Madewell Brown

by Rick Collignon

  There’s no reason to stay here, she thought. Even if my granddaddy was once here, he’s not now and hasn’t been for a long time. No one’s going to tell me more than that. She looked down at the things she held in her arms, a lid to a stove, a carved woman and a little piece of night sky. It wasn’t much different from what she’d found in Obie’s old house. Bits and pieces of things that didn’t mean anything at all.

  She turned around and took one last look at the village, at the road running through the middle of the valley and the houses and fields on each side of it. It’s so small, she thought. If there was anything here, I would have found it by now.

  Nemecio Archuleta lived in a trailer on an acre of land not far from Rufino’s house. The yard had been taken over by elm trees, and dead branches and leaves from autumns before littered the bare ground. The aluminum roof of the trailer was dented and smeared with tar, and one window was covered with a piece of cloth. A set of planks led up to the front door, which hung wide open.

  Cipriano pulled up close to the house and hit the horn. Then he pushed open the truck door and stepped out of the cab. Behind the trailer were a dozen junked vehicles, rusted-out pickups and old cars, their bodies stripped down to the frame. Scattered in the midst of that were the things Nemecio had found walking the road. Hubcaps and exhaust pipes and hot-water heaters and broken furniture and rolls of carpet and a heap of children’s toys and books bloated from moisture.

  “Jesus,” Cipriano muttered. The mess reminded him of what he’d found in Rufino’s house and shed. Two old men, he thought, living a half mile apart, each one holding on to things he didn’t know how to throw away.

  “I knew you’d come by,” Nemecio said. He was standing in the doorway, wearing the same shabby clothes from the day before.

  “Cómo está, Nemecio?” Cipriano said.

  The old man shrugged. “I’m not feeling so good today, Cipriano.” He put his hand flat on his belly. “My stomach’s been bothering me.”

  “I got something that’ll fix that,” Cipriano said. He went back to the truck, reached in through the window and brought out a bottle of whiskey that he’d picked up at Tito’s before coming over. He stood it up on the hood of the pickup. “I thought we could take a little ride together,” he said.

  “Take a ride where?” Nemecio asked, his voice shaking slightly, his eyes on the bottle. He seemed suddenly frail standing in the doorway of his house, a confused old man in baggy clothes who wasn’t sure what was going on.

  “You were Rufino’s old friend,” Cipriano said. “Venga, Nemecio. We’ll take a little ride and then I’ll bring you back home.”

  For a second, Cipriano wasn’t sure if the old man would just throw an arm at him and go back inside. But then Nemecio shook his head slowly and smiled. “Eee,” he said. “Es verdad. Me and Rufino go back a long time.” He came down the steps and walked up to the truck, and the two of them shook hands lightly. Cipriano grabbed the whiskey off the hood.

  “Let’s go, primo,” he said.

  Cipriano drove slowly down the back road. The mountains rose high off to the east, and cottonwoods lined the ditch along the edge of the road. They passed by the ruttedout lane that led to the old ball field, and a little ways past that, they drove by Rufino’s drive. Nemecio twisted around in his seat, looking out the open window,

  “When I was a boy,” he said, “this is the way I would come to visit your father. He would be waiting for me behind that old shed and we’d go running off.” He had a beer in his hand, the whiskey tucked between his thighs. His voice was harsh, but the tremor that had been in it before was gone. He picked up the bottle and took a small sip. “This is good whiskey, Cipriano,” he said, passing the bottle. Cipriano took it from him and propped it up on the seat between them. Nemecio pointed out the windshield at an old adobe that had been empty for years.

  “Tito Pacheco used to live there,” the old man said. “You remember him, Cipriano? He’s dead now, también. He fell off his roof trying to fix a leak and landed bad.”

  “Yes,” Cipriano said, “I remember.”

  “That Tito, he was never too smart. Sometimes we’d walk into town, the three of us, and Rufino would make him steal cigarettes and candy from that little store. When his mother found out, she threw rocks at your father.”

  Cipriano shook his head. “I didn’t know that,” he said.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, hijo,” Nemecio said.

  For a little while they drove on in quiet. Nemecio settled back in the seat, his hands cradling his can of beer, the breeze pulling at his hair. Cipriano drove past empty fields and old corrals, past houses set back in the trees. Beside him, Nemecio leaned forward and pulled loose another beer. He popped it open, took a long drink and glanced over at Cipriano.

  “Did you see that girl?” he asked.

  “No,” Cipriano said. “I haven’t seen her.”

  Nemecio looked back out the windshield. “I saw her,” he said. “I saw her walking up the highway. She even looked at me for a little while like she was thinking if she should talk to me. But that’s one good thing about what I do. If you pick up cans along the road, people have their ideas and leave you alone.” He drank again and belched softly. “You should try it sometime, Cipriano,” he said.

  Cipriano picked up the whiskey and swallowed enough that it burned the back of this throat. He passed it over to Nemecio. He pictured himself walking the road with a garbage bag and wondered if his life would be all that much different. “Quién sabe?” he said. “Maybe someday you can take me out with you.”

  “Anytime, Cipriano,” Nemecio said. “Anytime you want to go, you tell me.”

  When they came to where the road met the highway, Cipriano turned south and shifted into a higher gear. Nemecio pushed up a little straighter in his seat. “Where are we going, Cipriano?” he asked.

  “Just up here a little ways,” he said. “I want to show you something.” He glanced over at the old man, who was leaning forward a little, staring out the windshield. “Nemecio,” Cipriano said, “pass me a beer.”

  “Oh, sí,” Nemecio said quickly as if startled. He fumbled with the six-pack at his feet, pulled loose a can and gave it to Cipriano. “Maybe you should take me home now, hijo,” he said. “It’s getting a little late.”

  Cipriano opened the can and took a drink. The beer had grown warm and tasted flat and stale. “This is the way home, Nemecio,” he said.

  They drove by Felix’s Café, the lot empty so late in the afternoon, and on past Tito’s bar and the lumberyard, and then they dropped down the hill where the valley flattened out. The sun was arcing down in the west and the heat of the day was beginning to cool. Cipriano drove the road easy, raising a hand slightly whenever a vehicle passed by. Beside him, Nemecio was hunched over, sipping now and again from the bottle of whiskey.

  When they came to the old road that led out to Perdido mesa, Cipriano swung off the highway and made the turn. “Eee,” Nemecio breathed out, shaking his head. “Why are you doing this, Cipriano?” He reached for the door handle. “You know I don’t want to come out here.”

  Cipriano put his hand on Nemecio’s arm. “Silencio, viejo,” he said softly. “Hold on to the whiskey so it doesn’t spill.” And then he drove on with his hand resting on the old man’s arm, the other gripped tight on the steering wheel so it wouldn’t wrench free from his grasp.

  A few hundred yards in, he swung the truck off the road so that the wheels straddled the deep ruts. Piñon branches brushed the sides of the vehicle, and sagebrush and rotted stumps scraped against the underbelly of the frame. Every so often, he jerked the wheel to avoid the bottles and piles of rusted cans. After a while, the trees began to thin and the land opened up into a vast expanse of sage that ran all the way to the slopes of Perdido mesa and beyond. There wasn’t much of a road now, only a narrow swathe where the sage wasn’t as high. Cipriano eased to a stop and shut off the engine.

  Perdido mesa rose jagged and stark out o
f the valley about a half mile away. The slopes facing them were scarred deep with arroyos and already shadows lay upon them. Twisted piñon and juniper trees grew high up on the ridge, but beneath that was only loose rock and dwarf sage and grass that had yellowed from lack of rain. Above the mesa the sky was a pure blue and stretched on forever.

  Cipriano reached over and took the whiskey from Nemecio. He took a sip and passed it back to the old man. “This is the way you and Rufino came, isn’t it?” he asked. The only sound coming from outside was the ticking of the engine and a soft breeze, like a breath, moving through the sage.

  “Yes,” Nemecio said. He brought the bottle to his mouth and then leaned back against the seat. “It’s not so bad being here,” he said. “I thought it would be worse.” He looked over at Cipriano. His eyes were wet and webbed with blood. His skin was burnt dark and creased with lines. “Go a little closer, Cipriano,” he said. “So I can see a little better.”

  As they drove on, Nemecio slid forward on the edge of the seat. “Over there, Cipriano,” he said, waving a hand. “Go that way.” Cipriano swung the wheel, driving over sage so high that it rose above the front bumper. Just when he thought the truck might bog down, Nemecio told him to stop.

  Twenty yards away was a small clearing. It was rimmed by sagebrush. The ground was loose dirt and stubbled grass. The far edge of it butted up against the mesa.

  “Eee,” the old man breathed out, his face almost touching the windshield. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “Is this where it happened?” Cipriano asked.

  Nemecio nodded his head slowly. “Yes,” he said. “This is where it happened.”

  Although the truck still sat in sun, shadows were beginning to creep across the clearing. Cipriano took the whiskey from Nemecio’s hand and let it rest against the side of his leg. He leaned back in the seat and cocked his knee so that the sole of his boot rested on the edge of the dashboard.

  High above the mesa two red-tailed hawks were circling slowly. Every so often a breeze would catch their wings and they would veer off sharply. Cipriano felt as though a great weight had been taken from him, as if he’d been waiting a long time to hear the words Nemecio had spoken.

  “Gracias, Nemecio,” he said. “I was beginning to think no one would ever tell me that.”

  Nemecio let out a grunt and looked over at him. “You think this is just a story, don’t you?” he said. “Even Rufino knew better than that.” He picked up the bottle and, with his eyes still on Cipriano, took a long drink. When he was done, more than half the whiskey was gone. The old man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Some things are better left alone,” he said, his voice suddenly clear and steady. “You of all people should know that.” Nemecio pushed open the truck door. “Venga,” he said.

  “We were up on that ridge when we saw him,” Nemecio said. “By that big tree.” At the top of the slope where the mesa flattened out was a large juniper tree. Its branches were thick and twisted. Cipriano wondered how it could still be there after fifty years.

  “He wasn’t moving so good,” Nemecio went on. He took another drink from the bottle. “It was your father’s idea to go see him. ‘Venga, Nemecio,’ he said to me. ‘Let’s go look at the nigger.’” The old man shook his head and scraped at the ground with his foot. He bent over unsteadily, picked something up and then tossed it away.

  “There’s nothing left of him,” he said looking around. “Not even a piece of bone.”

  Cipriano was standing with his hands in his pockets, watching the old man move about the clearing as if there was something to find. “Why would there be something here?” he asked.

  Nemecio was standing still now, swaying slightly. “What do you mean, hijo?” he asked.

  “Rufino told me you left him drunk out here. He told me you took the man’s bag and you both ran off. Why do you think you’d find something out here?”

  “Is that what Rufino told you?”

  “Yes,” Cipriano said. Although the air was still warm, he felt a sudden chill run through him. The sun had fallen lower, only the mountains to the east lit with sunlight. Something is wrong here, he thought, but he wasn’t sure what it was. And then he realized that he’d felt that way from the moment his father had told him about the black man. “It was all Nemecio’s fault,” Rufino had said, sitting on the edge of his bed, his legs covered with a blanket. “None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for Nemecio.” Rufino had told the story almost as if he hadn’t been there. And if he had been, as if he’d had no part to play.

  Nemecio edged closer to Cipriano, close enough that he could smell the old man’s sweat. “What do you think, Cipriano?” he said. “You think it was me who stole the bag?”

  Cipriano looked up at the ridge. He could almost see two boys standing in the shadows beneath the juniper. “I don’t know what I think,” he said. “Just tell me, Nemecio. Tell me what happened.”

  The two boys stood at the edge of the small clearing. Behind them, the mesa rose steeply, the slope dark with shadows. Not sixty feet away Madewell Brown was hunched over on the ground. His shirt was stretched tight against his back. It was wet from sweat and blood. The dirt where his face pressed into the ground was stained with damp. His left hand was bent almost backward, and every so often it would spasm. And when it did, Madewell Brown would moan, the sound low and deep and carrying in the still air.

  “Look at him, Rufino,” Nemecio whispered harshly. “He doesn’t look so good.” He was crowded up close behind Rufino, peering over his shoulder. “What do you think happened to him?”

  “I don’t know,” Rufino said. He took a step away from Nemecio, closer to the black man. Other than the movement of the broken hand and the slow rise and fall of his ribs, the man was lying as still as death. Rufino dug the side of his foot into the ground and kicked a cloud of dirt and small stones at where he lay. When the man didn’t move, he inched forward yet a little more. “Maybe he got what he deserved,” Rufino said. “Maybe that’s what happened to him.”

  “No one deserves that,” Nemecio said, unable to take his eyes off the black man. And he, too, stepped forward, keeping close behind his friend. He reached out and touched Rufino’s arm. “We should go, Rufino,” he said.

  “No,” the boy said, jerking his arm away. “I want to watch.” He was close enough now that he could see the blood and dirt in the man’s hair. He could see how one ear was torn and swollen. He watched as Madewell Brown took in one long, shuddering breath and then fell still.

  “He’s dead,” Rufino breathed out. “He’s nothing but a dead man.”

  “I don’t care,” Nemecio said. “Let’s go home, Rufino.” His legs were weak and shaking, and he was moving from one foot to the other. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “Eee,” Rufino hissed out. “Can’t you be quiet? Let me think.” He moved his eyes away and out to the canvas bag lying in the sagebrush. “Go get his bag, Nemecio,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.”

  “I don’t want his bag,” Nemecio said, his voice catching. “I want to go back home, Rufino.” And he began to cry.

  “Do what I tell you,” Rufino said, turning around. He threw a hand against the boy’s chest and Nemecio stumbled backward and fell. His face was streaked with dirt and tears, his nose beginning to run. “Eee,” Rufino said in disgust. “You’re nothing but a baby.”

  It was then that a sound came from behind the two of them. Rufino spun around. They saw that the black man had pushed himself up onto his knees. He’d been beaten on the face. His features were swelled and broken. The words that came from his mouth were thick and slurred.

  “Help me, son,” he said. “Help me to my feet.”

  “What happened then?” Cipriano asked. Nemecio was staring away blankly, his mouth half open, the whiskey bottle hanging forgotten in his hand. His voice had fallen so low in the telling that Cipriano had edged closer to hear what he was saying. He reached out and grabbed hold of the old man�
��s arm. “What the fuck happened out here, Nemecio?” he asked again.

  “What happened?” Nemecio said dully. He turned his head slowly and looked at Cipriano. “You know what happened,” he said. “You’ve always known.”

  The black man placed his good hand down flat on the ground. He lowered his head and then, pushing hard, rose to his feet. And there he stood blinking the blood and dirt from his eyes. On the ground behind Rufino, Nemecio lay still, not uttering a sound.

  He didn’t look like much standing there, a tall, thin man dressed in shabby clothes and swaying like a wind was blowing. It looked as though a sudden calm had swept through Rufino, as though what would happen was suddenly clear to him. Nemecio could see the sharp outline of the mountains far to the east, and the sky above them was rapidly darkening. He could see each gnarled branch of sagebrush and the handles of the bag lying flat on the canvas.

  “You deserved what you got,” Rufino said, his voice harsh and pitched high. “You’re a thief. You should have known better than to come to a place you don’t belong.”

  “Let’s go, Rufino,” Nemecio said then, his voice no more than a whisper. “I don’t want to be here.”

  Madewell Brown passed a hand before his eyes and shook his head, a spray of blood flying. “You just a boy,” he said. “What you doing so far from home?” And when he took one step toward Rufino, the boy, as if it had been in his mind all along, raised the rifle and shot. He shot the black man full in the chest, and it sent Madewell Brown down hard on the ground.

  The sound of the rifle rolled across the valley and echoed in the deep arroyos that scarred Perdido mesa.

  “I did it, Nemecio,” Rufino said softly. And then his voice rose. “Wait’ll everyone hears.” And then with a yell of “Venga,” he took off running.

  Cipriano let go of the old man’s arm and took a step away from him. “No, viejo,” he said. “That’s not what Rufino told me.”