“I cannot return empty-handed.”
I reach back into the sports bag, pull out the last toy Scooter has provided me. It’s a night-vision scope which I stuff into the front of my pants pocket. Then I softly shut the back door and walk around to the other side, keeping my gaze level with Rosalina. When I reach her I place my hand on her shoulder and ask her to again tell me everything she can about the ranch.
She wipes at her eyes, slowly shakes her head. “Please tell me—why are you doing this?”
I think about that woman from years ago, the one I used to know, the one who called me a friend, and I say to Rosalina, “Because nobody else will.”
Eleven
The darkness has taken on a greenish-yellow tint. I can distinctly see the ranch house at the base of the desert, a squat brick building with bars over the windows. Adjacent to this is another building, just one room, a shack where Rosalina says the guards spend most of their time.
There is no electricity, no indoor plumbing to either building. A generator growls softly in the night, keeping the lights on inside the guards’ house.
I lie on my stomach on top of the rocky hill, the night-vision scope to my eye. I sit up and turn, focus back down to the other side of the hill where I parked the Town Car. Rosalina is inside, the keys in the ignition. I told her if I don’t return within an hour, or if she senses trouble, to take the car and never return.
In the heavy and cold silence, a sound comes from down the hill. Rusty hinges screech as a door opens. A man steps outside. I focus the scope on him. He’s tall, Hispanic, wearing a holstered gun on his belt. He stands there a moment, looking out over the dark. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, lights one, then starts toward the sagebrush, unzipping his pants.
I watch the man smoke and piss, then watch as he zips back up, turns away, takes one last drag before dropping the spent butt to the ground, smashing it with the heel of his boot. The man walks back to the building, turns to glance once more at the dark, his eyes roaming like he’s searching for something, and then he turns and walks back inside.
Putting away the scope, taking the FN 15 from where it hangs off my shoulder, I grip the rifle in both hands and then slowly start down the hill. I take my time. The light here isn’t great, and I put one foot in front of the other, make sure it’s solid ground before I place all my weight onto it and continue on. It takes a while, but then I’m less than fifty yards away from the ranch house. Close now, I can hear voices and music inside the guards’ building. Someone laughs, someone else coughs. I listen another minute, determine there are at least four men inside.
I start toward the ranch house. I keep the FN 15 aimed at the guards’ building as I move. Rosalina said that most times the men lock the ranch house. Sometimes they don’t lock it on purpose, to give the girls a false sense of freedom, and any girl stupid enough to try to escape gets raped and beaten.
Tonight the guards haven’t played one of their mind games. The door is locked. Maybe it has to do with the trouble earlier tonight. Surely the men know what has happened, since at least one of their girls was involved.
The rusty hinges of the door scream out into the night. Another man exits the guards’ house, a different man than before but a man who still wears a holstered gun. I expect him to pull a pack of smokes out of his pocket, but instead he starts walking off toward the same patch of sagebrush, what seems to be the favored pissing ground.
I think about my options. I don’t have many.
The guy stops at the edge of the sagebrush, unzips his pants. He stands there a moment, murmuring something in Spanish, and then I hear the steady stream of his piss splash the dry ground.
I don’t have time to think. He’s fifty feet away, maybe forty. His back is exposed. He has a gun but I have three, and before another moment of hesitation I start toward him, quickly, doing my best to keep my sneakers from making any sound on the hard dirt. Past the guards’ house where I hear voices and laughter and music—someone inside asking, “Anyone else want a beer?”—closer and closer to the man who keeps pissing, now whistling something, a tune I don’t recognize.
Twenty feet away … fifteen feet … ten feet …
He hears me when I’m five feet away. He starts to turn, starts to reach for his holstered gun. I come up right behind him, the FN 15 now strapped back over my shoulder. I jab him in the kidneys once, then take his head in my hands, twist it to break his neck. This isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. The guy’s at a bad angle and my twist does nothing more than help him turn around. He’s still reaching for his gun, his hand on the handle, trying to pull it out. He wasn’t done pissing and his dick is exposed, dripping.
I punch him in the gut, step around him, elbow him in the back of the neck. He goes down. I come up behind him, ready to give this one last try.
I put one arm around the front of his face, another arm around the back of his head. He tries to bite me, cry out, but then I twist and this time hear the satisfying snap of his neck. He’s not dead, though; just paralyzed. On the ground, his eyes dart around, his mouth is open and he tries to shout but can only
