Damned If I Do Part 7

"Oh, yes." He looked around again, at the house, the barn. "Yes, this is it, all right. This is the place I want. It's done."

"I'll need a deposit." I removed the first halter, then the second, and watched the horses trot off.

His smile was an odd one. "Why?"

"So, I'll know you're serious." I closed the gate. "I might change my mind. You never know. You can bring an agreement here with the check tomorrow and I'll sign it."

"Okay," he said.

"And the truck will be in town."

Again, he said, "Okay."

After watching Dobbs head down the mountain, I went inside and called a real estate agent, told him I wanted a list of all the pieces of property for sale in and around Enrico. Tomorrow, I would go to the county clerk's office and find out who owned what. I would buy all I could, where I could, and get in the way of any development.

Early the following morning, I drove down the mountain to Taos and backed onto the Chicken Lady's hill. He met me this time without the rooster under his arm.

"Didn't expect to see you so soon," he said.

"Complaining?"

"Maybe."

"Come on, show me the birds." I followed him through the front gate and into a lath house. Chickens and ducks waddled across the floor, sat on perches, flapped from the rafters.

"Just the plain old birds in here," he said. "Don't get me wrong, they're nice animals and I love them, but they're common." He led the way out of the shaded area and into the backyard. There was a hole in the middle, the digging of which had long been abandoned, the pick and shovel covered with dirt. "I was trying to put me a pond in here for the ducks, but I sprained my back. The ducks are going to love it. It's going to be a sight better than those plastic pools I've been using." He stooped to pick up a black chicken with feathered feet. "This here is a Cochin. She ain't too special, but she's a nice one."

"How many birds do you have?" I asked.

"Don't know." He stopped at a coop with a wire top. "These are my fancy babies. There's a pair of Silver Suss.e.x. That one there is a white Croad Langshan. That breed was almost gone. There's a black Croad. Indian Game. Silver Dorking. You know, I love chickens."

"I know you do, Chick." I looked at his shoes. Black Red Wings with one loose sole. "Thanks for the tour. I'd better get going. Come to my truck with me." We walked back through the lath house, out the gate, and I stopped at the hood of the truck. "Chick, what's your real name?"

"Why do you want to know that?"

"Give me five dollars," I said.

"What?"

"Just give me a five."

The Chicken Lady fished out a lonely five and handed it to me.

"What's your d.a.m.n name?"

"Iverson P. Mowatt."

"You're kidding me. What's the P for?"

"Peyton."

"That's a great name, Chick."

"Yeah, yeah." He looked at what I was writing. "What are you doing?"

"I'm making out a bill of sale."

"Why?"

"You just bought my truck." I handed him the t.i.tle and the key. "And here's the card of that movie guy."

The Chicken Lady looked at the bill of sale and the t.i.tle and the key, then the truck.

"It's okay, Chick. It's your truck now. You can do what you want."

"Thanks, Rawley. I don't know what to say." The big man was starting to mist up.

"Just do me a favor. Hold out for thirty thousand. Okay?"

The Chicken Lady collected himself, stiffened his face, and said, "No problem."

Age Would Be That Does.

It was with some resolve that Rosendo Lapuente put a bullet through the head of his sister's dog, Grasa. Some resolve, a great deal of excitement, and an admirable measure of luck as he dispatched the animal from well over forty yards. Of course it was not until Rosendo and his friend, Mauricio Rocha, were well upon the fallen prey that they realized it was a dog and not until Rosendo's face was mere inches from the canine's head that he recognized it as Grasa.

"Oh my," Rosendo said. "This is your fault."

"It was you who shot him," Mauricio said.

"You told me it was a deer."

"All I said was, 'There, there is one.' I didn't say 'deer.'"

Rosendo studied the dog. "No matter. I've killed my sister's Grasa. Me siento mareado."

"Respire hondo," Mauricio said and sucked in much air and let it out slowly to show what he meant.

"And she's always yelling at me that I'm too old and blind to go hunting. She'll never let me forget this." Rosendo sat on a nearby log and laid the rifle on the ground between his legs.

"No es para preocupa.r.s.e," Mauricio said.

"How do you figure that?"

"How will she know?" Mauricio asked.

Rosendo sighed. "I suppose you're right. It would be a shame to hurt her with such news." He looked at the dog. "It was a terrible pet anyway, a car chaser. Did you know that?"

"I had heard."

"Bit a hole into the tire of the UPS truck."

"Oh my."

The two friends began their hike out of the forest, saying nothing. Rosendo gave the rifle to Mauricio to carry. They shared the gun and kept it hidden in the shed in back of the house that Rosendo shared with his sister Maria. The men also shared vision; that was how they saw it, Mauricio claiming an ability to see things some distance away and Rosendo saying he could focus on things up close. So, Rosendo did the reading and Mauricio did the driving, having managed to retain his permit by uncannily guessing the letters on the eye chart. Each relied on the other's constant reports. Actually, Mauricio couldn't make out things that far away and Rosendo had to hold large print at arm's length from his face to see that it was indeed print, so it was a safe bet that they saw the same things equally well, or poorly.

They came out of the canyon mouth and found Mauricio's car, a blue Datsun sedan that his daughter, who lived in Albuquerque, had given him when she bought one of those little vans that Mauricio said looked like a suppository. Mauricio wrapped up the gun in a blanket while Rosendo leaned against the car peering at nothing in particular, but in general back into the woods.

"Let me ask you something, Moe," Rosendo said.

Mauricio slammed shut the trunk.

"Do you think we're old?"

Mauricio looked at the same trees. "h.e.l.l, Rosie, I know for a fact we're old. We're the oldest people I know. But not like you're thinking. We're young men who still go hunting."

"Si, we hunt dogs, pet dogs. What was Grasa doing so far out here anyway?"

The fact of the matter was that they were not very far from Rosendo's home. The house was just a half-mile from the canyon, but Mauricio's driving took them repeatedly over the same dirt lanes and through the same turns. Any trip for Mauricio in his blue Datsun took three times as long as it should have. Walking through the woods was a similar experience for them. Rosendo had killed his sister's dog no more than a hundred yards deep into the woods, but they believed themselves to have marched two or three miles, which they had no doubt done, but in circles. When anyone saw the blue Datsun parked at the canyon opening or anyplace near the mountain, the word was spread to steer clear of the forest.

They parked in the backyard behind the shed and sneaked inside to hide the rifle behind the drums of corn that Maria fed the wild turkeys. The birds were actually guinea hens, but one day Maria had jokingly referred to them as turkeys and Rosendo had said, "And fine-looking birds they are, too. But, Maria, they don't sound much like turkeys."

"Hasta luego, Rosie," Mauricio said, back in his car and waving good-bye to Rosendo as he drove away.

Rosendo took a deep breath and walked through the back door of the house and into the kitchen where Maria was sitting and chatting with Carlita Hireles. "h.e.l.lo, Maria," he said and proceeded to wash his hands at the sink.

"Aren't you going to say h.e.l.lo to Father Ortega?" Maria said, sharing a smile and a quiet chuckle with her friend.

"I'm sorry, Padre, I didn't see you," Rosendo said. He dried his hands on a towel, left it on the counter by the sink, and reached to shake the father's hand.

Carlita lowered her voice and said, "It's good to see you, Rosie."

Rosendo paused at the softness of the hand and then considered it not unlikely that a hand that had never seen manual labor should feel so. "What brings you way out here?" Rosendo asked. "Somebody die?"

"No, no, just saying h.e.l.lo."

Rosendo nodded, knowing as he pa.s.sed from the kitchen into the living room that he had just spoken to Carlita Hireles. He knew because he recognized the smell of her, perfume and makeup and fancy soap that she bought from the mall down in Santa Fe. They were having a laugh on him, but that was okay, especially today as Grasa wouldn't be showing up for dinner. It was enough that he knew it to be Carlita.

Later, as Rosendo sat eating his dinner of posole, chiles, and sopaipillas, Maria stood at the screen of the back door looking out for Grasa.

It was then that Miguel Rocha, Mauricio's nephew just out of the army, and Willard Garcia drove into the backyard with much loud noise from their big-wheeled pickup. They came into the house, full of excitement.

"Que le ocurre?" Maria asked.

"A lion," Willard said.

"Yes," said Miguel, "there is a cougar around. He killed two sheep over in San Cristobal."

Rosendo listened to them, then stood. "You say there is a lion?"

"Si, Rosie." Miguel caught his breath. "From the size of the tracks, a big one, too."

"We're just going around and making sure everybody knows," Willard said. "You know, so people are careful and watch out for their stock and things like that."

"Well, you boys are doing a fine job," Maria said.

"A cat," Rosendo said to himself, sitting again.

Maria took the basket of sopaipillas from the table. "Here, take a couple of these with you," she said.

Each took a couple, thanked Maria, and left.

"Imagine that," Maria said, sitting at the table with Rosendo and shaking her head. "A lion. I hope Grasa hasn't met up with him."

Rosendo chewed a mouthful of posole. "A dog would have little chance against such a beast. Poor Grasa."

The old man finished his meal and went into the living room where he sat and rocked and listened to the radio. He enjoyed particularly the call-in talk shows that had people arguing about such strange things. "That there are such people," he would say, getting up to grab a bran m.u.f.fin from the basket on the kitchen table. Rosendo stayed up later than Maria, as was his custom, then went to the door and looked out over the yard. The moon was full and Rosendo sensed it more than he saw it. He ate the last bite of m.u.f.fin and heard a sound. He stopped chewing.

"Rosie," a voice called to him in a whisper.

"Moe? Is that you?"

"Si."

Rosendo listened for movement from Maria's room and finding none, walked out into the yard. "Moe?"

"Rosie?"

"Moe?"

It took the men ten minutes to find each other by sound, but they did. They stood by the shed.

"I didn't hear your car," Rosendo said.

"I parked it down the road. I didn't want to wake up your sister."

"Why have you come here so late?" Rosendo asked.

"I left early, but it was a very long drive. When it got dark the way became even longer."

Rosendo nodded.

"Did you hear about the lion?" Mauricio asked.

"Miguel was here. He told us. There has not been a lion in these parts in many years."