Bode shook his head.
'I know where to find her.'
It had been two weeks since she had left and taken all the color in the colonia with her. Her yellow and blue and green peasant dresses and scarves and those pink Crocs. And her red hair. The colonia was again gray. Gray lives, gray homes, gray dirt. Each day seemed grayer than the day before. Jesse had tried to focus on his work, but his thoughts always returned to her. To the governor's wife.
Where his thoughts now resided.
He cut the engine and got out of the truck at the post office in Laredo. He went inside and collected his mail. A few more checks. They arrived after each interview, then dwindled after a week or so. Perhaps the network interview the day before would generate more checks. The clinic needed an incubator.
He drove through downtown Laredo-it, too, seemed gray that day-and out of town. He turned south on the farm-to-market and onto his land. He parked next to the house and went inside.
He froze.
He sniffed. He followed the smell into the kitchen. She stood there at the stove. The governor's wife. In full. She turned and smiled.
'Hi, Jesse.'
Before he knew what he was doing, he walked to her and took her shoulders and kissed her.
'I love you,' he said.
'I know. I just don't know what to do about it.'
The next morning, the governor's wife was gone, and the governor woke next to Mandy Morgan in bed. Her bare backside was to him. He slid his hand down her side and over her hips and bottom and down between her legs. She stirred.
'Bode, I'm not feeling so good.'
'I hope it's not contagious.'
'Don't worry. It's not.'
He removed his hand. There would be no sex that morning. But it didn't matter. Even with the Viagra, his body wasn't working these days. Knowing that the most notorious drug lord in Mexico was gunning for you had a way of killing a man's sex drive.
Hank was dead. Darcy was dead. Becca could be dead. She was taking Darcy's death hard; she had moved out of her dorm and into the Mansion. She refused to return to classes or volleyball practice. She was afraid. Bode was worried. The assassination attempt had pushed his political fortunes into uncharted territory. He now transcended politics. He was an icon. A legend. An American action-hero. This was just the sort of thing that could propel a man into the White House. Into the history books. One day his portrait might be on a White House wall with Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt and Reagan. It was a heady thought. But his head was filled with other thoughts. With worries. Because he felt things… changing. Just like in a football game when something almost imperceptible occurred, just a feeling, when you knew the momentum had shifted to the other team.
When the game had turned against you.
THREE MONTHS BEFORE
TWENTY-FIVE
Jesse Rincon ran the river at dawn on the third day of June. Pancho vaulted down to the riverbank to chase a jackrabbit, so he followed the dog down. He ran east along the hardened and cracked dirt bank toward the rising sun. He could not restrain a smile. She had come back. To the border. To the colonia.
To him.
He wanted desperately to go to her now, while she lay in bed, and to feel her body next to his, to wrap his arms around her and to be one with her. But now was not the time. She was still a married woman.
That day would come, but he would not dwell on it now. He would enjoy this day he would have with her as if it would be his last. And what a glorious day it would be. The sun now rose over the Rio Grande in the east where the sky was clear and held the promise of a He stopped.
He looked down. His shoes no longer tread on dry ground. Water lapped at his feet. He smelled a strange scent-the scent of rain. He turned back to face west. The distant sky was a dark black over the Chihuahuan Desert. There was rain in the desert. It seldom rained on the border, but when it did, a flood often ensued. Drought and flood, that was the weather cycle of the border. Rain in the desert ran fast and hard across the sunbaked dirt as if it were concrete, fast and hard to the arroyos that emptied into the river. He now studied the river. The water moved rapidly that morning.
And it was rising. Fast.
He climbed the bank and ran to the guesthouse. He banged on the door until the governor's wife answered in her night clothes.
'Hurry! The river is rising.'
'A storm comes from the desert.'
The rain fell gently at first. The wipers swept the water from the windshield without difficulty. Pancho rode up front with them.
'But we need rain,' Lindsay said. 'It hasn't rained since I've been here.'
'Yes, rain is good, but too much rain too fast is not good.'
The rain picked up strength. By the time they arrived at the colonia, the rain came down in sheets. The wipers could not keep up. She could barely see out the windshield. Jesse parked at the clinic.
'This will soon be mud,' he said. 'If the river comes over the bank, the entire colonia will flood. You will be safe here, in the clinic.' He pointed at the tall cinder blocks on which the small building sat. 'The water will not rise three feet here.'
'Where are you going?'
'To the river. Storms like this, they happen only once every few years. The children do not understand how dangerous the river can be. The rain collects in the desert then empties upstream. The river can rise fast, too fast to escape, if the children are playing in the river. Three years ago, we had such a storm. Two children drowned.' He braced himself for the rain. 'The children, they cannot swim.'
'I'll go with you.'
'No. It is too dangerous. You stay here.'
Jesse and Pancho got out on the driver's side and ran through the rain to the river. Lindsay hesitated then pushed her hat down on her head and followed. When they arrived at the river and Jesse turned and saw her behind him, he was not happy.
'Go back!'
She held her ground. Her mud. She pointed down at the river where a dozen children played in the rain and the river as if they were at a water park.
'?Salga del rio! ' Jesse yelled to the children. Get out of the river.
They did not hear him, or they did not listen. They continued their play, as if the rain were a blessing from God. Jesse slid down the muddy bank to the river and went to them. Lindsay could not hear him over the rain, but he gestured to the low bluff where she stood. The children reluctantly obeyed. He herded them to higher ground then sent them home. He pointed down at the river and yelled over the rain.
'See how rapidly the river moves now, how fast it rises. It is up a foot since we arrived. They would have all drowned.'
They turned to walk back to the clinic, but Pancho barked. They turned back; the dog stood at the edge of the bluff and barked down at the river. A small boy was stuck in the river. The water was to his waist now.
'The mud!' Jesse yelled.
He slid down the muddy bank again. He waded into the river and to the boy; he reached down and yanked the boy's feet free of the mud. He picked the boy up and carried him to the bank. He held him high so he could get a handhold. Lindsay knelt and reached down for the boy. She grasped his wet hand, but she could not lift him.
