Miscommunication can be awkward.
Over the border, it can be fatal.
Over the border, it can be fatal.
The Mexican Moonshine War by Bill Baber
I stared at Gaff, not sure I had
heard him correctly. "Alverez wants us to kill a woman? I'll be
damned."
He nodded at me without looking, then poured more bourbon as if that would make me feel
differently about the situation.
I picked up my glass and walked
across the room, looking out the window at a quiet Tucson Sunday afternoon. “Not
sure how I feel about that.”
“You know Alverez, we don’t do it and
he’ll send someone after us,” Gaff replied.
“Yeah? Well, I’m getting tired of
that miserable bastard thinking we’re slaves of some sort. Killing a woman in
the states don’t carry any risk for him. We get caught, we’re the ones that’ll
fry like bacon. And let me make sure I understand this right; the cheap prick
is only offering us half of what he gives us for killing a man? Fuck him.”
“Well, the way I see it," Gaff said,
“is we kill her or we kill him. There’s no immediate return if we take him
out.” He filled his own glass. “On top of that, he tried to convince me there’s
less danger involved takin’ out a filly. But this one’s a wildcat. We fuck up
and we might be dead one way or the other."
“Why does he want her dead?”
“Mexican Moonshine.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Bacanora,” Gaff said. “It’s like
tequila. But you can only call it tequila if it’s made in Jalisco from agave
grown there. Bacanora is made with agave from Sonora. It’s illegal in Mexico
but there’s a huge demand for it up here because of all the people that have
migrated from Sonora.”
“What the hell has that got to do
with a woman?”
“Elvera Marquez’s family down there
has been making it for years. Her husband was the main
supplier up here; they produced a good product and had a nice business. Alverez
wanted a piece and they turned him down. So, he started mass producing the
stuff and selling it cheaper. Busted up a couple of their stills and started a
war. Her family are all vaqueros from up in the mountains where they make the
stuff and Alverez’s men got their ass kicked going against a bunch of cowboys.
But the woman’s husband was killed and she’s been raising hell with him on both
sides of the border ever since.”
We drank more bourbon. Seemed like
the only sensible thing to do. “I still don’t like it,” I muttered.
***
We were on the road early the next
morning. An hour southwest of Tucson, the sun peaked over the Chiricahuas. Our
destination was near Naco, a border town where Elvera Marquez was supposed to
be bringing a shipment of hooch across the border.
Gaff and me hadn’t spoken more than a
few words all morning. He chain smoked and I looked without interest at the
drab desert landscape. A couple of miles north of Naco, Gaff turned onto a dirt
road leading to a chain of hills that stretched like knuckles across the
border.
An hour later, wisps of dust could be
seen coming out of the hills. Using his binoculars, Gaff spotted two pickup
trucks waiting in the shade of a large mesquite tree a mile or so ahead of us. “She’s
there with three amigos. We best move before those mules get here.”
“I still don’t like this Gaff, not a
goddamn bit.”
Just then, a volley of shots sounded.
“Holy shit!” Gaff exclaimed. “There’s
law closing in on this side and Federales across the border.”
From the dust, we could tell the mule
train had turned around and was high tailing it back into the hills. A moment
later, the two pickups raced by us with the feds in pursuit.
Half an hour later, we slowly
proceeded back the way we had come. State troopers had blocked the road at the
highway and Elvera and her muchachos had
made a stand. It hadn’t ended well for them. The four bodies were laid out just
off the road. Half of Elvera Marquez’s head was gone.
We were questioned by the troopers.
Gaff told them we had planned on doing some target practice. The cop in charge
told us to get the hell out of there.
The next day we met Alverez at La
Roca, a restaurant built into a hillside on Nogales’s east end. Our table was flanked
by his body guards.
“You are here to collect a bounty?”
He asked. “My understanding is that she was killed by American lawmen, not by
you.”
“That’s not how it happened,” Gaff
told him. “We had no idea the road would be blocked. When they tried to run we
gunned them down and got the hell out of there before the state cops could
figure it out.”
I wasn’t sure Alverez was buying it,
but he smiled and ordered a round of the restaurant’s best tequila.
“Why argue, amigos? Five thousand is a
cheap price to pay; I will sell that much Bacanora next week.”
He raised his glass and toasted,
“Salud.” As we drank, I silently toasted thanks that I hadn’t taken part in
killing a woman. My dislike for Alverez deepened and I wished Elvera Marquez
had won her war with him. But he was the most powerful man in northern Mexico
and her army just wasn’t big enough.
A few days later, there was a knock
on the door of our hotel room. When I answered, one of Alverez’s men handed me
an unlabeled bottle that contained clear liquid. “A gift from Señor Alverez,”
was all he said before turning away.
“What is it? “ I asked Gaff.
He smiled. “Bacanora.”
He poured us both a shot. It tasted
like lighter fluid.
“We almost killed a woman over this
shit? Pour me some bourbon, would ya?” I said
He did. We had never been asked to
kill a woman over bourbon.
