then we have to figure a way to get ourselves across the border.”
“Then, if we managed to do this thing,” I said, “we got to deal with the Bandito Supremes coming after us.”
“I don’t know that’ll amount to much we get a good lead,” Leonard said. “These guys are a bunch of thugs, not the Deerslayer. I doubt they could track sperm on their legs.”
“Herman says the Bandito Supremes are vengeful,” Brett said. “They’ll follow us if they know who to follow. You’d think one little whore wouldn’t be worth it.”
“It’s got nothing to do with that,” I said. “It’s that old macho mentality about crossing the line, and holding the line. Herman was lucky once. If they know it’s him this time, they aren’t going to make any pact. And besides, there’s another reason Herman wants to go. He doesn’t want to come back here even if they don’t see him. He wants to start over. Sort of remake himself.”
“He tell you that?” Leonard said.
“No,” I said. “Not exactly, but that’s what I get from him.”
“He’s got some kind of fantasy going he can take Red away from the life of a thug,” Brett said, “turn him into something better.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said, “and a kind word to a crocodile will get you a smile.”
“It all boils down to this,” I said. “Do we still want to go in?”
“You know what I have to do,” Brett said.
“Then you know what I have to do,” I said.
“I don’t have to do shit,” Leonard said, “but since I got nothing but laundry waiting at home, let’s do this thing.”
21
We drove away from there just before noon, right after Herman set fire to the church. It caught quick and went up like oiled cardboard. Herman left a note and a hundred dollars on his truck seat next to the title for the vehicle. The note gave the title and the land to the Mexican woman. The hundred dollars was back wages. The prairie dog machine remained in the truck bed to go the way of fate. I wondered if the Mexican woman would take to it, start sucking dogs out of the ground to sell. My guess was it beat cooking beans and cornbread for a hundred dollars a month.
I was driving, Leonard was in back with Herman and Brett. Red was sitting up front with me, sullen and quiet for a change. I glanced in the rearview mirror and watched the church burn. For a moment, it looked as if it were wearing a flaming hat, then the whole thing was fire and falling lumber.
“So much for God’s house,” Herman said.
Man, this was something. An East Texas bouncer, a black queer, a ex-sweet potato queen, a six-foot-four overweight retired hit man and former reverend, and a redheaded midget with an attitude. The only thing we needed to top our wagon off were a couple of used-car salesmen, a monkey and an organ grinder.
Late in the day we reached the Mexican border. We stayed in a motel on the Texas side that night in a little town called Echo. Herman made a phone call to his friend, some guy named Bill Early Bird. I listened to the talk, trying to pick up on any code words that might mean bring about three hundred bad guys with shotguns and a lawn mower, but I didn’t detect anything like that. Herman explained what we wanted in simple terms and hung up.
“We wait,” Herman said.
Leonard decided to sit outside in the car with a shotgun, just in case the wrong crowd showed up. I loaded a shotgun myself, sat inside to the left of the door. Brett had her pistol and mine. Two Gun Mama. Red and Herman watched television.
About nine P.M. there was a knock on the door and I had Red open it up. Standing outside was a big, dark man who almost filled the doorway. He was dressed in a T-shirt, paint-splattered blue jeans jacket, blue jeans, and boots with paint splotches on them.
He looked down at Red, over at Herman, then around the door at me and Brett.
“Come in,” I said.
He glanced at my shotgun, which I had moved slightly to the side so as not to look too unfriendly. He looked at Brett for a while. She held the handguns against the tops of her thighs like little lap warmers.
The big man came inside. Herman stood up and stuck out his hand. The big man took it. There didn’t seem to be any great enthusiasm in the greeting on either part, just formality.
“Herman,” he said. “How are things with the Lord?”
“Rocky,” Herman said.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
The man had a kind of singsong quality to his voice. His face was pocked.
“This is Bill Early Bird,” Herman said. “He and I used to run together.”
“Long ago,” Bill said.
Herman introduced me and Brett and said, “This is Red, my brother.”
“Red,” Bill said, and stuck out his hand. Red took it and Bill pumped the entire midget like a water pump handle.
Leonard appeared in the open doorway with his shotgun.
