A slash down his forehead fountained blood. He screamed and screamed and screamed. I swung the axe again, and it lodged deep in the side of his neck. More blood. I’d never seen so much.

Billy sprawled flat on his back, his whole body twitching like he was being electrocuted. It seemed to go on forever, his legs kicking out, hands shaking. Finally he settled down, eyes wide open to nothing.

I flung myself on the garage door, fumbled with the latch. My face was burning up. I couldn’t breathe. I got it open, raised it and stumbled out to the street, gulping air. I went to my knees and puked. Cold sweat blossomed on my forehead, and I started shivering.

My head swam. I gave myself a moment, breathed in through the nose and out through the mouth. I didn’t want to see or hear anything, didn’t want to think. I just wanted to kneel there with my eyes closed until the world stopped spinning. When I felt settled enough, I went back inside the firehouse.

I went through Billy’s pockets and retrieved Roy’s keys. Then I fished another set out of my pocket, not my own keys but those belonging to the late Luke Jordan. The back of the truck was locked with a padlock. I tried three keys and the fourth one fit.

This time I planned to be ready. I pulled my revolver.

I slowly lifted the latch. I took a deep breath, mentally counted one, two, three, and threw the truck door open.

A swarm of Mexicans ran over me. The sudden silence erupted with yelling and shouts in Spanish. I yelled too, backed away, panicked. I jerked the trigger at the mass of bodies coming at me. Click. Click. Click.

I hadn’t loaded the gun.

They bumped and shoved as they ran past. I screamed. But they went around me, flooding through the open garage door, and they were all out on Main Street now, maybe forty of them. Mostly men, but some women too, and I think I saw a child. The night was alive with the chatter of Spanish in the air. I got caught up, found myself standing in front of the firehouse, the Mexicans melting into the night like a fistful of brown pebbles tossed into a dark river.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The racket of fleeing Mexicans faded, and I stood again in the hot still night. I blinked into the darkness, forcing my heartbeat down to something human. They’d gone off in every direction. I wouldn’t have known how to start rounding them up even if I’d wanted to. I went back in, looked at Billy’s corpse. I pulled out my Winstons with shaking hands, lit one and smoked.

I always wondered if I’d have to kill somebody one day, but I never thought it would be Billy, or anyone I knew, anyone I worked with. Once, I was in this fight in a little shithole lounge outside Amarillo. The place got out of hand, and we tried to stay out of it, but some of these motherfuckers got up on the stage and this big biker got a hold on our drummer. The drummer was a little scrawny guy, and I could see that biker was about to break him into a dozen pieces.

I swung my guitar as hard as I could, and the crack on the biker’s skull was so loud, it stopped the rest of the fight, everybody looking up to the stage as this beefy son of a bitch went flopping off the stage, blood pouring into his eyes. I was scared then, worried I’d killed the guy. I checked the hospital three days in a row until I heard he was going to be okay, and then I hauled my ass out of town.

But there wasn’t any power on Earth going to bring Billy back. There was an axe lodged in his neck, and I’d put it there. Billy’s wife was a red-haired woman with freckles named Cindy. She taught fifth grade. I tried to remember if they had a kid or not and then very quickly stopped trying to remember.

Don’t think about it.

I heard somebody clear his throat, and I spun quickly, my hands going to the revolver on my belt. Never mind it didn’t have any bullets.

The Mexican loitering in the frame of the garage door was short and dark, broad flat nose. Black hair down past his neck. He wore dirty jeans and a stained undershirt. Sandals. He held up his hands like whoa, pal. No trouble here. He pointed at my cigarette, motioned with two fingers at his mouth.

I held the pack out to him, like I was trying to lure a squirrel with a crust of bread. He approached slowly, took one from the pack. He made a thumb flicking motion for a light, and I sparked him up with my Bic. I backed up to a big toolbox, used it as a bench and lit a new Winston for myself. My hands still shook, but not quite so bad.

My new pal squatted in front of me, puffed, looked around the firehouse. His gaze landed on dead Billy. He muttered Spanish, offered me a sheepish smile and a shrug as if to say Sometimes you just have to put an axe though a guy.

He finished the cigarette, stood, uselessly dusted off his pants. I took some more cigarettes from the pack and handed them to him. “For the road.”

“Muchas gracias.” He took the smokes and headed for the door.

I watched him shamble away with nothing but the clothes on his back, probably nothing in his pockets either. No I.D. maybe. Where would he go first? What would he do? How would he eat? The answers were all too likely.

“Hold on,” I called after him.

He paused, raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t do anything in town, okay? Take your show on the road.”

He looked blank.

“Don’t steal anything,” I said. “Don’t break into anyone’s house. At least wait until you get to the next town.”

His blank look got more blank.

I tapped the star on my chest. “Policia.” I put my hand on the pistol, looked him square in the eye. “I don’t want any trouble from you.” I thumbed the badge again. “Just move on someplace else.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes, and he nodded vigorously. “Si, si.” He jogged away.

Good. Maybe he’d cause trouble somewhere else. Maybe he wouldn’t cause any at all. He probably didn’t have a nickel or a plan, but somehow I envied him, running off into the night with two cigarettes and a clean slate. I hoped he wouldn’t hurt anybody. I had bigger worries.

I stood, flicked away the cigarette butt, and closed the big garage door, made sure it was latched. I approached the back of the moving van, and was almost knocked over by the stink. I had the idea that maybe I’d get in there and have a looksee, find clues or whatever bullshit real cops do, but the combination of urine, crap and body odor was like some kind of impenetrable force-field. I shut the door, clapped the padlock back on.

I stood over Billy again, looked into his vacant eyes, knew I had to go get somebody about this. Fact is I did toy with the notion of hauling the body off and burying it, pretending like the whole thing never happened. What? Who? Billy? Shrug. Haven’t seen him. Why? Something wrong?

No, that shit never works out. Never. I’d seen enough CSI shows to know that, and anyway I was spattered pretty good with Billy’s blood. No, this was a big, fat mess which wasn’t going to go away or clean up easy.

I left the firehouse through the kitchen and walked the alley back to the police station. Inside, I tried the chief on the radio again and came up empty. I was starting to worry something bad had happened to him. Billy had tried to kill me. What else might he have been capable of?

I flipped open the Rolodex on the chief’s desk and dialed Amanda’s number. Her machine picked up after six rings. Her recording sounded very businesslike. I waited for the beep.

“Uh, Amanda, this is Toby. I think … uh … listen, we got a problem, and I need somebody to get down here to the station. I’ll try Karl next.” I hung up, wondering how much of a dork I sounded like. I hated talking to those things.

I sighed, thought about waiting five minutes then trying Amanda again. I did not want to call Karl, former Sooner linebacker, loud-mouth, muscle-head prick. He blew out his knee at University of Oklahoma, came back to Coyote Crossing and stayed. Putting on a badge made him feel like big man on campus again, I guess. He also volunteered as assistant football coach for the school’s JV team. He enjoyed shouting at people.