"We got cenizo that's purple sage agave, nopal..." "What's that stuff?" "That's whatchamacallit." "That's horse crippler." "This place is a gold mine." "Lead mine." "What?" "I said it's a lead mine." " Right." " Why am I talking to you?" "You got that thing on your head." "You find lots of cactus and shit?" "Not just cactus." "There's acacias the yuccas..." " Looks like a lot of cactus to me." "Man knows 150 varieties of beer, can't tell a poinsettia from a prickly pear." "Cliff!" "You live in a place, you should learn about it." " Explore." " You've got to look at this." "Don't tell me." "Spanish treasure, right?" "Pieces of eight from the Coronado Expedition." "Jesus!" "Was Coronado in the Masons?" "The forensics fella's coming down from San Marcos." "There's no way to know how old the body is without lab work." "That ring?" "Mason's been around a long while." "He a treasure hunter?" "Old bullets." "Makes art out of them." "Sheriff says we shouldn't touch anything." "He can't hear with that rig on." "Mikey!" "Hey, what have we got here?" "We're supposed to leave everything where we found it." "They're real particular about that." "The scene of the crime." "No telling yet if there's been a crime but this country's seen a good number of disagreements over the years." "He went to school on the post when we were in Korea." "It's all kids in the same boat, army brats..." "His record shows he's a good student." "I'm more worried about the social thing." "Are there, like, gangs or guns..." "We haven't had any serious violence, if that's what you mean." "But we've got a pretty lively mix." "Mexican kids anglo kids, black kids." " And the blacks are what?" " The smallest group." "Except for a couple of Kickapoo kids." "Look, you're obviously a concerned parent." "Chet has no history of getting into trouble." "Pilar..." "Is Amado okay?" "He's not here?" "Is he sick?" "He's going to wish he was dead." "Somebody hand me a CD player." "They've come a long way since those old eight-tracks, ain't they?" "Something wrong?" "Stolen property." "I'm hauling the bunch of you to jail." "If anything else is wrong, tell me on the way to the station." "Cleaning his toenails with a pocketknife." "He was the most hygienic of all the McHenry's." ""Fishbait," Buddy says, in that quiet way of his "what do you know about the tires that went missing from Merkel's?"" "Fishbait thinks for a minute then lifts up a loose board from the porch floor and calls down into it." ""Come on out, Hooter, they caught us!"" "Buddy Deeds, he had a way." "He'd known who it was from the tire tracks in the dirt leading from the back of the garage to where they loaded up." ""Old Fishbait," he said "never lifted a thing, if there was a way he could roll it. "" "Never be another like him." "You know that boy of his can't cut it." "He's all hat and no cattle." "Hey, fellas." "We was telling a few on your old man." "He was a unique individual." "He was that." "Big day coming up." "I wish we'd have thought of it while he was still living." "Went so unexpected." "Better late than never." "Korean War hero, sheriff for nearly 30 years..." "The Buddy Deeds Memorial Courthouse." "I heard there was a bit of a fuss." "Well, the usual troublemakers." "Danny Padilla from the Sentinel." "That crowd." "We call everything else in the country after Martin Luther King." "We can't have one measly courthouse?" "King wasn't Mexican, Fenton." "Bad enough that all the street names are in Spanish." "They were here first." "Then let's call it after Big Chief Shit-In-The-Bucket." "That Tonkawa had the Mexes beat by centuries." "Nineteen out of 20 people here are Mexican." "There was a faction pulling for that boy killed in the Gulf War..." "Yeah." "Santiago." "Mexicans that know remember what Buddy was for their people." "Hell, it was Mercedes over there who swung the deciding vote for him." "She made it an even 3-3." "As mayor, I get to cast the tiebreaker." "The old-timers won't have a problem." "They know how Buddy come to be sheriff." "Tell that story, Hollis." "Everybody heard it a million times." "I'd like to hear it." "Your version of it." "Yeah, come on, Hollis." "Well, the two of us were the only deputies back then." "Me and Buddy, in what, '58?" "'57, I think." "The sheriff at the time was big Charlie Wade." "Charlie was one of your old-fashioned bribe-or-bullets kind of sheriffs." "He took a healthy bite out of whatever moved through this country." "It was in here one night back when Jimmy Herrera run the place." "Started over a basket of tortillas." "This beaner fare doesn't agree with me but the price sure is right." "Jimmy got a kitchen full of wetbacks, most of them relatives." "Those people breed like chickens." "So?" "I roust some muchacho on the street with no papers, all he's got to say is:" "I work for Jimmy Herrera." "Sort of a I- scratch-his-back-he-washes-mine arrangement, if you know what I mean." "This'll be one of your pickups." "First of the month, like the rent." "Get the car, Hollis." "I'm not doing it." "Come again?" "It's your deal." "There's going to be some left over for you." "I take care of my boys." "That's not the point, Charlie." "You feeling bad about Jimmy?" "Ask him how big a mordida they took when he run a place on the other side." "Those old boys from Ciudad León..." "I'm not picking it up." "You do whatever I say you do or else you put it on the trail, son." "How about this, Charlie?" "How about you lay that shield on this table and vanish before you end up dead or in jail?" "You're not making sense, Buddy." "Stick around and I'm bringing up charges on the county road project." "Two-thirds of that money went straight into your pocket." "You're being mighty careless with your mouth, son." "You ever shoot a man who's looking you in the eye?" "It's a whole different story, isn't it?" "You're fired." "Not a soul in this county isn't sick to death of your bullshit." "Make yourself scarce and you'll make a lot of people happy." " You little piss ant." " Now or later." "You won't have any trouble finding me." "You're a dead man." "Get the goddamn car." "We're going to Roderick's." "Boy another beer, please." "Yeah, that Buddy was a cool breeze." "Wade was known to put quite a few people in the ground and your daddy gets eyeball-to-eyeball with him." "We made our pickup at Roderick's place." "Nobody's seen hide nor hair of him since." "He went missing the next day along with $10,000 in county funds from the safe." "Never heard from him again." "Buddy Deeds said a thing, he damn well backed it up." "Never be another like him." "So, I suppose then he arrested all of Jimmy Herrera's people and sent them back to the other side?" "He came to an accommodation." "Money doesn't always have to change hands to keep the wheels turning." "I know you had problems with your father." " And he and Muriel..." " Your mother was a saint." "But Buddy Deeds was my salvation." "Won't be another like him." "It is an honor for me to assume command of this unit." "I look forward to working with all of you." "I'm sure you're all aware of the Army's decision to shut this post down." "That doesn't mean, however, that we're here to mark time until we're reassigned." "You may have heard rumors that I run a very tight operation." "These rumors are not exaggerated." "Somebody call a doctor!" "You weren't in here tonight, were you?" "No, no, sir." "Go out the back way." "Somebody call a doctor!" "Tearing everything down." "Our heritage, the memory of the people who fought and died for this land." "We fought and died for this land too." "We fought the U.S. Army, the Texas Rangers..." "Yeah, and you lost." "Winners get the bragging rights." "People." "It'd be best if we don't view this in terms of winners and losers." "The way she teaches, she's got everything backward." "I was on the textbook committee." "Her version..." "We think of the textbook as a guide, not as an absolute." "It is not what we set as the standard." "Now, you people can believe whatever you want but when it comes to teaching..." "They're our children too." "As the majority in this community, we have the right." "The men who founded this state have the right to have their story told." "The men who founded this state broke from Mexico." "They needed slavery to be legal to make a fortune in the cotton business." "I think that's a bit of an oversimplification." " You reporting or running this meeting?" " Adding some historical perspective." "You call it history, I call it propaganda." "I'm sure they've got their own account of the Alamo on the other side but our schools shouldn't teach it that way." "Excuse me." "I've only been trying to get across part of the complexity of our situation here." "Cultures coming together in both negative and positive ways." "If you mean food and music and all, I have no problem." "But when you start changing who did what to who..." "We're just trying to present a more complete picture." "That's what's got to stop!" "There's enough ignorance in the world without us encouraging it in school." "Now, who are you calling ignorant?" "I hope the sucker dies." "Mess with me, that's what you get." "Hospital says the kid is in bad shape." "The shooter local?" "Houston." "I think he knew the girl from before." "We'll take a statement from the GI's before they go back to post." "You can get the story from Otis." "Any poop on the John Doe we found today?" "No, nothing much." "Rangers put Ben Wetzel on it." "I'll catch you later." "He's only 15." "He's about 5 foot 5..." "Pilar." "Something wrong?" "They've got my son." "Here?" "Somebody called about a house that was broken into." "They say they don't have..." "All right, I know what he looks like." "I'll see what's going on." "I was..." "I was real sorry about Nando." "He was a good fella." "We haven't talked..." "We haven't talked since high school." "I'll go check on your boy." "Ritchie didn't say nothing, 'cause he didn't want to get in it." "Then, next thing I know there's shots and Ritchie's down." "You got some boys you run in earlier?" "They tell me you're good at fixing things." "Your father was a hell of a mechanic." "You know, if you figure minimum wage on the time most thieves spend in jail they could have bought most everything they stole." "They asked me to hook it up for them." "I didn't steal anything." "Well, I didn't say you did." "My name's Sam, by the way." " He's all yours." " Are you okay?" "What's the big deal?" "You'll find out when I get you home." "Thanks, Sam." "It's no problem." "It was good seeing you again." "Big O's is the only place where African American soldiers feel comfortable, sir." " Have we had trouble there before?" " Fistfight now and then." " This town isn't much." " They didn't come for a vacation." "For many, it's their first time away from home, dealing with new people..." " I remember my first hitch..." " Substance abuse?" "Yes, sir, but I went through the program." "I haven't drunk..." "I meant on the post." "How are you dealing with it?" "We throw a urine test at them once a month." "Random numbers maybe 100 people at a time." " Let's make it once a week for a while." " Yes, sir." "I sprint the last quarter mile." "You don't have to keep up." "Appreciate it, sir." "Guy cracks walnuts with his asshole." "You get the feeling he doesn't want to be here?" "Sam the Man." "Hey, Ben." "Thanks for coming down." "So, how's business?" "Business is booming." "Got your drugs, got your illegals." "Had a shooting the other night at O's place." "Soldier got ventilated." "I hear they're closing Fort McKenzie." "It'll pull a lot of jobs out of this county." "We'll have folks swimming over to Mexico to work in the sweat shops." "Is that the word on our boy?" "This is Skinny." "Skinny?" "When we find a body, it's Skinny or Stinky." "Depends on how much meat's left on the bones." "That's a nice job." ""A male Caucasian..." ""... 40 to 60 years old..." ""... 5 foot 9..." ""... 5 foot 11." ""Chewed tobacco. "" "Then we'll get the dental records and personal effects." "It's Charlie Wade." "That badge..." "Didn't come out of a cereal box." "You know the popular version of how he left town." "Everybody on the border knows that story." "You got a cause of death?" "Skull was intact." "No signs of trauma on what we found." "Not much to go on." "So, he could have gone out to the post, just hopped the fence dug into the dirt on the rifle range and had a heart attack." "You remember what old Buddy carried for a side arm?" "Colt Peacemaker." ".45." "He swore by it." "What?" "I was just wondering." "Is Buddy on your short list?" "If it were some poor majadero who swam across, got lost in the brush and starved out there it wouldn't go much further, but this is a once prominent citizen who disappeared." "You've got to investigate." "There's no question about it." "I'll keep names out of it until we get some answers or hit a dead end." "You know how the press is when they get ahold of a murder story, even 40 years old." "Yeah, yeah." "They can do a number on you." "I remember Charlie Wade come to my father's hardware store once." "I was just a little boy." "I'd heard stories about how he shot this one how he shot that one." "The man winked at me." "I peed my pants." "Winked at me." "We have the fight against the Spanish, a bloody conflict for dozens of years till they are finally defeated in 1821 and Mexican independence is declared." "Anglo settlers are invited to colonize the area." "By the time they begin the movement against Santa Anna they outnumber the Mexicans here by four to one." "The war between Mexico and the anglo forces ends in 1836 with the formation of the Texas republic." "Texas joins the United States as a state where slavery is legal in 1845 after the so-called Mexican War, then secedes to join the Confederacy in 1861." "The Confederacy is beaten and the Reformation period here is marked by range wars and race wars and all this paralleled by the constant battles between the Mexican and anglo settlers and the various Indian nations." "What are we seeing here, Chet?" "Everybody's killing everybody else?" "I always wondered what you mayors do when you're not cutting ribbons." "Sam!" "Partner." "You caught me playing hooky." "Floating around out here, playing hell with them bass." "Sounds great!" "Where do I sign up?" "You been by your old place lately?" "No." "New people painted it some awful color." "We found a body out by Fort McKenzie yesterday." "It'd been there a long time." "Was it Davy Crockett or Jim Bowie?" "You recall if Charlie Wade was a Mason?" "Charlie?" "I believe he used to go for Lodge meetings over to Laredo." "What's Charlie Wade got to do with your body?" "All he was wearing was a big old Masonic ring and a Rio County sheriff's badge." "You remember anything else from the last night you saw him?" "I told the story enough times." "We were in the car." "He was stewing about his fight with Buddy as we drove over to Roderick Bledsoe's." "Bledsoe?" "He owned the colored roadhouse before Otis." "He's still living?" "No." "I think his widow's still in their place in Darktown, though." "You think it was Charlie Wade, huh?" "Forensics people are sure of it." "You got any idea who might have put him there?" "Besides my father, I mean." "There's no call for that, Sam." "Wade made himself a pile of enemies over the years." " Buddy was one of them." " The dedication's tomorrow." "It's a hell of a time to bring up old business." "People have made this whole big thing around my father." "If it's built on a crime they deserve to know." "I understand why you might want to believe he couldn't do it." "I understand why you might want to think he could." "Thanks for your time, Hollis." "Look at all this." "Tackle, boat..." "All just to catch a little old fish minding his own business down at the bottom of the lake." "Hardly seems worth the effort, does it, Sam?" "You knew this young man before?" "From back in Houston." "We both come up off the street." "Did you know he'd be there last night?" "If I had, I wouldn't have gone in." "And you and Private Graves were..." "We were just dancing." "We're not running a dating service." "I know that, Sergeant." "We were just dancing." "There was a bunch of us there." "Shadow... just come down looking for trouble." "I don't like to get involved with soldiers' personal lives but when it interferes with training..." "Shadow just gets crazy." "Sergeant, how is Ritchie doing?" "Private Graves?" "He'll live." "He'll be transferred to Fort Sam as soon as he's stabilized." "He'll probably be getting a medical discharge." "Will this go on my record?" "The incident will be noted." "If it happened the way you say there hasn't been an infraction." "Thank you, Sergeant." "You're dismissed." "Thank you, Sergeant." "You spoil them, Cliff." " You don't believe her?" " That wasn't much of an interrogation." "I'm in charge of her sorry ass and frankly..." "I won't give her the third-degree because her ex-boyfriend's a thug." "She's pulled herself out of a rough neighborhood." "And if she isn't careful, she's gonna slide right back into it." "Mrs. Bledsoe?" "That's me." "I'm Sheriff Deeds." "Sheriff Deeds is dead, honey." "You're just Sheriff Junior." "Yeah, that's the story of my life." "You ever play one of these?" "Yeah, I've seen them." "Don't ever start up on them, because once you do, you can't stop." "I tell myself I'll just play three little games after breakfast and here I am with half the day gone." "May I ask you a few questions about your husband?" "Roderick." "I ain't gonna say nothing bad about the man but you can ask away." "He had the club on Old Trail Road." "We run that club for over 20 years." "Give it over to Otis Payne in 1967, April." "You must remember Sheriff Wade." "Them days you deal with Sheriff Wade or you didn't deal." "First of the month, every month he'd remind you who you really working for." "So, he squeezed money out of you?" "It wasn't legal to sell liquor in a glass back then, unless you was a club, see?" "Roderick used to say:" ""Buy yourself a glass, get a free membership. "" "Sheriff Wade he could close you down anytime." "And my father?" "Sheriff Buddy was a different story." "As long as Roderick throw his weight the right way at election day make sure all the colored come to vote, throw a barbecue for the right folks..." "Sheriff Buddy kept to his word." "That Sheriff Wade, though he could get ugly." "People didn't complain?" "Not if you was colored or Mexican." "Not if you wanted to keep breathing." "I remember the last time I seen him before he gone missing." "He come fussing around our place." "He used to come in whilst we was in full swing." "Making everybody nervous." "Had him a smile like the Grim Reaper." "He used to sit there with his hand on his old gun acting the kingfish with everybody." "Otis Payne come to work for us about that time and that boy had him some attitude." "Pour it." "What?" "Pour it." "I know you?" "Name's Otis." "Otis what?" "Payne." "They call me "O."" "One of Cleroe Payne's boys?" "I sent your daddy to the farm once." "Yeah, I know that." "Why you think that was?" "Some crop needed picking and the man was short-handed." "As I remember, it was 'cause he had a sassy mouth on him." "Must run in the family." "You wouldn't be running numbers out of this club?" "Running numbers is illegal, sir." "Running numbers without I knowin' about it is both illegal and unhealthy." "You remember that." "Son, you're not finished." "Pour his." "I prefer it in the bottle." "Shut up, Hollis." "How come you don't look familiar?" "I've been away, up in Houston." "Houston?" "I hear they let you boys run wild up there." "Look what you've done now." "Better get something to wipe it up, son." "You spilled it." "Maybe you should wipe it up." "I told you to do something." "Will you hop to it or will we have a problem?" "You don't want to turn tail in front of your people?" "I understand." "Come on, Houston, give it a try." "Come to Papa." "Don't mind him." "He's a bit slow, is all." "He don't mean nothing by it." "That the problem, son?" "You slow?" "Otis!" "Apologize to the sheriff." "Sheriff, you got him too scared to peep." "Maybe if you'd put that gun up." "You telling me what to do?" "No, Sheriff, I'm just..." "Is that whisky in them glasses?" "I'll have to cite you for violation of a state law." "This is a club, Sheriff." "You've been here." "You people better clear out of here now!" "Learn how to act your place, son." "This isn't Houston." "'Course, I was young and full of beans back then." "I didn't understand the spot I was putting Roderick in." "And that was the last time you saw him?" "I think he came in one more time with Hollis and..." "No, no, your daddy wasn't with him." "Made their monthly pickup." "Roderick wasn't in, so I kept my mouth shut and handed over that envelope." "That was the night he disappeared?" "Could have been." "You own a gun?" "Back then?" "No." "How about Roderick?" "Oh, he kept a big old piece back behind the bar, just so folks knew it was there." "I don't keep one here now." "Don't much care for them." "And when my father was sheriff?" "What about him?" "What was your deal with him?" "Buddy was more part of the big picture:" "County political machine Chamber of Commerce, Zoning Board..." "If I kept those people happy, he was pretty much on my side." "When somebody thought of starting up a new bar for the black folks, they'd be..." "How should I say this?" "They'd be officially discouraged." "He ever accept cash for a favor?" "I don't recall a prisoner ever died in your daddy's custody." "I don't recall a man in this county black, white, Mexican who'd hesitate for a minute before they'd call on Buddy Deeds to solve a problem." "More than that I wouldn't care to say." "I'm supposed to tell my friends they're too low-class to hang with?" "Come on, Amado." " 'Cause I'm not like Miss Honor Roll?" " Leave your sister out of it." "You and those teachers in that dump..." "Your story's over, so nobody can have fun." "You jerk." "You have no friends." "Who'd be friends with a pachuco wannabe?" " I don't pretend I came on the Mayflower." " And those stupid girls." "Shut up." "Joanie Orozco's telling the whole school she's in love with Santo Guerra." "So?" "You can't be desperately in love when you're 14." "Not if you have half a brain in your head." "Of course, you can." "What?" "It's got nothing to do with being smart." "It's ancient goddamn history, Danny." "1963, they dam up the north branch to make Lake Pescadero and a whole town disappears." "A squatter's town!" "People lived in Perdido for over 100 years!" "Mexicans and Chicanos are deported forcibly evicted by our local hero, Buddy Deeds, and his department." "There was a bill from the state legislature." "Families were split apart!" "A whole community was destroyed!" "And who gets Lakefront property bought for a fraction of the market price?" "Buddy Deeds, Sheriff of Rio County, and his Chief Deputy, Hollis Pogue." "Are you finished?" "Look, I'm not after you, Sam." "I just think people ought to know the full story on Buddy Deeds." "That makes two of us." "What's the big deal?" "Go back over, talk to the man, and bury the hatchet." "Why me?" "He's had almost 40 years and I haven't heard from him." "He was probably embarrassed." "Otis Payne was never embarrassed about a thing in his life." "You were 8 when he left." "He moved three houses down with my mother's best friend." "Dad." ""Delmore, where's your daddy?"" "Godforsaken town." "Everybody in everybody else's business." "Everybody loved Otis." "Big "O."" "Always there with a smile or a loan or a free drink." " Dad, can I talk to you about track?" "People change." "Not that much." "I talked to the coach." "I told you." "Next year, if your grades are high." "I have a B average!" "How many B students do you think they take at West Point?" "We'll be here for three years." "We'll have to see him." "No, we don't." "Get off the phone." "We've got a big wedding." "Mommy..." "They are getting stupider every year." "Maybe you're getting less patient." "If they're going to survive, they have to know how to work." "You hire illegals, what do you expect?" "Nobody's illegal in my cafe!" "They've got green cards, relatives who were born here." "If they only had a little common sense, I'd be happy." "If you took more time training them, you wouldn't have to..." "Did you come here to teach me how to run my business?" "Do you want to take a trip down south with us?" "Maybe see where you grew up?" " Why would I want to go there?" " You must be curious how it's changed." "Amado is into this big tejano- roots thing and I've never been further than Ciudad León." "You want to see Mexicans?" "Open your eyes and look around you." "We're up to our ears in them." "Mommy how old were you when my father died?" "He was killed." "Right, when he was killed." "A little older than Paloma is now." "How come you never remarried?" "It just didn't happen." "There must have been somebody." "I was too busy." "Nobody is too busy." "Maybe now." "It was different back then." "I had to do all the shopping, all the cooking..." "What do I need some chulo with grease under his nails to drink up the profit?" "Thank you." "I don't mean Fernando." "When I brought him home, those were your exact words:" ""A chulo with grease under his nails. "" "I never said that." "You made it pretty damn clear." "You thought he was nobody." "I thought you could do better." "What?" "What?" "Become a nun?" "You didn't even want me to go out with anglos." "I never said that." "Just that boy." ""That boy. "" "Say his name, for Christ's sake." "You people are stealing from me." "Is she your mother?" "I'm sorry." "Now, I'm as liberal as the next guy." "If the next guy is a redneck." "But I got to say I think there's something to this cold-climate business." "I mean, you go to the beach what do you do?" "Drink a few beers, wait for that fish to flop up on the sand." "You can't build no civilization that way." "But you got a cold winter coming on you got to plan ahead." "That gives your old cerebral cortex a workout." "Good thing you were born down here then." "You joke about it, Sam, but we are in a state of crisis." "The lines of demarcation are getting fuzzy." "To run a successful civilization, you've got to have your lines of demarcation between right and wrong, this one and that one." "Your daddy understood that." "He was..." "What do you call it?" "The referee in this damn menudo we got down here." "He understood how most folks don't want their salt and sugar in the same jar." "If you mixed drinks as bad as you mix metaphors you'd be out of a job." "You're the last white sheriff this town will see." "Hollis retires next year." "Jorge Guerra will take over." "This is it, right here, Sam." "This bar is the last stand." "Se habla American, goddamn it!" "And even in here, it's sliding away." "Take that pair over there in the corner." "A place like this, 20 years ago Buddy'd been on them." "He'd have went over there and given them a warning." "Not that he had it in for the colored, but just as a kind of a safety tip." "Yeah, bet he would." "The day that man died they broke the goddamn mold." " Seriously." " Seriously?" "I think we should get married." "We've been through this before." "We should just do it." "And if I get transferred to another post?" "Germany or Korea?" "I'd ask for a transfer too." "Which they'd most likely turn down." "I'd quit the Army for you, if it came to that." "You know, you are something." "Man's going to retire in two years and he offers to quit." "Big goddamn deal." "Excuse me." "Sheriff." "This is Sergeant..." "This is Priscilla Worth." "Sheriff Deeds was with us on our archeological find." "They're building a shopping mall there?" "If certain people have their way, it's gonna be a new jail." "They're closing down military and putting up jails like 7-11 stores." "Do either of you have any idea when they stopped using that site as a rifle range?" "Fort McKenzie stopped training infantry there in the late '50s." "It was just a playground for the jackrabbits till they gave it to the county last year." "You know who it was they dug up?" "Not for sure yet." "But I kind of wish they hadn't." "In English, Enrique." "This is the United States." "We speak English." "Is very beautiful, your car." " Good night, Enrique." " Buenas noches, seòora." "Carolyn..." "Knock that off." "Black Seminoles?" "Hobby of mine." "A few artifacts couple of pieces one of your men out on the base made." "Admission's free." "This is where he was shot?" "He fell right by the door." "You get much of that here?" "It's a bar." "Folks come together drink, fall in love, fall out of love hear their grudges out." "Deal drugs in the bathroom." "If I thought it would do any good I'd put up a sign telling them not to right next to the one about the employees washing their hands." "This here is Carolyn." "Honey this is my son, Delmore." "Nice to meet you, ma'am." "I'll be in the back waiting for that delivery." "So?" "So." "Tell me why I shouldn't make this place off-limits." "This is an official visit then." "I assume most of your business is with our people." "Your boys are cooped up together." "They need a place to let the steam out." "If they're black, there's not but one spot in this county where they feel welcome." "It's been that way since before you were born." "We have an enlisted man's club at the post." "You the man out there now, ain't you?" "It's your call." "That's right." "I've been hearing about this new command out there for a couple of weeks now." "The boys say they hear he's a hard case a real spit-and-polish man." "Full bird colonel by the name of Payne." "Bet you never figured you'd end up back here." "When the Army offers you a command, you go wherever it is." "Right." "I hear things too." "They call you the mayor of Darktown." "Over the years this is the one place that's always been there." "I loan a little money out, I've settled a few arguments." "I got a cot in the back." "Folks get scared to go home, they spend the night." "There's not enough of us to run anything in this town." "It's the Holiness Church or Big O's." "And the people make a choice." "Most of them choose both." "It's not like there's a borderline between the good people and the bad people." "You're not on either one side or the other." "Right." "Will I meet that family of yours?" "Why would you want to do that?" "Because I'm your father." "You'll get official notification when I make my decision." "So, that's him." "Yeah, that's him." "Historic occasion, ain't it?" "Seems like we have another one every week." "Jorge and the boys down at the Chamber of Commerce got to keep things humming." "Building up tourism, Sam." "Most people come here to catch bass and get laid at the Boy's Town in Ciudad León." "You ought to put up a banner, "Frontera, Texas" " Gateway to Inexpensive Pussy. "" "That kind of talk doesn't help." "I'd rather have that than a 10-foot-high catfish statue." "Eddie Richter at the Sentinel will kill that story." "The Perdido thing?" "He agreed it wasn't exactly news." "Danny will be out for blood the next time." "That's why we need to talk to you about the new jail." "Come on, we don't need a new jail." "That's a matter of opinion." "We're already renting cells to the Feds for their overflow." "It wouldn't be your construction company who'd get the bid on building this thing?" "And, Jorge..." "You wouldn't be thinking about a couple dozen new jobs to dangle by the voters when you run for mayor next election?" "Damn it, Sam!" "The people are concerned about crime." "I'm not gonna campaign against your deal here." "But if anybody asks I've got to tell them the truth." "We don't need a new jail." "We backed you..." "When you backed me, you needed somebody named Deeds to bump the other fella out of office." " Hey, folks." " Fenton, what's up, buddy?" " How you doing?" " Let's get this thing over with." "I never thought I'd see a buddy of mine dating a woman with three bars on her shoulder." "It's beyond what you'd call dating." "You're going to get married?" "Maybe." "You met her family?" "They gonna be cool about you being a white guy?" "Priscilla says they think a woman over 30 who's not married must be a lesbian." "She figures they'll be so relieved I'm a man..." "It's always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice." "But marriage, man, I don't know." "Let's see..." "I did two tours of duty in Southeast Asia and I was married for five years." "I couldn't tell you which experience was worse." "Mikey?" "I knew she was Japanese, but she didn't tell me the Ninja-assassin part." "Parents acted like I'd blow my nose on their curtains." "If I stayed out past 10:00, she'd do a Madam Butterfly routine." "Mikey, look at this." "What?" "It's a bullet." "I'm lousy with bullets." "It's a. 45." "This is the stuff we picked up the other day, right?" " Rest of this is all. 30 caliber." " They used M-1s." "So what's a pistol slug doing on a rifle range?" "We'd better call that sheriff." "Back in the early '70s a reporter from a national magazine asked the governor of our Lone Star state:" ""Governor..." ""... what's your ideal..." ""... of what a real Texan ought to be?"" "Governor said:" ""Son, that's easy." ""Just go down to..." ""..." "Rio County and look at..." ""..." "Sheriff Buddy Deeds. "" "Thank you." "There's one more person we ought to hear from and I think he's somebody that knew Buddy better than any of us." "Sam..." "Say a few words?" "Well, you folks who remember my father knew him as sheriff." "But at home he was also judge, jury and executioner." "This is a real honor you're doing him today." "If Buddy was around, I know his hat size would be getting bigger every minute." "I used to think there wasn't a place here you could hide from my old man." "And now I'm sure of it." "I do appreciate it, though." "And wherever he is, Buddy's putting the beer on ice for you." "So, thank you." "And now, my favorite council member and one of Frontera's most respected businesswomen Mrs. Mercedes Cruz will do the honors." "It does look kind of like Buddy." "I think he'll run that Mexican kid in for loitering." "Nice to see you, Mrs. Cruz." "Field trip?" "Lunch hour." "My next class isn't until 1:30." "You want to take a walk?" "They cooked the whole thing up without asking me." "People liked him." "Most people did, yeah." "I remember him watching me once when I was little before you and I..." "I was in the playground with all the other kids." "I thought he was only looking at me." "I was afraid he was going to arrest me." "He had those eyes, and that..." "Yeah." "It's weird what you remember." "Your boy there." "Amado." "Nice looking kid." "He hates me." "No." "With Paloma, it's like she pities and tolerates me, totally age-appropriate." "But with Amado you know, he's always had difficulty reading and me being a teacher and caring about those things, it's like a betrayal." "But Fernando did okay." "He dropped out." "Fernando wasn't pissed off at everybody." "He just wanted to fix their cars." "I spent my first 15 years trying to be just like Buddy." "The next 15 trying to give him a heart attack." "So, why did you come back here, Sam?" "I got divorced and I wouldn't work for my father-in-law anymore." "And the fellas down here they said they'd back me." "You don't want to be sheriff." "I got to admit, it's not what I thought it'd be." "Back when Buddy had it..." "Hell, I'm just a jailer." "Run a 60-room hotel with bars on the windows." "Do you remember this?" "I ought to head back." "It looks real bad if a teacher's late for class." "It's real nice to talk with you, Sam." "Are you going to tell her?" "Are you going to tell him?" "He doesn't need to know my business." "He's going to find out." "What is he going to do, arrest us?" "It's supposed to be a big sin even if you love each other." "Do you believe that?" "No." "Me neither." "Private Johnson!" "Report to the sergeant in the orderly's room." "The doctor will have a look at you." "No, I'm feeling okay." "I'm happy to hear it." "You go put some pee-pee in the cup for Dr. Innis and I'll feel okay too." "You testing me?" "You and 119 other fortunate individuals." "Put it in gear." " Take this shit off now." " You've been talking so much trash today!" "You better be good, boy." ""Boy"?" "You're the good boy." "The man say "fetch" and you fetch." "Just doing my job." "White man's using you to keep the black man down." "This isn't Houston." "We run things now." "Our good day has come." "You chumps haven't had a good day since the Alamo." "Lupe..." "Can you get me Ben Wetzel up in Austin?" "Wetbacks again." "Border Patrol?" "Mom?" "Yeah." "You staying out here?" "For a while." "What's she singing about?" "What do you think?" "Hey, 'morning, sir!" "Hey, Pete." "How's it going?" "Time marches on." "How much you got left?" "Three months." "Stop growing that locoweed at your place, you'd see more daylight." "It was for personal consumption." "You going to smoke an acre and a half of marijuana?" "I got a bad stomach." "It helps me to digest." "Your father never bothered me about it." "Leastways not till the drug people got on his case in the late '60s." "I thought he busted you a couple of times." "No." "Different charge." "I had a still." "Made my own mescal." "That's how come I ruined my stomach." "I'm surprised he bothered with it." "He was afraid I'd poison somebody." "Your father tried to do good for people." " So I've heard." " And your mother she was a saint." "Remember that summer I built that patio at your house?" "She made me lunch every day." "You were working there." "It could have been another box lunch from the jail." "So you built our patio while you were on the county?" "Out in the fresh air?" "Nice gringo lady making you pies?" "Who'd sit in that jail cell all day?" "Sheriff Buddy, man." "There's no one like him." "After that cabrón, Charlie Wade." "I heard Wade was a bit tough on the Mexicans." "He murdered Eladio Cruz." "Is that tough enough for you?" "Murdered him?" "Chucho Montoya saw it with his own eyes." "Shot him in cold blood." "Charlie Wade was a big asshole." "Sam..." "Wait up." "You're out early." "Haven't seen much of you at the jail lately." "Well, I'm working on a few things." "I'm going over to the other side." "Republicans?" "No, Mexico." "Got to talk to someone." "They got telephones." "No." "It's got to be in person." "The Committee..." "Jorge and Fenton and all, they they've asked me" "They want you to stand for sheriff next election." "Yeah." "You'd do a good job." "Thanks." "What about you?" "I don't know if I'll still want it." "I just didn't want to go around your back." "I appreciate you telling me." "You think we need a new jail?" "Well, Sam..." "It's a complicated issue." "Yeah, Ray." "You'd be a hell of a sheriff." "Down here we don't throw everything away like you gringos do." "Recycling, right?" "We invented that." "The government doesn't have to tell people to do it." "You own this place, huh?" "This place the one across the street three or four others in Ciudad León." ""King of the Tires. "" "A lot of your people rolling over that bridge on my rubber." "You lived in the States for a while?" "Fifteen years." "Made some money, came back here?" "Something like that." "Hey, you ever know a fella named Eladio Cruz?" "You're the sheriff of Rio County, right?" "Step across this line." "You're not the sheriff of nothing anymore." "Just some tejano with a lot of questions I don't have to answer." "A bird flying south you think he sees this line?" "Rattlesnake,jabalina whatever you got." "You think halfway across that line they start thinking different?" "Why should a man?" "Your government's been pretty happy to have that line." "The question's just been where to draw it." "My government can go fuck itself and so can yours." "I'm talking about people here." "Men." "Eladio Cruz is giving his friends a lift one day in his camión." "But since they're on one side of this invisible line and not the other they got to hide in the back como criminales." "And because over there he's just another Mex bracero any man with a badge is his jefe." "What's in the back?" "Not much,jefe." "Some watermelons." "I'm driving them up to the market." "They could bring a good price." "I heard somebody's been hauling wets on this road." "I haven't seen anybody doing that." "That person's been bragging all over the county how he doesn't have to cut that gringo sheriff in on it." "Run his own operation without any help." "What's your name?" "Eladio Cruz." "You know this road's got a bad reputation." "Reputation?" "Bandidos, Injuns." "Many an unfortunate soul has been ambushed out on this stretch." "I hope you're carrying some protection." "Protection?" "You carrying a firearm, son?" "Don't lie to me now." "Just a shotgun." "Just a shotgun." "Then let me have a look at that." "Little greaser son of a bitch is running a goddamn bus service." "Thinks he can make a fool out of Charlie Wade." "Get them wets out of the back." "See what we've got." "You killed him!" "You got a talent for stating the obvious, son." "Steve called for you." "Steve?" "Steve." "Board of Education Steve, who likes you." "He goes for us hot-blooded Mexican girls, I can tell." "Spanish." "My mother would have a heart attack." "Your mother's family is Spanish?" "They go back to Cortés." "When he was riding by they were squatting in a hut cooking hamsters for dinner." "You've got to be interested in somebody." "All you do is work." "All my mother does is work." "It's how you get to be Spanish." "How about this sheriff?" "Sheriff?" "The old high-school heartthrob sheriff?" "I thought you were crazy about each other." "He's available." "You're available." "I'm unmarried." "I'm not available." "You told me one time it was true love." "Nobody stays in love for 23 years." "Let's go." "Goddamn it." "Come here." "Come on." " What the hell are you doing, asshole?" " How old is that girl?" "Get your clothes in order, missy." "Where's your goddamn sense?" "You got no fucking right!" "Stay out of my life!" "Give me the goddamn car keys." "What should I do with her?" "Drive her home." "Tell her mother where we found her." " Leave her alone!" " Move it, boy!" "Don't tell my mother." "She'll kill me." "Pilar!" "Don't eye me." "Git!" "Follow me." "We thought we were something, didn't we?" "Yeah." "And I look at my kids in school 10th, 11th-graders." "That's who we were." "Children." "I mean, what did we know about anything?" "Nothing." "When Nando died it was so sudden I kind of went into shock for a while and then I woke up and there was the rest of my life and I had no idea what to do with it." "You know, the other day you asked why I came back." "Yeah?" "I came back 'cause you were here." "My mother hasn't changed a song since I was 10." "How come it feels the same?" "I don't know." "It just feels good." "Always did." "So..." "What are we going to do about this?" "More I hope." "How long have you lived here?" "Two years." "There's nothing on the walls." "No pictures." "I don't have kids." "Other pictures..." "I don't know." "It's nothing I want to look back on." "Like your story's over." "I've felt that way yeah." "It isn't." "Not by a long shot." "Pilar..." "What was your father's name?" "Eladio." "Eladio Cruz." "That's John Horse." "The Spanish down in Florida call him "Juan Caballo. "" "John Horse." "He a black man or an Indian?" "Both." "He was part of the Seminole nation." "Got pushed down into the Florida Everglades back in pioneer days." "African people run off from slaveholders hooked up with them married up, had children." "When the Spanish gave up Florida the U.S. Army come down to move all the Indian people to Oklahoma." "A couple of them held out." "That man, John Horse his friend, Wildcat, another fella named Osceola formed a fighting band held out for another 10, 15 years and beat Zach Taylor and 1,000 troops at Lake Okeechobee." "So they stayed in Florida?" "One night they packed up, rode out to Mexico." "Men went to work for General Santa Anna down there." "After the Civil War they came north to Texas, put up at Fort Duncan and the men joined what was called the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts." "The best trackers on either side of the border." "They chased after bandits rustlers, Texas rednecks, Kiowas, Comanches..." "They fought against the Indians?" "Just like they did in Mexico." "But they were Indians themselves." "They were in the Army like your father." "You know who I am?" "I got a pretty good guess." "That guy who got shot." "You didn't go telling your father you were here?" "Are you kidding?" "And face a court-martial?" "Pretty tough old man." "Every time he moves up a rank he tightens the screws a little more." "Just 'cause..." "You know, he didn't have..." "Didn't have a father." "He's still pissed off about it." "When you're his age you'll still be pissed off about him." "How come you got into this?" "These are our people." "There are Paynes in Florida, Oklahoma, Piedras Negras" "So I'm part Indian?" "By blood you are." "But blood only means what you let it." "My father says from the day you're born you start from scratch." "No breaks." "No excuses." "You got to pull yourself up on your own." "He's living proof of that, son." "Living proof." "'Morning, Hollis." "Sam!" "Sit down." "Big to-do the other day." "Meant a lot to folks you said something." "You thought anymore about our murder?" "I wish I could tell you I remembered something new, but I can't." "Well, I got an idea what happened." "You do?" "I think somewhere between Roderick Bledsoe's club and his house Wade ran into Buddy Deeds." "I think Buddy put a bullet in him." "Waited for him to die, threw him in the trunk of the sheriff's car and drove him out by Fort McKenzie." "I think he buried him under four feet of sand and never looked back." "You lived in the man's house, how long?" "17, 18 years but didn't get to know him any better than that." "I got to go see somebody up in San Antonio." "Now, your memory gets any better I'll be back tonight." "She finally got up." "It's Saturday." "You got in late last night." "I had some some school business." "Could I get this?" "Paloma." "Nobody really wears that stuff." "Just 'cause you went to Catholic school and wore a uniform." "I only went for my last two years." "How come?" "My mother wanted to keep me away from from boys." "Did it work?" "Longhorns go for 10 times the price." "But longhorns are hard to come by these days." "Sell much out here?" "How am I going to sell things?" "Nobody comes around." "This stretch of road runs between Nowhere and Not Much Else." "A hell of a spot to put a business." "Don't see much competition, do you?" "Used to sell these things like hotcakes." "Now if it can't play those disks, they won't look at it." "I like it here." "Once I tried going onto the reservation to live." "Couldn't take the politics." "Damn Indians will drive you crazy with that." "Now, your father, this wasn't what he had in mind." "He come out of Korea bought a Chevy with too much engine." "Used to come roaring up and down this road all hours of the day and night looking for somebody to race." "Here." "Buffalo chips." "A fella down in Santa Fe told me he sells these as fast as a buffalo can squeeze them out." "You think he killed anybody in Korea?" "They don't hand those medals out for hiding in your foxhole." "Would you buy this?" "No." "Yeah, neither would I." "If he hadn't found the deputy's job I believe Buddy might've gone down the other path, got into serious trouble." "It settled him right down." "That and your mother." "Of course, he had that other one later." "He had another woman?" "Your mother was not one to be chased off her patch." "Half the damn county knew about it." "Nobody thought the worse of her for seeing it through." "You know who it was?" "The other one?" "At my age you learn a new name you got to forget an old one." "Here." "This big fella was sleeping in a crate at Cisco's junkyard." "When I was going to open to see what was in her jumped right at my face." "Scared me so bad I had to kill him without thinking." "Be careful where you go poking." "Who knows what you'll find." "Private Johnson are you unhappy in the Army?" "No, sir." "Then how would you explain that out of 120 people you were the only one who tested positive for drugs?" "I'm sorry, sir." "When you were given the opportunity to enlist a kind of contract was agreed upon." "I think the Army has honored its part of that agreement." "Yes, sir." "Do you believe in what we do in here, Private?" "I can do the job, sir." "What exactly do you think your job is?" "Follow orders, do whatever they say." "Who's "they"?" "The officers." "And that's the job?" "Nothing about serving your country?" "These are not trick questions, Private Johnson." "You'll get an Article 15 and we'll go through the process one way or another." "I'm just trying to understand how someone like you thinks." "You really want to know?" "Please." "It's their country." "This is one of the best deals they offer." "How do you think I got to be a colonel?" "Being good at your job." "Doing what they tell you." "Do what they tell you?" "I mean, follow orders, sir." "With your attitude, Private I'm surprised you want to stay in the service." "I do, sir." "Because it's a job?" "Outside it's such a mess." "It's..." "Chaos." "Why do you think they let us in on the deal?" "'Cause they got people to fight:" "Arabs, yellow people, whatever." "Might as well use us." "It works like this, Private." "Every soldier in the war doesn't have to believe in what he's fighting for." "Most of them fight just to back up the other soldiers in their squad." "You try not to get them killed." "You try not to get them extra duty." "You try not embarrass yourself in front of them." "Why don't you start with that?" "Yes, sir." "Dismissed." "Thank you, sir." "This time, Fred Zenito for Pager and the Aggies jump to a 14-point lead." "Sooners back to punt on their own 27." "Longhorns are going to kick some serious butt this Saturday." "You just watch." "We got a kid, a tailback from down your way, out of El Indio" "That's in Maverick County." "Right, and you're in?" "In Rio." "This kid, Hosea Brown he does the 40 in 3.4." "Soft hands, lateral movement, the whole package." " Only a sophomore." " Still go to all the home games?" "Daddy's got his box in the stadium and I'll fly to the Cowboy away games." "And Friday nights there's high school." "Churchill's got this boy, 6 foot 6, 310, moves like a cat." "High school, we're talking." "Guess how much he can bench-press?" "Bunny, you..." "You on that same medication?" " Why, do I seem jumpy?" " No." "You look good." "I was just wondering." "Last year was awful with Mama passing on and this business with O.J." "It's not Don Meredith or one of our boys, but it kind of threw me for a loop." "You look good." "Then that squeaker, the Aggies dropped to Oklahoma." "That son of a bitch stepped in some lucky shit before he kicked that goal." "If they hadn't pulled me off that woman, I'd have jerked a knot in her." "Were you in a fight?" "Daddy calls it an altercation." "How you doing, Sam?" "You look skinny." "No, I'm the same weight I always was." "Daddy hired a pinhead to take your job." "Says so himself:" ""Even my son-in-law was better than this pinhead I got now. "" "Bunny..." "That stuff I left in the garage still there?" "Least he never called me that." "With me it was always "high-strung. "" ""Bunny would've done something with her life if she wasn't so high-strung. "" "Or "tightly wound. "" "You haven't had one of your fires, have you?" "The stuff I left in the garage, some of it was my father's." "Did you watch the draft this year?" "Of course not." "Idiot question." "They try to make it dramatic like it's a surprise who picks who in the first round but they went over it for months with their experts, computers doctor's reports, coach's evaluations highlight reels, psychological profiles..." "I wouldn't be surprised if they collected stool samples on them, had them analyzed." "All that to pick a football player for your squad." "Compared to that, what you know about a person when you get married to them doesn't amount to diddly, does it?" "No, I suppose not." "You kind of bought yourself a pig in a poke, didn't you?" "The whole time we were seeing each other, you didn't know that I was tightly wound." "It wasn't just you, Bunny." "No, it wasn't, was it?" "You didn't exactly throw yourself into it heart and soul." "Your shit's still in the garage, if that's what you came for." "Three hundred and fifty pounds." "That boy Churchill's got." "He plays tackle both ways." "Bench-presses 350 pounds." "Imagine having that much weight on you, pressing down." "Be hard to breathe, hard to swallow." "I think they have another fella there to keep it off your chest." "A spotter." ""I only got my little girl now," he says." ""She's my lifeline. "" "Then he says I can't sit in the box anymore if I don't control myself." "Son of a bitch!" "He doesn't even watch the games, just sits there drinking." "Looks up at the TV now and then." "I'd be better off in the cheap seats with some real football people." "You look good, Bunny." "It was nice to see you." "Thanks." "I like it when you say that, Sam." ""Dearest Buddy. "" "Hey, it's the general." "Colonel." "Is Otis in?" " Come on in." " If it's too late" "Come on in." "Otis is sitting up with some people at the club." "I don't think he'll be long." "His hot sauce recipe won a contest last year." "They're selling it as far away as San Antonio." "You've been in this house for a while?" "I've been here with him eight years." "He built it when he was with Leora." "Never met her." "There's a bunch of them you never met." "Well, me neither." "Let me show you around." "He got into this cowboys-and-Indians stuff a while back." "Spent half his time poking around the library, way up to Austin." "Kind of like a shrine, isn't it?" "Where did he get all this stuff?" "Your mother's got a brother, Alphonse." "Uncle Al." "Otis stood on good terms with him." "Whenever you make the news he sends it on." "When they made you general Otis almost drove away our customers going on about it." "I'm a colonel." "I know." "The man made me memorize the whole Army chain of command before he'd marry me." "My mother said that he never asked about me." "He never asked her." "Tell him I stopped by?" "Thanks." "Catch you later Colonel." "Seòora Cruz." "Who is it?" "What are you doing out here?" "Are you crazy?" "In English." "We're in the United States." "I have some friends and they have had an accident." " You have somebody else out there?" " We was by the river and I heard my friend calling for help and I look and she has fallen in the water." "Don't tell me lies." "What happened?" "We was crossing the river." "What are you doing out there?" "Wait." "Who are they?" "Why bring them here?" "I need help, seòora." "I'll call Border Patrol." "They'll get her to the hospital." "You think you're doing these people a favor?" "What are they going to do?" "They get on welfare or they become criminals." "This girl is a friend of yours?" "I thought you were married." "I am married to the cousin of a friend but only to live here." "This is the mother of my child." "Typical." "Homework?" "I finished that." "I'm just messing around." "Tanks, huh?" "Yeah, well..." "If you've got to be in the Army, better to have something slick to drive." "So..." "You're going in the Army?" "That's the general plan, isn't it?" "That's up to you." "The Army isn't for everybody." "It's not that I think you wouldn't be good at it." "You know..." "I wouldn't be disappointed if you decided to do something else with your life." "You wouldn't?" "No." "How's your room shaping up?" "It's fine." "I'm pretty much moved in." "Good." "Are we ever going to see your father?" "My father?" "He lives here, right?" "Yes, he does." "Maybe we'll..." "We'll fix that thing out back and have a barbecue." "We could invite him and and his wife over." "He makes his own sauce." "Let's go!" "Hurry up!" "Everybody in the world will see." "He was a doctor on the other side." "Don't worry about it." "He owes me a few favors." "In English, Enrique." "In English!" "Hollis!" "Hollis!" "You in there?" "Fellas." "You're open late." "I'm not open." "We're just talking." "So, Hollis probably told you." "We found Charlie Wade." "Is that right?" "Start digging holes in this county, no telling what'll come up." "You two saw it, didn't you?" "You two saw it when Buddy killed him." "I'm going to find out one way or the other." "Your father had the finest sense of justice of any man I've ever known." "And my mother was a saint." "For 15 years the whole damn town knew he had another woman on the side." "He stole $10,000 and set her up in business but hell, what's that?" "You got a problem, old Buddy'll fix it." "You facing some time in jail?" "Buddy'll knock half of it off, if you do what he says when he says." "You got some business that's not exactly legal?" "Just talk to Buddy." "Buddy Deeds" "Buddy Deeds was a murderer." "That night at the cafe he didn't stay long after you left, did he, Hollis?" "Maybe he'd decided he'd gone too far with Wade." "He figured he'd better not wait for the sheriff to get behind him." "So he stepped out to see if he could catch up and you were here that night weren't you, "O"?" "I was here." "I'd been running a game on the side after hours." "Craps." "Draw poker on the weekends." "Roderick didn't know about it." "More important Charlie Wade didn't know about it 'cause I didn't want to cut him in on it." "I was pretty full of myself back in those days." "Hell, I just didn't expect the man so early." "Wade!" "Sheriff Charlie was the whip hand for old Judge Tibbs who pretty much owned this county back then." "If the truth came out he wasn't going to go easy on Hollis." "I don't know why I trusted Buddy with it don't know why he trusted me." "The first time I talked with him was right there and then with a dead white man leaking blood on the floor between us." "The three of us cleaned up and took him out by the post and put him under." "I can't say I was much help." "And the $10,000?" "Widow's benefits." "He figured it'd make the disappearance look better." "And Mercedes was scraping by after Charlie killed her man." "Buddy and her didn't get hooked up until later." "Time went on people liked the story we told better than what the truth might have been." "It's your call, Sam." "I don't think the Rangers are likely to find out any more than they already know." "And as for me it's just one of your unsolved mysteries." "Word gets out who the body was people'll think Buddy done it." "Buddy's a goddamn legend." "He can handle it." "'Night, fellas." "When does the picture start?" "Are you going to tell your mother we've been seeing each other?" "She'll find out sooner or later." "I don't have to ask permission anymore, if that's what you mean." "You have any idea when your father died?" "Eladio?" "Couple of months before I was born." "Try a year and half." "Buddy bought the cafe for her with money he took from the county." "They can't pull this on me." "It's not fair." "I don't believe this." "He paid the hospital bill when you were born." "Your mother she always called you "a beautiful daughter" in the letters she wrote to him." "From the first time I saw you at school all those years we were married to other people, I always felt like we were connected." "I remember thinking you were the one part of my life that Buddy didn't have a piece of." "I can't have any more children." "After Amado, I had complications." "I can't get pregnant anymore, if that's what the rule is about." "So that's it?" "You won't want to be with me anymore?" "If I met you for the first time today I'd still want to be with you." "Start from scratch?" "Yeah." "All that other stuff and all that history the hell with it, right?" "Forget the Alamo."