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“Sure. They said Wayne went into Outlaw Road and backed down the whole town.” Johnny waited a minute to see if Hunter would dispute it. She stayed quiet, and he continued, “They said he outdrew the fastest gun in Mexico, shot the guy to pieces, then killed a half-dozen others in about the next two seconds, to save you and some other people’s lives. They said, at the last, he challenged the whole town to come get him and no one would. Out of that crowd, no one would.” Johnny shook his head at the image of it. “I never went to Outlaw Road, but an uncle of mine did. He saw two men killed in different street fights during a Dies Y Seis celebration. Their bodies were still there when he left the next morning. He heard later that they fed the bodies to the hogs some folks keep in pens north of town.”
“Why did your uncle go there?”
Johnny grinned, “A woman, what else? It scared him though, and he never went back. Hunter, my uncle was a brave man, won the Bronze Star in Vietnam, a Purple Heart, but you couldn’t drag him back to that place.”
Hunter said, “Thanks, Johnny. You see Wayne, tell him I’m looking for him.”
“I’ll do it.”
Hunter drove upriver, not knowing what she expected to find. Wayne had been gone for over an hour. That could mean anything. He could be eating, drinking coffee, or an hour down the road. She drove through the edge of town and into the farms and ranches. Four miles further, she saw the hooked ranch gate where the road led to the Rio Grande. Hunter had to circle back and park, then saw the county lock on the chain was unlocked and hooked to hold the gate closed. Hunter checked the sand and recognized Rockman’s vehicle tracks. Next to it were his shoe imprints, and Hunter felt like cold water had been poured on her. These were the worn-out military sole imprints she saw beside the murdered children. And beside Godoy’s crisp military lug imprints and his whittled toothpick.
Hunter checked her pistol to see if it was loose in the holster, then opened the gate and drove in. She found his Ram Charger ten minutes later, parked under a mesquite, two hundred yards from the river. She parked and walked toward the vehicle, cautious and straining to hear the least sound. The Ram Charger was locked. She put her face to the back side glass and cupped her hands around her face to see inside. A duffel bag rested against one side, and a small suitcase was closer to her. It was open and Hunter could see the suitcase was full of photographs. An eight-by-ten on top of the pile caught her attention.
Angie Rockman, laughing and beautiful, three years before the cancer had eaten her down to nothing, had one arm draped over Hunter’s shoulder and the other around Wayne Rockman’s waist.
Hunter swallowed a lump in her throat and pulled her face from the glass. She left the vehicle and walked toward the river. Hunter ducked down when she saw a small inflatable yellow raft tied to the far side. Wayne’s tracks led up the Mexican bank and disappeared in the grass, headed for a notch in a long ridge of rock that paralleled the river. She looked past the ridge of rock and into the distance. The far hills told her where she was, and where Wayne was going. Outlaw Road. The town was two miles, maybe a little more, from where she stood. That was two miles as the crow flies, but on foot it would be hard going. It would take Wayne an hour to get there. She thought again of Pepper’s note, and the one name Hunter couldn’t connect. Mora. He was the key somehow. Hunter returned to her pickup and headed for the international bridge. She could drive and be in Outlaw Road in fifteen minutes, maybe in time to catch Rockman at Mora’s and find out what in the hell was going on.
When Hunter got closer to the bridge, she did some thinking. With the pistol, she was running a big risk. But she wasn’t going to leave it, not after what happened yesterday. There were several taxis waiting by the bridge and Hunter pulled into a nearby parking lot and called one over. She zipped up her jacket to cover the gun and got in the back seat. The driver flipped his meter and said, “You wan’ to go to Mexico, yes?”
“Yes. I’ll tell you where on the other side. I forget the names of the roads, but I know the directions.”
“Okay, lady.”
Hunter wasn’t going to tell the driver flat out she wanted to go to Outlaw Road. She figured that would get her put on foot pretty quick, so she sent him on a winding route, inching ever more upriver.
The driver was exasperated and said, “Lady, do you know where you wan’ to go?”
“Oh sure, it’s the house of a cousin of my sister-in-law. It’s not much further, turn here,” the driver sighed and turned west. In five minutes, they were past the outskirts of town and still going.
“Lady, there’s notheen out here, only dust.”
“Just a little further. It’s a small house, you can’t miss it.”
He went two more miles before stopping at the bottom of a small rise that blocked sight of anything further down the road. “I go no further,” the driver said.
Hunter paid him and got out of the cab. “It’s just a little way further. I’ll walk.”
“You don’ want to do that, eets dangerous out here,” he squinted at her and exclaimed, “You are her! Are you really goeen back there?”
Hunter said, “I have to.”
The driver crossed himself and said, “Vaya con Dios, mujer valiente, but I will not wait for you.” He turned his cab in a circle and raced toward Ojinaga. Hunter took a breath, unzipped her jacket, walked to the top of the rise, and looked at Outlaw Road.
She moved off the road, getting into the short brush and ocotillo. Mora’s trading post was off to the left, and she went that way, eyes and ears straining for anything.
CHAPTER 18
The dripping sweat felt like someone running a finger between her shoulder blades and down thru her sensitive lower back to the beltline. She reached the abandoned outbuildings without anyone seeing her. Raymond’s car was still there, parked near the first saloon, right where she left it.
The adobe felt rough under her hand as she eased along the building. At the corner, Hunter peeked around at the street. No one was in sight and she hurried on. There were several buildings to pass before she would reach Mora’s. Hunter took her time, watching and listening. A small, skinny dog came toward her and growled, but she stared it down and the animal crept away, tail between its legs.
Voices of a man and woman arguing came from the open window of the next building. Hunter eased down on her belly and snake-crawled under the window, so close she could hear their clothes rustling as they moved about the room. She got to her feet at the corner and crossed an alley after looking both ways. The next building had no windows on h
er side, and she went fast to the corner and looked across thirty feet of dirt road to the front of Mora’s.
No one was in sight and Hunter trotted across the open space to the front door. She didn’t knock, but opened it, stepped in and closed the door behind her.
Mora was dead at his desk. The hand on the desk was missing three fingers, and Hunter saw them on the floor. A large knife stuck straight up from the desk. Hunter stepped closer and saw the blade pinned Mora’s passport and an airline ticket to Buenos Aires to the desk. Hunter looked around. An open safe sat against the far wall. A few papers lay scattered in front of it, nothing else. Hunter moved by Mora and into the hall. Two dead men sprawled on the floor.
