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t, so she called Presidio and asked where they’d be working. The Patrol Agent In Charge said J.D. was working with Alpine downriver near Lajitas, and that was it. The rest was wide open. Hunter said she’d probably work upriver, see what was moving around, vehicle-wise, that time of the morning. He’d told her Bueno, and good hunting.
***
Hunter picked a place a dozen feet below the crest of a rocky hill so she wouldn’t be skylined by the rising moon coming up behind her. She sat with her back against a boulder that still held heat from the day, and several clumps of bear grass screened her position from the front. That left a good view of the river on both sides for a good ways in both directions.
It was dead until 3AM. Then she heard a squeaking, chugging vehicle coming toward the river on the Mexican side. Her binoculars and the moonlight made it easy to see; She watched a forty year-old pickup with what looked like a chicken coop in the pickup bed slow and stop in the vega’s short grass. When the driver turned off the engine, Hunter could faintly hear the metallic plink-plink as the motor cooled.
The driver walked to the passenger side and came back with a battery powered floodlight. He positioned it thirty feet from the pickup and turned it on so it illuminated the chicken-wire coop. Hunter looked through her binoculars and muttered, “What the hell...?” Pigeons fluttered in the coop. The driver walked to the coop and attached what looked like a piece of one-by-four as long as his forearm to the base of the coop, then he checked a small door that swung back and returned when he pushed it. Like a doggie door, Hunter thought. The driver checked his watch and scanned the night sky.
Nothing happened for several minutes, then Hunter heard flapping wings as a pigeon flew over her position and straight to the coop. The driver caught the bird and peeled a message from its leg before putting it in the coop. He read it, then put it in his pocket as he turned off the floodlight and replaced it in the pickup. He started the engine and drove out of the vega into the night.
Hunter pushed the ball cap back on her head, “Raymond’s not gonna believe this.”
***
An hour later, Felipe Godoy turned off his cell phone and smiled.
The waiter asked, “What will you be having, sir?”
Felipe checked the elegant menu, “I will have the squab.” He finished the order by adding a bottle of Red Burgundy to pair with the bird’s dark meat. He sipped the Burgundy and thought about his plans. Return home and get some sleep, obviously. Then he would finish up Rockman’s problem, while Rockman finished up his. I am going to enjoy this, he thought; I am going to enjoy this very much.
***
The next morning Bobby Mata drank coffee at the Las Palmas Restaurant in Presidio, not having time for breakfast, and left at nine. He made the rounds: to the post office, paying the electric bill, making a few calls on some farm equipment he was checking out way up in Brownfield in the Panhandle. When he’d finished, Bobby crossed the international bridge into Ojinaga and drove to the southern edge of town to his favorite restaurant for a meeting over lunch.
El Soldado was a long, thick-walled adobe building built in 1848 as a shelter against Apaches. It had been expanded through the years, and patched, re-patched, and re-patched again, but was still essentially the same, except for the addition of electricity and evaporative coolers which made the inside as cold as a cave. Several years ago, the owner plastered and whitewashed the walls inside and out. It was still holding up, with only a few cracks and chips near the corners. The family that owned it were descendants of Romualdo Saeriz, the crack shot of Mexico, and who was legendary during the Revolution for shots he made at incredible distances. They named it El Soldado, The Soldier, in his honor. Bobby knew the owners and most of the cooks and waiters by their first names. It was a good place for meetings: cool, quiet, out of the way of most of the population.
Bobby parked in back among the dozen or so abandoned, deteriorating adobe buildings. He went inside the restaurant and took an extra second to look at the old black and white photo of Romualdo with sombrero, rifle and pistol, wearing criss-crossed bandoliers over his chest, posing in the street in 1915. In the picture he was snake thin, relaxed but ready, and with something in the eyes that told you, Yes, this one was as good as they said.
Bobby took a table in the back corner and a new waiter had chips, salsa, and a cold, green bottle of Dos Equis beer in front of him as soon as he sat down. He ordered the lunch special for two. The man he was to meet arrived moments later and sat down.
They talked and laughed while eating delicious portions of grilled, bacon-wrapped quail, fire-roasted corn, ranchero beans and homemade tortillas. The service was excellent except for one time when Bobby had to signal the new waiter, who was talking on the Restaurant’s phone that they needed another round of beer and tortilla chips. After the meal, Bobby and the man shook hands when he left. Bobby leaned back, opening a last icy beer to finish the afternoon. When he was half through, one of the waiters he knew bent down to his ear.
“Senor Mata, it is possible that this is of no importance, but we feel you might wish to know what is happening behind the cantina.”
“And what is that, Carlos?”
“We have seen--I have seen a man back there, he wears the uniform of a soldier. He looked at your truck, then went into the abandoned adobe beside it. He is hiding behind the wall, watching the back of our cafe. I believe he waits for you to come out.”
Bobby tapped the mouth of the beer bottle against his lower lip before setting it down. He took out a fifty-dollar bill and handed it to Carlos, “For your trouble, and for your sharp eyes. I think I will see what this soldier wants.” He went out the front door and edged to the corner. Circling wide, Bobby kept other buildings between him and his vehicle. In a few minutes he completed the long circle to the area behind El Soldado. He looked in the back of the abandoned adobe.
Felipe Godoy’s back was toward Bobby. In his hand was a two-foot long metal pipe. Felipe tapped it against his leg.
Bobby watched him for a long moment, then took off his western hat and placed it on a nearby post. Slow and silent, he moved toward Godoy. When he was three feet behind the Colonel, Bobby said, “Lookin’ for me?”
Felipe whirled, striking out with the pipe. Bobby went underneath it and into Godoy, slamming him against the adobe wall and raking Godoy’s hand across the rough bricks until the pipe fell to the ground.
Bobby snatched Felipe’s pistol from the holster and tossed it on the other side of his truck while pinning the Colonel with his body. He stepped back then, putting a little space between them. Felipe moved and Bobby hit him so hard in the stomach it clacked the Colonel’s teeth together. He crumpled to the ground and Bobby grabbed him by the shirtfront to lift him high and hit him in the stomach and chest two more times.
Godoy was in agony. Every time he took a ragged breath, something made a click inside. Bobby talked to him, and Felipe had to force himself to listen, to hear what Bobby said.
Bobby said, “You ever try this again, I will rupture your liver. Nod if you understand me.” Felipe nodded. Bobby said, “You can get your pistol when I’m gone. Don’t move till then,” Bobby got his hat, walked to his truck and drove away. Godoy sat in the dust, his back against the adobe wall, holding his stomach as if his entrails might fall out any second.
***
It took him ten minutes before he could stand, and the weakness in his bowels made his thighs quiver. He used one hand on the wall, taking tiny steps to exit the adobe. Felipe walked like a very old, sick man, shuffling his feet, stirring up tiny clouds of dust as he moved.
He stood over the pistol for several minutes before getting enough courage to bend over and pick it up. Sweat popped out on his forehead and he gritted his teeth as he rose. He rested after that, the pistol hanging loose in his hand. A couple of men watched from the back of the cafe, and he pointed the pistol to make them go away. They went inside and Felipe put the pistol in his holster and shuffled away with one hand holding his stomach.
