Canine Cupids for Cops Page 2

  Ike had to grin. His small mascot was not shy about getting comfortable. He might as well do the same. First thing, he shucked off the dingy clothes down to his Jockey shorts. Ought to shower, but he was too tired and this back room wasn’t real warm. Next, he pulled the bedding back enough so he could slip between the sheets. Gawd, they were soft, smooth, and smelled really clean. The single sheet on his prison bunk had always felt like burlap and smelled like old sweat and dirt, even if it was freshly washed. The pillow had been thin and hard. Drawing the covers up over his shoulders, he stretched out. Beneath his weary bones, the mattress felt firm but not rock hard. His head settled into the comfort of one pillow, while Red wriggled closer, almost at his neck. Within minutes, warmth enfolded him along with sleep. Beat the hell out of the side of that highway, he thought, in a last dim moment. He didn’t expect to wake up dead here, either. For now, life was good.

  * * * *

  When Perry pulled in to park, the sun was barely peeking over the edge of the ragged mountains on the east side of the Riata Plains. The last of his shift had been quiet. Now he saw the storm was blowing off to the north, leaving behind a skiff of dirty snow and broken clouds the sunrise painted red and gold. For all its stark, rough nature, New Mexico could be beautiful. He knew he wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

  Rolling shoulders gone stiff from fighting the wind out on the highways, he collected his gear and got out. Badger jumped down and followed him into the house. Everything was quiet, and to all appearances not a speck of dust had been moved. Badger padded off down the hall and stuck her head around the slightly ajar door of the back bedroom. She gave an audible sniff before she turned and came back to his side. They had a ritual, and since she clearly felt all was well, she’d wait for him to do his part.

  His chores were making coffee, dumping a large can of kibble into her dish, checking her water bowl, and then popping a couple of slices of bread into the toaster. Sometimes he’d fix chorizo and eggs or maybe a breakfast burrito. That made it special, both for him and for Badger since he could not deny her a bite or two.

  “You’re spoiled,” he grumbled. “Almost as bad as a wife, which thank the powers I’m not afflicted with. Guess a dog is better.”

  She thumped her stubby tail in agreement and ambled over to nibble at her food, although he could see she hoped for something more exotic. Before the toast was done, a faint clicking sound preceded Ike’s little red dog. It looked around the room with beady bright eyes, gave its tail a gentle wag, and then edged toward Badger’s dish. Perry sucked in a breath. Badger was not used to sharing and it was hers. What would she do?

  He need not have worried. Badger barely glanced as the little, round head edged over the rim and the smaller dog began to eat with her. Perry made a mental note to get another dish later today, a smaller one since the short-legged mutt could barely reach over the side of Badger’s. It could only chew one large kibble at a time, but did so very efficiently.

  Buttering the two slices of toast, he took them and a mug of fresh coffee to the scarred table and sat down. Sleep was already tugging at him, but he’d eat this bit first.

  Before he was done, soft footsteps heralded Ike’s arrival. The lean man halted in the doorway, watched the two dogs eat for a few seconds, and then stepped fully into the room. He was barefooted, although he had put his pants and shirt on. “Can I have some of that good-smelling coffee?”

  Perry laughed. “You can if you’re able, as my old English teacher used to say. Mugs in the cupboard above the pot. Hungry? I can scramble a few eggs and maybe find some chorizo.”

  “I’m okay,” Ike said. “You’ve done enough for me. I need to get myself together and out of your way.”

  “No need to rush. I mean, where you going to go and what’ll you do when you get there?”

  Perry could see the other man thinking. Finally, he shook his head.

  “I’ll find something. I’m not afraid to work, never was. Just breathing clean air and knowing there’re no bars holding me in feels like paradise. I’m not looking for charity, not even any special leeway.”

  Sensing the other man’s pride and determination, Perry softened his tone. “Esperanza doesn’t exist now, you know. And the mine isn’t hiring. Hell, they laid off ninety percent of the workers this past year. I don’t have a problem with you staying here a few days. I’m off for a couple of shifts now. Let me grab a nap, and then we can drive up to the old town site. I know it’ll be real once you see it. Maybe you can find some kinfolk, but if not, well, you have a bed here, and I can trade you some work that needs done for that and a few meals.”

  Ike’s head snapped around, and his deep-set, dark eyes riveted to Perry’s gaze. “You mean that, don’t you? You’re willing to help a total stranger and even trust me, despite the fact I’m a convict. Yeah, I served my time, but for most folks, I might as well wear a brand, at least a ‘kick me’ sign.”

  Perry shook his head. “No damn way. That’s not right. I was raised by my grandparents, and they had old-fashioned ways. An eye for an eye, yes, but you didn’t crucify anyone. As for the jailbirds, well, Grandpa said their punishment had evened the score. You didn’t kill somebody, did you?”

  Although the quick check he’d run during the latter part of his shift revealed most of Ike’s story to be true, Perry wanted to assess the stranger’s own responses. He read people pretty well. He could usually spot a lie or a wiggle of the truth at once.

  “No way!” Ike’s denial was swift and emphatic. “Assault with intent was the charge. You might not know that when a man of color defends himself in some parts of Texas, he’s near dead meat. Far as I know, there isn’t a drop of black blood in me. Still, since I’m so dark, folks down there kept pegging me as a black man. I ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, just tryin’ to get my ass out in one piece. Never would roll over and play dead, though. Still, I almost wound up that way.” He drew up the side of his shirt to reveal a jagged, white scar below the bottom rib. “Served eight of the ten the judge gave me. Rest off for good behavior. I’m free, no parole or anything.”

  “That’s good enough for me, Ike. And I think for most folks around here. Weren’t they pretty decent when you were a kid?”

  “Most of ‘em.” Ike’s grin looked a bit crooked. “Esperanza had its caste system, but for the most part, things were fair. Not sure why, but I got a wild hair before I quite finished high school and lit out. Worst thing I could do, looking back, but who can tell a wild kid anything? My mom tried, but I wouldn’t listen, especially after Dad died in that accident.”

  In a flash, Ike’s remark stirred a memory. “The cave-in back in ninety-six. Just before they started opening the pit and took out the town. Copper was going great guns right then, and they wanted more, fast.”

  Ike nodded. “That’s it. I was out of there within a few weeks. Hell, Mom had the girls and my big brother to take care of her. She didn’t need me. At least that’s what I told myself. She died while I was in the pen. Hard to forgive myself for that ‘cause I never went back even when I could’ve.”

  * * * *

  Somehow, Ike was not surprised when Perry didn’t take the county SUV, but instead circled the house to a lean-to in the rear that covered a faded, extended-cab Dodge pickup. Dust lay heavy over the vehicle, hinting Perry did not do a lot of off-duty traveling.

  “Aw, shit. I’d better at least brush off the windshield, or I won’t even see the road,” the deputy muttered. He picked up an old broom and swiped it across the glass a couple of times.

  Then he turned to Ike. “It’s going to be a little crowded. Badger goes wherever I go, but she’ll get behind the seat if I speak to her real sternly. I think she will anyway. Go ahead and get in.” He opened the driver’s door and turned to the dog. “Mount up, Badger.” The mottled dog gave a neat bound and landed on the cracked vinyl seat. She turned and looked over her shoulder as Perry climbed in, then whipped her head around to watch Ike, an expression of surprise o
n her face.

  For a second or two, he was sure she was going to snap at him or at least shove her solid body over to bar his way. She didn’t. With an aggrieved sigh, she bounced from the console to the gap between the seats and into the space behind.

  “I’ll be damned,” Perry said. “Didn’t even have to tell her. I think that dog likes you. Hey, where’s your mutt?”

  “Last I looked, he was asleep on the bed you offered me. I’m pretty sure he won’t mess in the house, and he didn’t look like he wanted to go anywhere. He’s kinda tired of travel, I reckon, just like I am.”

  “Oh, all right. Nothin’ he can hurt in that house. He’ll be fine.” With that, Perry turned the key and nursed the cold engine to life. After a few sputters and farts, it started. Then they headed off toward Esperanza.

  When Ike was a kid, Esperanza had been the larger town by far, with Riata little more than a truck stop, a post office, and a crossroads. Riata had grown as Esperanza disappeared. Nothing spectacular, but being the county seat, it was about the only game around. There was a new county office building, a real grocery store, and several more small businesses and houses than he recalled from the rare times he’d been there in the past. From the town, a two-lane highway started a climb up the jagged, rusty hills, following a canyon that cut its way from the craggy mountains to the Rio Grande, miles to the east. The road seemed wider and not quite as snaky as he remembered. Changes; life was all about changes…

  Perry drove with a calm, but attentive attitude. There was not much traffic. They got behind a cumbersome motor home for a few miles, but the deputy did not cuss or fume. He just slowed down until there was a clear place to pass. Ike took comfort in the other man’s steady, peaceful manner. There hadn’t been much of that in his life, especially the last half of it.

  Caught between eagerness and dread, he didn’t try to talk. Although his mind knew what he’d find, his heart had not absorbed that reality. It was going to be grim, painful, when the two halves of him got together. How much of the old familiar would be left? He didn’t dare try to imagine. After they’d climbed some way up into the lower reaches of the mountain, things began to look familiar. The road might be wider but the route was still basically the same. He knew that big old live oak, those outcrops of rock, this sharp curve with a view down into the canyon. Surely other things could not have changed that much…

  They came to the fork where the road to the mine and the town left the highway. The sign was not the same, but it still said “Esperanza Mine—2 miles.” It took a heartbeat, and it took forever. The road rounded a sharp turn. All at once, a huge gaping hole yawned before them. Half the fucking mountain…they moved half the fucking mountain. He was not sure if he blurted the words or not.

  Ike sat stunned, while Perry pulled off into an area where a six-foot, chain-link fence edged the pit. Under a metal roof, a series of signs and plaques described the mine and told the area’s history. Ike did not want to look. Despite that, he got out, inexorably drawn to the fence. All he could think of was a grotesque illustration in an old book that supposedly portrayed the pits of hell. Even the faintly sulfurous odor fit that image.

  He blinked hard, trying to get the haze out of his eyes. The houses, the old school, the church, the ball fields, the little creek that danced down over the rocks…all gone. Even the headframe and the old gray buildings that had once been the mine’s shops and protected the machinery—gone. He could not see the bottom, but a road wound down the steep sides of the humongous hole. Far below, a truck growled along it, as small as a kid’s toy.

  “The new town is around on the other end.” Perry’s words seemed to come from a vast distance. “We’ll go on over there in a minute.”

  Ike couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t think or hear. The sight and the scent—that was all he registered.

  When Perry flung an arm around his shoulders, the contact jolted him free of the trance.

  Perry’s voice sounded low, kind. “Hey, I know it’s a shock. There was no way I could prepare you. It’s like the past never was.”

  Ike cleared his throat and found a voice lurking down there somewhere. “Fuck, Perry. It’s—It was erased, just fucking erased. Looks like I came from thin air…In the old books, only gods and demons did that. I know I ain’t either one.”

  For a few seconds, that warm, steadying arm felt so damn good. Even if it did belong to a cop, to someone almost a stranger. In the pen, he’d accepted occasional contact, even intimacy with other men. Sometimes it brought brief comfort or scratched an itch, but he never let himself believe it meant anything.

  Somehow, this could. That scared him. For a few seconds, he felt like ET in the old movie, way too far from home. Finally, he had to shrug off the comforting touch before it became a crutch, a necessity.

  “It’s okay,” he rasped. “I don’t think I came from anywhere, not really. Just a loco dream I had once.”

  “You want to go see the town, the new one? It’s not much. We rarely even patrol out there.”

  Ike shrugged, an irritable little twitch of his shoulders. “Don’t matter. Anyone live there now?”

  “Not many,” Perry admitted. “The company maintains a crew of watchmen and a few more to do some maintenance and I guess some environmental stuff. That’s it. Most of them live in Riata or around the mountain in Cobrecita. Most of the miners went down to Chino or Tyrone since they’ve started up again. They said magnesium and molybdenum played out here, and the copper’s too low-grade to be economical.”

  The words barely penetrated Ike’s shocked brain. Nothing, not one damned lousy thing remained from his remembered home. He fought back the pain. To finally get out of prison and come back to this, an ugly raw wound gouged into the earth. He recalled how he’d fled the place so long ago—maybe this was his punishment for that defiant act.

  At last, he registered Perry’s words enough to form a coherent reply. “I really don’t care. Doubt any of my kinfolks are there, but I suppose some might be.”

  “We’ll go,” Perry said. “It’s just about half a mile around the western edge here.”

  The town consisted of a huddle of ugly little houses, arrayed in ragged lines along the sides of a small canyon. Most of it was enclosed in another six-foot, chain-link fence. The fences reminded Ike of prison. All they needed were coils of barbwire on the top to keep you in or out, whichever the powerful wanted. One row of houses remained outside. Perry drove slowly up the dusty lane that fronted the row. A man stood near the road’s edge, watching them approach. He scowled.

  All at once, a name hit Ike. Cousin Chivo. His real name was Carlos, but they always called him Chivo. “Wait,” he blurted.

  Perry hit the brake and rolled to a stop.

  Ike got out and started toward Chivo, heavier and much more tired-looking than Ike recalled. “Que paso, Chivo?”

  Chivo gave him a shocked look, slack-jawed before his scowl deepened. “What the fuck you want here, pendejo? What kinda holido don’t even come home when his mama dies?”

  “I couldn’t,” Ike replied. “They wouldn’t let me.”

  “The hell you say. I was in the National Guard, over in the sandbox, but they let me come home. Tia Norma was only my mama’s little sister, but I came home. Did you show up? Hell no.”

  “I wasn’t in the military,” Ike said. “Mama knew, but maybe she didn’t tell anyone. She was prob’ly ashamed. I was in prison, el juzgado. You don’t get bereavement or compassionate leave from there.”

  Chivo’s scowl did not soften, not one iota. “Well, I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you. You never were any good. Get in your cop friend’s truck and go back where you belong. Maybe prison again for all I care. Nothin’ for you here, nothin’ at all.”

  There was no point in discussing it any more. Ike clearly saw that. He was not welcome. This wasn’t home anyway. He and Chivo had never gotten along too well.

  “Hasta luego.” He called the farewell over his shoulder as he opened the door to c
limb back into Perry’s truck. Chivo hurled another insult after him. Esperanza, my ass. His last bit of misplaced hope had just died.

  Chapter 3

  On the drive down the hill to Riata, Perry kept quiet. What could he say? Even though pain radiated from Ike in suffocating waves, Perry knew he could not assuage it. He might wish he could, but wishing wasn’t doing. He sensed how private his temporary guest was, how accustomed Ike had become to keeping everything locked within. You didn’t bawl your eyes out in the pen. You tried not to flinch or show any sign of weakness, no matter what happened. Even the smallest crack in a person’s armor became an invitation to cruel exploitation. Ike had probably learned that the hard way, although Perry suspected he’d been self-contained since childhood.

  Instead of going home, he swung in to park at Dot’s. He really didn’t feel like cooking, and anyway, Dot needed the support of local customers to keep going. Ike glanced sidelong at him, but then turned to get out. The other man’s face resembled a graven mask of mahogany, devoid of expression or animation.

  Marco Mendez looked up from a seat near the kitchen door as they entered. “Hope you ain’t in a hurry. I’m a one-man band right now, cook, waiter, and dishwasher. Dot’s gotta sleep some time. What ‘cha want, Perry?”

  Marco, a wounded vet who’d come home to little more than Ike found, struggled to get by. This part-time job at Dot’s let him eat and gave him a reason to get up every day. Dot was like that; she took in strays.

  “Coffee to start. And I guess a couple of burgers. Is that okay with you, Ike?”

  “Sure.” Ike delivered the one-word response in a voice with no inflection, flat as an alkali salt pan and as dry. After he sat across from Perry, he studied his clasped hands, resting on the table. Their slight tremor was the only outward sign of his distress. Still, Perry could almost hear the other man’s thoughts, feel his internal struggle as he tried to pull frayed ends of hope and confidence together again.