Under the Skin (20 page)

and Reuben and I would not be going back to the school anyway. She
said she didn’t believe we were learning very much from the teachers
and she had been thinking of tutoring us herself, and now she was decided on it.

Uncle Cullen grumbled a while longer during dinner about those
Rogerson hillbillies out of Missouri, but the episode was closed. He
was boss of the YB crews and range, but my aunt ruled the family and
all matters in it...

“You see?” Daniela said, her hands braiding her hair behind her
head, her breasts pushing tightly against her blouse. Lynette was
watching Daniela’s hands and trying to do the same with her own
hair. Albert called to the girl to quit pestering us and come get a
ready order. Lynette made a face but Daniela told her she should get
back to her duties, that she’d help her braid her hair some other time,
when the café wasn’t so busy.

“Promise?” Lynette said. Daniela nodded and patted the girl’s
hand. The girl poured more coffee for us and took up our plates and
hustled off to take care of the waiting orders.

“She’s nice,” Daniela said, undoing the braided length of her hair
and shaking it free. “So. Tell me, why did you leave the ranch?”
“Oh, things changed. There was one of those epidemics that hit
the border every so often, one disease or another. I don’t even remember what this one was, exactly, but both Reuben and Uncle
Cullen got hit with it. They got sicker and sicker for almost a week
and then died within a day of each other. It all happened pretty fast.
Aunt Ava couldn’t bear to stay on at the ranch without them, so she
sold the place and moved away to Denver. She had kinfolk there. She
asked me to go with her, but a vaquero buddy of mine knew of a
ranch just outside San Antone where we could hire on, so we did. A
few months later I got a notion to come to Galveston, get a look at
the sea. And here I am.”

I thought it was a pretty good lie. Up to now the only lie I’d told
her was about my father—but hell, what did
that
matter? I had believed the same lie myself for most of my life and so what? But I
hadn’t wanted to complicate things with her, and the truth about my
leaving the ranch would’ve required a lot of explaining and maybe
even confused her. So I’d lied. Not because I wanted to deceive her or
because I was afraid of the truth—the reasons most people lie—but
only to keep things simple.

“I am sorry for you,” she said. “There has been so much terrible
misfortune in your family.”
“Hell, there’s probably not a family anywhere that hasn’t had its
share of rough luck.”
“Do you and your aunt write letters to one another?”
“Not as often as we used to. She’s got a pretty busy life. I’m glad
for her.”
She nodded, then looked out the window and sipped at her coffee.
I lit a cigarette.
We sat in silence for a minute. Then she turned to face me and
said, “I have seen you before. Four nights ago. You were in a car on
the street when we went by. You looked directly at me. But when
Señor Avila introduced us, you didn’t remember.”
“Yes I did. But I thought
you
didn’t remember, so I didn’t say anything.”
“Truly?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Truly.”
She stared down into her coffee cup for a moment. “After you departed last night, Señor Avila spoke about you.”
“Oh?” I’d figured he would have.
“He said you work for a powerful man named Don Rosario.”
I waited.
She looked up. “He believes you are a pistolero for this man.”
I looked out the window at people passing by on the way to the

next part of their lives. Then turned back to her and shrugged and
said, “People who gossip like to dramatize things. I collect money for
my employers. I drive here and there and collect account payments
and bring them back to the office. To tell the truth, it’s pretty dull
work.”

“I sometimes collect a lot of money in a day’s work, and the
world’s full of thieves. I’ve gotten used to carrying it.”
All true.
She studied my eyes like she was trying to see behind them. “Señor
Avila says everyone of La Colonia is pleased that you live among
them. They feel protected by the nearness of you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that so I just shrugged.
Lynette delivered breakfast to a nearby table and then asked if we
were ready for more coffee. I checked my watch and shook my head.
“We have to get.” I left the money for the bill on the table, including a bigger tip than usual.
I took her hand again to cross the busy street and we didn’t let go
of each other till we were back at La Colonia.
At the Avila front door I said I’d come by for her just after dark,
about six-thirty. I told her to wear her bathing suit under her dress
and bring a towel.
She said she’d be ready, then waggled her fingers at me and went
inside.
I headed for the Club.

s he had told his wife he would do on his way
back from Galveston, Oscar Picacho stopped off
in Corpus Christi to visit with his cousin

Ernesto. They went fishing in the bay in Ernesto’s boat and
caught snapper and dorado and they filleted and grilled the
fish in Ernesto’s backyard. They smoked cigars and got
happily half-drunk and told funny stories of their boyhood
days in Reynosa. It had been an altogether fine time. And
now, on this late Saturday morning more than three days
after leaving the Avila house, Oscar Picacho steers his
trusty green Model T onto the narrow dirt driveway alongside his Brownsville home.

He calls to his wife as he comes through the front door
and into his small living room and catches only a glimpse
of Teresa where she sits on the sofa—her eyes large and terrified, her hands gripping her knees—before Angel
Lozano’s pistol barrel crashes into the side of his head and
the room tilts and he hears Teresa’s scream as something
distant and cut off almost as soon as it begins and he is only
vaguely aware of hitting the floor on his face.

on the sofa, his hands tied behind him, his face and mustache dripping with water flung on him to bring him to his senses, his shirt
soaked. The right side of his head feels misshapen and pains him from
crown to jaw. Teresa now with her hands bound before her and a gag
in her mouth, her face bright with tears.

Angel Lozano and Gustavo Mendez loom over them, their foul
mood in their faces, a mood made worse by their having been cloistered in this little house for more than two days while they awaited
Oscar’s return. In that time they have learned much from Señora Picacho: that the Picachos had known the girl as a child in Veracruz and
always loved her and despised her parents for their miserable neglect
of her, and in their letters to her over the years they constantly reminded her that she was always welcome in their home, which was
why she had come to them on fleeing Las Cadenas; that the girl—
Daniela, as the woman called her—had told the Picachos of her abduction from Veracruz by a rich but evil one-eyed man named César
Calveras who had put her through a terrible ordeal over the following
months at Las Cadenas before she was able to effect her escape, but
she had not told them of her marriage; that the Picachos had offered
to let her live with them for as long as she wished and that she had
accepted—and accepted as well Oscar Picacho’s invitation to accompany him to Galveston Island on his annual trip to celebrate New
Year’s Eve at a party with his favorite nephew, Roberto Avila; that
they had departed for Galveston on the day before Angel and Gustavo
showed up, and that with them had gone another Picacho nephew,
Felipe Rocha, who had been a Brownsville policeman until he was
fired last year for stealing several pistols from the station arms room
and, though it was never proved, selling them across the river; that
Señora Picacho herself had not gone with them because she did not
like car trips, that she had never been to Galveston, and that she had
no idea where in that town Roberto Avila lived.

return. When they finally heard the rattle of the Model T as it pulled
into the driveway, they told Señora Picacho to sit on the sofa and
make no sound of warning or the last thing she would see in this life
would be the deaths of her husband and nephew and dear friend
Daniela. But the only one to come through the door had been Oscar
Picacho.

Now Angel Lozano grabs Oscar by his wet hair and yanks his head
around so he can see Gustavo holding a knife to the señora’s throat.
The woman is close to hysteria.

Angel demands to know exactly where the girl is—and without
hesitation Oscar tells him.
Shortly thereafter Angel and Gustavo slip out of the house and casually make away along the tree-shadowed sidewalks of the quiet
neighborhood. At a Ford dealership a few blocks farther on they pay
cash for a new sedan.
It is almost noon when they reach the main highway and turn
north, Gustavo driving, being careful not to exceed the speed limit,
Angel studying the open road map on his lap and calculating mileage
and driving time. Allowing for reduced speeds in most of the towns
they will pass through, he estimates they will get to Galveston
around midnight.
It will be more than a week before neighbors become sufficiently
concerned about the Picachos—having seen neither of them in that
time and their car unmoved from the driveway—to call the police.
An officer will investigate and discover the bodies in the house, both
of them with drapery cords tight around the neck.

ad I told her the truth about my life on the
ranch and how I came to leave the place, I
would’ve had to tell at least a little about
Frank Hartung. He was Uncle Cullen’s oldest friend. He

had a ranch in New Mexico and had a good foreman he
could trust to run things in his absence when every so often
he’d come see us for a few days’ visit. We’d meet him at the
Marfa station—Uncle Cullen and Aunt Ava, me and
Reuben—and then take supper at a café before making the
long drive back down to the YB in Uncle Cullen’s old
Studebaker truck.

Frank had a funny habit whenever he sat down to a meal
with us at the house. He’d never take the first bite of his
food until Uncle Cullen had eaten a mouthful of his own.
He’d watch Uncle Cullen chew and swallow, then they’d
stare at each other for a moment, then Uncle Cullen would
shrug at him and they’d both grin and Frank would start
digging into his own plate. It was some kind of private
joke between them that always made me and Reuben
chuckle— even though we didn’t know why it was so
funny. But Aunt Ava didn’t much appreciate their comedy.

She always gave the two of them a tightmouth look and sometimes
shook her head like she couldn’t understand how grown men could
act so silly. I don’t recall that she ever said anything about it except
one time when I was about eight years old. “For God’s sake, Frank,”
she’d said, “do you think I’m out to
poison
the bunch of you?”

The remark set Frank and Uncle Cullen to laughing so hard they
almost choked on their beef—and Reuben thought
that
was so funny
his milk came out his nose.

In some ways Frank Hartung was more of an uncle to me than
Uncle Cullen was. Maybe because no matter how hard Uncle Cullen
tried to treat us the same, Reuben was his flesh and blood and it was
only natural that he’d be the favored one. But Frank never had any
children, was never even married, and since he was so close to Uncle
Cullen I guess he probably saw me like a nephew, maybe even a little like a son. Whenever the four of us shot pool together at the
house, it was always Uncle Cullen and Reuben against me and Frank,
and we almost always won. Uncle Cullen taught me how to ride, but
Frank Hartung taught me the most important things I came to know
about horses and riding them well. Even when the four of us were out
riding the backcountry together, Frank would be instructing me
about reading the land and sky, about tracking a rider or a man afoot,
about the proper way to make a camp or build a fire or dress game.
He was always teaching me something. As often as not, Reuben
would drift over to join us too and learn what he could. Uncle Cullen
seemed content enough to let Frank provide most of our education in
the ways of the natural world.

The first guns I ever fired were Uncle Cullen’s twelve-gauge
double-barrel and his Winchester carbine, both of which he let me
shoot as soon as I was big enough to steady them on a target. He did
the same with Reuben. For my thirteenth birthday he gave me a
.30–30 carbine of my own—then gave one to Reuben when he turned
twelve. But it was Frank who really taught us how to shoot. He

taught us which shooting positions allowed for the steadiest aim with
a rifle. Taught us to get a spot weld and to let out half a breath and
hold it as we took a bead. Taught us to squeeze the trigger not jerk
it. He taught us about sight adjustment, about Kentucky windage
and Tennessee elevation, about shooting uphill and down.

Actually, he taught all these things to Reuben—I already knew
them, although I had no idea how I did. I was a deadeye from the
start and I could tell that Frank knew he wasn’t teaching me anything. He called me a naturalborn shooter and I supposed that was all
the explanation for it.

As good as I was with a rifle, my real talent was with handguns. I
was fifteen the first time I held one—Frank’s .38 Smith & Wesson
top-break revolver—and it was like handling some tool I’d used all
my life. It was a strange but comforting sensation. I busted a beer
bottle at forty paces with each of the first six shots I took. Reuben
yelled “Yow!” with every hit. It was like I didn’t really have to aim,
just point the gun like my finger at whichever bottle I wanted to
hit—and
pow,
I’d hit it. Frank then let me shoot his .380 Savage and
I did just as well with it. I loved its semiautomatic action, the thrill
of firing one round after another in rapid sequence, shattering a bottle with each shot. When I squeezed off the tenth and last round in
the magazine, Frank stared at the litter of glass on the ground, then
looked at me kind of curious but didn’t say anything.

When I turned seventeen Frank gave me a rifle that once upon a
time had belonged to his grandfather—an 1874 Buffalo Sharps. It
weighed twelve pounds and fired a .50-caliber round that could carry
over a mile. It had double-set triggers and a folding vernier peep
sight mounted on the tang. Frank said his granddad had used it when
he was an army scout hunting Apaches. The rifle came with a protective buckskin boot fitted with a rawhide loop so it could be hung
on a saddle horn.