A Desert in Bloom, page 15
Part of a large spiny bush lay right in our way, probably blown in by a hard wind. Obscured by the drifting sand piled up against it, the long stems likely would’ve crossed our path.
“Go take a look,” Pop said. He opened his door to get out, and I did likewise. I walked over to the bush, knelt down and reached for one of the stalks.
“Watch your fingers,” Pop called out. He’d ambled up behind me, rolling a fresh cigarette as he came.
The olive grey stalks were nearly 12 feet long and covered with spiny thorns; I ran the tip of my finger across one of the barbs. “Nasty.”
“Don’t get stuck, it’ll burn like hell. We used to lose all kinds of tires to those bastards. I ran across a big one once, had to put nearly 20 patches in an inner tube. Little tiny patches,” said Doc. He held his fingertips about an inch apart. “Lucky to fish enough rubber out of my kit to keep a’ going. Like I say, not likely to pop a modern tire unless they slip past the steel belt, but in them days, they’d play hell with you, especially at night.”
He lit his cigarette, took a deep drag and blew the smoke out with a silent whistle. He paused and looked to the south. “God, I love this old desert.”
“You used to make fences with these?” I asked. “Damn, they must have cut you up something awful.”
“Not so bad when they’re green,” he said. “We’d cut ‘em down and weave the limbs like a basket. Even a burro won’t cross them things if they don’t have to.”
I pried a long thorn off one of the stalks and put it in my shirt pocket. We kicked the rest of the branches out of our path.
“How much further?” I asked. The road had long since become more of a dirt track. We were up close to a low set of hills with rugged peaks, surrounded by jagged rock formations. The hills were ringed by sand, sagebrush and cactus.
“Not far, I think. We just need to come around the other side.”
We walked back to the car and continued on around the trail. Based on the number of stray beer bottles, it must have seen some occasional use. I kept a careful eye out for more ocotillo, despite the modern manufacture of my tires.
About ten minutes later, we came to a large flat area. All the vegetation was gone, and the ground had been beaten down into hardpan. Two rusty 50-gallon drums sat together in the center of the flat; someone had used them as burn barrels. Alongside them were a few beer bottles, scraps of wood and assorted bits of trash. Outside the clearing, a couple of large Saguaro cactus were torn dead; scavenged for their long, supporting ribs, either as souvenirs or as deadwood for a fire.
“We’re here,” Pop said.
“This is Bakers Tanks?”
“Not hardly.” Doc looked at me as if I was half-blind, then pointed south. “We’ll have to walk in from here.”
“How far?” I wondered if we should pack in supplies, and how to leave the station wagon.
“Just put your boots on and let's take a walk.” Pop was already headed due south at a fair clip. I jumped out of the car and quickened my step to catch up. There was a sudden dip in elevation and a change in the terrain.
Hardpan gave way to a rocky wash, with shallow flows of sand. Blue rock scrabble was caught in the long crevices that lined the wash. Where moist soil had gathered, bits of green foliage clung to the sandstone; clumps of deer grass and cactus pear, the occasional sage bush, mesquite, or red yucca. Our descent stopped at an enormous flat boulder, spread out like a cliff wall above the surrounding ground. We climbed down on the smooth rock until we hit a broad plateau, and there, caught between the cheeks of two great rock flows, was a clear pool of water.
Doc’s smile was as big as I’d ever seen it. He knelt down along the edge of the tank and brushed his hat back and forth across the surface of the water, sending bright ripples out away from the shore. “By golly dang, I told you there was water on this old desert.”
“Yes, you did.” I think I was as glad as he was to finally stand in the place that I’d heard so much about. There was no one around for miles that I could see, and for an instant, I could imagine him as a young man some 50 years before, building his traps in a time that was his alone.
“How did you catch the horses?”
“Wasn’t much to it really.” He looked up from the pool where he was soaking his red bandana. “They’d walk right in, as long as you didn’t get in their way.” He pointed toward the smooth sloping sides of the rock tanks. “Hard to get back out that-a-way, so we’d build a funnel at the end and leave it open at night, then slip back down before dawn and close ‘em in.” Doc stepped away from the edge of the water. He gestured to the open desert. “That was the tricky part, getting down here without the stallion catching on that we was closing the gate.”
“Then what?
Pop brushed the wet bandana across his throat and around his neck, then tucked it into his back pocket. “Well, the good ones we’d keep around for breaking; the burros and the stragglers we’d take on down to Brandy at the See-Boar Ranch.” Pop turned his head and looked at me knowingly. “Sold them for tiger food.”
“Tiger food?” I was surprised by his revelation and the raw enthusiasm behind it.
He was enjoying the moment, languishing in his old haunts, leaning against the twisted spine of an aged mesquite tree. In one swift motion, he pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket and lit it. “Ol’ Brandy had a deal with the San Diego Zoo; he’d take them clear over to California. They used them mustangs to feed the lions and the tigers.” Pop flashed a grin in a stream of grey smoke. “And them burros - Brandy had this Indian woman cooking and cleaning for him. She would bar-b-que ‘em up, dress ‘em and bury ‘em in hot coals for most of a day. She was damn pretty too.”
He paused. “Ain’t nothing like bar-b-que burro. I’d give my eye teeth for a taste of that again.” He laughed and ran his tongue across his full set of upper dentures. “If I still had teeth.”
“I’ll have to keep an eye out for some.” I sat down by the mesquite and watched as a tiny lizard jumped out from behind a rock and sprang away.
“You do that.”
Doc took a butane lighter out of his shirt pocket and re-lit his cigarette. “Brandy had a bunch of folks working on that place, fixing fence and irrigating. Sometimes, me and my crew, we’d break horses up there. It was one hell of a good time.”
I looked over at his face. It had been a difficult trip. There wasn’t much left of the old Wellton, and the loss had worn on him. Most of the places he had known were gone, and for some reason, Huey Spain was clinging to his anonymity. But out here in the desert, Pop had found a chunk of granite that held his past as close as it held the infrequent rain.
He gave me a broad smile and let go another puff of smoke. “We did that and a few other things.”
November 1941
Campo de Bracero Federal
Sonora, Mexico
Hector Ramirez was deathly afraid of heights. For most of his village life, this hadn’t made much of a difference, but once he joined the army, each night of guard duty was a constant agony. First, the long trip up the ladder; that was the most difficult part, as each rung made his heart climb higher into his throat. Halfway up the tower, he’d pause to catch his breath, careful not to look down or lose his grip on the weathered treads. The worn rungs groaned under his weight, thin splinters piercing his hands with the force of his grasp. Eyes closed tight, he would feel for the top of the platform, sliding his body forward on the floor like a snake. Rising to his knees, he’d thank La Virgen de Guadalupe for safe passage, and pray his return to earth might be equally uneventful.
He had served the monthly tower duty for three straight weeks. If the roster held true, only one week more, followed by sweet relief on solid ground. Perhaps then his dreams would soften, no desperate drop into the abyss, no more screams as the knives of El Diablo pierced him. Each morning, he would make his careful descent, relieve himself, then slip away to his hut, there to lie awake until the numbness of the tower passed away from him. Only then would he take his café de olla with the other guards.
Lying on his mat, he could hear the prisoners pounding rock, the rhythm of their labors laying chorus for his dreams to follow. He saw himself climbing in a dark mission stairwell, the prayers and chants circling about him. His small hands touched the great bell, and he looked out over the village and into the mountains where his grandfather’s herds were grazing. The hymns were soft, and he felt a warming peace in the music. But then he would slip and fall again, while all around him the bells cried, tortured faces flying past him as he plummeted into the night. Each time, the Dark One would take him, only to awaken drenched in his own sweat, dreading the night to come.
His mother had begged him not to join the army. She took Hector out, away from the village, to the place where his father was buried. Guillermo Ramirez had died in the Great Revolution, fighting los hacendados beside Zapata and Pancho Villa. His mother had said it was a noble thing, but it had come to mean nothing, like all battles on this earth. Only the struggle for the souls of men would count on the day of reckoning. It was for this thing that her son was born, for the Holy Church. She cried for him and he wept, but he left for his barracks the next day and had never returned.
Hector looked out along the crest of the mountains, careful to keep his distance from the edge of the tower platform. He stayed seated for as long as he thought no one would notice, rising only to his feet when he felt there might be someone in authority nearby. There was not much to guard against anyway, for only a fool would venture this far out in the desert. “Fools like me,” he thought. “Fools who can’t escape the Mexican Army.” Hector heard a familiar voice come from the barracks and quickly stood to attention.
“Ramirez!”
Hector stepped carefully to the edge and peered down.
“You will be lonesome tonight, eh?” Coarse laughter followed and the sound of other voices.
Hector knew better than to answer the gruff cry. His sergeant was a temperamental man, as brutal to his troop as he was to his prisoners. It was payday, and Sergeant Gómez had been drinking since suppertime; he might not wait for the town cantina to begin his cruel sport. The other guards were filing out of the barracks and into a battered truck parked in the center of the compound.
Gómez took a shovel from the flatbed and walked over to one of the prisoner’s huts. Barely able to stand straight, he beat the blade against the flimsy walls. “Perhaps you will miss me tonight?” There was no reply from within the hut. “The girls, they are very pretty, and the tequila is just as wet. Maybe I will bring some back for you?”
The stumbling sergeant cackled and threw the shovel against the side of the guard tower. The ancient truck engine sputtered to life; dim headlights fell against the wire gates. Gómez swayed like a tree in a stiff wind, bending backwards to gaze up at the tower platform. “Be watchful, little Padre.”
Hector swallowed his anger. “Sí Señor. I will be very diligent.”
The sergeant turned from the tower, crossing himself with a sneer. He fell backwards into the truck bed. “That is good, little Padre. And I will do novenas on the belly of a whore.”
The gates of the stockade opened on cue. A big green flatbed rumbled out on the dirt track, loaded with Federales. It was over 30 miles to the nearest Mexican town, and by Doc’s reckoning, no one would be back before mid-morning.
Won’t be another time as good as this.
No telling how much longer he could keep the others interested in this little escapade. Angelo was growing restless, and Gary had his hands full keeping Danny out of the camp whiskey.
They’d worked their way down from the old mine silently, leaving their horses a quarter-mile away in a small draw off the main canyon. Doc had kept this little party in mind ever since they got back from Yuma, introducing it to the others one at a time.
He'd told the boys that the case of dynamite was for the mine he’d discovered, to see if they could work some new nuggets out of the old diggings. But each day, on his regular look-see around the mine’s perimeter, he would slip down to the end of the canyon.
Once there, he’d settle in on the rocky rise above the stockade quarry. Bill Gale had warned him about Mexican prisons, labor camps where men were pressed beyond their endurance, broken like the rocks and shale they mined from dusk to dawn. Even forewarned, what he saw went beyond his comprehension.
The prisoners were brought out at first light and worked till the sun fell behind the mountains, cracking rock and carrying ore straight through the blistering heat of the day. Somewhere between the regular beatings and his general dislike of authority, Doc began to memorize the movements of the guards.
He wasn’t prone to fuss about a bunch of jailbirds; Doc had spent a little time behind bars himself. He was just bone tired of seeing folks treated like animals. Besides, the Federales that bushwhacked him came right out of this place. He figured to even that slate once and for all.
Doc had gotten Angelo to go along because Angelo always went along. Danny and Gary were more reluctant. Their attitude seemed to shift once they saw the relatively few guards. Doc didn’t know that much about the Bonita boys, but one thing he did know for sure: they’d done some jail time, maybe in this very place. Danny had wanted to let loose with the rifles right then and there, but Doc had kept him in tow.
“We don’t want to kill nobody,” he said. “Just ruffle a few tail feathers.”
Once he’d hatched his plan, he sent Danny down alongside the prison work gang to whisper the news. Tonight was their best bet; almost all the guards would be in town, and anyone left behind wouldn’t be likely to stick their head up once a case of powder went off.
It’s tonight, or pack it up and go home.
“Angelo.” Doc spoke softly, even though they were fifty yards away. “Take four sticks and set them next to those corner posts.”
Angelo nodded.
“Gary, you take three and spread ‘em along the fence. I’ll blow the main gate and the horse corrals.”
The stockade was about six hundred feet around, surrounded by mesh and barbwire, strung taut on tall wooden posts. Doc took his father’s Barlow knife and stripped out three long strings of fuse. He capped the bundled sticks of dynamite and carefully attached seven feet of fuse to each, then passed out the assembled charges.
“Don’t linger once they’re lit, or we’ll have to peel you off the fences.”
Danny shifted his weight and gave their leader a sullen look. Doc motioned to the top of the rocks and whispered, “Somebody has to stay up here and cover us. If we’re spotted, lay down a pattern - and don’t stop firing till we’re clean out of Mexico.” Danny straightened up, satisfied with his responsibilities.
“Let’s go.”
The three men collected their gear and moved carefully around the face of the large boulder. Doc put a single finger to his lips. “Take it slow and easy. It’s so dang quiet you can hear a sidewinder.”
The two men nodded and started down the hill.
“Don’t forget these.” Doc reached into his rucksack and tossed them each a bundle of kitchen matches. “Wait for my signal, then let her fly.”
Danny slid forward onto the crest of the rocks and chambered a round into his rifle. Doc glanced back at him and lowered his voice. “You’re supposed to scare ‘em, Danny Boy, and that’s all.”
The moonlight cast an icy glow on the hillside. Dañiel Bonita watched as Bailey made his way down, slipping from boulder to boulder, his profile masked from the guard tower above. From time to time, he could hear the others, kicking up rocks as they descended. Angelo reached the wire fence first and was crawling towards the corner. Geraldo knelt behind a large outcropping, stringing fuse out from his bundle of dynamite. Bailey had worked his way from the main gates to the corral, his silhouette barely visible in the dim light before dawn.
Dañiel shouldered his Winchester and pulled the barrel down, leveling the tip of his gunsight at the center of Dave Bailey’s back.
Hector Ramirez was praying again. In the eyes of his fellow soldiers, he was always praying. Those prayers had changed over the course of his military service; the simple repetitions of his youth were gone now, replaced by more elaborate appeals for redemption. He took comfort in the quiet, far away from the taunts of others and their mocking disregard for faith. He had reconciled himself to their disdain and years more in the Devil’s service.
As a boy, he had many dreams. They would alternate between a soldier’s glory and the simple service of a village priest. When he chose the soldier’s life, all the pleasure went out of that dream; what was left was coarse pride and cruelty. Every day, he was assaulted by the sound of whips, the smell of blood, cheap drink, and women in dark rooms. His dreams had turned to a curse, and only the anthem of his prayers could take him away from the horror in the darkness.
Half awake, he knelt down on the tower floor. Somehow, the sounds were different this night, scrambling around the edges of his prayer. They seemed to move beneath him in shuffling footsteps, the call of a night bird, and the sudden hissing of hot steam.
Huddled beneath a rock overhang fifteen feet from the stockade fence, Angelo Manzanelli considered the folly of his youth.
Bound to die young, breaking jail for a bunch of Mexican horse thieves.
He cursed the day he met Dave Bailey. Should have beat him to a bloody pulp. He wondered if he could have, seeing as how Dave never seemed to give up, no matter how bad he was beat. Instead, they had become best friends.
They met at Nevada Union High. Bailey was always lollygagging about with the girls, fresh from some adventure, spinning tales about riding the rails, the distant desert and the great big country outside the little town of Grass Valley. Angelo would feign disinterest while hanging on every word, thinking he too should be doing wild things and wondering what life was like across the border.
