“Ever hear of a rearview mirror?”
Jane patted his shoulder and stood. “No plan is perfect.”
Bernie raised himself painfully and set off. Rita moved close and put her hand on his arm, but he removed it. “I’ve had plenty of time to rest,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
Rita whispered, “I’m not sure I will.” Jane was intrigued. She waited to see whether Bernie would overlook the lie and accept the help.
Bernie set Rita’s hand on his arm and said, “That’s okay, then.”
Jane moved ahead, then angled away from Apodaca Hill Road so they would meet Canyon Road five hundred feet from the intersection. When she was fifty feet from Canyon Road, she stopped in the thick brush, sat down, and waited.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Bernie.
“The cars. I want to know where they are.”
The first car’s headlights appeared to their right a few seconds later, and they lay down to stay out of sight. Jane could see four men in the car. When it had passed and turned to come back, the second car with two men in it came by, then the third. Just after it had passed, Jane tapped Bernie’s shoulder. “You first. Get across the road and keep moving. Bear left toward the other road. Don’t stop until you’re there, then stay out of sight until we catch up.”
Jane lifted the shotgun to her shoulder and waited while Bernie hurried across the road and disappeared into the brush on the other side. “Now you.”
Rita stood and stepped onto the road. She had taken two steps when she seemed to realize that something was wrong. She stopped, and turned her head to the left.
Jane could see that Rita’s features were becoming clearer, brighter, as the distant glow of headlights came closer. Jane glanced in that direction. The car that had been parked on Apodaca Hill Road had come around the corner, and it was moving up Canyon Road toward them.
Jane looked at Rita again. She stared into the bright light as though she were considering waiting for it. Jane saw her chest expand and contract in quick little half breaths: she was going to try to trade her life for Jane’s and Bernie’s.
“Run!” Jane hissed.
Rita seemed like a sleepwalker awakened. She looked around her anxiously, then decided. She ran back to crouch in the brush beside Jane.
Jane lay still and watched the lights grow brighter until they illuminated the dust above the road and made the air glow. As the car coasted to a stop in front of her, Jane pumped the foregrip of the shotgun to bring a shell into the chamber, and pushed off the safety with her finger.
The passenger door swung open and the two men in the back seat got out. They walked to the edge of the road and looked in the general direction of Jane and Rita, but to Jane it looked as though their heads were both held too high. They were looking into the distance. She remained still and waited.
The two men moved a few paces to the front of the car, craning their necks to see if the headlights revealed anything in the dark fields ahead. She could see them more clearly now with the lighted road beyond them, craning their necks and sidestepping to stare at the field. One man pulled a gun out of his belt at the small of his back and held it at his thigh.
Jane slowly raised the shotgun and gripped it tightly against her shoulder to fight the recoil. She looked down the groove along the top of the receiver, held the bead in the center, and let it settle on the man with the gun. He would be the first, then his companion, before they could dive out of the light. If the driver had the presence of mind to accelerate away, she would put a shot through the back window on his side, and one on the other side before she ran.
The man with the gun raised his free hand above his head and made a quick circular motion. The taillights of the car went dim as the driver took his foot off the brake. Jane lowered the shotgun, pulled Rita to the ground with her and held her there. “Don’t move.”
The driver pulled to the wrong side of the road and swung the car in a tight half circle, the left tires bumping on the shoulder as the headlights swept across empty brush, over Jane and Rita’s hiding place, then settled on the road again. The two men climbed into the back seat, and the car moved up the road the way it had come.
Jane tapped Rita. “There’s another way. Come on.”
Jane rose and began to trot into the field, making her way farther from the road and back toward the house.
Jane could hear Rita’s footsteps behind her, but suddenly they stopped. Rita’s voice reached her from twenty feet back. “Wait,” she said. “I’m not leaving Bernie out there to die.”
Jane stepped close to her. “Keep your voice down,” she whispered. “If Bernie did what I told him to, he’ll be fine until we catch up with him. If he didn’t, nothing we do is going to help him.”
“Where are we going?”
“Remember the arroyo?”
“What’s an arroyo?”
“That dry streambed where I set Bernie down. It runs north-south. The road runs east-west. Water doesn’t stop just because there’s a road. It has to cross.”
Headlights appeared on the road again, and Jane and Rita had to drop to the ground until the car passed. Then Jane was up and trotting again, and Rita had to trot too, to keep her in sight. Almost as soon as the road went dark, the lights from the next car appeared.
Rita stopped and crouched as they had before, but Jane pulled her on. “They’ve got their intervals figured out now. There’s not enough time between cars to wait for them.”
When they reached the arroyo, Jane stepped down into it. When Rita joined her, she said, “See? It’s deep. When it rains, there must be a lot of water.”
“But which direction does it run?”
“It doesn’t matter. It has to cross the road.” Jane bent low and hurried along the bottom of the arroyo toward the road.
As they came closer to the road, Rita could see that Jane had been right about the cars. They were moving faster now, and the intervals between them were even.
When they were a hundred feet from the road, Jane stopped and waited. When Rita caught up, Jane pointed at the road. “See?”
Rita strained to see what Jane was pointing at. There was the road. It went across the arroyo, but it didn’t dip down and go up again. It was level. From here it looked as though the road had been built on a pile of big rocks. Did the water seep through between the rocks?
The next car approached and Jane turned her face away from the road and said, “Get ready. As soon as it goes past, we move.”
The car flashed past; Jane rose to her feet and ran. Rita felt an instant of panic. Jane seemed to be on her way, but Rita had no idea of what she was running to. It wasn’t until Jane was at the edge of the road that Rita could see her stop. Jane was below the level of the road on her hands and knees beside a set of low, thick plants. Jane pushed the plants aside and bent lower, then disappeared.
Rita came to the spot and knelt in front of the plants, then fought them aside with her forearms to see. Beyond the plants, she touched something hard and cool like rock, but it was a perfect circle. She reached farther in. It was a big cement pipe. Rita felt relief, and embarrassment at the same time. This was what Jane had meant. Jane had known there would be a big pipe—what did they call it?—a culvert. Otherwise, the arroyo would fill up after a rain and the water would wash out the road. That’s why the plants were so thick here. This was where there was the most water.
Rita could hear hollow, echoing scraping sounds from inside the culvert. She felt a swelling in her chest as she dropped to her belly and slithered into the round, dark hole. It was dirty, and the cement scraped her elbows and knees. Moving was hard and painful, but she was crossing the road by going under it, so she ignored the pain and moved.
Jane’s echoing sounds ahead of her suddenly stopped. Rita waited, and heard a low hum, then felt a sharp vibration as a car passed over her head. Then Jane began to move again, and Rita struggled to keep close to her.
