Two weeks ago, a couple of empty houses at the end of Third Street had caught fire, but the Inferno Volunteer Fire Department had kept the blaze from spreading. Scraps of gasoline-soaked rags had been found in the ashes. Just last weekend, Vance had broken up a fight between a dozen Renegades and Rattlesnakes in Preston Park. Things were heating up again, the same as last summer, but this time Vance meant to bottle up the trouble before any citizens of Inferno got hurt.
He watched a red bantam rooster strutting across the street in front of his car. He hit the horn, and the rooster jumped up in the air and lost three feathers. “Little bastard!” Vance said, reaching into his breast pocket for his pack of Luckies.
But before he got a cigarette out, he caught a movement from the corner of his eye. He looked to his right, at the Jurado house, and he saw the boy standing in the doorway.
They stared at each other. Time ticked past. Then Vance’s hand moved as if it had a wit of its own, and he pressed the horn again. The wail echoed along Second Street, stirring up the neighborhood dogs to a frenzy of barks and wails.
The boy didn’t move. He was wearing black jeans and a blue-striped short-sleeved shirt, and he was holding the screen door open with one arm. The other hung at his side, the fist clenched.
Vance hit the horn once more, let it moan for about six long seconds. Now the dogs were really raising hell. A man peered from a doorway three houses up. Two children emerged onto the porch of another house and stood watching until a woman urged them back inside. As the noise died away, Vance heard the sound of shouted, Spanish cursing—all that lingo sounded like cursing to him—from a house across the street. And then the boy let the screen door shut as he came down the sagging porch steps to the curb. Come on, li’l rooster! Vance thought. Come on, just start some trouble!
The boy stopped right in front of the patrol car.
He stood about five-nine, his brown arms muscular, his jet-black hair combed back from his forehead. Against the dark bronze of his face his eyes were ebony—except they were the eyes of an old man who has seen too much, not the eyes of an eighteen-year-old. They held a cold rage—like that of a wild animal catching a hunter’s scent. Around both wrists he wore black leather bracelets studded with small squares of metal; his belt was also made of studded leather. He stared through the windshield at Sheriff Vance, and neither of them moved.
Finally, the boy walked slowly around the car and stood several feet from Vance’s open window. “You got a problem, man?” he asked, his voice a mixture of Mexico’s stately cadence and west Texas’s earthy snarl.
“I’m on patrol,” Vance answered.
“You patrollin’ in front of my house? On my street?”
Smiling thinly, Vance took off his sunglasses. His eyes were deep-set, light brown, and seemed too small for his face. “I wanted to drive over and see you, Ricky. Wanted to say good mornin’.”
“Buenos días. Anythin’ else? I’m gettin’ ready for school.”
Vance nodded. “Graduatin’ senior, huh? Prob’ly got your future all lined up, right?”
“I’ll make out okay.”
“I’ll bet you will. Prob’ly wind up sellin’ drugs on the street, is more like it. Good thing you’re a real tough hombre, Ricky. You might even learn to enjoy prison life.”
“If I get there first,” Rick said, “I’ll make sure the fags know you’re on your way.”
Vance’s smile fractured. “What’s that supposed to mean, smart-ass?”
The boy shrugged, looking along Second Street at nothing in particular. “You’re gonna take a fall, man. Sooner or later, the state cops are gonna latch Cade, and you’ll be next. ’Cept you’ll be the one holdin’ his shitbag, and he’ll be long gone ’cross the border.” He stared at Vance. “Cade doesn’t need a number two. Aren’t you smart enough to figure that out yet?”
Vance sat very still. His heart was beating hard, and rough memories were being stirred at the back of his brain. He couldn’t stomach Rick Jurado—not only because Jurado was the leader of the Rattlesnakes, but on a deeper, more instinctive level. When Vance was a kid living in El Paso with his mother, he’d had to walk home from grammar school across a dusty hellhole called Cortez Park. His mother worked at a laundry in the afternoons, and their house was only four blocks from school, but for him it was a nerve-twisting journey across a brutal no-man’s-land. The Mexican kids hung out in Cortez Park, and there was a big eighth-grader named Luis who had the same black, fathomless eyes as Rick Jurado. Eddie Vance had been fat and slow, and the Mexican kids could run like panthers; the awful day came when they’d surrounded him, chattering and hollering, and when he’d started crying that only made it worse. They’d thrown him down and scattered his books while other gringo kids watched but were too scared to interfere; and the one named Luis had pulled his pants down, right off his struggling butt and legs, and then they’d held him while Luis stripped off Eddie’s Fruit-of-the-Looms. The underpants had been wrapped around Vance’s face like a feedbag, and as the half-naked fat boy ran home the Mexican kids had screamed with laughter and jeered, “Burro! Burro! Burro!”
From then on, Eddie Vance had walked more than a mile out of his way to avoid crossing Cortez Park, and in his mind he’d murdered that Mexican boy named Luis a thousand times. And now here was Luis again, only this time his name was Rick Jurado. This time he was older, he spoke English better, and he was no doubt a lot smarter—but, though Vance was approaching his fifty-fourth birthday, the fat little boy inside him would’ve recognized those cunning eyes anywhere. It was Luis all right, just wearing a different face.
And the truth was that Vance had never met a Mexican who didn’t remind him, in some way, of those jeering kids in Cortez Park almost forty years ago.
“What’re you starin’ at, man?” Rick challenged. “Have I got two heads?”
The sheriff’s trance snapped. Rage flooded through him. “I’d just as soon get out of this car and break your neck, you little shit-ass wetback.”
“You won’t.” But the boy’s body had tensed for either flight or fight.
Take it easy! Vance warned himself. He wasn’t ready for this kind of trouble, not right here in the middle of Bordertown. He abruptly put his sunglasses back on and worked his knuckles. “Some of your boys have been driftin’ into Inferno after dark. That won’t do, Ricky.”
“Last I heard, it was a free country.”
“It’s free for Americans.” Though he knew Jurado had been born at the Inferno Clinic on Celeste Street, Vance knew also that the boy’s father and mother had been illegals. “You let your gang punks go over—”
“The Rattlers isn’t a gang, man. It’s a club.”
“Yeah, right. You let your club punks go over the bridge after dark and there’ll be trouble. I won’t stand for it. I don’t want any Rattler across the bridge at night. Do I make myself—”
“Bullshit,” Rick interrupted. He gestured angrily toward Inferno. “What about the ’Gades, man? Do they own the fuckin’ town?”
“No. But your boys are askin’ for a fight, lettin’ themselves be seen where they shouldn’t be. I want it to stop.”
“It’ll stop,” Rick said. “When the ’Gades stop makin’ raids over here, breakin’ out people’s windows and spray-paintin’ their cars. They raise hell on my streets, and we’re not even supposed to cross the bridge without gettin’ spanked! What about that fire? How come Lockett’s not in jail?”
“Because there’s no proof he or any of the Renegades set it. All we’ve got are a few bits of burned-up rags.”
“Man, you know they set it!” Rick shouted. “They could’ve burned down the whole town!” He shook his head disgustedly. “You’re a chickenshit, Vance! Big sheriff, huh? Well, you listen up! My men are watchin’ the streets at night, and I swear to God we’ll cut the balls off any ’Gade we catch! Comprende?”
Anger reddened Vance’s cheeks. He was looking into the face of Luis again, and standing on the battlefield of Cortez Park. Deep down, hi
s stomach was squeezed with a fat kid’s fear. “I don’t think I like your tone of voice, boy! I’ll take care of the Renegades! You just keep your punks on this side of the bridge after dark, you got it?”
Rick Jurado suddenly walked a few feet away, bent down, and picked something up. Vance saw it was the red rooster. The Mexican boy approached the car, held the rooster over the windshield, and gave a quick, strong squeeze with his hands. The rooster squawked and flapped, and a grayish-white blob fell from its rear end onto the windshield and oozed down the glass.
“There’s my answer,” the boy said defiantly. “Chickenshit for a chickenshit.”
Vance was out of the car before the white line reached the hood. Rick took two strides back, dropped the rooster, and tensed himself to meet the onrushing storm. The rooster let out a strangled crowing as it darted for the cover of a yucca bush.
Even as he knew he was touching a match to dynamite, Vance reached out to grab the boy’s collar, but Rick was way too fast for him, and easily dodged aside. Vance clutched at empty air, and again the vision of Luis and Cortez Park whirled around him. He bellowed with fury, drawing his fist back to strike at his tormentor.
But before the blow could fall, a screen door slammed and a boy’s voice called out in Spanish, “Hey, Ricardo! You need some help?” The voice was followed immediately by a sharp crack! that froze the sheriff’s fist in midair.
He looked across the street, where a rail-thin Mexican kid wearing chinos, combat boots, and a black T-shirt stood on the front steps of a rundown house. “You need some help, man?” he asked again, this time in English, and then he reared his right hand back and quickly snapped it forward in a smooth, blurred motion.
The bullwhip he was holding popped like a firecracker going off, its tip flicking up a cigarette butt from the gutter. Shreds of tobacco whirled.
The moment stretched. Rick Jurado watched Vance’s face, could see the rage and cowardice fighting on it; then he saw Vance blink, and he knew which had won. The sheriff’s fist opened. His arm came down to his side, and he clasped it like a broken wing.
“No, Zarra,” Rick said, his voice calm now. “Everything steady, man.”
“Jus’ checkin’.” Carlos “Zarra” Alhambra wrapped the bullwhip around his right arm and sat on the porch steps, his gangly legs stretched out before him.
Vance saw two more Mexican boys walking in his direction along Second Street. Down where the street dead-ended in a tangle of boulders and sagebrush, another boy stood at the curb, watching the sheriff. In his hand was a tire iron.
“You got anythin’ else to say?” Rick prodded.
Vance sensed the many eyes on him from the windows of the crummy houses. He knew there was no way to win here; all Bordertown was a big Cortez Park. Vance glanced uneasily at the punk with the bullwhip, knowing that Zarra Alhambra could snap out a lizard’s eyeballs with that damned thing. He pointed a thick finger into Rick’s face. “I’m warnin’ you! No Rattlers in Inferno after dark, you hear?”
“Eh?” Rick cupped a hand behind his ear.
Across the street, Zarra laughed. “You remember!” Vance said, and then he got into the patrol car. “You remember, smart-ass!” he shouted once the door was shut. The streak down his windshield infuriated him, and he switched on the wipers. The streak became a smear. His face burned as their laughter reached him. He put the car in reverse and backed rapidly along Second Street to Republica Road, swerved the car around, and roared over the bridge into Inferno.
“Big lawman!” Zarra hooted. He stood up. “I shoulda popped his fat butt, huh?”
“Not this time.” Rick’s heartbeat was slowing down now; it had been racing during his confrontation with Vance, but he hadn’t dared show even a shadow of fear. “Next time you can pop him real good. You can bust his balls.”
“Alllllright! Wreckage, man!” Zarra thrust his left fist up in a power salute, the symbol of the Rattlesnakes.
“Wreckage.” Rick returned the salute halfheartedly. He saw Chico Magellas and Petey Gomez approaching, jaunty and strutting as if they walked on a street of gold instead of cracked concrete, on their way to the corner to catch the school bus. “Later,” he told Zarra, and he went back up the steps into the brown house.
Inside, drawn shades cut the sunlight. The gray wallpaper was faded beige where the sun had burned it, and on the walls hung framed paintings of Jesus against black velvet backgrounds. The house smelled of onions, tortillas, and beans. Floorboards creaked as if in pain under Rick’s footsteps. He walked through a short hallway to a door near the kitchen and tapped lightly on it. There was no answer. He waited a few seconds and tapped again, much louder.
“I’m awake, Ricardo,” the feeble voice of an old woman replied in Spanish.
Rick had been holding his breath. Now he let it go. One morning, he knew, he was going to come to this door and knock, and there would be no answer. But not this morning. He opened the door and looked into the small bedroom, where the shades were drawn and an electric fan stirred the heavy air. In this room there was an odor like violets on the edge of decay.
Under the sheet on the bed lay the thin figure of an elderly woman, her white hair spread like a lace fan on the pillow, her brown face a mass of deep cracks and wrinkles.
“I’m leaving for school, Paloma.” Rick’s voice was gentle and articulate now, very much different from the street inflections of a moment before. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, gracias.” The old woman slowly sat up and tried to adjust her pillow with a skinny hand, but Rick was quickly there to help. “Are you working today?” she asked.
“Sí. I’ll be home about six.” He worked three afternoons a week at the Inferno Hardware Store, and would have worked longer hours if Mr. Luttrell let him. But jobs were hard to come by, and his grandmother needed to be watched over. Someone from the volunteer committee at the church brought her a boxed lunch every day, Mrs. Ramirez from next door came over to check on her from time to time and Father LaPrado often stopped by, but Rick didn’t like leaving her alone so much. At school, he was tormented by the fear that she might fall and break her hip or back, and lie suffering in this awful house until he came home. But they had to have the money from his stockboy job, and that was all there was to it.
“What was that noise I heard?” she asked. “A horn blowing. It woke me up.”
“Nothing. Just somebody passing by.”
“I heard shouting. There’s too much noise on this street. Too much trouble. Someday we’ll live on a quiet street, won’t we?”
“We will,” he replied, and he stroked his grandmother’s thin white hair with the same hand that had delivered a power salute.
She reached up, grasping his hand. “You be a good boy today, Ricardo. You do good at school, sí?”
“I’ll try.” He looked into her face. The cataracts on her eyes were pale gray, and she could hardly see at all. She was seventy-one years old, had fought off the effects of two minor strokes, and still had most of her own teeth. Her hair had turned white at an early age, and that was where her name—Paloma, the dove—came from. Her real name was peasant Mexican, almost unpronounceable even to his tongue. “I want you to be careful today,” he said. “Do you want the shades up?”
She shook her head. “Too bright. But I’ll be fine when I have my operation. Then I’ll see everything—better than you, even!”
“You already see everything better than me.” He bent over and kissed her forehead. Again he caught that odor of decaying violets.
Her fingers found one of the leather bracelets. “These things again? Why do you wear these things?”
“No reason. It’s just the style.” He pulled his hand away.
“The style. Sí.” Paloma smiled faintly. “And who sets that style, Ricardo? Probably somebody you don’t know and wouldn’t like anyway.” She tapped her skull. “You use this. You live your own style, not somebody else’s.”
“It’s hard to do.”
“
I know. But that’s how you become your own man, instead of an echo.” Paloma turned her head toward the window. The harsh edges of light that crept around the shade made her head ache. “Your mother … now she’s the stylish one,” Paloma said softly.
Rick was caught off guard. It had been a long time since Paloma had mentioned his mother. He waited, but she said nothing else. “It’s almost eight. I’d better go.”
“Yes. You’d better go on. You don’t want to be late, Mr. Senior.”
“I’ll be home at six,” he told her, and then he went to the door; but before he left the room he glanced quickly back at the frail form on the bed and he said, as he did every morning before he went to school, “I love you.”
And she answered, as she always did, “Double love back to you.”
Rick closed the bedroom door behind him. As he walked through the hallway again, he realized that his grandmother’s wish of double love had been enough for him when he was a child; but beyond this house, out in the world where the sun beat down like a sledgehammer and mercy was a coward’s word, a wish of double love from a dying old woman would not protect him.
Every step he took brought a subtle change to his face. His eyes lost their softness, took on a hard, cold glare. His mouth tightened, became a grim and bitter line. He stopped before he reached the door and plucked a white fedora with a snakeskin band from its wall hook. He put the hat on before a discolored mirror, tilting it to the proper angle of cool. Then he slid his hand into his jeans pocket and felt the silver switchblade there. Its handle was of green jade and had an embedded cameo of Jesus Christ, and Rick recalled the day he’d snatched that blade—the Fang of Jesus—out of a box where a rattler lay coiled.
He had the mean, ass-kicking look in his eyes now, and he was ready to go.
Once he stepped through that door, the Rick Jurado who cared for his Paloma would be left behind, and the Rick Jurado who was president of the Rattlesnakes would emerge. She had never seen that face, and sometimes he was thankful for the cataracts—but that was how it had to be, if he wanted to survive against Lockett and the Renegades. He dared not let the mask fall, but sometimes he forgot which was the mask and which was the man.