The Territory (Josie Gray Mysteries #1)(17)
By 1985, Artemis had more than 1,500 residents. Drench invited family and friends to settle the area, promising nothing but a new experience. Word spread and a unique group of adventurers turned land most thought uninhabitable into a thriving community. Judicious use of water and organized supply runs had made the town a home for people running away from, or running to a new, life.
Sauly Magson was one of the original founders of Artemis. He was a scrawny bald man who typically wore a blue bandanna tied around his neck, a pair of grimy jean shorts, and nothing else. Most of the businesses in town ignored the No shirt, no shoes, no service rule with Sauly. When he had to wear shoes, he wore a pair of leather thongs that provided no more protection than the soles of his own feet. Sauly liked the psychedelics and spent much of his time in a state of wonder at the world around him, but he was as kindhearted as anyone Josie had ever met.
Sauly grew up in northern New Mexico, near the Taos Pueblo Indians in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Josie knew little about him other than that he ran away from home as a teenager and roamed New Mexico until 1976, when he met Drench. Sauly helped settle the area and was known locally as one of the willful independents that turned a windblown speck along the Mexican border into a town.
Josie found him on the edge of the river, about a quarter mile from his house. He lived in a three-story, square grain elevator that he converted himself with parts and pieces he dragged home from the dump or from construction sites he worked on. It was painted a deep purple that contrasted perfectly with the blue sky and desert. A series of fifteen windows appeared to be haphazardly installed over the four sides of the structure, but the satisfying visual effect made it clear that Sauly had an artist’s eye and a carpenter’s skills. She thought the scene looked to be somewhere between an Edward Hopper and a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.
“What’s up?” she called, smiling and waving when he realized she was walking toward him.
He rubbed his smooth head and smiled at her, revealing a handful of teeth. She noticed a small paunch in his wrinkled, dark brown belly, above his jean shorts.
“It’s the dangdest thing I ever seen. I’m straight as an arrow. I swear on my grave. I stared long and hard to prove it, and I’m telling you, that old heifer’s got a bellyful a coke.” He pointed across the river. “I swear it. It’s like some old junkie came down to the river and set up shop.”
Josie’s smile faded as she approached the riverbank. A small brown and white cow lay half submerged in the water, tangled in a mess of tree branches on the other side. Her abdomen had either been ripped open or torn when she got hung up in the branches, but there was definitely a gaping hole filled with something. It looked as if the organs had been removed and replaced with bags of cellophane-wrapped blocks, almost certainly cocaine.
“Did you try any?” she asked Sauly, only half-kidding.
He looked hurt. “Never touch it. Shuts your heart down. I do nothing but nature’s own.”
“How deep is the river here?” she asked.
“Eight feet. Want my kayak?”
Sauly disappeared into a thicket of shoulder-high grass. The area of the river around Sauly’s place was thick with clumps of Carrizo cane grass, willow and cottonwood trees, rangy bushes, and soil so sandy, the banks appeared like a beach. Green patches like this one appeared along the Rio throughout Artemis and provided a welcome relief to the miles of earthy brown and gray desert.
Sauly reemerged from the grass with a small kayak balanced atop his head. He bent at the waist and laid it gently on the ground next to the river. He unclipped a paddle from the side and pulled out a fillet knife that had been duct-taped next to the oblong opening for the seat. He laid them both on the ground and told Josie to check the kayak out.
Josie gave him a wary look.
“You can’t tip it. Trust me. It glides right across the top of the water.” He took his hand and slowly slid it through the air.
Trust me, she thought. Josie bent to unbuckle her police boots and wondered about following the advice of a sixty-year-old stoner. She stood and saw he had taken his bandanna from around his neck and laid it out flat in the dirt beside her boots and socks while she was rolling up her uniform pant legs.
“Lay your gun and badge here. I’ll guard ’em for you till you get done.”
She smiled and thanked him, curled her gun belt and set it down, but kept her gun tucked into the front of her pants. She laid her radio and keys on the bandanna and tugged at her cell phone inside her shirt pocket to make sure it was secured to the Velcro.
Sauly dragged the kayak about thirty feet upstream, where a path had been cleared through the cane. He pointed the front of the boat toward the water, keeping the seat over the sandy bank, and held Josie’s arm to help her climb inside. Once she settled in, he handed her the paddle and gently pushed the boat off with his foot. She glided easily into the river, then after a few shaky strokes, paddled awkwardly to the other side, about twenty feet across the slow-moving current and straight into the logjam. She didn’t need to get out of the boat to get the full picture. The gaping hole in the animal’s abdomen was stuffed with around ten bricks of cocaine, about twenty-five pounds’ worth. Josie clipped the paddle onto the side of the kayak and then hung on to a limb of the fallen tree while she snapped pictures using her cell phone. She knew there was no reception; otherwise, she would have called Border Patrol to get them headed this way. Someone was desperate for a missing load of cocaine, and she was certain they were already scouring the river in search of the dead animal.