There was no mayor in Zamora. There was a county sheriff, county commissioners, county boards and departments where Zamora was hardly represented. There was also a water collaborative in the village where grievances over irrigation could be addressed. Elected or not, Hector Trujillo played the role of village chief.
At half past eleven, he heard a shot from the direction of the Ryan place. He ran madly, arriving just as an unfamiliar late-model car skidded onto the road. He did not see the driver but the moonlight was strong enough to note the license number.
Nearby, he found the man he knew to be Kate Ryan’s lover lying in the portion of yard used for parking. Kate’s car was in its usual spot. There was no sign of her or Ruby.
“I’m hurt,” Troy wept.
Hector leaned over the deflated body and crossed himself. “You hit?”
Troy rolled on his back. Hector saw that blood had soaked the man’s slacks midway down his left leg and spread on the ground.
“I’m bleeding to death for sure,” he groaned.
“No, no,” Hector said to comfort him. “You be fine.”
Hector rushed into Kate’s house. It was in total disarray. He snatched pillows, towels, blankets, sheets.
“Ruby!” he called. “Kate!”
No answer. Maybe they were shot too.
Returning outside, he propped up Troy’s leg, tucked a blanket around his body, stanched the wound with a ripped towel.
“Thanks a lot,” Troy mumbled. He’d never liked Mexicans but Hector had come in handy.
“Where’s Ruby?” Hector asked.
“Little fucker shot me.”
Hector didn’t believe it for a minute. The wounded man was in a state of delirium. Hector would wait. He would not press for details.
“I going to find Dr. Tanner and call emergency, okay?”
Troy blinked. He could use a big shot of morphine.
Hector did a quick sweep of the house and grounds but turned up nothing. No body, no gun, no sign of blood. Only emptied drawers and strewn garbage.
“Thank you, Jesús,” Hector exclaimed, crossing himself.
At that moment, David Tanner and Kate were returning from the opera and a late supper on Canyon Road. Both were giddy from an evening of Puccini and several glasses of wine. Across from the entrance to the Ryan place, David’s high beams illuminated a spectral Hector Trujillo, waving frantically.
David lurched to a stop. “What?”
“Ruby?” Kate panicked.
“A man,” Hector hesitated, confused how to identify Troy.
“Ruby!” Kate flung open the car door and started to run.
Hector Trujillo shrugged with shame.
“Get in,” David ordered.
Troy lay under the blanket, bawling, “Fucking cunt bitch! Fucking freak bitch!”
“Troy!” Kate stared as if he’d risen from the dead.
David kneeled beside him. He ordered Hector to fetch an emergency kit from the trunk, boil a pot of water, bring more towels from the house.
“Where’s Ruby?” Kate’s eyes cursed Troy.
He didn’t answer. He watched David Tanner slice off the leg of Charlene’s cousin’s pants and palpate the area around the knee. He almost fainted from the pain.
David assessed the wound. The bullet had grazed the patella but the kneecap wasn’t shattered.
“Ruby?” Kate wanted to strangle him.
“Bitch shot me,” Troy said slow and low.
“What’d you say?” David demanded.
“Ruby shot me.”
“That’s not true!” Kate said.
Coruscating moonlight drenched the cars, the tool shed, the chicken coop. Kate ran around the yard. “Ruby! Ruby!” she shouted. At the sight of the front room, she gagged.
Hector stood at the stove, waiting for water to boil and casting an eye at Kate Ryan. He knew what it was to have trouble in the blood. One of his brothers killed his own wife. Two nephews were in prison.
“Kate,” he said with all the kindness in his heart, “Ruby is not here.”
“Troy said Ruby shot him.”
“He said same thing to me. But he’s crazy with pain. He doesn’t know what he saying. I saw who shot him. I saw with my own eyes.”
“Who?” Kate struggled through the sobs.
“Somebody in a new car, a white dusty car. Maybe Honda Accord. I never seen this car anywhere. It didn’t come from Zamora.” Hector tapped his forehead, “I took down the license number.”
“Who? Who was in the car?”
“It was my misfortune not to see the driver.”
“Kidnapped,” Kate burst out.
“I think only one was in the car.”
“In the trunk or on the floor,” Kate cried.
She stepped around the mess. A fight had obviously occurred. Kate suddenly understood. She sprang through the front door and bounded to Troy’s side.
“Can you give me something, doc?” he asked.
“The house is wrecked,” she waved. “Somebody went in there to find something. It’s only one thing.”
“What?” David asked as he washed and dressed the wound.
“Something for pain,” Troy said.
Kate gulped back the tears. “Him!” She jabbed Troy’s chest. “You put those drugs inside my sewing machine, didn’t you?”
Troy couldn’t think straight with a throbbing knee. The knee consumed him.
“He stored his drugs here. Whoever came knew that. They tore up the house and kidnapped Ruby.”
“That sounds right,” Hector nodded. “I only saw the car. It was going very fast. But I got the license plate number in my head.”
Kate rose to full size. Her devotion to kindness, her compassion for suffering, her quest for a spiritual life, evaporated. She put her foot on Troy and pressed.
“Who took Ruby?” she demanded.
When he looked up, he saw Charlene’s busted face swinging from the cottonwood. “You crazy bitch! I’m saying she shot me!”
“Were those your drugs?” David asked him.
“Nobody been here but her and me. She shot me. She took my car. That’s the story.”
“What car?”
“My money came from Texas so I brought back your cash.”
Kate clasped her hands over her heart. She sank to the ground and folded her knees beneath her, raising her eyes to the brightest moon in the history of the world and imploring Selene, goddess of the moon, Mary, Jesus, Kwan Yin, and Krishna, intoning their names over and over. Drugs, cars, guns, money, none of it mattered. Only Ruby mattered.