“I said my name is Roselita Velasquez, and—” A gunshot echoed out across the field and gravel popped and ricocheted off Roselita’s shoes. Her whole body seized. When she realized what had just happened she jumped back, slammed into Ned, and dropped her credentials into the grass. She reached around to the small of her back. The old man didn’t flinch at the shot.
“I’d leave that where it is, dear—leave your badge there on the ground, too. Tater’s a wicked good shot, but he can’t hear us and might not be able to tell from the scope on that M40 of his if that thing in the grass is a gun or not.”
Roselita froze in place.
The old man kept talking. “Now you said your name is Velasquez. That right?”
Roselita’s head moved in a swivel, looking for any sign of the shooter. She took occasional short glances at the old man’s face and the other two men standing to her right. They all seemed unfazed by what had just happened. That’s when Roselita noticed that the old man’s left eye stared off, blank, in a slightly different direction from the other one, and his warped half smile caused most of the same side of his face to collapse and sag. Roselita began to feel the sting of her mistake. This old man wasn’t Eddie Rockdale. He was Casper, Eddie’s uncle. Dane had talked about him in the truck on the way there. He’d also warned her about talking—about being cocky. Roselita hadn’t listened to any of it. “Dane,” she said in an effort to defuse the heat or possibly gain an ally.
“Just ease it back and keep your hands out in plain sight, Rose.”
“Velasquez,” the old man chewed on the name. “I used to do business with a beaner named Velasquez.” He took a step closer and gave Roselita a good once-over. “Now that I think about it, he mighta looked a little like you, too. Where you from, little lady?”
Roselita felt like she was going crazy. This old buzzard just had someone fire on two law-enforcement officials and now he was right back to being a sexist prick. “This racist son of a bitch just shot at me, Kirby, and you’re asking me to ease it back?”
“Yes,” Dane said. “Seriously. Show your hands so we can speed this along.”
“Alabama,” the old man said, and slapped at his jeans. “I bet you’re Alabama born and raised.”
“Casper, signal whoever you’ve got drawn down on us and let him know we ain’t here for nothing but a conversation with Eddie.”
Casper loomed over Roselita. “The stars don’t glow all that bright over Alabama, do they, darlin’?”
“Call me darlin’ again, and you’ll find out just how bright they glow.”
“Casper, I’m serious. Call ’em off.”
“Well, Dane, I’m serious, too.” Casper’s tone changed. He stopped toying with Roselita and raised his voice a notch higher than Dane’s. “You, of all people, oughta know better than to bring police out here without going through the proper channels. Much less lettin’ them go diggin’ around in their pockets like that.”
“You’re right, Casper, I do know better. It’s my bad. I’m not even going to mention that you baited her. Now the woman is showing you her palms, so I’m asking you—one more time—call off your boy.”
“Your bad,” Casper mumbled as he stroked at the long, wiry whiskers of his gray goatee. Finally, the old man raised one hand up above his head long enough for the sunlight to catch the silver in one of his rings. He had one for every finger. When he lowered his arm, Dane and Ned both took a collective breath. The old man turned his attention back to a fuming but still-frozen Roselita Velasquez. “You can put your hands down now, and the name’s Casper, not Eddie. Eddie is my sister’s boy. But maybe the mistake was a good thing. Tater can be a bit more high-strung around him than me.” Casper turned and walked toward the row of scarecrows. “C’mon, Dane, Eddie’s in the barn. He’s sparring with a couple Mexicans and he’s got a buncha money riding on it, so don’t go taking food off the table. Keep it short, say yer piece, and keep Alabama there quiet.”
“And that’s it?” Roselita said. Her face was hot and red.
Dane held out a finger to hush her but didn’t answer. “Good to see you, Casper.”
“Yeah, yeah. Y’all come with me.” The old man kept walking and Roselita picked up her badge from the grass. Everyone followed Casper down the path. Roselita did, too, but she kept looking back over both shoulders as she walked. She kept her eyes on everything she passed—a shed that looked like it might be an outhouse, a silver LPG tank that could hide a sniper.
“You’re not going to see anyone,” Dane said. “Tater’s already back at the barn by now.”
“Son of a bitch,” Roselita said, and stopped.
“Seriously, Rose. Let it go.” Dane watched as Roselita lifted her foot to inspect the bottom of her expensive hiking shoes.
“First I get shot at and no one seems to care, and then I have to wade through chicken shit—goddamnit.”
Dane had to cover his face to hide the smirk as Roselita wiped her foot in the grass to get the shit off her shoe.
As they got closer to the barn they could hear the yelling. A small green Toyota Camry with a rusted-out side panel was parked in the grass beside a few big trucks outside the huge barn. “Does that car belong to the buyers?” Dane asked as Casper swung open one of the huge, reinforced steel–framed doors.
“Yeah,” Casper said. “You can fit fifty Mexicans into one of those things. It’s like a goddamn clown car.”
“Well, that’s one mystery solved,” Dane more or less mumbled to himself, relieved as he thought about the tracks he’d spotted up at the main road. They walked in. Dane and Ned had seen this place before, but Roselita was getting her first look at what it was they did out there at the Farm. It could be impressive to an outsider. The barn was as big if not bigger than the main house and equally as well built. The inside of the building was separated down the middle by a neat dirt path, and both sides of the building were divided into six pits separated by waist-high walls of cedar planking, each one accessible by a set of hinged doors with rack-style locks. There were twenty or so of what looked like wooden lockers made of thick, hand-carved oak to the right of the show pits, shadow boxes that ran the length of the wall. Some of them were open and empty, but most of them were locked up tight with a variety of different padlocks.
Casper explained to Roselita, who looked as if she had a hundred questions to ask and didn’t know where to start, how the birds were kept in the wooden boxes—locked up in the dark—until it came their time to fight. Keeping them isolated and in the dark kept them confused, angry, and more important—mean. Roselita felt like she’d just come out of one herself. The sound of birds cawing and pecking from the insides of the wooden boxes and the crowing from the pens outside were unnerving, but only Roselita felt it. Dane and Ned seemed to feel right at home. The yelling they’d heard outside the barn was coming from a group of men in the far-left corner. Several were speaking Spanish and they all were looking down at something none of the new arrivals could see yet. A tall black man with a mouth full of gold teeth was yelling louder than the rest. He was also the only one speaking English.