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  “We can always use another cowpoke in the gang, isn’t that right, kids?” Cody said, squaring his Colorado Rockies baseball cap. “But, of course, we’ll have to see how you do. We like to take on hands on a day-by-day basis around these here parts. How does that suit you?”

  “Sounds fair, Aaron,” I said, as everyone laughed at Daddy. “I’ll try not to let you down.”

  “Enough yappin’ to the greenhorn, Cody,” Seamus said, smacking the hood of the old tractor. “Time to saddle ’em up and move ’em out.”

  We all piled into the trailer, along with Cody’s three black-and-white border collies. I watched as my kids and the super-friendly dogs couldn’t get enough of each other. Mary Catherine was right. The kids really couldn’t have been happier as we rolled out over the fields, bouncing around like a bunch of jumping beans.

  We saw the cattle ten minutes later. There were about sixty head of them, milling along an irrigation ditch.

  “See, Dad? Those over there are cows,” my seven-year-old son, Trent, said, showing me the ropes as Cody opened the cattle gate. “They’re girl cattle, big but actually kind of nice. You can control ’em. Also, see that wire running along the other end of the field? That’s electric, Dad. Don’t touch it. It’s for keeping the cows in.”

  I smiled at Trent’s contagious energy. Back in New York, at this hour, he would have been-where? Stuck in class? And yet here, he was outside, learning about the world and loving every minute of it.

  As Cody got us going again, Trent suddenly pointed to a pen we’d passed that had a couple of truly enormous red-and-white bulls in it. They looked like oil tanks with fur.

  “Those guys there are bulls, Dad. Boy cows. They’re, um … what did you call the bulls, Mr. Cody?” Trent called up to the farmer.

  “Orn-ry,” Cody called back.

  “Exactly. Bulls are orn-ry, Dad. Real mean-like. You gotta stay away from them. You can’t even be in the same field as them. Once they see you come over the fence, you have to get back over it real quick, before they come runnin’ like crazy to mow you down!”

  “Why do I think this information comes from personal experience, Trent?” I asked.

  “Eddie’s the one who does it the most, Dad,” Trent whispered confidentially. “Ricky, too. I just did it once. Cross my heart.”

  The trailer stopped. Cody climbed down from the tractor. The border collies, whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, and Desiree, immediately jumped over the rim of the trailer as Cody whistled.

  “Check this out, Dad,” my eldest son, Brian, said, putting his arm over my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” said Jane, as the dogs made a beeline for the cattle. “Step back and watch. This is the coolest.”

  My kids weren’t kidding. The cattle turned to watch as the three dogs ran in a straight line along the opposite side of the large field. Before the cows knew what was happening, the collies had followed the field’s perimeter and were behind them, with an occasional bark or nip at their hooves to urge them along.

  Cody, approaching the side of the slowly driven herd, whistled occasionally to his dogs as they weaved back and forth behind the none-too-happy-looking cows. In minutes, the cows were trotting past the tractor and trailer, jogging through the gate into the lane we had just come up, on their way to the milking barn.

  “How did you teach them to do that?” I said, staring at the dogs in awe as Cody came back to the tractor.

  “It’s not me,” Cody said, petting the happy, energetic dogs. “It’s in their blood. Border collies are the best herding dogs in the world, Mike. They never stop moving and circling; plus, they always look the cattle in the eye to show them who’s boss.”

  As it turned out, I wasn’t done being shocked that morning. Back at the milking barn, Mary Catherine blew me away as she guided the bawling cows into the separate stalls like a farm-girl traffic cop. Then she put on a smock and gloves and hopped down into the sunken gutter between the stalls and started hooking up the cows to the milking equipment. She worked the octopuslike snarl of tubes and pumps like a pro, attaching things to their proper … attachments. It was beyond incredible.

  “Hey, Mike,” Mary Catherine said, stepping up into the stall, holding a bucket. “Thirsty?” she asked, showing me some milk fresh from the cow.

  I leaped back as I almost blew chow. Unlike the cold, white stuff we picked up in cartons from the cooler at the 7-Eleven, this had steam coming off it and was yellow and chunky.

  “Come on, Mike. I know you’re thirsty,” Mary Catherine said, smiling, as she sensed my discomfort. She waved the bucket menacingly at me. “Straight up or on the rocks?”

  “How about pasteurized and homogenized?” I said, backing away.

  “EAT LESS CHICKEN!” Chrissy suddenly yelled to everyone as a clucking chicken landed on the windowsill of the barn.

  “And drink less milk,” I said to Mary Catherine.

  CHAPTER 5

  After the milking was done and the cows were put back to pasture, the older girls went with Shawna and Chrissy to the henhouse to collect eggs.

  The girls returned shortly, and Cody insisted that everyone have breakfast at his house.

  “You want to keep the hands happy, you got to keep their bellies full,” he said.

  We filled our bellies, all right. After we hosed off the wellies, we were greeted by Cody’s short and stout sweetheart of a housekeeper, Rosa, who cooked us up a feast of steak and biscuits and scrambled-egg tortillas with lots of homemade salsa. As Rosa busted out the churros, I even put a drop of the superorganic milk Mary Catherine had brought in from the barn into my coffee.

  “Who says country living is boring?” I said to Mary Catherine, with a wink. “My horizons are expanding at warp speed.”

  It really was a great morning. Looking at my kids, hunched around the two tables Rosa had pushed together, eating and talking and laughing, I couldn’t stop smiling. We may have been dislodged from our lives back in New York, but they were actually making the best of it. We were together and safe, and that was all that really mattered when it came down to it. Team Bennett had gotten knocked down, but we were getting back up again.

  As the kids went outside to kick a soccer ball around the dusty yard with the dogs, I sat with Cody and Seamus, sipping a second cup of coffee.

  “You got things pretty good out here, Aaron. The view is amazing, you grow all your own food, have fresh water. I mean, you pay for-what? Electricity? You could probably get along without that.”

  “And have,” Cody said.

  “You love this life, don’t you?” I said.

  “Love’s a strong word,” the weather-beaten farmer said. “I don’t love when the cattle get themselves stuck in a ditch at three a.m., or when feed prices skyrocket, as they do from time to time, but it’s a life, Mike. Don’t suit everyone. You have to like being alone a lot. All in all, there’s something to be said for it. It’s simple enough, I guess.”

  “I like simple,” I said, clinking coffee cups with the farmer.

  “You are simple,” Seamus said.

  CHAPTER 6

  CREEL, MEXICO

  It was the best moment of Teodoro Salinas’s life.

  His daughter, Magdalena, had been a preemie when she was born. As if it were yesterday, he could remember her impossibly tiny hand clutching his finger for dear life among the cords in the hospital ICU. But now, suddenly, magically, her cool hand was resting in his sweating palm and the guitars and horns were playing and all the people were clapping as they danced the first dance of her quinceañera.

  The whole event was like a dream. From the solemn Mass they had attended this morning, to the formal entry, to the first toast, and, now, to the first dance. His wife had told him he was crazy to hold the celebration up here at their remote vacation ranch, but Salinas had put his foot down. For his beautiful daughter’s coming-of-age, they would fly everyone in and put them up, no matter what the expense.

  Teodoro reluctantly released his daughter’s hand
as the waltz ended. She was crying. He was crying. His wife was crying. It had been worth every penny.

  Salinas hugged his daughter, careful not to wrinkle the beautiful pale-pink tulle of her dress. He could feel the eyes of all the guests upon them, feel their tender emotions, their envy. Salinas was a tall man, a dapper dresser, and, even at fifty-five, still quite handsome. But he couldn’t hold a candle to his daughter, Magdalena, who was model thin and statuesque and exceedingly beautiful.

  “I love you, Daddy,” his angel whispered in his ear.

  He squeezed her bare shoulder.

  “Enough being with your old father. Go with your friends now,” he said. “Enjoy yourself. You are a young woman now. This is your day.”

  Salinas watched his daughter walk away, then headed toward his ranch manager, standing at the edge of the dance floor. His name was Tomás, and, like all the staff on the ranch, he was a local Tarahumara Indian. Tomás and the entire staff, from the security to the waiters to the members of the three mariachi bands, were wearing bright-white linen uniforms purchased solely for the occasion. No expense had been spared today.

  “Please inform my partners that they are to join me in the billiards room, won’t you, Tomás? Tell them to come alone. No security. This is my daughter’s day, and this meeting is to be as quick and discreet as possible.”

  Tomás nodded and smiled, his crooked teeth very white in his dark-brown, lean face.

  “Just as you say, sir,” Tomás said. It was what his loyal employee always said. “Would you like a drink first?”

  “No, please,” Salinas said. “With all this ceremony, I’ve needed to take a piss for about an hour. But have some refreshments brought into the billiards room, if you would.”

  “They’re already there, sir,” Tomás said with a nod.

  Salinas patted his manager on the back.

  “Of course they are, Tomás. How could I have doubted it for a moment?”

  Salinas sighed as he went into the air-conditioned house. Glancing to his right, he spotted the reason he had built the house, at an enormous expense, up here in the middle of nowhere.

  The view of the Copper Canyon through his immense bay window had to be one of the most spectacular sights in all of Mexico, if not the world. His favorite aspect of the majestic vista was just a little bit off center, the thin, silver sliver of an eight-hundred-foot waterfall spilling down the face of one of the sheer canyon walls. He loved this house, this view. It was like living in an airplane.

  He ducked into the hall bathroom outside the billiards room to relieve himself. He smiled and winked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he worked his zipper. What a day!

  He was just about to urinate when he heard the distinct click of a billard ball. He zipped back up and went out and poked his head inside the billiards room. Unbelievable. A man in white linen, a staff member fucking off, no doubt, was bent at the table, about to take another shot. On the large-screen TV above the bar, a soccer match was playing with the sound off.

  “Hey, you there! Asshole!” Salinas barked.

  The man remained bent, surveying the lay of the balls before him. Was he deaf!?

  “Are you having fun? Who the fuck do you think you are? Get your ass back to work before I break your legs with that cue.”

  Still, slowly and insolently, the man took his shot. The cue ball cracked into the eight, sinking it effortlessly. Then the man turned. Teodoro’s eyes went wide. It took everything he had to keep his full bladder under control.

  Because it wasn’t a staff member.

  It was Manuel Perrine.

  “Oh, but, Teodoro. I am at work,” Perrine said, chalking his cue. “Isn’t that right, Tomás?”

  Salinas felt something hard tap at the base of his head. It was the bore of a shotgun, pressed against his brain stem. Salinas suddenly felt like he was tumbling inside, a sudden free fall through the core of himself.

  “Just as you say, sir,” Tomás said, pushing Salinas into the room and locking the door.

  CHAPTER 7

  The mariachi bands were resting and a DJ was playing some American dance music when the loud thump came from the stage. The music stopped immediately as a microphone squawk echoed throughout the tent.

  As the crowd in attendance looked up from their plates, they could see that the entire staff of white-linen-clad Indians was now holding automatic rifles. The Tarahumaras went amid the crowd, knocking over tables, slapping people, sticking guns in faces.

  The security men of the multiple drug dealers in attendance were quickly disarmed and handcuffed. Tables were moved aside, and all the chairs were lined up, like at an assembly. The gunmen sat the people back down roughly, threatening to kill on the spot anyone and everyone dumb enough to make the slightest move.

  A moment later, Manuel Perrine walked out onto the stage, holding a microphone.

  “Hello, friends,” Perrine said in his most elegant Spanish, smiling hugely. “To those of you who know me, I can hardly articulate how pleasant it is to see you again. To those of you who are unfamiliar to me, let me say what a truly wonderful time this is for us to get acquainted.”

  He put his hand to his ear as he stared out at the pale, scared faces.

  “What? No applause?” he said.

  Some clapping started.

  “Come, now. This is a party, is it not? You can do better than that.”

  The clapping increased.

  “There you go. You did miss me. How touching. Now, at the risk of breaking protocol here at this beautiful quinceañera celebration, I would like to make a few announcements about another coming-of-age here today. The coming of the age of Manuel Perrine and Los Salvajes.”

  A terrified murmur passed through the crowd as Teodoro Salinas and the two other leaders of his cartel were brought into the tent from the house. Salinas had a black eye. All three had their wrists bound behind them.

  Three chairs were set at the edge of the stage, and the three men were seated with their backs to the crowd.

  “Now, without further ado, the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” Perrine said as one of the Tarahumaras handed him something long and thin.

  The sickle-shaped, razor-sharp machete Perrine held up for the crowd to see had been his father’s cane knife. The antique blade was beautifully weighted behind the cutting side, like a golf club, and had the manufacturer’s stamp engraved in the blade, above the handle: COLLINS AXE COMPANY, CONNECTICUT, USA.

  They just don’t make ’em like this anymore, Perrine thought, hefting it lovingly.

  The first man he stepped before was Salinas’s second-in-command. The man had actually undone his binding, and he threw his hands up protectively as Perrine swung. No matter. The blade sliced the man’s arm off neatly midway between his wrist and elbow and buried itself deep in the man’s collarbone.

  Several women in the crowd fainted as the man screamed, blood spurting as he waved around his amputated stump. Perrine, after two tugs, finally worked the blade free. Then he stepped back and swung.

  There. Much better, Perrine thought as the man’s cleanly severed head rolled off his shoulders and off the stage.

  That was when the second man kicked himself off the stage. It was the plaza boss, who actually thought he could take over Perrine’s turf in Río Bravo. He managed to make it halfway across the dance floor before Perrine nodded to Tomás. Half a dozen automatic rifles cracked at once, cutting the man down. He slid across the dance floor in a thick trail of blood, followed by his Bally shoes.

  Perrine had to tip his hat to Teodoro Salinas. The man didn’t flinch in the slightest as both of his partners lost their lives. The big, handsome man looked like he might have been waiting for a bus as Perrine stepped forward. Perrine nodded respectfully, then swung and took the elegant host’s head off with one swipe.

  As his enemies bled out, Perrine turned toward the crowd. His face was covered in blood, his linen uniform, the blade of the cane knife. The women who were still conscious we
re completely hysterical, the sound of their babbling moans like that of people speaking in tongues.

  Perrine lifted the fallen microphone.

  “Please. I know all this is shocking, ladies and gentlemen, but facts must be faced,” Perrine said, waving the dripping cane knife for emphasis. “These men thought I was defeated. They thought because I was in hiding that I was no longer valid. That they could take what was mine.”

  He turned and looked at the dead men behind him and smiled.

  “Has anyone ever thought more wrongly? I cannot be defeated. I cannot even be diminished. The good news is, you are not as obstinate as these here, whom I have been forced to punish. The good news is that now, with the last of our detractors eliminated, we are one.”

  Perrine smiled.

  “Don’t you understand? We all work for Los Salvajes now. We have ambitions that transcend mere Mexico. In the next few weeks, you will see what I am talking about. I know this is a sad moment. You see this now as butchery, I can tell.

  “But soon, you will change your mind. Soon, you will see the opportunity I have given you. You will come to realize this isn’t the end but the beginning, and you lucky few are being let in on the ground floor.”

  Perrine checked his Rolex.

  “Does anyone have any questions? Comments?”

  He looked around. Not surprisingly, the only hand he saw was at the end of the disembodied arm lying at his feet.

  “Excellent. All relevant parties will be contacted in the next few days with instructions,” Perrine said. “You are all free to go now. Have a nice day.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The following Monday, we’d just done the milking at Cody’s and were getting out of the vehicles back at our place when we saw dust rising in the distance to the north. By the main road, a light-blue sedan I didn’t recognize was approaching slowly.

  Immediately, I could feel my heart start to pound. Despite our new, peaceful rural existence, I hadn’t forgotten our situation for one second. Besides the mailman, we’d had exactly no visitors at all.