This story was inspired by events occurring in Robert Rodriguez's "Desperado", and is dedicated to Mojave Dragonfly, über-beta. Thanks for the politically incorrect suggestion and all the massaging!
Sudden, violent death can leave a man with unfinished business. In this tale, a ghostly mariachi accompanies a teenage car thief on
The Road From Santa Cecelia
Elda spent most of her time at the west end of town. She liked its seclusion; few people had reason to go out there since the shoe factory closed down, so she could relax a little and not have to look over her shoulder so much. She was the only witness on the day when three strangers came together at the end of Via laPaz, near the old factory. The big car everyone knew belonged to Señor Bucho drove toward them, followed by another car, and all hell broke loose.
She hid under the stairs of the factory and hoped no bullets would find her there. One of Bucho's men went clattering up over her head to shoot down on the melee below. Reinforcements arrived in an old jeep. One of the strangers was shooting at Bucho's men--he seemed to have a great many guns--another one was firing some kind of rocket launcher at them, only it looked like a guitar case. The third man had two guitar cases which sprayed the cartel men with a steady stream of bullets.
When the shooting stopped and the smoke cleared, she emerged cautiously. There were many men dead and numerous blown-up vehicles in the area. If these were really Bucho's men, they were bound to have money - maybe even enough money to finally get her out of this shitty town. She started rummaging in their pockets, occasionally grimacing at the gore involved. It wasn't as if she'd never seen shootings before--Santa Cecelia was a lawless town--but this was the first time Elda had ever gotten so close to the aftermath. There were guns everywhere, it seemed, and spent cartridges glittering in the sand, bright nuggets of deadly treasure.
Campa had a strange sense of disorientation. It was a little like being very drunk, except nothing was spinning. When he looked around, he was standing in the middle of a dusty street full of smoldering wrecked cars and fallen pistoleros...and Quino's body lay nearby.
"Ah, damn, no!" he groaned, but it was definitely his friend who was lying shattered in the dirt. He bent down to close his friend's eyes, but nothing happened. Campa made several attempts, but the brown eyes, dulling in death, remained staring skyward.
Campa became aware that he couldn't feel anything. I'm dreaming, he thought with a measure of relief. Okay, it's a pretty horrible dream, but I've had worse.
A movement in the corner of his eye: a girl - young, somewhere between fourteen and seventeen, he figured. She made him think of a feral cat, with her snarled black hair and skittish movements. Methodically, she prowled from body to body, turning out their pockets and stuffing cash into her pockets and down the front of her baggy shirt. She lifted a man's arm and removed his watch.
"Hey!" he yelled at her. She didn't look up from her task. Of course, it was a dream. Strange things like this often happened in dreams. The cat-girl stood up and began to walk in his direction, and with dream-logic, he decided not to let her rifle through Quino's pockets.
But she wasn't aiming for Quino. She strode to where Campa stood and stooped, and began to go through his pockets instead. Campa blinked in disbelief. There he was, flat on his back, bulletholes riddling his body, bloody halos of color on his white shirt. Was this a bad dream, or wasn't it?
"Hey," he said again to the girl who was efficiently stripping him of his valuables.
The feral thief glanced up from his wallet, darting looks around the area before she filched the rest of his cash. She deposited the bills into her shirt, which was tucked into a frayed pair of jeans. "Enough to get out of here," she said aloud. "More than enough!" When she found the keys to Campa's truck, her face lit up. "And a way to get there! Boo-ya!"
Christ, what if he really was dead? How unlucky could you get? This was supposed to be his last run-in with trouble, he'd been that close to passing his guns on to Javier. Now, they'd rust in this grubby street, or fall into the hands of his enemies. He looked for Quino's armament. It looked like the case had taken a direct hit, if the crater near its former owner was any indication. "Take the guns," he told the girl. "Take them! Please don't leave them here."
Hesitating, she finally picked up the two cases. A skinny little bit of a thing, they were almost too heavy for her. She swayed a little with the weight of them as she went up the street. Either she'd seen him come into town, or she recognized El Toro Negro as a strange vehicle, but he didn't have to try to guide her to the truck; she found it almost at once.
Elda had lived in Santa Cecelia all her life, and she knew everyone's business. Finding the dead guy's truck was easy enough; it was parked right around the corner from the battleground and she'd never seen it before. You couldn't not notice a vehicle that big in a town so small for very long.
There was a trunk behind the cab instead of a bed, and the heavy cases might as well go in there. There was a third guitar case in the repository, as well as an old suitcase and some cartons of ammo. As much as Elda would've like to investigate, this wasn't a good time or place for it. Somebody else might come along to see what the fuss and shooting was all about, and try to interfere in her escape.
It took her a couple of tries to scramble up into the cab--it wasn't like a normal pick-up truck, it was some kind of heavy-duty industrial truck--rather high up for a petite girl like Elda. The engine cranked right away, and she was glad to see the gauge registered a full tank of gas. She wouldn't have to stop on the way out of town, which would only attract unwanted attention.
Joyriding around town had taught her to drive, but she'd never tried to go any farther. If she was arrested for car stealing, they'd send her away to prison for years and years, and that was no part of her plan. But the guy who owned this thing was dead, so he wouldn't be filing a police report, would he? It was up for grabs, and she'd grabbed it.
The sun was setting in the sky, an orange ball just to the left of the rearview mirror with the black and white fuzzy dice swaying from rumbling of the engine. Elda steered the big black truck westward toward her new life.
Campa was uneasy about leaving poor Quino behind, but it was more important that he stay with the girl and try to get her to give his guns to Javier. Had she heard him urging her? Maybe she'd just taken his cases because they might be valuable--she'd displayed no compunction about robbing the dead. Was he dead, or was this a crazy dream? Campa wasn't aware of any physical sensations, and he'd just floated into the cab of El Toro Negro beside the girl--but things like that happened in dreams all the time. Often when he had dreams, he was sure he was awake. So he couldn't go by that.
The mariachi sat looking at his oblivious companion as she drove. She'd ejected the cassette he'd been listening to--just a couple hours ago--turned the radio on, and immediately twirled the dial to loud rock and roll music. "What the hell is that crap, chica?" Campa grumbled. She sang along with the lyrics, and not even in the same discordant key. If she heard him, she gave no sign of it.
When he'd tried to close Quino's eyes, nothing had happened. Now, Campa tried very hard to spin the dial away from that station. He could see his hand touching the knob, but there was no sensation of contact. Concentrating for all he was worth, he thought of the motions needed: grip the smooth chrome and twist, roll his thumb so it would move...move...move, damn it! He tried bracing himself against the seat, he manhandled it with both hands, and after a titanic struggle, the knob slid just enough for the reception to disintegrate into static. Of course, he admitted, knowing the old truck's peculiarities, it might just be road vibration. He'd rarely used the radio for that reason.
The next half-hour became a battle of wills; the little thief would tune in the noisy music, and Campa would begin struggling to change the station. After eight tries--he was counting, because there wasn't much else to do--she finally gave up. She slid the cassette in, and Campa brightened for a moment: real music! But no, she popped it back out after less than a minute, shaking her head.
Well, she was just a kid. Kids didn't understand the difference between popular music and good music. Sometimes the popular stuff wasn't too bad, but an awful lot of it was junk as far as Campa was concerned.
How old was she? It was hard to tell if she was youthful or merely small in stature. Her loose-fitting shirt--padded with cash and the spoils of her looting - gave no clue as to whether her figure had started to blossom--and anyway, she could be flat-chested. Young and small, he finally decided. Her hands looked absurdly dainty on the thick steering wheel, and she had to sit up tall to see over it, but there was nothing childlike about her delicate features. Although she might've been a pretty girl--with a little effort on her part--there was a knowing look in her wide amber eyes that went hand-in-hand with the ability to steal from the dead without a qualm.
So far, she was heading in the right direction for his purposes, but sooner or later they would come to a crossroads, and Campa thought long and hard about the best way to get her attention. They eventually came to a wide place in the road, where there was a small gas station and store. The girl stopped - not for gas, there was still most of a tank - and went into the little market.
Campa was relieved to see she didn't flash her cash at the guy behind the counter--but not too surprised. This little one was as wily as any wild animal. She made a show of having only a few worn, small bills, which she exchanged for pay phone money and some churizo and a tin of soda crackers. The storekeeper made small talk and asked where she was headed. "Oaxaca," she said, taking the brown paper sack and jingling the tokens in her hand. "For my grandmother's funeral."
"Ah." He nodded with sympathy. "My condolences. Have a safe journey."
"Thank you." She rolled her eyes as soon as her back was to the guy. Campa assumed the grandmother was a total fabrication. But Oaxaca? Perfect. Javier would be right on her way. All he had to do was get through to her.
There was a pay phone at the store, and Elda dropped some tokens into the slot and dialed the number she'd long ago memorized but rarely used. "Who's this? Domingo? Put Marina on. It's Elda. Your aunt, Elda! Dumb kid," she muttered as her nephew ran off calling for his mother.
Her sister's voice came on the line. "Elda? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. I'm on my way to see you. Can you still get me a job?"
"You're coming here?" Marina sounded stunned. "To Acapulco?"
"Yeah, I got lucky--I'll tell you about it when I get there. Tomorrow, or maybe the day after. How about it? The job?"
"Oh, sure, sure--we'll find you something."
"Great. I'll call you when I get to town and you can give me directions. Bye!" She carried her dinner the rest of the way to the old bull-nosed truck and hauled herself back up into the cab. Unwrapping the sausage and prying the lid off the tin of crackers, she started the engine up and hit the road again.
As the girl--Elda--chatted on the phone, Campa scanned their surroundings out of habit. A dusty blue sedan came into the lot from the highway, with a flash of brakelights. When the driver got out of his car, Campa noticed that he seemed to be checking out El Toro Negro...that wasn't suspicious all by itself; the old truck had a lot of presence. The guy didn't approach as Elda hung up the phone and climbed back into the cab with her purchases.
The driver entered the store as Campa rejoined the teenager in the truck. "You spent your life looking over your shoulder, now you're gonna spend your afterlife the same way?" he scolded himself as Elda got back on the road.
They drove another forty miles before Elda pulled over for the night at a motel. It wasn't very classy, but surveying the other vehicles in the parking lot, Campa concluded the place mostly catered to travelers and wasn't a house of ill-repute. She shouldn't get into any trouble here.
Elda signed the register as "Maria Garcia" and paid cash with the pained look of someone giving up her last pesos. She was quite an actress, this one!
The girl found her assigned room, then retrieved Campa's suitcase and the third guitar case, depositing them on the bed. "What do you think you're doing?" he scolded her. "You really are something, helping yourself to anything you can get your hands on."
His young companion was exploring the room, carefully examining the walls. The mariachi was taken aback when she located a peephole in one of the panels and nodded, as if she'd expected no less. She moved a chair close to the aperture, and for good measure, wedged one of the bed's pillows between the back of the chair and the wall.
That done, and all the curtains closed, Elda pulled her shirt off and let her loot tumble to the carpet. Although she was standing there topless, Campa wasn't in the least turned on by the sight. He'd always preferred his women to have curves like a guitar, and this one never would. When she'd finished counting and sorting her plunder, Campa shook his head in disbelief. Almost thirty thousand pesos, five watches (his was the cheapest one) several rings and chains--he spotted Quino's silver Guadalupe medal--and somebody's fancy pocketknife bristling with gadgets.
Next she began investigating the contents of his suitcase, and no amount of Campa's shouting and swearing at her could stop that. It wasn't much; there was a clean shirt and pants, some socks and underwear, his shaving gear, a girlie magazine, a book of crossword puzzles and a small flask of tequila. "You're too young to drink that stuff!" he yelled as she picked up the flask. Elda emptied the contents down the drain, rinsed the container thoroughly, then filled it with tap water. The magazine went into the trash bin. Okay, at least she wasn't going to get sloshed and wreck his truck...
He tensed a bit when she opened the guitar case and reached in for its contents. "You be careful!" he admonished her. "I've had her since before you were born, and she wasn't new then!" The teenager settled the guitar on her knees and ran her fingers across the strings. It was obvious she had no idea how to play, and she soon replaced the instrument in its shapely coffin.
Watching her stash her new-found fortune in several modest caches, he had admire her strategy. Some of it was rolled up in the sausage wrapper and hidden at the bottom of the cracker tin. Another wad was wedged into a split in the lining of the suitcase. She divided the remains of the cash, separating large and small bills as well as old and new ones between her blue jean pockets. These she folded neatly and placed on the seat of the chair, careful not to dislodge the pillow.
While she showered, Campa paced the room. At least, he probably would've been pacing if he was still alive. Now it seemed more like drifting back and forth. He couldn't dismiss this as a dream any more, as much as he wished he could. Dreams didn't stretch out like this. Which meant he was dead, and Quino was dead, and he was trying to make a teenage car thief understand that she had to deliver his guns to another mariachi. Except that she couldn't hear him, and the only feeble manifestation he'd been able to manage was to nudge the tuning knob on the truck's radio, maybe.
If there was one consolation, it was that the friend he'd gone to help wasn't among the dead he'd seen. Fight on, Campa thought, and tried to think of a way to get his message across to Elda.
Showers had been few and far between since Elda's home had broken up, let alone hot showers. She stood under the spray of water, trying to get her longish hair clean with the tiny bottle of shampoo the motel supplied. She washed thoroughly; as long as the warm water held out, she was going to enjoy it. There weren't any holes in the wall in this room--she'd checked. This motel reminded her of the old posada back in Santa Cecelia where most people knew about those 50-peso peepshows.
Oh, this was lovely. She was the happiest she could remember being in her whole life. She'd gotten away from Santa Cecelia forever. She had more money than she'd ever seen before, and in a day or two, she was going to be reunited with the big sister she hadn't seen in years. Marina would get her a job in the big hotel in Acapulco where she was a cook, and then...Elda wasn't sure what would happen then. That was as far as her plan had ever stretched, to hook back up with Marina and find a good job.
Marina was sure to want to play big sister. Elda, who'd been on her own since she was nine, was leery of being crowded in with Marina, her husband and their two children and bossed around. Were they in a house, or an apartment? Elda had never thought to ask, and she couldn't remember her sister ever saying.
How much would it cost to find a little apartment of her own - what did they call that? - a studio? After all, if she and Marina were working at the same hotel, they'd see each other often enough. There was probably enough money for that, she thought, recalling the heaps of cash she'd counted earlier. If she sold the watches, rings and the guns and the guitar, but kept the chains--a girl needed some bling, after all--that, plus the pickings from Via laPaz would get her a place and some nice stuff to go in it. New furniture, not somebody's curbside leavings...
With one towel wrapped around her wet hair like a turban, and briskly drying herself with the other one, Elda walked back into the bedroom and into a godawful draft. Damn, the a/c was set lower than she'd thought!
Waiting for Elda to finish showering, Campa made another disturbing discovery--he cast no reflection in the mirror over the vanity counter. He stood there and waved at it, fighting a cold sense of panic. He looked down; everything was where it had always been. Even if the girl couldn't see him, shouldn't he be able to see himself in the mirror? It was as if he was invisible, like he didn't exist any more. He could observe what was going on around him, he was still thinking and feeling--how could he not exist?
Frustrated, he slammed his fist against the wall. One good thing about being disembodied, you couldn't break any bones this way; he'd done that once, and hardly been able to play for weeks. The bad thing was, his hand sank into the wall, and that happened to be where the light switch and plugs were. The fluorescent tube over the vanity flickered wildly, and for a moment, he was sure all his hair was standing on end. Not that he could tell, since he couldn't fucking see it.
In life, he'd been just a little vain. Not fussy, mind you, but he'd taken pains to keep his hair slicked back just so and to present himself with his own particular style. After all, he was a performer. Now, he had no audience. He couldn't even see himself! Although he could hear his own words, he could shout for all he was worth, no one else would hear him. His guitar would be silent at his touch.
Campa looked at Elda as she emerged from the tiny bathroom and stood toweling off. Clearly she was no longer a child, but she was extremely thin, ribs showing clearly. Not like his Lorena...the thought of his lost wife usually produced a reaction. Nothing? Turning away from the girl--a ridiculous reaction, since she couldn't actually see him--Campa investigated. He let out a strangled groan as he realized that not only could he no longer see his reflection, he couldn't feel his own body--not that! Gone?
"What the hell? No--that's not right!" He'd noticed that vaguely before, but the ramifications bore down on him now with added emphasis.
Since he wasn't watching her, and she moved quickly as a cat, he wasn't prepared to have Elda turn away from the mirror and walk right through him. It was an unpleasant sensation - she was still damp enough that her passage gave him a clammy chill and he felt disoriented--and apparently she didn't care for it either. She shivered violently. The mariachi was more distressed by the fact that his dick seemed to have dropped off the map--having someone invade his personal space that way was a relatively minor matter. There was nothing down there...
Hesitantly, he held up two fingers, then, wincing, thrust them into the space occupied by his eyes. It didn't hurt, but it gave him a weird double vision. "Okay," he told himself. "I'm not going to do that again. And I guess that's not the only thing I'm not going to be doing. Whoever came up with the saying 'Better off dead' didn't know what they were talking about!"
As he mourned his departed manhood, Elda plucked Campa's spare shirt from the suitcase, and held it up for scrutiny. Cautiously, she brought it to her face and sniffed it. Campa was offended. What, she thought he was dirty or something? But she smiled again--she looked like a cute kid when she smiled--and pulled the shirt over her head. It was even baggier than the one she'd been wearing before, and definitely cleaner. It was hard to begrudge someone who needed it so badly.
Her old shirt joined that magazine in the trash. Locking the guitar back in its case and setting it over near the door with the old suitcase, Elda settled back onto the bed, stretching out with a sigh of pleasure. She bounced a little. There was a hollow in the middle, but no springs poked through the padding.
Although the remaining pillow was flat, the pillowcase and other bed linens were freshly washed. It was wonderful being clean again, being surrounded by clean things. Like her new shirt, which was soft, sweet scented cotton, still smelling of soap and warm breezes. Soon, she'd be able to get even more new clothes. She'd have to, to work in a fancy hotel.
Maybe she'd be given a uniform...she pictured herself in a neat little dress with her name stitched above the pocket. She knew Marina was a cook at the hotel, but Elda had never cooked in her life. There were lots of other things she could do, though: she could cut up vegetables or wash dishes or clean rooms...she yawned. Not very glamourous jobs, but it was better than her old life in Santa Cecelia. Scrounging for food, sleeping in any convenient hideaway, trying to stay away from the cartels and other bad people who thought a young girl without a family or a woman without a protector was fair game...
Like Mama. Marina explained it to her when she was little, and didn't understand why her mama didn't like her the way she liked Marina. Mama and Marina's daddy had been married, and very happy. But when Marina was six--Elda remembered that because she was six when the conversation took place--her daddy's heart failed him, and Mama had to go work at the shoe factory. For a while it was okay, but when they got a new manager at the factory, Mama came home crying a lot. Then she started getting sick all the time, and there was a baby in her belly, and the baby was Elda. She couldn't remember how old she was when the shoe factory closed down for good, but after that, Señor Bucho's cartel was the only way to make money in Santa Cecelia, and things went from bad to worse.
Everything would be different in Acapulco. Not perfect--Elda knew better than to believe that--but at least she'd have choices. She rolled up the pillow to make it plumper, and turned off the bedside light.
If Elda couldn't perceive him when she was awake, maybe she'd get the message in her sleep? Campa figured he didn't have anything to lose, since he didn't seem to need to sleep. He sat down on the bed in the semi-darkened room--the light over the vanity was still on--and looked down at the peacefully slumbering woman-child.
"I'm gonna tell you a bedtime story, chica, so you'll understand why I'm asking you to take my guns to Javier. I'm going to tell you the story of the first mariachi. He was a poor musician, but an honest man, and one day, when he was trying to find work, he went into a little town...a lot like your Santa Cecelia, I guess. There were men there who thought he was someone else, and they tried to kill him. Instead, they killed the woman he loved, and they hurt his hand so that he could no longer be a musician. Afterward, El Mariachi was sad and angry. But even though he couldn't make music like he used to, he was still an honest man," he said, hoping the moral lesson would sink in as well.
"At first, he thought he had nothing left to live for, but his friends wouldn't let him hurt himself, and then he realized he had something after all--people who cared about him. One night, El Mariachi was sitting and talking with two of his friends, and he began to talk about what had happened to him because of the cartels. His first friend said he understood--his father spent many years in prison because he was caught holding a package for a cartel. The other man had a brother who was killed by a stray bullet during a shootout between rival factions."
"Their friend, the first mariachi, had some guns he had come into possession of, and he began to make war upon the cartels. The man whose father died in jail had a brother in the army, and his brother arranged to have some weapons fall off the back of a truck. Soon the other two men also had deadly guitar cases without guitars. Sometimes their friend asked for their help, and they would give it, and sometimes they would ask his help, because they too had scores to settle.
"Over the course of the next few years, the two men changed; one of them fell in love and married, and passed his legacy on to a man whose wife was raped by cartelistas. The second man died in a gunfight, and El Mariachi got his weapons back from the cartel who killed him, and gave them to someone else. There have never been more than the three of us, but you'll hear stories all over Mexico about the stranger with a guitar case full of guns. They're afraid of us, chica, and cartels aren't afraid of much."
"That's why Javier is important. He's the next mariachi. He's staying in a small town on your way to Oaxaca. It's called Sangre del Plata. Please, Elda. Pass my legacy on to Javier."
Could she hear him? Well, no matter. He'd repeat himself all night; what else was there for him to do? He stroked her cheek lightly, and she drew the covers more snugly around her. He couldn't actually feel her cheek, but he could feel her...her energy, for want of a better word. When he'd been flesh and blood, he'd never realized that the living crackled with the spark that animated them. Was that what he was now, the spark released from flesh to drift formlessly for eternity?
When Elda awoke, she didn't feel any more rested than if she'd spent the night rough in Santa Cecelia. All night long, she'd had crazy dreams, about a man who kept following her around and telling her about some guy and why she had to give him something. She'd been shopping for pretty dresses, and there he was, talking about where she had to go. There was a big dinner of pork and rice with Marina's family - the man was there and going on about mariachis, for some reason.
Waking up in a clean, quiet room and knowing she had money and a way to get to Acapulco was enough to bring a smile to her face. She gathered her things together, stuffing the pillow into her suitcase--it would keep the jewelery from rattling around. The lights began to flicker wildly. They'd done the same thing last night while she was showering. Probably bad wiring. The whole place would burn down someday.
Elda packed her things into the truck and turned in her room key. Her mood was buoyant; she was ready to travel! She wasn't sure how far it was to her destination. Checking the glove box for a map yielded not only a map, but a flashlight, a pair of pliers and...a pistol. She shook her head. Boy, this guy was just asking to get whacked. Elda was a firm believer in the maxim that if you asked for trouble, you'd get it - and to her way of thinking, the more guns you had, the more trouble you were asking for.
Plus, he drank and read nasty magazines...maybe he used the pliers to torture people! She examined them closely, but the stain they left on her fingers was grease, not blood--but it was still pretty clear that the guy had been bad news.
Campa was uneasy for no reason he could put his finger on. Years in a dangerous lifestyle had sharpened his instinct for trouble. If he'd been alive, it would have manifested itself with a familiar itch between his shoulderblades. Now, there was nothing but a strong sense of something wrong, but he valued that intuition.
While Elda was putting his guitar and the suitcase into the trunk, Campa surveyed the area. One of the other cabins, in an oblique line of sight from theirs had a dusty blue sedan parked out front.
The world was full of blue sedans, Campa told himself, and in Mexico, a lot of them were dusty.
Since Elda was strolling over to the motel office, presumably to check out, Campa decided to take a closer look at the sedan. If he could get a look at the plate, he figured, he'd have something to compare to any other dusty blue cars that might cross their path. The tag was marked 'BR-460', and Campa repeated it several times, setting the digits to a little five-note jingle to help himself remember it.
The curtains of the cabin's front window fluttered a little as Elda returned from the motel office, and Campa almost ducked--before realizing that the watcher wouldn't see him anyway.
As Elda got into El Toro Negro, the cabin door opened, and the man who stepped out was the same guy from the convenience store. Campa recognized the man's prominant nose. He was definitely watching her, Campa thought, noting the direction of the stranger's gaze.
What was taking her so long to drive away? What the hell was she doing? This ugly pendejo would be on her tail, and Campa was dead certain that he was up to no good. Got to stop him, but how? Can't shoot him, or tackle him. Not a damn thing I can do to affect him physically--
Not him, no, but there was something he could do...without pausing to consider the consequences, he thrust his hands thru the sedan's hood, groping...finally, he waded into the engine compartment until he collided with the battery. It was hot and cold at the same time - not painful, exactly, but a lot like the tremendous rush he associated with going into battle. It felt great...
And it seemed to have drained the battery nicely. The big-nosed man cursed and swore and turned the key several times, but the key just clicked, useless, even when Campa stepped away from the vehicle.
Should he stay here? It would take the guy a while to organize a jump start; by then, hopefully Elda would be far enough ahead that he wouldn't catch up. For that matter, how was Campa going to find his little car thief again?
Being non-corporeal did have at least one advantage, he discovered a moment later, as he found himself in the truck beside Elda. Rapid transportation. Which wasn't as much fun as a working pene, but it was helpful.
Elda finally stopped for breakfast at a service plaza for a major highway. The big interchange looked like it saw enough traffic that she figured she wouldn't be noticed even in the unlikely event that anyone was following her from Santa Cecelia.
The restaurant was bigger than any eatery her hometown boasted, and it sparkled with chrome. A new shirt, a clean room to sleep in, and now a hot, fresh-cooked meal? This was the good life!
Busy eating hungrily, she didn't notice the homely man's entrance. "A big glass of water," he said loudly to the waitress. "Maybe a whole pitcher." He gave a shaky laugh. "I just had the most terrifying experience of my whole life, and my mouth is as dry as dust!" He scanned the room, as if looking for someone to tell his story to. Elda hoped he wouldn't sit next to her.
There were a dozen travelers, eating, talking, waiting for their meals, as well as a couple of women in uniforms with aprons. (Elda hoped if she had to wear a formal uniform, it would be something more stylish than the loose dresses the waitresses displayed here.) The fellow looked around the room; he was an older man in a white shirt much too big for him, with a receding chin and a hooked nose. Obviously, he was hoping someone would ask him what frightful experience he'd had, and someone a few seats over from Elda obliged. "What happened?"
"I got a ride over the pass from Rio Piedras," the newcomer said. He accepted the glass the waitress offered him with thanks, and gulped it. "You know how that road snakes around? The man with the car was smoking a big cigar--it smelled terrible!-- and the window was open, and the wind blew the red-hot coal from the tip of his cigar--it went down onto his pants, right between his legs. He started yelling, of course, and swerving and trying to put it out...we were all over the road, then I thought he was going to run into the truck ahead of us. I thought I was going to die! Oh, how I prayed! " The man moaned and the waitress refilled his glass. "It was terrible, just terrible!"
"My son is finishing college, I'm going down to Oaxaca to see his graduation," he told them, smiling. "All I could think of was, what if I die here? My poor boy won't have anyone to share his big day with. It's just the two of us, you see."
"Well, you made it," somebody observed. Now stop bothering us, was the implication.
Elda forked up the last of her huevos and weighed whether or not to order thirds. No, better not. It wasn't like she couldn't stop for lunch if she felt like it. The idea that she was able to go wherever she wanted to and could afford to eat any time she happened to be hungry was new and exciting.
"Thank you very much," the thirsty man said to the woman hovering with the water pitcher, and fished out a bill, which he offered hesitantly. She waved it away, patting him on the shoulder. "I should go try to find a ride the rest of the way. Buenas dias!"
Campa didn't see any point in following Elda into the diner. Why should he watch her eat when he couldn't? It was just another annoying reminder of his newfound state of lifelessness. He was prowling around near El Toro Negro when a dull blue sedan drove into the lot.
It was interesting to be able to stand there as the guy parked a little farther out and walked slowly past his vehicle, studying it. It was the same guy from the motel: fiftyish and homely, with a nose like a buzzard's beak. Campa frowned at the way the man's shirt cuffs came down to his knuckles. That was a trick many felons affected to hide their jailhouse tattoos. On the other hand, maybe the fellow was the type who didn't care what he wore and merely thought it was an interesting truck. Lord knew, Campa had had plenty of comments on it over the years.
As the man entered the diner, Campa wandered over to the blue car and looked at the plate: BR-460. The car itself bore no noteworthy add-ons--no parking permits or bumper stickers to make it stand out. Inside, there was nothing in plain view to give any clue as to the nature of the driver's business.
He was being paranoid, the mariachi scolded himself. The fellow was probably a traveling salesman. Better for him to think about how to steer Elda to Sangre del Plata, and Javier. After a while, Buzzard Beak came back out of the diner and walked slowly through the parking lot. He was studying El Toro again.
Campa didn't recognize the man, but there were undoubtedly plenty of low-level cartelistas who might be able to connect the big black truck with a mariachi guitar-fighter. The man was just a couple cars away from El Toro when Elda exited the restaurant and walked briskly out to the truck. He caught up with her as Campa watched the scene unfold.
"Nice truck," said the man as Elda opened the door and hopped in. "Yours?" he asked as the engine turned over and rumbled smoothly.
She hesitated for a moment. "No. I borrowed it--a friend loaned it to me to go to a funeral. My grandmother's funeral. In Santa Cecelia."
"What a good friend. May I ask, which way are you headed?"
"Sangre del Plata," answered Ella.
Campa was elated. She'd heard him! She was going to see Javier! He was brought abruptly back to earth when he heard the stranger asking for a ride. "Don't do it, chica," he said urgently.
"I'll make it worth your while," the man added, and what would've been Campa's heart sank at the gleam in Elda's eyes at the fistful of pesos being waved in her face. She'd acted pretty streetwise until now, and he hoped she wouldn't fall for it.
"If you've got all that money, you could rent a car," she pointed out. "Or take a bus."
"Alas, I don't have a driver's license," the man explained. "And the bus makes so many stops, I don't know if I'd get there in time."
"Elda, don't do it, he's lying!" begged Campa. Damn, if only she hadn't started the motor! Draining the battery would accomplish nothing except to strand Elda wherever she stopped next, which might not be a good thing.
The man pressed the wad of bills into her hand and folded her fingers around it. "Please. You have no idea what this means to me."
"Give it back," Campa told her as she stared at the clump of cash. "You won't get to keep it--he'll take it off your body when you're dead." The irony wasn't lost on the mariachi, but Elda hadn't been responsible for Campa's death. Whoever this guy was, the lies he'd already told made the mariachi suspect the worst.
Campa no longer had half the cab to himself, and discovered that being wedged between two live people wasn't comfortable at all. With three people, there was a certain amount of inhaling to give the others elbow-room. However under the circumstances, no one was trying to make room for him--and having two people overlapping him gave him the strangest sensation of nausea. He didn't really want to find out what would happen if he were to heave in this condition. Ectoplasm? he wondered, having seen his share of B-movie hauntings.
So he shifted closer to Elda, because her energy wasn't as disturbing as their passenger's. Okay, he was less nauseous this way. It was still a very weird feeling. He was half-merged with her--he couldn't tell what she was thinking, but he could feel the pins and needles in her foot, the tension in her hands on the wheel--he could even "taste" the sausage she'd had at breakfast.
It was disorienting and made it difficult for him to concentrate on the problem of the man who'd introduced himself as Señor Trujillo--hadn't there been a couple of brothers by that name back in--? He couldn't remember the name of the town. It'd been four of five years ago, and there had been countless small wars before and after. A lot of bad people wouldn't hurt anyone again.
I helped, Campa thought. It wasn't all revenge for what they did to Lorena. I won't get a chance to sit around and play my guitar and be a musician again, but--
As strong as his resolve was to pass on his guitars to Javier, it had been a difficult proposition even before this guy was added to the equation. Elda was headed to Sangre del Plata; that was a big step in the right direction. Getting her there in one piece, on the other hand, was going to be trickier and getting her hooked up with Javier... Campa had his work cut out for him.
At first, Elda was elated. She didn't know why Sangre del Plata had popped into her mind--she supposed she'd seen the name while at the map and it had stuck--but the lie had borne unexpected fruit. It was quite a detour from Acapulco, but the money would certainly help furnish her new home. How much would she need? She'd need bed linens and dishes--although maybe she could get those through the hotel? A sofa would be good, or maybe a really nice television--with a remote control! The possibilities were delightful.
This guy must not be too bright, handing out that know of money for a ride. How did he know she wouldn't leave him at the side of the road and drive off with a pocketful of pesos? Tempting as the thought was, the teenager didn't think seriously about it. It was one thing to steal from the dead, who could say nothing. Señor Trujillo would report her to the police, and she'd wind up in jail. Even a whole houseful of furniture wasn't worth that.
As Trujillo talked about young Juan and how he was the first person in their family ever to go to college, and how he even knew how to work computers, Elda had a nagging sense that something wasn't quite right. She just didn't know what. From time to time, she took her eyes off the road to look over at her passenger and nod, all the while trying to figure out why she was so sure something was wrong.
Maybe she was coming down with something; she was so cold. Mostly it was her right side--the sun was warming her other side--but she felt the cold deep inside. It was like having half her body encased in ice, and she was shivering terribly. That made it hard to concentrate.
It wasn't until he politely asked if Elda minded if he lit up a cigarette that it dawned on her. She could smell tobacco on him--but from cigarettes, not cigars. If he'd lied about the cigar-smoking man he'd ridden with--but why would he?
He'd told that story to the whole place, so everyone would know he needed a ride and feel sorry for him. And then he approached me. Because I'm a girl and he thinks he'll be safer? she thought, trying to make sense of it while chills gripped her. I don't smoke cigars, that's for sure. He hasn't tried anything fresh. But if he--ay, Dios! The truck! He probably thinks I can take him to he man who owns this truck! He wants the pistolero with the guitar cases. There's no good reason for a respectable man to go looking for someone like that. So it must be for a bad reason, and I'm right in the middle of it.
For a moment, she thought her breakfast was going to come back up. An idea occurred to her as she was on the verge of panic. "I'm not a smoker myself, Señor, and I'd hate to have the same thing that happened to you before happen again, but if you like, I'll pull over for a few minutes while you have a cigarette." And as soon as you're out of the truck, I'll floor it and get away from you.
"Gracias," said Trujillo, and Elda sighed with relief at the success of her plan.
Pulling onto the shoulder, she waited, nerves taut, as he opened his door and stretched a leg out. Then, he looked over at her and said, "Forgive me, Elda, if I'm a little suspicious in my old age. I wouldn't want to have to find a ride from out here in the middle of nowhere."
With that, he reached over and turned the key in the ignition, pulling the whole cluster free and taking them with him.
When he saw Elda's expression as Trujillo grabbed the keys, Campa suspected what she'd planned. Too bad it hadn't worked. He slid over to the unoccupied space in the cab, and glanced toward Trujillo, who was standing beside the cab lighting up. A plume of smoke trailing away from him gave him the look of a fiend from the underworld--if there truly was such a place, which the ghostly mariachi was beginning to doubt.
The man's cuffs rode up a bit while he was doing that, and Campa saw the markings on his hands. They confirmed his suspicions; Elda had been gulled by a very dangerous man.
Elda was also watching Trujillo. Campa saw her gnawing her lower lip as her eyes darted from the man standing on the shoulder of the road to the glovebox. He'd noticed the roadmap on the seat when he'd caught up to her on the road, but now the implications of that dawned on him. Oh, Christ, she couldn't be thinking of pulling that old gun out--could she? Campa wasn't even sure the damn thing was loaded! Not only was this guy bad news, he would bet that Elda had never even held a real gun in her life. Trujillo would have it away from her in two seconds, then she really would be in trouble, whether it was loaded or not.
Damn, to be so close! Sangre del Plata was less than ten miles away, Javier's place was even closer than that. Campa couldn't think of a single thing he could do to help, either, but when Elda reached out toward the glove compartment with a sudden resoluteness, he tried to grab her arm and hang on for all he was worth.
To his surprise, Elda yanked her arm away and cradled it against her belly. At the same time, Trujillo opened his door and climbed in, handing the keys back to Elda. Campa hastily moved away from him as Elda fumbled the keys into the ignition and El Toro Negro rumbled to life and back onto the road..
"What's the matter with you?" Trujillo demanded of the girl, as she gave a massive shudder.
"I think I'm coming down with something," she quavered. "I've been hot and cold and it's getting worse. It started last night and now it's happening all the time."
With a guilty start, Campa realized she was reacting to him. But if it bothered her, it should do the same to Trujillo, shouldn't it? As unpleasant as it was, the mariachi displaced himself so that he was overlapping their passenger. He exuded a nasty taste of nicotine. There was pain in his back, a raging headache right between his eyes, but the worst part was a burning glow in his belly. Trujillo was a sick man in more than one sense of the word.
They'd gone only a few miles when Trujillo growled, "Stop the truck!"
When Elda halted the vehicle, the man opened his door, leaned out and retched. A few moments later, Trujillo jerked upright and glared at the girl in the driver's seat. "I'm carsick from your lousy driving. Lucky for me, we don't have far to go. Where is he?"
Trujillo reached out, and to Campa's horror, opened the glovebox and found the handgun in there. "I thought so," said the man in a tone of intense satisfaction. "I owe your friend some bullets, and I'm going to enjoy paying him back with his own lead."
"Where's who?" Elda looked at him wide-eyed. "What are you doing with that?"
"Stop screwing around with me, you little puta. Where's the man who owns this truck?"
"Oh. Him."
"No stalling! Tell me where he is!" The teenager stared at him, terrified. "You said Sangre del Plata before," said Trujillo shrewdly. "The turn off is coming up; we'll go there and ask around for him."
"But--" Elda started to say something, but stopped, trapped. The fork to Sangre del Plata brought them onto a rutted dirt road, and Elda had a horrible episode of deja vú. She was going to wind up in some nowhere town like Santa Cecelia, and she was going to die there without accomplishing anything. She'd never have her own place, or a cool job, and Marina would never know what happened to her. "Please, Señor, don't hurt me!" she pleaded.
"Your friend shot me and killed my brother. Thanks to him, I spent two months in a hospital--I've only got one kidney left. I'm going to make you suffer, then you're going to help me find him, and I'm going to pay him back."
Think, Elda, she commanded herself. Telling the truth would probably get her killed--after all, if the man who'd shot Trujillo was already dead, it didn't give him much of a reason to keep her alive. The trouble was, she couldn't think of a convincing lie that would satisfy him. She didn't know a living soul in Sangre del Plata; how could she steer this crazy man in a direction that might distract him from her long enough for her to get away?
I could pretend I'm sick--no, he wouldn't care. Even if it made him sick? No, he'd kill me and go to the doctor for medicine.
If he stops to puke again, I could try to pitch his ass out, she thought. Wish I'd thought of that before he got his hands on that gun. I should've thrown that out with the rest of that dead guy's junk.
Wreck the truck? Bad idea. Could get me killed too. Which begged the question, how was she going to talk her way out of this? What if she told Trujillo her friend had only had the truck for a little while? No, she'd still have to produce someone who'd be willing to claim it, and why would anybody believe her if she just showed up and started pretending that someone was her friend? The irony of it was, she could've pulled it off in Santa Cecelia.
"If I wasn't dead, you would be," Campa muttered to their unwanted passenger. Why was it in movies, ghosts could appear seemingly at will to scare the hell out of people, when in real life--life? He stopped short, rolling his eyes at the irony.
"Here," said Trujillo, "Turn in here and park behind the building. "
'Building' was a loose term for the burned-out shell of a structure. Elda grimly steered the truck around to the back and parked by the old shed as her captor directed. Campa was torn with hope and anxiety. This Javier's place--but where was he? If he heard or saw El Toro Negro, he'd be out here demanding to know what was going on.
"Get out. Don't try to run. If you do, I'll shoot you in the leg." As the teenager climbed out, stiff with fear, Campa heard the man mutter, "I might just do that anyway to hear you sing."
He had to find Javier. The trick with the battery wouldn't do him any good at this point. Where would Javier be at this hour? Not at home taking a siesta. In town, having a cerveza? He thought himself to the local tavern and looked around. No Javier, and no sign of his ancient station wagon outside. No sign of the wagon anywhere on Sangre del Plata's main street.
Campa reappeared at Javier's camp. His truck was still parked between the ruins of the smithy and the old shed Javier had been living in, and Trujillo was ranting to Elda about the cost of spending two months in a hospital and the indignities he'd suffered.
Perhaps Javier was still doing agricultural labor? Concentrating, Campa made his way to several of the neighboring farms. The third time, he found the station wagon, and knew his friend had to be somewhere around. Sure enough, there was Javier, talking with the fellow who owned the place-- "Come on, come on," Campa muttered. "You've gotta get home, amigo. Never mind shooting the breeze with this guy!"
Desperation made him try something bold; he pushed himself into Javier's personal space and screamed, "Go home! Go home NOW!"
Javier shook himself a little, and said to the man, "I need to get home, Señor Ortega. I'll see you in the morning."
Thankfully, Campa watched his friend get into the car and start it up. He was on the way--good. But would he be in time?
Returning to Javier's homestead, the mariachi found Trujillo menacing Elda. From the looks of her no-longer white shirt, she'd hit the ground at least once. There was a bruise on the side of her face, and she was unsteady on her feet, suggesting that he'd been smacking her around.
Once before he'd felt this impotent--during the events that had set him on this road--but then it had been eight against two. Now, it was two to one--except he didn't count, did he? How long would it take for Javier to get here? Campa could only watch as Trujillo tore open Elda's shirt, exposing her slatted ribcage and tiny bosom.
The girl didn't look anything like Lorena, except for the terror in her big eyes as the man with the gun laced his left hand into her hair and began slapping her face repeatedly with his right.
Campa did a double-take. Where was the gun? Not tucked into Trujillo's pants--no, he'd put the gun back in the open glovebox. He was unarmed!
Elda's ears were still ringing from the earlier blows Trujillo had landed. She tried to twist away from the slaps, afraid that the crazy man would shoot her just for fun, when it occured to her that he was striking her with his open palm, and his other hand was entwined in her hair. He must have set down the gun while she'd been stunned.
Kicking, punching scratching--using every dirty trick she'd ever learned on the mean streets of Santa Cecelia, she fought the evil man. Remembering what he'd said about his kidneys, she aimed as many belly blows as she could. When Trujillo took a step toward the truck--and the gun--she kicked him hard on the back of the calf and he went down with a grunt. Throwing herself onto his prone form, she began pummeling him where she was sure it would hurt him most.
"What the hell is going on here?" demanded someone. "Who are you people?" There was an old station wagon nearby--she hadn't heard it drive up during her struggle with Trujillo--and a man suddenly loomed over the combatants.
The man standing there was taller and younger than Trujillo. He wore overalls and was shirtless underneath them, exhibiting a lean and sinewy, physique. Elda was sure he'd be more than a match for Trujillo, if she could get him on her side.
"Get up, please, chica," said the newcomer, looking them over and scowling. Whether by design or accident, he stood between the combatants and the open driver's door of the truck. "I'd like some answers."
Trujillo straightened up as Elda stepped back. "I gave this girl a ride and she tried to steal my car."
"That's a lie!" Elda looked at the stranger with wide eyes. "I gave him a lift and he tried to rape me."
"Hold it, hold it!" The newcomer held up his hands, looking from the older man to the girl, assessing their stories.
"Look at her!" said Trujillo. "She's not even old enough to drive!"
"What do you have to say, chica?" The man in overalls looked stern. The left side of his face was badly scarred--some kind of burn marks--which gave him a ferocious appearance--but beside Trujillo's homely, hate-twisted face, he was almost a movie star..
"I gave him a ride from the rest stop at Izucar and he started threatening me! He was hitch-hiking--"
"And you both say it's your truck?" At the torrent of curses and allegations that followed his question, the scarred man waved his hands more emphatically and finally gave a piercing whistle. "There's an easy way to settle this. Señor, if this is your vehicle, you should be able to tell me--what's in the trunk?"
Trujillo hesitated, then blustered, "That's none of your business."
"I'm making it my business," the stranger replied. "And if you can't answer me, I'll have to assume you don't know because it isn't your truck."
"How do I know you're not a thief like that one?" Trujillo pointed at Elda.
Stung, she snapped, "I can tell you exactly what's in the trunk!"
"Give him a chance, chica."
She snorted. "He doesn't know."
"A guitar case," Trujillo said tersely to the other man.
"Ah." The stranger nodded. "Anything else?" Trujillo looked furious. "Do you have anything to add to that, chica?"
"My name is Elda. There are three guitar cases," she corrected her passenger, "and a brown suitcase, but only one guitar."
Reaching into the cab, Javier extracted the keys. He walked around to the back of the cab, still watching Elda and Trujillo closely. Lifting the trunk lid to investigate its contents, he caught Elda's eye and nodded.
Campa felt a surge of relief as his protege found the special cases and began to inspect their workings. There were cartons of ammo right there, so in a moment, just another moment, he could be sure Elda was safe, and--
The next few seconds stretched on for an eternity. There was no time to do anything, no way either of his two tricks would help...
Moving with surprising swiftness, Trujillo grabbed Elda and flung her to the ground, leaping past Campa toward the cab and stretching to grab the handgun from its resting place.
Elda hit the dirt with a short cry.
Javier, bent over the trunk, was fumbling to load one of the big guns.
Trujillo, Campa's pistol in his hand, slid from the cab.
Javier's scarred face turned toward the sound of Trujillo's oath, his hands still working at the mechanism of the unusual weapon.
Elda scrambling to her feet as the gun swung her way, flinging herself at Trujillo, trying to seize the handgun. She latched onto his arm, clinging to his sleeve as he tried to point the barrel in her direction.
A gunshot rang out, and Campa despaired. He'd hoped the old pistol wasn't loaded.
Javier stepped away from the trunk, one of the cases in his hand as Trujillo decked Elda for the second time.
Recognizing the greater threat, Trujillo spun to face the younger man.
Campa threw himself at Trujillo, hoping to disorient the man long enough for Javier to take his shot. The mariachi attempted to embrace the gunman, trying to merge with him as he had in the truck. It slowed the live man only a little--not quite enough to keep him from his murderous goal.
Their dangerous passenger leveled the gun at Javier and pulled the trigger...on an empty chamber.
As the deep bass notes of the heavy loads from the guitar case roared through the quiet afternoon, Trujillo fell, and Campa thought with an eerie sense of familiarity that dying twice in twenty-four hours really sucked.
Trujillo was driven backward by the hail of bullets, and Elda screamed as he landed flat on his back, barely an arm's length from her. She looked from the dead man to the stranger with the guitar case, afraid that he'd shoot her next.
"What happened to Campa?" the man in overalls asked, coming closer and checking Trujillo for signs of life.
"What happened to what?" She didn't know what he was talking about, but at least he hadn't tried to shoot or rape her--yet.
"That's his truck, chica. These are his guns. Where is he?"
"He's dead," Elda answered honestly. "I didn't do it! I live in Santa Cecelia--until yesterday!--and he came--the man with the truck--and they all shot each other and he wasn't going to need it so I took his keys!"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute. Take a deep breath! You said your name is Elda? Nice to meet you, Elda. My name is Javier." Up close, she looked at the undamaged side of his face and realized he wasn't that old after all. A few years older than she was, yeah, but it was the scarring on the left side of his face that made him seem stern.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked warily. Was he going to try to rob her? Kill her? Take advantage of her?
"Going to get him off my doorstep, for one thing," said Javier, looking at Trujillo's body. "Want to give me a hand?"
Together, they lugged the remains to an arroyo about a half mile behind Javier's camp. "Coyotes have to eat, too, chica," he said when she asked if they were just going to leave him there. "It'll be dark soon. They'll find him, easy. Let's go."
As they trudged back to the shed by the ruins, Elda found herself telling Javier everything: about Mama and the man from the shoe factory, and how Mama had left town after Marina got married and moved away, so Elda was stuck in Santa Cecelia, scrounging a living and trying not to get into trouble. Now, all she wanted was to get to Acapulco, where her sister and a decent job awaited her.
"Sure," Javier agreed. "We can leave in the morning." Well, that hinted that he wasn't planning to do her in. Elda relaxed a little.
There was a firepit well away from the old shed, and he kindled a blaze in it and began to cook dinner for them. Afterward, Javier got out the guitar and played for a while.
"You're not very good," Elda yawned in the twilight.
The young man was unruffled by her criticism. "I haven't practiced in a long time. I'll get better. Campa was really amazing. Did you ever get to hear him play?"
"I don't even know who you're talking about."
"Campa--the man who owns the truck," he reminded her. "Owned the truck," he amended. "I can't believe he's gone. He was a great guy."
Elda was quiet for a moment. It was hard to know was to say; Javier was grieving for someone who might have been a bad man, but Javier didn't seem like a bad guy himself.
"How did you meet him?" she finally asked.
Javier looked pensive. "That building," he said at last, nodding toward the ruins, "used to be Jimenez Silverworks. It was founded many years ago by my great-grandfather. I was apprenticed to my dad, to learn the trade. Then one afternoon, a woman came in...we didn't know that her husband was a cartel jefe. She was insulted that we asked her for payment. The next night, it was burned down. Our home was upstairs. My father died in the blaze."
"That's how you got those scars?" she asked softly.
"Sí. After the fire was out, I was digging through the rubble. That truck stopped out front. Campa got out and asked me if I needed help. We found my poor father's body, and he helped me bury him. While we were doing all that, I told him everything, and he said he could help. He called a friend of his, Quino, and the three of us attacked the operations of the jefe...together, we recovered what they took from the smithy and avenged my father's death. Campa said I did well, that if I was willing, when the time came, he would pass his guns on to me."
Fleeting dream images washed over Elda. "Tell me more about your friend," she requested, looking across the flames at him. "Please?" By firelight, his scars were less apparent and he seemed less intimidating now that she'd spent some time with him.
The fledgling mariachi played a little run semi-successfully. "It started with a musician who was mistaken for a killer who carried his weapons in a guitar case. Someone from a cartel shot his hand and he couldn't play any more. So the mariachi took the other guitar case, and learned to use the guns. He made war on the cartels.
"Two other men joined him, men who had their lives messed up by the cartels. One of the men, when he was tired of fighting, passed his guns on to another man. The man he gave them to was forced to watch a party of cartel soldiers rape his wife. She couldn't bear the memory of it, and killed herself a few months later. That was why Campa took up the fight, to strike back at the people who were responsible for his wife's death."
"Oh," said Elda, shocked. After such a terrible thing, she could understand why the stranger--Campa--had adopted the way of the gun. "But what about you? You said you already attacked the people who burned down your business--why are you going to try to get more of them? That's loco! You'll wind up dead like your friend!"
"Elda, two years ago, I had a home, and a family, and I was learning a trade. There was a girl--I thought we were in love. Now, I have nothing. I'm living alone, in a shack, doing farm work to scrape by, and the girl I wanted to spend my life with won't even look at me when I bump into her in town. So you tell me, chica--what is so great about my life? This way, maybe some other people won't suffer like I have. Or are you sorry I came along when I did this afternoon?"
The girl sat silently, unable to answer. Her own life, by contrast, didn't seem quite as terrible. He didn't seem bitter about it; no, he was very matter-of-fact. "How old are you?" she asked, suddenly curious.
"Twenty-two. How old are you?"
"Fifteen. But that doesn't mean I'm a kid!" she declared, expecting him to contradict her.
"No, it sounds like you've had to grow up in a hurry. It must've been rough." In the distance, the cry of a coyote rent the night air. "Calling his friends to the feast," remarked Javier, making gentle chords on the old guitar again. "Life's uncertain, Elda. Last night, that man had no idea he was going to wind up a coyote's dinner. How about you? What were you doing this time last night?"
"I was in a motel," Elda recalled, "with clean sheets and a shower...of course, the night before that, I was still in Santa Cecelia sleeping on an old junked couch in an abandoned building." In the old shoe factory, where she'd probably been conceived...but not on that couch; she'd hauled that there from somebody's trash.
Through her recitation, Javier said little, plucking the strings lightly as Elda talked about the previous day's adventures. "After everybody stopped shooting, I thought, 'They're a bunch of rich cartelistas, they'll have money and stuff.' And they did. I took your friend's keys and the guitar cases and found the truck and I got out of there."
"How did you know to come here?" Javier asked, looking up from the fretboard.
"This is probably going to sound crazy. Last night, I had a bunch of weird dreams. Everywhere I went, a mariachi was following me and talking about going somewhere and giving something to someone. I thought maybe I just saw Sangre del Plata on the map, but now I'm not sure..."
She expected him to say she was loco, but Javier just nodded calmly and continued to strum Campa's old guitar. "I heard him, too. This afternoon, he told me to come home. Good thing I listened, huh?"
As the bullets struck Trujillo, Campa experienced the man's pain--he hadn't had time to feel his own death come for him, but each bullet that tore into the gunman's body sent an echo of agony through Campa.
He staggered away as the other man fell, watched Javier check the fallen man...Campa looked around, wondering if Trujillo would be here, starting trouble on this side. Apparently not...fortunately, because Campa wasn't doing so good. He'd had bullet wounds, but this was different...how could a ghost feel weak, that was silly. Or maybe because this time, he knew he was dead?
Campa had to close his eyes for a moment...when he reopened them, Javier and Elda were nowhere in sight. He found himself standing in a familiar street. Several burned-out vehicles littered the area, but the bodies were gone. Disoriented, Campa tried to figure out what to do next.
"Hey, amigo, it took you long enough," said a voice nearby. He turned, started.
Quino stood there smiling at him. Someone who saw him? Of course, Quino was dead, too. As his friend's arms went around him and slapped him on the back, the contact brought both pain and relief. Campa hung on for all he was worth, waves of weakness swept over him.
"Javier has my guns," was all the mariachi could think to say.
"Good job. Our friend finished taking care of his business--I went with him. He's all right."
"Now what?" Campa was shaking. He thought he might explode like a soap bubble, afraid, trying to hold on, although he was no longer sure of what he was clinging to.
"We go on to the next place," Quino said easily. He was a born gypsy; Campa was more than willing to let him be their guide. It was too hard to hang on anymore...leaning against his friend, Campa wasn't even aware of the transition. "We had things to do, and we've done them," Quino was saying. "You passed on your guitars, and--hey, did I tell you? It looks like our friend's got himself a lady!"
The sense of debilitation left him. Campa opened his eyes to a realm of peace. "Ay," he said reverently, looking around. A being of light stood beside him; pure white light that had taken the form of his friend. From the expression on Quino's face, he was regarding something similar--at least, he was gazing at Campa with an expression of bemused wonderment.
"Pretty good," Quino agreed--still trying to play it cool. That hadn't changed!
Campa laughed, more relaxed than he could ever remember being. "Where do you think everyone else is?"
"I'm right here, my love," said a husky voice. Lorena!
Embracing his beloved wife brought a rush of joy so intense that it was a while before Campa noticed that Quino had been joined by a little girl--surely the younger sister who'd been shot on her way home from the market--and that other light beings were drawing nearer. With delight, he recognized his mother, and Uncle José...there was no pain or stress, no more battles to fight, no one to fear, here.
It must be Heaven, because it certainly wasn't Santa Cecelia.
The end.