Adobe Flats (13 page)

twenty-four

“Holy shit on a
stick.”

Hunter Athey jerked back in the doorway when the mortuary lights flickered on. Twilight was descending into night after another long, hot day in Absolution. A long, hot day that felt like an eternity for the bedraggled figure peering over the side of the wooden coffin. Grant lowered himself back into the cushioned interior.

“That bad, huh?”

Athey glanced over his shoulder, then stepped into the mortuary and closed the door. The dirt-encrusted blood down the side of Grant's face was cracked and weeping. His knees were tattered shambles of torn skin and bone.

Athey sized up Grant's needs in a few short glances. “They told me you'd gone missing when they dropped the hearse off.”

Grant's lips were sore when he spoke. “Sorry about the damage.”

Athey waved the apology aside. “What I heard was they've been looking for your body all day.”

He went to the stainless-steel washbasin and rolled up his sleeves. “When they didn't find you, they searched here and the diner.”

He soaked a towel and brought it over to the coffin. “How on earth did you…”

Athey was lost for words.

Grant tried to move his lips as little as possible. “Evade and destroy. Without the destroy bit.”

His eyelids began to flutter, and the room tilted. He coughed up blood as he stared at the ceiling lights. Slipping into unconsciousness, the light grew brighter and hotter and infinitely more deadly.

Evade and destroy. Part
of Grant's military training. Fine when you're fit and healthy. Harder when you're battered and bleeding and lacking proper equipment or supplies. Slow going over harsh terrain when your legs don't want to work and your head is spinning.

By the time the sun had reached its zenith, the rock and scrabble plain was baking hot. Grant had no food or water. There was no shade. He was a slow-moving target on open ground wearing an orange windcheater that stood out like a sore thumb. He took it off and turned it inside out. The beige lining blended with the desert landscape. There still wasn't any shade. Sean Connery's voice played in his head. “Where there is no shade from the sun, there is only desert. The desert I know very well.” The Raisuli with a Scottish accent. Connery's Berber pirate might have known the desert well. Grant simply followed his nose.

He gave little consideration to evading his hunters because he wasn't convinced they'd come hunting for him. Not in daylight, when they'd have to explain what Grant was doing out here in the first place. It was a plausible argument, but in the end Grant didn't have much choice. Keep moving. Keep breathing. Anything else was icing on the cake.

Heading west into the wilderness instead of north towards Absolution would help a little bit. This wasn't one of those Saturday afternoon Westerns he'd grown up watching. Macready employed mercenaries and local heavies, not Navajo trackers. Even so, Grant was careful not to leave any obvious signs. He tore strips off his T-shirt to bind his knees. The blood down the side of his face had already congealed into a scabby carapace. The desert floor was threaded with layers of rock. He avoided the sandy bottom and made sure he didn't leave scuff marks on the rock. There was no blood trail to follow.

That was the extent of his evade and destroy technique. After that it was simply a case of keeping going. The heat was brain melting. The sun was so bright it forced his eyes into slits just to avoid going blind. It reflected off the rocks and the sand, turning the desert floor into a giant yellow fire. Even the hard blue sky was bleached to nothing, barely blue at all.

The heat was bad, but the dryness was a killer. Grant used his tongue to help salivate but it wasn't long before moisture was a thing of the past. He tore another section off his T-shirt and tied it around his head. He barked a laugh at the thought of himself on a Scarborough beach with a knotted handkerchief on his head. The seaside postcard image of the Yorkshireman on holiday.

He looked back over his shoulder. Time had become meaningless, but he must have been going for hours because the hillside road had faded into the distance. The world had become bright and dusty and colorless. What little greenery had clung to life on the rocky hillside had long since gone. Out here on the hardpan, there was nothing alive apart from Grant and a few scuttling creatures he didn't recognize. Then he saw a glint of light on the horizon to the east. He dropped to the ground and lay flat on his stomach to disguise his profile. So they were looking for him after all. He focused as best he could. Another glint of light. Then another. Further north of the first position. Towards Absolution. The obvious place for an injured man to be heading.

Grant rested for a few minutes until he was sure the hunters weren't coming his way, then he slid backwards into a gully and began trekking west again. Less concerned about the sandy bottom now. More concerned about the pain and the dizziness and the complete lack of moisture.

The day dragged on. His progress slowed down. The heat muddled his brain and dulled his senses. The sun arced across the desert and pointed the way. At one point he came across a stretch of two-lane blacktop running north to south. The 170 to Terlingua. Too far for him to reach in a single day. Too much heat for him to survive out here for two.

He crossed the road and turned right after a hundred yards. Using the 170 as a guide, he headed north towards Absolution. If he kept moving, he reckoned he'd be there before sunset. He was wrong. Twilight was already biting by the time he crossed the railroad tracks west of town. The office light was on at the motel. What surprised him was the damaged hearse parked out front.

That stopped him short.

If Macready's men had brought the hearse back, they might be waiting to see if Grant turned up as well. He watched from across the road. There was no obvious sign of a welcoming committee. There were no extra vehicles in the turnaround. There was no movement inside the office.

In the end, none of that mattered. Grant was out of options and out of water. He needed urgent medical attention. Careful not to be seen from the motel, he crossed the road at a crouch. He skirted the reception building and headed for the best place for a corpse to hide. The mortuary.

Jarring movement woke him
up. The glaring overhead lights had gone. The world had collapsed into a small, dark space that Grant couldn't identify. He wasn't in the mortuary anymore. He was in something that bounced and swayed and had a wooden lid.

Panic flared his eyes. He had a brief Edgar Allen Poe moment, a vision of being buried alive. He pushed at the coffin lid. It lifted easily. It wasn't nailed shut. Using his good hand, he opened a two-inch gap and peered out. Broken glass framed the window, and cool night air drifted across his face. The hearse was moving at more than a funereal pace but wasn't speeding. That would look suspicious in the middle of the night. The hearse driving anywhere after dark would be unusual. Which begged the question, where the hell were they going?

“I'd keep my head down if I was you.”

Hunter Athey pulled out of the motel turnaround and headed west, away from town. The moon was up again, silvering the stretch of tarmac Grant could see all the way back to Absolution. There was no telltale glint of red from the taillights. Athey was driving dark.

“Too many prying eyes back that way.”

Grant nodded even though Athey couldn't see him. What he was thinking was
eyes like a shithouse rat
. Cracked lips hurt when he smiled. Fifty yards along the road, Athey swung the hearse south onto a dirt track. Grant pictured the street map in his head. The traditional grid pattern with a few outlying streets forming the outskirts of town. South Lee Street looked impressive on the map but was barely even a track in reality. There were no houses and no railroad crossing, just the silver rails with packed earth built up along the sides. The hearse rolled and bounced again. Grant banged his head on the coffin lid.

“Where we going?”

Athey raised his voice over the creaking suspension.

“Told you. I hung up my shingle. Don't keep much in the way of medical supplies anymore. Only one man around here can patch you up and keep quiet about it.”

Grant's voice was a croak. “Terlingua?”

“Too obvious. We're going to the Alamo.”

twenty-five

Dawn broke to a
world of pain. Grant clenched his teeth as Doc Cruz cleaned the dried blood from the side of his face before seeing how many stitches would be needed. Not as many as he'd feared. More than he'd like. Hunter Athey handed Cruz towels soaked in warm water. Cruz used them to dab away the ugly mass of dirt and blood.

“You must have one helluva thick skull, my friend.”

Grant tried not to smile. “Safest place to hit me.”

He swivelled his eyes instead of his head to indicate the room they were in.

“The Alamo?”

Doc Cruz continued cleaning the wound. “Safest place to hide.”

“Didn't work out for John Wayne.”

“Didn't work out for me and Hunter either.”

“I can see why you didn't go into real estate.”

The Alamo was Cruz and Athey's nickname for Fort Pena Colorado Park, a tourist campsite with cabins, trees, and a manmade lake. The creek was dammed just after it rounded the bend. The camp was an oasis of trees and lawns in the lee of a huge bluff that shouldered the eastern sky. There was no fort, it wasn't in Colorado, and it was barely a park. Strike three for the medical entrepreneurs who had sunk their money into the white elephant twenty years ago, only to see it dry up with the creek that was supposed to feed the lake. The cabins had long since fallen into disrepair, but the tourist center was built of sterner stuff. Just like the Alamo.

Athey poured more water from the faucet into the kettle.

“I still use it sometimes.”

He waved towards the back room.

“Staff quarters. Buys me some peace away from Macready town.”

Cruz finished cleaning the side of Grant's face and leaned close to examine the wound. He rinsed it with water from a jug.

“I get all the peace I want in Terlingua.”

Grant winced. “Apart from battered wives and angry husbands.”

“Apart from that.”

Cruz stood back from his assessment.

“Half a dozen stitches should keep your brains in place. Strap up your ribs. Then work on your knees.”

He opened a suture kit and selected a needle.

“This is going to hurt you a lot worse than me, I'm happy to say.”

Grant braced himself. “Is that your idea of a bedside manner?”

Cruz stared into Grant's eyes. “It is my idea of saying you should not have come to Absolution.”

Grant stared back. Neither blinked for a long time. They both knew Grant had no choice but to come visit Absolution. Some things a man just had to do no matter how much he'd rather not. Cruz nodded his understanding, then got to work on the stitches.

“So he's not smuggling
illegals across the border, you reckon.”

“There is no need for army trucks to bring Mexicans into America. There are hundreds of easier ways to cross the border.”

Grant had drifted in and out of consciousness during the hours that Cruz treated his wounds. He was feverish and weak and had to fight bouts of shivering that threatened to spill his mug of tea. Hunter Athey had left to take the hearse back before anyone missed him. Grant's mind was still working, though, and it was working overtime trying to figure out what Macready was bringing across the border. Top of the list was drugs. In America, most crime seemed to boil down to drugs. Cruz didn't think a small town like Absolution would be the choice for a drug baron. Grant thought about the Dominguez cartel and reluctantly agreed. Macready didn't seem like the drug-lord type.

“Guns, then?”

“Se
ñ
or. You have traveled around America. Do you see a shortage of guns?”

A shiver rattled Grant's teeth. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He'd come to the same conclusion in Boston when he'd been interviewing Freddy Sullivan before he'd been blown up at Jamaica Plain. That brought another possibility.

“What about women?”

“For the whorehouses?”

“I hear that Mexican women are very popular.”

He felt ashamed even thinking that, but it was true. The escort industry was full of dark and dusky beauties from south of the border. Pilar Cruz had been one of the most beautiful and courageous women he'd ever known.

Doc Cruz shook his head. “There are plenty of whorehouses in Mexico. Why import them? All you have to do is take a day trip.”

Grant was reaching, he knew. He remembered reading something like that in a Jack Reacher novel. A truckload of young women brought in from across the border. Canada, he thought. And that James Lee Burke book
Rain Gods
. Sheriff Hackberry Holland finding nine dead prostitutes buried behind a barn. Life might well imitate art, but fiction was often inspired by life. Grant knew that women were shipped in from overseas to satisfy niche markets.

“It's just what they said about not wanting anyone slipping away.”

“They could mean slippage. You know? One of the soldiers getting greedy with whatever they were bringing across.”

Grant nodded his agreement and immediately wished he hadn't. The headache had been raging for hours, but it was the dizziness that kept making him feel like vomiting. He closed his eyes and wiped sweat from his brow.

Cruz lowered his voice. “You should rest, my friend. You are too weak to trouble yourself over this.”

“It's the
this
that's been troubling me. What is it?”

Cruz rested a hand on Grant's arm. “Whatever it is, you won't find out in this condition.”

Grant couldn't argue with that. He felt weak and sick and dizzy. Racking his brains over the problem was just making him feel worse. There wasn't enough information to reach a conclusion, so there was no point pursuing the matter. He decided to change tack.

“Where did he get so many army trucks from?”

“From the army, I should think.”

“The army doesn't rent its trucks out. They're not Hertz.”

“They don't engage in smuggling either.”

Grant drummed his fingers on the table, watching the steam rise from his cup.

“I wouldn't put it past them if it was something they needed. America hasn't exactly been shy about invading foreign countries when it suited them.”

Cruz squared his shoulders. “This accusation from the country that colonized half of the world before raping its natural resources.”

Grant held his hands up in surrender.

“You're right. But either way, I don't see the army sanctioning a smuggling operation across the Mexican border.”

He sat back in his chair and almost fell over. A wave of nausea swept over him, and the room began to spin. Cruz dashed over and helped steady the battered Yorkshireman. He tested Grant's forehead with the back of his hand.

“You are burning up. Let me get you in bed.”

Grant waved him off and took a deep breath. He took a drink of tea, the cure for everything according to Yorkshire fishwives. The room stopped spinning. He gave Cruz an old-fashioned look.

“You've seen my tattoo, right?”

Cruz looked nonplussed. “Only when examining your back for injuries.”

Grant pointed to the base of his spine, just above his backside. “
no entry
. My ass is one-way traffic. No way you're getting me into bed.”

Cruz finally understood the joke. His face broke into an embarrassed smile. Grant felt the pressure lift. Humor. Every cop's secret weapon. It could diffuse violent situations and alleviate stress. It worked in the military too. Pre-mission nerves were often calmed by ribald talk and inappropriate comments. He thought of Wheeler and Bond arguing over who was the best 007. The memory saddened him, so he changed the image. Phil Silvers barking orders as Sergeant Bilko. Military comedy at its best.

He stopped with his cup halfway to his lips. Sergeant Bilko. The motor pool sergeant at Fort Baxter. A man who was always open to a good deal, whether it was legal or not. Bilko wouldn't think twice about hiring army trucks out for private enterprise. Life imitates art. Every army base had its dodgy dealmaker. He put the cup down.

“Where's the nearest army camp?”

Cruz scratched his head, then rubbed his chin. The overt show of concentration was comical. Humor arising from a serious situation. “There is a unit at Fort Davis, west of Alpine.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It is not very big, though.”

Grant began drumming his fingers again. He was on the right track. “Any garrison towns? Something big enough to have a motor pool?”

Cruz blew out his cheeks, then took a deep breath. His eyes lost clarity as he turned the focus inwards. Grant could almost see the wheels turning. After a few moments, Cruz blinked and stared at Grant.

“There is a garrison at Fort Stockton. Through the hills north of Absolution, at the junction of Route 67 and the 385.”

His eyes widened as he thought of something else. “And the 385 goes right past Macready's factory outside town.”

Grant pushed his cup across the table so hard he spilled his tea.

“What factory?”