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November 17, 9 p.m.—Six months earlier
Through the trees, amidst the tall grass past the brambles of blackberry and ivy, he sees them. Two gringos. The one he had meant to follow lies on the ground next to his car, what was once a shiny red Camaro. The other man wears a baseball hat and flannel shirt. He swings something at the other, hits him. A metal bar of some kind. He hits him again, and again. Mi Dios. He is beating the other gringo to pieces.
He checks the safety of his pistol, a .40 caliber S&W. He crosses himself and kneels in the damp underbrush. The man in the hat does not seem to know he is there, but there is no need to take foolish chances.
The gringo on the ground cries out in pain. The other man keeps beating him, sometimes cursing. More cries of pain. Another. Another. Still the man in the hat beats him. The beating is savage, relentless, almost too horrible to watch.
Almost. If it were any other gringo on the ground, he might intervene. But not for this man. This slime. This woman-stealing hibrido. Any beating he gets, he deserves. This and more.
Finally, the cries of pain cease. The man in the hat stops the beating. He stands over the body, shaking, crying. He chokes, trying not to vomit maybe. He stands there two, three minutes, bent over, and holds his stomach.
The man straightens and seems to pull himself together. He picks something up off of the ground—several things. Little things. Specks of white. The man takes a long look again at the body, the hated body, then returns to his truck. A silver Ford, much like the Mazda pickup stuck in the ditch not far from here. It will be a bitch to get out later.
The man in the hat reaches into the dead man’s car and pulls out a rag. He wipes the driver’s side, especially the door handle. He scuffs his feet on the ground in a wide path on the way back to his truck. He puts the things he picked up into his truck, then drives in reverse, fifty, a hundred feet. He gets out again, kicks gravel and mud in the path he just drove, back to where he had been parked before. Covering his tracks. The gringo does not want to be discovered.
Finally the man in the baseball hat drives away. If he stays on the main road, he will not notice the Mazda in the ditch. If he sees it, he might be back. Best to stay put for now.
A long time passes. Thirty minutes, an hour. The silver Ford pickup does not return.
He stands. The body lies motionless in the tall grass next to the red Camaro—the body of the gringo that tried to steal his woman. With luck he is dead. Or dead soon, after suffering long hours for his sins, his hubris.
He takes slow, deliberate steps toward the body. He watches for movement, for signs of life. The body lies still, like a corpse, but he cannot be sure.
As he walks, he wonders about the man who did this, about why he did it. Perhaps he, too, lost a woman to the gringo. When a man acts as a predator, stealing love and beauty from the arms of another man, one prize is never enough. He needs another, and another. He cannot stop stealing until he is dead.
He must be stopped.
He reaches the body. It lies flat on its back, bloodied and broken. Its hands cover its groin, protecting its sex organs, but the organs and the hands are smashed to a pulp. The body’s eyes are closed, its mouth open. He leans over the body to listen for breathing.
“Are you dead, gringo?” he asks. The body does not respond. He kicks it. It rolls partway onto its side. He kicks it harder, shoves it with his foot. The body shifts onto its side, then rests there. He can’t tell if it is breathing, does not want to touch it to check for a pulse. He waits.
He clutches the gun, wondering if it is needed. His palm is damp. The gun feels cold in his hand. Cold and strange.
He feels for warm breath coming from the man’s mouth. He can’t tell. He bends over closer to listen. He hears a choking, gagging sound. Still alive.
He aims the pistol and presses his finger against the safety. But it does not slide. After a moment, he takes his finger off the safety. No. No guns. He has a better plan.
He whirls and runs down the gravel road, reaches his truck in what seems like moments, though it is a few hundred yards away. He searches the cab behind the seat for the car jack kit. He panics when the black bar is missing, the one that would match the bar used by the man in the hat. He tugs at the jumper seat, tears it away from the wall of the cab. He is breathing harder now than when he ran. He searches the cavity behind the jumper seat—no luck. He crawls into the cramped cab so he can reach the jump seat on the other side. He pulls it forward. The bar tumbles to the floor. He grabs the bar in both hands, rests his head against it. Gracias, mi Dios. He waits there, catches his breath.
There is one more thing. He zips up his leather jacket and ties the white apron from Florentino’s around him. This could get messy, after all.
He walks back to the body. It takes time, but no matter. He has lots of time.
Not so the gringo. Minutes from now, he will die.
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