Juarez Square and Other Stories (2 page)

The bodyguard smiled. “So I tell him no? I can tell him no if you like.”

The bodyguards were mostly illiterates from Michoacán. They didn’t understand what I did, calling me a
brujo
, a witch doctor. More than a few of them wouldn’t have minded seeing me walked out into the desert to get rid of my black magic forever.

“Just tell me what time I need to be ready,” I said.

* * *

The air that night was cool and crisp, the kind of peaceful desert evening I might have enjoyed if Guzman’s temper hadn’t just erupted.

“Why would you say something stupid like that?” Guzman stared harshly at his trade advisor Sanchez, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The two men sat across a folding card table covered with stacks of papers. I sat on a stool in the corner of the tent, waiting for them to finish.

Sanchez spoke slowly and carefully. “Don Flaco, I apologize if I wasn’t clear. With the Cadena acquisition we now control roughly half of the natgas production in the Republic. The expansion of our territories over the last year has been incredible, but if we continue to grow so fast we may spread ourselves thin. We’re already having difficulty maintaining security in some areas.”

“And your recommendation is that I make like a turtle and hide my head in my shell?” Guzman stroked his mustache and considered. He nodded toward me and said, “
Brujo
, what do you think?”

I knew better than to disagree, so I shrugged and said, “Best defense is a good offense.”

Guzman slapped the table, sending papers flying. “You see? Even the boy knows we have to keep moving forward. Now go on to dinner, no more of this talk about playing safe.” The trade advisor awkwardly agreed, shot me a go-to-hell look, and left the tent.

Guzman winked at me. “He may be right, you know,” he said calmly, the anger suddenly gone from his face. He took out his pipe and packed it with tobacco. “We’ve come so far so fast. Maybe a bit too fast. Come over here,
brujo
.”

The show for Sanchez was classic Guzman. Even in dealings with his inner circle, he preferred to keep everyone off balance at all times, uncertain of his motives, his reasons, his thinking in general. No one, neither his worst enemy nor his closest ally, ever really knew what he might be up to, and he clearly like it that way. He was even careful enough to avoid being present whenever I did a reading. Flaco Guzman’s reputation was that of an unpredictable brute, obsessed with conquest, indiscriminate fucking, and the destruction of rival clans, but the man I knew hardly fit that description. He was anything but reckless. The brutal part, yes, that was totally accurate, but then we lived in brutal times.

Guzman ran a match over the pipe and puffed, filling the tent with the sweet smell of his favorite
veracruzano
tobacco. “Did you hear what he said,
brujo
? Half the natgas in the Republic. Not bad for the grandson of a farmer, eh?”

I walked over and sat down. “Your grandfather was a farmer?”

“Well, do poppies count as farming?” Guzman chuckled. “
Pero en serio
, beautiful country where my grandfather lived,
brujo
. Seems like a lifetime ago.” He took long draws from his pipe while he told me about the mountain village of his childhood, how his biggest worry in those days was whether or not he’d catch a bigger trout than his cousin’s. He reminisced for some time, and in moments like these he seemed the most humble and simple of souls, hardly a man of great power, dreaded and feared by so many. It was at times like these that I found myself almost fond of Guzman. And for a few precious moments, as I listened to his stories, sometimes I’d forget that I was a slave.

“Malinalco,
brujo
. They really know how to cook a trout in Malinalco. You should really take a trip there someday.” He looked down at my tracking scar and his smile faded. “Maybe we’ll take a caravan there someday and you’ll come with us.”

Guzman shuffled some papers and began to talk business. “A man from the Chen-Johnsons has come in from Amarillo to negotiate the sale of their concession.”

I felt my mouth drop open. Maybe half wasn’t enough for Guzman after all.

The Chen-Johnson clan controlled the largest natgas concession. Their territory covered almost the entire panhandle, some forty thousand square miles sitting atop the richest gas fields in the Republic. If Guzman managed to make a deal with the Chen-Johnsons, he’d hold every major gas play in the Republic. It would be an energy monopoly that not even the richest Saudis or Emirs had ever had before their oil started to dry up.

Guzman said nothing for several moments.

“Trust,” he finally said. “Finding someone you can trust in this world is no small thing. You of all people should know how much I value trust, yes?”

“Of course, Don Flaco.”

He gazed at me coldly. “Do you know how they got to Pancho Villa in the end? Someone he trusted betrayed him and let his enemies gun him down. A whole gringo army never managed to touch him but a traitor, a single traitor close to him, did him in.”

I swallowed hard, understanding the implication. “Don Flaco,” I said, “I have no family or friends left in Chen-Johnson territory. My loyalties are here with you.” I made sure I didn’t blink. So many people blinked when they lied.

Guzman stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment before speaking again. “I have a little birdie in the Chen-Johnson clan who thinks the offer is some kind of trick to gain my confidence. Bait in the water to catch a big trout,
entiendes
?” I nodded and he continued. “But some of my men think the deal’s legit. I need to know if the offer is a lie,
brujo
.”

The bodyguard who’d taken care of the cowboy appeared and said, “Don Flaco, it’s time.”

Moments later I walked through the mosquito net curtains of the dining tent and my blood ran cold as I recognized the visitor.

I hadn’t seen Abner Cunningham in three years. He was supposed to be dead. Killed the same day my parents were killed.

* * *

I’d just turned seventeen the day a band of panhandle freelancers raided our home, that cramped little house my parents and I shared with Abner and his wife just outside Dalhart. It was literally the middle of nowhere, a lonely outpost on the western periphery of Chen-Johnson territory, flat grasslands as far as you could see under a wide, cloudless sky. Mom had her doubts about being so far away from Amarillo, but the Chen-Johnson’s security chief had assured us it was safe. Well inside protected territory, he’d insisted.

For a geologist like Dad the place was a paradise. Hundreds of gas fields to survey, hundreds of discoveries waiting to be made. Dad’s passion was infectious, and despite the bleak landscape and lack of neighbors, I grew to love the place. Sometimes Dad let me tag along on surveys, and I’d hunt game while he and Abner, his apprentice in those days, took field readings. They’d always hoot and applaud whenever I returned to camp with a wide grin and a bag full of rabbits.

“Look at the big game hunter!”

“Rabbit stew tonight, yes sir, thanks to our big game hunter!”

In the two years we lived there they must have surveyed a couple hundred gas fields for the Chen-Johnsons. When I didn’t go out on surveys, Abner’s wife Angeles gave me lessons on how to read people. A talented reader herself, she’d noticed early on I had the gift.

“You’re one in a thousand, just like me,” she’d say with a wink. “It’s something to be proud of, the ability to see lies. Very few have this gift, even fewer know how to use it properly.” She taught me everything she knew about using the
hierba,
the desert weed that enhanced the gift and allowed people like us to see the complex hidden language of facial tics, breathing rhythms, body posture, and the countless physical giveaways the conscious mind normally ignores. For anyone else the
hierba
was just a bitter-tasting plant, but for those of us with the gift the weed made us human lie detectors, far more accurate than any machine built for the same purpose.

I’d become pretty good at spotting lies, and Angeles told me over time the gift would eventually become something more. “In a few years you’ll be able to do more than just see a lie, you’ll be able to see the
truth
. Do you understand the difference?” I nodded, though I wasn’t sure what she meant.

Moments before it happened, Mom smiled at me while she prepared dinner. The delicious smell of Mom’s chicken curry permeated the kitchen. Angeles was outside hanging laundry to dry.

“So tell me, my boy reader,” Mom said, “are you good enough now to see what I’m thinking?” Mom always put together a special dinner when the men came back home. Dad and Abner were due back from their three-day survey any time now.

The
hierba
from my morning lesson hadn’t quite worn off. I looked carefully at Mom’s face and tried to see something. “You’re happy they’re coming back,” I said.

She laughed. “Anyone could have guessed I’m missing my husband. Is that the best you can do?”

I stared harder and thought I saw a trace of something else.

“You don’t think I’m safe here,” I said, my own words surprising me.

She whirled around and looked at me crossly for a moment, then her face relaxed and she winked. “You’re getting pretty good at that, my boy. Angeles has taught you well.”

Something outside caught her eye and she turned to the window.

“My God,” she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. Her metal cooking spoon fell to the floor, clanking loudly against the tile.

I looked out the window and saw Dad and Abner approaching with a dozen strangers behind them. Mom grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward the back of the house.

“Mom, what’s going on? Who are those men?”

She yanked open the back door and shoved me out. A splintering crash came from the front of the house as someone kicked in the door.

“Run and hide, run and hide!” Mom shouted.

I did as I was told, running in a panic to an outcrop of rocks behind the house. The freelancers found me a few minutes later, tying my hands and feet and throwing me over one of their horses. Gunshots rang out from inside the house, and I craned my neck around to see. Two of the freelancers came out of the front door, mounted their horses, and joined us.

“We just won the lottery,” a short fat man with silver teeth announced. “The boy’s a reader.” The men cheered their good luck and fired shots into the air in celebration.

Two days later they sold me to the Guzman clan for their biggest payday ever.

* * *

I entered the dining tent and a shock of recognition came across Abner’s face. He went pale and turned to Guzman’s trade advisor seated next to him. “You told me Don Flaco didn’t bring a reader with him on the caravans.”

The trade advisor wiped some taco grease from his beard with a shirtsleeve and laughed. “If we told you a reader was going to be here, would you have come?”

I forced myself to walk past Abner with little more than a glance as my mind raced with a thousand questions. How could he be alive? And if Abner were still alive, what of Mom and Dad?

My head swam. I grabbed a plate of tacos and sat at the opposite end of the tent. The bitterness of the
hierba
I’d just chewed still filled my mouth as I chatted distractedly with the horse groom and stole glances at Abner. What had happened the day they took me away? I
heard
the shots, the shots that killed Mom and Dad, the shots that had ended all their lives. The shots that ended my life as well.

The
hierba
hit and a sudden wave of emotion crashed over me. The smell of Mom’s curry filled my nose and the gunshots rang in my ears. For a moment I lost where I was and the groom must have noticed the change on my face. “You all right,
brujo
? You going to be sick or something?”

I faked a coughing fit and tried to compose myself. “I’m fine.”

Angeles had once warned me the drug could sometimes do that, bring back what she called sensory-rich memories, but I never imagined the flood of sensations could be so overwhelming. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I steeled myself and turned my gaze to Abner.

He knew what was happening. He was self-conscious and jittery and it made the read more difficult, but even so it didn’t take very long. Abner had always been an easy read and that much hadn’t changed. I knew in less than a minute the Chen-Johnson offer was a lie.

Then a sudden torrent of memories rushed through my mind. I saw a long-forgotten boy hunting through the brush, so proud and excited as he walked back to camp with his catch. I saw the relief on his mother’s face as he returned home after a week-long survey. I saw the boy learning about his gift under the patient guidance of his teacher. The boy couldn’t have been happier, the only child of not just two, but of four doting parents in that cramped little house.

But there was something else underneath it all, something I could only see now, an unspoken ugliness all the grownups kept among themselves, hidden from the boy. And whatever it was, somehow I knew Abner was still hiding it from me.