“Let them loose any time you want.”
“They’re working for me now, and under my protection.”
Bobby grinned, “They need somebody to protect them. Even little girls are beating the crap out of them these days.”
“Mata, listen close to what I say to you,” Godoy said. “If I find out you know where the women are, especially the little Indian, and you don’t inform me immediately, I will have my men come for you.”
Bobby pointed at the Barbosas, “These men?” He shook his head.
“Have your little joke, but remember what I say.”
“Why do you want her?”
Godoy walked away without answering. The Barbosas followed, glaring back at Bobby several times.
Bobby waved just to piss them off. He figured he had about half a day to find Anda before Felipe and the Barbosas got hard on her trail. He knew what side of town to try next, the isolated, badass neighborhood next to the foothills, the place they called Outlaw Road. The smugglers were there, and Bobby thought the women might try again to have someone smuggle them across the border. If not, well, it was a place to start - after he called Hunter.
***
The Outlaw Road began many years before, when the end of the glorious Revolution jerked to its final days, and the Centaur of the North, the Jefe of the famed Dorados, General Francisco Villa, drove into a hail of assassin’s bullets in Parral.
Men from the old days who had been close to Pancho drifted away for their own safety, only to wind up over the next several years in this place on the outskirts of Ojinaga as if they had planned it. Revolution was out for them, but the things they learned with Doroteo Arango - before he became Pancho Villa - could be used to make money.
The anglo name came from the Americans who did business with the former Revolutionarios. As business prospered for both sides, the Tejano gringos brought in other non-Spanish speaking partners who were shown a narrow, rough road that led out of Ojinaga and seemed to go nowhere. The non-Spanish speakers were told, that to find people to do illegal acts, “travel the road to the outlaws”. Over the years, it changed to “travel the outlaw’s road”, and finally the metamorphosis was complete during prohibition when the village became a proper noun and, “Go to Outlaw Road” became the norm when everyone and his brother were into bootlegging liquor.
For the inhabitants of Outlaw Road, theft across the border, assassinations, murder for hire, gun running, smuggling whiskey, prostitution, and smuggling people and things, no questions asked, led to a form of rough prosperity. The Mexican government allowed Pancho’s men to operate with the understanding they stay removed and didn’t draw attention to themselves among the respectables. Through the years, it became known as the place to go if one wanted certain things done, or illegal things bought or sold.
It also became known as the place where a wrong look or an accidental bump could get you killed on the spot. The gun and knife were judge and jury in Outlaw Road.
Bobby’s mouth became dry, just as it always did when he was going there.
***
Anda led the two women down the dusty street bordered by crude buildings made of raw adobe-brick. Many were cantinas with faded letters over the doors. Narrow dirt paths angled through yards full of trash piled a foot deep and higher. Anda noticed broken brown and green bottles and generations of crushed cans dating back to rusted twelve-ouncers with old triangle fang marks made by a church key fifty years ago.
The three women were aware of the stares from the hard-looking men and women who were finishing a night of drinking, or starting a day of it. They slouched on broken chairs or the rusted fenders of cars on blocks, catching the morning sun’s warmth like buzzards spreading their wings.
Anda stopped in front of a small, plain adobe building set back from the street by a good thirty yards. The sign said, Buy-Sell-Trade in both English and Spanish. “Why don’t you two wait by the mesquite while I go inside.”
The women looked doubtful, but trudged over to sit on a log under the small tree as Anda walked to the building and went inside. The men and women across the street watched them while drinking from bottles and leaning to each other, whispering and laughing as they looked at the two dirty, frightened women. Some of the men made obscene gestures with their tongues and shoved their pelvises back and forth at them in vulgar simulations of sex. Alicia was so nervous she shivered.
Anda came out after ten minutes and walked to the tree. Maria noticed a man come out and watch. “We need to leave now,” Anda said. She led them down the road to Ojinaga, and when they rounded a bend and were out of sight of Outlaw Road, Anda turned into a narrow side wash that bent sharply away and hid them from sight.
Maria was angry again, “Well now, little thief. You’ve led us to a den of animals, and I expect those men will be here to take us and put us to work in their brothels for the rest of our lives. What were you thinking, taking us to such a place?”
Anda reached inside her shawl and removed a fat, zippered purse. “I sold your drugs. I’d heard the Barbosas talk about the place, saying it was where you got the best prices in Chihuahua.” She handed it to Maria.
It was heavy. Maria unzipped it and saw packets of money. The purse was stuffed to bursting. “I…I…”
Anda said, “Follow this wash. It should lead you to a larger one that will get you to town. I’ll go back on the road, in case anyone is coming after us.”
“All the things I said…”
“Leave town, as fast as you can, any way you can. It would be good if you could take Alicia, she has no one left.” Anda left without another word.
Maria held the money in both hands, her head down. She was quiet for several minutes. When she rose up there were wet streaks through the dust on her cheeks, “Come Alicia.” The women walked a few feet when Maria stopped, “I didn’t even offer her any.”
Anda walked on the road for five minutes before she spotted two men coming in a red pickup. She left the road and angled up the side of a tan hill spotted with greasewood and dark rocks. From a distance, the hill looked like a sleeping lion with flies on its back. Anda showed a strong limp as she climbed. The pickup stopped at the road below her and the two men got out, calling to her, “Come on, girlie, we’ll give you a ride into town.” Anda stopped. The men looked around and called out, “Where are your two friends?”