opened it and placed it to his ear. “Sheriff Holland,” he said.
“I called the office, Sheriff, but Maydeen said you were eating lunch,” a voice said. “Hope I’m not bothering you.”
Hackberry looked down at his plate of enchiladas and Spanish rice and frijoles that were growing cold. “Go ahead, R.C.”
“I did what you said. I got a range-and-township map and looked up the title of every piece of land in a five- mile radius from the spot where that FBI man was killed. I Googled all their names and got a hit on one guy, but he’s not a writer.”
“What’s the name?”
“W. W. Guthrie. Google took me to a folksinger by the name of Woodrow Wilson Guthrie.”
“That’s Woody Guthrie, R.C. He didn’t just write folk songs. He published two books. One was Bound for Glory. It was made into a film. I think you just found the hideout of Preacher Jack.”
“I’m on my way out there right now. I’ll call you back as soon as I find out anything.”
“What kind of help are you getting from the feds?”
“At the courthouse, one of them told me where the men’s room was. Another one said he thought it might rain directly. That’s the word he used-‘directly.’ Like he was talking to somebody on Hee Haw. Are they as bright as they’re supposed to be?”
“Probably.”
“They sure know how to hide it,” R.C. said.
Hackberry finished eating and left thirteen dollars on the table and used the restroom and dried his hands and picked up his hat from the booth and started toward the front door. Then he paused. “I almost forgot,” he said to the bartender.
“Forgot what?” the bartender said. He was a big, dark-haired man with a deeply creased brow who wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up high on his arms.
“Can you put a bag over that snake jar the next time I come here?”
“Any reason?”
“Yeah, so I don’t have to look at it while I’m eating.”
“Who lit your fuse?”
“Did you read the paper this morning?”
“Something happen?”
“If I come in here again, refuse to serve me,” Hackberry said. “I’d really appreciate that.”
Halfway to the office, his cell phone vibrated again. “Sheriff Holland,” he said.
“It’s me, Sheriff.”
“Yeah, I thought it might be you, R.C.”
“How you doin’?”
“Fine.”
“I’m parked at this cabin that’s between a creek and a bluff. You cain’t see it except from the air. Feds are all over the place, but I found something they missed. It’s a checker. They didn’t know what it was.”
“I’m not quite tracking you.”
“It’s a homemade checker, one somebody carved out of wood. I’m not explaining myself real good. The property is in the name of W. W. Guthrie, but nobody around here seems to know what he looks like or where he’s from. When the feds got here, the cabin and the house were clean. I went out to the barn and saw the same Michelin tire tracks we saw at Anton Ling’s place. Then I went inside, and this fed was looking at a little round wood button that he found behind the kitchen door. You following me?”
“Not really.”
“I’ll try again. On the bottom of it were the initials N.B. For ‘Noie Barnum.’ On the top was a K. The fed didn’t know what that meant. I told him it was K for ‘king.’ So he says, ‘Yeah, it must have rolled behind the door.’ So I went into the bedroom and found another one, except this one was wedged in the side of the dresser. That whole place was broom-sweep clean, Sheriff. The second checker, the one stuck in the dresser, wasn’t left there by mistake. When I showed the fed what I’d found, he looked pretty confused.”
“Noie Barnum isn’t a willing companion of Jack Collins?” Hackberry said.
“Or he’s covering his ass,” R.C. replied.
Or he has his own agenda, Hackberry thought. “You did a fine job, bud. Come on in,” he said.
Minutes later, he called both Maydeen and Pam into his office.
“Is this about my language?” Maydeen said. “If it is, I’m sor-”
“Forget your language. The feds have treated us like dipshits. Find out everything you can about Noie Barnum,” he said.
Krill squatted down on a bare piece of ground a few feet from the common grave where he had buried his three children. The grave was marked by a Styrofoam cross wrapped with a string of multicolored plastic flowers. He upended an unlabeled bottle of mescal and drank from it against the sunset, the light turning to fire inside the glass. A copy of the San Antonio Express-News was weighted down on the ground with rocks he had placed on each corner of the front page, the paper riffling with wind. Krill drank again from the bottle, then pressed a cork into the neck with his thumb and gazed at the sun descending into a red blaze behind the hills.
Negrito squatted next to him, his greasy leather hat flattening the hair on his forehead. “Don’t pay no attention to what’s in that newspaper,” he said.
“They’re gonna put it on us, hombre. It means trouble.”
“ That means trouble? What do you call killing a DEA agent?”
“He wasn’t an agent. He was an informant and a corrupt Mexican cop. Nobody cares what we did to him. Reverend Cody was a minister.”
“We didn’t do it to him, man.”
“But our prints are there, estupido.”
“That ain’t what’s bothering you, Krill. It’s something else, ain’t it?”
“He baptized my children. Nobody else would do that. Not even La Magdalena. To treat him with disrespect now is to treat my children with disrespect.”
“That don’t make sense.”
“Where’s your brain? He had the power to set my children free from limbo. Should I tell them I care nothing for the man who did this for them? Can’t you think? What is wrong with you?”
“You are making me confused. It makes my head hurt.”
“Because you are stupid and self-centered. Go get the others and meet me at the car.”
“Where are we going?”
“To get the men who did this to the minister.”
“No, no, this is a bad idea. Listen to me, Krill. I’m your friend, the only one you got.”
“Then follow me or go into the desert. Or to your whores in Durango.”
“You’re going after Noie Barnum. Some of the others might think you’re gonna sell him and maybe forget to share the money.”
Krill stood up to his full height and pulled Negrito’s hat off his head. Then he slapped him with it, hard, the leather chin cord biting into the scalp. He waited a few seconds and hit him again. “We’re going after the Russian. He should have been killed a long time ago. Don’t ever accuse me of treachery again.”
“How you know he did it?” Negrito asked, his eyes watering, his nostrils widening as he ate his pain and humiliation at being whipped by Krill.
“Because he hates God, stupid one.”
“I hear this from the killer of a Jesuit priest?”
“They told us he and the others were Communists. There were five of them. I shot one, and the others shot the rest. It was in a garden outside the house where they lived. We killed the housekeeper, too. I dream of them often.”
“Everybody dies. Why feel guilt over what has to happen to all of us?”
“You say these things because you are incapable of thought. So I don’t hold your words or deeds against you.”
“You hit me, jefe. You would not do that to an animal, but you would do it to me? You hurt me deep
