Somewhere Near Luminous Texas

 

What do you call a place that's almost no place at all? Unincorporated? Sure. A little old store, also the mail station, and the gas pump. Yup. Not much to it.

Let me set this up for you. This little place, almost no place, is situated about 25 miles south of Luminous, TX, out in the county. Now, Luminous isn’t much either, but it’s more than this place. In Luminous there is a school, all grades in one building, a Charismatic church, two grocery stores, a motel, a gas station, a drug store, and a nice little café. Here, there is the desert scrub, a two lane asphalt road crumbling at the edges and this little store, open every day until 8PM. After that you'd have to drive a lot further to get anything.

I call this place Geronimo sometimes, to irritate the love of my life who runs the store and the mail station. She says there are five towns in America named Geronimo and this ain’t one of them. This place is called Apache John. Now, what kind of sense does that make? Does anybody even know why? Who was Apache John, anyhow?

Of course, she doesn’t know she’s the love of my life, and her name is Bertie, short for Alberta Mulvaney. I’ve been irritating her and keeping an eye on things, unofficially, for about five years.

I’m the law. County. I drive a white Ford Explorer with stars on the doors.

Why doesn’t she know? It’s a good question and maybe I’m not as brave as I look. What if she laughed? What if she got that look on her face a woman gets sometimes and you can tell she thinks you’re not quite as smart or good looking as her dog.

So, every morning at about 9AM, right after the Apache John store and gas pump opens I drive up and park right in front of the door. I take a good hard look around, just making sure. Then I get out of my Ford, go over and open the door, saying “Geronimo!” in greeting. Bertie will be sorting some mail, or whatever she does. She makes coffee, I know that, because she fills my cup every morning.

“Hi, Officer,” she’ll say. “Coast still clear out there? Everything good?” She’ll smile a little, with something in her hands, as she goes about her business in that little kingdom in the desert. She knows I drive by three or four times a day. Anybody might do that.

“Thanks, Russell,” she usually says when I take my coffee outside.

I stand on the little concrete porch and take in the scenery. The coffee steams. The day begins and I have to roll out of there. There is an office to check in at.

If you count the inhabitants of a couple of far flung ranches, the population of Apache John, nearly no place at all is about 9, including Bertie’s tom cat. Howard, the cat, is an over-sized fat headed tabby. He regards me with disdain.

The Apache John Grocery’s customer base is mostly tourists, travelers, delivery drivers, people on the road as a way of life. The ranchers shop there too. There was reason enough to keep an eye on the place.

Bertie isn’t completely defenseless. She’s a widow and she keeps her husband’s big Colt in a drawer behind the counter. She and Howard the cat live in a little four room apartment over the store.

On the day in question, a Tuesday morning, not that it matters, I drove up to the Apache John store, as usual, but I found Howard sitting on the steps. Howard is not an outdoor cat.

This wasn’t right.

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