“After, the men took me.” Peter’s bright eyes lit on Joe. “I don’t remember. That man Boggs said I had to work for him, and Joe left me there to suffer.”
Chair legs screeched on the worn tile floor as Liliana shoved back and went to Peter. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind and kissed the top of his head.
Devin expected Peter to squirm away and say something horrible about “brown” people, but instead he shifted in his seat, pressed his head against Liliana’s breasts, and sobbed. She patted him and made sweet cooing noises, and Devin wondered how long it had been since anyone had comforted Peter.
Peter cried for a while. No one spoke. Sadie stopped eating, even.
A knock came from the front door. Before anyone moved, it swung open, and the man who’d followed them earlier stepped inside. He took off his hat, laid it over his narrow chest, and bowed. His too-long hair fell over his shoulder, a bit of a thinning patch exposed in the candlelight.
“Evening, Mayor, Dr. Suarez. Don’t mean to intrude. I can see you’ve got company.”
“Good evening, Sanders.” Liliana’s polite greeting as she regained her chair didn’t match the coolness in her voice. “Do you require assistance from myself or Dr. Suarez?”
Sanders smiled, showing off a row of jagged, yellowed teeth. Devin still wasn’t used to that, not after being at Flights of Fantasy where everyone’s teeth had been aligned and brightened for optimum strength and appearance. Sanders’s thick lips managed to keep his teeth bared as he spoke. “No ma’am. Word was you had company. I’m just being friendly.”
Sadie blew a raspberry. “If you were being friendly, you’d bring Aria and not barge into our house like some mangy raccoon.”
Sanders ignored her. He walked into the kitchen and eyed Devin and Peter with naked interest. “You boys northerners?”
Devin glanced down the table to Navarro and Joe, who both subtly shook their heads.
“They’re friends from when Lili and I lived in Texas,” Navarro said. “White people can exist outside New America.”
“Sure.” Sanders shrugged. He turned to Devin. “I’m sure the good doctor already told you boys we run a safe, clean town here in Purcell. We protect what’s ours and ain’t nobody gonna make us second class. We are mighty proud of that. It’s good to remember.”
Devin had no idea what he was supposed to say or why this Sanders guy was talking to him. “Okay.”
“When’ll you be moving on?”
“When I’ve decided they’re well enough to travel, Sanders.” Navarro spread his hands. “Now, we were enjoying our dinner. See yourself out.”
Sanders smirked and gave a curt nod. “I’ll let Aria know you asked about her. Can’t seem to get that girl to visit you all no matter what. Be seeing you, Mayor. Navi.” When he said Navarro’s name, it sounded ugly. He gave a small bow, replaced his hat, and left.
“Dickhead,” Liliana muttered.
“What the hell was that about?” Devin looked to Navarro first, but he and Joe had their heads together, talking in low voices that didn’t carry to Devin’s end of the table. He should have figured. Joe would talk to someone else about the serious stuff before he talked to Devin. He rounded on Liliana, but it was Sadie who spoke.
“You ever see those Texas Rangers back in Austin?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Sanders and his crew like to think they’re like that, keeping Oklahoma territory, or at least our Purcell, safe. Except they’re really just thugs who get off on feeling powerful. They call themselves the Sons of America.”
“Like I said earlier,” Liliana said, “they bring food and supplies to the town. I’m not sure where or how they get the stuff, though.”
Devin thought about what Joe had found in that house on the way here, the dead bodies. He didn’t want to bring it up in front of Sadie. Hell, he barely wanted to talk about it in front of Flix and Peter, and they already knew. “Are they dangerous?”
Navarro looked up. “Any man with a gun is dangerous.”
Devin had thought the same thing hours earlier. Only he hadn’t included himself in the assessment. It took everything he had not to let his eyes wander to the rifles they’d brought with them, which now sat propped against the kitchen counter.
“They got pissed ’cause Navi wouldn’t join them.” Sadie dug back into her food. “He says they do things the wrong way. So Aria went instead.”
“Why did he talk to me and Devin the way he did?” Peter asked, his eyes wide.
“Come on, Petey,” Flix said. “Don’t be an idiot.” He barely had his eyes open, and he was listing toward Devin, but his voice was strong. “Think about what a bigot you are. How you think I’m so bad when you don’t even know me. That asshole’s exactly like you.”
***
Peter lay on the couch and tried, mostly, to keep from kicking Flix in the face, even though Flix deserved it for saying Peter was anything like that awful Sanders. Peter squirmed. He loved and cared for people. Momma and Dad had always talked about loving even lesser people and wanting them to be all right, even if it wasn’t okay to treat them like friends. Flix didn’t know what he was talking about. He was a rude boy, anyway.
After dinner, they’d both scrambled for the couch when Navarro said that was where they should sleep. Flix had tossed the back cushions off, saying Peter could sleep on them on the floor, then hurried to put them back when a smell like old socks hit their noses. Flix was so whacked, he’d fallen on the couch anyway and was snoring in under a minute.
That left Peter either sleeping on the floor or crowded onto the front of the couch, head at Flix’s feet the way he’d seen Flix and Marcus do the night they’d had a
