint breeze rustled the needles of the pines.

  I turned on the interior light and rechecked the clips in the pistol and the AR15. I chambered a round in each and set the safeties, then turned off the light and waited for night vision to come. The wait did no good. There wasn’t enough light penetrating the trees to see a damned thing. If the map was right, the Romero property was about a mile ahead. I intended to take the next opp
ortunity to turn the vehicle around and then finish the trip on foot.

  As I reached for the ignition, I heard an engine, very faint, somewhere behind us. I froze and glanced at April. She had heard it too.

  “Are they following us?” she whispered.

  There was no way to tell. Chances were good that we were being followed. There was nothing else out here. I started the car and drove ahead as quickly as I safely could.

  Within a quarter mile, I could see headlights flickering between the trees behind us. There must have been a watcher in one of the houses. But the headlights were higher than they would have been on a patrol car. More like a pickup. I didn’t know if that was good or not.

  I told April to hide the M16 under the front seat. There was no point letting Sissy know I’d come armed.

  Our tail caught up with us a couple of hundred yards later. He approached to within fifty feet and then followed. I slowed down. There was no longer any hope of surprise, and I saw no point in taking chances. I handed the pistol to April and asked her to put it in the glove compartment.

  A few minutes later I had to stop. A second pickup, facing us, with its headlights on, blocked the road ahead. There was no way around it. The trees were too close.

  April was shaking. “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “We wait.” I turned off the lights and the engine.

  The truck behind us stopped twenty yards back. The engine was turned off, but the headlights stayed on us. I heard a door open and slam shut, and someone scurried into the trees to the left. I kept my hands on the steering wheel and waited. The only sound was April’s ragged breathing.

  A shot sounded ahead and to the left. I was too blinded by the headlights in my eyes to see any flash. I waited.

  “Get out of there, you son of a bitch!” The voice sounded young.

  “Slowly,” I told April. “We don’t want to startle anyone.”

  We climbed out very cautiously and held our hands above our heads.

  An older man spoke behind us. “Walk forward and stand in front of your car.”

  We did as he ordered.

  He called out again, “Watch them, Juan! If they try anything, you shoot! Okay?”

  “I’ll shoot, Tio.” It was the young voice. It sounded nervous.

  Behind us, I heard the door of my car open and the bumper settled against my legs. A minute later, I heard, “Sons of bitches have guns in here!”

  The one in front of us came closer until he was silhouetted by the headlights. “You want me to shoot them?” he called.

  “No!” I said.

  “Not yet,” the older one answered. I hoped it wasn’t just because he’d realized he was in the line of fire. The bumper shifted behind my knees as the one in the car crawled out.

  He walked around to the side and I could begin to make him out. A man, maybe in his mid-fifties. But he carried himself as though he were in good condition. He spent a minute thinking. “Lay down, both of you,” he ordered. We lay in the dirt.

  “I’m going to search them,” he told the young man. “You shoot if they try anything!”

  “I don’t want to shoot the girl,” the younger one said.

  “Don’t shoot her,” I said.

  “You shut up!” A boot caught the side of my head, but it wasn’t a strong blow. I winced. “You shoot the one that moves first. Even if it’s the girl.”

  His hands patted me down carefully. Then he moved over to April. I heard her gasp once but she didn’t move. He walked back out of the line of fire. “They don’t have no more guns on them,” he told the other. “You stand up now,” he said to us. “What do you want here?”

  I stood slowly and helped April to her feet. She was still trembling. I murmured a question at her and she nodded. She was all right.

  “I want to see Sissy,” I called to them. “Juan Cisneros. I’m a friend.”

  “You’re gonna have to see him,” the old one said. “He’ll decide if you’re a friend.” He stepped up by the boy and whispered to him. Then they both backed away and he told us to start walking.

  We passed the second pickup and then walked slowly down the center of the road. It was hard to see at first, but the trees began to thin out and soon there was more light.

  We walked in silence with our hands up at chest level. We could hear footsteps behind us and the owl, now very faint, far behind us. After half a mile or so, there was a light ahead. We walked into a wide clearing. Several bright lights were set on poles around the clearing. A garage, a barn, and several corrals were scattered around it. They all glowed with the silvery sheen of very old wood. The house was directly ahead, a sprawling one-story adobe. We headed for the front door.

  The older man growled, “Stop here.”

  We stopped. The young man ran around us and opened the door. A woman peered out. I caught only an impression of middle age and worry before she whispered, “Are you all right, Juanito?” He nodded and told her to move back.

  “Take them to the den,” she said. “He’s waiting.”

  The boy stood to one side and gestured with his rifle, an old .30-30. We entered. There was a modern kitchen to the left. The woman stood just inside and stared at us as we walked past her. She was wearing a house dress. I heard a sharp intake of breath when she saw April clearly. “A girl!”

  We followed the hall past a living room to the den. A large room, fifteen feet by about thirty. Dark pine covered the walls. The man sitting on a long horse-hide sofa at the far end held a revolver loosely in his left hand. He was almost fifty years old now. His hair was still thick, but it held some silver. His face showed a quiet strength I had never seen in Saigon. When we entered, he picked up a cane, stood with difficulty, and limped toward us. He stopped ten feet away and looked us over with unfriendly eyes.

  “You don’t look dead,” I told him.

  He nodded and said, “Rainbow.”

  The older man came in and stood to one side. He carried the M16 and the .45 in his left hand. The other hand held a 30.06 hunting rifle. Sissy glanced at them, then back to me.

  “You bring weapons to see an old friend?” he asked.

  “I brought more than that. I brought your daughter.”

  His eyes widened. “My daughter?” He looked at April.

  Behind us, the woman gasped. “Madre de Dios!”

  April said, “Hello.”

  “You want to talk?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Maybe we better.” He turned and limped slowly back to the sofa and sat. He called to the boy, “Bring chairs, hijo.”

  The other man put my weapons in the corner and kept his rifle on us while the chairs were brought and arranged. Sissy waved in his direction. “My brother, Tony,” he told me. “Did they have any other guns?” he asked Tony.

  “No. Just these.”

  “Then I think you can put your rifle away.”

  We sat. The woman came and stood beside Sissy. “What does he mean, your daughter?”

  “Be quiet, Anna,” he told her. “I don’t know what he means. I don’t have a daughter.”

  “Miss Phoung’s daughter, then,” I said.

  “You aren’t my father?” April asked in a small voice.

  He studied her, glanced at his wife, then shook his head. “No. Roy told me she was going to have a baby. But it wasn’t mine.”

  “Then whose?” I asked.

  He laughed softly. “Who can say? Maybe yours.”

  I was getting angry. “You know better than that.”

  “I don’t know a damned thing. I was taken out before the end, remember?”

  “You were around when she was started.”

  “When?”

  “July. Just before Luzon.”

  “Roy told me it was later than that,” he said slowly.

  “He lied.”

  Sissy turned to April. “Why are you here?” he asked. “Why aren’t you home?”

  She started crying.

  I was watching Sissy carefully. He see
med confused, but I’d figured out a piece of it. “You knew she was in California.”

  He looked down at the gun in his hand. “Okay,” he said. “Sure, I knew it. When I found out that Phoung was dead, I decided her kid should get a cut. I went to Toker. He was the only one who could take care of a kid. I told him about it and he agreed to try to find her. Five, six years later, I almost forgot about it, and I heard from him again. He’d found a girl in Hong Kong. He said she was Phoung’s baby. I told him to bring her back, and he did. There was no way I could see her, but I made sure she was taken care of.”

  “You didn’t tell me this,” the woman said. “You should have told me.”

  “I couldn’t, Anna,” he said. “You never understood about what happened in ’Nam. I told you I had a girl over there. You didn’t talk to me for two weeks.”

  “A little baby is different.”

  “She isn’t mine,” he said. “I did it for Phoung. For her memory.”

  “That’s worse, Juan,” she said. “It means you loved her.”

  “It was a long time ago, and she was dead before I met you.”

  “Still,” she said. She gave April a look I couldn’t interpret. “Are you sure this isn’t your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “You know. She couldn’t have been.”

  “I see.” She looked troubled.

  April had stopped crying. She sat there studying Sissy. “Who?” she demanded. “Who was he then?”

  “I don’t know. Roy said he thought it was that son of a bitch Corvin.”

  “Max Corvin?” She sounded forlorn.

  Sissy looked surprised. “You know about Max?”

  “There are some things you have to know,” I said.

  “Then tell me. Start with those.” He waved at our weapons.

  “You first. What’s with the guards? And the revolver?”

  He tightened his grip on the pistol and looked belligerent.

  “We used to trust each other, compadre,” I said softly. “Remember?”

  He continued staring at me, but his expression changed. “I remember,” he said, “but it’s been a long time. I’ve been in hiding for a long time.”

  “Tell me about it.”