The Second Saladin

Jesus Mary, it would be so simple.

The tall man comes out high in the mountains, dazed, probably trembling with the chill. He blinks, shivering. Perhaps he turns. Ramirez lifts the pistol, already cocked, and fires once into the center of the body. Then he’d go into the business himself: no more errand boy for the Huerras. He had the contacts too; he knew the people in Tucson.

Jesus Mary, it would be simple.

“Turn here?” Oscar Meza asked.

“No.”

“Keep going?”

“Yes.”

“Reynoldo, I—”

“Keep going.”

“We are going into the mountains. I—”

“Keep straight.”

Ramirez reached down and turned on the radio. He fiddled with the dial until he found a Tucson station. He left it on, thinking of Tucson, a flat new city on a plain surrounded by mountains. He thought of it as a city of money, full of Americans with money, full of blond women and swimming pools.

So simple.

The American country music rolled softly against his ear. The jarring in the cab was thunderous. He prodded his cowboy hat lower down his face, masking off his eyes, set his head against the seat back, and stretched and crossed his legs. He chewed a toothpick and thought of himself as a don, with a palatial estate in the hills outside Mexico City like Don Jose Huerra. He thought of blond women and horses.

So how did he know so much? And who was he working for?

This was the crux of Ramirez’s dilemma. In three or four sentences he had delivered up Ramirez’s most closely held secret. If he knew of Ramirez’s connection to the Huerras and the mountain route into America, then —

“Reynoldo, I can tell. This gringo scares you. Say the word and I’ll go back and finish him. Nothing to worry about.”

“Drive on, stupid one,” Ramirez said. Oscar was really getting on his nerves this night. He’d found him five years ago driving an Exclusivo cab and pimping for American college boys down from Tucson; now the fool considered himself a right-hand man. Ramirez spat out the window.

“Lights. And go slower.”

“Yes, Reynoldo.”

The lights vanished.

“Keep the side lights on, idiot. Do you want to go over the side?”

Oscar immediately turned on the lower-powered orange lights.

Ramirez got out a stick of gum as the truck lurched forward. Soon they were on a ledge and the two Nogaleses were visible, the small and pretty American one and its larger, less neat brother, spilling awkwardly over the hills, spangles of light these many miles away. But Ramirez was not a man for views; in fact, he was looking now in the other direction.

“There,” he said suddenly. “Jesus Mary, almost missed her. I’m too old for this.”

Oscar stomped the brake and the van skidded for a breathtaking moment on the gravel and dirt as its treads failed. Ramirez shot a bad look toward the idiot Oscar, whose fingers whitely fought the wheel. But the van did not slide off. Ramirez, cursing, got out, pulling his jacket tight against him. Cold up here, so high. The men in back would have no coats; they’d shudder and whimper in the chill. But the gringo?

Ramirez’s breath billowed before him. He fished in the brush with gloved hands until his finger closed on something taut; pulling, he opened a crude gate wrapped with an equally crude camouflage of brush to reveal a smaller road leading off the main track.

“She’s ready,” he called.

The truck eased through the gap, turning. It began to slip and drop. Oscar double-clutched as the vehicle tipped off; it seemed to fall, sliding down the incline in a shower of dust, coming at last to rest on an even narrower road. Ramirez swung the gate shut and scrambled down.

The truck picked its way down the switchback in the dark. Ramirez hung out of the cab, watching. It was tough work. Twice the fool Oscar almost killed them, halted by Ramirez’s cry, “No! No! Jesus Mary,” only inches before spilling them off into blank space. It was a younger man’s game and Ramirez’s heart beat heavily. Once he even walked ahead, aware of the dark peaks all around him, of the stars and the scalding cold air and the half-moon, whose presence unnerved him. He’d never been here before in the gray moonlight. He crossed himself and swore to light a candle at the shrine of the Virgin.

Finally he ordered, “Kill it.”

Ramirez climbed out of the cab and went back to the rear doors.

If you’re going to do it, here’s the time.

He took out the pistol. He opened the doors. He could smell the men inside, dense and close.

“Let’s go, little boys. Nothing but American money up ahead,” he joked in Spanish, and stood back to watch them clamber gingerly out. They came one by one — five youngsters and an older man — shivering in the piercing cold. Ramirez waited, not sure what he would do.

He backed off a little and whispered, “Hey, gringo. Come ahead. We’re waiting. Cold out here.”

There was no sound from the truck.

“Hey? You fall out? What’s with this hombre, eh?” He leaned forward, into the interior, and could not quite make out if —

The blow smashed him to the earth. Before he could rise, the man was on him. He could feel a blade.

“Patron, patron!” shouted Oscar, rushing to them with a shotgun.

The pistol was pried from Ramirez’s fingers; the man rose and stood back.

“Hey,” called Ramirez. “Don’t do nothing stupid. The gun is for your protection. From federales.”

“What should I do, patron?” asked Oscar.

“Tell him to drop that shotgun,” said the man.

“Drop it,” yelled Ramirez. The gun fell to the dust.

“Now get up,” the man said.

Ramirez climbed to his feet, shaking his head. He’d been hit with something heavy, something metal.

“I was just making sure you don’t bounce out,” he said. “Don’t do nothing crazy with that gun.”

The tall man tossed the pistol into the scrub. Ramirez marked its fall next to a saguaro cactus that looked like a crucifix. He could pick it up on the way back.

“Okay?” he asked. “No guns now. We’re friends.”

“Let’s go,” said the man.

Ramirez walked ahead, pushing through the knot of men. He didn’t wait to see what the tall man would do. He walked ahead a short way down a path, hearing them shuffle into line behind him. The moon’s soft light turned the landscape to the color of bone. Ramirez turned.

He spoke in Spanish, quickly and efficiently.

“Now say it for me,” said the tall man. “I don’t have that language.”

“Just telling them how it goes from here. Two hundred meters down the slope. Then a flat place, over a dry creek, then through some trees. A gully, a last field to cross. Okay? No tricks. Just the truth, just a walk in the moon. Some compadres of mine wait on the other side. And you are with your Tio Sam, eh?”

“Then do it,” said the man.

Ramirez led them down the incline, thinking of himself, stupid! stupid! and trying not to mourn excessively the lost fortune. This hombre was a smart one!

The ground was stony and treacherous, strewn with cactus and jumping cholla and other bitter little plants, leather things that caught and tore at him. The feathery moonlight fell, light as powder. Ramirez licked his dry lips. The trees, twisted little oaks, were widely spaced among tufts and rills of scrub and he guided the clumsy party