Pretty Like an Ugly Girl (Baer Creighton Book 3) Read online

  Guess in Arizona they brand the meat, not the hide.

  I think through what I see.

  These boys got a flat, pull way off the interstate to fix it, and shoot a man run off for the mountains. Is these boys the famous coyotes, smuggle illegals so they can beg work at the Home Depot parking lot?

  I’s close enough to mostly read the front plate with the field glasses, though dark is near on us and the letters don’t resolve. ACP 1288.

  Mebbe. The last three could be any damn thing.

  I look back to Stinky Joe and can’t see his white coat nowhere. Search back and forth with the mountain for reference, but I moved since I last saw him. I still got the better elevation but he’s nowhere.

  Dreadlocks boy with the shovel sets about digging beside the body of the fella that run. I keep my peace for the moment—but just the moment. Man with the shovel be easy take down. I’ll get the one with the rifle first.

  Gander all around so they’s no surprises when I come out shooting, and a knee-high ghost lopes ’tween scrub and pine toward camp.

  Stinky Joe’s alive.

  I let the blood drop from boil to simmer. I saw the man shoot the blackhair and saw him shoot my dog. Seems like a right-thinking man’d do something about him.

  But I slip back to camp.

  Mebbe this ain’t my fight. Be nice to go a couple week without trouble. And I shoot these fuckers, I gotta break camp.

  Sit on a rock. Ain’t right, grown man weepy on a dog. But Stinky Joe ain’t a dog so much as noble creature. He’ll shake to pieces wanting a belly rub, and when danger come he’ll piss hisself then jump out the window to save you. Noble creature—and that’s why he’s man’s best friend. He’ll sleep beside and fight beside you. Eat anything you give him. Nasty ass old Burger King. He’ll answer back but won’t start too many conversations of his own. Near perfect animal.

  Now I got it all: got my solitude and big sky; a woman stops talking when I poker; got the daughter you’d dream of, level headed and carries a forty-five; got the three grandbabies. I got it all and when I think I lose my dog, I weep.

  Must be all the killing. Ain’t a month since I come home to see Fred with a hole where his eye was. And a fortnight removed from the butchery I done with the wood alcohol. And then with guns and a firecracker.

  All a man wants is a world without the evil that calls his own to match.

  Found Stinky Joe at camp. Pet him while he shook hisself tired. Had blood on his coat but I let him curl up on my sleeping bag anyhow. Rubbed him up and down and that rifle bullet grazed the top his neck, a slice out the skin and a nick of bone I felt with my fingers. Musta been the shock of bullet on bone dropped him. I love him till he growl, then sit myself outside on a rock.

  The meat truck drove off long ago, and it’s dark enough I need a fire to see.

  I think on what I saw and what my stake is with the body they left out there. Some Mexican come into the country and got shot by the man brought him. Don’t know I’s the one responsible to solve that crime.

  But that body out there—I saw him in the dirt, and he didn’t seem the size as the man with the shovel.

  I sit and ponder what I got and don’t got to do, and the moon come up silver and big. Outside my little copse of evergreen shadows, the landscape lights up, and I can almost see the messed-up earth where Dreadlocks buried him.

  “Stay in the tent, you hear?”

  You should stay too ...

  “Don’t I know it, Joe.”

  Don’t get reckless on me.

  I look at him. He bury his head in the sleeping bag and I cover the rest him too. I don’t know why we got to have such a evil world. I don’t know.

  Smith at my hip but it’s just a cold lonely night, now the killers ’ve left. I can’t do nothing even if I see what I don’t want. I can’t call in what I saw. Can’t involve myself. And no matter what I do this man with the red jacket’s dead. I ain’t fixing that. So why in hell I strut out in the moonlight to dig his ass up?

  I get to the pile of dirt and rocks and can’t hardly believe the depths of stupidity. Dreadlocks had the shovel but didn’t dig a hole. He scooped up dirt and drizzle it on top. Good wind’d blow the body clean.

  Half his shoulder’s out. I grab under and lift, roll him face up.

  Ain’t but a ten-twelve-year-old boy. Eyes open. Mouth open.

  Am I your problem to solve, or not?

  “That’s fine English. And I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mae sipped beer from a frosty mug at a bar in Flagstaff, Arizona. At eight in the evening on Friday, the place was already crawling with college guys. It wasn’t her scene. She’d seen a poor female dog once, licked and slobbered on by a male that wouldn’t leave her alone. He just kept licking her. The female had looked up at her, and they’d shared a moment. Being in the college bar, Mae felt like that. Every five seconds, some guy whose sack had barely descended and fuzzed over ogled her, offered to buy her a drink, used a dumb ass line.

  “If a charming, intelligent fellow was to successfully get into your underwear, what would he say?”

  “I don’t know. But he’d use first person, you pretentious fuck.”

  He returned to his frat buddies and the next came up. This one, red hair with dimples.

  “Are your legs tired?”

  She said nothing.

  He lifted his eyebrows. Exhaled. Recovered with a broad smile. “Because you’ve been running through—”

  “C’mere. You see this?”

  She angled her purse toward him. Inside, the chrome of a .45.

  “Piss off, okay? Just leave.”

  One more swallow of the house-brewed chocolate stout, and she’d find a joint with some gray ponytail dudes.

  Glancing across the bar, she noticed the red headed man-child gesticulating to the others, his face painted red with apparent alarm.

  Whatever.

  Mae drank chocolate stout.

  After serving shotgun with Baer Creighton driving a pristine 1982 Chevy station wagon he bought with gold specie from a white-haired widow who kept saying, Mmm, if I was twenty years younger, Mae had no doubt why Baer had spent his life alone.

  He was intolerable. Compassionate. Giving. Yes. Every thousand miles or so. The rest of the time, evil this, lyin’ that.

  Nonstop.

  He passed a semi in Oklahoma and said, “That’s an evil sombitch in there.”

  “How you know?”

  “He look at me.”

  “You need meditation or something. Hypnotherapy.”

  “Aromatherapy,” Ruth said.

  “That wouldn’t make him smell better, Ma.”

  “Well, maybe it wouldn’t be so stuffy in here. Would you lower the back window a hair? Joseph must have farted again. I hope.”

  Tulsa. The next exit was Tulsa. What would be wrong with her asking Baer to drop her off at Tulsa? Find a Hardee’s or something …

  But she’d stuck it out, knowing ultimately, her life and her kids’ lives would be better with Baer Creighton in them.

  Looking at it that way, their lives would be impossibly bad without him.

  If he just wasn’t so intolerable.

  “Why are you so gosh darned judgmental all the time?”

  “I ain’t judgmental. Just discerning.”

  They’d get to Flagstaff, the town Baer kept musing about, and then go back to the way things were.

  Separate.

  Mostly. Until he needed something.

  Until she needed something.

  Face it, you weren’t doing so hot when he was your uncle. You needed him a hell of a lot more than he needed you.

  “Excuse me, miss, I see you sitting all alone, got these kids bothering you all the time.”

  Mae looked up. Swallowed. Fifty-something white dude with sun baked skin and a voice like crushed limestone.

  “Want me to sit here so they fuck off?”

  “Uh, that would be perfect.”
<
br />   “What’s your name?”

  “Mae.”

  “Pretty.” He waived. A woman with an apron came. “I’ll have ginger ale. Mae—care for another chocolate porter?”

  “Sure.”

  He nodded at the woman. She spun. From the corner of her sight, Mae noticed the red-haired boy approach the bar. He spoke to the bartender, nodded toward Mae.

  Crushed-limestone-man pulled back a stool. They were heavy, the legs made from small trees that barely had the bark removed before being dipped in varnish. He dragged the chair with one hand like it was on wheels. Sat.

  “I don’t get out much,” he said, “but I haven’t seen you before.”

  “But you know the house chocolate porter on sight.”

  “Well, I still haven’t seen you before.”

  “Enough about me. What’s your name?”

  The beer wench returned with two fresh mugs, one sparkling, the other black with foam rolling over the top. The man peeled a twenty from a money clip.

  “Thanks, Nat. Say, you running for governor?”

  Bullshit! Get up and leave. This is a routine. He throws around the money, she says the line. He practices—

  “No interest whatsoever.”

  “You ought to. Clean this state up.”

  “Thank you, but I’m a private sector guy.”

  The beer wench looked at him too long, then turned.

  “So you’re not running for governor—Nat, is it? That your real name?” Mae said. “You don’t expect me to buy any of this, just because you’re an older guy, right? What, you set up the routine with the beer girl before coming over to save me?”

  Nat regarded her. Someone broke a rack on the pool table behind her. Mae jumped. Gritted her teeth.

  “Tell you what, I made a mistake, but I’ll salvage this for both of us. Take my ginger ale over there and let you enjoy the evening. Pleasant to meet you, Mae.”

  Bullshit. He’s playing mind games. He won’t leave.

  Nat walked to a table across the bar, sat looking away from her to the sidewalk beyond the window. He sipped his ginger ale.

  “Excuse me miss. You have to leave, or we’re calling the cops.”

  Mae turned. The bartender stood beside her, and beside him, a man built like a barn.

  “What?”

  “We have a report you’re carrying a firearm. I should have called the cops already, but you’re apparently not from around here. You have to leave now, or I’m making the call.”

  “Well, that’s a bunch of bullshit.”

  “Mike, stand here; don’t let her move, unless it’s out the door.”

  The bartender turned and halted. Nat Cinder stood behind him.

  “Nat?”

  “Hey, George, I know this girl. She causing trouble?”

  “She brought a firearm into the establishment. Now she’s being pissy about it. I’m calling the cops.”

  “Mind if I go to work on her?”

  “You got one minute.”

  Nat stepped between the George and the barn. “Mae, give me the gun. You’ll get it back.”

  Mae extracted the .45. In handing it to Nat, she swung the business end past George.

  “Whoa, easy. Don’t point that fucking thing unless you want to shoot it.”

  “Who says I don’t want to shoot it.”

  Nat eased the gun from her hand, released the magazine, pulled back the slide, and held the pistol so the ejected bullet landed on the table. He slipped it into the magazine.

  “George, is it all right with you if I lock this in my vehicle and the lady and I stay here and talk a while?

  George nodded, closed his eyes.

  “George?”

  “Okay. Miss, you can’t ever bring that in here again. Next time I or my staff sees you, we’re going to check. Got it?”

  Mae nodded.

  Nat walked around the bouncer and Mae followed him outside. He pulled a key fob from his pocket and a Ram truck flashed its lights. He opened the driver side door, pulled a metal case from below the seat, tethered to the seat frame by a quarter inch steel cable.

  “So this is what I had in mind. We’ll stow you piece in here. I’ll let you hang onto the key, and when we’re done chatting, you get your gun back.”

  “Good.”

  He opened the metal box, pulled the pistol that was already in it out, and jammed it under his jacket into his pants at his back.

  He placed her gun in the box, locked it. Closed and locked the Ram, then gave Mae the key to the box.

  “Wait a minute. Now you’re going to carry your gun into the bar?”

  “Uh-huh. Difference is, no one sees mine until I’m ready to use it.”

  She followed him back inside the bar. He stood at her table a moment, nodded. “All right. Glad I could help.” He headed back to his table and ginger ale.

  Mae finished her existing mug of porter, wondered how many calories she’d just dumped in the trunk, and stood. She grabbed the mug Nat had bought. Walked across the bar. Drank half and sat down next to him.

  “Excuse me. I seen some of these boys kissin’ other boys. You want me to sit here and keep ’em away? Long as I don’t give you any more shit? Or better yet, how about this? I’m sorry. I’m a dumb ass. I’ve had my guard up for—well, not long enough, to tell the truth, but—”

  “Have a seat, Mae. Glad for the company.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cephus set about the evening’s work. Mentioning a woman in Flagstaff, Finch took off the moment they arrived at the house, before their father came out to greet them. Luke Graves stood at the entrance from the garage to the house. He looked around as if expecting to see Finch.

  “What brought you in late?”

  Cephus explained about the drive shaft, flat tire, runaway boy, and having no recourse but to shoot him. Luke nodded. The logic was sound.

  “Your brother say where he took off to?”

  “A female obligation.”

  Luke was silent. After a moment staring at the far end of the garage, he smiled as if whatever troubled him found resolution. “Let’s get a look at this truck.”

  Father and son inspected the Isuzu’s rear tires. Luke pointed to a gash in the sidewall of the driver’s side inner tire. Some operators might trust it not to blow for the remainder of the journey.

  “We take zero chances,” Luke said.

  They’d have to deflate the tire, remove it from the vehicle, and replace it with another kept at the garage for just such exigencies.

  On the monthly run from Sierra Vista to Salt Lake City, Cephus and Finch always stopped at the family homestead for the night and unloaded the meat into a specially constructed basement under the garage. Windowless and bare, a wide storage area hid its entrance. The chamber’s only accoutrements were a toilet, sink, ten double mattresses on the floor, and ten wool blankets. Luke considered it safer than either trying to make the drive from Sierra Vista to Salt Lake City straight through, or staying at a hotel and leaving the cargo in the truck overnight.

  “You unload the meat, and I’ll get things together for the tire change.”

  Half expecting another person to leap from the truck, Cephus unlatched the back door and eased it open. The girls were still handcuffed in place.

  Cephus smelled something wretched—then he saw it. In the twenty-minute drive between where Cephus put on the front spare tire and where they arrived at port for the night, one of the girls had placed a pile of defecate in the middle of the truck bed.

  Cephus saw flecks of green chili.

  He observed each girl in turn. None met his gaze. One softly snored.

  This had never happened before.

  First, meat was warned about the nine-hour drive to ensure they made their best use of the toilet before getting on the truck.

  Second, none had ever taken a serious issue with traveling in handcuffs before. They weren’t prisoners. Exactly. At this point in their journey, they were closing in on the payoff and hoping f
or a better future. They’d been recruited throughout Central America and promised transportation to the land of opportunity and jobs. They all wanted to come—even if they weren’t fully aware what their eventual jobs would be, they had to be able to guess. The girls were all pretty. Some were stunners. The boys were effete.

  It wasn’t rocket science.

  And the business of pairing worker with work, or dreamer with dream—was virtuous. His father had explained the principles dozens of times.

  Two factors made their work noble.

  First, these boys and girls weren’t even people. Latin Americans all belonged to a sub-class. The way you could tell was what happened when you left them to their own devices. Now, you could transplant a few into America here and there, and they’d do fine. They’d blend right in with the other trash—white, black, brown, yellow, red. Every race produced rabble. But, when you looked at what happened when they ran everything themselves, you saw how profoundly inferior they were. All Latin American countries were shitholes. The people were unintelligent, lazy, and corrupt. They baked those attributes into their way of doing business, their politics, everything about their societies. It was nothing against them. They were what they were.

  God gave a man eyes for a reason.

  Luke explained it this way: If you bred a German shepherd with a pug, the result would be a dog, but damn sure not a German shepherd. Pugs are okay, but next to a German shepherd, well, you see the difference.

  “Why would you mate a German shepherd with a pug?”

  “Why would a white man fuck a darkie? He has a dick. That’s why. But fuck. You get what I mean, right?”

  The second factor making their work noble was that the kids they brought to Salt Lake City would live in the United States. If you’re going to suck and fuck for a living, it’s best to do it where they teach hygiene in elementary school and most homes can afford soap and running water.

  “That’s how to think of it,” Luke had said to Cephus when he was still in high school and the new part of the family meat business was taking off. “We take them from where they live in fields, where they’re subject to misery, labor, drug dependency, and exploitation. Instead of that, we bring them into the house. They get clean, warm and dry, and we get money. Win—win.”