No Job for a Lady (31 page)

He goes on to tell us that the ceremonial heart of the city, with its great pyramids and temples, is focused north and that all the great
indio
centers that followed over the ages had the same configuration.

“How did the people of Teo know which direction was north?” Gertrude asks.

“The same way ancients around the world did. They knew the sun and the night sky like we know the streets and corners of our hometowns. They found their way on land and water by the stars and planets, taking precise measurements, rather than being directed by the needle of a compass.

“Their astronomers would have known the sky that we see with the naked eye better than astronomers do today, because they didn’t just study it; they used it for everything from travel and transporting goods to determining when it was time to plant crops.

“A person making a long journey in ancient times, when Teo was a thriving city, or in Aztec times, when it hadn’t much changed over the previous couple thousand years, would not have carried a paper map, but would have read the sun and the stars as we would read a physical map.”

“The same way sea voyages were made before the invention of the sextant,” Gertrude interjects.

“Exactly. Using a chart of the sky as a road map.”

Something pings in my head and I find it crowded with thoughts again that make me deaf to what is being said.

Something very important was just spoken; I know it.

I am on the verge of a sudden intuitive insight, but I can’t get my brain to wrap around it.

53

After spending hours exploring the ruins, I am grateful that Lily’s “chariot” carries us effortlessly back to the tents.

Lily returns to her tent to freshen up, even though she looks like a blooming daisy next to us withered weeds, and Gertrude is off to find Don Antonio.

Finding the tent too claustrophobic, I splash water on my face, repair my “lipstick” with petroleum jelly, and wander toward the little
indio
village that has been set up by the locals to relieve visitors of some of their money.

The cowboys are no doubt the biggest customers, lining up at a barrel where rotgut, which Don Antonio says is strong enough to strip paint from houses, is poured from a dipper into their tin camp cups. I plan to forgo the paint stripper and find a nice piece of jewelry for my mother.

Still unsettled about the thought that just won’t fully coalesce in the space between my ears, I try to break things down—it always seems to help me.

The theory that Howard, the prospector, had a map to Montezuma’s treasure is all wrong; at least that’s what my brain has been screaming ever since Traven pointed out that the Aztecs would not have used maps. In other words, the people who hid the treasure would not have made a written map that would have been passed on from one protector of the secret to another.

So, if Howard didn’t have a map in his back pocket, why has everyone gathered here like the relatives at a rich spinster’s wake?

I don’t understand it.

If not a map, what did Howard have that people believe I now have?

Then there’s the playboy and the actress. They are not here just to buy horseflesh, not when they are camping out in Teo and showing not the slightest interest in finding horses.

The same goes for the rest of them—including Roger, who says he’s studying to be a history professor but who apparently doesn’t know any more about the Louisiana Purchase than I do.

I still remember my fourth-grade teacher having us all draw a map of what our country acquired from France for about a fifteen-million-dollar purchase price. It was territory constituting nearly a quarter of the present United States, all or part of fifteen states and territories extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, and two areas within Canada. It not only changed the country physically but suddenly opened up a vast region for millions of immigrants to pour into.

Napoléon had sold the land in order to raise money to help finance his wars in Europe.

Thompson suddenly appears in front of me, causing me to stop abruptly, snapping me out of my thoughts. He gives me a big sloppy grin and an exaggerated bow, swinging his big hat in a clownish gesture.

“How ya doin’, missy? See any ghosts or goblins down the street of the dead?” He has a toothpick in his mouth that manages to stay planted when he speaks.

I get a whiff of sour whiskey breath, a scent that is always sure to raise my ire, after my dealings with my stepfather.

“Only ones of legend.”

I have no desire to make idle conversation with this man, but if my theory is correct that Gebhard and Lily came to Teo for more than horseflesh, then Thompson’s calling himself a farm equipment salesman with connections to horse-raising haciendas could be a cover for something else.

It seems unlikely that Gebhard would have hired a farm equipment salesman from El Paso to advise him on the bloodlines of Mexican horses. An expert involved in the trade who knew horses and the territory would be a more likely candidate.

“Well, I can guarantee you they are all exaggerations,” Thompson says. “The Indians were all a bunch of ignorant savages who couldn’t read or write and went around eating each other. They deserve what they got and continue to get.”

“I wouldn’t call a civilization that built those giant pyramids ignorant.” What I want to say to him is that only an ignorant person would make such a statement, but I hold my tongue. Everything about this man offends me. He reminds me of corrupt politicians back home.

He leers at me. “You’re a spunky one, aren’t you? How’s about the two of us taking a ride in that fancy carriage tonight? I can take you to places you’ve never seen.”

I see red, but as politely as I can, I reply, “No thank you, Mr. Thompson,” and start to step around him.

He blocks my path. “We need to talk.”

He pulls back his coat to expose a badge pinned to his shirt.

54

Thompson gives me a wink and jerks his head. “Over there, where we won’t have prying eyes.”

“Over there” is behind the line of makeshift shacks the villagers had set up to sell their products.

I follow him, flabbergasted and angry. It’s not that Thompson wouldn’t readily pass for a peace officer; to the contrary, he has that overbearing attitude I’d seen so often in policemen in the small town I grew up in, where the most common path to wearing a badge was being the school bully. But he’s a Texan, not a Mexican. So what’s he doing flashing a badge in the middle of Mexico?

I really don’t like the man, but my reporter instincts are blazing at the prospect that I may get to the bottom of why everyone has gathered in Teo.

He stops and glances around to make sure we’re not being watched. “You’re a pretty smart young lady, so I’m sure you’ve already guessed that I don’t sell plows and hay balers. This is who I am.”

He pulls open his coat again so I can get a good-enough look at his badge to read it. It’s shiny brass, with an American flag in the center and writing that identifies the bearer as a United States customs inspector.

“Customs inspector? What’s a customs man doing over a thousand miles from the border?”

“We have a long reach. I have some information that will interest you as a reporter.” He shifts the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “I’ll let you in on something, but you have to promise me you won’t write a word about it or say anything to anyone until you’re back across the border and I give you the go-ahead. Understand?”

Great. Just what I need—another person who’ll give me a story as long as I can’t use it anytime soon.

“I give you my word—as long as it’s not something I already know.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re in the dark about what’s really going on. I’m working undercover; that’s why I know. You heard Gebhard talk about how he’s gotten so many valuable horses from Mexico, some of the best horseflesh in the world, from the bloodline of the warhorses of the conquest. Not only that but prize bulls, too.”

“We both heard him talk about horses in the carriage. And I’ve heard he’s a collector of Mesoamerican artifacts. What about it? I’ve also heard he can afford to buy whatever he wants because he’s very rich. No law against that, is there?”

“He can also afford to pay customs duties, something he doesn’t dig into those deep pockets of his to do. He spends more money for a conquistador bloodline stallion than most men earn in a lifetime. Guess what happens when he gets to the El Paso customs house? The horse gets declared as a work mount at the border and he pays a few measly dollars’ worth of duty.”

“Don’t you border agents require a bill of sale as proof of purchase?”

He lets out a harsh snort. “Hells bells, lady, these Mexs will make out the bill of sale anyway he wants it. They’d say he paid them in Chinese silkworms if he asked them to.”

That rings true with me. Most of the farmers I grew up around in Cochran’s Mill would do the same if someone asked them to short a bill of sale on a cow. Cheating the government of taxes is not considered a crime by most anyone who isn’t employed like Thompson to collect taxes.

“Mr. Thompson, I appreciate your doing your duty, but I’m not sure where I fit in. Other than not running the story until you finish your investigation, what do you want from me? And might I add, you haven’t told me anything I don’t already know.”

“It’s pretty obvious that you’ve gotten in pretty tight with that actress gal. What I want you to do is keep your eyes and ears open when you’re around them. Let me know who they’re talking to about horses and bulls, so I can gather the evidence against Gebhard.”

“What!” I’m outraged. “You’re asking me to spy on people who’ve been kind to me? I’m a newspaper reporter, not a government spy.”

“I’m asking you to do your duty as an American citizen.”

My blood rises. “Pardon me, but I don’t think that there is anywhere in our laws, Constitution, or social rules that says that a citizen should spy on her friends and acquaintances for the tax man. I’m not going to spy for you.”

His angry words follow me as I walk away.

“You’ve been a pain in the ass since you stuck your nose in other people’s business in El Paso.”

My blood is now boiling over, but I resist the temptation to turn and give him a piece of my mind. After all, I have to go through customs when I return. Despite my dislike for the man, I wouldn’t want him to pass the word to his fellow agents to give my customs declaration close scrutiny. I do plan to pick up some Mexican items, perhaps a piece of jewelry or two, nothing too pricey, because I can’t afford it, but also nothing I want to pay a tax on just to get it back across the border.

The comment he made about El Paso puzzles me. He didn’t say that I’d been a pain since El Paso. Or on the train. He said “in El Paso.”

I never ran into Thompson or any of his cohorts in customs in El Paso. At least not that I know of. For sure, I didn’t go through U.S. customs when leaving the country. I’ll do that when I reenter.

Other than wangling a private compartment at the station with Roger, the only thing out of the ordinary in El Paso arose when Howard, the prospector, staggered, drunk, literally into my arms.

I met Sundance for the first time that night. It seems obvious that Sundance and Thompson have something going. Which makes me wonder if Thompson’s comment about my being a pain is related to what passed between me and the prospector. And was observed by Sundance.

I haven’t been comfortable with Sundance since I spotted him hanging around the boardinghouse that night. The next day, he used my name when he helped me with my bag. Said he saw my name on the tag, which is there. But it would be a bit hard to read the tag at a casual glance—and that’s all he had a chance to do.

What has Sundance got going with Thompson? Could he and the cowboys be helping out a customs agent? I must say, believing that would take a giant leap of faith on my part. I suspected from the first time I set eyes on the cowboy and his sidekicks that they might have something to do with the law—like rustlers have something to do with ranching.

No, Sundance doesn’t look like a man who helps collects taxes—or who even pays them. I’m chewing on what connection he might have with Thompson when I see the devil himself.

Sundance is stretched out, lying back against a tree, his tin coffee cup by his side, no doubt recently filled with Mexican rotgut brew. He has a hand-rolled cigarette propped between his grinning lips. The boys in the newsroom call cigarettes “coffin nails” because, unlike cigars and pipe tobacco, they’re inhaled.

As far as I’m concerned, cigars and cigarettes stink and are disgusting, but pipes, that’s different. I’m sure it’s because of memories of walking into my dad’s study, with him puffing away, filling the room with a wonderful scent. He let me sit on his lap and tell him all about my day. The best part was that he really listened.

As I come up to Sundance, he looks past me to the retreating figure of Thompson.

“I’d watch out for that dude,” he says.

“Why?”

“Not every snake gives a warning before it strikes.”

“What do you know about him?”

He grins and shrugs. “Nothing really. He’s just one of those people who make my gun hand itch. Back on the train, when he used his deck, he had more luck with playing cards than the Good Lord gave any of us. The more people I talk to, the more I discover nobody is particularly fond of him.”

“Then why did you pal around with him in El Paso?”

It is a shot in the dark, and I watch closely for his reaction. I get nothing. He just keeps looking at me deadpan, his perpetual grin almost a smirk.

“I don’t know who told you that, but you’ve been steered wrong. He’s no pal of mine.”

“Why did you hang around outside the boardinghouse in El Paso after we met on the street?” Another shot in the dark.

His grin gets wider. “Why, girl, I was hoping you would invite me in.”

I bite my lip, trying not to laugh, but it doesn’t work, and despite myself, I laugh.

“Sundance, Harry, whatever your name is, you are a liar, a scoundrel, and only the good Lord knows what else.”