Rain Gods Page 0,2
of other bodies, the soil began to slide off the persons face and ears and neck and shoulders, down into a subterranean hole, exposing the waxy opalescence of a brow, the rictus that imitated surprise, one eye lidded, the other as bold as a childs marble, a ball of dirt clenched in the figures palm.
She was thin-boned, a toy person, her black blouse a receptacle for heat and totally inappropriate for the climate. He guessed she was not over seventeen and that she had been alive when the dirt was pushed on top of her. She was also Asian, not Hispanic as he had expected.
For the next half hour, until the light had gone from the sky, he continued to rake and dig in the field that had obviously been scraped down to the hardpan by a dozer blade, then backfilled with the overburden and tamped down and graded as smoothly as if in preparation for construction of a home.
He went back to his truck and threw the rake and shovel in the bed, then lifted his handheld radio off the passenger seat. Maydeen, this is Sheriff Holland, he said. Im behind the old church at Chapala Crossing. Ive uncovered the burials of nine homicide victims so far, all female. Call the feds and also call both Brewster and Terrell counties and tell them we need their assistance.
Youre breaking up. Say again? Did I read you right? You said nine homicide
Weve got a mass murder. The victims are all Asian, some of them hardly more than children.
The guy who made the nine-one-one, he called a second time.
Whatd he say?
I dont think he just happened by the church site. I think hes dripping with guilt.
Did you get his name?
He said it was Pete. No last name. Why didnt you call in? I could have sent help. Youre too goddamn old for this crap, Hack.
Because at a certain age, you finally accept and trust yourself and let go of the world, he thought. But in reply, all he said was Maydeen, would you not use that kind of language over the air, please?
PETE FLORES NEVER quite understood why the girl lived with him. Her hair was chestnut-colored, cut short and curled on the ends, her skin clear, her blue-green eyes deep-set, which gave them a mysterious quality that intrigued men and caused them to stare at her back long after she had walked past them. At the diner where she worked, she conducted herself with a level of grace that her customers, mostly long-haul truckers, sensed and respected and were protective of. She attended classes three nights a week at a junior college in the county seat, and the previous semester had published a short story in the college literary magazine. Her name was Vikki Gaddis, and she played a big-belly J-200 Gibson that her father, a part-time country musician from Medicine Lodge, Kansas, had given her when she was twelve years old.
Her husky voice and accent were not acquired or feigned. On occasion, when she played her guitar and sang at the diner, her customers rose from their chairs and stools and applauded. She also performed sometimes at the nightclub next door, although the patrons were unsure how they should respond when she sang Will the Circle Be Unbroken and Keep on the Sunny Side of Life.
She was still asleep when Pete entered the paintless frame house they rented, one that sat inside the blue shadow of a hill when the sun rose above the horizon as hot and sultry as a broken egg yolk, the light streaking across the barren land. Petes scalp and face were pulled tight with the beginnings of a hangover, the inside of his head still filled with the sounds of the highway bar he had been in. He washed his face in the sink, the water running cool out of a faucet that drew on an aluminum cistern elevated on stilts behind the house. The hill that blocked the sunrise, almost like an act of mercy, looked made of rust and cinders and was dotted with scrub brush and mesquite trees whose root systems could barely grow deep enough to find moisture. He knew Vikki would be up soon, that she had probably waited for him last night and slept fitfully, either knowing or not knowing where he was. He wanted to fix breakfast for her, as a form of contrition or in a pretense at normalcy. He filled the coffeepot with water, and the