“I would guess not,” Torrez said. Mogollon nestled high in the Gila, on the way to nowhere.
“She drove me to another town. I don’t remember the name.”
“Glenwood?”
“That may be it. I slept that night in an abandoned house. I knew that no one would find me there.”
“Let’s cut this travelogue short,” Torrez said. “Why did you come back to Regál?”
“I knew that I could go home to Buenaventura from here,” he said, and Torrez scoffed.
“Horseshit. You weren’t headed to Buenaventura, bud.”
“But I was.…”
“Then all you had to do was ride across the border with one of the burros. He gave you a ride that far. Why did you change your mind?”
Ynostroza fell silent and Estelle watched him closely. Calculation was replacing the earlier trepidation, remorse, and guilt, but he wasn’t particularly good at it.
“You have nowhere to go,” she said, and Ynostroza’s eyes flicked her way. “Immigration will turn you over to the policia in Buenaventura,” she said. “You are finished here.”
“If…” And he stopped, biting his lip.
“Would padre Anselmo help you, do you think? Is that what you are hoping?”
“I did not go there,” he said quickly. “Maybe you would call him.…”
“The burro dropped you off at the parking lot of the iglesia. You could see that the good father’s car was not there. You know the padre?”
“Everyone knows the padre,” he said.
“Is that a fact?” Torrez said. “Why would that be?”
“It is known that he gives mass in Tres Santos. Ever since the old padre died there.”
“Why did Father Anselmo write down the telephone number of the American woman for Felix? The lady in Regál? We found the paper in his pocket.”
“I don’t-”
“Yeah, you do,” Torrez interrupted.
Ynostroza slumped in resignation. “If we needed someone,” he admitted. “That is all. We could use the name as the referencia.”
“A reference,” Estelle provided.
“Yes.”
“Why did you not go to that house, then?” she asked, taking care to avoid mentioning Betty Contreras by name. If Ricardo Ynostroza hadn’t known Betty before, he didn’t need to know her now. “If you have their telephone number, why not go there?”
“That is where I was going when you found me,” he replied.
“Not true,” she snapped. “Even if you didn’t know where your referencia lived, why wander through half the town? You could have stopped at any house, and asked, no?”
“Yes.”
“Emilio would help you, no?” She saw no puzzlement at the name, and made a further guess. “And you know that he is at the church most of the time.”
“Yes.”
Estelle felt a surge of relief at this first small opening. “Why did you not go there? Why did you not seek him out?” She waited while the silence grew, then took a leap into the dark. “Isn’t that who Father Anselmo told you to turn to if you needed help? Isn’t that why he wrote down Emilio’s telephone number for you?”
“Yes, that is true,” Ynostroza admitted, and he took a deep breath, holding it in as if he’d climbed a long, rugged slope.
“Why then were you going to the other house?” she asked. “We must know this, señor.”
“You are going to send me back?”
“Yes. Of course.”
That brought another look of defeat, an expression at which Ricardo Ynostroza was most adept, Estelle reflected. “There may be some discussion on how we choose to return you to Mexico,” she said. “If you are cooperative.”
Ynostroza chewed on that for a moment, searching through her comment for a promise.
“How many of you were there?”
“What do you mean, agente?”
“Exactly that, señor.”
“It was Felix and myself, agente.”
“How did you learn about the work up north, by Reserve? How did you learn of the woodcutting with Señor Zamora?”
“Father-” And he bit it off. “There is work everywhere. This Señor Zamora, nos ha tenido trabajando todo el día.”
“I’m sure he did,” Estelle said. “How much did he agree to pay you?”
“He was to give forty dollars for the day,” Ynostroza said, and shrugged with resignation. “Is not so much, but…”
“The land of milk and honey,” Jackie Taber said, breaking her silence for the first time. “Is that forty for each, or twenty apiece?”
Ynostroza looked as if he’d been slapped. “Twenty, each,” he said.
“How did you learn of this job? Did Father Anselmo hook you up?” the sheriff asked.
“I don’t-”
“Did he know the Zamoras somehow?” Estelle asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“When you first came to this country to speak with the father, when was that?”
“No. We talk with him in Tres Santos.”
“You, Felix, and who else?”
Ynostroza hesitated, obviously well aware of where he was about to step. “Six,” he said.
“¿No más?”
“No. Only six.”
Only, Estelle thought. “All from Buenaventura? Or that area?”
“This time, yes.”
“This time? You know of other times?”
“Of course.”
Estelle looked at Bob Torrez, and the sheriff’s face would have done justice to Rushmore, so devoid was it of expression. No wonder the good father was spooked, Estelle thought.
“Where are the others now?”
“I do not know that. I heard Albuquerque,” and the name rolled off his tongue with a rhythmic lilt.
“How did you get to Reserve?” she asked. “The truck you were using for wood hauling belonged to the Zamoras, did it not? You and Felix certainly didn’t walk from Regál to Reserve.”
Hitchhiking would have been the obvious answer.
“The father…he made arrangements for us to go to Silver City,” Ynostroza said. “On Sunday afternoon, after the wedding at the church.”
Estelle looked at the young man incredulously. “There was someone at the church who agreed to take you and Felix up north?”
“Yes. But just to Silver City. That is where Señor Zamora met us.”
“Who was this? Who gave you the ride?”
“I don’t know his name. It was someone that Father knew from Tres Santos.”
“And Father Anselmo gave you the telephone number.”
“Yes. To find him, if there was trouble. He is driving so much, sometimes it is hard. He said we could always find this person with the phone, and she would reach him.”
“So tell me, señor…when you returned to Regál today, why did you go to the house where we found you? Did you think he would help?”
“I thought, yes. Maybe yes. Maybe he could help.”
“You could have just ridden home with los burros, Ricardo.”
“That is what I should have done.”
“Well, then?”
“I thought that…” He fell silent, thinking hard, brows knit together. “I thought that Señor Baca might help.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He had help before.”
“Ah, he did. How did he help? Did he help Father Anselmo arrange the work for you?”
Ynostroza’s expression turned wary. “No.”
“But now you return. I’ll ask you again.…What was Joe Baca going to do for you? What did you think he could, or would, do for you? You were headed to his place when we stopped you. What did you want from him?”
Ynostroza held up his hands helplessly. “I just thought…”
“What did you just think, Ricardo?”
“Señor Baca is a wealthy man, agente. At the church, Father Anselmo gave each one of us twenty dollars. He said that the money came from the congregation. But Felix said that he had heard about Señor Baca winning the lotería.”