Percival Everett - The Body of Martin Aguilera

He shouted at himself. “Do it! Just do it!” And he reached down and tried to free the body from the earth. “Do it! Don’t think! Oh, God!” He pulled the body from the hole and fell back, panting. He could not stop. He had to keep moving, not thinking. Get him to the truck, into the back of the truck and you won’t have to see him, he said to himself. He draped the naked body over his shoulder. He wasn’t heavy. Death wasn’t heavy, he thought. He was surrounded by the stench and hoped the rain would wash it off.

He dumped the body into the truck and covered it with the tarp. He stood and held his arms wide and let the rain rinse the mud and maggots and stench of death off of his raincoat. He got into the truck, leaned his head forward against the wheel and cried.

He sat there for a long time. He looked at the clock. It was five o’clock now. The rain had stopped. He turned around and went back toward the arroyo. Without the rain he could see the flow and it didn’t look so bad. He drove through the water and plowed through the mud to the highway. So, where was he going to take the body? He half-cried, half-laughed to himself. He could feel tears on his face. His nose was running. He rolled down the window to let air push the smell out of the cab.

Blue lights flashed behind him. Lewis pulled over and Manny appeared at his door. Lewis wiped his face and looked at him.

“Early for you to be out,” Manny said.

Lewis looked out over the flat. Some hint of the day to come was there. “You know what they say about the early bird,” Lewis said.

“Yeah.” Manny looked into the back.

“I’m sorry about your office.”

“It’s been messier than that. So, just what got into you? What were you saying about Maggie?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m sorry, Lewis. I thought when you called you were just over-reacting. She still hasn’t shown up?”

“No, she called.” Lewis didn’t feel he could trust Manny. If Manny knew he had the body, he might take it, might have to take it. Lewis became more nervous.

Manny looked again into the bed of the pickup. “You told me she was missing over the radio.”

“I said she had been missing. I was just mad because you hadn’t looked for her. She stopped to visit a friend in Santa Fe. Sorry, I didn’t tell you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“All this stuff about Martin, it’s making me crazy.”

“I didn’t know about your temper.”

Lewis rubbed his palms together. “Yeah, it can get out of hand.”

“Want to step out of the truck, Lewis?”

“Was I speeding?” Lewis chuckled.

Manny shook his head. “No, but there is a problem.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s your tailgate.”

“What about it?”

“It’s down. It’s got to be up.”

Lewis pushed open the door and got out.

Manny fell back a step. “Jesus Christ, Lewis, what’d you get into?” He fanned the air with a hand. “You smell like a dog that’s been rolling.”

“I found a dead coyote in my pasture and I took him to the dump.”

“Hmm. That where you coming from, the dump?”

Lewis nodded. “Long way around, but yes.”

Manny frowned.

“About this tailgate,” Lewis said, “I didn’t know it was down.” He walked to the back with Manny. He looked at the lump under the tarp and tried to push up the gate. The wind played with the tarp and caused it to flap.

Manny stepped back and looked at the bottom of Lewis’ truck. “Where have you been? Look at all that mud. On your boots, too.”

“Like I said, the dump.” The gate wouldn’t latch. Lewis became frustrated, stepped back and kicked it hard. “Piece of shit,” he said.

“What’s wrong, Lewis?”

“Nothing.” He grabbed the tailgate and pulled on it for a check. “It’s up,” Lewis said. “Is that all.” He walked up and tucked the tarp under the load.

Manny followed Lewis to his door, looked at him like he wanted to say something.

Lewis got back into the cab and left. He viewed the sheriff in his mirror, just standing and staring at the lump under the tarp.

Lewis got gas in town and drove on out to Martin’s place. He wrapped the body in the tarp and managed to carry it to the shed behind the cabin without seeing it again. The morning was full. He walked around to the front of the cabin and looked up the canyon. He halfway suspected that Maggie was being held up there somewhere. He went into Martin’s cabin and sat in a chair. It was cold inside. Things were already getting dusty. He looked at the old man’s fishing gear in the corner. Lewis put together a forecast for the place. No one knew about it really, so no one cared. Taylor had gone, so there was no one to claim anything legally. More dust would collect and the place would become stiff with age, a thing or two disappearing along the way. Martin had been a gentle man, meaning no harm to anyone, and certainly no one found him threatening. But there he was, dead and decomposing in his shed, with so many people wanting him. He had lived a long life without causing trouble and now. What could he have seen to make so many bad things happen? Lewis used his finger to draw a line through the dust on the table.

Lewis walked out and drove down to the cafe at the river. He sat on the deck of the empty restaurant for a while, watching the rapid river below. He wished he were fishing. He had the body in a place he could get to. What now? They were going to kill Maggie and then him. He looked at the pay phone under the overhang. He had to try something. He couldn’t let Maggie die. He stood up and went to the phone. He got the number from the operator, but no one answered at Peabody’s office.

Lewis left the deck and made his way down to the water’s edge. He imagined pulling out a brown trout and taking it up to a campsite where Maggie and Laura waited. He looked downstream and saw where Plata Creek emptied into the flow. He looked up the mountain and again at the confluence. If there was something bad in the ground up there, it was in the river now. Lewis sat on the bank and considered it. People swimming at Cochiti. People eating trout, catfish, crappies out of the river and the lake. Elephant Butte was below that. He rocked with his confusion. Jesus Christ, everyone was being exposed.

He got up and went back up to the deck and the pay phone. He dialed the number.

Peabody answered.

“I’ve got the body,” Lewis said.

“Very good.”

“But you don’t get it until I have Maggie. I want to know she’s all right.”

“She’s not here with me,” Peabody said.

“Well, I don’t want to talk to her anyway. I want her released. Then, you can have the body. If I don’t get her, alive, I’m taking this dead Mexican to the State Capitol steps and we’ll see what kind of attention he gets.”

There was a silence at the other end which made Lewis feel lighter.

“Do you understand?” Lewis asked.

“I’m not going to deal with you, Mason.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? You’re going to kill both of us. I don’t have any fucking thing to lose. Fuck you, Peabody, or whatever your name is. Maybe I’ll just take the body to the Capitol now, or to a television station. Do you have any suggestions? And I’ll stand beside it and point out the burns on his legs, complete with maggots, and tell the cameras and everybody about how there aren’t any animals up in that canyon. And I’ll ask them if they know why there’s a chain-link fence in the middle of the forest. Think they’ll have an answer for me?”

“She’ll be on the plaza in twenty minutes,” Peabody said.

“Fifteen.” Lewis slammed the phone down and leaned against the wall. He took a deep breath and smiled to himself.