He wasn’t one to put stock in fairness but there was a point beyond which the unfairness seemed nothing short of vicious.
He tried a mental tally, good versus bad, a lifetime’s worth, but the exercise felt pointless-how does one weigh the good against death? As for testing his mettle, his spine, his spirit, it was years since any of that mattered. I’m an old man, he thought. He would have been grateful-insane, down-on-his-knees grateful-for yeah, sure, just a touch of dumb luck.
Following the murmur of voices down the hall, he stopped in the door to the guest room. The girl lay on the bed, fluttering in and out of bad sleep. Audrey sat beside her, holding her hand, talking to Doc Emerick. The boy sat in the corner, his right hand bandaged, looking at the girl like every breath was a signal. An empty jar of peanut butter sat between his feet, a spoon inside; he’d plowed through the stuff like a swarm of termites through damp pine.
The rancher had fired his first round into the air, to let them know he was serious, but the girl had already gone down. The boy dropped to his knees, first to see to the girl, then to plead at the top of his lungs for their lives. His English lacked accent, though he was clearly Hispanic. Audrey, hearing the boy, said, “Good God, Lyndell, help them.”
“Get back inside, damn it. He’s armed.”
“Tell him to toss the gun off someplace.”
He eased forward, shotgun trained on the boy. “Toss off that gun,” mimicking her words, too scared to think up another way to say it.
The boy looked down at his midriff like he was angry the thing was there, then plucked the gun from under his belt and heaved it into the scrub. “She’s been shot,” he said, his voice hoarse and dry, a bobcat hiss. “Her shoulder.”
He helped the boy bring her inside, figuring they’d call the Border Patrol and have them handle it, but Audrey would have none of that. She sensed something between the two of them-she was uncanny that way, more so since the sickness-and she refused to let him call the law before she had some idea if she was right. But they couldn’t wait caring for the girl, so she’d called Doc Emerick and he’d come straightaway, thinking the emergency had to do with her, Audrey, not some stranger. He’d even brought the morphine drip he’d promised, the final morbid tool, thinking that was the reason for her call.
She’d pulled him aside when he first saw the girl. “I know what you’re gonna say, John Emerick. I know you’ve got obligations under the law. But there are other laws. You’ve known me over thirty years. Don’t make me die with this girl on my conscience. I can handle the cancer, I can handle the chemo and the endless string of bad news, handle all of it. I can’t handle turning that girl back to whatever it was that drove her so hard, so far.”
And so the doctor sutured the girl’s wound, shot her full of antibiotics, hydrated her with fluids. While he did, the boy murmured the tale of all he and the girl had been through. And if Lyndell hadn’t spent his life married to a woman like Audrey he might’ve said: Well, that’s unfortunate and all but too bad, sorry, law’s the law, straighten it out where you came from. Except the boy came from here and the girl’s going back was a death sentence. He could no more load that onto Audrey’s conscience than the doc could.
Audrey glanced up at him from her chair, still gripping the girl’s hand. “Lyndell, this young man is gonna call his aunt. She lives up near Frisco and she’s gonna come down in her car. Too risky, them taking the bus. And I doubt this girl could make that kind of trip anyhow. Show Roque, that’s his name, show him where he can use the phone, would you?”
The boy glanced up with foxlike eyes. Lyndell nodded for him to get up and come along. He figured the phone in the kitchen would do. He led the boy back, pointed to the wall mount.
The boy said, “I want to make this up to you.” Lyndell raised his hand, trying to cut the boy off, but, “We wouldn’t have made it this far if people we met along the way hadn’t been kind here and there. None more so than you.”
Lyndell made a show of clearing his throat, thinking the boy had the presence of somebody twice his age. “Sounds of it, you met plenty of unkind too.”
The boy seemed to drift away for a second. “Just more reason to be grateful. I want you to know, I don’t take this for granted. I’ll find some way to repay you.”
Flustered, Lyndell went to the sink for a glass of water he lacked any thirst for. Looking out across the scrub, he saw the two men out by the Border Patrol SUV, Rooster barking at them, chain rattling as he darted back and forth. The two men were pointing along a line that led straight to the back porch. Lyndell felt his pulse jump. “You might want to hurry up with that call,” he said.
LATTIMORE LISTENED TO THE SIGNCUTTER, WHOSE NAME WAS IRETON, extol his expertise. “We’ve seen this thing we call foamers? Guys tie squares of foam to their feet, thinking it won’t leave tracks. Idiots-you have weight, you’ll leave an imprint, and if it’s not windblown or caved in, it’s recent. Like these. Even in the desert, there’s moisture, that’s what holds the form. No sign of tracks crossing them, a centipede, a snake. That means they’re recent. This set-I’d say it’s a girl, or a woman, given the size of the shoe-the drag in the left foot and the heavy implant of the right, all that tells me she’s hurt. And the steps so close together, the bigger one’s holding up the hurt one. They’ve kicked up rocks, you can see where they used to be, the sand’s paler. Sun bakes the hardpan so it’s almost like a varnish.”
He pointed along the drag, the track of brushed desert sand the Border Patrol created exactly for this purpose, to see where walkers had crossed, leaving their distinctive trails. These two-and only two, he thought, one a girl, not knowing what to make of that yet-they hadn’t bothered with a brushout, dragging a tree branch behind to wipe out their tracks. Like Ireton said, at least one of them, the girl, was barely standing. Even a city boy like Lattimore could see that.
“You say you got a tip about these two?”
“Indeed.” Ireton flipped another stone over, checked the coloration of the earth beneath. “A call, plus they set off some sensors nearer the foothills. Wasn’t the spot we were expecting, given the tip, which just goes to show you.”
Lattimore waited for more, a little tutorial on the unreliability of informants. It didn’t come. “The call, who was it from?”
Ireton looked up from the ground, a trained eye, trained on Lattimore. “Somebody on the other side. No name. Probably some
Lattimore pointed along the tortured line the tracks formed, aiming toward the lone house half a mile off. There were traces of blood along the way. “So I guess we ask the folks up there if anybody stumbled through.”
Ireton shook his head. “You can bet they stopped. Like I said, the one that’s hurt, she’s hurt bad. If they made it all the way to the house, good for them. Any farther? I’d be amazed.”
Lattimore nodded obligingly but the charade was wearing thin. Anonymous call my ass, he thought, rising from his crouch, dusting off his hands. “Let’s go pay a visit,” he said.
THE DOCTOR WASN’T GONE TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE TWO LAWMEN showed up on the front step. Lyndell closed the door to the guest room and told them all to stay quiet, he’d deal with this.
The one in city clothes was taller and older than the one in uniform. They both had that sad sort of gotcha in their eyes, like they were so damn sorry they had to ruin things.
“Mr. Desmond? I’m Donny Ireton with the Douglas Station, Border Patrol? This here’s Special Agent Jim Lattimore, FBI. We’re tracking a couple walkers, came over the mountains last night. One of them looks like she was pretty badly hurt. Think it’s a she, given the tracks, maybe a boy. They lead right up to your house here. I was wondering, anybody stop here this morning, asking for water or medicine or…”
The question hovered between them for a moment, like a dare.
“Only one here who needs medicine,” he said, “would be my wife. She’s got the cancer. Takes chemo twice a week, through this port they sewed into her shoulder? Not like it’s done any good. Just makes her sicker, you ask me. Hell of a thing.”
The two lawmen made a feeble show of sympathy. Ireton again: “You didn’t see anybody?”
“I’m kinda busy with other things.”
The city one, FBI agent, Lattimore, was studying Lyndell’s face.
“Things ain’t been easy here in a while,” he added, telling himself inwardly: Shut up. Surest sign of a liar, he talks too much.
Ireton said, “I gotta tell you, Mr. Desmond, it looks like they headed straight for your door. And weren’t in good
