Champagne for Buzzards (22 page)

I bolted upstairs, wanting to block the one window that would reveal the north part of the barn roof.

Upstairs, the guys making up the search party were just going through the motions, obeying orders hurriedly and doing their best not to offend. They looked in closets, under beds and pretty much moved quickly on through the rooms, no longer committed to the program, and not believing they were going to find their runaway on Riverwood. They just wanted out with whatever dignity they had left.

The men trailed down the stairs and bunched up in the hall. Some slid past the sheriff, saying polite goodbyes to Marley and went out onto the veranda in their sock feet, distancing themselves from the sheriff and wanting to be gone.

Red Hozen knew he'd lost the men. He let out a defeated sigh. “All right,” he said. He looked around the hall. “I'll leave one of my men here.”

“Isn't necessary, Sheriff,” Tully said. “We can take care of it.”

“No,” the sheriff said and looked around for support, looking for someone to volunteer to stay behind. No one would meet his eye as they slipped past him. None of the men were putting themselves forward as the guy to be left behind. They quickly went out onto the veranda and retrieved their boots. Some carried them around to the back of the house, wanting to be away from the sheriff.

The sheriff wasn't happy. He was either going to call one of them back or stay himself. “Shit,” he said and stomped out the door, the only man who hadn't removed his boots. He seemed to have forgotten that Ziggy had attacked one of his men with a shovel or maybe he didn't want the whole story to be told to a judge. Now we just had to hope he didn't order one more search of the barn. We stood on the porch and watched them load up their machines.

“Is it over?” Marley whispered. “Is he safe?” I stopped her. “Are they all gone? Have they left anyone behind?” We looked back into the house. When Jimmy was murdered, my apartment had been broken into. It never felt the same after that, felt alien and foreign, like the guys who broke in still lingered. I felt that now.

“Seems like they're all gone,” Tully said, but still we were all uneasy.

“Just like those sons of bitches to leave someone behind, those buggers don't care about rules or laws,” Ziggy said. “I tell you I'd like to have had the shotgun, I'd of taught them some manners.”

We watched the last of the vehicles pull away. “We have to check on the mare and straighten some of those bales,” Tully said. “Is everything all right in the house?”

“Yeah,” Marley told him. “They were really quite nice about it.”

“You stay with the girls, Ziggy. I'm going to make sure everything is okay in the barn. I'll need to patch the hole in the roof.”

“Clay will be home come the weekend,” I told him. “He can worry about it.”

Tully frowned at my slowness. “Oh,” I said, realizing Tully wasn't really concerned about the hole, just speaking for anyone who might be listening. And we all thought someone was listening. We still felt the presence of our unwanted visitors. It's hard to feel comfortable in your home when strangers have tramped through it.

“We'll check real good and see they didn't leave anything behind,” Uncle Ziggy said.

“Let Dog out of the bathroom and keep him with you,” Tully told us. “He'll tell you pretty quick if anyone stayed behind.” Tully headed for the barn while Zig followed Marley, saying, “I'm going upstairs with Marley and make sure everything is all right.” We wouldn't trust it was over until we'd checked every corner. I headed for the powder room to let Dog out.

Marley and I were on the back porch waiting when Tully came out of the barn. He climbed the steps slowly, deep lines of tiredness etched on his face. All of this was too much for him. If I chased him out to the bunkhouse for a nap he'd get stubborn and refuse, but he was looking like he was about to drop. “Well?” Marley said impatiently. “Is he all right?” Tully nodded. “He did exactly what he did to get away from the Breslaus the first time. He didn't stay in his hiding place but went up. He was up on the roof, hanging onto the edge of the hatch opening while the posse was searching.”

“I saw him go back inside,” I said. “It's a miracle no one else saw him.”

Tully sank down onto a chair. “His hands are sliced and bleeding from the edge of the metal roof. We need to take out some bandages and ointment and clean those cuts.”

“Okay,” Marley said. “I'll take care of it.” The screen door slammed behind her.

“Why didn't he let go when he heard that shot?” I wondered. “I would have.”

I sat on the railing thinking what it would be like to hang from a hot tin roof, twenty or thirty feet about hard-pack ground, with the metal cutting into your hands and waiting to be discovered. And then a gun goes off.

A vehicle entered the yard. I jerked around to see who it was and then I got to my feet.

“Jesus, what now?” Tully asked. “Maybe they've sent someone back.”

“Wait,” I put out a hand to stop him from rising. “I know that van.” Beat up and crapped out, it had been used more than once to pick up supplies for the Sunset. “It's Miguel.”

“Who?”

“Miguel, the luncheon chef from the Sunset.” Miguel and I'd worked together for about five years and over those years we'd become friends. One night, when Jimmy and I were at the height of our marital wars, Miguel had come to my rescue. And when Hurricane Myrna hit Jacaranda, Miguel and his family moved into my apartment. Miguel was the kind of guy you wanted to see when trouble was about. I went to meet him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. Not the most gracious of welcomes but it was a surprise to see him — and a worry. The night might bring more grief than I wanted to think about.

Miguel hitched his jeans and said, “Rosie was doing homework and she read your e-mail.”

“Shit. I'm sorry, Miguel, sorry if I upset her.”

“No importa,” he said. “What's happening here? I've been trying to call but your phone is off. It says your voicemail is full.”

“Damn. I'm sorry, Miguel, I turned off my phone when the sheriff gave my cell back to me. I must have scared the life out of everyone.” When I sent that e-mail, I was just doing what I always do in times of trouble, gathering friends around me like a blanket. “I better send a new message. The sheriff just left. He searched the house and barn.”

“What did he find?” Miguel asked.

“No one he was looking for. But why did you come? It isn't safe for you here.”

“You're here,” he responded, indignantly. “Is it safe for you to be here?”

“Well, it's sort of my place, at least until Clay gets back.”

“So, the fact that you live with Clay, that makes this your problem?”

“Yes, but it isn't your problem.”

“
Por que?
”

“Look, there are some real bad guys out here. Ones you don't want to mess with. You have a family, Miguel, go back to Jacaranda.”

“How do you think my parents got here?” He shoved his hands in his back pockets. “The man they are looking for, well it could have been one of my family.”

“Okay, but what happens to your family if you get hurt or in trouble?”

He considered my question for a moment. “I have a family but I have a country too, this is my country now. No way I'm going to let some bastards destroy it without trying to stop them. This can't happen here. Not anymore.”

“That's hard to get your head around, isn't it? That this can happen here? We hear of it happening other places and we say, ‘Oh, well, what do you expect in a place like that?' But not here.”

“So I will stay.” His flat statement left no room for argument.

“Was there a police car at the end of the lane when you came in?”

“
Si
, he wasn't happy to let me in.”

“They don't want people here. You can't get away with as much when you have witnesses, harder to cover up.”

A smile lit his face. “And that's why I'm staying…to be a witness,
si, el testigo
.”

I started to argue with him but another car was pulling in. “Maybe this is the man the sheriff is sending to watch us. Why don't you go up on the porch,” I suggested. “The sheriff and his men were looking for a Hispanic man; they might not discriminate between them. Jesus, Miguel, this so isn't where you should be. Go in the house.”

“You want me to hide?”

“God, no.” And then I recognized the driver. “Holy shit.” Miguel looked from me to the car. “
Quien?
” Miguel asked. I didn't tell him who it was. Instead I said, “I don't believe this.”

Anil Pereira, my wine merchant, and his wife, Sheryl, pulled up beside us. But before their doors opened, another car swung into the yard. “What have I done?”

It was only the beginning. Over the next hour the area in front of the house and around the barn filled with cars.

When people couldn't get me on the phone and the e-mails they sent weren't answered, some of my friends got in their cars and headed for Independence to find out for themselves what was happening. A few people saw the deputy blocking the lane and kept on going, going home to send messages that began, “I hope you are all right.” But an amazing number, like Anil and Sheryl, demanded to be let in.

When most of them got out of their cars they were truly frightened at what they were letting themselves in for. But like Miguel they were all there to be witnesses.

I really don't know how many people finally came to Riverwood. In ones and twos they got out of their cars, talking to each other, getting angry or being quietly proud but most of all they were determined to see justice done.

Tully snaked his way through the crowd towards me, leaned over and whispered, “Remind me never to share a secret with you,” then shook his head in disgust and disappeared out to the barn to sit with Ramiro.

Miguel and I followed him to the barn. Tully was sitting on the bottom step to the loft, ready to stop anyone from climbing the stairs. He and Miguel went upstairs and brought Ramiro down. Ramiro was crying when he came down with Miguel, frightened and traumatized.

I held out my cell phone. “Tell him to call home,” I told Miguel. The call took some time and brought on another wave of emotion. Then we took Ramiro to sit on the front porch while our guests sat on the hoods of cars, leaned against them or stood on the grass to watch while Marley finished bathing his hands and poured peroxide over them. After she wrapped bandages around them, Ramiro cupped a mug of soup gingerly in his hands.

And then, with fresh water in the pan, Marley washed Ramiro's damaged feet. People watched silently, caught up in a modern rendition of the sacred rite.

All through this, Miguel talked quietly to Ramiro. When Marley finished drying Ramiro's feet and rubbing salve on them, Miguel leaned against the pillar at the top of the steps and interpreted while Ramiro told his story once more. Ramiro's voice was almost inaudible in the beginning, but after a few minutes Ramiro got up from the creaking wicker chair and limped to the railing, leaning out to look people in the eye. Impassioned and intense, speaking faster than Miguel could translate, he told his story.

Tears began to flow down faces. Listeners were breaking down all over the place, and not just the women. Maybe it was a loss of innocence and having to live with this new reality, the realization that even in the greatest nation on earth this could happen. No one is safe from evil and we aren't protected from the worst depravities of humanity by an accident of birth.

When Ramiro was finished, everyone started grumbling and speaking at once. The noise was deafening.

They all had a different idea about how to make Ramiro safe and how to end the horror he'd been through. None of their suggestions were pretty and some were downright vicious.

“How can this happen?” Anil Pereira asked. “I just can't believe it.”

“Greed, that's what this is about,” Jack Harris answered. There was a nodding of heads. “Greed and corruption are ruining this country.” More nodding of heads, more anger. “Hang the bastards,” Jack roared.

A cheer went up. Confidence, pride and anger were growing in the crowd. They were taking something back they'd lost. Anil, always calm, started, “Elected officials represent us,” but was interrupted by Jack shouting, “They don't represent me.”

There's always one politician in every crowd and Jack was turning into ours. As he started into a long diatribe about dishonest politicians, people were talking back, shouting out their encouragement or their objections.

If the sheriff turned up now, if they tried to take Ramiro away, there would be blood, a riot of it. And it wouldn't all be Ramiro's. They were also close to turning into a mob.

Exhaustion, lack of food and fear took their toll. Ramiro slumped down onto the porch, unable to stay on his feet. Marley moved down beside him and put her arm around him. “Look at him. We have to get him to a doctor.”

After loud discussions it was decided that we would take him out of Independence in one long line, the first cars stopping to be checked and when the deputy moved aside the whole line would follow without stopping, head back to Jacaranda in a long convoy heading straight to the hospital.

It sounded like a good plan to me but some felt that the whole line of cars would be checked before the deputy moved aside. Others feared that the car holding Ramiro might get separated from the rest while some argued that we'd lose control once Ramiro was in the hospital and we couldn't protect him.

“Whatever we do, he needs a doctor,” Marley said. Tully put in. “And a shower and clean clothes won't hurt either. After that we can decide what we need to do.”

They didn't need any help from me. I turned away and headed for the kitchen with Miguel following me.

“This isn't the party I'd planned,” I said as I turned on the tap and washed my hands. “But it looks like it might be turning into a good one.”

He laughed. “I never went to a better one, Sherri.” He looked in the fridge and started pulling out stuff. “What's in the freezer?”

“Everything. I can't help myself. Talk about greed, I just keep on buying.” I pulled three-quarters of a French stick out of plastic wrap. “I'll slice this really thin, toast it with garlic butter and chop some nice fresh tomatoes to put on top.” I stopped in shock and looked at Miguel. “Tomatoes, who the hell picked these tomatoes? Do you think they were picked by slave labor?”

“It's a question we'll be asking ourselves for a long time, but we can't just throw out all the tomatoes just in case. We still have to live.”

And there was the quandary of our lives. Even if we want to do the right thing, how can we identify what the right thing is?

“Is there any basil?” Miguel asked, putting aside unsolvable problems.

“Nope, but there's a bunch of parsley. I'm going to use parsley, black olives and onions instead of basil on the tomatoes.” The one thing Miguel and I knew how to do was to serve the customers.

“Okay,” he agreed and we started our dance to the kitchen gods, moving smoothly around each other, handing things off like America's best dance team. People wandered into the kitchen and were given things to pass, chop or fetch. We couldn't seem to help ourselves. From depression and disgust came a feeling of bonding and togetherness, of wanting to stay in this tribe we belonged to, wanting to say that we would stop bad things from happening to each other and celebrate the good.

Sheryl Pereira, a writer for
Floridian Life
magazine and a beauty with ice green eyes, came into the kitchen and asked if she could help. I handed her napkins and a plate of veggies to pass around. Out on the lawn, tramping the weeds into dust, people argued about what needed to be done, took the food she offered and went right on arguing.

The fairy lights came on, waved and twinkled in the breeze, and went unnoticed. The barbeque was lit, chicken, hotdogs, burgers and all the goodies meant for Clay's birthday party were pulled out. Miguel created amazing salads out of the cans in the store room, like black beans and corn along with parsley, tomatoes and celery. With every vegetable I chopped, I wondered. But as Miguel pointed out, people have to eat.

Mary Lou Churchill, an emergency nurse at Jacaranda Hospital, came back into the kitchen from checking on Ramiro and told me, “Sleep is the best thing for him right now. Tully is keeping watch on a chair by his door.”

I picked up the celery out of the colander and said, “Tully should tell Ramiro to move over and just stretch out with him. It's been a long day and Tully is dead on his feet.”

Lou and I had been friends since high school. We know the gritty bits of each other's lives and don't have to fill in a lot of back story. I stopped chopping and looked up at her. “Have you any idea how sick Tully is?” “Nope,” she answered. “Have you?”

“I'm only his daughter. The doctor won't talk to me. That's why I'm asking you.”

“Why would I know?” She pulled a stick of celery from the colander.

“'Cause I know he was at the hospital for tests. Couldn't you just look up those tests and see what's going on?”

“No. Why don't you ask Tully?”

“He claims he's in perfect health.”

“Well, don't ask me, I can't help you.” I picked up a tray of cheese and crackers. “Then if you haven't any information for me, at least make yourself useful by passing around this tray.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Uncle Ziggy took a couple of buckets to get the beer and wine from the fridge in the bunkhouse. Along with the beer, he returned with his old boombox and the greatest hits from the sixties. Sheer craziness broke out…dancing in the face of the unbelievable.