Border Field Blues Read online

  His private investigator training had taught him a lot about looking up names, searching through public records. It provided lots of information on legalities, how to cover your ass. It even taught him how to set up a stakeout, but he couldn’t remember any lessons covering tire treads. He’d have to figure those out on his own.

  A cloud of dust swirled across the least tern preserve. It blew up into his nostrils, arid and warm, a reminder of the approaching dry season, the hot Santa Ana winds that came in from the desert. He sighed, anticipating a morning of parched defeat.

  A twinkling reflection caught his eye, a sparkle of light winking out at him from inside a tangle of low-growing plants. He walked to the bottom of the hill, stopped to check for any potential witnesses to his intended trespass. No one appeared. He stepped over the low-slung chain links and into the least tern breeding grounds, walked towards the blinking reflection.

  Something screamed, flurried up from below him. A scrambling brush of feathers whirled up in front of his eyes. He raised his hands to protect his face. The feathers twisted away from him, catching an updraft. A gray and white bird floated above him, screaming, calling him names. He looked down at his feet, saw two brown-speckled eggs nestled inside a shallow depression of sand. He stepped around the nest, and moved on, keeping a careful eye as he followed the tire tracks. Pieces of eggshells and their dried-up contents littered the tread marks. He leaned down, looked closer. The screaming bird flew away. Embedded in the edge of one tread mark was a mashed chunk of crushed feathers, a tiny yellow beak. At least one tern chick had been lost to the driver’s recklessness.

  He pulled out his cell phone, switched to camera mode, snapped some photographs of the treads and crushed feathers. Slipping the phone back into his pocket, he saw the blinking light again, inside a patch of ice plant. He walked closer, spotted what looked like a CD case clutched in the plant’s tentacles. The square plastic case quivered in the wind as if trying to escape. He leaned down, picked it up. On the front cover of the album, an alluring young woman stared out at him. She was naked except for the strategic cover of a few jungle vines across her breasts. A large snake, a cobra, curled around her upper leg and spread across her hips, covering her womanhood. Jungle Love was the title of the album, by a band called Serpent. Rolly flipped the case over, tried to read the back credits, but the type was too small for his aging pupils. He opened the case, found a blank CD inside, sans label.

  “Attention, Attention,” a distorted voice blared across the morning air.

  Rolly jolted, turned his head in the direction of the voice. A black pickup truck sat next to the ranger’s booth, just inside the park entrance.

  “Attention. You are in a restricted zone,” a voice blared from the truck. “You must return to the trail. Attention. Return to the trail.”

  Rolly waved in acknowledgement.

  “Attention,” called the voice. “Return to the trail or you will be placed under arrest.”

  Rolly waved again, slipped the CD case into his jacket pocket and walked back towards the trail.

  El Cazador

  (The Hunter)

  Rolly walked along the road towards the truck. As he drew close, the driver’s side window slid down, revealing a man wearing a camouflage shirt, baseball cap, and reflective sunglasses.

  “You can’t read signs or something?” the man said.

  “Just picking up some trash,” Rolly said, tapping his pockets. “I hate litterbugs.”

  “I guess that makes it okay to break the law?”

  “Are you a ranger?” asked Rolly. The truck was fully rigged for off-roading, with jacked-up shocks and big tires, a crossbeam of racked headlights over the cabin, and some sort of winch or tow structure in back. No government seal adorned the exterior.

  “No, I ain’t the ranger.” the man said. “I’m a private citizen, trying to make a difference down here.”

  “You’re an avian enthusiast?”

  “An A-V what?”

  “A birdwatcher.”

  The man laughed.

  “I don’t know shit about any birds. I’m hunting for Mexicans.”

  “You’re with the border patrol?”

  “Do I look like BP?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “I’m not Mexican, either.”

  “No. I guess you’re not. There’s a fine, you know, for being out there, in the bird area.”

  “You’re not the ranger.”

  “No.”

  “I guess we’re done then,” said Rolly, turning to leave.

  “If that’s your Volvo station wagon in the parking lot, I got the license plate,” the man said. “I can call the parks people, tell ‘em you was out there.”

  Rolly sighed and turned back to the driver.

  “What do you want?”

  “I wanna know what you’re up to. And don’t give me that litterbug shit. Nobody crosses the chains just to pick up trash.”

  “A friend of mine called me this morning. He asked me to come down here.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m an investigator.”

  “What kind of investigator?”

  “Here, I’ve got a card,” Rolly sighed. He pulled a business card out of his wallet, handed it over.

  “Rolly Waters,” the man said, reading the card. “Private Investigator.”

  “That’s me.”

  “The Rock ‘n’ Roll Dick. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s a joke,” Rolly said. “I play guitar in a band.” He regretted letting Moogus talk him into adding the tagline to his card. There were four hundred more cards in a box at home, so he’d have to live with it for a while.

  “Real cute,” said the truck driver. “So what’re you investigay-tun, Mr. Dick?”

  “Somebody drove through the least tern nesting area last night. That’s why I was out there. There’s some tire tracks, big ruts all over the place. Looks like some birds got killed.”

  “This friend, he’s your client or something?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You gotta protect his confidentials, huh?”

  “Confidentiality.”

  “Yeah. This friend of yours, he’s paying you to investigate?”

  “He was very upset.”

  “About the birds?”

  “He likes birds.”

  “Sounds kinda gay.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “Depends. Can you tell me anything about the tire tracks?”

  “Like what?”

  “What kind of treads? Cross-country or street?”

  “I don’t know much about tires. I took some pictures.”

  “Can I see ‘em?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, Mr. Rock ‘n’ Roll Dick, you said you didn’t know anything about tires. I do. Maybe I can help you out.”

  Rolly pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, scrolled through his photos until he found one of the tire tracks, flipped the phone around to show it to his interrogator.

  “Regular treads,” said the driver, studying the photo. “Pretty skinny, too, two-hundreds I’d guess.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means they weren’t driving some jacked up sand-crawler like mine. Some underpowered putt-putt, or maybe a sedan. That’s what I’d guess.”

  He handed the phone back to Rolly.

  “That help?”

  “It might. Thanks.”

  A radio squawked from inside the truck cab.

  “Breaker three-ninety. Checking in. Smuggler’s Canyon.”

  “Roger three-ninety,” came the reply. The truck driver punched a button on the radio. It went silent.

  “Who’s that?” Rolly asked.

  “Border Patrol.”

  “You can listen to them?”

  “Sure, if you got short-wave.”

  “Don’t the b
ad guys listen in, too?”

  “The frequency’s scrambled. You gotta have the code.”

  “So how’d you get it?”

  “I got friends.”

  “Doesn’t exactly sound legal.”

  “He said it was cool.”

  “He’s with the Border Patrol?”

  “Nobody’s gonna give me a hard time for just listening in. I’m not making calls on the thing. It just lets me know how they’re situated so I can fill in the dead spots, stay out of their way.”

  “You weren’t out here last night, by any chance, were you?”

  “Those aren’t my tire tracks, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you told me,” said Rolly. “What’d you say your name was?”

  “I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you before.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “People call me Nuge.”

  “You mean The Nuge, like Ted Nugent?”

  “No, it’s just Nuge.”

  “Cat Scratch Fever? The Motor City Madman?”

  “Hey, you’re the rock ‘n’ roll dick. I’m Nuge. You got a problem with it?”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Just hanging out.”

  “You said something about hunting Mexicans.”

  “Did I?”

  “You meant illegals, right?”

  The man nodded.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “Isn’t that the border patrol’s job?”

  “We’re here to help.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “A - F - A,” the man said. He pointed at the cap on his head, with the letters embroidered in red, white and blue over a black silhouette of the lower forty-eight.

  “What’s that stand for?”

  “Americans for America,” the man said. He grinned. “Mom, Guns, and Apple Pie.”

  “Do you carry a gun?”

  Nuge stared Rolly in the eye.

  “You tell me first.”

  “What?”

  “Are you carrying?”

  “I might be.”

  “What kind of gun?”

  “It’s a Glock.”

  “What caliber?”

  “Um, forty-four.”

  “Glock only sells forty-fives.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “You’re one lame-ass liar,” said Nuge.

  “Yeah, I used to be a lot better,” Rolly said. He smiled, trying to defuse the situation. Nuge chuckled.

  “You ain’t much of a detective, if you ask me.”

  Rolly shrugged.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t have my gun either,” said Nuge. “Not with me. Some fag-ass judge said we couldn’t have ‘em if we wanted to be down here.”

  “I think I heard something about that,” said Rolly, recalling Max’s lawsuit.

  “Said it created a toxic situation. Typical liberal bullshit. We only had ‘em with us for defense. Anyway, that’s how I got the paintball idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Got my gear in the back,” Nuge said, nodding his head towards the back of the truck. Rolly looked in the truck bed. Two paintball guns lay in the back of the truck, along with a visored helmet and two cardboard boxes marked ‘Paintballs - 1000ct.’

  “What do you do with those?” Rolly asked.

  “Shoot Mexicans. To mark ‘em.”

  “You sure that’s legal?”

  “The judge said we couldn’t carry real guns. So we use paint guns. Until he says otherwise. It’s not lethal force. I checked with our lawyer.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt, when you shoot somebody?”

  “Kinda stings, if you hit ‘em right, but there’s no permanent damage. Mostly, it makes them easy to pick up. We only shoot the ones that try to get away.”

  “Oh.”

  “I mean it’s kinda hard not to be noticed when you’re walking around with big splats of red, white and blue paint all over you. It most definitely leaves a stain.”

  “Yeah, I guess it would,” said Rolly. “What about drug smugglers?”

  “What about ‘em?”

  “I figure there must be some down here.”

  “You looking to score some dope, Mr. Rock ‘n’ Roll?”

  “No,” Rolly said, rolling his eyes. “I was just wondering how you’d deal with someone like that. Last I heard, those guys carry real guns.”

  “We could take ‘em,” the man said. “There’s ways to do it. The drug guys don’t mess around here much, anyway, not anymore. They just bribe people, put stuff on a plane or a boat, hide it inside a big rig. They like to bring the stuff in at peak hours, hide out in a crowd and hope it gets missed.”

  “Low signal to noise.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Nothing. It’s not important.”

  Rolly looked over the items in the truck bed again, noticed a child’s lunchbox with the words “Family Act” written in cursive pink letters, with sparkling gold stars around them.

  “You got kids?” he asked Nuge.

  “Huh?”

  “I thought that might be your kid’s lunchbox back there, with the guns.”

  Nuge gave Rolly a funny look.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing. Just making conversation.”

  “Fuck you. What else did you find out there?”

  “In the bird preserve?”

  “Yeah, in the bird preserve, butthead.”

  “I just took some pictures. Like I showed you. The tire tracks. And some dead birds.”

  “I saw you pick something up.”

  “Just some trash. Like I said earlier.”

  “Don’t fuck with me. It was some kind of evidence.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So what was it?”

  “I just had a thought.”

  “Pretty exciting for you, huh?”

  “Maybe one of your AFA buddies was out here last night.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “That’s why you’re giving me a hard time. Maybe it wasn’t you, but maybe you want to protect your buddies, make sure that judge doesn’t find out about this.”

  “Why would I help you out with those tread marks if I thought that?”

  “Were any of your buddies out here last night?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know? Is there a schedule or something?”

  “No.”

  “People just show up when they feel like it?”

  “No. I mean, sure, there’s a schedule. But I only know about my own hours, man.”

  “Who keeps track of the schedule?”

  “It’s on a website.”

  “How do I get to this website?”

  “You gotta have a password to get in.”

  “How about a phone number? Is there somebody I can call?”

  “None of our guys is gonna be out here with treads like that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t have to talk to you. You aren’t a cop.”

  “No. Neither are you.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “That’s helpful.”

  “I’m out of here. Good luck with your freaking birds.”

  Nuge put his truck into gear, hit the gas and took off. Rolly caught the spray of damp sand kicked up by the slipping rear tires.

  “Good luck hunting Mexicans, shithead,” he muttered, wiping himself off as the truck pulled away. He turned and walked back to his car, half-expecting Nuge to spin a u-turn and try to run him down. He made it to the parking lot, and his old Volvo wagon, without incident. He opened the door of the Volvo and climbed in, pulled the CD out of his pocket, looked at the woman on the cover again. She had long red hair, like a billowing fire. A trace of desert wind, the Santa Ana, drifted over his face like hot dog’s breath. He licked his lips. They felt dry and ready to crack.

  El Vaquero

  (The Cowboy)

  A rattling noise caught Rolly’s attention. He look
ed up from the red-haired temptress on the CD cover to see a dilapidated green Chevy pull into the parking lot, hauling a long horse trailer behind it. A man in a cowboy hat climbed out of the truck, walked to the back of the trailer, guided a horse out and saddled it. The man’s easy demeanor suggested he’d done this before, his hands as sure with a saddle and halter as Rolly’s stringing an electric guitar. The cowboy retrieved two more horses from inside the trailer and prepared them for riding as well.

  Rolly climbed out of his car, trudged towards the trailer. The three horses stared at him as he approached, looking less than thrilled their morning had started this way. A crashing sound came from inside the trailer. A voice cursed in Spanish. The rear end of another horse appeared, kicking its hooves at the hardscrabble ground. The front half of the horse exited the trailer, along with the cowboy, clinging to its reins. As the horse reared back and pawed at the air, the cowboy slipped to one side, narrowly escaping its sharp hooves. The horse dropped back to the ground. The cowboy shortened its reins, looped them twice around a hook on the back of the trailer and pulled them tight. The horse tried to rear up again, but the reins held. The horse shook its head, snorted twice, and settled into a pose of resignation like its trailer mates. The cowboy tied off the reins, ducked down between the horse and the trailer.

  “Buenos Dias, Señor,” he said, doffing his hat when he spotted Rolly. He took a seat on the trailer’s rear bumper and pulled a red handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped his brow.

  “Buenos Dias,” said Rolly.

  “You like a ride?” the cowboy asked, nodding in the direction of the saddled horses.

  “No, thank you.” Rolly replied.

  “I give you good price.”

  “It looks too dangerous for me.”

  The man laughed.

  “They are good horses,” he said. “But they no like the trailer. Every day, it is like they never see it before.”

  “Are you out here often?”

  “Sí, everyday, in the summer. I am here, with the horses.”

  “You rent them out?”