Iron River by T. Jefferson Parker Page A

for a moment he could see the Pacific Ocean, then it was gone.
    They crossed from Baja California to Baja California Sur just above Guerrero Negro. The Blowdown team found lodging there at the Nationale. Luna checked in later and ordered food to his room while the three Americans demanded the six-top in the middle of the dining room and spoke loudly through the dinner, as suggested by Luna. They continued loudly in the cantina after dinner and the men took turns dancing with Janet, her movements infused with anger. She was strong-bodied and pretty when she smiled, but there was no smiling at all that night and Hood thought how easy it was for them to look like miserables straining for fun.
    In the morning they drove south into the oasis town of San Ignacio. The date palms planted by Spaniards nearly three centuries ago rose dense and cooling from the arroyo floor, and Hood could see the rolling hills of figs and grapes and oranges. There was a breeze and on it Hood smelled the citrus and the sweet green smell of fresh water.
    “The water comes from a river and the river is underground,” said Luna. These were the first casual words he had offered since Hood had gotten into the car with him the day before. The tone of his voice implied great volume unused. “It comes to the surface here and there is a dam.”
    “It’s tranquil,” said Hood. He looked out at the thatched-roof dwellings and the tree-lined plaza and the magnificent domed mission rising above the palms.
    “It is the last tranquility you will see. On this assignment.”
    “Are you hopeful, Sergeant?”
    “What does it matter?”
    “Hope counts.”
    “Does hope or lack of hope cause anything that happens?”
    “I think it can.”
    “But maybe this is a superstition, that men can influence events by what they believe. The gambler. The priest. That ills can be remedied by a hoped outcome. That American hope can be expressed through power, and that this power is deserved and eternal.”
    “Luck comes to the hopeful. Luck comes to those who are ready for it. I’ve seen it happen.”
    “Oh, we will be ready, Mr. Hood. You see the mission? Its walls are four feet thick and made from lava blocks. The blocks were not made with hope but with the opposite of hope. They were made with fear that they might not last.”
    Hood thought about this. “That’s fine, Sergeant. But I’m going to hope we can get Jimmy out of here and back across the border alive. I’m going to hope that real hard and I’m not going to stop hoping it until it happens.”
    Luna cracked the smile that was not a smile but did not take his eyes off the road. “A discussion of hope is a small thing. If you want the killing down here to stop, you must stop the guns. Simple.”
    “That’s why I’m here.”
    “My country is being torn apart by yours. America supplies the guns and the need for the guns. I don’t understand your people. You are insatiable for power and luxury. You are insatiable for improvement. You are insatiable for drugs. You take drugs to wake up and drugs to fall asleep. You take drugs in the morning to become alert and drugs at night to sleep. You take drugs to have sex and drugs to not have children. You take drugs to keep your legs from twitching. For your children it is an easy step to the pleasure drugs that come up through Mexico. But we of the police cannot defeat this way of thinking. We cannot eradicate your degeneracy. So it’s the guns. You need to stop the guns.”
    “But you need to stop the dope, Sergeant. The cartels crave the guns and the money just like our people crave the coke and smack. Your poisons are made for our young. Your people profit from what you yourself admit you can’t change. And if you want to use the word degenerate you can apply it to the cartels and the Zetas. Mankind doesn’t suddenly become pure south of the border.”
    Luna looked at Hood, then back to Highway 1. “So,” he said. “This.”
    Hood waited, but Luna said