Mesquite trees stubbed the ground all about, and behind barbed wire fences there were little patches of greenery mixed with prickly pear stands and dirt the color of dried peas. Sheep, goats, and windmills dotted the land, and the world seemed bleak and sad to me. All I could think of was getting back to East Texas. Back to greenery and creeks and rivers and the sky as seen through pine tree limbs.
After a while Red asked us to slow down, so that his memory might have time to work.
Finally, he said, “This is it. I remember now. This is it.”
Leonard slowed, turned right, drove a great distance, came out on another highway, was directed by Red to the left, went along that way for some distance before Red said, “On the right.”
On the right was a red windmill that had seen better days, but was still turning. There was a sign next to the road that read THE CHURCH OF THE BAPTISTS, and about an acre’s distance behind the windmill in a clearing spotted with scrubby weeds was a little church made of plyboard, green lumber, ill-fitting windows, and hope. The church was warped due to the cheap lumber, and seemed as if it were about to pucker up and explode. The windows had cracks in the glass or no panes at all, and behind the glass I could see plyboard, and in one case some kind of thick yellow paper. The north end of the church touched the ground, while the south stood on dissolving concrete blocks, as if rearing up for a peek across the vast expanse of West Texas. The cross on the roof peak was weathered gray and starting to strip; it leaned a bit to starboard.
Out to the left was a wet-looking green slush hole that had to be the end result of a broken sewage line. Not far from that, like the husk of a great insect, lay an aluminum camper shell.
“Seems to have gone downhill,” Red said.
We turned down a dirt drive. Dust rose around the car in white puffs thicker than the cumulus clouds above us. We parked out front of the church and got out.
Red was almost jovial. He coughed the dust away, started calling: “Herman! Herman Ames. It’s me, Red.”
After a moment the front door of the church moved, then caught, then burst open. A stout Mexican woman of about thirty came out and stood on the porch in a position that made me think of a wrestler about to get down and to it.
Red said, “Herman Ames. He here?”
She just stared at us.
“I don’t think she speaks English,” I said. “You got any Spanish, Brett?”
“Just rice, but it’s back in the cabinet at home,” she said.
“Herman,” Red said again. “Herman.”
The woman shook her head and moved into the yard, such as it was, ambled to the side of the church and pointed to the field out back.
“ ’erman,” she said, “ ’erman.”
“Gracias,” I said.
The woman tugged on the swollen door again, pulled it free, disappeared inside the church. We walked around the side of the building and started into the field.
“Remember,” Leonard said to Red, “I’d rather not poke a gun in your neck all the time, but you do anything fancy, or Herman thinks he’s going to do anything fancy, I might have to shoot somebody and tell God he died.”
Red grunted and we kept walking.
The field sloped gently downward, and on the other side, in the middle of it, we saw an elderly black pickup and next to it an apparatus perched on big wheels with thick transparent hoses attached to the main body. The thing, whatever it was, looked like a visiting Martian. The hoses were stuck in the ground, and a huge bearded man who had gone to fat was standing next to the odd device, watching us come.
“Is that him?” Brett asked.
“That’s him,” Red said. “Porked up a lot, but that’s him,” and before we knew it, he took off running.
The man by the apparatus recognized him, of course—aren’t that many redheaded midgets around. Red ran right up to Herman and leaped. Herman caught him, lifted him above his head.
As we neared we could hear laughter, and Herman said, “Red, you old sonofagun.”
“And you’re an old sonofabitch,” Red said. “Oh, forgot, Herman, you’re a man of God now.”
“The word couldn’t be any worse than the sonofabitches themselves,” Herman said, lowering Red to the ground.
Herman looked up as we came. He spent a little extra time looking at Brett. I didn’t blame him. She was worth it. She wore a loose blue shirt and jeans tight enough you would have thought she had Levi legs. The wind had taken hold of her thick red hair, and the way it whipped around her head she looked like a goddess. Herman may have been a man of the cloth, but right then I don’t think he was thinking about Bible verses, unless they were designed to give him strength.
Red said, “These are, I suppose you might say, associates of mine. It’s a little complicated, actually.”
“You in trouble, Red?” Herman asked.
“Kinda sorta,” Red said.
Herman shook his head. “Well, let me finish up here, then we’ll go up to the church and talk about it.”
“What is this?” Brett asked, nodding at the apparatus.
“Well, lady,” Herman said, “it sucks prairie dogs out of the ground.”
