Order of the Dead Dog: I first heard about him while I was in Las Cruces by Kevin Wikse.
I first heard about him while I was in Las Cruces. He was an old Apache knife fighter and Brujo, still honing his edge and blooding his hands in the desert. Based on a rumor, I spent a week trekking up and down the Rio Grande searching for him but learned from his friend in Mesilla that I'd missed him by a few months. It was in Lordsburg that I caught up with him, a short and round man with eight or nine rattlesnake heads circling his hat band. He flatly denied he was who I was looking for. I wasn't buying it, so I lunged at him after a couple more protests that I should go away. He had a knife as fast as a rattlesnake's strike, the tip pressing firmly into the skin under my chin. I smiled as he rolled his eyes. He'd blown his cover. That evening, we shared a pack of Pall Malls and a 12-pack of Modelo in the alley behind his house while candles to Jesus Malverde and Saint Jude flickered in the darkening shadows. We told stories about hunting down our common enemy when...