Truck Stop Jesus Read online

  “He worked out with the Diamondbacks last spring. Going to the bigs for sure. But he thinks he knows it all. Throws what he wants. I’m just a lowly Junior College guy. What do I know, right?”

  Trevor finally nodded at one of Mickey’s signs and went into his wind-up.

  “Fastball outside corner,” Doc said.

  The ball popped Mickey’s glove like a cannon shot.

  “How’d you know that?” Mickey asked.

  “What can I say? I’m a baseball prophet.”

  “Strike!” Mickey shouted.

  Doc turned and looked down at the catcher. “Strike?”

  “You heard me.”

  “It was six inches outside.”

  “Strike!” Mickey called again.

  Doc shook his head. “I wanna see the replay. Kid’s bringing some heat, though.”

  “Every bit of ninety-six, ninety-seven, I bet,” Mickey said. “Just ask my hand.”

  Doc stepped out of the batter’s box and rolled his head back. The sun warmed his shoulder muscles. Good and loose.

  “C’mon, Morales. Let’s go. Between you and Trevor, it’ll be dark before this is over.” Mickey tossed the ball back to the pitcher.

  Doc stepped back in the box.

  Trevor caught the ball and walked off the back of the mound, rubbing it hard with his palm. When he finally stepped back on the rubber, he shook off four consecutive signs before he nodded.

  “It’s like a million degrees out here. I’m gonna kill him,” Mickey mumbled.

  “This guy’s got what you call a million-dollar arm and a ten-cent head,” Doc said.

  Trevor came set and gave a very Major-League-looking glance at first.

  “Why’s he looking at first? He does know there’s nobody on base, right?” Doc said.

  Mickey sighed. “Too much ESPN. Unbelievable, man. The guy’s probably gonna make more money his first year in the show than I’ll see in my lifetime.”

  Trevor rocked back for his delivery.

  “Fastball inside,” Doc said. He leaned back as the ball came in hard, brushing the front of his T-shirt.

  “That’s getting annoying, you calling ’em like that.” Mickey threw the ball back. “Strike!”

  Doc shook his head. “You’re the worst catcher-slash-ump I’ve ever seen, you know that?”

  “You get what you pay for. Let’s go.”

  “Why? I’ve got five minutes of watching Nolan Ryan Jr. shake off signs before he throws the ball again.”

  “Not this time, superstar. Get in the box.”

  Doc looked out over the field and took a deep breath, savoring the moment. He loved this game. Sure, the Arizona air was dry, not humid like Florida spring training. And the red dirt was a far cry from the manicured grass of any real ballpark, but baseball was baseball. And baseball was life.

  Don’t go there.

  He shoved uninvited memories to the back of his brain and pointed his bat out to left. “Hey, Mickey, what do you see out there?”

  “Dirt, scrub oak, and a bunch of nothing. Why?”

  “C’mon, man. Use your imagination. You don’t see it?” Doc dug his cleats into the batter’s box one at a time, lifting his left hand to hold off the pitch.

  On the mound, Trevor leaned over, his eyes invisible in the shade of his Diamondbacks hat brim.

  Mickey pounded a fist into his glove. “See what?”

  “The Green Monster, man. The left field wall at Fenway.”

  Mickey snorted a laugh. “I know what the Green Monster is. This is Paradise, Arizona, genius. Not Boston. This ain’t no Fenway Park.”

  On the mound, Trevor nodded and came set, then rocked back for his delivery.

  Doc grinned. “It’s always Fenway, Mick.”

  Trevor released, his arm flashing in the sun.

  “Splitter,” Doc said, and swung.

  The sound of the bat hitting the ball cracked through the clear afternoon air. “Man!” Mickey stood, cleats scraping. “Say goodbye to that one. You teed off on his splitter. Unbelievable. I woulda said it was impossible.”

  “Yeah, well, he left it up.” Doc watched the ball go for a full three seconds before he dropped the bat and headed to first. “Green Monster, Mickey. Right over the Green Monster, man.”

  On the mound, Trevor shook his head and spat at the dust.

  As Doc rounded third, Jake smacked him on the back with his glove. “Last ball. You hit it, you find it.”

  Doc finished his lap with a one-legged jump onto home plate, favoring his good knee, then turned and walked back down the third base line toward Jake. “Hey, Cade! Get on the ball-search, kid!”

  Cade, the left fielder, threw his glove down. “C’mon, Doc! You hit it! Why do I got to find it?”

  “Because you’re the kid out here! You want to play, you got to pay.”

  Cade shook his head and trotted out toward the low trees and brush that ringed the outfield. Doc and Jake found the shade of a palos verde tree just off the third base line. The rest of the players walked off the field, talking and laughing. They headed for an assortment of cars, trucks and bikes that had been parked a distance away to avoid foul balls. Several commented to Doc about the homer.

  Trevor threw Doc a wave as he passed. “You got every bit of that one, Morales. Next time.”

  “Sure. You’ll knock ’em dead at ASU, Trevor. See ya. And try to leave that splitter down,” Doc said.

  “Yeah.”

  Mickey approached, his catcher’s glove propped on top of his backward hat, arms full of gear. “How’d you know he’d bring the splitter?”

  Doc shrugged. “Two strikes. Gotta be the money pitch. He’s gonna have to learn to mix it up.”

  “I guess so. Well, see you guys.” Mickey tossed his gear into the back of his ancient Nissan pickup.

  “Adios, Mick,” Jake said.

  Mickey’s tires kicked gravel and dust as he pulled away.

  Doc glanced at his brother. Jake had always been the handsome one, although he’d heard people say the same about him. At six feet two, Jake had Doc by three years and three inches. Unruly, black hair curled its way out from under the battered, straw cowboy hat. Dark eyes smiled above an aquiline nose. Father Jake the priest. The invincible. Nearly a year since his brother had taken the holy orders, and Doc still couldn’t get used to it.

  Jake bent and fished a couple of water bottles out of a dented Coleman ice chest. He shot one at Doc, and it thumped off his chest. Doc caught it on the bounce, unscrewed the lid and took a long drink.

  “So, little brother.” Jake’s crow’s feet deepened. “Dreaming about Fenway? That was a long-hit ball.”

  “Fenway.” Doc sighed. “I wish. I hit that thing four-fifty at least, but practically limped around the bases. No Fenway for me.”

  “You’ll get your shot.”

  “Won’t be at Boston. With this knee, it won’t be in the Majors at all. That ship sailed three years ago.”

  Jake took a pull from his water and his Adam’s apple dipped. He tipped the top of the bottle toward Doc. “You put the uniform on. Stood on the grass. That’s more than most can say.” Relaxed. Quiet, but strong. The same voice that had calmed Doc for as long as he could remember.

  Doc pulled a dead twig off the tree and flicked it away, following it with his eyes. “A year in Double-A, another in Triple. I worked my butt off, man. One at bat, that’s it. One at bat in the Majors. That God of yours has a twisted sense of humor.”

  “Your God too, Doc. Don’t forget that. And it wasn’t funny.”

  Doc shoved his glove into a duffle bag. “I guess it wasn’t.”

  “There’s more to life than baseball, Doc.”

  “So you keep telling me.”

  “And so I’ll keep telling you till you get it through that fat head of yours.” Jake hiked up his black robe and examined a bloody shin.

  “More to life than baseball … Don’t you know the Pope is a Red Sox fan?”

  “Nah. Cardinals.”
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  “You didn’t just say that.” Doc rubbed the water bottle across his forehead and let the condensation drip down his face.

  “Father Jake! Hey, Doc! You guys gotta see this!” Cade’s adolescent voice cracked through the still afternoon. He waved his ball glove over his head from the edge of the brush behind left field. “Seriously! C’mon!”

  Jake took off his hat and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve. He squinted toward the junior left fielder. “What do ya suppose he wants?”

  “Probably found a lizard. Kid’s excitable,” Doc said.

  Neither of the men moved.

  “I’m serious! C’mon!” Cade pressed.

  “What’s up, Cade?” Doc called. “It’s hot, man!”

  “C’mon, Doc! You guys gotta see this! I found a dead guy!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Devils, Dust, and a Serious Lack of Pockets

  “Four hundred and fifty feet at least. Don’t you think?” Doc stood at the bottom of a shallow wash, looking back toward the ball field.

  “What?” Jake said.

  Doc bent down and grabbed the baseball out of the sand. “Four-fifty at least. I knocked the cover off this ball.”

  “Still has a cover.”

  “Four-fifty … At least.”

  “Hey, Earth to Doc. That’s a skull lying there. These are human bones. Why are you talking about baseball?”

  Doc shifted his gaze back to the subject at hand. “Yeah. The kid knows his dead guys. Got to give him that.”

  “We need to call the police.” Jake squatted on his heels and poked at the skull with his finger. “You got your cell on you, Doc?”

  “No. Where’s yours? No pockets in the robe?”

  “At the mission.”

  “Mine’s in the truck. Joke’s on us—you never know when you’re gonna stumble across bones. Always be prepared. Boy Scout motto, right, Cade?”

  “I’m not a Boy Scout.” Cade’s face was pale.

  “Yeah, apparently neither were we. You all right, kid?” Doc asked.

  “I never saw anybody dead before that wasn’t on TV. That’s a real skull, man. You want me to run back and get your phone?”

  “Nah. I don’t think there’s any hurry,” Doc said. “This guy’s not going anywhere. He hasn’t for a while.”

  Jake looked up at him. “What d’you mean?”

  Doc kicked at what looked like an old can sticking out of the earth. His cleat clanked on metal. Dropping to one knee, he pulled a rusted helmet from the sand. He brushed it off and held it up in the light. “Conquistador. Spanish. This guy’s been here a long, long time. The storm last week must have undercut the bank.” He pointed at the edge of the wash. “When the sand collapsed above the cut, our boy here probably saw the light of day for the first time in a few hundred years.”

  Jake took the helmet and examined it, turning it over in his hands. “Conquistador. No doubt. You’re right.”

  Color began to return to Cade’s cheeks. “So that helmet used to protect that skull? That’s crazy.”

  “Looks like it,” Jake said. “He must have been connected to the mission somehow.”

  “Seriously?” Cade said. “How long has the mission been here?”

  Doc picked up a stick and began scraping the sand around the bones. “Don’t they teach history in school anymore?”

  “The mission was established in 1692.” Jake stood and handed the helmet to Doc.

  Doc tossed it up and caught it again. “Spoken like a tried-and-true tour guide.”

  “Somebody has to do it,” Jake said.

  “Uh huh. For the three and a half visitors that get lost off I-10 and wind up in Paradise every year.”

  “Sixteen ninety-two?” Cade said. “Wasn’t that before America was even here?”

  “It was,” Jake said. “But the Spanish explored this country as early as the fifteen hundreds. Cabeza de Vaca came through here in 1536. And Native Americans had been here for thousands of years before the Spanish showed up.”

  Cade nudged a bone with his toe. “So this guy was born in Spain?”

  Jake pushed his hat back and crossed his arms, studying the bones. “Good chance of it. If he was, he died a long way from home.”

  A dust devil danced across the wash and peppered them with sand. Jake’s cassock rippled and snapped in the sudden gust. The spinning tower of dirt, sand, and pieces of trash whipped away across a landscape dotted with scrub oak and occasional pine. It slowed and dissipated when it reached the baseball field. Restlessness put a hand on Doc’s shoulder, an unwelcome visitor that showed up more and more frequently of late.

  Some distance beyond the field, Jardin de Dios Mission stood white against the deep blue of the Arizona sky, its bell tower high and domed. Just outside the adobe rear wall, Doc’s old Airstream trailer shone—a tiny silver bullet reflecting the light of the late afternoon sun.

  The mission itself made up one of the buildings that ringed downtown Paradise. Doc loved this community. The mom-and-pop storefronts that edged the old town square centered by its massive oak tree. The neighborhoods that stretched up into the hills and down the wide valley toward the low-lying ranches. This was home. He had no real desire to leave, but every once in a while, the feeling came. The restlessness. A small voice deep inside, inviting and urging him on to new things. Unexplored Fenway Parks with their own Green Monsters whispering his name from left field.

  “We need to tell someone,” Jake said. “This could be historically important. Doc, quit scratching around with that stick.”

  “It’s not a crime scene, Jake. You’ve been watching too much TV.”

  Doc’s stick bumped something just below the surface of the loose sand. He tapped down a couple of times and received a dull metallic thump. He grinned at Jake. “Now tell me you’re not curious about that, Father Jake the Priest.”

  The inward battle with his conscience played in living color across Jake’s face.

  Doc thumped again. “C’mon, Jakey boy. You know you want to dig it up.”

  Jake caved with a shake of his head. “All right. Do it.”

  “Yes!” Cade said.

  Doc began scraping the sand and clay away with his stick. Cade dropped and used his hands. The outline of what appeared to be a large metal turtle shell materialized.

  Cade leaned back on his heels. “Whoa!”

  “It’s a breastplate.” Doc brushed more sand. Digging his fingers in deep around what he thought might be the edge of the piece of armor, he found a lip and pulled. The shell lifted. “Looks like it’s in good shape. I wonder what one of these things is worth?”

  “Nothing to us.” Jake squatted next to him, tracing his finger along the metal. “This’ll go in a museum.”

  Cade dropped to his hands and knees. “Oh, man. Look underneath.”

  Doc lifted the breastplate a little more, revealing an intact human ribcage.

  “Okay, Doc.” Jake stood. “That’s enough. Time to call in someone who knows this kind of thing.”

  “That’s you. You’re in charge of the museum, right?”

  “Yeah, but not digging up bodies.”

  “It’s bones, not a body.”

  “Just the same …” Jake said.

  “Huh.” Doc held the armor propped with one hand and bent low to the ground, studying the new bones. “Check this out.” He reached into the cavity and pulled a worn but intact leather pouch from the sand between the ribs.

  “How could that have lasted all this time?” Cade asked.

  “Got me. But it did,” Doc said.

  “They’ve found leather a whole lot older than the conquistadors in canyons north of here,” Jake said. “Couple thousand years even. I’ve read about it. The dry climate can preserve things for a long, long time.”

  Doc worked the leather strip that tied the top of the pouch. “He must have kept this shoved under his armor for safekeeping. I wonder what’s in it.”

  “Money?” Cade crowded clo
se to Doc’s side.

  The strip came free. Doc angled the pouch, trying to make use of the sunlight. He peered inside. “This is actually creepy. The last guy to open this thing is a pile of bones right now.”

  “What’s in it, Doc? C’mon.” Cade stretched to his tiptoes, trying to see into the pouch.

  Something glinted at the bottom of the sack. Doc very carefully inserted his index and middle fingers into the stiff leather. Something hard. Slowly he pulled out a large gold coin.

  “Whoa. It is money. Let me see it, Doc.” Cade reached for the coin.

  “Easy, Junior.” Doc turned the coin over in his palm. “Hey, Jake. I think this is gold.”

  “Looks like gold. Is it heavy?”

  Doc hefted it, considering. “Yeah. Pretty heavy.”

  Jake leaned in for a closer look. “It’s an eight escudos coin—Spanish currency—definitely gold. We have one at the museum.”

  Doc held the coin up in the light. “No kidding? You mean like a doubloon? Or pieces-of-eight? As in pirates?”

  Jake nodded. “Kind of. But a doubloon was a two escudos coin. One-fourth the size and weight of this one. Pieces-of-eight were silver. Our man here got his hands on an eight escudos.”

  Doc held the coin close to his face. “Good for him, except for the dying in a ditch part. But I think you got this one wrong. It says dos escudos right on it. I can read it clear as day.”

  “No, a dos escudos would be a lot smaller. That one’s more like silver-dollar size. Even a little bigger. Let me see it.”

  Doc passed the coin to his brother.

  Jake held it up. “Look, right here above the cross. See that number eight? That means eight escudos.”

  “Yeah, but look at the other side. Dos Escudos,” Doc said.

  Jake flipped it. “It would be impossible to … Huh …”

  “What?” Doc said.

  Jake stared at the coin. “This couldn’t be …”

  “Couldn’t be what?” Doc said.

  Jake glanced at Doc. “There’s this story …”

  Doc took the coin back and looked at it again. “What story? What are you talking about?”

  Jake climbed the bank of the wash and headed toward the falling sun. Fresh wind whipped his robe. Jake the Priest—like some minor god in a Hollywood production. “C’mon, Doc. I want to show that coin to Paco.”