Big Maria (22 page)

“If the dogs are not fed, they will eat what is there. That would be very bad.”

R
icky didn’t know if all burros were afraid of the water or just these two. He would probably never know. What mattered was the practical challenge of getting two frightened and skittish asses over the Colorado River without incident or injury.

Harry held one by the reins. It whinnied and jerked its head. Its hooves stomped near Harry’s feet, scraping against his cast and forcing him to hop out of their way. It looked like they were dancing a jerky shimmy.

Ricky stroked the other burro, but it only reminded the animal that this was the human that had punched its head. Every third stroke, the burro attempted to bite him again. The way Ricky figured it, if the donkey was trying to bite him, it was distracted from its terror of being on the boat.

Harry poked out his head from behind the burro. He yelled to Ricky over the sound of the animal. “Hey, Ricky. How do you stop a burro from crapping?”

Ricky smiled. “I don’t know. How?”

“What?”

“I don’t know. How do you stop a burro from crapping? What’s the punchline?”

“I’m serious. This thing is leaking like a broken soft-serve machine.”

Ricky made the mistake of looking. “Thanks for ruining Dairy Queen for me.”

“Are they doing any better?” Frank yelled over his shoulder. He steered the boat downriver and toward the opposite bank.

“Who knows,” Harry said. “They’re not exactly the smartest things. They’re calm one second and then they get all squirrelly. Let’s just get to the other side.”

“How far down?” Frank asked.

“Not far. I couldn’t check the Arizona side in person. No roads leading to this dock. Nobody uses it, far as I know. Google showed it was still there, though. Maybe fifteen miles south of Cibola, which we’re coming up on.”

Harry’s burro brayed and kicked at the inside of the boat, pelting man and animal with small pieces of wood and fiberglass shrapnel. The shards made the burro kick more. Harry pulled at the reins, but it kept kicking. A hole formed in the side of the boat.

“Get this boat moving or I ain’t going to get my deposit back.”

“Maybe if we sang to them,” Ricky said.

“Get out of here,” Harry said.

“When my daughter throws a tantrum, when she gets out of control, the only thing that calms her is me singing to her.”

“That’s a little girl. She has a brain. A small one, but a brain. These are manure machines with no brains.”

“Don’t mean they don’t like music,” Ricky said.

“You got a better idea?” Frank yelled back at them.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know many songs.”

“What songs do you know?”

Harry looked down at his feet and almost inaudibly said, “I know the words to ‘Like a Virgin.’”

“Seriously.”

“They played it over and over when it was out. Some songs you hate but you know all the words. Heard them so many times they stick. I bet you know the words.”

Ricky thought about it. “Yeah, some of them. Flavia loves Madonna.”

“Frank?” Harry yelled.

Frank’s deep voice bellowed over the sound of the engine, “I came to the wilderness. So now I made it ooh-ooh-ooh.”

Then they botched the lyrics together: “If it knew how lost it was. That’s how I ooh-ooh.”

And as the pontoon boat loaded with three slightly damaged men and two dyspeptic burros drifted down the Colorado River, an almost unrecognizable baritone chorus of “Like a Virgin” filled the otherwise silent desert landscape.

The burros didn’t kick once during the song. If you asked any of the men, they would tell you that the singing was a necessary chore and only the burros enjoyed it. They would tell you that they found no joy in it. But men are liars.

“W
ho is that?” Mercedes asked, standing in the dog-reek squalor of her sons’ home. She pointed at Cooker, whom she had almost mistaken for a pile of dirty clothes.

The moment she had seen the moat, she had questioned her effectiveness as a parent. But their living quarters? What had she done to create such childlike offspring? She blamed their father.

“I call him Worky. Sometimes Complainy,” Ramón responded, throwing some tacos to the dogs. Tuco and Blondie scarfed them up, but Angel Eyes ate slowly and methodically, dissecting each of his tacos and leaving the lettuce in a small uneaten pile.

Cooker tried to talk through his parched throat. Ramón gave him a can of Mountain Dew. Cooker guzzled the soda but
coughed most of it back up in a Day-Glo spray. Catching his breath, he meekly sipped at what remained in the can.

“Who is he?” Mercedes pinched the bridge of her nose, attempting to stave off a headache.

“Another person that Papa Frank was helping. A drug addicted.”

“We don’t have time for this white trash skitzer. Leave him food and water. We’ve got to find your grandfather.”

“They could be anywhere,” Bernardo said.

“I know where they’re going,” Cooker said through a rasp, his teeth stained neon green.

F
rank, Ricky, and Harry found the decaying pier after a frustrating search up and down the Arizona side of the river. Rotted and covered in high grass, the old pier had little life left. Its ability to support a man’s weight seemed doubtful, let alone a burro with a full pack.

“Do you think it will hold?” Ricky asked.

“I didn’t get my feet crushed and crapped on for these bastard monsters to drown under a collapsed pier,” Harry said.

“Nobody plans for irony, Harry,” Frank said.

It didn’t take long before the mystery of the pier’s stability was revealed. It wasn’t scientific, but they got their answer. The moment the boat touched against the pier, the burros’ bottled-in fear took over. They leaped over the side rail onto the soggy, rotted wood. Trial by fire. Or rather, trial by burro. The pier held, and the beasts ran for ground. The wood was so soft from age, the burros left hoofprint indentations.

Being the only spry one without a leg cast, Ricky gave chase. Luckily, the burros were weighted down with supplies and only wanted to be off the boat. After some slapstick on the riverbank, Ricky got them under control.

When Frank and Harry found him, Ricky was bent over, forearms on his knees and reins in his hands. The burros chewed on some dry grass, like nothing had happened.

The three men surveyed the terrain. An expanse of undergrowth and dirt led to a group of distant hills and a stunning bajada that would act as their trail into the Chocolate Mountains and ultimately to the Big Maria Mine. They glanced back at the
boat and, without any ceremony, began their journey. It wasn’t time for words. It was time to hike.

Ricky and Frank each walked alongside a burro, while Harry, due to his leg cast, rode one of the beasts. He had gotten comfortable with one crutch, but hiking on rough terrain was different than carpet. Unless his weight got to be too much for the burro, he would ride. Frank seemed to have a lot of energy, but he could take breaks on the other burro if he got tired.

Near the river, the ground was flat and scrubby, no rocks and little incline. Hardpack, not sand. The donkeys were back to their normal calm selves, having left the terror of the boat. Harry pointed the way, GPS in one hand, folded map in the other.

The base of the mountains loomed ahead, but for now the trail was leisurely. When Frank began whistling “Heigh-Ho” from
Snow White
, Ricky and Harry joined in. The air felt light, the hike easy.

“How many miles?” Frank said. “We should have a goal. Some time or distance. So we know where we’re stopping. Or aiming to. Where to set up camp.”

Harry looked at his map, adjusting his balance on the back of the burro. “As the crow flies, it’s twenty-five or so miles to the mine. But we got some incline and who knows what else. Time’ll depend on conditions, the trail, whole bunch of stuff.”

Frank nodded. “Then we play it by ear. Keep an eye on the sun. On the terrain. First day’ll teach us a lot. We’re two-thirds gimp and old man, so no need to push. Ain’t in no hurry, right?”

“Let’s shoot for the base of the mountains by nightfall,” Harry said. “Those hills there. Looks doable. I’m thinking it’s going to be four days, maybe five, to the mine. But like you said, no reason to push it.”

“So in five days, we’re rich,” Ricky said to himself.

“Six, tops,” Harry said.

Frank laughed. The hiking felt easy with smiles on their faces and gold in their future. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work they go.

A
fter two hours, they hit their first obstacle. As obstacles go, it wasn’t much. A loose chain-link fence with one strand of barbed wire curled at the top. A small once-red—now pink—sun-faded sign pathetically tried to send them on their way:
GOVERNMENT PROPERTY – LIVE ORDNANCE – RESTRICTED AREA – NO TRESPASSING.
Looking down the length of the fence, they could see that the sign repeated its ineffectual command every thirty yards.

“Like they were expecting us,” Frank said.

“Probably get hunters, off-roaders, hikers out here. Last thing they need is some idiot getting blowed up ’cause he’s in the wrong place,” Ricky said.

Harry yanked at the sign a little. “Remind me to grab one of these on the way back.”

“What for?” Ricky asked.

“Decoration. Souvenir. Put it in my mansion. Do I need a reason?”

Ricky shrugged and got out the bolt cutters. While he worked on the chain-link, Frank and Harry sat on the ground and passed a bottle of water back and forth. The water tasted like plastic and was already hot.

“How you holding up, Frank?” Harry asked, watching the old man take another gulp of water.

“In the hospital, in town, back there, I was an old man. But out here, on real land, natural nature land, old don’t mean squat. I feel right. How about you?”

“Ass hurts like a mother from the riding, but my leg don’t hurt.”

They watched Ricky work on the fence.

“You think there are sensors or anything like that?” Harry said.

“No. They’d turn ’em off after the fiftieth coyote or mule deer tripped it. They tried that on the border to catch illegals. Damn disaster. Like they forgot it was the wilderness and there was such thing as animals. But I’ll betcha the Border Patrol did a helluva job keeping out them Mexican rabbits.”

“You’re right. What idiot would break into an artillery range?” Harry laughed.

“What three idiots?” Frank added.

“Idiots like a fox.” Harry winked.

I
t took Ricky less than ten minutes to create an opening big enough to get the burros through. While they had gotten some rest, the break had also stiffened their joints.

Ricky and Frank walked the donkeys through the opening. Harry limped behind, his cast misshapen and filthy.

That was all it took. They were in the Proving Ground.

The act of trespassing on federal property felt larger than whatever fine it would cost them if they got caught. That was if they weren’t considered enemy combatants, in which case, they were screwed. Guantánamo, here they come. They were at the point of no return. They were breaking their first law.

That is, if you didn’t count the assault and unlawful detention of Cooker Hobson. Which they didn’t.

Or if you didn’t count the marijuana that Frank had brought with him. Which he didn’t and the others didn’t know about.

Or the extra cargo that Harry had hidden in his bag.

A
n hour later, they had made no visible progress. They had moved forward a couple of miles, but the terrain and distance from the mountains appeared unchanged. It was the same scrubland, the same desert.

Thunder crashed loudly.

The three men looked up at the sky. At the blue, cloudless sky. The burros danced in place, nervous and twitchy.

The thunder clapped again. Loud but distant.

Then they saw the massive cloud of dust that burst from the side of the mountain in an explosion of rock and earth. It hadn’t been thunder. It had been artillery. It was at least fifteen miles away, but the effect of the blast was clearly visible and the sound was shocking, considering the distance.

They watched as the mountain exploded again. The sound took a full five seconds to reach them. The ground trembled slightly.

Nobody said a word, not even the burros. As artillery fire rained down on the side of the mountain, the three men stared open-mouthed at the spectacle. It was beautiful in its way. It was beautiful, the thing that would probably kill them.

“S
tatler and Waldorf are irreplaceable. We raised them since they were donklings.”

Bernardo soberly nodded in agreement with his brother. They stared at the empty corral. “Papa Frank will not let any harm come to them.”

“I hope they are not frightened. They have not traveled in the world.”

“We could not keep them forever. It is their chance for adventure.”

Ramón nodded solemnly. “Should we go back inside?”

“If Mother is asking Worky questions, I do not want to be there.”

“Poor Worky.”

Bernardo found a fat joint in his shirt pocket, lit it, took a monstrous toke, and handed it to his brother. They smoked the joint to nothing, each inhale burning down a quarter inch. Five minutes of silence followed. Then five minutes of drawing pornographic images in the sand with a stick, each image invoking a humorless discussion about how humorous they were. Finally, they reached a strong spell of marijuana-glazed introspection.

Bernardo said, “The moat did nothing. Friends or enemies, they should have been halted by its awesomeness.”

“We should have added the piranhas. They are fierce.”

“It does not matter what is in the water, if it is easy to cross the water.”

Ramón nodded his head solemnly.

“We need something else. Something as awesome as the moat,” Bernardo said, “to make our land impenetrable. To make the compound a true fortress.”

“Fire?”

“No.”

“Lasers?”

“No.”

“Snakes?”

“Interesting.”