Steven Havill: Twice Buried

“He’s worn it in here before and I’ve never said anything.” She lifted her chin, proud of her generosity. “But this time-”

“Tell me what happened.”

She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “He came to the counter here and asked to purchase five stamps. I took the stamps from the drawer. He hung his cane on the counter lip and fumbled in his pocket for money.”

“His cane?” I’d never seen Reuben with a cane, drunk or sober.

“Indeed. He fumbled for his money and then he discovered it was in the pocket covered by the gun and holster.” She pantomimed Reuben’s absentminded fumbling.

I raised an eyebrow and waited for the punch line with a straight, official face.

“Sheriff, he pulled out that monstrous revolver and laid it right here on the counter! I could look right down the barrel. And I could see the ends of the bullets.”

“He took the gun out of the holster?”

“He did. And then he rummaged around until he found his coin purse. He paid me for the stamps and put the purse back in his pocket.”

“And then he put the gun away and left?”

“He did no such thing. You know Ella Fernandez? Well, at that moment she came in with her ailing mother. Mr. Fuentes picked up the revolver-I assume to put it away-and dropped it! Can you imagine that? He dropped it, Sheriff. I thought Mrs. Fernandez was going to have heart failure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Well. He’s so crippled. He hung onto the counter with one hand and bent down, trying to pick up the gun. I thought he was surely going to fall. Finally, Ella reached down and picked it up. He mumbled something when she handed it to him. Then he left. And that took another five minutes.”

“I see.”

“Now, Sheriff, that thing might have gone off and killed someone.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I told Ella and her mother that I would talk to you. I’ve heard that you know Mr. Fuentes rather well. I can’t overemphasize how important this is, Sheriff. It is my responsibility to make sure that nothing like this happens again.”

“You did the right thing.”

She softened a little. “I mean, don’t misunderstand me. I wouldn’t want Mr. Fuentes arrested or anything like that. But you must make him understand, Sheriff. And you know-” she leaned forward again and whispered, “he drinks so much .”

“Yes, ma’am.” I pushed away from the counter and straightened up. “I’ll run out and have a chat with him. And thanks for giving me the call. I appreciate it.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.” She smiled. She needed new dentures. “I have some coffee on in back if you’d care for some.”

“No, thanks. I had too much for breakfast.” I nodded and did my best to look solemnly official. “I’ll talk to Reuben and let you know.”

The sun was bright through the few skeletal elms when I walked outside. I sat in the county car for a minute, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel.

Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember when I’d seen Reuben Fuentes with a gun in recent months, or even years. A week before, I’d seen him hobbling up and down the aisles of Griego’s Big G Supermart. He hadn’t been using a cane then. And he hadn’t been carrying a gun.

Two weeks before that, he’d driven his battered Bronco into a bar ditch. Deputy Eddie Mitchell had turned the front hubs, yanked the old truck into four-wheel drive, and then rocked it free. The deputy said old Reuben hadn’t been drunk that day, or he wouldn’t have let him plod on homeward. Eddie was a methodical, thorough young cop. If Reuben Fuentes had been wearing a gun, the deputy would have mentioned it in his report.

I accelerated the county car away from the curb and headed toward the west edge of town. It wouldn’t take long to swing out past Reuben’s place and have a chat.

I owed him a visit anyway, to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten that he was going with me to his great-grandnephew’s christening. He probably wouldn’t remember the incident in the post office. He could recall everything about the summer of 1916 and nothing about an hour ago.

Reuben Fuentes, in his lilting and fractured Mexican-English, could describe the great Pancho Villa better than any photograph. But about himself, Reuben was not reliable. He was either 84, 96, or 101, depending on when he was asked. He was oldest when he was ailing-as most of us are. He was youngest when wrapped around a bottle of Black Velvet.

His stories over the years had blended into a wonderful hodgepodge of fact laced liberally with whimsy. His grandniece and my former deputy, Estelle Reyes-Guzman, had said that old Reuben was born in 1898. She treasured a yellowed and brittle newspaper clipping from 1899 about a rubella outbreak. That story mentioned the infant Reuben as one of the fatalities. Even then, the media got their facts screwed up.

As I drove through town, I reflected that getting the old man to travel south for his great-grandnephew’s christening was going to be a considerable challenge. Riding in a car with him for even those few miles was going to be worse.

I frowned, curious now why a ninety-four-year-old man had started packing his iron again.

Reuben Fuentes lived eleven miles west of Posadas. If Carla Champlin had called my office as soon as the old man had left the post office, then I was only fifteen minutes behind him. I’d seen him drive before, inching his old Bronco along the county roads as if it were an overloaded, fragile buggy. Fourth gear in that truck was damn near virgin.

By the time I turned off State Road 17, trading the smooth macadam for thick gravel with rocks the size of baseballs, I had already let my mind wander. Sheriff Martin Holman was probably right to be skeptical. Pure mental gymnastics had concocted the entire Hocking affair.

Over the years I’d seen circumstances far more suspicious or even bizarre surrounding what turned out to be an innocent accident. Hell, one icy January several years before, we’d spent two days looking for the car that had smacked old Efren Padilla while he was walking along the county road in front of his ramshackle place south of town.

He’d been found by another motorist, bleeding profusely, his scalp all but torn off the right side of his head. His right arm was snapped in two places. For a few hours the emergency room doctor at Posadas General had had his hands full trying to keep Efren alive.

We’d been so pissed that someone would run down an old drunk that we’d damn near torn the county apart looking for a vehicle with fresh damage to the front end.

And then, after about fifty hours, Efren had regained consciousness and embarrassed the hell out of all of us.

He had decided in the dark of night, he told us, that he wanted to have a talk with his horse. He had stumbled from the house nearly blind drunk and made his way to the little barn and corral. The horse hadn’t shared his enthusiasm for nighttime conversation and had kicked old Efren in the side of the head. The iron horseshoe had laid open the old man’s scalp from eyebrow to crown.

Efren had fallen, yelling like a madman. His cries had spooked the horse and a thousand pounds of animal danced sideways, planting first one hoof and then another on Efren’s arm. The bone snapped like a dry twig.

Efren told us that after that he didn’t remember much. He could vaguely recall stumbling back toward the house. Where he had actually stumbled was in the opposite direction. He collapsed on the shoulder of the highway, leaving it to the rest of us to assume the worst.

In all likelihood, it had been even simpler for Anna Hocking. We’d found no hint of burglary, no hint of argument, no trace of a struggle. It had to be simple.