Angel and Gustavo had had no choice but to wait for the trio to return. When they finally heard the rattle of the Model T as it pulled into the driveway, they told Señora Picacho to sit on the sofa and make no sound of warning or the last thing she would see in this life would be the deaths of her husband and nephew and dear friend Daniela. But the only one to come through the door had been Oscar Picacho.
Now Angel Lozano grabs Oscar by his wet hair and yanks his head around so he can see Gustavo holding a knife to the señora’s throat. The woman is close to hysteria.
Angel demands to know exactly where the girl is—and without hesitation Oscar tells him.
Shortly thereafter Angel and Gustavo slip out of the house and casually make away along the tree-shadowed sidewalks of the quiet neighborhood. At a Ford dealership a few blocks farther on they pay cash for a new sedan.
It is almost noon when they reach the main highway and turn north, Gustavo driving, being careful not to exceed the speed limit, Angel studying the open road map on his lap and calculating mileage and driving time. Allowing for reduced speeds in most of the towns they will pass through, he estimates they will get to Galveston around midnight.
It will be more than a week before neighbors become sufficiently concerned about the Picachos—having seen neither of them in that time and their car unmoved from the driveway—to call the police. An officer will investigate and discover the bodies in the house, both of them with drapery cords tight around the neck.
Had I told her the truth about my life on the ranch and how I came to leave the place, I would’ve had to tell at least a little about Frank Hartung. He was Uncle Cullen’s oldest friend. He had a ranch in New Mexico and had a good foreman he could trust to run things in his absence when every so often he’d come see us for a few days’ visit. We’d meet him at the Marfa station—Uncle Cullen and Aunt Ava, me and Reuben—and then take supper at a café before making the long drive back down to the YB in Uncle Cullen’s old Studebaker truck.
Frank had a funny habit whenever he sat down to a meal with us at the house. He’d never take the first bite of his food until Uncle Cullen had eaten a mouthful of his own. He’d watch Uncle Cullen chew and swallow, then they’d stare at each other for a moment, then Uncle Cullen would shrug at him and they’d both grin and Frank would start digging into his own plate. It was some kind of private joke between them that always made me and Reuben chuckle—even though we didn’t know why it was so funny. But Aunt Ava didn’t much appreciate their comedy. She always gave the two of them a tightmouth look and sometimes shook her head like she couldn’t understand how grown men could act so silly. I don’t recall that she ever said anything about it except one time when I was about eight years old. “For God’s sake, Frank,” she’d said, “do you think I’m out to poison the bunch of you?”
The remark set Frank and Uncle Cullen to laughing so hard they almost choked on their beef—and Reuben thought that was so funny his milk came out his nose.
In some ways Frank Hartung was more of an uncle to me than Uncle Cullen was. Maybe because no matter how hard Uncle Cullen tried to treat us the same, Reuben was his flesh and blood and it was only natural that he’d be the favored one. But Frank never had any children, was never even married, and since he was so close to Uncle Cullen I guess he probably saw me like a nephew, maybe even a little like a son. Whenever the four of us shot pool together at the house, it was always Uncle Cullen and Reuben against me and Frank, and we almost always won. Uncle Cullen taught me how to ride, but Frank Hartung taught me the most important things I came to know about horses and riding them well. Even when the four of us were out riding the backcountry together, Frank would be instructing me about reading the land and sky, about tracking a rider or a man afoot, about the proper way to make a camp or build a fire or dress game. He was always teaching me something. As often as not, Reuben would drift over to join us too and learn what he could. Uncle Cullen seemed content enough to let Frank provide most of our education in the ways of the natural world.
The first guns I ever fired were Uncle Cullen’s twelve-gauge double-barrel and his Winchester carbine, both of which he let me shoot as soon as I was big enough to steady them on a target. He did the same with Reuben. For my thirteenth birthday he gave me a .30–30 carbine of my own—then gave one to Reuben when he turned twelve. But it was Frank who really taught us how to shoot. He taught us which shooting positions allowed for the steadiest aim with a rifle. Taught us to get a spot weld and to let out half a breath and hold it as we took a bead. Taught us to squeeze the trigger not jerk it. He taught us about sight adjustment, about Kentucky windage and Tennessee elevation, about shooting uphill and down.
Actually, he taught all these things to Reuben—I already knew them, although I had no idea how I did. I was a deadeye from the start and I could tell that Frank knew he wasn’t teaching me anything. He called me a naturalborn shooter and I supposed that was all the explanation for it.
As good as I was with a rifle, my real talent was with handguns. I was fifteen the first time I held one—Frank’s .38 Smith & Wesson top-break revolver—and it was like handling some tool I’d used all my life. It was a strange but comforting sensation. I busted a beer bottle at forty paces with each of the first six shots I took. Reuben yelled “Yow!” with every hit. It was like I didn’t really have to aim, just point the gun like my finger at whichever bottle I wanted to hit—and pow, I’d hit it. Frank then let me shoot his .380 Savage and I did just as well with it. I loved its semiautomatic action, the thrill of firing one round after another in rapid sequence, shattering a bottle with each shot. When I squeezed off the tenth and last round in the magazine, Frank stared at the litter of glass on the ground, then looked at me kind of curious but didn’t say anything.
When I turned seventeen Frank gave me a rifle that once upon a time had belonged to his grandfather—an 1874 Buffalo Sharps. It weighed twelve pounds and fired a .50-caliber round that could carry over a mile. It had double-set triggers and a folding vernier peep sight mounted on the tang. Frank said his granddad had used it when he was an army scout hunting Apaches. The rifle came with a protective buckskin boot fitted with a rawhide loop so it could be hung on a saddle horn.
A month after he gave me that present Frank was killed in El Paso. Two men tried to rob him when he came out of a whorehouse. He was sixty years old and half-drunk but still managed to bust one guy’s head against a rock fence before the other one stabbed him from behind. The one with the fractured skull survived and got sentenced to forty years. The killer was executed in the electric chair.
Frank was buried in the Concordia Cemetery in El Paso. Reuben and I accompanied Uncle Cullen to the funeral. It was our first train ride and we stared out the window the whole trip, not seeing much of anything except more of the desert country we knew so well and marveling at how big West Texas truly was. Aunt Ava had come down with a bad stomachache that morning and stayed home.
There were about two dozen people at the graveside service, half of them from Frank’s ranch, including his foreman, Plutarco Suárez. Frank had bequeathed the place to him. And left his Mexican saddle to Reuben, who had always admired it. To me he left his .38 top-break.