or not. For the insurance, you know.
And did he?
Probably, but they couldn't prove it. Grandma looked pretty good, considering. Like she'd been dead only a month or two.
I don't know about your dear departed. But I tell you it doesn't take a genius to figure that ain't Ketchum.
Is too.
You been had.
Mosca considers the withered human head in his lap. The wispy black hair, ears like dried apple slices. A flake of yellow epidermis peels away from the edge of a sunken, gaping eye socket. Mosca picks at it, trying to neaten the skull. It's like trying to scrape the label off a mayonnaise jar. All he manages to do is to loosen a bigger hunk. He licks his finger and dabs at it.
Damn, he says. I didn't mean to do that.
George shakes his head and backs out of the driveway. You can probably hock it.
You think?
George shrugs. Hock shops value the odd. It might fit right in. I mean, it's a head all right. Even if I doubt it's Black Jack's.
Mosca stares at the grimacing, leathery mug. People will pay good money for the head of Black Jack Ketchum. Man I won it from said it was worth a grand at least.
Crowfoot shrugs. You might get something for it. I don't know about a grand. Maybe a hundred bucks.
Shit. I get more than that. He's a famous outlaw.
Ketchum was. This dude, he probably robbed a liquor store and forgot to grab a top- shelf bottle of tequila, the dumbshit. Crowfoot grins. That's if you ask me.
Mosca says, Fuck it. He stuffs the head back into the bowling- ball bag, crams it between his feet on the floorboard. I'm going to make some money off this head if it's the last thing I do.
That's just peachy, says Crowfoot. They drive taciturn and moody through the streets of Pueblo to the Department of Nuisance Animal Control office, where they check in and get their assignment for the day. Crows and cowbirds near a feedlot. Exterminate with all due diligence. The boss man Silas tells them to get started pronto.
Halfway across town Mosca says, You hear about the fatso kidnappings?
Crowfoot holds the steering wheel with one finger, his hand in his lap, staring at the landscape of pawnshops, strip clubs, and palm readers that clatters by the pickup's window like lemons and cherries on a slot machine. After a moment of silence he says, You want the truth? I bet Black Jack Ketchum's head is buried along with his name.
They're kidnapping fat people and liposuctioning them skinny to sell the oil on the black market. That's what I heard.
The sky looks darker the farther west they travel.
What do you mean, "they"? asks Crowfoot.
You know, says Mosca. The lipo gangs. The ones who sell it
on the black market to the illegals and migrants living in the boxcars down at the freight yards.
Crowfoot squints at the storm clouds massed before them. Looks like we're about to be in the shit, Señor Fly.
Jesus Christ. I don't need another day off, says Mosca. I need some work is what I need. By hook or crook.
George is thinking he needs a better pair of boots. And a better job. He used to think this grunt work was a step up from hauling trash since part of the job was shooting things. Years ago maybe George would have enjoyed the pure sport of it— the aiming, the hitting of the target— but now when he's called out to exterminate another murder of crows sighted near town, he feels the spider- on- your- neck creep of guilt. And today's detail is just pathetic, sent to the west side of town to track and kill a flock of cowbirds massing on feedlot scraps. A job like this would make Crazy Horse turn over in his grave.
Interested in a little extra cash? asks Mosca. I got something going on the side. Bet I could get you on, easy.
You're full of bets today, aren't you?
Mosca grins. I'm a betting fool, that's for sure. I tell you about this, you promise not to breathe a word? It's somewhat wide of the law, if you catch my drift.
Do I look like a snitch?
Mosca explains that he's part of a crew of cattle providers. With the price of beef higher than ever, a man can make good money liberating a few head of cattle at night, taking them to a slaughterhouse out of state. Black- market beef.
You have to know your way around a steer, says Mosca. I'm guessing you probably do. Plus it helps to have some muscle. It's all quick and fast and these dudes I work with, they don't fuck around.
You're cattle rustling?
You could call it that. I like to think of it as a Robin Hood kind of deal. Taking from the rich and selling to the poor.
That's supposed to be giving to the poor.
We can't be that old- fashioned, can we?
I don't like the sound of it.
I didn't either at first. But once you get used to money, it makes you feel like the king of Denver.
They near the western edge of town. The wind picks up and grit blasts the windshield. Crowfoot flips on the wipers. The rubber blades squeak and shudder on the cold glass, clearing two arches. Mosca says they're screwed. No way in hell they're going to do any bird killing in this duster. They watch as the dust storm rears up in front of them. It comes on like a cloud of bricks.
Crowfoot and Mosca sit in the cab and wait it out. The sand sifts across the windshield in a hypnotizing swift drizzle. It's as if time is moving faster than it should. Mosca says sometimes it seems that the end is near and this is nothing but hourglass sand running out.
They watch as the dust storm swallows a billboard advertising topless dancers in the Wiggle Room.
After a half hour the storm slackens. The wind dies and the dust sifts down on the back side of the wind gusts. Traffic begins to crawl. Mosca and Crowfoot drive on, straining to see the taillights of the vehicles ahead.
Crowfoot asks for more dope about this cattle- rustling gig.
. . .
R u b y h u r r i e s a c r o s s the prairie, the roiling bulge of the dust storm looming like the debris cloud of a demolished building. She coughs and squints, the grit in her eyes and mouth. A gulch opens before her. She stumbles at the edge and into the shadows she falls.
She trips and slides down the steep ravine walls. Cactus rakes her face, neck, and arms. She hits the bottom of the gulch hard, landing in a jumble of stones and grass. When she comes to a stop, she winces and rocks in pain. Her left arm burns and aches. She clutches it to her side. She feels for wounds, finds a swelling on her head. Her hand is wet. She holds it before her eyes. She can see nothing but a finger and palm shadow in the brick- red haze.
The dust storm swirls above the gulch like a bloody tornado. She huddles in the hollow
