Chapter 2 2

Half a kilometer to the northwest, in a small mud-brick house with two evening signal lights burning, Sonia brushes her dark hair and peers into a mirror with lovely blemishes that make her look much younger than she really is. . The Indians were on their way in the moonlight.The diamondback rattlesnake was also moving in a certain direction, with a clear and resolute purpose, or at least it seemed to have a clear purpose.Some plants swayed and bent in the fierce night wind, casting shadows, and the rattlesnake was like another shadow passing through it for a moment, until its figure swimming on the ground became farther and farther away, and was barely visible.

Pablo has concentrated and packed his backpack.There was only half a kilometer to go, and his legs and feet began to tremble. Since he was so close to the resting place, he might as well fully experience the feeling of fatigue.He will have to buy a better flashlight for the next trip, and he has to ask for a lighter load.He has decided so.While it would be prudent to make demands of the people he was dealing with, at least he could politely ask if he could take some weight off next trip. If it doesn't work, then he can only sigh secretly, carry the things given to him on his back, and take the money on the road.The reward he can get for a one-way trip to the north is that his sister is in the processing export zone, which refers to the processing export zone and free trade zone on the US-Mexico border.Half a year's salary for working hard.Americans planted plants in twos and threes along the border.For a man who worked as a farmhand on a 40-hectare rocky land, the dream was in the Sierra Madre, Mexico's famous mountain range, rich in minerals.Owning a small estate in the cool, wet mountains is no longer a fantasy, but an achievable dream.He dreamed that there were trees and water, and his grandson was around his knees. The little grandson held his hand, walked with him in the forest, and fished in the clear stream. It was this beautiful picture that supported him in those long nights and made his life The legs were able to carry him across the high, lonely peaks of the north.

Pablo made his way to the mud-brick house, where Sonia had combed her hair carefully and checked the lamps again to make sure that two, and only two, were facing the Slater Valley. The window flickers.A coolie, probably the stern-looking little man in the torn trousers—his turn, she supposed—should arrive sometime tonight.He would be hungry and stink.And she'd give him some tortillas, make him sleep on the floor, and make sure he was gone before the sun came up.Next she would scrub the floors and ventilate the three rooms of the mud-brick house. In the main house, Winchell Dia looked up at the wall clock over the sink. It was eleven forty-three, seven minutes since he last looked up at the clock.He shuffled the two decks together and began the evening's second Virginia Reel solitaire, a game of extraordinary difficulty and challenge enough to win the hearts of poker pros.

North and west of Winchell Dia's kitchen, the city of El Paso stretched itself, still awake under the waning moon.On the hard, oil-stained roof of a truck station stood a man the same height as Pablo and within two pounds of each other, staring through mercury vapor lamps at a bright moon.He stepped out of the glare and looked up at the stars again, more stars than he could remember seeing through the haze of Los Angeles.The Milky Way pulled out a soft broad band in the night sky, and he felt that this bright Milky Way had never been so close to him. "Marty, are you ready? Or are you going to stare at the sky for the rest of your life?"

"No." "What not?" "I'm ready. How are you?" Marty walked over to a cream-colored Lincoln Continental and squatted down while his companion stuffed change into a wallet.Careful not to soil his expensive suit and the eighty-dollar white shirt beneath it, he reached under the fender of the passenger's seat and touched the metal box taped to the engine mount with duct tape. "Is everything normal down there?" "Yeah, that's right. The boxes are still glued on tight." Coney drove out of the truck stop, turned to I-10 Avenue, stomped hard on the specially ordered Kouhan flat shoes in width EE and size 13, and the car accelerated.

"Look at the map again," the driver said. "This goddamn country is confusing. Driving around is still country. I think I'm wandering around in some goddam desert or alien planet or something." Marty turned on the overhead lights, unfolded a map of Texas, and traced the road ahead of them with his fingers. "I think we'd be three hours east, or a little more, to this little town called Creel Segno. We'd just drive on I-10, right up to Van Horn, and then Go southeast at ninety yards." He pulled a piece of paper from the inside jacket pocket. "This handwritten map given to us shows that the place we are looking for is 24 kilometers past the town, near a place called Slater Valley. It should be a bridge with a 'Slater' on it Gully' sign. It's almost twelve o'clock. We should be there around three o'clock. Then it's done, and everyone can go to bed. Right?"

"Marty, turn off the light. It's too bright, I can't see well with the light on." "Right now. I'm looking for the location of that Border Patrol station. The one I marked earlier...yes, it's here. It's on I-10, about an hour down that road, in Cyprus. Near La Mablanca. Sierra Mablanca, it's supposed to mean 'white mountain' or something in English, right?" "Marty, can you bastard please turn off the goddamn light?" Marty folded the course map, rolled up the handwritten map, and turned off the light. "I'll feel better once we get past that Border Patrol station. Do you think they're going to stop us?"

"No way, they don't care about us. They're looking for illegal immigrants. That's what I was told." "Hope you're right. I don't want to lose these weapons. Getting under a car and pulling duct tape off is no joke." Marty turned his neck and looked out the passenger window, wanting to take another look at the sky, wishing he could experience the moon—in a way he couldn't, and though he still had it, it seemed to be The way it faded away—and in all his messy life he had never really studied the moon.Lately he's been thinking about joining a religion, thinking of something to do to pass the time and find a focus for his life along the way.Maybe go to a Latter-day Saint or Jehovah's Witness.Representatives of both denominations visited and spoke to him last month.He had carefully read the pamphlets they left behind, but they all seemed confusing, and the teachings contained certain obligations and pledges.He wasn't sure he could incorporate these things into his work and lifestyle.

"Anyway, that's a stupid idea, to stick the gun in that place," he said, sliding down, knees bent, hips against the edge of the seat. "If those border patrols get serious with us, do you think this trick will fool them? Damn, no way. It's a stupid idea, isn't it?" "Well, they made us do it. Let's do what we're told." The driver looked Marty up and down. "Hey, what the hell do you want to do? Limbo dancing or what?" "I'm looking for the goddamn moon. What do you think I'm still doing here? Stupid idea, that's all, sticking the gun under the fender. God, now I see it. How big my moon! see it?"

Marty had an annoying habit of ending almost any subject with a question, which sometimes required an answer and sometimes didn't, no matter what the topic was.It's almost insane because if you're around him, you spend half your time deciding if you need to answer his question, and the other half trying to come up with an answer if you do above. Other than that, he's a little eccentric, but overall, he's a useful guy.The best quality in him is that he is crazy and a good shooter.Marty wasn't superintelligent, but when he was working he was cool, unflappable, and always seemed to have a passion for his work.In a way, he said, murder was like sex.But he never ate until his gun was cleaned and loaded.This is a rule he adheres to.

The driver pondered Marty's intricacies, then shook his head, lit a Marlboro, picked up the speed a bit, and drove the Coney hard into the West Texas night. Everyone who lives in Crill Segno, including the morning coffee crowd at the Thornwood Café, is pretty sure that Winchell Dia didn't get his money on the east side of town through the cattle business. Seventy pieces of land.This conclusion is what they concluded from the current signs: After acquiring the land, Winchell leased out the grazing rights, which is absolutely impossible for a real rancher.Of course, he put his brand on the heads of thirty longhorn cattle (pets not counting), which he basically saw as a moving landscape.Besides, according to Jack—he owned the grazing rights—Winchell was letting an Indian squat on the land. So much they figured out, and wondered why the ancient land of F fell into the hands of this stranger from a foreign land in the first place.However it has been pointed out that some people remember there used to be a Border Patrol guy here a long time ago named Dia who had a patrol station near Creel Segno and maybe this Winchell guy has something to do with him . As the gang was about to leave the Thornwood Café and were tossing a coin to decide who would pay for the coffee, one of them said, "You know, Field F has been owned by the Cumberlands almost since the beginning of West Texas. Faye Cumberle used to say that he could come here at five o'clock on his own, with a saddle and good spirits, and leave probably with only that saddle. But he killed a few Horse Thief, cleared out the lions in Guipa Mountain, got busy and built this place off the ground... just him, his wife, and the illegal laborers. It's not really a big ranch, but it's been Forty-five thousand hectares isn't too shabby in the sense of its inheritance. They dug up some silver from Guipa Mountain, and they just lived through those poor years." Another interjected: "Well, things start to go bad in the third generation. Rick Comberle Jr. always seems to be more interested in skiing in Ruidoso and in Las Vegas than he is in watching the ranch." More interested in hanging out." A third said, "I've been told that Las Vegas and Rick's abandonment of Land F and his departure from town are closely related. Back when the Leland Hotel still had a year-round poker game Well, he hangs around here a lot. Everybody knows he's a wild gamer. Some people bumped into him for a little while in Las Vegas, at the Desert Inn, I think they say so. He's been said to drink He's so badass, always yelling and cursing at the cheaters. In the name of God, if he talks a lot about cheating, there will be cheaters. And, in the name of God He's going to fix somebody's wagon in the name of that. You know, Rick's always in a hurry. By the way, notice what Winchell's renaming the place?" The first said again, "Shit, maybe you're right, Jack. I never thought about connecting those things. Damn, he called it two pairs. That's kind of a name, isn't it?" He While talking, he drew Winchell's logo in the air. "Speaking of two pairs, what's the size of the woman he brought here?" Jack rolled his eyes up and whistled shortly to express his appreciation for what the image evoked. "What's the name of that damn woman...Jemima, Genai, Jero or something? How old do you think she is, maybe forty? T-shirt and skinny jeans, it looks fucking good." The others nodded and started dreaming about Jarrell pushing the grocery cart up and down the aisles of the Basket Market.A group of cowboys pushing carts always seemed to follow her or "just happen" to run into her, winking and giggling at each other like middle schoolers exchanging pornographic pictures. A third said, "Yeah, I heard once that she was Miss Montana in a beauty pageant. That was when she was young, of course." A fourth person said: "Okay, back to the topic. Speaking of which, two pair is not a good hand for a poker player, and the size of the land is about the same. Deep well area. If you are looking for something Things, you have to dig down five hundred meters. Old Faye used to say this about his water source: 'If I can't get water from heaven, I'll have to lift it up from hell.'” Everyone laughed and stood up to leave. "Damn, I really miss old Faye. I guess he got lung cancer eighteen or twenty years ago. Look, didn't little Faye die ten years after Faye passed away? It was at Dell That snorting steward trampled him to pieces in Bro Canyon." One or two nodded. "That was a slick bronco. Little Faye used to say that himself a lot. He said he would never have let them gel it if he hadn't known. The gelding came back and stepped on him, pommel Smashed his sternum and four ribs. The rest of the chest tissue couldn't sustain breathing. Rick found him six hours later, dead, the horse was grazing and moving to the other side, all the way quietly Dragging little Faye, his boots wrapped tightly around the stirrups." When they said goodbye to each other, the shadows outside the cafe were very clear and pure in the desert daylight, and everyone lowered their hats and went their separate ways in the morning light.Then came the long night of Winchell Dia. The light from the kitchen was reflected on the dark wooden wall. The wall absorbed part of the light, and the color was as rich as amber. Winchell finished his third solitaire game and began to shuffle the cards again.The clock above the sink reads twelve forty.The overhead fan turned slowly, creaking and squealing every fourth revolution. Take a look at Winchell's hand: the fingers are slender and the bones are visible.Although there are brown spots on these hands, they are still light and soft like the hands of a magician. He uses these hands to operate the classic card shuffling movements taught to him by his father.He holds the top half of the deck in his right hand and the other half in his left, putting the two decks side by side.His thumb rested on the edge of the card facing him, his index finger was curled to rest on the card, and the other three fingers supported the card opposite his thumb.He shuffled the cards with a flick of his thumb and let them slide into a dozen.Cut in, draw the bottom half of the deck, and put it on top of the other half.Do it again, and again, and again. Winchell can shuffle cards four times in a little over fifteen seconds, including cutting cards, and does so with ease.He practiced many times.As he shuffled the cards, he thought about Lucinda, wishing her well.Lucinda was a far better woman than Jarrell, and on nights like this, especially on nights like this one, he missed the years they had once had between them.He twirled his cards quietly, wondering if he should call Lucinda and see how she was doing. Fifty-two years ago, let us go back to Winchell's fifteenth birthday in 1938 along the tortuous and confusing journey of life.That day his father led him into the desert.They sat in a Ford coupe and looked across the Rio Grande towards the Carmens de México desert basin in northern Mexico.As far as the eye can see, it towers high into the clouds, the rocks rise, and the dust and gravel ride the strong evening wind, banging the metal parts of the car.Small swirls of dust rise, swirl, and swirl across the ground in front of them, dancing wildly as they take shape and swirl . , one side dies. His father lit a cigarette, puffed for nearly a minute, and pointed his cigar in the direction of Mexico: "Mexicans are basically good people. I like them. Their country sucks, but I like it there." people." He smoked for another minute, then said quietly, "Winchell, the reason I brought you here is to talk a little bit about your future, and that's what I'm going to talk about next. My idea is that there are only three things a person needs to know to get through life safely, and they all start with P in English: pistols, poker, high-speed trains. Those things will protect you, keep you alive, take you Go where you want to go." His father reached under the front seat and produced a .44 revolver, three boxes of ammunition, and two decks of cards still in their packaging.It was an 1887 Remington pistol, and its appearance showed that it had been heavily used. "The cards are new, and the pistol once belonged to a friend of mine, Leo Dawkins . . . I think you've heard the name once or twice." Winchell thought he had heard the name before, but his father seemed to know everyone scattered along the two thousand kilometers of river that separated Texas from Mexico.Sam Dea is always telling stories—fragment after fragment—about how people merge into each other and then lose their separate identities.Winchell probably heard about Leo Dawkins from those incidents, and when he thought about it he was pretty sure he remembered something about an attempted cavalry battle or something. True.His father, waving a cigar towards the west, said: "When the 7th Cavalry fought against Pancho Villa near Juarez, the famous founding hero in Mexican history was a very controversial figure. Because he was both a rebel. The hero of the foreign colonists is also a fierce god who advocates force and kills without batting an eye. Leo was the only one who died in the famous assassination. This is the last real and great cavalry battle in American history. Led by Colonel Tommy - 'Pinkbeard' Tompkins. They told me it was a big deal, started off with a bang and beautiful glory. Leo's horse galloped before it degenerated into chaos I stepped into an irrigation ditch and broke Leo's neck. I don't know how the horse got out of the ditch. Leo is a good builder of horse trails. If he had had any choice in the matter, he would not have chosen this way of dying anyway. Anyway, I got this gun from his sister, and now I give it to you. As for you now It's kind of cruel, but you'll grow up to be a tough guy." Winchell held the gun and turned it over, noticing the light of the sunset in the desert reflecting off the barrel while his father smoked and stared dreamily at Mexico. After a while, this man who loves Dajiang, likes Mexicans, and carries badges and revolvers everywhere speaks again: "Winchell, don't tell your mother about these things. She will lose her temper. Yes She doesn't mind a gun, it's just a man's normal tool and equipment here. But the cards are completely different." "Your mom always thought you were supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer or something. She never really understood men, she always saw things from a woman's point of view, which I guess is natural, and what I'm trying to make people understand is independence I've worked for the government most of my life, and I'm here to tell you that it's not a good way to go. And, for the most part, doctors and lawyers are just retailers, dependent on people going to them for their services. live." "Now,"—his father began to talk, his words became more open, his gestures became larger and larger, he swung across the border and back, swept along the great river, swept all the latitudes that could be measured A place of wind and pressure - "Learn to play cards better than anyone else...you can make a living doing it. Fly free like Harris' eagle, untethered. Got it?" Winchell nodded, a little confused. He had never thought of playing poker for a living, and he wasn't even sure he wanted it to be.He'd always leaned toward being a cowboy, or a Border Patrol guy like his father, or even a mining engineer, like those high-laced boots he'd seen at the Delingua mercury digging site , the man with the wide-brimmed hat on his head.He didn't quite know what a mining engineer did, but he liked their clothes and admired the way they walked around with blueprints in hand, directing the men who did the dirty work.Being a mining engineer has its advantages, being able to work outdoors and calling the shots.This combination is irresistible. Sam went on: "I'm not an expert, but I do know something, and I'll show you how to shuffle the cards in a moment. Then I'll teach you the basics of the different poker games. But, a The hallmark of a professional poker player is the ability to play with the cards softly and effortlessly, to make them move, make them talk, get them to go and do what they need to do." "When you're nearly halfway through the basics, I'll introduce you to Fern Brackett...you've seen him, the sly-faced guy hanging out at Sandbit's. He's not Called him a bush fox for no reason. Fern is one of the best dicks in the south west and he can tell you what to watch out for in that bad move. He always dresses up and never seems to work for a living But. That's because Finn knows things that others don't. When he teaches you the tricks, you'll spot most of the cheats and crooks right away. If you play well enough, you don't have to cheat at all, And there's no need to do that. Like I told you, the reason I want you to learn from Finn is so that you know how to look and what to pay attention to." "Here you stand on your own feet, Winchell. I guess it's called capitalism, and the so-called Great Depression is a recession that started in 1929 and lasted roughly until 1939 in North America, Europe, and other industrialized parts of the world ...not much of an end. However, there are always people who gamble, whether times are tough or not. It may seem odd, but it's true. It's about belief—people who believe they can overcome all odds, bet points Small money can make big money, usually they will lose their small money in the daydream of making big money, in fact, they could have invested this small money in better things, and slowly through their own efforts to turn it into Big money." Little Winchell was quite puzzled by what his father said.It all sounds like a dangerous, slightly scary adult world, full of scammers and cheats, as well as tough guys who probably won't tolerate excuses or immature behavior.This life sounds more uncertain than being a cowboy or a Border Patrolman or a mining engineer. "So, Winchell, what do you think of all this?" At fifteen, the boy is still a little clumsy, unable to coordinate his mind and body at the same time.He spread his teeth and showed a half-shy smile to his father, and shrugged. He didn't know what to say, so he stayed there quietly, silent. "Well, you can try it, and if it doesn't work, that's okay. Winchell, I'm not saying you have to do the things I've talked to you about. It's just to give you some options, and these options are similar to yours. The ones that are being considered now are different." They drove home, Sam clutching the steering wheel with both hands, the cooling cigar in the corner of his left mouth.The car bumped up and down over boulders and cacti, while Winchell rested his hands on his knees, clutching a pistol and studied it carefully. "It's a loaded pistol, Winchell," his father told him, smoking a cigar, bobbing up and down with each word. "It doesn't bounce like the revolvers I use. Every time you pull the lever behind the rotating chamber, you see a chamber. The ejector lever under the barrel pulls back and ejects the empty case, Then you just shove a new round in. Also an action - you have to pull the trigger before firing. A bit slow when reloading, but still one of the best vintage pistols ever made. Tomorrow Let's go to the back of the house and I'll show you how the gun works." Winchell opened the lever and looked into the chamber of the .44 pistol, it was empty.There was so much space inside that half of his little finger could fit inside. Their four-room mud-brick rough-and-tumble home doubles as a Border Patrol station.When they were almost home his father said again: "Winchell, you must never drink while you are gambling, quit this dangerous habit. And you must never fight dogs or cocks, or bulls and bears. Bloody things like that are not respectable. " "There is also horse racing, which is a relatively noble sport, but still lacks the element of personal control to affect the outcome. Keno is a game of gambling. It is the same as other games that are purely luck. Life itself is a kind of gambling, don't Putting yourself in situations that are difficult to navigate. I learned that too late, and that's why I feel a little stagnant in my current situation." here we go again.Winchell had heard it all before, from his father, from other men.Their words were not exactly the same, but the sound and feel of the words were the same, and the unspoken thoughts behind those words were the same.His father, the men, were all about feeling—feeling that there were things beyond their reach, which gave the impression that they had dreams but never lived them.But back then, life had limits, and everyone in their twenties thought things were going to go on like that forever, but they didn't. When they entered the yard—if dust, sand, and cacti could count as a yard—Winchell's mother was struggling to gather laundry down a line in the evening wind, which swept gravel into the clean on the clothes.The life of a Border Patrolman can be hard and lonely, as he can sometimes spend days patrolling along major rivers.But Winchell always felt that his mother's life was more difficult and lonely. As for the specific aspects of this hardship and loneliness, it was difficult for him to define.Her weather-beaten face was dark and dry, making her look older than her thirty-eight years, but that was how all high desert women looked at those days.The same goes for men, of course, but in Winchell's way of thinking, men—for some reason—the weather-beaten marks look more natural on them. Nancy Dia would occasionally smile casually or simply laugh, but Winchell would also see her gazing at the stars at night, or looking north through the window in the stillness of the morning with long, distant eyes.She came from a ranching family, the Winchells, who lived near Odessa, and she was used to the noise and laughter of people coming and going.And hardly anyone ever visits their Border Patrol station, unless it's a Texas Ranger Patrolman or another patrol guy who comes to pick up Winchell's father and set off with him somewhere to hunt smugglers or thieves or something . Every two or three months, the family would go to Crill Segno to buy supplies.While his father was meeting with various law enforcement officers, or buying ammunition, bridles, and rope at the Big Bend Arms Store and mass-market stores, Nancy inspected cloth and buttons at the dry goods store on Front Street.She always seemed eerily quiet and lonely on their way back to the border.The car bumped forward on the gravel road. She didn't speak much, but just stared out through the window on the side. The narrow collar of the dress made her feel a little irritable and uncomfortable. Her gaze sometimes turned outward, sometimes upward, and she cast her gaze outside along the road. To see what the sights might be, while not being entirely dissatisfied with what has been. Little Winchell was lonely, too, and had been since then, though he never noticed it until years later.It was just the way things were and the way things were going, and it wouldn't do any good to complain about it, even if he thought about it. His mother taught him at home for three hours after breakfast and another hour after lunch.Then the rest of the time is all his.He went fishing in the Rio Grande, shot deer or wild boar with the family's 30-30 saddle gun, shot blue quail and duck with his shotgun, and collected Indian handicrafts.Sometimes he set off with a horse to explore the ruins of the Indians, or, in cooler weather, just watched the shifting clouds as they flowed down like a great river over Cameres , and collided with the warmer airflow below, rising high again, covering all the peaks. Or he'd go far enough out of sight from that house to sit on a flat rock and practice shuffling, all the while thinking how wonderful it all was--human beings caught up in the rambling dilemma. fascinated, and dreamed richly of scraps of paper with numbers and pictures printed on them.What's even more amazing is that you can actually make a living doing it, as long as you master the cards and learn to let the opportunities follow your thoughts more.Roughly every week, his father would drive him away from the house to demonstrate the basic game of poker and the gestures of dealing and dealing cards from the car seat. Six months after Winchell received the pistol and the cards, his father took him out into the desert one Sunday, told him to take a pack of cards, and told him not to let his mother see. "We're going to take that .44 so it looks like we're going hunting for a little while." They came to the flat rock where Winchell used to go, and his father smiled and said, "Let me see how your game is going, Winchell." The boy did as he was told, shuffled, dealt, cut, and looked up at his father.