Free Dr. Brinkley's Tower by Robert Hough Page A

of mesquite trees. Beyond that, entirely hidden from view, he began digging beneath the large, flat leaves of a prickly pear. Every few seconds he paused and looked in every direction, ensuring that he wasn’t being watched. After a few minutes he uncovered a plain metal box, in which he kept the money he was accumulating from the increased business that had come to his saloon. Huddled over, he began to count. Through a series of stealthily placed inquiries, he had learned that Brinkley’s goat-gland treatment cost two hundred gringo dollars, an amount significantly higher than the average Mexicano’s yearly salary. A curious chill rose from a subterranean pocket of cold, sifted up through the desert floor, and entered the very core of his being. Though the day was broiling hot, he felt a shiver run through him.
    Though he didn’t yet have the money, he would, soon enough.

{ 8 }
    AS FRANCISCO RAMIREZ RODE ATOP THE HACENDERO’S old grullo, the sounds of the village faded into the background. After another twenty minutes, rider and horse reached the main roadway running along México’s northern border, the sun beating down on Francisco’s head and shoulders. He looked up, and for the next minute he rode with spheres of red flaming against the packed-earth roadway. They were heading west. Every few minutes a truck filled with building equipment filched from the construction site in Corazón raised dust into Francisco’s throat and eyes as it headed towards the interior. When they were farther away from the town, there came a silence so profound that banks of sound created by Francisco’s excited mind spilled over the plains, turning the desert into a place where thoughts were louder than the rustling of wind, the call of hawks, or the clopping of an old nag’s hooves.
    An hour passed, and then another. Stretching before him in all directions were cholla and brambles and pale earth andprickly pear and huizache and blossoming mesquite trees. Beneath him was a scramble of scorpions and small lizards. The sky was a blue bleached pale by the brutalizing sun. Far away, at the very edge of his vision, the desert turned into a series of undulating ridges, an illusion created by the heat. Above him vultures flew in lazy, ominous circles.
    When he got thirsty, he drank. When he got hungry, he pulled the knapsack off his shoulders and helped himself to a chew of deer jerky. Every time he reached a fork in the road, he selected the one heading more or less in the direction of Piedras Negras. As the day wore on, all motion that he had previously detected in the desert — snakes, scuffling voles, the drifting of sand — ceased, and suddenly Francisco felt completely alone. He looked in all directions and could see only scrub and the dwindling, needle-thin roadway — even the huizache and mesquite trees had abandoned him. The vultures, which had been drifting above him all morning, so high they looked like winged black insects, had gone somewhere as well. Without their presence to add perspective, the sky was rendered limitless and, oddly enough, suffocating.
    He made a calculation. It was noon, and he hadn’t yet reached the tiny outpost called Rosita, which was more or less halfway to Piedras. This concerned him; with each passing hour it seemed that Estrella’s gait was becoming more lumbering and rheumatic. At this rate it would be a full day before they reached their first destination, and Fajardo Jimenez had packed only enough provisions to see him to mid-afternoon at best.
    Just then Francisco heard a protracted, distressed whinny coming from Estrella. He dismounted and looked into thehorse’s dull eyes. Patting Estrella’s muzzle, he tried to soothe her with words softly spoken. Still, her breathing sounded laboured, as though her old lungs contained liquid.
    â€” What is it? Is my pretty horse thirsty?
    Again Francisco looked around, and as he did he