The Creed of Violence (14 page)

The son now circled the father. "What you said to me back at
the river when you ... poisoned ... those three customs agents. `Mr.
Lourdes,' you said, `it's a means of holding you to the cross."' There
was a flicker of dark accomplishment in his eyes. "We're done only
when I say we're done."

"Back there on the street," said Rawbone. "When we were walking to the Customs House and you had that photo. And the note to
Hecht. You were plotting then."

"This moment here?"

"This moment here."

As if mocking the father, he said, "Aye. Something pretty close,
anyway."

"It does seem like you're a couple of steps up from Montgomery
Ward's."

John Lourdes grabbed the letter. "You're gonna deliver this truck
and you're gonna get yourself a job and I'm gonna be right there with
you and we're gonna find out where this truck is going and who it's
going to and why, if it means driving it all the way-"

"I'll be arm-wrestling death first."

"And who says you aren't? Maybe I dusted off that hearse a little
in your honor before we left Juarez."

Rawbone changed his tactic. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He
leaned back against the truck, stretching his arms across the hood as if he
were one broad tendon. "I think I'll just relax here and enjoy the view."

"Listen to me now," said John Lourdes. "I'm not some empty
street you're going to walk down and be done with. There is you, there
is me, and there is that truck. And that's all. There's no past, there's
no future. There is only now. Do you understand?" He pointed his gun
at the truck. "That is our world. See the writing there on the sideAMERICAN PARTHENON-that's our world. Nothing else. You ... me
... and this truck. And we're going to drive through to the end .. .
together. Wherever that end is. Till all that's left are our bones and a
chassis, if need be." He was near out of breath and he could feel his
whole body in every branched vein running with rage.

He fought to calm himself. "And when we're done. When I see
we're done, then you'll have your immunity. Now . . ." He started toward the back of the truck. "Help get Mr. McManus off the truck and
to somewhere more ... befitting his present station."

"What is this really about, Mr. Lourdes?"

The son stopped. His head and shoulders tightened down. He
turned.

"Maybe it's that black spot you're carrying around. Or maybe
you're desperate to prove what you're not. The ladder is always taller
for the small man."

"The teachings of a common assassin."

"I've survived this long because there's legitimacy to me." Rawbone
walked to the cab for his bindle. "And what this is really about ... is
the practical application of strategy. As seen through the eyes of one
John Lourdes."

Rawbone slung the bindle over one shoulder. He took to walking
away. The son saw him and called out, "You think you're leaving but
you're not."

The father kept on.

"What about your family?"

Rawbone stopped. His face drained of expression. The son had
heard himself say the words but there was no thought to them, no
preparation, nor plan. They came out as squalls of pure anger, fully
formed. Ready, willing and able to draw blood and serve a purpose at
the same time.

"You do have a family, don't you?"

Rawbone flicked away his cigarette.

"In El Paso?"

The father did not move. He only swung the bindle up on his shoulder as if he were getting ready to start away.

"Could it be those questions you were asking of me at the church
about the barrio, and did I know families there-"

"I have no idea where you're going," said Rawbone. "But I'll send
you my regrets once you get there."

John Lourdes approached, his weapon in one hand, the father's in
the other. Both were barreled to the ground.

"What if I told you someone at BOI knows of your family. I might
even say justice Knox has spoken to a member of your family. Would
it mean anything to you?"

The son could see something incubating in the eyes and the jawline
of the man before him. I have put the knife to him, thought the son. I
have found a place that bleeds. Thank God.

"Take a look out there," said John Lourdes.

He meant the ravine so lined with trash along that runnelled pathway that ran with water when the season warranted.

"That's your life." He slapped Rawbone on the back. "And you
know what else? When it's your time, McManus will be out here waiting on you. With his wooden arm and marijuana." He even pretended
he was banging away one-armed on the ivory keys with those oddly
splayed fingers.

Rawbone stood in hard silence watching the display. Then he said,
"Mr. Lourdes, I believe I'm going to kill you."

"You mean you're not sure."

John Lourdes took Rawbone's weapon and stuffed it into the front
of his trousers. "Now," he said. "You've at least got something between your pockets." He started toward the truck. "I'm going to find
Mr. McManus a good spot to watch the sunset."

The father did nothing. He'd been caught off guard and he now
evaluated his situation thoughtfully. He looked up that ravine. From
Juarez came a carreta pulled by a mule. An old man sat in the box seat.
A boy ran alongside, sifting through the trash, holding items he thought
valuable aloft and every now and then the old man would nod and
wave, yes, yes, and the boy would run to him with an air of pride and
achievement at his discovery.

The father removed his derby and wiped at the sweat on the inside
brim with his bandana, the one he'd given the son to hold against his
wound.

He should have taken his own advice back there on the road to
El Paso when he first had the truck. He should have heeded Burr. He
should disappear now into a landscape more hostile and befitting his
station. Pay intelligent attention to what your insides tell you, for they
are ever true. Yet even so—

He set the derby back on his head all cocked and rugged, then
called out in that tone of voice he was best known for, "Mr. Lourdes ...
save a seat in the truck for me!"

IRE ROAD TO Casas Grandes lay to the south. The father drove
to occupy his time; the son fought to keep at bay the rising pain
from the beating with the black stick that the road made all the more
merciless. When he stopped to urinate, the dust around his boots ran
wet with red.

"McManus knew his trade," said the father. "You'll be fine in a
day or two. Or you won't."

They drove on in the shadow of barren mountains and the son
came to see and understand they were being stripped down, mile after
mile, one as much as the other, till there would be nothing left between
them but who they truly were.

Out of nowhere the father said, "Hammer and anvil. Each will
have its turn."

THEY FOLLOWED THE line of the rail tracks for hours and finally came
upon Spartan columns of smoke rising above a stand of cottonwoods
clinging to the banks of a sorry creek. The siding that was their destination came complete with water tower and warehouses and a repair shed
for locomotives.

Approaching the river, they could see through the trees a camp had
been established with well over a hundred men. Two trains were being
outfitted for a journey. Spanning the narrow river was a slat bridge that
had been retrussed to support the weight of trucks with cargo. A couple
of wretched-looking gringos on the far side flagged them to stop. When
asked their business, Rawbone handed over Hecht's note. One of them
read it using a finger on each word before passing it back. He pointed
with a filthy hand toward a campaign tent that had been set up in the
dry grass beside where the trains were being readied. They would find
Doctor Stallings there.

It was a formidable collection of ruffians they encountered driving through the camp and looking over those trains left no uncertainty
wherever this expedition was going would be a long way and one should
expect violence. The first train had a 0-6-0 locomotive and tender and
an open coal car that was out front. The interior of the coal car was being rigged with a shooting platform. The second train had an imposing
4-8-0 Mastodon. That's what the son said the locomotive was named,
as he had worked on them at the railyard in El Paso. Built for pulling
heavy freight over mountains like the Sierra Madres, it would haul two
passenger cars behind the tender, a boxcar after that for mounts, then
three flatcars where tanker trucks were being hoisted up and lashed
down and lastly another passenger car.

A campaign tent had been set up beside the last car, where about
two dozen Mexican women were preparing a meal and setting it out
on long tables.

Rawbone downshifted as he pulled up to the tent. The flap was
pushed aside and stepping out into the hard daylight was the man John
Lourdes had viewed in that flickering newsreel the night before at the
funeraria.

Doctor Stallings was recently shaved and neatly attired in a gray
suit. Behind him were a pair of security bulls and a young shark brandishing an army gunbelt. His shirtsleeves were cut to the shoulders and
one of his arms was tattooed from the wrist all the way to the bladebone
with the stars and stripes of the nation.

Before Rawbone shut off the engine, he said under his breath,
"Quite a menagerie, hey, Mr. Lourdes."

Doctor Stallings approached the truck. He looked it over with patient care. He saw AMERICAN PARTHENON painted on the side. He was
handed the letter. Stallings took it, yet now seemed inordinately curious
about the father. He read the letter, then began to walk about the truck.
When he was all the way around back, he called out, "The motorcycle
... whose is it?"

Father and son looked to each other. What to answer? Rawbone
was quicker. "It was with the truck when we retrieved it."

Stallings walked up the far side of the vehicle, his hands behind his
back, checking the crates, the truck itself. Reaching the cab, he glanced
at John Lourdes, but his attention went immediately to the other.

"I feel as if I know you, sir."

Rawbone leaned on the wheel.

"I have an extraordinary facility for faces. Even if they are not
particularly interesting or aberrant."

"I believe we've done a round or two in Texas, if that's what you
mean."

"Name?"

"Rawbone."

The Doctor's eyes rose and his mouth made a silent ahhh. "The
letter refers to you." He jutted his chin toward John Lourdes. "What is
this one about?"

The son went to speak for himself, but the father put out a hand to
stop him. He leaned past John Lourdes as if he were not even there and
in a very private voice said to Stallings, "Retrieving this truck was no
easy matter, as Mr. Hecht can personally validate. And well, this young
man may have that Montgomery Ward's look, but if it wasn't for him
... I wouldn't be here right now."

The son picked up the acid mischief in the voice aimed at him and
then the father's glance went from the camp to the train to that crew of
thugs by the tent. "Doctor Stallings, in expeditions such as these you
are about to embark on, it has been my personal experience there are
always ... casualties."

Doctor Stallings was expressionless. He pocketed the letter and
started for the tent. As he did he called out, "Jack B, have the truck
with its cargo put on the train. And get both these men security cards
... after a proper introduction."

Jack B, it turned out, was the young shark with that heavily inked
arm. He motioned for the truck to follow. They drove down the length
of those waiting cars where men played cards or loafed. On the roof
of one, two men posed with their rifles as a young, wiry Mexican took
photographs of them with a folding pocket camera.

"It might have been a mistake," John Lourdes said, "to bring the
motorcycle. If Merrill and his men left from here the Doctor could have
recognized-"

"Of course, he recognized it. Why do you think he asked. And as
for bringing it here being a mistake, the mistake is being here at all."

Jack B had them pull up to the hoist and then he told the work
crew this truck was going aboard with its loaded cargo. Both men were then ordered to step down from the cab. As they did the two security
bulls from the tent approached with weapons drawn.

"You're going to be searched now," said Jack B. "Turn about.
You, put your hands on the hood. You, hands on the truckbed."

Both did as they were ordered. The father glanced at the son. At the
pocket where the notebook was tucked away.

Rawbone got his head shoved by a calloused hand into the truck
siding and was told to look forward. His pockets were burrowed into
and a wallet loosed. It had nothing in it save money. John Lourdes's
wallet had no money, but it did have a photo of his mother and the
cross with its chipped-off beam. The father kept trying to steal a look,
edging his head a bit, angling his eyes sidewise. He caught a glint of
sunlight on that crucifix but it didn't register a meaning. This was not
where his ruin lay, or so he thought.