going gets tough, and that damn lawyer turns yellow. Hell, you both do.'
'Your time has passed, Sim.'
'Not while I'm still standing, you little pecker. So you'd better put a bullet in my heart or lay your gun down.'
EIGHTY-SEVEN
Rutledge didn't want to kill Javie, though he knew he could.
Just look at him. Stiff as a scarecrow. A death grip on his gun.
Rutledge would prefer to talk Javie down. Hell, he liked the boy. Always had. 'Jesus, Javie. Haven't I treated you like my own son?'
That brought a rueful smile. 'In school, the kids thought so. Told me I was your son.'
'Bullshit. Not that I didn't wish it was true.'
'I remember coming into Mami 's bedroom in the morning and finding you there.'
'Only after your daddy died.' Watching the barrel of the Glock.
Are your hands shaking, Javie?
'At the very end, in the hospital, she told me you'd been taking her to the barn long before that. Even before I was born. 'Me monto como un caballo.' Her exact words. 'He mounted me like a horse.' '
'The woman was on morphine, for Christ's sake.'
'She didn't want to fuck you, but you let her know Papi wouldn't have a job otherwise.'
'Not the way it happened.' Rutledge thinking Javie would get off the first shot.
But you'll miss. Most gunshots do.
Keeping his eyes on Rutledge, Cardenas said, 'Hey, Payne. Did mi tio ever tell you about his first fuck?'
'Yeah. Some girl in the barn with hands stained from picking grapes.'
'He tell you her name?'
'Maria something. He couldn't remember her last name.'
'Sure he could. My mother, Sim! You fucked my mother when she was just a kid.'
Goddamn Maria, Rutledge thought.
Quiet all those years, then she opens up like she's confessing to Jesus.
'She couldn't turn down the boss's son, could she?' Cardenas taunted him. 'Then you turned her over to your father. You're poison, Sim. A degenerate. You and your father and your grandfather. A family of sick, twisted bastards.'
'Fuck you, Javie.'
'Yeah. Fuck me for selling out. Fuck me for being a coward.' Cardenas exhaled a long, sad breath and his eyes went dark, embers turning to ash. He looked toward the sluice pipe.
'My mother told me something else in the hospital,' the chief said. 'She told me what happened the night of the flood.'
'She wasn't here. She can't know.'
' Mami harangued Zaga about it for years. It took a lot of tequila to loosen his tongue.'
'Jesus on the cross! Your father drowned in the flood. I saw it happen.' Rutledge thinking he would have no choice.
I'm gonna have to kill you, Javie.
'Why not just admit it, Sim? After all this time, say it once before you die. Say it, goddammit!'
Rutledge kept his right hand poised above the big revolver. He hacked up a viscous wad of bloody snot and spat into the mud. The memories came flowing back, like hot lava down a steep slope.
'Not tonight, Javie,' he whispered. 'Not fucking tonight.'
EIGHTY-EIGHT
A December wind drives the cold rain in great sweeping arcs across the valley. Three hell-raising Pacific storms, back-to-back, have pummeled the state for the past week.
Wearing a poncho and fishing boots, Simeon Rutledge, in his forties, stands knee-deep in mud. The rain falls hard and fast, like buckshot piercing the skin. Atop the earthen levee, he gauges the depth of the stream and the strength of the soil holding it back. A single fissure and one hundred thousand acres will flood. Crops lost, equipment destroyed, loans called. Three generations of sweating and bleeding, of clawing and scratching. All undone by Mother Fucking Nature in one week of gales and floods.
'Faster! Drop the damn chassis!' Shouting at the crane operator, guiding a Plymouth Duster along the ridge of the levee. 'No style points, Luis! Just drop the damn thing!'
Thank God for Hector Cardenas. It was his idea to use junked cars to shore up the levee. One chassis worth two hundred sandbags.
Rutledge watches Cardenas and Zaga run their crews, shoveling mud around the rusted-out cars, both men on their feet for days, taking breaks only to piss, snort cocaine, and sip whiskey. Good men, both of them. Brothers in arms.
Cardenas is half-buried in muck, his arms braced against the hood of a Mercury Marquis that has flipped onto its side halfway down the levee. Two of his men, grunting and cursing, muscle the car upright. One man slips in the mud, screams something unintelligible, and lets go. The Mercury slides down the slope into the water, spins in a circle, catches the current, and sails downstream.
Rutledge watches it, cursing. Fuck! The damn car will crash into Pump Station Two, fouling the pipes, maybe even cracking the concrete caissons. 'Christ, Hector! Watch what your men are doing.'
Cardenas peers toward his boss. In the rain and fog and diesel fumes, Rutledge can't make out the Mexican's face. Cardenas trudges through the mud toward him.
'What now, Hector? Got no time for your shit.'
Cardenas reaches under his slicker and pulls a pint bottle of cheap blended whiskey from a back pocket. He takes his time draining it, then hurls the empty bottle at Rutledge. It sails into the darkness.
'Goddammit, Hector! Get your brown ass back to work.'
Cardenas charges him. Rubber boots glopping in the mud, it seems to take forever for the short, stocky Mexican to close the distance. Rutledge crouches, sidesteps, and clotheslines Cardenas, catching him under the chin, knocking his feet out from under him. A quick kick to the backside flattens Cardenas, facedown in the mud.
Spitting a wad of clotted earth, Cardenas gets to his feet. 'You fuck my wife, bastard cocksucker.'
'Got no time for this, Hector! Not tonight. Not fucking tonight.'
Cardenas comes at him again, taking Rutledge to the ground. They roll down the slope to the water's edge. Rutledge gains leverage, gets his hands around Cardenas's neck, and squeezes hard enough to crack walnuts.
Cardenas tries to pry his hands off, but Rutledge is bigger, stronger, and meaner.
Zaga splashes toward them. 'Hey, Sim. How 'bout letting up now?'
'Shut up, Z!'
Rutledge twists Cardenas's head to one side, forces the Mexican's mouth and nose underwater. Cardenas chokes, and inhales the slime. His limbs spasm. The other workers look away. Rutledge does not let go until Cardenas stops twitching.
'I told him, not tonight,' Rutledge says to Zaga. 'Not fucking tonight!' He turns to the rest of the crew. 'Get the fuck back to work!'
EIGHTY-NINE
