for me. I wave back and scramble on hands and knees over the top of the hill.
Minutes later, I am stumbling in the dark, tripping over roots and trying to avoid prickly pear with spines as long and sharp as porcupine quills. The slope becomes too steep, and I slide part way down on my butt, ripping my pants, and scraping my hands. Near the bottom, I stop and listen for the sound of horses or the shouts of angry men.
But what I hear is a wail. A cry of pain.
“ Broke my damn ankle, Woody. Can’t put an ounce of weight on it.”
“ Hang in there Cal.”
I peek around a stand of organ pipe cactus. Two horses, but only one man. Woody is bent over the edge of a cliff, his hands yanking at his lariat, which is stretched taut. “Damn rope’s fouled in the rocks.”
“ Git it loose, Woody. Hurry! Jesus, ankle’s swole up and hurts like hell.”
Calvin’s voice, raw with pain, coming from over the side. The vigilantes must have stopped here and gotten off the horses. The big man never saw the cliff. Now he was over the side.
It is more than I could have hoped for. A perfect distraction. I can work my way around them in the darkness. I can get away.
Then I hear Woody moan. “Damn, it hurts like a sumbitch. I might pass out, Cal.”
“ Hang with me, man!”
“ Gonna die out here.” Woody starts to sob. Great, wracking sobs that seem to echo off the rocks and boulders.
Why don’t I just sneak past them? I don’t know. Sometimes we do things without ever knowing exactly why.
“ You can’t get the rope free that way,” I say to Calvin as I come up behind him.
Startled, he wheels around. “Ain’t your business, chico. Git out of here.”
“ I can rope down the cliff.”
“ What the hell you talking about?”
“ Rappelling. Rock climbing. I’ve done it back home.” I look over the side of the cliff. Woody sits on a ledge about 20 feet below us. The rope is stuck in a crevice maybe 15 feet from him. “I’ll work the rope out, walk it along the cliff face till I reach your friend.”
Calvin looks at me as if he thinks I might steal his wallet. “Why would you help?”
“ Because somebody has to.”
He seems to think about this a moment.
“ After you pull him up, drop the rope back to me,” I tell the man.
“ You trust me to do that, kid?”
“ Why wouldn’t you?”
“ Okay, then,” he says, just as an orange streak of the sun appears over the mountains to the east.
I rappel down the face of the cliff. Seconds later, I am working the rope out of a slot between two rocks. Once it is free, I wrap the rope around my waist, hold on with both hands, and bounce-walk along the face of the cliff until I reach the ledge.
“ Thanks. You’re a good kid.” Woody winces in pain as I hand him the rope. Up close, he looks older and not as fierce as he did from so far away. His face is slick with sweat. His puffy cheeks have a gray stubble and his breath smells of tobacco and beer.
He is able to put weight on one leg and use it against the cliff face. Huffing, puffing, and cursing, Calvin pulls him up. A few moments later, I reach the surface just as Woody painfully struggles to get back on his horse.
Calvin looks down at the ground, kicks at the dust. Seems like he wants to say something. Sorry, maybe. But he can’t quite get it out.
“ You’re not a drug mule, are you kid?” he says, finally
I shake my head. “I just didn’t want you to…”
“ We never would have hurt that girl. Just meant to scare her into going back home, tell her friends to stay put.”
“ Where you headed?” Woody asks.
“ Ocotillo. My aunt lives there.”
“ We got a truck couple miles over if you want a lift. Ocotillo’s on our way to the hospital.” He says it softly. Sounding a little embarrassed, wishing he had more to offer.
“ My Aunt Luisa’s a nurse. She can take a look at that ankle.”
Woody doesn’t take me up on the offer.
“ Mi tia can make us all breakfast,” I say, trying again. “She’s a great cook.”
The sun is an orange fireball, fully above the distant mountains now.
The men don’t look like vigilantes any more. Ordinary guys with creased, tired faces. They exchange bashful looks.
“ Do you like huevos rancheros?” I ask.
“ Love it,” Calvin says.
“ No better breakfast on either side of the border,” Woody agrees.
“ So?” I ask.
There is no more meanness in the men’s faces. “What are we waiting for?” Calvin says. “I’m hungry as hell.”
I do something I haven’t done since crossing the border. I smile.
A HELL OF A CRIME
“ Ladies and gentlemen, the state will prove that Dr. Philip Macklin intentionally drove his Mercedes sedan into the Santa Ynez canal. Why? To kill his wife and make a premeditated murder look like an accident.”
Scott Gardner pasted on his solemn face and paused. Keeping quiet was the trial lawyer’s most difficult task, but he wanted his words to sink in.
Premeditated murder.
“ A homicide both heinous and cruel,” he continued. “Dr. Macklin swims to safety as his wife gasps for air, black water engulfing her like a shroud of death.”
A tad melodramatic, but Channel 3 will love the sound bite, and the jurors will be moved by my passion.
Tomorrow.
Tonight, Scott Gardner, duly elected District Attorney of Santa Barbara County, spun his tale for the empty chairs of his conference room. A dry run.
“ Earlier that fateful evening,” he continued, “Dr. Philip Macklin, the man sitting right here…”
J’accuse! Pointing his index finger like a rapier at the monster.
“… placed the drug Seconal in his wife’s drink. You will hear evidence that alcohol and barbiturates were found in Mrs. Macklin’s blood, and that both substances were present in a cocktail glass in the family living room. Not only that…”
Softly but gravely. Make them lean forward, thirsting for every word.
“ Dr. Macklin’s fingerprints were found on that glass, along with those of his wife. He mixed her drink, and when she passed out, he carried her to the car, a scrap of her blue satin blouse catching on the Spanish bayonet bush in the driveway. He drove at a high rate of speed down Santa Ynez Road, veered through a guardrail, over the embankment, and into the canal. Just as he had planned.”
“ You have a motive for all this?”
Scott wheeled around. “Jesus! Mom, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“ Your father used to say I treaded softly as an angel.”
“ I think he was going deaf there at the end.” She didn’t laugh at his joke. She never laughed at his jokes. “Say, how’d you get past security?”
She smiled and gave a little shrug. “Aren’t you going to get your hair trimmed before trial?”
