by Mark Gimenez
"That's how it is for men-a finger up your butt, an elevated PSA, and all of a sudden you're pissing your pants and holding a limp dick the rest of your fucking life. Or the cancer kills you."
The two middle-aged men rode in silence for a time, pondering life and death, mistresses and wives, budget deficits and deceived voters, past infidelity and future impotence… until Jim Bob Burnet finally said, "Shit, let's kill something, see if that'll perk up our spirits."
The children stood in a circle in the middle of the main dirt road in the colonia. Lindsay and Jesse got out of the pickup and walked over. The children parted to reveal a coiled-up rattlesnake hissing and shaking its tail.
"?Aguas! " Jesse yelled."?Quitense de la vibora! "
He herded the children back. The snake slithered around on the hot dirt.
"There are many snakes in the colonias," he said. "I really hate snakes."
"We must kill it," Lindsay said. "Before it bites the kids."
"Yes. We must."
He put his hands on his hips and studied the snake, which hissed and spit at its tormentors.
"If I had a gun, I could shoot the snake, but I do not have a gun. Perhaps I could drop a cinder block on the snake, that would certainly kill it. Or perhaps I could drive the truck over it several times. Or perhaps I could…"
Lindsay looked around. She spotted a shovel leaning against a nearby shanty. She walked over, grabbed the shovel, and picked up a brick. She returned and threw the brick at the snake, striking it and giving her just enough time to raise the shovel and slam the sharp edge down on the snake, cutting its head off. The children squealed with delight. Jesse gave her a look.
"Yes, well, I suppose that is also an effective method."
"I grew up in the country."
Bode sighted in the African lion. It was a majestic creature, four hundred pounds of muscle and mane. He almost hated to kill it. Almost.
"What do you figure?"
They sat positioned on a ridge overlooking a low valley set against a tree line where a spring creek ran. Bode had propped the rifle on a rock formation; Jim Bob had the binoculars on the beast. Ranger Hank stood guard. Manuel again held the reins to the horses.
"Six hundred yards. We need to get closer."
"We'll spook him. With this scope, I can see the fly on his nose from here."
"But can you shoot him from here?"
"Reckon I'll find out."
Testosterone and adrenaline and the anticipation of the kill coursed through Bode Bonner's body. Hunting was almost as exciting as sex, and he never pulled the trigger too soon. He ran his hand over the smooth custom-fitted English walnut stock of the AHR Safari 550 DGR (Dangerous Game Rifle) as if it were Mandy's smooth thigh. He fingered the bolt then worked the controlled-feed action and chambered a 270-grain, 375-caliber H amp;H Magnum cartridge from the four-round magazine. He flicked off the safety. He touched his left index finger to the single-stage trigger set at exactly 3.5 pounds. When he squeezed the trigger the hammer would release and drive the firing pin into the back of the cartridge igniting the primer which in turn would ignite the gunpowder inside the cartridge which would create sufficient gas pressure to propel the bullet down the barrel, turning to the right two full twists before exiting the twenty-four-inch barrel, and through the air at 2,690 feet per second, closing the distance to the lion before Bode could blink, and, if his aim were true and the lion didn't move, slamming into the beast's head and boring through its brain and blowing out a chunk of skull on the other side, killing the creature instantly. The taxidermist would patch up the lion's skull and mount the head-or maybe Bode would get the entire lion stuffed, as if it were about to pounce on anyone entering the Governor's Office. That'd give a lobbyist a fucking heart attack. Bode inhaled then exhaled slowly and gently squeezed the trigger and "What the hell?"
The lion bolted-because something had bolted from the tree line. Bode looked up from the scope then back through the scope. He found the something in the cross hairs… only it wasn't a something… it was a someone… a young barefooted girl, her short dress ripped and torn, her face filled with fright, running across the open range.
"What's she doing out here?" Jim Bob said, the binoculars still to his face.
"Hauling ass," Bode said. "Like someone's after her."
"Someone is."
Bode swung the scope off the girl to three men on dirt bikes riding hard and fast behind her. After her. Chasing her as if they meant to catch her. The girl glanced back but kept running as if her life depended on it. But she wasn't fast enough. The men ran her to ground. They stopped and dropped the bikes then surrounded the girl. They looked Mexican and mean. They kicked the girl, grabbed her hair and yanked her up, then slapped her face, knocking her back down to the ground.
"Bad hombres, " Jim Bob said.
"She's just a kid."
The men now pointed guns at her. She held her hands up, pleading to them.
" Shit. They're gonna kill her."
Bode put his finger on the trigger.
"Not on my watch."
He aimed center mass and fired four times.
The doctor's assistant screamed-"Aah!" — and grabbed at her heart when she entered the clinic. She recoiled from the rattlesnake hanging by the door.
"Where did this serpiente come from?"
"Inez," Jesse said, "this is Senora Byrne. She killed the snake, with a shovel. She is a very skilled snake-killer. And nurse. She will be working with us. She is Irish."
Inez Quintanilla was a pretty young Latina about Becca's age. She wore too much make-up and perfume, she smacked her gum, and she seemed amused. She regarded the snake and then Lindsay.
"Why?"
"I didn't want the snake to hurt the children."
Lindsay spoke in her Irish accent.
"No. Why does an Anglo want to work here, in the colonias? "
"I want to care for the people."
Now Inez was more than amused.
"No one cares about us."
Inez maintained eye contact with Lindsay for a long moment then dropped her eyes to Lindsay's pink Crocs.
"I like your shoes."
They rode the horses down to the barefooted girl. Bode, Jim Bob, and Hank dismounted; Manuel held the reins. The girl sobbed hysterically on the ground and spoke fast in Spanish.
"?No me mate!?No me mate! "
"You killed them, Governor," Hank said.
Hank kicked the three men just to make sure they were dead. They were. The first one had a hole the size of a fist in his chest. The second one had returned fire, but they were out of range for his handgun; Bode had shot him in the chest as well. The third one had cut and run; Bode had shot him in the back. Twice. The blue grama grass turned red with the men's blood.
"Mexicans," Hank said. "Check out those tattoos. Gotta be a drug gang."
"What the hell are they doing out here?"
"Ask her," Jim Bob said.
"Like I know Spanish." Bode turned to Manuel to get him to translate. "Manuel-"
Manuel dropped the reins to their horses. He stared down at the dead bodies. When he looked back up at Bode, his expression had changed. In a quick movement, he yanked his reins then kicked his horse and galloped away as if the Border Patrol were chasing him.
"Manuel!"
Bode turned back.
"Think he knows something we don't?" Jim Bob said.
Bode pulled his Colt six-shooter and scanned the valley. There might be a more desolate place on the planet, but you'd have to search for it.
"Keep an eye out, Hank."
Hank drew his handgun. Bode squatted next to the girl and touched her shoulder. She now turned her face to him. She was in fact just a kid.
"?Mas hombres? "
She shook her head.
" No. No mas. "
"What's your name?" Her face was blank."?Nombre? "
"Josefina."
Bode had exhausted his Spanish skills.
"What are yo
u doing here?"
She shook her head again. " No habla. "
Bode tried to recall Lindsay's Spanish.
"?Que… usted… aqui? "
She jumped up and headed toward the tree line. She gestured for them to follow.
" Vengan. "
She led them into the trees and across a shallow spring creek and deep into a pine forest. Bode kept a keen eye out and his gun drawn, in case she was leading them into a trap. She wasn't. She led them into a clearing. They stopped and stared.
"Well, I'll be damned," Jim Bob said.
Stretched out in front of them were neat rows of green leafy plants standing fifteen feet tall. Dozens of rows. Thousands of plants. A farm.
"Marijuana," Hank said.
The girl nodded. " Si. Marihuana. Narcotraficantes. " She then called out, as if to the plants themselves: "?Salgan!?Ya estamos a salvo! "
Brown faces slowly emerged from among the plants.
"Viagra?"
The doctor's assistant held up a carton of the medicine. Lindsay and Inez were unpacking the boxes El Diablo had brought the day before and stocking the shelves. Jesse was working at his desk on the other side of the clinic. He now looked up with a smile.
"Erectile dysfunction, that is certainly not a problem in the colonias."
"All this was donated?" Inez said.
"Yes. From, uh… from Houston."
"That reporter, Kikki, she had the hots for you, Doctor."
Lindsay glanced at Jesse; he shrugged innocently. Lindsay turned back; Inez had caught their interplay.
"So, Senora," Inez said in a low voice, "the wedding ring-you are married?"
"Yes."
"That is a very unusual ring. May I look at it?"
Lindsay removed her wedding ring for the first time in twenty-two years. She placed it in Inez's open palm. The ring was one of a matched set handmade by James Avery in Kerrville, just up the road from the Bonner Ranch outside Comfort. The ring had two separate bands, one gold, one silver, with the ends twisted together to form a knot. A lovers' knot.
"It is beautiful," Inez said. "I dream of one day having such a ring. And a husband who will take me beyond the wall."
She handed the ring back to Lindsay, reluctantly it seemed.
"So, Senora, why are you not with your husband?"
"We're separated."
"But you still wear your wedding ring?"
"I'm still married."
"Does the doctor know this?"
"We got an all-points bulletin out on Manuel Moreno," DEA Agent Rey Gonzales said. "He must've been the inside man on this operation. Mexican cartels, they're setting up these farms in isolated areas-national and state parks, Indian reservations, remote ranches-from here to California. They send men north to grow the dope here, so they don't have to smuggle it across the border. The men live on the land, tend the plants, harvest and ship to the dealers. Low overhead, high profits, so to speak."
Hank had called in the Feds on the satellite phone. Federal agents from El Paso had arrived in helicopters and now swarmed the scene in black and blue windbreakers with white and yellow letters identifying their agencies: FBI… DEA… ICE… DHS. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Drug Enforcement Agency. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Department of Homeland Security. Plus DPS troopers, Texas Rangers, and the Jeff Davis County Sheriff. They interviewed the Mexican children, took photos and collected evidence, examined the dead men, chopped and stacked the plants, and gathered a cache of high-powered weapons.
"Americans think all this shit stays south of the river," Agent Gonzales said. "But the cartels, they're here now."
"We should send the special forces into Mexico," Jim Bob said. "Kill the drug lords."
Agent Gonzales shook his head. "You kill one drug lord, another takes his place before the sun sets. Too much money to be made selling dope to the gringos. Last four years, we seized six thousand tons of dope coming across the river. But the DTOs-drug trafficking organizations-they shipped sixty thousand tons."
" Sixty thousand tons? "
"Metric."
"How?"
"How not? Trucks, trains, planes, automobiles, buses, boats, submarines, tunnels, ultralights… you name it, the DTOs do it. Even with all our interdiction efforts, they've got a ninety percent success rate."
"Is the drone helping?"
"Border Patrol's grabbed a few immigrants with the drone, but the DTOs got radar tracking it, so the drone don't slow down their shipments."
He waved a hand at the camp.
"Sophisticated operation-booby traps, tripwires, irrigation pipes running down from the spring, drip lines throughout the plants. Almost harvest time. The cartel won't be happy with you, Governor."
"That I killed their men?"
"That you found their dope. Street boys like these, they're a dime a dozen in Mexico. But that"-he gestured at the agents cutting and stacking the plants-"that's two hundred million bucks fixin' to go up in smoke."
"Two hundred million?" Jim Bob said.
Agent Gonzales nodded. "I figure this grow site for a hundred acres in production, maybe fifty thousand plants. Commercial grade, from seed to harvest in four months. Each plant produces a pound of dope, each pound is worth four thousand dollars wholesale. Ninety-nine percent profit margin."
"Money really does grow on trees," Jim Bob said.
"Three times a year. And this is a small operation compared to the grow sites we busted out west. Last year, we eradicated four and a half million plants on federal lands. Do the math, that comes to eighteen billion dollars worth of weed."
"Should've been a dope farmer."
"You and me both."
"What about the children?" Bode said.
They had found twelve Mexican boys and the girl, Josefina.
"Abducted in border towns, brought up here to work the plants. The boys, they're ten, eleven, twelve years old. Been out here almost a year now."
"What's going to happen to them?"
"ICE will take them into custody, try to locate their relatives."
"And if they don't?"
Agent Gonzales turned his palms up and shrugged.
"How's the girl?"
"Not so good. She was their sex slave. The men raped her regularly. But the one you shot in the back, she said he came to the camp only a few weeks ago. He raped her twice a day. And beat her bad." The agent's jaws clenched. "She's only twelve. You did the world a favor, Governor, shooting those Mexicans full of holes." The agent's face was stern and his skin brown. "Americans want to smoke dope, figure it ain't hurting no one. But someone always gets hurt."
A car horn interrupted them, and a black Hummer came crashing through the brush and over the creek and skidded to a stop. John Ed Johnson jumped out of the driver's seat and marched over, his head covered by a Stetson and his trouser legs tucked into tall boots, looking like LBJ himself pissed off at a congressman who had voted against him; Mandy followed behind, tiptoeing through the clearing in a dress and heels. John Ed arrived in a huff, glanced at the marijuana field, then addressed Agent Gonzales.
"These Mexicans growing dope on my land?"
"It was an inside job, Mr. Johnson. Your man Manuel."
" Manuel? "
"He rode off," Bode said. "Heading south. Making a run for the border."
John Ed seemed stunned. "Manuel did this? To me? "
"We'll catch him," Agent Gonzales said.
"Why the hell don't you people do your job and secure the goddamn border?"
Agent Gonzales held his ground.
"You want me to do my job, Mr. Johnson? Maybe I should check the immigration status of all the Mexicans working for you."
"You do, and I'll have your job."
"You don't want my job, Mr. Johnson."
John Ed stomped off in search of another federal employee who might show more respect for a billionaire. Agent Gonzales shook his head.
"That says it all about our immigration policies."
A WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP sound came from beyond the tree line and then over the trees came a half dozen helicopters, like a scene out of Apocalypse Now.
"Who the hell are they?" Agent Gonzales said.
"Network and cable TV," Jim Bob said.
"Who called them?"
"I did."
The DEA agent stared at Jim Bob as if he were nuts then walked off just as Mandy arrived and said, "Shit."
"What's wrong?"
She grabbed Bode's shoulder to steady herself then lifted her foot.
"I stepped in shit."
Bode turned to his political strategist but pointed up at the helicopters.
"Why'd you call the media?"
"Because this is it."
"This is what?"
"Your one big play. Your game changer. You wanted it-you got it."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
The Professor aimed a finger in the direction of the three men Bode had killed.
"Those dead Mexicans… they're your ticket to the White House."
Jesse held the dead rattlesnake high as they entered the small cafe.
"Luis! Look what I have brought for you."
Luis Escalera, the proprietor, came around from behind the bar.
"Jesse! Mi amigo. What have you there?"
Jesse gave the snake to Luis. He would fry the rattlesnake meat and make a fine belt from the skin. Jesse had brought his nurse into town on her first day for lunch at his favorite cafe, a small colorful place with good food and a large television on the wall above the bar showing the Houston Astros baseball game on cable. They sat at a table near the bar. Pancho lay at their feet.
"This afternoon," Jesse said, "I will take you around the colonia and introduce you to the residents. And perhaps this evening you would like to go to a restaurant, a place with music?" He lowered his voice. "We will leave Pancho at home."
She smiled, and it was a nice smile.
"I would like that very much."
The governor's wife gazed at him from across the table, but Jesse saw the governor's face. On the TV behind her.
"Look."
She turned in her chair to see the screen. "Breaking News" ran below the image of the governor standing in front of a clump of microphones and surrounded by Latino children. Lindsay stood and walked over to the bar. Jesse followed.
