Rain Gods (Hackberry Holland 2)

They topped a rise and turned onto a dirt road and followed it for two miles until they came out on the cusp of a sloping plain of alluvial grit and alkali and green mesquite. They stopped between two dun-colored bluffs, and their leader consulted a topographical map without dismounting, then used binoculars to study a small stucco house set against a mountain that contained a shadow-darkened opening in its face. ?Bingo,? he said.

The three men dismounted and touched fists and parked their hogs down in a gulley and built a fire and cooked their food on sticks. When they had finished eating, they pissed on the flames in the sunset and rolled out their sleeping bags and smoked weed and, like spectators at an exotic zoo, silently watched a coyote with a stiffened back leg try to keep up with a pack climbing a hill. Then they fell asleep.

On the fair side of the plain, the stucco house was quiet. A solitary figure sat on a metal chair in front of the opening to a shored-up cave, staring at the mantle of gold light on the hills, his expression as removed from earthly concerns as that of a man whose severed head had just been placed on a platter.

17

BUT IN THE morning, the man who lived upon occasion in the stucco house was not to be found. The bikers had approached the house on foot from three directions, the sun still buried beneath the earth?s rim, the light so weak their bodies cast no shadows on the ground. A compact car was parked twenty yards away from the house, the doors unlocked, the keys hanging in the ignition. The bikers kicked open the front and back doors of the house, turned over the bed, raked the clothes out of the closets, and tore the plywood out of the ceiling to see if Preacher was hiding in an attic or crawl space.

?The mine shaft,? one of them said.

?Where?? another said.

?Up on the mountain. There?s no other place he could be. Josef said he?s on crutches.?

?How?d he know we were coming??

?The Mexicans say he walks through walls.?

?That?s why their country would make a great golf course, as long as it was run by white people.?

The bikers spread out and approached the opening on the mountainside, their weapons hanging loosely at their sides. They wore needle- nosed cowboy boots that were metal-plated around the heels and toes, jeans that were stiff with grit and road grime, and shirts whose sleeves were razored off at the armpits. Their hair was sunburned at the tips and grew in locks on the backs of their necks. Their bodies had the tendons and lean hardness of men who lifted weights daily and for whom narcissism was a virtue and not a character defect.

Their leader was named Tim. He stood two inches taller than his companions and wore a gold earring in one earlobe and a beard that ran along his jawline like a cluster of black ants. A Glock semiautomatic hung from his right hand. He paused in front of the cave and slipped the gun into the back of his belt, as though enacting a private ritual unrelated to what anyone thought of him. He took a breath and entered the cave. He produced a penlight from his jeans, clicked it on, and shone it into the darkness.

?It?s a mine?? one of his companions said.

?I can feel a breeze blowing through it. It?s got to have a second opening.?

?You see the guy??

?No, that?s why I said it?s got a second opening. Maybe he went through it and out the other side.?

?Where?s it go??

Tim continued to walk deeper into the cave, the beam of his penlight watery and diffuse on the walls. ?Come have a look at this.?

?At what??

?Did you see Snakes on a Plane??

The two bikers who had remained outside the cave stepped into the darkness. Tim aimed the penlight in front of him, pointing it down a passageway that twisted into the mountain.

?Jesus!? one of them said.

?They go where there?s food or water. Maybe a cougar dragged its kill in here,? Tim said. ?You ever see that many in one place??

?Maybe Collins is a ghoul. Maybe he dumps his victims in here.?

?Go down and check it out. They rattle before they strike. They?re not rattling. You?ll be okay.?

?How about that one on the ledge behind you??

The other two bikers waited, smiles on their faces, expecting Tim to jump. Instead, he turned around and shone the light into a diamondback?s eyes. He picked up a piece of splintered timber that had fallen from the roof. He poked at the snake?s head with it, then bedeviled it in the stomach, and finally, lifted it up in a coil and flipped it into the darkness.

?You?re not afraid of snakes??

?I?m afraid of bad information. I think this Texas bunch is jerking Josef around. This guy Collins is a hitter, not a pimp. Hitters don?t boost somebody else?s whores.?