Feast Day of Fools - James Lee Burke [147]
He limped through the chicken yard and past the three-sided shed where his firewood was stacked and through one end of his barn and out the other until he stood squarely in the headlights of the gasguzzler. The driver touched his brakes and stuck his head out the window. “We got a little lost, amigo. Know where the highway is at?”
Danny Boy moved out of the headlights’ glare so he could see the driver more clearly. “You got dope in that car?” he said.
“We’re workers, hombre,” the driver said. “We don’t got no dope. We are lost. That canyon was a pile of shit. You got a cast on your leg.”
“Yeah, and you got a bullet hole in your window,” Danny Boy said.
“These are dangerous times,” the driver said. “You have an accident?”
“No, a guy put a shank in me. Did you see the Indians in the ravine?”
“A shank? That ain’t good. You said Indians? What is with you, man?” the driver said. He turned to the others. “The guy is talking about Indians. Anybody here see Indians?”
The other men shook their heads.
“See, ain’t nobody seen no fucking Indians,” the driver said. “We’re going to Alpine. Come on, man, you need to stand aside with that gun and let us pass.”
Danny Boy’s gaze had been fixed on the driver’s orange hair and whiskers and the gorilla-like bone structure of his face, so he had not paid attention to the man sitting in the passenger seat. At first the passenger’s sharp profile and unnaturally wide shoulders and slit of a mouth were like parts of a bad dream returning in daylight. When Danny Boy realized who the passenger was, he felt his breath catch in his throat. He stepped back from the car window, gripping the shotgun tightly. “I seen you before,” he said.
“You talking to me?” the passenger said.
It ain’t too late. Don’t say no more, a voice inside Danny Boy said. They will disappear and it will be like they were never here. “I remember your trousers.”
“What about them?”
“Dark blue, with a red stripe down each leg. Like trousers a soldier might wear, or a marine.”
“These are exercise pants. But why should you care about my clothes? Why are they of such consequence?”
Danny Boy had to wet his lips before he spoke. “I watched you from the arroyo. I heard that man screaming while you did those things to him.”
“You’re mixed up, man,” the driver said. “We ain’t from around here. You ain’t never seen us.”
“Let him talk,” said the passenger.
“You tied the man’s scalp on your belt,” Danny Boy said. “You heard a sound up in the rocks and looked up at where I was hiding. I acted like a coward and hid instead of he’ping that guy you killed.”
“Many of our people use this place to enter Texas. We are workers trying to feed our families,” the man said. “Why make an issue with us? It is not in your interest.”
“Listen to him, indio,” the driver said. “You can get that shotgun kicked up your ass.”
“This is my land. That house is my home,” Danny Boy said.
“So we’re going off your land now,” the driver said. “So get out of our way. So stop being a hardheaded dumb fuck who don’t know not to mess with the wrong guys.”
“You ain’t gonna talk to me like that on my land,” Danny Boy said.
“What I’m gonna do is spit on you, indio. I don’t give a shit if you got a gun or not.”
Danny Boy reversed the twenty-gauge in his hands and drove the stock into the driver’s mouth, snapping back his head, whipping spittle and blood onto the dashboard and steering wheel.
“¡Mátelo!” a man in the backseat said. “Kill that motherfucker, Negrito.”
“No!” the passenger in the front seat shouted, getting out of the car. “You!” he said, pointing across the top of the roof. “Put your gun away. We are no threat to you.”
The driver was still holding his mouth, trying to talk. “Let me, Krill,” he said. “This one deserves to die.”
“No!” the passenger said. “You, Indian man, listen to me. You are right. This is your land, and we have violated it. But we mean you no harm.