Steven Havill - Scavengers

Pasquale wagged his eyebrows. “You and Eurelio might be cousins then,” he said. “You might be one of the hundred.”

“That would be interesting,” Estelle said, amused at the young deputy’s good-natured insolence. She watched the dust from the electric company’s truck fan out across the empty prairie as it headed south. “Eurelio didn’t happen to say that he was missing a couple of those relatives, did he?”

“No. But he’s spooked.”

She looked at Pasquale sharply. “How do you mean?”

“He wasn’t all that eager to get out of the truck, for one thing. But just in the little while that I stood there and talked with him, he kept tuggin’ at his shoulder harness, like he needed something to hang on to.” He saw Estelle’s left eyebrow drift upward. “Well, it’s just a little thing, I know. But it’s the impression I got.”

“Some people get nervous when they know there’s a corpse in the neighborhood, Tomás .”

“Nah,” Tom said, waving a hand in dismissal. “He and the rest of the bunch hunt all the time.”

“He didn’t hear or see anything unusual in the last week or so?”

“He says not-but then again, he didn’t say a whole lot about anything. He did volunteer that working with Marvin Hudson was something of an experience.”

“Imagine that,” Estelle said. “If that pair had to dig a hole, guess who’d get to run the shovel?”

State 61 plunged south from Posadas and passed through Maria as the highway wound along the state’s southern border toward El Paso and Juarez to the east. The State Highway Department had recognized the tiny community’s existence by hammering in a sign at each end of the village pleading for forty-five miles an hour. Wary of radar and the threat of languishing in a redneck jail cell, only tourists bothered to lift their foot.

Locals took potshots at the signs, most often when they wandered out of la Taberna Azul, the small saloon owned by Paulita Saenz. Bullet holes punctured the reflective surface of the sign and paint from bumpers and fenders scarred and bent the supports below.

Most of the paint had long since worn off the sign swinging from the two-by-four support nailed to the porch of la Taberna Azul. When locals mentioned the place, years of comfortable usage had worn down the name, too. Estelle could remember her Uncle Reuben referring to the Blue Tavern in Maria simply as la Barra .

Paulita Saenz walked to work each day from her square adobe house just east of the saloon. Her thirty-five- or forty-step journey crossed a stretch of worn bricks. The idea at one time had been to construct a neat patio between home and saloon, creating a sheltered spot for outdoor tables. Over the years, the bricked yard had become a convenient spot to stash those items not urgently needed in either building. Paulita’s walkway had been forced to meander as the space filled with worn-out plumbing fixtures, great mounds of cans and bottles that were always going to the recycler next week, and a jumbled collection of various bargains in roofing materials.

Diagonally across the street from la Barra , Wally Madrid’s dingy gas station and convenience store dominated the north side of the intersection of State 61 and J Street, J being the only cross-street in the village. No one in Maria recalled how the dirt lane had come by its cryptic name.

Wally was Paulita’s first cousin. He resented that fate had allowed Paulita possession of a liquor license, and hadn’t spoken directly to her in more than a decade.

Wally’s store carried so few items that convenience was pure euphemism. By pricing his gasoline well over the sensible limit and keeping his store inventory down, Wally had found that he could avoid most things that reminded him of work. The west-facing window that would have looked out on J Street was covered with various posters and advertisements, bleached nearly printless by the sun. That was also a comfort to Wally. Had the window been clear of trash, he would have been able to glance out and see la Comida de Lucy, his wife’s diner, and the third and final commercial establishment in Maria.

Lucy Madrid and Paulita Saenz were also first cousins, and enjoyed a common contempt for Wally. The Madrids were no longer on speaking terms either-a relationship that took considerable evasive skill in such a tiny community.

Should a famished tourist stop at the gas station to inquire about a place to buy lunch, Wally would point at the rack holding the slender choice of Doritos, but he would never recommend Comida de Lucy. And, on the rare occasions that Lucy filled the gas tank of her ’eighty-one Chrysler New Yorker, it wasn’t at Wally’s pump. Each Madrid found peace by pretending that the other didn’t exist.

Lucy’s diner was a plump, tidy adobe house with what passed for a commercial kitchen in one room, a single bathroom with all kinds of interesting messages on the walls that spanned generations, and enough space left over for a small counter that seated three, the customers’ backs to the four tables that filled the dining room.

Lucy Madrid had long since given up worrying about whether her comida was good…or even edible. The same few people who lived in the environs of Maria bought the same items off the breakfast and lunch menu according to their own predictable schedules. Occasionally tourists chanced Lucy’s. Had the tiny diner actually fronted on the state highway, Lucy’s business might have overflowed the four tables. But being half a block off the main flow, traffic tended to pass the place by.

Tourists occasionally drove up J Street beyond the café, and saw that Maria boasted four or five more dwellings, clumped haphazardly around the little wart of a mission, la Iglesia de Santa Lucia.

Estelle Reyes-Guzman opened Lucy’s front door and paused. A single fluorescent light unit hung by tenuous grip from the ceiling, the Sheetrock sagging from repeated roof leaks. An old man sat by himself at one of the tables, hands folded, a cigarette lodged between two gnarled fingers. He appeared to be meditating-or counting the tiny bubbles that might have been detergent dancing on the surface of his coffee.

“How about by the window?” Estelle said, and Francis nodded.

“A view of the surf,” he sighed. They sat down and Estelle bent forward as if she were going to rest her forehead on the table, stopping with eyes closed just short of contact. “Too long a day for you, querida ,” Francis said.

“ Sí. ”

He pulled the menu out from behind the empty napkin holder. “You actually want something to eat here?”

“No thanks.” Estelle ignored the menu. “If she has tea, that would be nice.” She lifted her head and smiled at her husband. “Tea’s safe, no?”

Francis shrugged as he surveyed the laminated menu card. “That depends on where the water comes from, querida . ”

Lucy Madrid appeared from the kitchen, a square, generously padded woman. “I thought I heard somebody,” she said, doing her best imitation of a good-humored bustle to their table. She stopped short, eyebrows knit together in concentration, staring at Estelle. “You’re on that show,” she blurted.

“That show?”

“I’ve seen you on the TV.” She cradled one hand in the other and looked up at the ceiling. “Now what’s the name of that…”

“I don’t think so, Mrs. Madrid,” Estelle said. “Thanks for the compliment, though.”

“I know you from somewhere, then. I know I do.”

“My Uncle Reuben used to come down here a lot,” Estelle said. “Reuben Fuentes?”

Lucy Madrid beamed, her teeth twinkling. “Thaaaaat’s it. You’re that girl.”