“Hah, we’re talking about Hunter Kincaid here. Hunter T-For-Trouble Kincaid. Take the handie-talkie, just in case.”
“I will.”
“And be careful, I mean it. You’re giving me gray hairs.”
Hunter grinned at her friend, “Ten-four, canoso.”
“I’m not totally gray-haired yet, but you’re speeding it along.”
Fifteen minutes later she was in Mexico, driving a friend’s four-wheel-drive Dodge Ram pickup, and stopping in front of the Waru Hotel. Adan wasn’t there.
She started to open her door when he raced to the passenger’s side and hopped in, looking frightened. Hunter said, “What’s the matter?”
“I saw the man who pushed Dario.”
“Here?”
“He drove slow, like he was looking for someone. I hid. I don’t think he saw me, but he’s been by twice.”
She drove away from the Waru, “You’re safe now. Which way do we go?”
Adan looked behind them to reassure himself, then faced forward and pointed, “That way, for a while.”
Hunter drove along the river and out of Ojinaga, into the areas of small ejidos, the single small farms, and larger farms of land owners, which led to miles of desert scrub with draws and small canyons. The Maderas Del Carmen showed mauve in the distance, as did the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park on the north side of the Rio Bravo. They made good time, with the roads not carrying much traffic other than occasional farm trucks.
They checked everything out as they drove, but didn’t check the one that drove four vehicles behind them.
Ellis rode there in a Jeep Rubicon, intent on keeping Hunter’s vehicle in sight. His phone rang and he answered while stopping on top of a hill for better reception, “Yes?”
Winston Hart said, “You got that kid in sight?”
“He’s with that female Border Patrol Agent. She’s in Mexico in regular clothes, and they’re driving down river on the Mexican side. I’m pretty sure they’re going to the old mine.”
“That might be handy. Did I ever tell you what my grandfather used to do with gr
easers?”
He had, but Ellis liked to placate the old man. It seemed to make him happy to tell it, “No, I don’t believe you did.”
“He’d work them for a good while, months, sometimes a year without paying them, promising that he would, and then when they became too pushy, he’d tell them they needed to go out on the ranch and do one more day’s work, then he’d pay them. There’s a cave on the ranch and he’d take them there and tell them to shovel up some bat guano down in there, not much, just a few bags for fertilizer, and they could go. They always did it, climbed down the ladder and grabbed shovels, started scooping the bat guano in the bags. That’s when my granddad would get his Thompson and come back and mow them down. There was a dropoff in the cave beside the guano and he’d climb down and push them off in it.”
“How long did he do that?”
“Least twenty years that I know of. He was real old there at the last, ninety-one when he died. He could barely make it up and down the ladder that last year,” Ellis heard a soft chuckle, “But he could still use that Thompson.”
“You ever go out there with him?”
“There at the last. He liked a little help at that age. He let me push them into the dropoff, but wouldn’t let me use the Thompson. He liked that part for himself.”
“What was the Thompson like?”
“It was a beauty, and he kept it clean and oiled after every use. He had the wood polished, too, nice deep, warm tones. It had a drum magazine, like they show in all the gangster movies, and held a hundred rounds. He could make that thing talk, I tell you.”
“You still have it?”
“I do. I keep it beside my bed in a small cabinet, oiled and ready.”
“That’s a great story.”