Damned If I Do (9 page)

Dobbs and Filson were looking at me like I was crazy. “Three-fifty and we’ll just be renting the truck.”

“Beat it.”

I watched them drive away. I mounted and rode to a section of stream I never fished because it was just too pretty. The spot was well above a sharp bend in the flow where the real pot growers in the canyon had repeatedly dammed the creek to divert the water to their crops. For a while I was riding up daily to check the stream and destroy their handiwork. After finding a couple of big fish dead below the dam, I got mad and camped out with my shotgun. I parked myself on a short ridge and waited. I felt like a fool because, in truth, those people scared me, but the Forest Service wouldn’t help and Fish and Game just laughed. I saw the sweeping beams of their flashlights in the dawn haze first, then heard their loud talking. Once they had set to work, I fired above them, three shells, then I moved along the ridge and fired three more, which I’m not sure they appreciated because of their running. My heart was racing and my ears were ringing. I slept there three nights in a row and they never came back.

The water where I stood watching flowed around a couple of boulders and then flattened over a bed of rocks. The pool below held a couple of browns that were at least sixteen inches long. I’d watched them for two years now, getting bigger and fatter and growing accustomed to my presence. They would rise to a hatch if I was standing four feet up the bank.

Deputy Jack drove us over to the Chama early. The morning was brisk, but not cold. The water was high and a little muddy and we weren’t sure any fish would find us, but we went at it anyway.

The deputy was in the middle of the river trying to dislodge a fly from a submerged tree, his buddy had wandered downstream, and I was standing at the end of a riffle, bouncing a foam beetle along the bottom.

“That guy find you?” Deputy Jack asked, coming toward me on the bank.

“What guy?”

“That movie fella.”

“So, you’re the one who told him where I live.”

“He asked.”

“Do me a favor and don’t tell anybody else.” I roll-casted to the middle of the riffle and stripped in line. The deputy had his fly and slipped walking back to the bank. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yeah, just a little wetter than I’d planned on getting.”

“I’ve got half a mind to try a parachute dragonfly at the top of that riffle.” I looked hard at the sunlight bouncing off the broken water. “But then it is just half a mind.”

“So, if you hate it so much, why do you write it?” the deputy asked.

“That’s an abrupt change of subject.”

“It’s a trick we cops use. Hardly ever works.”

“I write it because I can and I make enough money so that I can live way the hell out here and be happy.” I looked at the mountains in the distance. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

We were quiet for a while, neither of us fishing. The deputy unwrapped a breakfast bar, offered me one. I declined.

“You gonna sell your truck?” The deputy was closer to me, prowling through his fly box. “Lotta money.”

“You had a long talk with this guy, did you?”

“Naw. The Chicken Lady told me about the truck and how much the guy’s willing to pay. That really shook him up.”

“Yeah?” I reeled in my line to check my fly.

“The Chicken Lady doesn’t understand how there can be that much money in one person’s pocket.” Deputy Jack looked up at a circling hawk.

“Yeah, well, I told the guy to take a hike.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Maybe.”

“You can pass up that kind of money?” Deputy Jack asked. “Maybe you are growing pot up there.”

“I didn’t like that guy. I don’t want to do business with people I don’t like anymore.” Which was a lie, because I pretty much hated my publisher, my editor, and my agent.

“You could take my old pickup. Nobody’s using it.” He folded a stick of gum into his mouth. “It’s one of them newfangled jobs. Starts with a key.”

“Funny man.”

“Just a thought,” he said.

“Thanks anyway.”

We drove home another way, the
scenic
way Deputy Jack called it. Scenic meant longer and the drive took us into an old town I had always loved, Enrico, through which flowed Enrico Creek. Perhaps sixty people lived in Enrico. The walls of the old buildings were the sides of the road that passed through it. When we reached the other end of the town, I saw an excavated site, a chain-link fence, and a sign announcing the arrival of a Wal-Mart. My heart sank. “What the hell is that?”

The deputy’s friend, whose name I couldn’t remember, but whose job was repairing firearms, shook his head. “They’re blasting open a malachite mine up mountain. Jobs. People. Wal-Mart.”

“McDonald’s, motels, more people,” I said.

No one was working at the construction site, but I caught myself staring at a big yellow grader as if it were a responsible party. I reached down beside me and picked up one of my wading boots. I held it to my nose and inhaled the sour smell of the river water that had soaked the felt sole.

“I’m glad you called,” Leighten Dobbs said as he closed his car door. “To tell you the truth I was a little surprised.”

I was leading my mare and the fat gelding from the barn to a pasture. I was going to worm them and turn them out. “Here, you can help me,” I said.

“How? What?” He looked nervously at the horses.

“Just hold this rope.” I gave him control of the mare. He held the rope away from his body as if it were wet. I pulled the tube of worming medicine from my back pocket, grabbed the gelding’s nose, and pressed it into his mouth.

“I take it you’ve changed your mind,” Dobbs said.

“About your using my place, yes.” I took the mare and had him hold the gelding’s lead rope.

“And your truck?”

“You’ll have to take that up with the owner. It now belongs to the man you tried to buy it from the first time.”

“But it’s right there.”

“Talk to him tomorrow. The truck will be in front of the store. I promise he’ll sell with no problem.” I put the paste into the mare’s mouth and watched her try to spit it out. I put the empty tube in my pocket. “She hates this stuff,” I said. “But we’re done. Thanks.” I took the gelding.

Dobbs was a bit puzzled, but he nodded. “What did we decide on for the use of your place? A hundred thousand?” He followed me to the pasture.

“Three-fifty.” I opened the gate and led the horses in.

“Oh, yes.” He looked around again, at the house, the barn. “Yes, this is it, all right. This is the place I want. It’s done.”

“I’ll need a deposit.” I removed the first halter, then the second, and watched the horses trot off.

His smile was an odd one. “Why?”

“So, I’ll know you’re serious.” I closed the gate. “I might change my mind. You never know. You can bring an agreement here with the check tomorrow and I’ll sign it.”

“Okay,” he said.

“And the truck will be in town.”

Again, he said, “Okay.”

After watching Dobbs head down the mountain, I went inside and called a real estate agent, told him I wanted a list of all the pieces of property for sale in and around Enrico. Tomorrow, I would go to the county clerk’s office and find out who owned what. I would buy all I could, where I could, and get in the way of any development.

Early the following morning, I drove down the mountain to Taos and backed onto the Chicken Lady’s hill. He met me this time without the rooster under his arm.

“Didn’t expect to see you so soon,” he said.

“Complaining?”

“Maybe.”

“Come on, show me the birds.” I followed him through the front gate and into a lath house. Chickens and ducks waddled across the floor, sat on perches, flapped from the rafters.

“Just the plain old birds in here,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice animals and I love them, but they’re common.” He led the way out of the shaded area and into the backyard. There was a hole in the middle, the digging of which had long been abandoned, the pick and shovel covered with dirt. “I was trying to put me a pond in here for the ducks, but I sprained my back. The ducks are going to love it. It’s going to be a sight better than those plastic pools I’ve been using.” He stooped to pick up a black chicken with feathered feet. “This here is a Cochin. She ain’t too special, but she’s a nice one.”

“How many birds do you have?” I asked.

“Don’t know.” He stopped at a coop with a wire top. “These are my fancy babies. There’s a pair of Silver Sussex. That one there is a white Croad Langshan. That breed was almost gone. There’s a black Croad. Indian Game. Silver Dorking. You know, I love chickens.”

“I know you do, Chick.” I looked at his shoes. Black Red Wings with one loose sole. “Thanks for the tour. I’d better get going. Come to my truck with me.” We walked back through the lath house, out the gate, and I stopped at the hood of the truck. “Chick, what’s your real name?”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“Give me five dollars,” I said.

“What?”

“Just give me a five.”

The Chicken Lady fished out a lonely five and handed it to me.

“What’s your damn name?”

“Iverson P. Mowatt.”

“You’re kidding me. What’s the P for?”

“Peyton.”

“That’s a great name, Chick.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He looked at what I was writing. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making out a bill of sale.”

“Why?”

“You just bought my truck.” I handed him the title and the key. “And here’s the card of that movie guy.”

The Chicken Lady looked at the bill of sale and the title and the key, then the truck.

“It’s okay, Chick. It’s your truck now. You can do what you want.”

“Thanks, Rawley. I don’t know what to say.” The big man was starting to mist up.

“Just do me a favor. Hold out for thirty thousand. Okay?”

The Chicken Lady collected himself, stiffened his face, and said, “No problem.”

Age Would Be That Does

It was with some resolve that Rosendo Lapuente put a bullet through the head of his sister’s dog, Grasa. Some resolve, a great deal of excitement, and an admirable measure of luck as he dispatched the animal from well over forty yards. Of course it was not until Rosendo and his friend, Mauricio Rocha, were well upon the fallen prey that they realized it was a dog and not until Rosendo’s face was mere inches from the canine’s head that he recognized it as Grasa.

“Oh my,” Rosendo said. “This is your fault.”

“It was you who shot him,” Mauricio said.

“You told me it was a deer.”

“All I said was, ‘There, there is one.’ I didn’t say ‘deer.’”

Rosendo studied the dog. “No matter. I’ve killed my sister’s Grasa.
Me siento mareado.”

“Respire hondo,”
Mauricio said and sucked in much air and let it out slowly to show what he meant.

“And she’s always yelling at me that I’m too old and blind to go hunting. She’ll never let me forget
this.”
Rosendo sat on a nearby log and laid the rifle on the ground between his legs.

“No es para preocuparse,”
Mauricio said.

“How do you figure that?”

“How will she know?” Mauricio asked.

Rosendo sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It would be a shame to hurt her with such news.” He looked at the dog. “It was a terrible pet anyway, a car chaser. Did you know that?”

“I had heard.”

“Bit a hole into the tire of the UPS truck.”

“Oh my.”

The two friends began their hike out of the forest, saying nothing. Rosendo gave the rifle to Mauricio to carry. They shared the gun and kept it hidden in the shed in back of the house that Rosendo shared with his sister Maria. The men also shared vision; that was how they saw it, Mauricio claiming an ability to see things some distance away and Rosendo saying he could focus on things up close. So, Rosendo did the reading and Mauricio did the driving, having managed to retain his permit by uncannily guessing the letters on the eye chart. Each relied on the other’s constant reports. Actually, Mauricio couldn’t make out things that far away and Rosendo had to hold large print at arm’s length from his face to see that it was indeed print, so it was a safe bet that they saw the same things equally well, or poorly.

They came out of the canyon mouth and found Mauricio’s car, a blue Datsun sedan that his daughter, who lived in Albuquerque, had given him when she bought one of those little vans that Mauricio said looked like a suppository. Mauricio wrapped up the gun in a blanket while Rosendo leaned against the car peering at nothing in particular, but in general back into the woods.

“Let me ask you something, Moe,” Rosendo said.

Mauricio slammed shut the trunk.

“Do you think we’re old?”

Mauricio looked at the same trees. “Hell, Rosie, I know for a fact we’re old. We’re the oldest people I know. But not like you’re thinking. We’re young men who still go hunting.”

“Si,
we hunt dogs, pet dogs. What was Grasa doing so far out here anyway?”

The fact of the matter was that they were not very far from Rosendo’s home. The house was just a half-mile from the canyon, but Mauricio’s driving took them repeatedly over the same dirt lanes and through the same turns. Any trip for Mauricio in his blue Datsun took three times as long as it should have. Walking through the woods was a similar experience for them. Rosendo had killed his sister’s dog no more than a hundred yards deep into the woods, but they believed themselves to have marched two or three miles, which they had no doubt done, but in circles. When anyone saw the blue Datsun parked at the canyon opening or anyplace near the mountain, the word was spread to steer clear of the forest.