'It's a wisdom alright. I was born in a place called Scabtown. A filthy pile of sewage and humankind it was. It sat across the river from Fort McKavett. San Saba County. Mostly it was built by Germans. A lot of Germans there. My mother was German. She made her living on her back. The pimp who ran the brothel used to say his girls spent so much time with their legs in the air he was surprised no one had ever tried to hoist the flag on one of them.'
John Lourdes watched as the father moved through one room after another of his past. It was part of a shadow world the son had never heard, never known.
'My father, it turns out, could have been a soldier. There sure was a parade of them. Enlisted men and officers alike. Of course, he could have been some creeping Jesus of a clerk with fishbones for a spine. Or maybe some padre who had to bless his pecker every time he got hold of it. A crime of chance ... that's what Lawyer Burr calls that kind of being born ... a crime of chance.'
Rawbone was overcome suddenly with a grimness. The unrealizable conjoined with the contradictory. Only imagine what is forward, as you cannot reimagine that which has been left behind. He was alone now in a scorching daylight with the secret company of his soul. Bitterness as raw as road dust upon the eyes.
He looked at the young man who was his warden and the young man looked away and reached for a pack of smokes in his shirt pocket. Rawbone saw and leaned over and was ready with a struck match. John Lourdes lit up from it begrudgingly. 'By the way, I don't speak just to wander. I'm calling a turn here.'
'Get on with it, then.'
'Within two days we'll be in Juarez and I'll do my penance and be out. But you have the look of Montgomery Ward's to me and I'm not sure Montgomery Ward's will see us through.'
The son stared at the father from under the brim of his hat. The face was shaded away and so the father waited.
'Do you know why you're here?' asked John Lourdes.
'Why I'm here?'
'Yes.'
'Is this about my derelict life or-'
'It is not.'
'Well then, why don't you tell me.'
'Think about it.'
'Just give me the sermon.'
'You're here because of me. I brought you down.'
The father sat back.
'Understand.' The son's eyes flared. 'You were a free man till I arrived. So I haven't done too bad so far.'
East of Fort Bliss were natural springs where a stopover of sorts had been hammered up out of castoff lumber and tarpaper. There was a roadhouse the troops frequented when they were in need of a little damnation with its two eateries and a handful of merchandisers and a part-time brothel in a mechanics' shed. It always had its share of travelers, this being the main thoroughfare between El Paso and Carlsbad.
It was here they pulled off the road. And while John Lourdes checked the radiator and filled the gas tank from one of a set of drums lashed down in the truckbed, Rawbone hit the roadhouse to stack up on a few beers for the drive to the Huecos, where he'd hidden away the armaments.
John Lourdes leaned against the truckbed and looked toward the mountains. He was considering how best to preserve himself while carrying an illegal cargo of contraband into Mexican territory.
'I'm Goddamn envious.'
He turned. Approaching was a man with a broad face and stiff mustache. He had a ruddy smile and a laborer's body, but his clothes spoke of someone well appointed.
'Fine truck. One of those new three-tonners, isn't it?'
'Yes, sir.'
The man was bowlegged and hitched some when he walked. 'Mind if I look her over?'
'No, sir.'
He walked the chassis, admiring the workmanship with an unerring eye and a taste for detail. He pointed to AMERICAN PARTHENON painted on the siding. 'That your company?'
