Desert junkyards have their own special ambience: varying hues of rusting metal and fading paint, pitted chrome, and shattered glass. But this collection was awesome both in size and riotous variety. The canyon was well on its way to achieving legendary status as a desert junk pile. It looked like the Clantons had sacked entire villages back wherever it was they came from and hauled it all out here to fry in the desert.
I got my mind back on the job at hand and backed the flivver away from the rim. Grabbing the rifle I walked through the scrub until I found a rock outcropping that afforded a good view of the ranch. I was wondering why they hadn’t just buried Lamar in this mess.
The place looked quiet. Possibly the boys were racked out from their long trip.
Aside from the Vicky there were a few other cars around that looked like they might be operable, so I couldn’t be sure the boys were there alone. What struck me the most was that there didn’t appear to be a building on the entire property worth more than a C-note, certainly none big enough to drive a truck into. Also, there was no place to turn a truck around in that mess and no suggestion the place ever saw much more than light traffic.
Looking back on the canyon road, it appeared to be a bit rough for a haul vehicle anyways. It figured they must have someplace else they were using for moving the merchandise.
I walked to the car and drove it back to the edge of the mesa, following the left fork until I felt reasonably sure I was out of earshot of the box canyon. I hadn’t been hunting since I was a kid back on the truck farm in Virginia, not counting the slaughter in the Pacific. And even that had consisted mostly of potting crows perched on the corn and plinking rats flushed out of woodpiles.
I’d had enough of hunting men to last me a lifetime. Nowadays I preferred the crafty plan and well-sprung trap, and reading about the aftermath in the local fish wrap, to getting down and actually doing the manual labor myself.
A few fat grouse were browsing over by the other road and I thought I’d scare me up a few of those. By the time the sun was setting on the Sangre de Cristo range, I’d bagged an even half dozen of the heftier birds, letting the smaller ones pass. I bled them one by one from the neck and strung them on a short piece of cord.
Getting a little hungry and not wanting to put in any more appearances at the local establishments, I headed toward the highway back to town. Down at the junction I spotted a couple of kids walking their bicycles over the big road and mounting up to continue south.
I goosed the Merc through the intersection and headed them off a ways down the road. When they pulled up I got out of the car and asked them if the local grouse was good eating. They both looked pretty enthusiastic about the subject, so I opened the trunk and pulled out a burlap sack and extracted the string of birds. The little girl went into a long exposition about just what her mother would do with something like that, and the boy was talking about how many dishes she could make out of those birds.
I dropped the stringer back in the sack and handed it to the girl saying, “I haven’t anyone in these parts to cook me up some grouse properly, so you take these home to your momma and get them done up right.”
“Gee, thanks mister…” the boy said, his eyes dropping to the plate. “Mr. California.”
I winced. I told them, “You all enjoy that now. I got to get back where I came from.”
As they pedaled away I got to thinking maybe I was making too big of a splash in this maroon convertible and I’d best be getting me an agency car. I was starting to miss Yuki already, so I stayed away from our previous haunts and grabbed a bite at a rundown roadside taqueria.
I staked out the boarding rooms the next couple of nights, but Ma and Pa were getting in late and going straight to bed.
* * *
Yuki called me on Wednesday morning and told me she’d heard from Johnny. She’d given him the what’s up and he was going to show.
She said, “He’ll be on the 1:30 bus tomorrow, the Geronimo Lines, from Gallup. I miss you Ray. What am I supposed to be doing out here by myself anyway?”
“Just keep watching the phone. If it rings, tell ‘em I’m out on an assignment and I’ll be back in a few weeks. I should have this wrapped up by the end of the month, so see if you can line us up something else to do around then.”
“OK, Ray. Be careful out there. There ain’t an ounce of pity in that old woman.”
I said, “Well at least if you don’t hear from me you’ll know where I am.”
“What? Where’s that?”
“A rock pile in Paulden.”
“Ray!!”
“OK baby. I got my six covered. You just watch out for your pretty self. I hope you’re not staying at the apartment.”
“No, I’m staying with the folks and I’m only coming into the office for a few hours a day at odd times.”
“Are you carrying?”
“Sure. A shorty Colt .45 automatic Jaime lent me.”
“That’s a girl. You’re catching on.”
Next morning the phone woke me up at 0600. I was dreaming in a language I had never heard before when the phone rang again. We’d had our own Navajo code-talking unit on Truk and several of the other islands. It was Johnny.
“So James, you’re a private star now, huh?”
“That’s right Johnny, only this time it looks like I’m fighting the next war. What have you been doing?”
“Doing what I do best: watching sheep grow.”
“You got time to do some more work for Uncle Sam?”
Reckon so, what do you have in mind?”
“Need a truck driver, and someone to help me lasso the truck. If you can get away now, head on down to Albuquerque and I’ll fill you in.”
“I reckon the sheep won’t miss me too much.”
I caught up with Johnny as he stepped off the afternoon bus at the stage depot on the corner of 2nd and Marquette. He had a small cloth-covered traveling bag in his hand. We wondered down the block to a cantina at the corner, settled into a booth, and ordered up a mess of green chile pork and tortillas.
“I’m sorry if I got you away at an inconvenient time.”
“Not at all, amigo. It’s good to see one of the old faces again. I was getting restless, anyway.”
“I know what you mean.”
“ You know, when I got back the medicine man gave me grief for using our sacred language to help kill people, like anything we did to the Japs was a sin or something and I had done a really bad thing. Said I’d be punished by the ancestors after I passed.
“I called him out as an unholy fake and a disgrace, and I told the ignorant bastard to stick his self-righteous babble where the sun don’t shine. I don’t think anyone up there ever done that before. Wouldn’t have done it myself if I’d never been anywhere either.
“Seems like there wasn’t no one wanted to talk to me lately. I just been hanging back on the ranch with my cousin Ernie.”
“Sorry to hear that happened.”
“S’OK. I don’t think that old bastard fought for anything in his life. Just spent his days scaring old ladies and children.
“Place ain’t the same any more anyway. I was away too long. There isn’t anything holding me there. I think I’m gone for good.
“You didn’t meet Ernie, but he was in my unit at the beginning. Got sent back a little early, shot up. He’s doing fine now, and he likes the old place. He knew better than me to go talk to the medicine man, and he’s got himself a nice comfortable wife and a passel of kids. They’ll get on just fine without me.”
“Sounds like Ernie’s too smart to join that pity party.”
“He is. But those other guys are a bunch of old squaws. What the hell, they’re losers anyway.
“Yep, more the losers of this world stick to their reservation, or plantation, or whatever old demon that’s holding them back, the more room there is for us free guys to roam. Isn’t that right? I ain’t going back.”
* * *
Johnny had arrived just in time. O
ur surveillance of the flat that Saturday evening established that the Indian had finally showed up.
I beat it over to the downtown parking garage near the rental agency and stashed my heap. I put some long green down as a deposit and slipped the attendant a sawbuck to keep on top of things.
My reservation was waiting at the agency: a long, grey Buick Roadmaster two-door coupe with overdrive. I signed for the car and went out and gave it a cursory mechanical check. It had an oversized power plant that looked like it would hold up good. I drove back to the Aztec, met up with Johnny, and settled the motel bill.
I didn’t know what time they’d be moving out so we picked up a mess of fried chicken on the way to the warehouse.
Midnight came. There had been no movement from the warehouse, but the Clanton bus was still parked outside. We took two-hour shifts staring at the darkness. The sun wasn’t even up before I caught a rib full of elbow.
“We’re on,” Johnny said.
The warehouse was totally dark, but the roll-up door was raised. A long, low tractor pulled out of the warehouse hauling a short box trailer and turned north up Alvarez. It looked to be a heavy-duty Federal model, the kind with the sleeper-cab they’d been turning out since ‘38. I didn’t catch the markings on the tractor. It could have been a leased job.
We waited until the roll-up door went back down. Johnny fired up the crate and waited another minute before proceeding slowly in the direction taken by the truck.
When we cleared the warehouse, Johnny lead-footed it and we caught up with the truck a block from the highway. We pulled over and watched him take Highway 66 eastbound. Johnny gave it half a minute, then raced to the corner and moved in about a mile behind.
“”I’ll take the first shift,” he said. “You get some more sleep.”
“OK, I’ll take over later and we’ll hit him when it looks good.”
It was around high noon when the big rig pulled into a chicken joint this side of Amarillo. Johnny drove on a few more miles to a downtown hamburger stand and swung around back. He ankled into the joint and came back a few minutes later with some grilled meat and hot chocolates.
It wasn’t half an hour later before the truck came nosing through town. I’d already spotted Johnny behind the wheel. I tossed a bag of trash in the direction of an open barrel and slid out onto the main drag. We picked the Federal up again on the east side of town and rode on into the noonday glare.
A few hours later the driver pulled over again outside of Wichita Falls. This time he chose a diner and truck stop with a large truck lot out back. The Indian took his time finding a quiet corner to park the truck and went inside. I swung around the diner to the far side of the auto park.
We sat a good hour before we saw him walking out to the truck. Johnny and I moved quickly to the back of the lot behind the truck, and we were waiting by the driver’s door when he walked around the front of the cab.
Johnny put the clamp on his shoulder, spun him around, and slammed him into the driver’s door before he had a clue what was happening to him. He was just starting to let out a squawk when Johnny got the Bowie knife to his throat.
Johnny said, “You’re working for us now, so just take it easy and this will all work out fine.”
I slipped the chrome bracelets on him. We shoved him on over behind the cab and had ourselves a little powwow.
I asked him “Do you know who you’re working for?”
“No,” he grunted.
“Do you know what you’re hauling?”
“Didn’t see it. Didn’t ask.”
“Do you know that you’re not supposed to know these things?”
“Yeah, I kinda figured that.”
“So this is an illegal shipment?”
“I wouldn’t bet it isn’t. I’ve hauled stuff for the Clantons before. Never knew what it was.”
“Where’s it going?”
“Miami.”
“Where’d their other stuff go?”
“Miami.”
“How was it the Clantons picked you for this ride?”
”I know their cousin, Lamar Jenkins, out of Gallup. He put me together with them a couple of years ago.”
“Were you supposed to drive this load to Miami, unload at the docks, and drive the rig back to Albuquerque?”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“Well, we’re taking over the load. Do you want to know why?”
“Wouldn’t hurt none to know, I reckon. I ain’t gonna fight you for it.”
“That crate you’re carrying contains top secret military components that the Russians have been trying to get their hands on. The Clantons are on hire to Soviet spies, and this shipment is destined for the USSR. Only we’re gonna give it back to Uncle Sam.”
“Hey!” he squeaked. “I don’t want any part of treason. I never even saw the load.”
Johnny piped in. “Zuni, right? What’s your handle anyway?”
“Zeke.”
I told him, “Don’t worry Zeke, we’re gonna help you out. You’ll get the truck back. You can return it and go back to the reservation or wherever. But you’re gonna have to stick by us until we get this job finished. Any problems with that?”
“Hell no! I got nothing but time. I’m with you, man. Anything I can do to help. I’m not on their side.”
“Okay, Zeke. You mind your manners. We got enough evidence on you to get you into Leavenworth for 20 years. When the shipment is secured, you’ll get that back too.”
Johnny kept Zeke cooling his heels in the flivver while I walked over and flipped a coin into the phone box.
“Mack, it’s James. We’re good to go. We got the load, and one Indian driver on ice. Where do you want us to park ‘em?”
“Not here at the ranch. We’ll take it up to Norton’s straight away. There’s an all-night hash house named Ruby’s in Denison. Make that your next pit stop and I’ll meet you there.”
Johnny took over the truck, and I followed him out to the highway. It was dark by the time we made Fort Worth. We continued east through Dallas where Johnny picked up Route 75 north to Denison. Near midnight Johnny found the bright neon sign for the diner and we pulled around back.
Settled into a both Mack turned to Zeke and asked, “Have you ever done any ranching, boy?”
“Plenty, sir,” Zeke replied. “Mostly sheep and goats.”
Mack said, “Well I reckon you can give us a hand ‘til these boys are done. You’re working on the side of the Lord now, son. Is that a problem for you?”
“No sir, it’s high time and I hope to stay there. Commie traitors I don’t need. I thought I was hauling some bootleg cigarettes, hot car parts, or something like that. I couldn’t figure out why I was supposed to end up at a port.”
“Well now you know son. There is more of this stuff going on than any of us know, but we aim to put a big dent in it right here and now.”
Mack heaved his bulk from the bench. “Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
We reached Norton’s shop an hour after midnight and parked the rig in back. Mack took the three of us to the ranch for the night while Norton and his help off-loaded the goods. Mid-morning we were all gathered back in the tiny disheveled office at Norton’s place.
“So what do our little rocket parts look like now?” Mack inquired.
Norton let out a guffaw. “Used a bunch of old No. 12 cans to simulate the booster motor casings.”
“And the fuel?”
“Secret recipe passed down from Uncle Nathan. He used it to raise the stumps on all this land hereabouts. Ran through a lot of it, hear to tell. Let’s just say that glycerin mixed with chicken crap and some specially processed grain makes up a mighty powerful explosive. Couple of little mercury switches tucked away in the wood underside of the crate lid, and… Voila! Instant commie surprise.”
“That gonna do much damage?
“Oh, what’s in these here crates’ll take down a small building. If’n it’s a warehouse, pro
bably blow out the walls and drop the roof on ‘em. No way to disguise the fakery with what’s left of it, but the Reds’ll have no problem passin’ it off as a ‘work accident’ of some sort. Lyin’ comes natural to ‘em, anyway. And I hear they’re plenty used to failure.
“By the way, there was a lot more than rocket motors in those crates.”
“Like what?” Mack prompted.
“Like precision bearings, motor nozzles, avionics, possibly inertial guidance systems. A lot of stuff.”
“So what are we doing with the real stuff?” I asked.
“I’ve already thought on that,” Mack confided, “and here’s what I suggest. The merchandise stays here with Norton at least until Johnny confirms the crates are on the ship and the ship has sailed. According to your schedule that’ll be the 27th of this month.
“Johnny will roll out in two days to make port on Friday. I’ve got folks I’m already talking to and I’ll make sure it gets in the right hands.
“Ray, Veronica wants to meet with you in Tampa as soon as you can get there. Her office has a line on a crew she thinks is party to this business, but their hands are tied as they haven’t so far come across any evidence of illegal activity. I convinced her you could likely bust something loose for them.
“You can leave your heap at the ranch and I’ll take you down to the airport tomorrow.”
“Naw, I’d rather take the overnight bus. Let’s get down to Dallas now. Johnny can head up to Tampa on Sunday and we can roll back here together with the truck.”
Well, anyway, that had been the plan.
April 1948
The room was small, dimly lit with sunlight and stiflingly hot, with a single bed, two barred windows, and a wooden door. I rolled over to the base of the door and tapped it with my feet. It didn’t feel very substantial. Within a few minutes I’d kicked through the lower panel. I turned myself around and wiggled head first out the hole into the blinding sunshine.
Waves were lapping the rocky shoreline about ten feet from where I lay. Some other old wooden buildings were off to my right behind a broken-down wooden pier.
I spent the better part of a half an hour scoping my surroundings and watching a surprising amount of regular ship activity in the near distance. Eventually, I rolled over in the direction of the other buildings, looking for something sharp and keeping an eye out for snakes.
Judging from the dew on the grass and the angle of the sun, it looked to be about mid-morning. I goggled what looked like a trash pile behind the closest building and rolled on over in that direction. I lay there next to an assortment of rusty cans and old bottles trying to think what good this collection of junk was going to do, given that I was handcuffed as well as bound by the arms and legs.