Norman Partridge - The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

Nothing unusual about that. The van belonged to the border patrol. It didn’t take a college degree to figure that the Mex had crossed the line and got himself noticed by the wrong folks. And in a town like Amigo, that meant trouble served up plain and hot and plenty of it.

That’s trouble, pure western style.

I mopped sweat from my brow with a dirty bandana and watched the van bumping over the rutted dirt road. The tires kicked up dry rust-colored dust. What didn’t stick to the Mexican clouded the crisp blue horizon, hiding Amigo from view.

There wasn’t much to hide, really. Like my daddy used to say before he up and vanished, “Amigo’s a one-horse town, scratch the horse.”

Most folks like it that way, I guess. Around here we keep to ourselves, and the rest of the world doesn’t bother us much. Amigo isn’t exactly a tourist magnet. Oh, once in awhile we get some magazine writer or amateur historian who wants to know about the time Billy the Kid rode through. And every now and then some university kid shows up and drives around the desert for a week or two hunting after Native American artifacts and such. But historians and archaeologists are pretty harmless, as long as they don’t go poking their noses into places they don’t belong. The sheriff and his deputies — with a little help from the border patrol boys — are pretty good at making sure that doesn’t happen.

Other strangers are a little more persistent. Like the flying saucer nuts who want to dredge up those stories from the fifties. Now, I don’t like to stereotype, but in the case of these so-called UFOlogists, it’s hard not to. In my experience they’re generally male and overweight. They’re as familiar with talk radio as they are unfamiliar with personal hygiene. Around here we don’t cater to them much. Mostly, we just shoo ’em on to Roswell. That town likes tourists.

But back to the van and the Mexican. I leaned on my shovel and watched both come my way. There was no sense trying to look busy. When you’ve got a job like mine, it doesn’t matter if you’re good at it or not. Putting on some eager beaver act isn’t likely to impress anyone, especially not the hardcases who pull down checks from the border patrol.

Animal control, that’s my line. All kinds of animals, all kinds of problems.

Jesus, here I go. Off the point one more time, but we’ll just have to let that naked Mexican keep for another minute or two. I promise I’ll keep it short.

If Rover’s got rabies, I get the call. Rattlers nest under a house, my phone rings. Sure, it’s a long way from a big fuckin’ deal. But that’s not to say the job doesn’t have possibilities. Say we had an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease hereabouts. Then my job would be a mucho grande fuckin’ deal. If I did something like quarantine some cattle, something where a few dollars were involved, the good people of Amigo would show me some respect.

But it never comes to that. Things go on around Amigo the same way they’ve been going on for years. As for my job, I know my place. I like it that way. I deal in roadkill mostly. Like the coyote, or anything else that gets caught between a set of headlights on the highway. I shovel what’s left off the blacktop and bury it out by the dump.

I’ve shoveled up Chihuahuas and Gila monsters. Rattlers and French poodles. One time I even shoveled up a dead alligator… at least that’s what I think it was. It was big and blackish green and scaly. If it was a gator, I sure as hell can’t figure out how it ended up in New Mexico.

Doesn’t matter to me. I figured out a long time ago that there’s no use trying to figure out anything at all. You ask me, the best thing to do is mind your own business and stick to your job.

I try to take my own advice. I answer my telephone when it rings. I drive around a lot. And when I come across something dead, I shovel it up and bury it out past the dump.

Dead is dead. As long as it doesn’t move, I’m not squeamish. And if it does move… well, I carry a gun.

See, I hate to see things suffer. There’s no cause for it, really. That’s what bothered me about the naked Mexican. There’s no need to be cruel. Just watching him made my stomach do a little flip-flop. The way he trotted along on bare, bloody feet behind the van, his shackled wrists clicking together, his arms outstretched, those pitiful screams tearing his sandpaper throat.

Christ, the poor bastard sounded like an animal or something. What’s that they say? Like a lamb going to the slaughter. It was a hell of a sound, especially with noon coming on. Not the kind of memory a man wants rattling around in his head when he’s just started thinking about lunch.

My guess is that the border patrol boys were of the same opinion, but I have my doubts. But whatever their reason, it seemed that they were tired of the naked Mexican, too.

The van picked up speed. The Mexican tripped. For a second he looked like a man diving into a swimming pool.

Only for a second, though.

The rest of it didn’t take long. The road, all sand and grit and gravel, skinned the Mexican raw in the time it took me to swallow around the lump in my throat.

I was quiet. The Mex kept on screaming, though. I could hear him above the smooth purr of the van’s engine. And then the driver cut to the left, tearing through a tangle of mesquite and golden brittlebrush as he picked up speed, and pretty soon the Mexican wasn’t screaming anymore.

The van didn’t head back to the dirt road, though.

It came in my direction.

I glanced down at the hole I’d dug. I did some quick calculations. The hole was big enough for a coyote, but something told me that it was going to have to be a whole lot bigger.

I picked up my shovel and got busy.

Rudy Duran unchained the Mexican’s corpse. Rudy’s dad was born in Mexico, but Rudy was born right here in Amigo. I’d known Rudy since we were kids. To me, he was hardly like a Mexican at all.

Rudy’s partner, Wes Baker, watched me work. At least I think he watched me. Those mirrored sunglasses make it hard to tell sometimes.

“You should have seen it, Roy.” Wes shook his head. “Me and Rudy are sittin’ in Carmelita’s, watchin’ the strippers and havin’ a couple beers — ”

“We’re off duty,” Rudy put in, as if it mattered. “We worked graveyard last night.”

“Yeah,” Wes said. “Anyway, I had barely blowed the foam off my first Bud when this scraggly-ass wetback comes stumblin’ in, nekkid as a jaybird.”

“Lookin’ all around but can’t see a damn thing,” Rudy said. “He’s desert blind.”

“The Mex bumped into Conchita Morales, who was doin’ a lap dance for Ted Miller. ’Chita barely got out of the way.”

“And Ted ended up with a couple hundred pounds of naked Mexican in his lap.”

“Yeah,” Wes said. “And you know how jumpy ol’ Ted is. Christ, he shoved the Mex this way. Then that way. But he couldn’t budge the wetback. And all the while Ted’s holdin’ onto one of those froo-froo drinks of his. Somethin’ all green and frothy with a swizzle stick in it. Ol’ Ted didn’t want to spill a drop. Those drinks cost money.”

“Five bucks a pop.” Rudy shook his head. “Unless it’s happy hour.”

“This sure as hell wasn’t happy hour.”

“Except for the Mex.” Rudy laughed. “Roy, you should have seen him. Hoppin’ around like a fat jumpin’ bean, yellin’ and screamin’ that same shit they all yell.”

“As if the whole damn world’s comin’ to an end.” Wes paused, like he was waiting for the story to settle in. He gave me just enough time to roll the Mex into the grave and cover him with a coyote blanket before asking, “Roy, you know why that Mex stuck to Ted’s lap?”