Body Heat (Dept 6 Hired Guns 2)

“Welcome home,” he muttered as he passed the drugstore, the family-owned grocery, Serrano’s Western Wear and the Catholic church his mother used to drag him to each Sunday. She’d insisted her younger brother go to church with them, but religion hadn’t been enough to keep Arturo on the right track. Was he even alive?

Roderick stretched the tight muscles in his neck. Maybe, when he was finished in Bordertown, he’d head down to Mexico and look for Arturo.

Then again, it’d been so long, maybe he wouldn’t. Some things were better left alone. He had no idea if the man he’d find would even want to be found.

When he reached the high school, he slowed to a crawl. The buildings had recently been painted; a new addition stuck out from the main hall like an extra appendage. Elmer’s Burrito Stand, the same awful blue color it’d always been, huddled on the corner across the street. Roderick had to marvel at that. For twenty years Elmer had made his living selling burritos out of that little stand. Not many places lasted so long. But not many places served food as good as Elmer’s, either.

In the very center of town, the buildings had the wood-plank sidewalks and overhangs reminiscent of the Old West. In an effort to save itself after the mine closed nearly a century ago, Bordertown had followed Tombstone’s lead in vying for the tourist dollar. But Bordertown didn’t have the O.K. Corral or any other real claim to fame. It had to rely on tours of the old mine, a string of souvenir shops and a few ranches in the surrounding desert that boarded tourists and offered an “authentic Western experience.” Rod was pretty sure the town would’ve died a slow death if not for the artisans who’d moved into one section and made a name for themselves selling turquoise jewelry and western art.

A few of the dumpier buildings downtown had been cleaned up. A chiropractor’s office and a veterinary office had received a face-lift and sported new signs. But a strip mall that’d been new the year he’d left was now weathered and worn-looking, home to a Laundromat, an electronics discounter and a liquor store. What Roderick remembered as an old thrift shop had been taken over by a salon boasting a full set of acrylic nails for forty-five dollars. At the Circle K, where half the high school had loitered late into a Friday or Saturday night, there was litter in the bushes and graffiti on the tan bricks facing the alley. And most of the houses on Center Street, those that hadn’t been turned into businesses, had bars covering the windows and doors.

On the whole, Bordertown wasn’t particularly attractive. It never had been. But there was a nostalgic quality that, for Roderick, coalesced into a combination of homesickness and regret. As he drove through the quiet streets, gazing at the buildings, many of which featured the typical desert landscaping, it felt almost as if his mother was sitting in the car beside him.

He considered going out to the cemetery to visit her grave. Now would be the time, when he could pay his respects in private. But the thought of standing there, looking down at that small mound as he had when he was only sixteen, brought back too much pain. He wouldn’t go. Not yet. Maybe if he avoided the cemetery, he wouldn’t miss her quite so poignantly.

Once he drove to the edge of town, he turned right and continued several miles before making a left and then another right. He was going to the ranch. He wasn’t sure why. He didn’t care what it looked like, didn’t want anything to do with his father or his half brothers, but he was curious.

The arched Dunlap ranch sign came up more quickly than he’d expected. It’d seemed much farther from town when he was young, probably because he had to walk if he wanted to go anywhere.

Paloverde trees lined the drive to the mansion where his half brothers had lived with Edna, Bruce’s wife, who’d prided herself on her taste and cleanliness. His mother could’ve experienced a better life if she’d been allowed to become one of the maids. Edna had several in those days. His father had once promised Carolina the chance to work inside, get out of the terrible heat. But Edna had refused. She couldn’t stand to have Carolina in such close proximity to the Family. Knowing that she’d also had a son by Bruce, Edna had lobbied to have Carolina kicked off the ranch completely.

Fortunately, his father had never gone quite that far. He’d tried to buy her off once, but she’d refused to leave Jorge. So Bruce had let her stay. She’d continued to work in the fields, as long and as hard as any man, and continued to live in one of the little shacks along the periphery of the South Forty. Roderick had worked beside her, trying to do more than his share in order to give her a break. Until that last beating from his half brothers. Then his father had insisted he find work elsewhere to resolve the constant conflict.

That was why he felt so compelled to come here, he realized. As much as he hated his father, this was home, the only home he’d known until his mother had died and some other farm laborer had moved into her shack.

The tires of the Hummer he’d rented crunched on gravel as he rolled slowly down the drive and turned into the compound. He didn’t have much time. Already, a light shone in the grand ranch house. His father had always been an early riser.

Circumventing the nicer vehicles and farm equipment stored near a large silver water tank and a grain bin, he took the narrow road that led along the fence to the living quarters for the field help. The shacks were as tiny as ever—only two rooms. But they’d been painted. A satellite dish sat on the roof of the first one, with cables running to the others, and there were air-conditioning units in the left side windows. Conditions here had improved. When Roderick was a boy, they’d had no heat or air-conditioning, no electricity at all, and no plumbing. When he told other Americans he’d grown up poor, they had no idea he was talking about the kind of poverty found in third-world countries like the one his mother had escaped.

As he sat there, taking it all in, a door swung open and a stooped, withered Mexican stepped out. The man hadn’t turned on any lights. He probably had family inside he didn’t want to wake.

Noticing Rod immediately, he squinted to see who it was.

Roderick froze when he realized he was looking at Jorge. Boy, had he aged in the past fourteen years!

Their eyes met, and the old man’s wrinkled mouth curved, revealing several missing teeth.

The urge to throw the car into Reverse suddenly gripped Roderick. As ashamed as it made him feel, he wanted to forget his roots, forget he’d ever lived here. But he didn’t drive off. Jorge was already shuffling toward the truck at an eager gait.