by Simon Toyne
“What?” Cassidy asked.
“He’s gone,” Morgan said.
Cassidy nodded. “Well, that’s that then.”
“No,” Morgan said. “I mean he’s gone. He wasn’t in the house. Solomon Creed has disappeared.”
43
SOLOMON WALKED THROUGH THE HUMID DESERT, GLAD OF THE BOOTS ON the flinty, spiky ground. The rain had carved tracks in the dust, wavy lines that followed the contours, as if hundreds of snakes had slithered through here. The day was starting to brighten again, the clouds thinning to let the afternoon sun and heat back in. His shirt was sticking to his back, but he didn’t remove his jacket or ease his pace.
He headed northwest, toward the spill piles of the mine. He wanted to head north, out across the burned desert to the Tucker ranch, but it was too far to walk. He could see the airfield stretching away in the same direction, the parked squadrons of aircraft forming patterns across the land. He would have to detour around that too, which would make the journey even longer.
He took the almost-squeezed-out tube of sunscreen from his pocket and rubbed some on the back of his neck and over his ears and face. It felt slimy and awful but he put it on anyway. He thought about the ugly hat he’d left in Morgan’s car and wished he’d kept hold of it. He put the tube back in his pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses he had found in the house. They must have belonged to James Coronado too, and he thought as he slipped them on that he was now walking in another man’s shoes and also seeing the world through his eyes.
He continued onward, keeping away from the houses and out of sight as long as he could until he reached the road and the fence surrounding the mine. There was no sign of industry beyond it, only more abandoned buildings. He spotted the mine entrance through a gap in the spill piles and lifted the sunglasses to get a better view. Some barrels were stacked outside, next to a trailer with coils of clear tubing piled on the back. The wheels of the trailer were slightly soft and the barrels had rust around the bases showing they hadn’t moved for some time. It seemed more like set dressing than actual equipment for a working mine. The low hum of an engine was coming from somewhere, steady and rhythmic, a pump most likely. It sounded as if it was underground but not far, not as far as it should be if it was flushing ore out of a mine that had already been depleted by years of heavy working.
The only modern thing about the whole place was the fence and the cameras on poles. The rest looked abandoned and felt deserted. He could see why the trusts were so important to the town. The mine couldn’t be producing enough revenue to pay for the church lighting bill. Solomon continued down the road until the fence ran out and he saw what he had come here for.
The livery yard was set back from the road, the horses moving around in their corrals now that the rain had stopped. They seemed skittish, restless, like a wolf was nearby. They were swirling around the corral like a slow tornado, pawing the wet ground, snorting and tossing their heads. A horse was the only way he could get to the Tucker ranch on his own. He didn’t have a car and he hated being in them anyway. He wasn’t even sure whether he could drive. Truth was, he wasn’t sure he could ride a horse either. There was only one way to find out.
He left the road and walked beneath a high wooden arch with Sam’s Livery Yard spelled out on it in roughly nailed saguaro ribs. There were a couple of barns surrounding the corrals, an old-fashioned covered wagon and a stagecoach parked over by one of them. The wagon had the name of the livery yard stenciled on the canvas, along with a Web site URL that spoiled any sense of authenticity they may have been going for. There was a parking lot to his right with a beat-up old pickup truck in it, suggesting someone was here. Solomon surveyed the yard, trying to spot them, and saw the girl instead.
She wasn’t much bigger than an infant but her clothes and her stillness made her seem older, like a grown woman rendered in miniature. She was standing farther up the track by a gate leading out to the desert, staring straight at him, her hands folded in front like she was in church. Her skin and hair were as white as his. She held Solomon’s gaze, her face shaded and fringed by an old-fashioned bonnet, then turned and walked away, heading toward the gate and the desert beyond, her eyes scanning the ground as she went as if she was searching for something. The horses nickered and moved away from her as she passed but she didn’t seem to notice. Solomon watched until she disappeared around the edge of a barn then turned and saw a man staring right at him.
“You can see her, cain’t ya?” He was leaning against the fence on the far side of a corral, his stockman’s hat pushed far back on his head and gloved hands gripping a coiled lariat. Solomon turned back to the barn, searching for the girl, but he couldn’t see her. “What has she lost?” he asked.
“I ain’t never got close enough to ask her. Most of the tourists don’t see her at all, though their kids do sometimes—dogs too. All the folks that work here see her, but I guess we’re used to her, or she’s used to us. The horses sure know she’s there. Don’t usually see her at this time of day though. Usually it’s evening, when the light is softer. She’s burning like a lightbulb today. We call her Molly.”
“Her name was Eldridge,” Solomon said.
The ranch hand nodded. “I’ve heard that said before.” He dropped his head to one side and squinted. “Say, you’re the fella they say brung the rain, ain’t ya?”
Solomon smiled. “Is that what they’re saying?”
“That’s what I heard.” The man continued to nod, as if the world was suddenly making sense to him. “Help you with somethin’?”
“I need a horse.”
“Well, then, I believe you came to the right place. Anything in particular?”
Solomon studied the herd of animals moving between them, a mixture of quarter horses, Arabians, and palominos, his mind providing their names as easily as if they had labels stuck to them. He approached the fence and held his hand out flat. A tan palomino sniffed at it, snorted, and moved away.
“They can probably smell the smoke on you,” the ranch hand said. “They got real spooked by the fire. All I could do to stop them kicking down the fences and running wild.”
Solomon moved around the edge of the corral and the horses all edged away before he got near. A flash of white in the corner of his eye made him turn around, expecting to see the girl. Instead he saw a horse standing alone in its own corral, tossing its mane and looking straight at him. It was an American Saddlebred, a pure white stallion, easily seventeen hands high. Magnificent.
“You don’t want that one,” the ranch hand said. “That one’s mean and it ain’t for hire.”
“What’s his name?” Solomon asked, moving toward it.
“Sirius, though most of the guys here call him ‘Serious,’ cause he sure is one handful. That there’s the mayor’s horse, though he don’t ride him much no more. I ride him when he’ll let me to keep him exercised, but I don’t like doing it and I guess he’s none too fond of the arrangement neither. He’s thrown me more than once, and I got the bruises and scars to prove it.”
Solomon reached the fence and held out his hand. “Sirius,” he whispered, and the black nostrils flared, then it dropped its head and started to walk toward him.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the ranch hand muttered. “I ain’t never seen him come to a stranger before.”
The stallion drew closer and Solomon watched the roped sinews of its muscles ripple underneath the white velvet of its skin. He could sense the power in it, like lightning made solid, and his mind began to riff on its name:
Sirius. Brightest star in the night sky. Worshipped as a god in ancient Persia. Sometimes depicted as a white stallion named Tishtrya—the rainmaker.
The horse stopped in front of him and lowered its muzzle to Solomon’s palm.
Maybe it was you who brought the rain and not me.
Solomon moved his palm up from beneath its chin and over the muzzle to stroke its cheek. The stallion stepped closer, its head moving over the top bar of the fe
nce and dipping down to rub against the side of Solomon’s head.
“Well, look at that.” The ranch hand shook his head and pushed his hat back about as far as it would go without falling off his head. “You two are just about the exact same color. You can’t tell where one of you ends and the other begins.”
Solomon turned and studied the man. He was sinewy and lithe like the lariat he was holding, his skin burned leathery by living outdoors, making him appear older than he was. “What’s your name?”
“Name’s Marty.”
“How about I borrow this horse, Marty? He looks like he could do with the exercise, and it’ll save you a job.”
Marty smiled and shook his head. “Like I said, this is the mayor’s horse and he ain’t for hire.” He pointed back at the main corral. “I can fix you up with a gray palomino, if it’s the color you’re partial to.”
“I don’t want to hire him, I only want to borrow him. Why don’t you call up the mayor and ask him for me?”
The smile melted away. “You want me to call Mayor Cassidy?”
“Tell him Solomon Creed respectfully requests the use of his horse for a few hours.”
Marty ran his hand across his forehead as though he was wiping sweat away and rearranged his hat on his head. “I got his contact details back in the office, I could call him from the phone in there I guess.”
“The mayor and I have an understanding,” Solomon lied. He knew he needed a horse and he knew he had no money to hire one.
Marty looked at the horse then back at Solomon. “All right then. But don’t be surprised if the answer is no.”
He turned and Solomon watched him walk away across the livery yard toward a wooden building decorated with posters advertising genuine cowboy experiences.
The stallion snorted and took a step back from the fence, tossing its head and shaking Solomon’s hand free. Solomon looked up at the huge animal, all muscle and mass. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s you and me find out if I can ride.”
Marty pulled his glove off and pecked Mayor Cassidy’s name into the office laptop one letter at a time to get his details, then dialed the number on record. He straightened up and looked back out into the yard. Molly had appeared again. She was standing by the water trough, staring at the spot where he had left Solomon. It was the first time he had ever seen her do anything other than stare at the ground. The phone connected and the mayor answered, sounding anxious. “Yes?”
“Mayor Cassidy. This is Marty over at Sam’s Livery.”
“Oh, hi, Marty.” Now he sounded relieved.
“I’m awful sorry to bother you, sir, but I got a fella here name of Solomon Creed says he wants to borrow your horse.”
“He’s . . . is he there now?”
“Yes.”
“Can you keep him there?”
“Sure. I need to saddle him up, so I can easily stretch it out as long as—Jesus . . .”
A flash of white streaked across his view, snatching the words from his mouth.
“What? What happened?”
“It’s him.” Marty craned forward and the brim of his hat hit the window, knocking it off his head. “He’s taken Sirius.” He watched horse and rider thread their way past the corrals and onto the track leading out to the desert.
“I thought you said he wasn’t saddled?”
“He’s not.” Marty stared at the slim figure of Solomon Creed hunched low on the horse’s back and gripping its mane with his hands. “He’s riding bareback.”
44
CASSIDY HUNG UP AND LOOKED OVER AT MORGAN. “HE STOLE MY HORSE.”
“Who?”
“Solomon Creed.”
“Why?”
“How would I know?”
“But . . . where’s he gonna go?”
“I don’t know. Away from here.”
Cassidy stared out of the window. Morgan’s office faced the square, so he couldn’t see much beyond the church opposite and the mountains rising in the distance. “What are we going to say to Tío? He was supposed to be—” He turned around and lowered his voice. “He was supposed to be our . . . offering.”
Morgan’s face softened into a smirk. “Well, you changed your tune. An hour ago you were wringing your hands about whether to give him up or not, now you’re pissed he got away.”
Cassidy had never liked Morgan. Even as a kid he’d had a slightly sneering, superior manner, and it had been made much worse by the addition of a uniform and some authority. Right now he hated him. He blamed him entirely for the mess they were in. He was the one who had suggested taking occasional shipments to boost the town’s flagging finances. He was the one who had made the initial introductions to the cartels. And he was the one who’d said yes to smuggling Tío’s son into the country without consulting either him or Tucker. It was all his fault and now he was smirking at him.
“So what do we do?” Cassidy asked.
“I guess we try and find him.” Morgan leaned forward in his chair and picked up his desk phone. “He won’t get too far on horseback.” He punched in a number and waited for someone to answer. “Rollins, it’s Morgan. Put out a BOLO on one Solomon Creed, last seen at Sam’s Livery, probably heading out of town on a stolen white horse.” He gave him a description then hung up. “Might as well call the field too, see if we can’t put something in the air and spot where he might be heading. We can still salvage this, don’t worry.”
Cassidy shook his head. “So much for keeping him off the record.”
Morgan shrugged. “Times like this you gotta be flexible.” He began to punch in a number from memory, stopped when the phone began buzzing on the table. He glanced up at Cassidy, put the desk phone down carefully, and picked up the cell. The caller’s number was withheld.
“Yes?” He went pale then nodded. “Okay.” He hung up. “That was Tío,” he said.
“What did he say?”
“He said he was on his way.”
Cassidy felt the room get colder. “Here?”
“Where else?”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“But he never goes anywhere. Why would he come here? Why would he need to?”
The phone buzzed again, a message this time. Morgan opened it, read it, then turned it around so Cassidy could see.
“That’s why he’s coming,” Morgan said. “Because debts like this he collects in person.”
Cassidy pulled his reading glasses out of his pocket and squinted down at the two-word message on the screen.
EL REY
The town where Tío had been born.
The town that had betrayed him and paid the ultimate price.
The town that was no longer there.
45
TÍO WATCHED HIS MESSAGE GO THEN GAZED OUT OF THE WINDOW AT THE flat, dry land passing by. His old self, the man who had stayed in his hilltop hideaway for eight years, would not have sent the message. That man was cautious, careful, risk averse, always with an eye on the future and doing what he could to safeguard it. He looked down at the seat next to him where the framed photographs of his daughters lay next to the printout of the burned skull. He had no future now. “Pull over,” he said and the Jeep crunched to a halt on the side of the road. “Get out.”
The driver glanced at the guard in the passenger seat, then they both got out.
Tío closed the messaging app and opened another, which looked like nothing more than a big red button. He tapped in his password—carlosmariasofia—the middle names of his three dead children, then got out of the car.
The taller of the two guards stepped forward, finger on the trigger of his M60, his eyes alert. He was called Miguel, had a father in the cemetery and a mother called Maria-Louise he sent money to regularly and who lived in a nice bungalow on the Baja coast. The other guard was Enrique but everyone called him Cerdo because he ate like a pig and looked a little like one too.
“Look back down the road,” Tío told them, and they obeyed, neither of them quite sure
what they were supposed to be seeing.
Tío could just make out the buildings of the compound perched on a hilltop about three or four miles back. It appeared tiny at this distance. Insignificant. It was supposed to. Anything big or grand would have attracted attention. The only thing drawing attention to it now was the smoke coming from one of the outbuildings. Tío lifted the phone, took one last look, and tapped the red button on the screen.
There was a rumbling like thunder that shook the ground then the whole vista erupted in dust and fire as all the defenses tripped at once.
Miguel and Cerdo raised their guns and instinctively moved toward Tío as a second series of explosions shook the ground and the whole hilltop disappeared in a cloud of dust and debris. Tío watched until it settled enough that he could see everything was gone. His whole world for the past eight years, swept away at the push of something that wasn’t even a button. So much for his legacy.
“Let’s go,” he said and got back in the car.
They drove away, following the signs to Highway 15 that would take them north to the Arizona border.
Tío never once looked back.
46
HOLLY CORONADO WALKED OUT OF THE PRIDDY BUILDING AND INTO THE bright afternoon sun feeling like she wanted to punch someone. Not someone—Morgan.
They had kept her in the interview room for almost an hour before some timid man in a uniform stuck his head around the door and told her no charges were being pressed and she was free to go. Morgan hadn’t even shown his face.
She hurried down the street, her anger driving her on. She had avoided going out since Jim had died, not wanting to face the public and their looks of sympathy. Now she didn’t care. She was also aware that it probably suited Morgan and his cronies if she kept out of the way and her mouth shut. And that’s why she was going to do the exact opposite.
The hospital had a strange holiday feel about it when she stepped into its antiseptic interior. There was a buzz about the place, a kind of euphoria that had been carried back by all the staff who had returned victorious from facing down the fire. She saw it shining in the face of the receptionist, only to vanish a moment later when she turned to Holly and recognized her.
