One Perfect Shot

by Steven F Havill

  I was sure that the southwestern breeze here carried a bouquet subtly different than down at the arroyo. On Hutton, the air picked up urban scents—diesel, ragweed, irrigated and mown lawns, full dumpsters, the dust from dirt lanes. For a moment, I considered my newly refined sense of smell a gift, a reward for abstaining from corrosive cigarette smoke for seventy-two hours. Or an imagination in high gear, fueled by the beans of Sumatra.

  As I got out in the quiet of the night, I pushed the door against the latch until I heard the sharp click. It seemed important not to have to hear the rude slam of a door. The intersection was unmarked by a stop sign, just a dirt T scraped in the desert. I shot the beam down Highland. The road grader with the hole punched through the windshield had been driven back to the yard. Nothing remained to catch the flashlight beam, not even a curious coyote.

  The rumble of a big V-8 drew my attention, and I turned to see the dim shape of the car approaching on Hutton, headlights off. The patrol car eased to a stop behind mine, and I ambled back to greet my visitor. Eddie Mitchell disembarked, nudging his own door shut without even the click. That reminded me why I liked this burly easterner who had adopted our county. He didn’t talk a whole lot, but he seemed always in tune with his surroundings.

  “Evening, sir.”

  “Spectacular,” I said. I craned my neck back and looked at the heavens again, enjoying the vast spread until I felt the satisfying little pop of neck vertebrae relaxing into place. “Are you doing any good?”

  “Some. There’s a group of kids downtown who ought to be home by now.”

  I nodded across the field toward the nearest houses. “Hugh Decker claims he heard a single gun shot at three minutes after two, and then looked across his fence to see a car parked here, with a single individual walking back to it from the direction of the road grader.”

  “Two oh three, sir?”

  “Exactly. He checked his watch when he heard the gunshot. He didn’t recognize the person, though, or the car, or anything else. Just distant images.”

  “But a car, not a pickup?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “Color?”

  “Medium to dark.” Just enough moon and starlight touched the young deputy’s face that I could see the ghost of a smile. “Yeah, I know—it’s the kind of vehicular description we all dream about,” I added wryly. “But it’s something. I don’t know what the hell what, but it’s something.”

  “Is the chick coming on board?”

  The question shifted tracks so fast that I was left on the siding for a few seconds. “The chick?”

  “Your ride-along earlier today.”

  “Ah. Miss Reyes. The chick. Yes, it looks that way. The sheriff offered her the job, anyway. Maybe after all this, she’ll have second thoughts, although I hope not. She’s one bright young lady.” Chick.

  “Interesting.” His stony expression wasn’t exactly aglow with approval, though.

  “I’m sure that you had the opportunity to work with some female patrol officers in Baltimore. The chicks.”

  “Yes.” The reply was flat and noncommittal.

  “She’d be our first, other than in dispatch.”

  “She’s workin’ to be a patrol deputy, you mean?”

  “Sure. I think it’s about time that Posadas joined the twentieth century, don’t you?”

  “She’s a little on the petite side,” Mitchell observed.

  “Maybe we’ll put her on a weight lifting program to bulk her up a little. We’ll find out how she does the first time that she has to respond to a bar fight.” That earned a flicker of a smile.

  “Her uncle’s that old guy who lives out by the Torrance ranch?”

  “That’s him. Her great uncle, Reubén Fuentes.” That Eddie Mitchell knew not only about Reubén but also that Estelle Reyes was his niece told me that either the deputy was most observant—which he was—but also that the staff had been discussing our new hire—and that didn’t surprise me.

  “The old man who wears a gun most of the time.”

  “That’s him. You’ve met him a time or two?”

  Mitchell nodded. “Tonight he was at the Handi-Way, coming out with a brown bag. My concern was more for the four or five kids in the parking lot, not him. He was walking steady enough. Warm as it is, he’s still wearing gloves. He a closet cat burglar or something?”

  I laughed. “There’s no telling these days, Eddie. I can guess what was in the brown bag, though. And he’ll be all right until he cracks the bottle. When he gets into that, we can all hope that he’s safely at home.”

  “Might have been potato chips,” Mitchell said.

  “Oh, sure thing.”

  He shrugged and scanned the lights to the south. “The saloon in María is quiet tonight?”’

  “Like a church.” I turned and smiled at him, amused that he’d known where I’d been. “Somebody reported me?”

  “No, sir. I saw you heading south on 61. There’s not much else down that way.”

  “I’m just out prowling, Eddie. I can’t sleep, so I might as well do something instructive. It helps me think.” I looked up at those wonderful heavens again. “And I think I’ll burn some more of the taxpayer’s gas. I’ll be down in the southwest corner of the county if you need anything.”

  “Dispatch wants me central, so I’ll be going in circles for a while.”

  “Cheer up, my friend. There are some village departments so tiny that the cop has a patrol beat about eight blocks long. He sees every cat and dog twenty times a shift.”

  “I’ll take that over Baltimore,” Mitchell said, and once more I wondered what his circumstances had been in that big city. His records, references, and reviews had been nothing but exemplary for the four years he’d been a flatfoot there, but he’d evidently generated no love for the place or the job.

  “What time did you see Señor Fuentes at the convenience store?”

  “Just a little bit ago. Maybe fifteen minutes. He’s driving that battered white Chevy LUV.”

  “I’ll head down his way, I think,” I said, and beamed the flashlight across the open prairie toward Highland once more. “That’ll give me time to think about all this. There’s something we’re missing here, Eddie. When you figure out what it is, let me know.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. And who knew. Maybe over the next seven or eight hours, some flash of brilliant intuition would light up his night sky.

  Clear as the night was, what I really wanted to do was cruise along without headlights, enjoying the incredible star display as I drove south. Along State 56, there were long stretches where not a single modest porch light polluted the darkness, where I could see the loom of mesa against the heavens and the star-touched tawny of the prairie. With the windows open, what better elixir could there be.

  But Posadas County didn’t pay its undersheriff to spend his time ruminating on the state of the universe overhead, or the fragrance from sage, gramma and creosote bush. So I drove with my headlights on, the damn radio on, my thinking cap on.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Reubén Fuentes was a crusty old fellow, seemingly indestructible, battered and brown and wrinkled, reminding me of someone from an earlier century. Some of his escapades south of the border were legendary, and why he wasn’t currently rotting away in a Mexican prison was something of a wonder—except that the Mexican authorities who mattered turned a blind eye to this old guy who preferred to work on the Mexican side, where the language and the law came easy.

  But he worried me a little, since in the modern age of mobile phones, computers, credit cards, and just too damn many people, Reubén Fuentes stood out in powerful contrast. He didn’t bathe as often as someone standing next to him in the grocery store checkout might have wished, and the habitual revolver tucked in the ancient leather holster made f
olks nervous.

  He lived with no telephone, no television, and a minimal number of what most of the rest of us considered necessary amenities. I’d had a cup of coffee at Reubén’s place on more than one occasion, and knew that he still brewed the stuff in an old metal pot where the grounds just settled down through the water. Nice crunchy stuff. It complimented his well water, what there was of it, which was as hard as the granite sand through which it passed.

  His grandniece had managed to live with the old man for two full years after coming to the United States to finish her high school career, a remarkable accomplishment for a teenager, even one such as herself who’d grown up in a tiny Mexican village with few amenities of its own.

  It wasn’t Reubén’s usual day-to-day living habits that worried me. The old man didn’t come into town often, and certainly not in the middle of the night. The drive from his small ranchito to Posadas was a fair chore for someone his age—rough two tracks down to the county gravel, then the miles north to Posadas on a sometimes busy state highway.

  I knew the old man to be an early riser, often on the job with the dawn. The border crossing opened at six a.m., and if he was working in Mexico, he and his little white Isuzu-Chevy would be parked there ready to go, loaded with ladders, his battered wheel barrow, shovels, picks, and all the other accoutrements of his masonry. And by that time, he’d have sampled the brew, lacing his morning coffee. He tumbled into bed with the sunset.

  His abrupt change of habit tweaked my curiosity. If I drove far enough southwest on State 56, I’d reach Regál, another tiny village nestled on the south flank of the San Cristóbals, within shouting distance of the border crossing that took Reubén to Mexico.

  I didn’t let the grass grow, giving 310 a little exercise. Mindful of the desert zoo, I played the spotlight down the shoulder of the road ahead of me, sweeping from side to side to catch the reflection of tiny eyes. They’d bolt, or maybe freeze in place, thinking that the inexplicable oncoming beast would pass harmlessly over their heads. Out past Wayne Feeds, a business that struggled as our county’s economy collapsed, around the bulk of Arturo Mesa to the south and the remains of Moore, a three-family community long turned to dust north of the highway, I crossed the Salinas arroyo on a new state highway bridge that was entirely up to code, unlike the one I’d pondered earlier near María. I saw a set of taillights appear ahead, and overtook the little white truck before we’d covered another mile.

  Reubén Fuentes drove like a man who wasn’t sure exactly where he was—and no matter how sober he might be, twenty miles an hour on a state highway was too slow. The truck wobbled now and then, little jerky motions rather than the vague drifting of an inebriated motorist.

  A car that comes up behind you like a rocket, then slows without passing, isn’t apt to be your Aunt Minnie. Reubén figured it out without my having to announce my presence with a light display. In a mile or so, his brake lights flared and he pulled onto the wide shoulder. I did the same, keeping a respectful distance behind him when I turned on the flashers.

  “PCS, three-ten will be with New Mexico Charlie Frank Nora triple eight, mile marker nineteen, State Fifty-six. Negative twenty-eight.” Ernie didn’t need to run a wants-and-warrant on the registration for me. I didn’t see a current ’89 sticker on the license plate, but the old man probably had it still in the envelope, stuffed in the glove box. Or perhaps not. Just then, I didn’t really want to know. Reubén’s license plate was worn and dented, and of course the little bumper bulb didn’t work.

  I’d chewed butt often enough with my deputies, reminding them that, no matter how innocent the circumstances, there was no such thing as a routine traffic stop. I’d told them that enough that I believed it myself. Only one head nodded in the cab, but who knew—an armed felon might be crouched in the passenger seat, waiting for my approach, or lying flat in the truck bed, shotgun at the ready. A little paranoia is a good thing.

  “Ten-four, three-ten. When you’re finished there, are you ten-eight?”

  “That’s negative.”

  “Ten-four.” Ernie Wheeler sounded disappointed that I wasn’t available for calls, as if he’d lined up a fair night’s work for me.

  By the time I made sure my vehicular office was secure and stepped out into the night air, Reubén had the driver’s door open, propping it with one boot. As I approached along the shoulder, he turned, putting both feet on the ground and his right forearm on the door.

  “Don’t you ever go to bed?” he asked. His absolute calm and innocence might have been the old man’s best defense when dealing with Mexican authorities. A true viejo inofensivo, I’d heard him called. No doubt when he crossed the border, he was a bit more discreet with the handgun.

  “Reubén, how are you doing this fine night?” I watched as he pushed himself to his feet, staggered just a little and caught his balance by putting an elbow against the cab. Sure enough, Deputy Mitchell was right—the old man was wearing cheap cotton gloves, and he avoided touching them to the truck.

  “Not so good, Sheriff. Not so good. I did a stupid thing.”

  “Really? I would have thought as old as we are, we’d have learned to stop doing stupid things.”

  Reubén laughed a silent little shake of amusement. “You’d think that.” He leaned his forearms on the edge of the truck bed. “Can’t even light a cigarette. Maybe I should quit.” He reached up and touched his right wrist to his breast pocket, where the smokes were stashed. I didn’t offer, since I knew what would happen.

  “So what did you do to yourself?”

  “Ay,” he muttered. “I got lazy.” He looked up at me as I joined him at the leaning post. Half my size, dressed in khaki shirt and trousers, he wore the aroma of sweat and wine the way modern man wears aftershave. With the back of his hand, he touched me on the arm, a substitute for a handshake. “We’re working on the iglesia, down in Tres Santos.”

  “That’s a tough job,” I said. The little mission was ancient, adobe, and had suffered from lackadaisical maintenance over the years. Massive as adobe is, gravity eventually always wins.

  He nodded with a philosophical shrug.

  “How’s Teresa?”

  “She’s good. She’s good. She doesn’t teach any more. Did you know that?”

  “I did.” I’d met Estelle Reyes’ stepmother a couple of times, always in Reubén’s company. I remember that she had long, iron-gray hair tied up in a bun, and snappy eyes with a mass of crinkles in the corners—a formidable boss of the tiny classroom.

  “On that one wall, that’s where the trouble is,” he said, and I assumed he was referring to the church, not Estelle Reyes’ stepmother.

  “After two hundred years, we all crumble a little bit.”

  “Ay, that’s true. We built a buttress—on both sides. That little church looks more like a fortress now.” He chuckled.

  “Who’s working with you on that?”

  He puffed out his cheeks. “Two of the Fernandez boys. You know them.” I didn’t, but Reubén continued on. “And Benny Orasco. He’s got that big backhoe. He’s got a couple of boys who work with him, on and off.”

  “So how did you hurt yourself?”

  He sighed and regarded his gloved hands. “We’re doing the plastering.” His accent savored each syllable. He and Sheriff Eduardo Salcido probably enjoyed slow-talk contests now and then. “And the detail work around the windows on the east side. You know, make it just right.” It would be, too, with Reubén’s touch.

  “They don’t make good gloves any more,” he added. “My hands got wet, and in that lime all day long…” He made a grimace. “There are places around the windows where only the hands can make the shapes. And now…ay, like fire.”

  “The plaster burned your hands, you mean?”

  He nodded. “I had some aloe verde, but then I ran out. They don’t make that like they used to.”


  “I see the word aloe on enough labels,” I said. “Did you stop by the emergency room?”

  “The hospital? No. Why would I do that? That’s the big money, that place.”

  Reubén pushed himself away from the truck. “I found something at the store just now. Let me see if you think it’ll work.” He bent into the truck and I heard a groan unsuccessfully stifled. He backed out holding a bag between two fingers and extended it toward me. I pulled out the plastic bottle of hand cream and turned it so the headlights illuminated the label. Clinical strength, healing formula, bla, bla, bla. Whether it would sooth lime-burned skin was a stretch.

  “Let me see,” I said. “Can you slip one of the gloves off?”

  He flinched at the thought. “I think I’ll just take myself home,” he said. “I got some aspirin, and I got this. That’ll be okay.”

  And I knew damn well that wasn’t all he had. “You’re working tomorrow?”

  He took a long time answering. “I don’t think so. We’ll see.”

  “So, now we get you home. You’re not driving so good, Reubén, and you have a lot of miles to go, on the worst roads.”

  “I’ll take my time.”

  “Nope. I don’t think so. Tell you what, my friend. Let me run you home.” I knew what Eduardo Salcido would say about a county taxi service, but what the hell. It was expedient. “We’ll move the truck a little farther off the shoulder, and I’ll have your grandniece come out in the morning to check on you and help you bring the truck home. How about that?”

  “Estellita told me that she was going to work for you.”

  “For the county, yes sir. Quite a young lady she’s turned out to be.”

  “Yes. She doesn’t live with me any more.” It was as wistful as I’d ever heard Reuben.

  “I know she doesn’t.”

  “I was hoping she would stop by tonight, but she didn’t. Always in a hurry, that girl. She could live with me and still work anywhere in the county.”