'By the lightning bug?'
JOHN LOURDES WAITED by the truck. The dead from the mountain and the river were with him in the dark, still in their assigned poses at the moment of demise. He wondered now, did God see man as this threadbare and vanquished figure infected with his own immorality? Yet, with all that on his mind and soul, the single overriding principle he clung to was-the practical application of strategy. The door opened and both men approached.
'You can be free with my friend here,' said Rawbone. 'I've told him you had been a railroad detective and . . . we were engaged in a particular matter. And there would be money for the use of his warehouse.'
Stepping up into the cab seat, he added, 'You wait here, Mr. Lourdes. I'm gonna bed down this truck.'
The night had cooled and John Lourdes grabbed an old leather coat from the back. Rawbone drove off leaving him with McManus. They stood in the doorway shadowed together and watching the truck gear slowly around the corner. John Lourdes looked at McManus. McManus smiled down at the young man, but it was not a heartening smile.
'So, you were in the war,' said John Lourdes.
'Part of the Texas Battalion. Served with Rawbone. In Manila.'
'I didn't know that.'
'They say the best soldiers are the biggest bastards.'
'That would mean he'd qualify.'
This drew a genuine laugh from McManus. 'Two medals, and he's not even a fuckin' patriot.'
The idea that Rawbone had ever fought for the country set off a run of thoughts. 'Do you know a man named Merrill? He served in Manila. Was with Standard Oil in Mexico.'
'No.'
John Lourdes reached into his vest pocket. When McManus saw the notepad, he commented, 'I make it a habit of not remembering names.'
John Lourdes understood. 'You won't even be a mention.'
McManus answered, 'Comforting.'
But John Lourdes suspected he now wasn't so sure. The photo and business cards were tucked away in the notepad. He handed the weathered print to McManus, who set it in the palm of his wooden hand. Holding it close, he squinted. 'I don't know this man.'
'Are you familiar with the Alliance for Progress?'
SON AND FATHER walked obscure and wretched streets past beggars in doorways and broken-down bars and past children huddled up in makeshift boxes that were all they had for homes. Rawbone eyed the urchins and knew himself in their deserted stares. As they made for the appointed destination dragoons rode past in slow, watchful columns. The late-night patrols another sign Mexico was about to be taken by nightmare. He got out a cigarette and lit it.
John Lourdes still had the photo in his hand and kept tapping it against his shoulder holster as they went. He was making a determined inventory of the facts at hand to try and distill what he knew into a plan that would fulfill his orders.
'McManus said you were in the army.'
'Yeah.'
'He said you served with the Texas Battalion.'
'Yeah.'
'Were they posted at Fort Bliss or San Antonio?'
'Fort Bliss.'
Rawbone was preoccupied. He blew the smoke out his nostrils hard. He wanted this night over, he wanted Mr. Lourdes out of his life, he wanted freedom.
'Did you spend a lot of time in El Paso during those years?'
'What is it with the questions?'
'You were asking me at the church about the barrio and did I know families there. I just wondered-'
'Yeah.' The question went right to the pitiful bits of truth he did not want any part of tonight. Tonight was about survival. Fuck the agony of remembered ghosts-for now. 'The army wasn't much,' he said. 'I needed time out of the States. The war, though. If you have the
