Philip Caputo - Crossers

Also by Philip Caputo
Acts of Faith Ten Thousand Days of Thunder 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings Ghosts of Tsavo In the Shadows of the Morning The Voyage Exiles Equation for Evil Means of Escape Indian Country DelCorsos Gallery Horn of Africa A Rumor of War

Acknowledgments M Y DEEPEST GRATITUDE to my editor, Ash Green; my agent, Aaron Priest; and to Frances Jalet-Miller for their encouragement and invaluable advice. And a thousand thanks to Chuck Bowden, J.P.S. Brown, Bob and Gayle Bergier, Julian Cardona, Daniel Cantu, Rubn Ceballos, Laura Chester, Meade Doc Clyne, Don Henry Ford, Glen Goodwin, Bryan Gutirrez, Axel Holm, Ross and Susan Humphreys, Karen Wessel Marcus, Jim and Tina McManus, John Mencer, Bevan Olyphant, and Grace Wystrach.Source materials included the following: the archives of the Arizona Daily Star , the Patagonia-Sonoita Weekly Bulletin , and the Pimeria Alta Historical Society; and Drug Lord: The Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin , by Terrence E. Poppa; Hidden Treasures of Santa Cruz County , by Betty Barr; The Man Who Tasted Shapes , by Richard E. Cytowic, M.D.; On the Border , by Tom Miller; The Reapers Line , by Lee Morgan; and Voice of the Borderlands , by Drummond Hadley.

Ben Erskine We fly from our time and place to the settlement of Lochiel, the present-day ghost town then home to four hundred souls: adobe houses and miners shacks, a post office, a school, a few stores, and three saloons islanded on the mile-high grasslands of the San Rafael Valley and tethered to the outside world by a single road that writhes westward through the Patagonia Mountains to its end in Nogales, the road deeply rutted by the giant wagons trundling silver and copper ore out of the mountains to Lochiels smelter, its stack leaking smoke into an otherwise unblemished desert sky.The black tendril leans in a light breeze, and a faint, sooty mist sifts down on the tin roof of a nearby bungalowthe house-cum-courtroom of Joshua Pittman, the justice of the peace. A clean-shaven man of forty, wearing a collarless shirt and a vest he can no longer button over his portly torso, he is seated on a spindle-backed chair on his front porch, booted feet crossed atop the porch rail as he reads the Border Vidette . The issue is dated August 6, 1903; its two days old, delivered from Nogales, some twenty miles away, by a mailman on horseback. The Justice, as hes often called, reads almost every word; as a leading citizen in a town most of whose inhabitants are illiterate in English and Spanish, he considers it his duty to keep abreast of events in the world beyond Lochiel.In his dusty yard stands his nephew, Ben Erskine, a boy just past the threshold of adolescence, tall for his age, as lean as one of the ocotillo wands that fence the yard. He wears a loose-fitting cotton shirt, dungarees tucked into a pair of scruffy boots, and a high-peaked, dirty hat, its brim rolled up tightly at the sides. A boy on an idle Saturday, playing a solitary game of mumblety-peg in the shade of a cottonwood. The hunting knife in his hand is a prize possession, its four-inch blade mirror-bright and sharp enough to cleanly slice a page of his uncles newspaper. What makes this knife special are the engravings on each side of the blade. At first glance they resemble scrollwork; but with a closer look, the pattern reveals itself to be a dancing girl in three different intertwined poses. Holding the knife up to the light at the correct angle and turning it slowly side to side creates an illusion of movement. The three figures merge into one; the dancing girl comes to life, her ample hips swaying. Ownership of the knife has made Ben the envy of the other boys at Lochiels one-room school. Many was the afternoon after class when they gathered around him for a demonstration and a chance to gawk at the forbidden. These entertainments have continued into the summer vacation, but they will end soon. Next month, after a year in his uncles care, Ben will rejoin his mother, stepfather, and older brother, Jeffrey, in Tucson, where he is to begin high school. This isnt something hes looking forward to, not because he dislikes schoolhe is in fact an eager studentbut because he doesnt get along with his stepfather, a Southern Pacific supervisor named Rudy Hollister.Skinny legs spread, Ben flips the knife into the ground a few inches from his right foot, then stretches his legs farther and plants his foot next to the knife, buried up to the dancing girls neck. He is almost doing the splits. He cant move another inch, so he pulls his legs together, withdraws the knife, and begins again.The Justice folds the newspaper, swings his feet off the rail, and looks at his nephew. One of these days you are going to stick that thing clear through your foot, he says slowly and deliberately, as if hes passing sentence in his courtroom.Yes, sir.What do you mean? Yes, you are going to stick yourself in the foot?Ben pauses a moment, tips his hat back with two fingers as hes seen the cowhands do, and grins his peculiar grin. It slashes across his face like a soldiers hash mark and is often misinterpreted by those who dont know him well. To them, it looks like a sneer, cocky, even a little cruel.I did not mean that at all, he says. Im too accurate with it to stick myself.Right glad you are so confident, Joshua says, arching his sandy brown eyebrows. He squints at the sun, which is swinging from east to southeast over the far blue ranges of Sonora. Your uncles favorite refreshment needs replenishment. Seeing as how you have got so much free time, take a ride over to Estebans for me.Estebans is a cantina in Santa Cruz, a small pueblo some six or seven miles over the border. In Joshuas estimation, the tequila sold there is superior to the brands peddled in Lochiels saloonsraw smuggled hooch suitable for the uneducated palates of cowboys and miners, but not for a discriminating man such as himself.Ill saddle Maggie right away, Ben replies. Any chance to ride his pinto mare is welcome.He collects the money from his uncle and starts toward the livery stables. Joshua watches him walk away, the shirt billowing as if it were hanging from a coat hanger, empty of flesh and bone. Hes grown close to Ben in the past year, closer than he wanted to, and tries not to think about the boys departure. Hed become accustomed to loneliness. When Ben came to live with him, nine years had passed since he buried Gabriela and the infant son whod died with her, strangled by the umbilical cord, hanged by the organ that had sustained him in the womb.That was in Nogales, where Joshua had been serving as postmaster. After the funeral he returned home and opened the door, and the silence inside seemed to lunge at him as if alive. He walked out, abandoning everything he and Gabriela had owned, and never went back. No, the silence in this house will not be half so dreadful when Ben leaves for Tucson, but it will take some getting used to.Hattie had written him last summer: Theres nothing we can do with him, and this is the last straw. For some petty slight, Ben had declared that he was going to whip his stepfather, who greeted the threat with a laugh. So she said, and Joshua had no reason to doubt his sister. Rudy Hollister was good-natured and was besides six feet two inches tall, with the arms and shoulders of the section hand hed been before the railroad promoted him to supervisor. When Ben rushed him, he placed a hand on the boys forehead and allowed him to flail the air until he could no longer keep his arms up. As reported by Hattie, Hollister said, Dont look like youre ready to lick me just yet, and that should have been the end of it. But the humiliation had been too much for Ben. He seized a poker from the fireplace and threw it at his stepfatherlike a red Indian would throw a lance.Bens missile struck wide of its mark, but it raised Rudys ire. Tanned his hide but good, Hatties letter went on. First and only time Rudy laid a hand on either one of the boys. The only reason I can figure Ben hates him like he does is for not being his father, like he thinks Toms death was Rudys fault.That did not surprise the Justice. Ben had worshiped his father, though he was often away from home, as a U.S. Customs officer patrolling the border, then as a territorial ranger, chasing outlaws and rustlers. Maybe Ben worshiped him because he was gone so much. The irony was that Tom Erskine, whod survived gunfire from Mexican smugglers and white desperadoes, died as the result of a kick from a rank horse. Ruptured his liver.Six months later Hattie married Rudy and moved to Tucson. Said she needed a man in the house to help her raise two rambunctious boys. Still, her swift remarriage caused a scandal in Lochiel. Might have had the decency to at least wait a year, the town gossips whispered. The rumor was that good-looking, fun-loving Hattie needed a man for other purposes. There was something, well, carnal about her; during Toms absences, a hunger plain to every man in town would come into her eyes. She often went on solitary ridesthe woman could ride like an Apache bravespurring her horse into reckless gallops to blow off sexual steam.Having described the last straw, she listed Bens previous offenses. Got into a gang fight and knocked a Mexican kid cold with a chunk of railroad spike hurled from his slingshot, and then, fearing hed killed the kid, saddled his horse and fled into the mountains for three days, worrying her sick. With her case built (and pretty skillfully, thought the man of the law), she came to the point: would Joshua take Ben in for the next year? A big thing to ask of him, but she was at her wits end, and Ben looked up to his uncle, the former cavalryman who had fought Geronimo.Joshua smiled at the flattery. It wasnt as if he and Geronimo had met in a single combat. He had been in only a couple of brief skirmishes during the final campaign against the Apaches in 86. His memories consisted mostly of heat, dust, and burning eyes on endless, monotonous rides, pursuing a phantom across the desert and through the Dragoons and the Chiricahuas, until, with his people starved and exhausted, the phantom called it quits in a place called Skeleton Canyon. No, it wasnt flattery that convinced him to agree to Hatties request. Rudy Hollister was only half of Bens argument; the other half, he suspected, was Hattie herself. No great shakes as a mother, Joshua had reluctantly concluded. When Ben and Jeff were toddlers, she often left them alone in the house for hours, strapping them into high chairs so they wouldnt get into mischief while she visited with her friends or went shopping or took one of her rides. In matters of discipline she was inconsistent, indulgent one day, and the next Well, there was that time when Ben was eight and engaged in some sort of obstreperous behavior. Hattie punished him by forcing him to walk barefoot over a trail cobbled with shale and junk rock chipped like half-finished spear points. He stubbed his toes, his feet bled, and he cried to her to pick him up, but she continued the torture until, in her reckoning, hed learned his lesson.Joshua figured he could do better, and the past year has proved him right. Not a lick of trouble, unless you count the time the schoolteacher caught Ben putting on a show with his unusual knife at recess. She wouldnt allow Ben to bring it to school from then on, and reprimanded Joshua for allowing his nephew to keep such an immoral objectand him the justice of the peace!Ben is wearing the knife when he rides out of Lochiel, crossing into Mexico as easily as one might cross a street in Tucson or Phoenix. There is no barbed wire to impede him, no signpost except for a tall stone boundary marker to tell him that he is leaving the Arizona Territory. Hes made this trip before but feels a small buzz nonethelessits an adventure for a thirteen-year-old to ride alone into another country on a fine horse like Maggie, small, lithe, and fast, a possession he prizes more than the knife hanging from his belt in a plain leather sheath.He holds her to a lively walk, though hes tempted to strike a lope to cool his face. A tropical humidity burdens the air, for it is the monsoon season on the vast Sonoran Desert, the time of year that stockmen anticipate with hope and fear: if the rains succeed, their herds will prosper and so will they; if the rains fail, as they did in the nineties, the grass will wither, the calves birthed in spring will grow weak and fall prey to coyotes and cougars, and the cows gathered in the fall will go to market underweight. The owners of big spreads will survive; the small operators will be droughted out.The rains have been abundant this year. The grasslands have gone from pale yellow to bright green, green as Ireland, Ben heard an immigrant miner say. Fat cattle graze everywhere, and golden poppies speckle the roadside. Far to the southeast a compact storm sweeps the horizon, a moving black island in the sea of sky, the rain an opaque curtain hung from cloud to earth. To the southwest, more clouds, towering over the San Antonios, spread out in a black anvil that sparks lightning.Ben rides alongside the Santa Cruz River for well over an hour, passing a campesino on a burro, then a range of low hills crowned with old mine tailings. Near the start of the rivers westward bend, he enters the pueblosmall houses and stores flanking a fissured dirt street that leads into the plaza. It is siesta time. A couple of women in brilliant Indian garb are drawing water from the communal well; a man sits smoking on the bandstand steps; otherwise no one is out in the fierce midday heat. Estebans, a flat-roofed adobe with the ends of its roof beams protruding from the front wall and CANTINA painted above its door, is a few houses down from the church, the grandest building in town, grander than the nearby courthouse.Ben knots Maggies reins to the hitching rail beside three other horses, one a big sorrel that must go seventeen hands. It is dim insidea couple of windows admit patches of light in which dust motes swirl and sparkle. Three vaqueros sit drinking at crude tables against a wall, two together, the other by himself, tipping a beer bottle to his lips. All three look at Ben. He nods. The two seated together return the nod, but the third makes no movement, just squints at Ben as he crosses the dirt floor, worn as smooth as marble, gleaming in the places where the window light strikes it.Esteban is in the back room. Ben hears clinks and clatters and surmises that he is stocking shelves. He stands at the bar. On the wall behind it planks supported by stout pegs hold dusty glasses, unlabeled bottles, and squat earthenware jugs. Ben waits a minute or two, feeling the solitary mans eyes on his back. The sensation makes him nervous, and he raps the bar loudly with his knuckles to gain Estebans attention.A voice behind him slurs, Est ocupado. Tenga paciencia.Ben turns and looks at the lone vaquero, heavyset, with a mestizos complexion and the standard Mexican mustache, hooked over his mouth like a black bracket. A felt sombrero hangs from his thick neck by its stampede strap, stained chaps sheath his outstretched legs, and big cruel-looking spursthe kind sometimes called Spanish, sometimes Chihuahuanare clamped to his boots.T comprendes, gringuito?He practically spits the contemptuous word littlegringo.S, comprendo, Ben answers, offering his crooked grin to mask his unease. The Mexican makes it obvious, with a hard glare, that he doesnt like that smileto him, it looks insolent.Ese pinto es tuyo? he asks, gesturing out a window that frames Maggie and one of the other horses.Ben replies that the pinto is his.Parece fino.Pues.Me gusta tu caballo. He pauses, squints, smiles without mirth, then stands up. Accustomed to Mexicans not much taller than himself, Ben is surprised by his height. Spurs clanking, he lurches to the bar and leans on it, inches away. The vaquero isnt armed, but that isnt much comfort. Hes as tall and powerfully built as Rudy Hollister.S, me gusta tu caballo, he repeats, the vapors of his beer breath almost visible. Pero no me gustan los gringos, y mucho menos los gringuitos. I like your horse, but I dont like gringos, and little gringos even less . A prickling rises up Bens arms, a tightness in his throat. He wants to bolt but doesnt, sensing that any sudden move will only incite this ugly borracho. Just then Esteban emerges from the back room. Hes short, muscular, dressed in the white cotton shirt and trousers of a peon. But hes no peon, hes a barkeep in a border cantina, and he sizes up the situation in two seconds flat.Qu quiere, amigo? he amiably asks the big man. Otra cerveza ohe places his hands on a drawer under the baralgo ms?The drunk is not so drunk that he doesnt understand the message of Estebans hidden hands: the something else hes been offered isnt drinkable. He snorts and replies, sure, hell have another beer. Esteban pulls one from a shelf. The vaquero grabs it, slams a few pesos on the bar, and weaves back to his table.Hola, Ben, Esteban says. Qu pasa? Cmo est tu to?Bien, pero con sed.Oye. Esteban leans forward and lowers his voice. Me lleg lo bueno Lo que le gusta a tu to.The drunk nonetheless overhears. Lo bueno! Qu estoy to mando yo? Del drenaje? Y al cabroncito le das lo bueno. Y tan joven para pistear.Esteban ignores him, then motions Ben to come with him. Cabroncito little bastard. Ben again feels like running out. Instead he obeys the summons, ducks under the bar, and follows Esteban into the cramped, windowless storeroom that is as dark as a closet save for a single plane of light, slipping through a crack in the back door. Esteban burns a candle and removes from a shelf a glazed ceramic jug with its cork sealed in wax.Esta es. Mira. Pointing at a word printed under the name of the distiller: REPOSADO. It means, as Ben has learned from his previous trips, that the tequila has been aged a long time and is of the highest quality.Cunto es?Dos.Before leaving, Uncle Joshua instructed him to bargain, but Ben is more than anxious to be on his way and dips into his pocket without argument.Bueno, Esteban says, palming the two silver dollars. Oye. Slgate por aqu. He gestures at the back door, then adds with a twitch of his head, El borracho.Hasta luego.Walking around to the front, Ben stuffs the jug into a saddlebag, mounts up, and starts down the street at a trot. Gringuito. Cabroncito . What was he picking on me for? he asks himself. What did I do to him? The sheer unreasonableness of the Mexicans hostility agitates and frightens him as much as the hostility itself.A wind has sprung up in advance of the thunderstorm building to the south. A dust devil twirls crazily ahead, seeming to lead Ben out of Santa Cruz before it spins itself out. At a wash a herd of thirsty corrientes blocks his way. He urges Maggie on and whoops to clear a path through the jostling mass of pale hides and high, curved horns. Maggie plods up the opposite bank, and Ben rides on toward the border, once more at a brisk walk. He hasnt gone far when he hears rapid hoofbeats behind him. He knows who it is even before he turns to see him, mounted on the sorrel at a full gallop. Bens thought is, He wants to steal my horse! Maggie, as startled as he by the oncoming rider, lunges forward. Ben kicks her hard and slacks the reins, and she takes off, neck outstretched, mane flying. He doesnt dare turn to see if the vaquero is gaining, and doesnt need to. He can tell by the sound that he is. In a few seconds the sorrel is alongside, its nose half a length behind Maggies, the Mexican brandishing a ramal braided to his reins. An observer watching from afar would think the two riders were high-spirited cowhands, running a race.A ver qu tan hombrecito eres! the Mexican yells, leaning over as he cracks Maggies haunch with the ramal.Thinking that some predator is attacking her from behind, which is in fact the case, the mare whirls off the road, kicking with both back legs at the same time, the violent movement nearly pitching Ben over her neck and jerking his feet from the stirrups. He manages to hold his seat but cannot get his stirrups back as Maggie twists and bucks. He cannot believe hes still on, but because hes been riding since age four, he knows he wont be for long, knows further that he had better bail before hes thrown. He lands hard, his legs crumple from the impact, and he rolls two or three times through the grass and over the rocks the grass conceals.The wind knocked out of him, his ribs bruised, he lies there for several moments, staring at a harrier circling high above. When he realizes that he hasnt broken any bones, he sits up and sees Maggie some ten or twenty yards away, ground-tied by the reins hanging from her neck. She seems to be looking at him apologetically. Ben wants to say, Got nothin to feel bad about, wasnt your fault, but he cant speak. His tongue and throat feel as if theyre coated with sand.He gets to his feet and then notices the sorrel standing under an empty saddle some distance away, near the old mine tailings. The gringo-hater lies sprawled in the middle of the road, motionless. His horse must have reared when Maggie kicked, Ben thinks, and being so drunk, he couldnt hold his seat. Hope his neck is broke.What he should do now is ride home as fast as the mare can carry him, but that is not what he does. Leading Maggie by the reins, he approaches the prone figure as a hunter would a fallen bear or mountain lion, uncertain if its dead or merely wounded. The wind blows harder, lightning rives a plum-colored cloud advancing northward.The Mexican appears to be dead, an arm flung over his chest, eyes half open, mustache matted with the blood trickling from his nostrils; but then he makes a soundits something between a sigh and a snoreand Ben notices the big chest rising, falling, rising. What if this crazy horse thief revives and comes after him as he rides homeward?Fear rises again in Bens throat, and he hates this drunken vaquero for making him afraid. He kneels behind his tormentors head and bends low, draws his knife, and with one swift stroke he opens in the Mexicans throat a second mouth that vomits blood over his hand and shirt.The mans legs thrash, digging the Spanish spurs into the ground; he wheezes and gurgles, and when the arm on his chest flops to the ground with a spastic movement, Ben jumps aside. Trembling, he stares at the body, now still, and at the scarlet grin arcing almost ear to ear in the brown throat. A thrill of conquest shudders through himhe feels like a David standing over the slain Goliath. And yet he cant believe hes done what hes done. It now seems as though the knife drew itself and of its own will slashed into living flesh.He wipes the blade in the grass, then scours his hand and shirt with dirt from the road. The dead mans horse still stands near the mine tailings. Nearby Maggie grazes on succulent tufts of blue grama. The harrier glides low, seeking prey. The thunderstorm rolls on, passing to the west, while the sky directly overhead is clear. Nothing much has changed except Ben Erskine.A calm descends upon this Ben who is no longer the Ben hed been and can never be again. The trembling stops. His mind is cold and clear and thinks ahead. Some traveler is bound to come upon the body and fly into Santa Cruz with the news that a man with his throat cut lies in the middle of the road. The report will reach the ears of the local law. Possibly Esteban and the two customers will tell them about what happened in the cantina. Of course, by the time the rurales ride out to look for him, he will be back in Lochiel, beyond their reach. But can he take that chance? His instincts tell him to hide the body now, while there is no one around. The problem is, where can he hide it out here in all this open country? He cant drag it very farthe Mexican must weigh more than two hundred pounds. Then he looks toward the dead mans horse and the mine tailings, cascading down the slopes of the low hills.He approaches the sorrel carefully, removes the riata from the saddle, and returns to the road. He cinches the loop over the Mexicans ankles, giving the rope a few extra turns for good measure, then wraps the opposite end around his saddle horn and remounts Maggie. The smell of blood makes the pinto nervous. Ben settles her down, and she has no trouble pulling the corpse over the open ground and up one of the hills. Ben halts there, unties the riata from the saddle horn and, after some tugging and shoving that soaks him in sweat, rolls the body into a mine shaft. Trailing the rope still bound to its ankles, it tumbles straight down fifteen or twenty feet to land on its side, the legs bent against the side of the hole, which isnt much wider than the Mexican is tall. Was tall. Ben scrambles down to unsaddle the sorrel and take off its reins and headstall. That done, he sends the horse away with a loud yell and a slap on the rump. Lugging the tack uphill works up more sweat. He tosses it into the pit with its former owner. A ver qu tan hombrecito eres . The Mexicans last words. Lets see what you have, little man . Reckon you found out, you horse-thievin son of a bitch. Ben mounts up and starts for the border and Lochiel, spurring the pinto into a racehorses run. Its as though hes in flight, though no one pursues him.Joshua Pittman is in his office, studying a case he is to hear tomorrow: a dispute between two stockmen over water rights. Hes had trouble concentrating. Ben should have returned an hour ago. His anxiety eases when he hears, through the open window, hoof clops out back and the squeal of the gate swinging open. He goes out to the porch, and there is Ben, leading his horse into the yard. Maggie is lathered, blown out.What took you so long? Youre too young to have been dancing with the seoritas.Ben makes no reply, takes the jug out of a saddlebag and, with a skittering, sidelong glance of his pale gray eyes, hands it to his uncle.Id better cool Maggie down before I put her up, Ben declares, still with that evasive look, his voice subdued.Joshua sets the jug down and leans against a post. Dont want to put yourself up wet either, he remarks, gesturing at his nephews sweat-stained, dirt-spattered shirt. Whatever held you up, you sure did come home in a hurry it looks like.Knew we was late.Were late. Youve had eight years of schooling.Yes, sir.Ben goes to his horse, tugs the latigo to loosen the girth, and walks the mare around the yard, passing into and out of the cottonwoods lengthening shadow, mottled by the late-afternoon light shooting through the branches. His head is bent contemplatively; the fingers of his free hand open and close, as if hes molding an invisible lump of clay.The Justice steps off the porch. Run into trouble?Ben halts and makes a vague movement with his head.That a yes?Ben nods.Well, what kind of trouble?Somebody tried to steal my horse.Joshua flinches. Hed expected to hear that it was mild trouble, boy trouble, like a run-in with some rough kids. Who was it?A Messikin.Stands to reason it was a Mexican, you being in Mexico at the time.This droll comment is intended to ease Bens agitation, but it has the opposite effect. Looking at his uncle squarely for the first time since his return, he snaps in response, What do you reckon? That he come up to me and said, Howdeedo, my name is Pablo and Im here to steal your horse?Dont get sassy.Im sorry, sir. Its just that You know that hunting trip I went on last fall with my friends? When we saw the mountain lion a-sneakin up on our packhorse and shot it? This Messikin scared me moren that lion did. Never been so scared. I still amsome.Bens lips quiver as he speaks, and Joshua draws closer to him, raising a hand to give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze; but the movement is immediately checked by the peculiar expression in the boys eyes. There is no fright in them, and not much boy either. They seem somehow older and harder.Theres nothing to be scared of now. Doubt that Mexican is going to come here after your horse.Aint no doubt about it, Ben affirms, the harshness of his tone matching his look. He was chasin me and tried to make Maggie throw me so he could take her. But he was the one got throwed. Busted his neck, I think. Hes dead, Uncle Josh.Startled, Joshua does not say anything. He then notices something that startles him more: hed mistaken the nature of the reddish brown blemishes spattered across the front of Bens shirt and on the right sleeve.Whats this? he asks, rubbing a large blot on the cuff.That? Ben says with a quick look. I reckon its dirt.Cupping the boys elbow in his hand, Joshua guides him to the porch, sits down on the stoop, and motions Ben to sit beside him. Maggie can wait. Youve got a lot to tell me, and I had better hear it. I had better hear it all.That night Ben sleeps fitfully, troubled by strange dreams. There is a mystical streak in the family, which he has inherited. He wakes, sits up, and sees his father standing at the foot of his bed, the beloved father wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a leather vest with his rangers badge pinned to it, a Winchester Model 94 at his side. Tom Erskine tells him he is a good boy, there is nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. Go to sleep, son, he whispers, and Ben does, undisturbed by any more bad dreams.While he sleeps, the Justice records the confession in his diary, a clothbound ledger with a leather spine. (He is a faithful diarist, and after his death in 1928, his journals will find their way into the Arizona Historical Societys Tucson archives, where they will be read by a descendant many decades later.) Most of the entries, written in the clear hand of one trained in old-fashioned penmanship, take up a page at most and concern events in town, or observations on the weather, or the particulars of an interesting court case. A few reveal Joshuas deepest thoughts and feelingshis loneliness, his desire to meet a woman who will evict his longing for Gabriela.The entry for August 8, 1903, covers five full pages and is less legible, with words crossed out and rewritten in the spaces between the lines. Joshua maintains a dispassionate tone in the first three pages, which describe the incident. While the hurried scrawl communicates emotional turmoil, the straitjacketed language reads like a police report or a dictated deposition. The sole exception is this sentence: When his assailant showed signs of life, Ben, thinking he would come to and resume pursuit, unsheathed his knife and cut the mans throat. The last four words are underscored: cut the mans throat .What follows are Joshuas reactions to what hes heard. He begins with a bit of self-recrimination, mentioning how dangerous the border was in those days, with bandits and renegades ranging freely on both sides. To send a thirteen-year-old across the line, alone and for such a frivolous purpose, was a dereliction of his duties as the boys guardian. The fact that Ben had not met with trouble on previous trips had made Joshua complacent. It could have been Ben lying out there with a broken neck or worse, he continues. The thought makes my soul tremble.But as his commentary goes on, it becomes evident that what might have happened did not disturb him nearly so much as what did. He describes the Mexican as a common thug who doubtless needed killing; but he regrets with all his being that his nephew had to be the one to do it. He judges, moreover, that Ben did not need to kill him. The man of the law cannot escape drawing that conclusion, though he does not state it plainly. He writes that at Bens age he would have fled as soon as he saw that his attacker had been knocked unconscious; that he would have lacked the cold-blooded nerve to slash the mans throat and the presence of mind, like a seasoned criminals, to dispose of the corpse.Joshua Pittman is a man of the western frontier, raised in west Texas during the Comanche wars. Hes seen something of greed and violence and the miscreant passions to which all men are heir; but the diary makes it plain that his nephew has presented him with something hes not encountered before, something he cannot quite grasp but that nonetheless expands his notions of what is possible. A boy goes off on a mundane errand and returns a blood-splattered killer. How can that be? Where is Providence to allow such a thing to happen? He is like a man who has been changed by a new and powerful perception. Scribbling by the light of a kerosene lantern, he pauses, pressing the tip of the pens wooden shaft to his cheek as he ponders how to express this new perception and incorporate it into the realm of his experience. Unable to find the language, he reads over what hes written, and that is when he strikes a bold line under the words cut the mans throat.He then digresses into a brief reminiscence of his father, Caleb Pittman, a twice-wounded Confederate veteran who, bearing a wagonload of bitterness and belligerence, left Georgia to ranger in Texas and kill Comanches with as much zest as he had Yankees. Indeed, Pittman family lore is filled with tales of hard-shell ancestors fighting Indians and whites and, when they ran out of natural enemies, each other. Could there have been something in young Bens blood that had lain dormant until its awaited hour came, the pupa cracked, and the creature was born, there on that dusty road to Santa Cruz?The Justice stops himself from further indulgence in such pointless speculations and concludes: It is a terrible thing to kill a man, even when it is justified. A few hours ago, I would not have believed someone Bens age would have it in him to do what he did in the way he did it. Ben himself could not have known until the deed was accomplished. I do not know how this discovery will affect him.That question will be answered in later years.