This Side of Night

by J. Todd Scott

  They had to travel with the true light of the sun.

  Now the murciélagos were fading pencil marks in the sky at dawn when they awoke. Thousands of them turning in tight circles, calling to each other, catching the last few bugs. They were a tattered cloud visible for miles, their wings the sounds of thick hands rubbing together.

  He and Neva watched them rise and fall and spin and disappear. There was some magic purpose or message in their movements, and they followed in their wake, moving slowly over the broken ground. The murciélagos nested in the cooler hollows and caves along the river, high up on the canyon walls, so instead of using the stars, Chayo traced the sounds of their fading wings.

  Those pencil marks in the sky sketched out a path for them to follow, pointing the way.

  A path they soon discovered others had followed as well.

  * * *

  —

  THEY FIRST FOUND A RED BACKPACK, torn and weathered. There was a string of several numbers written in black ink inside. Maybe a phone number, someone to call if the pack or the person wearing it was lost . . . or found.

  They saw a sole-less tennis shoe, just one, hanging upside down on a branch.

  They stepped around other shoes handmade out of dirty carpet and rope.

  They moved past discarded shirts and bandannas.

  They walked among a constellation of empty plastic water bottles and shopping bags and tin cans.

  Once, Neva grabbed at Chayo, pointing at something dark and feral moving away from them beneath a knot of trees. They could smell its fur, thick and pungent, and they both held their breath as Chayo wondered if it could be un lobo or perhaps a jaguar. But it proved to be little more than shadowed movement, a rustle of dry leaves and a bending of grass, before it was gone. Whatever it was, it left them alone, and they did the same.

  Chayo let them move slow, with many rests to help Neva, who had never hiked over such rough ground or for so long. Sometimes when they stopped, she folded into his arms and he could feel her body trembling with exhaustion.

  One time she kissed him, and fell asleep standing that way, held up only by his arms, her dry lips still touching his.

  As they silently walked, despite the trash and things they found, it was easy for Chayo to imagine they were the only people left in the whole world. Everything had been made only for them, and they were seeing it for the first time. Nothing existed until they arrived, and it would all disappear after they left. Each labored step created the very ground under their feet. If they chose one way, it created a new world, and if they chose differently, it made another.

  If they stopped moving, there would be nothing at all.

  Chayo finally decided that wasn’t so far from the truth.

  * * *

  —

  AT LEAST NEVA’S WOUND was looking better, not so red and angry.

  It was a jagged line running from the corner of her mouth to just short of her ear. Many of the stitches had pulled loose without it getting worse, and it didn’t bleed so much. It was still difficult for her to chew, forcing her to slip strips of tortilla and water past her barely open lips, and she was frustrated at all the things she wanted to say, but whenever she tried to speak, Chayo put a hand to those lips and shook his head to stop her.

  Or he kissed her, and that worked just as well.

  * * *

  —

  THEY SLEPT UNDER SKIES that flickered orange and red and white. Lightning, far away and high above the clouds. Afterward, the air around them was scorched and their skin was electric to the touch, but there was never any rain, no push of a wind, and if there was thunder, they could not hear it.

  There was no storm at all.

  Only a silent sky, playing tricks on their eyes.

  * * *

  —

  BY LATE AFTERNOON OF THE FOURTH DAY, they found themselves crouched on a rise above the river.

  It was thirty feet across, with a pebbled sliver of shore on their side—like a gnarled fingernail—and rising grass and thick brush on the other. The water was dark, not brown or black, but deepest green, and it moved with a slight current. Up, down. Up, down. The river was breathing, and its breath was foul. Even high above it, they could smell that it was as thick and pungent as the unseen animal they had crossed.

  Ripples rolled out across its surface, dimpling the green skin, before disappearing again as if they’d never appeared at all.

  It didn’t look deep, but Chayo wouldn’t know for sure until they waded into it.

  They had made it to the Río Bravo. Los Estados Unidos was on the other side.

  Chayo did not know what he’d expected—gleaming towers, green fields, streets of perfect houses as he’d seen on TV. He’d never given it much thought, focusing only on getting here, and although he was from a small village and had not traveled to many places, he’d never been foolish enough to think there could be a real difference in a place only thirty feet away.

  Still, he had expected . . . more . . . and it worried him that grass and rocks and canyon walls visible across the water looked no different from any of those they had walked through. Exactamente el mismo. He tried hard to find differences, staring closely, getting more desperate, and when he could find none—not a sign or a chain-link fence—he became scared that he’d brought them to the wrong river. He’d set them on the wrong path, and the real Río Bravo was still miles, or another one of those imagined worlds, away.

  Neva was making ready to slide down the rise, toward the water, but it was Chayo who suddenly couldn’t, wouldn’t, move.

  He was convinced now that even if it was the Río Bravo, they’d be unable to pass it. Someone or something would keep them out; some monstrous, invisible hand would push them away.

  He sat like that for several moments, with Neva staring at him curiously, waiting. He caught sight of a bird, a large one—possibly un halcón—appearing above and behind them, gliding in a long, dropping arc. It was the gray of smoke, with a banded black and white tail, unlike any he had ever seen. It flew over them and he could feel its shadow on his skin as it passed overhead. It rose, dipped, turned on one of its powerful wings, and crossed over the river into a long row of mesquites on the other side.

  It disappeared like the ripples on the river itself.

  It had made it look so easy, effortless.

  It reminded him that it was time to fly.

  Para volar.

  That’s what he’d told himself the night of the attack, and that’s what they’d been doing every day since. Now that they had made it this far, he could not be afraid of the sky.

  * * *

  —

  HE JOINED HER ON THE SANDY BANK, searching in his pocket for a peso, and although they needed every bit of money they had, he tossed it into the barely moving river. It was an old ritual from Blanco, his home, meant to satisfy whatever spirits or fantasmas might lurk in the water. He didn’t know that he believed it, but it couldn’t hurt. They needed all the help they could get.

  The coin dropped out of sight.

  He took her hand and they both stepped into the water . . . deeper, deeper. It was surprisingly cold, rising to their waists and then chests, and he wrapped an arm around her as the bottom dropped suddenly away from their feet and then he was kicking them across, helping keep her head above the stinking water. Beneath the surface, the water moved faster than he’d imagined, and as the weight of their nearly empty packs pulled on him, filling with water, he felt for a heart-stopping moment like they were suspended above an impossibly deep hole, eager to suck their heavy bodies down. But just as quickly, his feet were touching the sandy bottom again and he’d regained his footing. They splashed out of the river on the other side beneath the very same sun they’d left behind them, and stumbled together into the high, green grass, and it was over.

  Neva smiled, a true smile, and hugg
ed him. There were bits of leaves and grass in her wet hair, and a smear of mud on her hands and face and she smelled like the water, but he couldn’t love her any more than he did or imagine anyone more beautiful.

  He looked at the ground at his feet and realized he was farther away from his home than he’d ever been, and understood for the first time that he’d never return. He was finally, truly, a whole new world away.

  His heart was both joyous and hurting, and he held Neva close so she wouldn’t see his tears and wouldn’t feel his own trembling.

  He let them sit in the shadows of the high grass as their clothes dried in the hot air, and then he helped her up and told her it was time to go. They had to keep going, always going, because although they’d crossed the river, they hadn’t gotten anywhere at all.

  Not anywhere truly safe.

  And as before, they soon discovered others had come their way.

  They found the same discarded bottles, shoes, clothes.

  A rotted book.

  A bicycle wheel.

  Even an old rifle, an ancient thing, leaning against a mesquite. Chayo knew nothing about guns, but took it anyway, using a strip of his shirt to hold it together.

  They found a thousand forgotten things, seemingly cast up and left behind by the river itself, instead of by those who’d crossed it.

  Neva found a doll with a melted face. It looked as if it had been set on fire or had burned in the sun.

  It was only two hours after they’d crossed the river into the United States, when the men found them.

  FORTY-ONE

  Are you out of your mind?” Mel asked him, loud enough to get Rocky up off the kitchen floor. The dog barked once, joining her, as if he was mad, too.

  So far, this conversation hadn’t gone well at all.

  Chris set aside his coffee mug and folded his arms, leaning against the counter. Mel was sitting at the table with Jack in his booster, and like last night in the high school gym, everyone—Mel, Jack, Rocky the dog—was staring at him.

  He hadn’t slept much. He hadn’t started this conversation last night because he knew it might get ugly, but given how he’d tossed and turned anyway, troubled by vague, gray dreams—as heavy and ominous as stacked clouds threatening rain—he should have bitten the bullet and talked to Mel then. The new day had done nothing to make it any easier. He turned and looked for a moment out the window, where real rain clouds loomed over the Far Six. They towered like the mesas themselves, striated in white and gray and as solid and immutable as granite, mirroring the ground below. The storm they heralded might blow over, or it might not.

  Not like the storm in his kitchen, which was only gathering strength.

  He turned back to Mel, who hadn’t moved, still waiting for his answer. She was wearing one of his old Baylor T-shirts, and it was too big for her, as it was for him. It was hard to remember himself at that size. He’d changed so much outwardly since college, but in so many ways, Mel looked the same. Beautiful, even when she was mad.

  “I don’t think you understand,” he tried, before she cut him off again.

  “Really? Let me explain what I understand . . . what I can’t believe I just heard you say.” Mel was leaning over Jack, who was sitting upright in the Fisher-Price booster Amé had bought for them. Jack was still too young for solids, but Mel liked to prop him up in it when they had breakfast together.

  “You want me to pack up our son and leave, so you can open our house to Amé and this man that you’re convinced is a lifelong murderer. A man, I might add, you once thought tried to have you killed, Chris, right here, right outside those windows. Now you’re telling me he has to stay in our home?”

  He tried to slow her down. “Danny’s convinced someone’s in Murfee looking for her, or for Fox Uno. Probably both. And he’s convinced me they’re not safe in town anymore. We need a place to wait out the arrangements Fox Uno’s made for Amé’s mother.”

  “Oh right, I’m sorry, I didn’t mention the other part of this that doesn’t make any damn sense.” She fixed him with a hard stare. “This man, who’s on the run from the law on both sides of the border, not to mention who knows how many other killers like him, is now miraculously going to spirit Amé’s mother, here, with a phone call? That’s convenient, isn’t it? You said he was only going to stay in Murfee a few days, but this is a lot more than that, a hell of a lot more. Too much. This is our home. Why doesn’t he make a goddamn call for himself and get the fuck out of our lives?”

  “Babe, that’s what he’s trying to do. That’s what we’re all trying to do. But it’s different now . . . Amé spoke to someone . . .”

  “Her actual mother?”

  “No, someone else,” Chris admitted, reluctantly. “A man who works for Fox Uno. He’s called Oso Ocho . . . Gualterio.”

  A man Chris had read about in Garrison’s folder. A man who, with one phone call, had made his young deputy believe in all the things Fox Uno had told her and, more important, the one thing he was promising now: that within seventy-two hours he could get her mother safe to Murfee, bringing along with her whatever money and new identities Fox Uno and Zita needed.

  “Mel, I can’t ignore this stranger that Marco Lucero told Danny about, either. He was right there in Earlys, where you work, too. He claimed to be a reporter from Austin covering the debate, but Marco didn’t see him there. Danny made some calls, there was no news coverage out of Austin.”

  “Oh, finally, the debate. I figured you had forgotten all about that. I don’t suppose this decision about Fox Uno and Amé has anything to do with your performance last night? I didn’t say anything about it then because it was clear you didn’t want to talk, but we’re going to talk about it now. You walked out, Chris.”

  “I’m not winning, we both know that.”

  “No, we don’t know that. Are you justifying this insane plan of yours because you think you’re not going to be the sheriff anymore? There were plenty of people in that gym who believe in you and trust you and need you, too, more than just America Reynosa. What about them?”

  “Amé needs me now, today. I need to see this thing through. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “No, you don’t want to do anything else. You’ve convinced yourself you owe her, or you’re punishing yourself for some past mistake you won’t let go. You’re not seeing another way because you won’t look for one, but you know who really gets punished? Me, and your son. We’re the ones that get to stand by to see what happens. We’re the ones that’ll be praying you don’t nearly die out here a second goddamn time. This isn’t what I agreed to.”

  “It’s not? When? Are you only upset because it’s hitting so close to home?” Chris said.

  “Don’t you dare fucking say that. That’s not fair, not with everything we’ve been through together. At least be honest with me, even if you can’t be with yourself. You owe me that.” Mel folded her arms, holding herself tight. “Chris, I read the folder that Joe Garrison brought you. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, but I did. I only wanted to see if you’d done any work for the debate. It doesn’t make it right, but I know now all about Fox Uno and his goddamn people. I saw all those horrible pictures . . .”

  Chris wanted to be angry with her, but she was right; he owed her the truth. “I just want to get this over with. To do that, I first need to get Amé and Fox Uno out of town, away from prying eyes. Murfee will be safer, and I can keep them safer out here.”

  “Until something goes wrong, then there won’t be a way to save any of you. You want to hide them out here exactly because you know how goddamn risky this is.” She collected Jack out of his booster seat, and he kicked and struggled, started to cry. “He’s killed women and children, Chris. Don’t talk to me about America. That’s the man you’re trying to help.”

  The room was electric, Mel’s fury almost visible in the air. It had been years since she’d been this mad a
t him, since their first year in Murfee, when Chris had been consumed by Rodolfo Reynosa’s murder. Mel had always had a matchstick temper, but Chris had almost forgotten what it was like to feel that raw, red heat again. He’d fallen in love with her partly because of that fiery streak—the way it fueled her, sometimes burned him. It was a small price to pay.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  She tried to quiet Jack. “I want to trust you on this, Chris, I really do. Until now, I have. But . . . but I think you really should call Joe Garrison. Today. Now.”

  Chris shook his head, tired and frustrated. His whole tiny family was in the kitchen, but they were on one side of the table, and he was on the other. They were together, but he might as well have been alone.

  He thought about all the times he’d almost done exactly what she wanted and called Garrison, but it was too late for that. He’d spent five years trying to protect the Big Bend as its sheriff; now he was going to spend these last days protecting and helping Amé.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do that. I already told them to come. They’ll be here before noon. Seventy-two hours, that’s all I need from you.”

  She blinked, once, twice. “I guess I need to pack our things then. And before you ask, I don’t want your help.”

  She looked at Chris hard again, over the top of Jack’s head. She had their son held tight to her body and her eyes still flashed, her fury still smoldering.

  “You know what’s funny? I keep thinking about that speech you gave before you walked out last night. You were up there talking to Dave Wilcher, but I knew you were really talking to everyone sitting in that gym, pretty much the whole damn town. And I saw how they responded to you, Chris, the way they looked at you. It was like you were on the football field again, playing in front of a big crowd. You may want to tell yourself you were throwing away your badge, but you weren’t. You were throwing to win . . . one final, fourth-quarter touchdown. You sure didn’t sound like a man who was ready to quit or wanted to lose . . . a man who doesn’t give a damn anymore about being the sheriff in this county, no matter what you’re telling yourself now. And I’ve never, ever been prouder.”