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By Root 889 0

trees. A hatchet was embedded in a stump by an empty hog lot, and on the ground around the stump were at least two dozen heads of chickens, their beaks wide, their eyes filmed with dust. Someone had lit a kerosene lamp inside the ruined adobe house, and through the back window, Krill could see five of his men playing cards and drinking at a table, their silhouettes as black as carbon inside the window glass. He tried to clear his mind of anger and think about what he should do next. He gazed at the bound and gagged figure lying in an embryonic position inside the trunk of the gas-guzzler. It is not smart to abuse Negrito anymore, he told himself. Negrito’s stupidity is incurable and cannot be addressed effectively except by a bullet in the head. There will always be time for that, but not now. The others admire Negrito for his muscular strength and his ability to endure pain and the great reservoir of cruelty that he willingly expends on their behalf. Keep this Judas in full view and never let him get behind you, Krill told himself, but do not abuse or demean him anymore, particularly in front of the others.

When Krill had finished this long thought process, he was about to speak in a less reproving way. But Negrito, being the man he was, began talking again. “See, everybody has been worried about you, man. Bringing that box out here with your children’s bones in it, it’s like you’re putting a curse on us. The dead got to be covered up, Krill. You got to place heavy stones on their graves so their spirits don’t fly around and mess up your head. The dead can do that, man. Even your kids. Baptism can’t do them no good now. They’re dead and they ain’t coming back. That’s why the earth is there, to hide the body’s decay and to make clean the odors it creates. What you’re doing goes against nature. It ain’t just me that says it. You call me a Judas? I’m the only one who tells you the truth to your face. Those inside are not your friends. When you ain’t around, they talk among themselves.”

Krill squatted in the dirt and began pulling the photos and credit cards and the driver’s license and Social Security card and the various forms of personal identification, including a membership card in a state law enforcement fraternity, from the wallet of the Texan who lay bound in the trunk of the car, his mouth wrapped with duct tape, his forehead popping with sweat. Krill took a penlight from his shirt pocket and shone it on a photo of a girl standing in front of a church. The girl was wearing a sundress and a red hibiscus flower in her hair and was smiling at the camera. The church had three bell towers and a tile roof and looked like a church Krill had seen in Monterrey. Krill focused the penlight’s beam on the driver’s license and studied the photo and then shone the penlight on the Texan’s face. Still squatting, he let the contents of the wallet spill to the ground and draped his hands on his thighs.

“What are you thinking, jefe?” Negrito asked.

Krill started to correct him for calling him jefe again, but what was the use? Negrito was unteachable. “Where is the Texan’s money?” he asked.

“He must have spent it all.”

Krill nodded and thought, Yes, that’s why it now resides in your pocket. He stared at the Texan in the trunk and at the dust rising off the hills into the sky and at the chicken heads lying in the dirt. He could hear a sound inside his head like someone grinding a piece of iron unrelentingly against an emery wheel. He squeezed his temples and stared at Negrito. “You know the dirt road that goes into the desert?”

“Of course.”

“You have been there and can drive it in the dark, through the washouts and past the mountains where it becomes flat and no one lives?”

“I’ve done all these things many times, on horseback and in cars and trucks. But why are you talking about the desert? We don’t need no desert. You know the place I use for certain activities. I’m telling you, this is a valuable man. Don’t throw good fortune away. Make good things come out of bad.”

“Do not speak for a while, Negrito. Practice discipline and