Rawbone went through each, looking them over as if they were charged relics from the time of Christ. Tuerto explained about how he studied photography in Mexico City and wanted to be a great picture postcard artist. 'Tuerto,' he said, 'means one-eyed.' He ran a finger around the single lens opening in the camera's black frontpiece. 'Tuerto,' he repeated. He had taken it as a sort of nom de plume, for his given name was Manuelito Miguel Tejara Flores.
'If I wanted to get pictures of this train,' said John Lourdes, 'you could do that?'
'Of course.'
'And of the people on it?'
'Of course.'
'And you could have them delivered somewhere. El Paso, say. If I gave you an address?'
'Of course.'
'And if I wanted to buy from you copies of pictures you'd already taken, could I do that?'
Tuerto thought that a most unusual request.
'He's a most unusual fellow,' said Rawbone.
'I guess,' said Tuerto, 'for a fee.'
John Lourdes put his head back and closed his eyes. His head began to swim. 'You have been commissioned.'
Tuerto thanked both men enthusiastically. Rawbone then climbed down from the cab seat and squatted beside John Lourdes.
'You hustled him.'
The son did not open his eyes.
'I'm trying to accumulate information and possible evidence that pertains to this investigation any way I can. So I can go home. And you can earn your immunity.'
'That's why you called him over.'
'Who told me once to keep my gunsights at eye level?'
Rawbone continued to regard John Lourdes, who without opening his eyes, moved his head slightly.
'You're blocking what little light there is,' said the son.
The father remained as he was, clicking his jaw left, then right. Finally he admitted, 'There's times, Mr. Lourdes, you've said things. Like to that photographer about me jealous wanting my picture taken. It was like you knew me all my life.'
The son opened his eyes. 'Or all my life.'
'Exact.'
His eyes shut now in spite of him. The father continued to block the light and the son shifted a bit more.
'Mr. Lourdes, did you ever have something you wanted to do with your life more than anything else?'
'I'm doing it now.'
'Ah. Me ... if I was your age and could start over, I'd go where they make those moving-picture shows. I would gent up and ...'
'With a smile and good cheer ...'
'Goddamn right. That would be me up there.'
The son's eyelids fluttered, the pupils now barely visible. The face before him blurred into a landscape where the last of the sun bled away everything before it and the endless clackety-clack of the train wheels became that of the film tailing wildly through the sprockets. The image suddenly fever rushed up of the father as this terrifying wonder in flickering black and white adorned with near heroic indifference to life. He leaned forward shivering horribly and grabbed hold of Rawbone's coat. 'Think how you'd ... be able to ... help them get ... the dyin', right.' John Lourdes grinned and the father stared down at him confounded and the son grinned yet and tried with a falling voice to sing, 'You're a Yankee ... Doodle ... Dandy, a-'
And with that he passed out.
Rawbone pulled the son's head back by the hair. 'Mr. Lourdes,' he said, and then, 'son-of-a-bitch,' he let the body drop back against the truck tire, then sag over.
'I ought to throw your ass from the train.'
