Read Online Beyond This Point Are Monsters by Margaret Millar - Free Book Online

families back home, things like that.”
    â€œIt may be possible but it didn’t happen. The men were paid by the lug. They didn’t want to talk any more than I wanted to listen.”
    â€œHow often were they paid, Mr. Estivar?”
    â€œOnce a week, same as all the other crews.”
    â€œOn what day?”
    â€œFriday. Mr. Osborne wrote the checks on Thursday night and I handed them out in the mess hall while the men were having breakfast.”
    â€œWhat did they do after work on payday?”
    â€œI don’t know for sure.”
    â€œWell, what do crews usually do?”
    â€œThey go into Boca de Rio and cash their checks. The bank is closed on Saturday, so on Friday nights it stays open until six. The men settle accounts with each other and some of them buy money orders to send back home. They go to the laundromat, the grocery store, the movies, a bar. There’s usually a crap game in somebody’s back room or garage. A few get drunk and start fights, but they’re generally pretty quiet about it because they don’t want to attract the attention of the Border Patrol.”
    â€œWhat kind of fights?”
    â€œWith knives, mostly.”
    â€œDo they all carry knives?”
    â€œKnives are often used in their work. They’re tools, not just weapons.”
    â€œAll right, Mr. Estivar, did the crew that was working for you on October thirteen, 1967, leave the ranch right after work?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œIn the truck?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid they return that night?”
    â€œI was just going to bed when I heard the truck drive in shortly after nine and park outside the bunkhouse.”
    â€œHow do you know it was the old G.M.?”
    â€œThe brakes had a peculiar squeak. Besides, no other vehicle was likely to park in that particular spot.”
    â€œNine o’clock is pretty early for a big night on the town to conclude, isn’t it?”
    â€œThey were scheduled to work the next day, which meant they had to be in the fields before seven. You don’t keep bankers’ hours on a ranch.”
    â€œAnd were the men in the fields the next morning before seven, Mr. Estivar?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI didn’t get a chance to ask,” Estivar said. “I never saw any of them again.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    at eleven o’clock Judge Gallagher called for the morn­ing recess. His bailiff opened the massive wooden doors and people began moving out into the corridor, the elderly men on cane and crutches, the students hugging their notebooks across their chests like shields, the lady shopper, the trio of ranchers, the German woman with her bag of knitting, the ex-cop, Valenzuela, the teen-aged girl holding her baby now half-awake and fussing quietly.
    Estivar, self-conscious and perspiring, rejoined his family in the last row of seats. Ysobel spoke to her husband in staccato Spanish, telling him he was a fool to admit more than he had to and answer questions that hadn’t even been asked.
    â€œI think Estivar did real good,” Dulzura said. “Talking up so clear, not even nervous.”
    â€œYou keep out of this,” Ysobel said. “Don’t interfere.”
    â€œI’m obliged to interfere. I’m his first cousin.”
    â€œSecond. Second cousin.”
    â€œ My mother was his mother’s—”
    â€œMr. Estivar, kindly tell your second cousin, Dulzura Gonzales, not to express her opinions until they’re asked for.”
    â€œI think he did real good,” Dulzura repeated stub­bornly. “Don’t you think so, Jaime?”
    Jaime looked blank, pretending not to hear, not even to be a part of this loud peculiar foreign family.
    On the opposite side of the room Agnes Osborne and Devon sat silent and bewildered, like two strangers who were being tried together for a mysterious crime not de­scribed in an indictment or mentioned by a judge.