She hesitated at the cottage’s front door, and turned to gaze down through the thickets to the riverbed. Had her mother been home that day to watch the rampaging river? What day? Mazón had not offered a date, nor had she asked. Of course Teresa Reyes would have heard the terrible details of the family swept away, of the child’s birth on the river bank, of the sole survivor on her first day in the world being given to the convent orphanage in Janos. She would have known.
Estelle Reyes-Guzman had always understood her birthday anniversary to be July first. Now, perhaps Juan Guerrero could be trusted to provide the correct date.
The small adobe, tiny by American standards, smelled faintly musty. A cheap padlock secured the door. After Teresa had moved to Posadas to live with her adopted daughter, one of the Diaz boys had lived here for a year or so with his bride before moving on. Since then, the small adobe had remained empty.
Skirting the house, she walked down to the grove nearest the riverbed. Nothing remained of the extensive, miniature pueblo towns that she and Robert Diaz had constructed so meticulously in the mud banks near the river, little model Tara Humaran towns that often became the victims of siege by Robert’s two brothers.
She slid down the last sheer bank to the dry riverbed and stood, listening intently. Two hundred yards ahead was the river crossing that, legend had it, was the site of tragedy and birth. Not a drop of water stirred now, but when she toed over a polished pebble, its belly was damp. She bent and picked it up, her fingers tracing the smooth shape. She carried it for a dozen yards before letting it go.
To her left, the dirt road snaked through the trees, closing on the riverbed. Reaching the hard-packed gravel crossing with its ribbon of concrete roadway, she stopped again. Up ahead, just visible through the thick brush that tried to grow away from the river, was the clutter of Juan Guerrero’s homestead.
So this is how it was, Estelle thought. How desperate they must have been—the wife near to labor, the distraught husband, the two children—to risk such a thing. With the pouring rain pounding upstream, the river would have been chocolate brown, crashing with rapids, swirling around hummocks of gravel and deadwood. She inspected the road, probably little changed since that day forty-five years before, except for the single lane of concrete. How long had…her father? She wasn’t even sure of his first name. She tried to picture him, anxious, hunched at the steering wheel of the truck, hand poised at the gear lever, trying to both gauge the river’s power and his wife’s perilous condition on the seat beside him. Had he driven north, he would have faced three more such river crossings, then the risk of the border crossing, then twenty-eight miles into Posadas. Now, headed south toward Janos and medical help, just this one barrier. He took the gamble, and lost.
“Immediately below the Guerrero casa,” the quiet voice said, and she spun around. Benedicte Mazón sat in the deep shade, knees drawn up like a child. “The water carried the truck many yards down the river, into the rocks on the outside of the bend. The force was incredible. There it turned over, only the wheels exposed.”
You are under arrest. That’s all you need to say.
“And where were you?”
“If you look just to the left of Guerrero’s, you can see a portion of the road just visible through the trees. I was standing there with Amelia Guerrero. Juan’s oldest. She died on her twentieth birthday, you know. But back then, I was merely visiting, you see. I had been up the stream, visiting with my brother’s family. The roaring of the flood had attracted us, and by standing on the verge, we could see clearly. And then we saw the truck. Of course, I immediately knew who it was. My brother had sent one of the Diaz children to tell me they were going to Janos, that Dulce was early, and in some distress. I was to go with them. They had but to cross this one spot.”
“Dulce.”
“Yes. Dulce and my brother, Hector. And my little cousins, Teodoro and Bernice. My brother’s children.” Mazón leaned back against the bulging roots of a cottonwood. “Teodoro would have been just old enough to stand on the seat between their mamá and papá. Perhaps three years old. Bernice was two.” Mazón’s voice sank to a whisper. “I would visit from time to time, and I remember Teodoro trying to keep up with me…little, stumpy legs, so determined. A beautiful child.” He heaved a sigh. “His body was found three days after the crash, more than a mile downstream. Bernice was never found.”
A flock of jays swooped low over the riverbed, then dispersed into noisy conversation in the cottonwoods. “Where was the house?”
“My brother’s, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. From here, you cannot see it.” He pushed himself upright and smoothed his simple cotton shirt. Estelle wondered how many crosshairs were focused on him that moment, how many trigger fingers rested on trigger guards, nervous and twitchy. “All that is left is one corner that faces the church across the road. The bus from Janos uses the property for a turn-around now. Do you wish to see?”
“My mother…Teresa Reyes…she would have known the family.”
“Of course.”
“And she would have known what happened.”
“Certainly.”
“She would have known what happened…to me.”
“Beyond any doubt. In such a tiny village as this, you know, there are no secrets.”
“But then?”
“But then? I was but ten, so I don’t recall everything,” Mazón said. “A newborn, I suppose, ripped from its mother by the violence of the flood, saved by a brave man who probably didn’t even realize what he was doing.”
“Señor Guerrero.”
“Exactly. He slid down the bank, all the while shouting for Amelia and me to ‘get back, get back.’ I could see that the woman’s injuries were ghastly. She had been forced from the crushed truck, and now was battered against the rocks. Guerrero was able to reach her, but what could be done? Enough spark of life remained to give the world this remarkable child.” He looked at Estelle, appraising. He sighed. “And the child was bundled up, and went to the hospital in Janos, and in due time from there to the nuns’ orphanage. A remarkable child has become a remarkable woman.”
“Your parents…your brother Hector’s parents…they didn’t take her? Or Dulce’s family?” Take her. Why can I not say, ‘Take me…?’
“No. My mother was sickly. Our father died the year before, and she had never recovered from that. Dulce’s family lived in Guymas, you know. Hector had met her while he was briefly in the Federales, before he was hurt.” He shrugged in sympathy. “And the Guerreros did not take the child. There are always many reasons.”
“But a year later, Teresa Reyes did.”
He nodded. “And is she…?”
“Still well.”
“Maybe she will want to discuss that day, maybe not.” Estelle didn’t reply, and Mazón stood quietly, waiting.
“And now, you,” she said finally.
He took his time finding a seat again in the dappled shade of the stream bank. “In all respects but one, mine is a wasted life, sobrina.” He smiled suddenly, revealing that the years in prison hadn’t contributed to an attractive smile. “Despite what you might think, the last few years have been a treasure for me, even though I have been a guest of the Mexican government the whole time. You saw the photograph of my last abode. Do you know how proud I am of what your Francisco has accomplished?”
“You’ve made that clear.”
He regarded her as if he had expected something other than the chill in her tone.
“I did not mean…” he started, then hesitated, looking first toward the north where the tile roof of the Diaz hacienda was just visible above the river’s galleria, then to the ridge to the west. “I do not mean to put you in a difficult position, sobrina.”
“Then turn yourself in,” she said. “Do that and I will help you. If you resist here and now, they will kill you. It’s that simple. If you need an attorney here in Mexico, I will make sure you have one. When Mexican authorities are
finished with you, I’m sure you will be extradited to the United States for three homicides there. Regardless of how grateful to you I might be for protecting my son, there is nothing else I can do. There is nothing else I will do.”
Mazón’s expression was kindly, almost paternal. “The years I have spent in prison are enough,” he said. “I will not go back.” He shrugged. “It is not so hard to live as a fugitive, you know. If I am allowed to do so.” He nodded toward the north. “On either side of the border.”
“I will not allow you back into my life, Señor Mazón. I do not know what you expect, but that isn’t going to happen.”
“You know, someday…” and he stared long toward the horizon, “it is my fondest wish to hear your son, mi gran sobrino, in concert. To sit there in the audience and allow the music to embrace me, to experience the bittersweet rush of emotion that comes when we know the concert must end, that the stage will be empty again.”
“You can dream about that,” Estelle said.
He grinned at her. “You are a hard woman,” he said. “The life you have chosen has made you this way, I think. Working always with the policia. You know, my brother—your father—had a stubborn streak, as well. He would have enjoyed an enviable career with the Federales had not fate intervened. I look at you now, and am reminded of him.” He turned to look upstream. “Where is your car?”
“You don’t need it.”
He laughed, truly delighted. “Now you are a mind reader.”
In the distance, Estelle heard the rumble of a truck, a distinctive sound that carried down the valley, surging now and then as it rounded bends along the river, idling down at the crossings and then powering up and out of the Plegado. The sound abruptly died, and Estelle guessed that the driver had turned into the Diaz hacienda. She had heard the old Chevy enough times that there was no doubt about who had arrived in Tres Santos.
“You should speak with Juan Guerrero,” Mazón said. “He is waiting up at the house.” He rose abruptly, as if eager to accompany her.
“I think I know all I need to know,” Estelle replied. “Perhaps some other time, when there are fewer…distractions. Then I will visit him.”
This time, the distraction was not Bobby Torrez, whom she expected, but the tan uniform of Colonel Tomás Naranjo. His clothing blended with the dappled earth as he descended quietly from the road to the streambed just north of the crossing where Estelle and Mazón stood. His boots crunched on a patch of gravel, and Mazón turned at the noise. For a moment he stood with his hands on his hips, then relaxed. His right hand drifted to his waistband at his back, slipping under his linen shirt.
Mazón took two or three quick breaths and shook his head. “You must understand, sobrina, that if I had not acted, there is no telling what would have happened to your son. You understand that?”
“I do.”
“And if I had not taken matters into my own hands, there is no telling what would have happened in Posadas, beginning with the life of your esteemed sheriff. And what might have happened if the wrong people had won a foothold in your community.”
“I’m now aware of that.”
“And yet still…” he broke off, frowning at the approaching policeman. Naranjo walked with care, placing his steps on the loose cobbles without taking his eyes off Mazón. His right hand rested on the butt of his holstered automatic.
“I am told that your sheriff has arrived at the Diaz hacienda,” Naranjo said to Estelle by way of greeting. “I do not know what he has in mind.”
“He should be glad simply to be alive,” Mazón said.
“I’m sure he is.” Naranjo’s voice was easy, almost amused, as if he was one of three old friends who had chosen this meeting. Estelle watched as he eased to a stop several paces from Mazón. The colonel could not see the object that Mazón commanded now in his right hand, but Estelle could—a small chrome revolver, the sort of thing that Jerry Steward might have worn strapped to his ankle.
“You know that there is no escaping this tranquil valley,” Naranjo added. “I have but to utter a single word,” and he held up his radio in his left hand. Estelle could see his finger held the transmit button firmly depressed. Someone—perhaps several someones—was listening to their conversation, and the crosshairs would be steady on their target.
“Perhaps not,” Mazón said. “But I wish to talk with the two of you in private, without the eavesdroppers. There may be some sort of accommodation that can be reached.”
“The time for accommodation is far behind us.”
Mazón turned his head to look at Estelle. “I am the last of your family, you know.” His gaze drifted down, and he nodded, assuming correctly that her hand was tucked under the tail of her own jacket for good reason. “That should mean something to you. My life is in your hands, surely.”
“Then I will save your life, Señor Mazón. Put your hands on your head and drop to your knees.”
“Mi tío grande,” he whispered. “I would have liked to have heard the maestro say those words.”
Estelle saw the muscles tense, and Mazón turned just a quarter step, giving his right arm leverage. Naranjo remained inexplicably calm, his right hand on the butt of his automatic, but making no effort to draw it. She had checked the Beretta when Naranjo had given it to her, seen that it was fully loaded, and now let the grip settle comfortably in her hand.
The turn of his body gave Mazón the leverage he needed. Naranjo remained relaxed, radio in hand, even as Mazón made his decision.
“No!” Estelle shouted, and the Beretta came out in one fluid motion even as Mazón’s arm tensed and started its arc. More than 400 yards away, a young man’s finger eased back on a trigger. With a loud whack of impact, the bullet exploded through Mazón’s left temple. As if someone had kicked him in the back of the knees, he folded onto the river sand. At the instant his knees touched the sand, the single report of the high-powered rifle reached them.
Estelle decocked the Beretta, and Naranjo stepped close, the radio to his ear as he gave instructions.
“I am sorry this is the route he chose,” the colonel said as he tucked the radio away. “Let me.” He reached out for the Beretta and Estelle handed it to him without comment. He withdrew a perfectly folded white handkerchief from his hip pocket, snapped it open, and meticulously polished the automatic. He made no effort to avoid his own fingerprints as he did so. Through the efficient process, his gaze never left Mazón’s corpse.
“Are you going to be all right?” His question was gently asked, and as he tucked the handgun carefully in his belt, there was no doubt what fiction he had already embraced. The Beretta had never been in her hands. The fact that she now stood in the bottom of a dry Mexican arroyo bottom, her uncle dead at her feet—if she chose, she could embrace that Mazón had brought all this upon himself. Perhaps her uncle had good reason. Had she simply refused to come to Tres Santos, Mazón might have survived for a few hours, maybe a few days. But so many questions had been left unanswered.
“I don’t know.” She turned at the sound of footsteps crunching down the riverbed. Sheriff Robert Torrez carried one of the department’s suppressed AR’s relaxed over his shoulder as if he were on the way to a prairie dog town. At the same time, the rhythmic chop of a helicopter approached, still far in the distance.
“I wish we had time to enjoy a casual discussion.” Naranjo extended his hand to Torrez in greeting, his face sober. “But it would be best if the two of you bundled yourselves back across the border. I will, of course, send you a full report.” He glanced at the rifle, and then at the pistol holstered at Torrez’s waist. “Such well-prepared backup is always appreciated, but no doubt there would be some who wouldn’t understand. I will provide adequate escort.”
The sheriff stepped across to Mazón’s corpse and knelt carefully, peering at the stub-nosed revolved that lay partially buried under the man’s right leg. “I heard just the one shot a ways off.” He looked up at Estelle.
“It all happened so fas
t,” Naranjo said. “But you are probably correct.”
“I guess the one was good enough.”
Estelle turned away without comment, not wishing to engage in a shooting gallery recap. But then she paused, reaching out a hand to Naranjo’s elbow. “Thank you for allowing him this chance,” she said. He hesitated, then bowed ever so slightly from the waist. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
“My truck’s just up on the road.” Torrez nodded upstream toward the first bend of the riverbed.
“I’d like to walk back to the car.” Estelle offered Torrez a tight smile. “Thanks for driving down.” His armed response into Mexico had been at considerable risk. She knew that it was something Torrez would just do, and that he would never mention it again. Nor would Colonel Tomás Naranjo, who in many ways shared Bobby Torrez’s view of border complications. Both lived with the notion that the border fence, and the politics that went with it, demanded no particular imperative. The idea was a holdover from simpler days—if you’re chasing a felon, you don’t stop the chase at a fence to do paperwork.
She hadn’t stopped, either. Now she was left to wonder. At that final moment, even as she drew the heavy automatic from her belt, would training and instinct have taken over? If the Mexican sniper hadn’t been so prompt in following Naranjo’s orders, would she have pulled the Beretta’s trigger? Naranjo had seen the hurt in her eyes as she looked down at the man who claimed to be her uncle, whose last name should have been her own. All that would take some sorting out, and she silently thanked the Mexican colonel for understanding that Monday morning quarterbacking, or even commiseration, was the last thing she needed or wanted just then. The boy who had watched the drama of her own birth now lay dead in the bottom of the streambed. If she never saw the Plegado again, the healing could start.
Chapter Thirty-eight
The belly-dump took up most of the county road, and Estelle pulled far onto the shoulder as it approached. She could hear the rig downshifting, and then the driver rode the Jake as he slowed the hauler first to a crawl, then to a full stop. As he swung down from the truck, she recognized him as one of the crew from McInerney Sand and Gravel.
Blood Sweep Page 29
