James Burke - Feast Day of Fools

The purple haze he had seen earlier had spread across the valley floor, and he had to turn on his headlights to see his way down the dirt track to the county road. He had forgotten about the two Mexicans who had been smoking on the hillside earlier; he had even temporarily forgotten the rudeness one of them had shown Cody when he tried to say hello. The two men had gotten back into the gas-guzzler, and evidently had decided to stop and urinate at a spot where the dirt track was pinched on either side by big piles of rock.

He slowed his pickup and hit his high beams, drenching the two figures with an electric brilliance, carving their rounded spines, their splayed knees, the cupping of their phalluses, the amber arc of their urination out of the darkened landscape.

The license plate on the gas-guzzler was dented and filmed with a patina of dried mud and attached to the bumper with coat-hanger wire. Cody could see COAHUILA at the bottom of the plate. He mashed on his horn, holding the button down, clicking his high beams on and off, while the two men stuffed their phalluses back in their pants, their eyes glinting like glass.

The shorter of the two men walked toward Cody’s truck, shielding his eyes from the glare with one hand. His jaw was as heavy-looking as a mule’s shoe, his forehead ridged like a washboard, his hair and chin stubble the color of rust. “You got a problem, chico?” he said.

“ Chico?” Cody said.

“That means ‘boy,’” the man with orange hair said. “You got a problem, chico boy?”

“Yeah, how about getting your shitbox off the road? Also, find a public restroom and stop polluting the countryside. There’s one at the truck stop up on the four-lane. It’s got a dispenser of toilet-seat covers on the wall. The sign on the dispenser says MEXICAN PLACE MATS . That’s how you’ll know you’re in the restroom.”

“This is a funny guy here,” the man called back to his friend. “Come up here and listen. He is very funny.”

Cody looked in his rearview mirror and could see only a dim glow from the compound of the Asian woman. The stars seemed to arch overhead and stretch beyond the horizon and curve over the earth’s rim. “I need to get about my business. How about it?” He lifted his finger to indicate their vehicle, but his hand felt disconnected from his wrist, lighter than it should.

“What is your business, senor?” said the man with a jaw like a mule’s shoe, leaning in the window, his breath rife with onions and mescal, the whites of his eyes a watery red.

“I’m a preacher.”

“Hey, jefe, the funny gringo is a preacher. That’s why he called my car a shitbox and shone his headlights on us while we were relieving ourselves.”

The second man approached Cody’s window, touching his friend on the shoulder, indicating he should move aside. “That’s right? You’re a preacher?” he said.

“Reverend Cody Daniels. But I got to be getting on my way.”

“You work with La Magdalena?”

“I’m just a neighbor making a neighborly visit. I live up yonder, in the bluffs. I got people waiting on me.”

The tall man’s shoulders seemed unnaturally wide for his thin waist. His profile made Cody think of an ax blade. “Why are you so nervous?” the man asked. “I do something to make you nervous? You have never seen somebody relieve himself on a road in the dark?”

“You got a pistol stuck down in your belt. That’s what some might call carrying a concealed weapon. In this county I wouldn’t mess with the law.”

The tall man fingered his cheek, then pointed at Cody. “I think I know you.”

“No, sir, I don’t think that’s the case.”

The tall man jiggled his finger playfully. “You are like me, a hunter. I’ve seen you down on the border. You hunt coyotes. Except these are coyotes with two feet.”

“Not me. No, sir.”

“No? You’re not the man who likes to look through a telescope?”

“I just want to be on my way.”

“What did you see up there at the house of la china?”

“Of la what?”

“You seem like one stupid gringo, my friend. Do I have to say it again?”

“If you’re talking about the Chinese woman, I saw the same thing you saw through your binoculars-a bunch of people stuffing food in their faces.”

“You were watching us?”

“No, sir, I passed you on the road here, that’s all. I wasn’t paying y’all any mind.”

“You’re one big liar, gringo.”

“That woman up yonder is your problem, not me.”

“You’re a cobarde, too.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You’re a coward. You stink of fear. I think maybe you’re a cobarde that shot at me once. A man up in the rocks with a rifle. You were far away, safe from somebody shooting back at you.”

“No, sir,” Cody said, shaking his head.

“What we going to do with you, man?”

“I’m gonna turn out on the hardpan and drive around those rocks and let y’all be. You’re right, sir, none of this is my business.”

“That’s not what’s going to happen, man. You see Negrito over there? He drinks too much. He’s a marijuanista, too. When he drinks and smokes all that dope, you know what he likes to do? It’s because he was in jail too long in Jalisco, where he was provided young boys by his fellow criminals. Now when he drinks and smokes marijuana, Negrito thinks he’s back in Jalisco. If you try to drive out of here before I tell you, you will learn a lot more about your feminine side than you want to know.”

“Don’t be talking to me like that. No, sir.”

The shorter man, the one called Negrito, opened the passenger door and sat down heavily in the seat. He smiled and touched the side of Cody’s head and ran one finger behind his ear. “You got gold hair,” he said. He touched Cody’s cheek and tried to insert the tip of his finger in his mouth. “Mexican place mats, huh? That’s really funny, gringo.”

“You get him out of here,” Cody said to the tall man.

“ La china is hiding a friend of ours, a man who has gone insane and is wandering in the desert and needs his family. You need to find out where la china is hiding our friend. Then you need to build a fire and pour motor oil on it so the smoke climbs straight up in the sky. If you call anybody, if you make trouble for us, we’re going to get you, man.”

“I won’t do it,” Cody said.

“Oh, you’re going to do it. Show him, Negrito.”

The man named Negrito fitted his hand over the top of Cody’s head, his fingers splaying like the points of a starfish. When he tightened his fingers, the pressure was instantaneous, as though cracks were forming in Cody’s skull.

“I crushed bricks with my hands in a carnival,” Negrito said. “I ate lightbulbs, too. I could blow fire out of my mouth with kerosene. I snapped a bull’s neck. I can punch my fingers through your stomach and take out your liver, man. Don’t pull on my wrist. I’m just gonna squeeze tighter.”

“Please stop,” Cody said.

When Negrito released his grip, Cody’s eyes were bulging from his head, tears running down his cheeks, his ears thundering.

“When I see the smoke climbing up from the bluffs, I’ll know you’ll have something good to report,” the tall man said. “If I don’t see any smoke, I will be disappointed in you. Negrito is going to stake you out on the ground in the hot sun. Your voice is going to speak to the birds high up in the sky. Maybe for two or three days. You will learn to yodel, man.”

“I was just driving down the road. All I did was blow my horn,” Cody said.

“Yes, I have to say you’re a very unlucky gringo,” the tall man said.

They were both laughing at him, their work done, Cody’s self-respect in tatters, the person he used to think of as the Reverend Daniels gone from inside the truck.