Dead and Gone - Andrew Vachss [90]
“That’s the biggest pit I’ve ever seen,” I said to the Indian, trying to engage him. “What is he, a bandog?”
“Indeh is not a pit bull,” he said, pride deep in his voice. “He is a purebred Perro de Presa Canario.”
“I never heard of—”
“They were originally bred in the Canary Islands, so some call them Canary dogs,” the Indian said, his tone reverent, as if reciting a tribal legend. “They were a cross between an indigenous breed, which is now extinct, and the English mastiff.”
“What were they bred for?”
“For fighting,” he replied, contempt now ruling his voice. “And once dog-fighting was banned on the islands, it took some very dedicated people to save and preserve the breed.”
“He’s a real beauty,” I said. “How much does he weigh?”
“Right about one ten, depending on the season.”
“Why did you name him Indeh?” Gem asked, speaking for the first time, pronouncing the word exactly as the Indian had, accent on the second syllable. “Was it to honor your ancestors?”
The Indian half-turned in his seat to look at Gem. He nodded slowly. “You have a gift,” he told her. “His name is for my people. The Chiricahua Apache. Do you know of them?”
“I am ashamed to say I do not,” Gem answered, her head slightly bowed.
“They were the greatest guerrilla fighters America ever produced,” I said, quietly. “Battled the entire U.S. military to a draw for a dozen years. Cochise and Geronimo were Chiricahua Apaches.”
“You know our history?” the Indian asked me.
“Just tiny bits and pieces. Enough for my deepest respect.”
“You know this from reading?”
“I did time with a guy, Hiram. He was the one who told me.”
“He was Chiricahua?”
“Chickasaw.”
“Uh!” is all the Indian said. He held my eyes for a split second before he reached across the seat and scratched his Canary dog behind the ears.
The way I used to with Pansy. I …
Gem gently elbowed me in the ribs. I opened my eyes and looked into hers. She shook her head slightly … to tell me the Indian hadn’t noticed where I’d gone—but she had. I bit down hard on my lower lip and looked out the window, concentrating on what was outside me, like I was supposed to.
We were just pulling off the Interstate, toward a little town called Bernalillo. The Indian threw a quick left and crossed back over the Interstate, and then we were rolling along Highway 44, heading northwest according to the dash compass. For a while, there was nothing but open desert. A hideous tumor of a subdivision—from the look of it, already metastasizing—appeared on the left. Farther along, the desert on the other side of the highway turned spectacular, stretching to high mesas ranging in color from light brown to almost yellow. As we moved along, we got so close I could see their individual layers of rock.
Less than a half-hour later, we passed a pueblo. It wasn’t anything they’d photograph for National Geographic—just a collection of poor-ugly little houses and guys in pickups eye-fucking anyone passing by.
Next we turned onto Highway 4, which turned out to be a little road that was mostly curves, dotted with a few scattered trees and even fewer houses.
Then another pueblo. This one had bigger houses, most of them actual adobe. But it was still a rez-type setup with a lot of junker cars scattered around like refuse on dirt roads. There was a wall of rock on the right, sheer and unbroken, going up maybe a hundred feet in some places. It was such a bright red I thought it must be a trick of the afternoon sun.
Down the road a piece, I saw the signs for Jemez Springs. After we passed through the town, the road started to get steep. The Indian nodded his head in the direction of a church. There was a row of rooms behind it, like some motel out of the fifties, but very neat and well maintained. “Servants of the Paraclete,” he said.
I’d never been near the place, but I’d heard about it for years. A safehouse for pedophile priests, where they could hole up for a while … and then go back into a new parish, all “cured.” The church doesn’t call them child molesters, or baby-rapers, or anything so terribly stigmatizing.