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Show Blue Run/10 2. Josephine I've been drowning my whole life. Mistake number one, Buddy Washer, got busted dressed as Santa Claus on a border bus near Nogales, his belly stuffed with an eight pound brick of weed, just what Joey weighed at birth, eight pounds even. I'd met Buddy in Little Rock when I was nineteen and blind as white bread and crazy to get out of Arkansas-him showing those pretty teeth and swept back hair and movie star tan. His voice was different. He wasn't southern for one thing, and he could lie his way up one side of your heart and down the other-not that a southern man won't do that too, in spades. His people, back in Arizona, held seats in the State Legislature. They ran this huge old family ranch near Tombstone, where his great, great grandfather, Johnny Tremain, put all the outlaws under Boothill Cemetery dirt a hundred years ago They ran Appaloosas and Quarterhorses, held big family cookouts every Sunday out under the turquoise sky where cactus bloomed and the desert paintbrush shone like fire and every living thing bloomed in spring time when the rains came Theirs was one of the oldest families in Tucson and the spread near Tombstone had been in the family since the days when Geronimo forayed down to escape the federalies and the bounty on |
