"She thought a lot of you," Prine said, giving in. That's what Neville wanted to hear, and what the hell—who did it hurt to lie in this way?
"When did she tell you that?"
"The other night. After the recital."
"You're not bullshitting me?"
"Why would I bullshit you? That's what she said."
"Why was she talking about me?"
Prine shrugged. "Just talking about her life. How much she liked working at the church. And thinking about her future. And how good to her you always were."
Neville spat. "That's the kind of shit I am, Prine. I push her around the way I did and she thinks I'm treating her decently. There's going to be a special place for me in Hell, I can tell you that."
By full light, they could see Picaro below them. The town was girdled by deserted mines and large pieces of rusted mining equipment. There were so many failed mines just before the last recession that the equipment lost most of its value. Wasn't worth the shipping prices, given the minuscule profit the mine owners would make.
Through his field glasses, Prine could see that some of the equipment was already rusted clean through. The gear looked like giant steel animals, long dead.
The town itself looked decent enough. Several blocks of whitewashed little houses that had probably been owned by the mining company at one point. Couple churches, two long blocks of commercial buildings, a redbrick schoolhouse with an athletic field next to it, two factories, and some small stucco buildings that looked like manufacturing shops of some kind. For a town whose boom days were past, Picaro looked all right.
Neville was hiding in his silence again. Prine didn't mind. He was sleepy enough to slump in his saddle. Sometimes in the past few hours he'd felt unreal, as if he were witnessing all the events of the past thirty-six hours without participating. There was a deadness in him that precluded all feelings except fear.
He jerked awake at the outskirts of town. Some scruffy kids were splashing through the mud puddles in the road, screeching and hollering and giggling as they did so. He envied them. A pure perfect image came to him. He was eight and playing baseball with his brother in the front yard, and he had just hit a baseball farther than he ever had. And his brother, who'd never paid him much respect before—his brother's whole attitude changed right then and there. He never forgot it. His brother didn't push him around anymore. Call him names. Punish him. Prine still wasn't quite an equal, but he came damned close.
His poncho had started to dry off. He was completely sweated inside it. If they didn't have any luck here, he'd push Neville to stay over for eight hours, get some sleep, go at it fresh again. You could bet that was what Tolan and Rooney would be doing—if not here, somewhere down the line.
They went straight for the sheriff's office. A tough-looking, middle-aged Mexican in a sombrero and a serape sat on a bench outside the stucco building. His outsize badge was easy to see on the serape. So was the sawed-off shotgun laid across his lap. He was rolling a cigarette and watching them ease up to the hitching post.
"Welcome to our town, gentlemen," he said. "I'm Sheriff Gomez." He smiled with bad teeth. "If you're wondering how a Mex got to be sheriff in a white man's town . . ." There was something obscene about his laugh. "It's because the gringos are too scared to be sheriff themselves."
He finished rolling the cigarette, set it between his lips, produced a lucifer from inside his serape, and ignited it with a thumbnail. "How may I be of service?"
"We're looking for two men," Prine said.
"Your badge—these must be bad men, no?" There was a sardonic tone to his words that Prine didn't like.
"Their names are Tolan and Rooney," Neville said. "They murdered my sister." He'd clearly picked up on Gomez's sarcastic tone, too—and didn't like it. "My name's Richard Neville. If you haven't heard of me, you've heard of my father. I would recommend that you don't give me or my friend here any shit. Because if you do, I'll tear that fucking sneer off your face and then cut your heart out. You understand, amigo?"
Neville's bitter words didn't have much effect on Gomez. "Then I should be impressed and cower in fear?"
"You should do your job," Prine snapped. "We're looking for two killers, and we need to know if they've passed through your town here."
The front door of the sheriff's office opened and a man, also Mexican, emerged. He was the opposite of the other man. Tall, trim, handsome, well-dressed in a business suit, he stepped into the daylight and said, "Good morning, gentlemen. I was waiting for my stupid deputy here to explain to you his joke. I'm Marshal Valdez. This despicable creature here is my brother-in-law, whose presence has been forced upon me by familial obligations."
Gomez didn't seem the least embarrassed by this revelation. In fact, he yawned, stretched, stood up, and said "It is time for a hardworking man like me to have himself some breakfast."
"Remember what I told you about the whorehouse, Gomez," Valdez said. "If you get rough with any of the women next time you're drunk, I'll put you in jail for a week and take away your badge."
Gomez smirked. "Someday I will be wearing that badge. Then we shall see what we shall see." He made a pass at giving a bow but almost fell over on his face. For the first time, Prine realized the man was drunk. Gomez wandered off.
"Come inside, please," Marshal Valdez said, "and let me again apologize for the rudeness of Gomez. He lives inside a bottle."
The jailhouse was tidy, smelled clean, and was arranged into a front desk, two small offices in the rear, and four cells behind a locked door. The marshal's office was heavy with a large wooden desk, a bookcase filled with what appeared to be legal tomes, and a wall decorated with the minimal number of awards, citations, and photographs of the marshal shaking hands with people he obviously considered to be important. Prine didn't recognize any of them.
The marshal called out a name that seemed garbled—"Lucentia" was as close as Prine could get it—and two minutes later a fetching young girl of no more than eighteen appeared and blessed each man with a cup of steaming coffee. "My daughter, gentlemen. You can see why I am so proud of her."
The pretty girl was dressed in a white peasant blouse and skirt, looking more gypsy than Mexican. When she smiled, she also tried to speak. The sound made the back of Prine's neck freeze. She could not articulate the words she was trying to speak.
"That is our family shame," Marshal Valdez said in his formal, somewhat stiff way. "Three years ago we had some trouble here. A range war of sorts. The one side felt that I was too friendly with the other. They accused me, in fact, of being on the payroll of the other. A man in my position, he can't tolerate such slander, of course. So I myself—and my men, even Gomez—began riding against them. Since they insisted we were on the other side, then why not be on the other side. Of course, our friends were so happy to have us fight with them that they insisted we take money. Some people to this day insist that it was a bribe so that they could have the law on their side. I have tried to explain that many times to many people—that our intentions were only good and true—but you know how cynical some people can be. They're always looking for the worst in other people."