Authors: Clinton McKinzie
The tall cacti disappeared, to be replaced by prickly pear, mesquite, and even some ponderosa pines as I drove higher. The air got a little cooler, too, and I rolled down the windows so that I could lean out and look for faint tracks marking the road. It smelled better up here. Wilder. Supposedly there were still grizzly bears in the Sierra Juárez. At least that was what Roberto had said a decade ago.
I drove on, permanently in four-wheel low now.
An hour later I admitted to myself that I was totally lost. I was no longer even sure if I was on the road, or any road. For over a mile there had not been a single tire mark. There hadn’t even been any trash. I needed to camp and wait for daylight.
I bounded up one last hill, banging over sharp-edged rocks that were large enough that I worried about tipping or ripping out an axle. I took it fast, though, because the hill itself was steep enough that if I slid back down it I would probably end up sitting on my tailgate. If any of these things happened, it would be a long walk out. And it might be a little uncomfortable, too, having to flag down a ride from a pickup with a little yellow sticker in the back window.
Roaring over the crest, nearly airborne, I almost slammed into the back of another car.
I skidded to a stop only a few feet from it. The car was a Ford Econoline van that looked as battered as the Pig. It was mounted high up on enormous off-road tires. The back windows were plastered with stickers for climbing gear, the Access Fund, and one that said, “Bad Cop—No Donut.” Close by were the orange flames of a campfire. My headlights lit up four people with huge eyes and open mouths. All were young, three of them blond, and they looked like they were just barely climbing back into their skins.
I killed the engine and got out. Music was playing from a boom box.
“Sorry about that. I didn’t know anyone was up here.”
I spoke English because they obviously weren’t Mexican. It wasn’t the color of their skin or their hair—Mexicans, like Argentines, can be blond—but their clothes and postures.
“Holy shit!” one of the girls said, laughing a little wildly. “Where’d you come from, dude?”
“I’m not really sure. I thought it was the road.”
“The road’s that way.” She pointed off somewhere into the night, still laughing. “Who the hell are you?”
“My name’s Robert,” I said.
It wasn’t the smoothest pseudonym, and I was embarrassed that it was the best I could do in a split second and still make it sound natural. I’d been an undercover investigator for eight years, after all. But I knew it shouldn’t matter. I could have even used my real name. I’d be out of here in a day or two, and these people wouldn’t likely be talking to anyone out here but themselves.
They introduced themselves. Tony, Kevin, Barb, and Lydia. It had been Lydia who had spoken first, but it was hard to tell the two girls apart. Both were small and wiry and both had dreadlocked blond hair. Both were either high or unnaturally peppy. Kevin was also short, with a thick body and black-Irish features. Tony was about my height and was even thinner than either of the girls. His blond hair was as long as Rebecca’s.
I saw right away that they were climbers, too, even though the bumper stickers had already suggested it. They had the sunburned faces and arms, along with the scrapes and scabs, of seasoned desert wall rats.
“You know how far I am from Trono Blanco?”
Kevin answered, “Yeah, man. That’s where we’re headed tomorrow. You can’t see it from here, not even in the daylight, but it’s about a three-mile hike. You going to climb it?”
“Maybe. I thought I’d check it out.”
“Solo, huh?” Lydia asked.
“Rope solo. I’m not crazy.”
Not like Roberto. Not quite yet. But just by being here I’m well on the way.
Tony said, “You can hang with us if you want. There’s supposed to be safety in numbers down here. Word is, a lot of people have been getting ripped off. Chicks hassled, too.” He glanced significantly at Barb and Lydia.
They laughed at him.
“You’re the only one that’s hassling me, Tony,” the one called Barb said.
Lydia added, “Dude, no one comes here in the summer. Too freaking hot. No one’s that dumb but us. And Robert here.”
I was invited to sit around the fire. The wood was mesquite and it smelled good. Lydia handed me a cold can of Tecate, then returned a minute later with a slice of lime that she shoved through the hole.
“Want to get baked?” Tony asked.
“Too tired, thanks. A beer’s about right.”
They passed a bong while I sipped the beer. There was a full moon overhead and just as many stars as in Wyoming. While they talked about places they’d been climbing, and asked only a few questions about me, I remembered sitting at a similar fire with Roberto. I’d drunk the same kind of beer, too, while he smoked the same sweet pot they were smoking.
I could feel myself starting to let go of things. God knows there was a lot to let go of. I didn’t feel the same panic when I thought of Roberto and his ruined body. And I didn’t feel like much of a cop anymore. These people had accepted me as one of them, a wandering climber, just looking for the next rush of adrenaline. And that’s how I felt.
I asked how long they’d been here and what they’d found to climb. They’d been camping for three days, mostly bouldering and getting warmed up for El Gran Trono Blanco, and were all but out of batteries and ice.
“Trono Blanco’s why we came,” Kevin said. “It’s the real deal, man. You’ll see it tomorrow. Climb with us if you want. We’re going to try to do it in a day—the Giraffe Route, you know? Rock’s supposed to be as good as anything in the Valley.”
The Valley was Yosemite, home of perfect granite and huge walls.
The music stopped. Tony got up and changed the CD. He put on an old one, Van Morrison’s
Moondance
. It had to have been recorded years and years before any of them were born, but the girls were immediately on their feet. They started dancing together while Tony bobbed his head and Kevin grinned at me.
“These chicks like to dance,” he said.
I was beginning to be able to tell them apart. Barb was just a little bit heavier and wore silver bracelets that flashed in the firelight as well as a tank top. Lydia wore only an athletic bra and a pair of shorts. She had a pierced belly button, too, with a ring in it, and I bet Barb had something similar. Both also had a couple of tattoos and some other pierced parts. They danced with their eyes closed, swaying and lifting their arms like it was reggae that was playing.
Only when the CD’s volume began to fade as the batteries wore down did they stop dancing. Then both of them plopped down next to the fire, breathing a little hard. Their bare skin was shiny in the firelight. I could smell the sweat and the sunburn and the dust coming off their skin. I felt like I was getting high, just inhaling them.
I decided it was time to get some sleep.
There were two tents standing nearby that were identical in all but color. Both were stained and patched with duct tape. They were pitched thirty feet apart, on what were probably the only relatively flat bits of ground. I stomped around in the brush with a flashlight, looking for a place I could throw my bag. I didn’t find one, but I did find a tarantula with glittering black eyes. He scurried away when I held the light on him.
“Hey, Robert,” one of the girls—I think it was Lydia—called to me. “You can crash with us, if you want. We’re smaller than the boys, so there’s a little more room.”
“No, thanks. I’m going to sleep in the truck.”
But the offer touched me. Not just because they accepted me enough to make such an offer, but because of its total innocence—whether or not there was anything sexual behind it. Who but these people would take in a stranger like me? These had once been my people. Why had I left them behind when I became a cop?
And I didn’t feel quite so good anymore. I didn’t deserve the offer, the trust. I was like the tarantula—out hunting in the night.
I’ve come here to kill, you know.
THIRTY-FOUR
I
woke up to very bright light. It was far too bright to be daylight. The light was flooding into the open back end of the Pig from down the ridge crest. Squinting into it, I could make out that three lights were bouncing rapidly toward me. Two of them were headlights. The third—and the brightest—appeared to be mounted higher up, like on a roll bar.
The cops, I thought. Which isn’t comforting when you’re in Mexico. As if in response to what I was thinking, flashing blue-and-red strobes came on to either side of the bouncy spotlight.
“What the hell?” Kevin called from his tent.
The blue nylon was completely lit up. Both Kevin’s and Tony’s silhouettes were distinct and moving inside it. The flat spot where they’d staked the tent, I now realized, was on the road itself. And the vehicle wasn’t slowing as it slammed over rocks and bushes toward them. Barb and Lydia’s tent was a little farther down the hillside.
My first move was to reach under the driver’s seat, where I’d hidden the shotgun before crossing the border. My hand closed on powder puffs of Mungo’s hair before finding the beveled surface of the shotgun’s pistol grip. Then I let it go.
These are cops,
I reminded myself.
They’re probably here to rob us, not kill us.
And it was highly unlikely that either I or my truck with its false plates had been recognized when going through the village.
I shielded my eyes and held up my watch so that it caught the light. It was three-thirty in the morning. I kicked off my sleeping bag just as the approaching Jeep skidded to a halt in front of Kevin and Tony’s tent.
The lights remained on, but the engine was turned off.
“You do not have permission to camp here,” a voice called from beyond the lights.
Kevin staggered out of the tent, followed by Tony.
Kevin said, “Hey, man, we didn’t know that. We heard you could camp anywhere you want down here.”
“You do not have permission to camp here,” the voice repeated in accented English.
The officers had both gotten out of the Jeep and were walking toward us. Two silhouettes coming out through the blinding light. One was short and fat, the other more regular-sized. They were close together and holding only truncheons—in violation of what was standard practice north of the border. They were arrogant and sloppy. I could have taken them both out with a single blast of buckshot. But these men knew that they had very little to fear from what they considered crazy but harmless rock climbers. There were far greater dangers out there, although you could alleviate them somewhat by working for the right cartel.
“These mountains are federal land,” I protested, speaking Spanish. “They do not belong to you. You have no right to tell us we can’t camp here.”
Both of them seemed surprised that I spoke Spanish. And spoke it forcefully, too. I could see them clearer now. The short one was older, maybe in his forties or fifties. He didn’t look particularly mean. The other one was so young that his mustache was just a wisp of hair.
They looked at each other. Then the older one spoke.
“Nevertheless, you must have a permit. And you have no permit.”
“Where do we get a permit?”
He grinned and thumped his chest. “From me!”
“This is bullshit!” Kevin said. “What’s he saying?”
Lydia and Barb had gotten out of their tent, too. Lydia was still in her bra and shorts, Barb in her tank top and apparently nothing else. The older cop leered at them. The younger one’s eyes grew large while his face became tight.
The younger one said in English, “We search you for drugs. Lots of hippies come here. Smoke bad drugs. Be in much trouble.”
Then he stroked his truncheon meaningfully.
It was inevitable that they would find at least the bong, which I didn’t think the climbers would have bothered to have hidden. The shotgun would be easy to find, too, and even harder to explain. And then I knew what would happen next. A
mordida,
a fine, payable either in cash or sex, would be demanded.
I decided to short-circuit things.
“If we’re camping illegally, can’t we just buy a permit and be done with it?”
This perked up the older officer. He was no doubt tired at half past three in the morning, and seemed to appreciate my coming to the point. He scratched his head as if wondering why he hadn’t thought of it first.
“Yes, señor. But the permit for camping here is very expensive. Twenty-five dollars per person.”
It was simply an opening offer. I wanted to argue, to haggle the way my mother had taught me. I knew I could turn the twenty-five dollars into just a couple of bucks—neither the climbers nor I looked like we had anywhere near twenty-five dollars. But I also wanted to get the cops out of here. And I wanted them to leave happy. I didn’t like the way the younger one was looking at Barb and Lydia now. I could see that he would be happy to take payment in flesh, whether or not cash was offered.
“Twenty, and go,” I said. “I want to go back to sleep, so I will give you everything I have.”
Barb must have spoken a little Spanish, because she stepped toward us and started to protest.
“Hey. We don’t have that kind of scratch—”
As she stepped toward us, the younger cop stepped toward her. The thin tank top she wore was made transparent by the beams of three bright lights. His eyes were all over her. He whistled appreciatively.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “Go get back in your tent.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“Just do it. Now!”
She made a face but turned and marched back toward the tent.
“Twenty and you will leave us,” I said firmly, getting the cops’ attention back on me.
The younger one didn’t look pleased. He clearly wanted something else, something more.
“That’s all you will get. Otherwise I will make a lot of trouble for you two.”
I gave them my hardest look. Like Roberto’s, but without the crazy grin.
The older cop nodded. “Twenty each. That’s one hundred American dollars.”
Instead of taking out my wallet, I waved the officers over to the side of the Pig. I opened the door and had the old, fat cop shine his flashlight into the side pocket, where I kept five emergency twenties. I made sure that he saw that there wasn’t any more money there other than a roll of quarters. I gave him the five bills.
He grinned at me.
“You buy permit, so now you will have no more trouble. Not from
policía,
not from the
bandidos
who are all over these mountains. I will see to it myself.”
“I know you will. Thank you.”
He winked.
“Sleep well, señor.”
They got back in the Jeep, turned around, and bounced off into the night. In a couple of minutes their taillights disappeared.
Lydia came up and touched my arm.
“Thanks, Robert. You didn’t have to do that, though. Those guys had no right to demand money from us. Without people like us coming down here, spending our dollars, they wouldn’t have a pot to piss in.”
I shrugged and didn’t laugh. I doubted she and her friends were spending very many American dollars on the local economy. Besides, it was drugs that fueled things down here. A one-hundred-billion-dollar business, although it was hard to tell by the look of things.
“They live here,” I told her. “They’ve got the guns and the badges. What are you going to do?”