'No sir. I'm just a driver.'
'Well, you look like a climber to me.' He winked. Then he looked over the cab interior, studying the steering wheel and shift, the floor starter. 'Keep an eye to the future, son. It's exciting times. God, what I would give to be your age now.'
Rawbone walked up to the truck. He was carrying a couple of bottles of beer and he put them on the cab seat. He'd overheard the man, who now looked at him. 'Your partner there can tell you. It all goes by quick as a piss. Look to the future, son, like you were at those mountains a few minutes ago. Damn, what I wouldn't give to take the ride again-'
As the man walked away, John Lourdes came around the truck. Rawbone said, 'I hope me buying you a beer doesn't constitute a bribe.'
'Get in the truck. We're rolling out of here now. You drive.'
The truck rumbled out into the roadway and made for the east. John Lourdes crabbed through his duffel till he found binoculars.
'What's got you, Mr. Lourdes?'
'He was admiring the truck alright, but it was my shoulder holster and the weapons in the cab that clocked most of his interest.'
The father glanced back toward the springs as the son focused his binoculars. Through the dazzling heat a tight pack of men on horseback and one on a motorcycle made the road and started their way. The motorcycle sped out and took the lead.
'At least four riders, one motorcycle.'
'Was he one of them?'
'Too much dust.'
'They could be road thugs.'
'Or worse.'
'Is there a weapon anywhere in my future, Mr. Lourdes?'
'I'm no fortuneteller.'
'Well, I guess I'll have a beer then.'
THE MOTORCYCLE WAS far in advance of the horsemen but not so far back it could not keep the truck in sight. A stand would have to be made. That was becoming more obvious with the failing light. John Lourdes decided it should be the place where the weapons had been cached away. They ascended the windswept remains of a cart path into the Huecos. The rocks hulked up in the paling light on all sides to become brooding silhouettes. The silence deepened till there was only the sound of that laboring engine.
On a plat of ground surrounded by shaly hills were the crumbling walls of a village. A single block of adobes led to a roofless meeting hall of two stories. The wind had begun to rise up and that barren range became engulfed in a deepening sense of isolation and emptiness. The sun on a far promontory burned with the last of the day. John Lourdes traced that cart path down through the hills as best he could with his binoculars for any sign of their pursuers.
'It'll be two hours yet,' said Rawbone, 'before those horsemen catch up with the one on the motorcycle. And that long again to sneak their way up here.'
'Where are the weapons?'
'Why, Mr. Lourdes, they're in plain sight.'
And they were, in a manner of speaking. The father had the son follow him beyond the meeting house to a sandy incline scarred with crevasses. Then he waved the son to keep step behind as he scaled that crag following a plumb line of fist-sized stones and upon reaching the last near the apex, squatted down.
'Notice the line of rocks. They mark the spot. Now. Stand close, Mr. Lourdes, and watch the magic.'
The father reached into the sand and his arms vanished near up to the elbows. As he pulled the sand began to ribbon and twill and the hill face moved like the back of some hidden monster coming to life.
'Kneel down here and light a match.'
A vein of light fell upon the stacked crates hidden there in a recess beneath a tarp that had been covered by sand.
'What all is down there?'
'Your garden-variety arsenal. Carbines, ammunition, hand grenades, dynamite and detonators, and a .50 caliber machine gun. Mr. Lourdes, you could hold off the Holy Roman Empire with all that firepower.'
