He pushes away from the table and stands. “Now I’m going to step outside and make a phone call. When I come back, I want an answer: do you want to fly with us or not? If you need help deciding . . .” He taps the envelope.
After he’s gone, I reach for the envelope and start to tear it open. Dad snatches it away.
“Hey, don’t you want to see how much it is?”
“No, Arlo,” Dad says. “I want to talk it over.”
“What’s to talk over? You don’t have a job.”
“Excuse me!” Dad says. “I have a job.”
“The Snack Shack? C’mon, how can we take care of Siouxsie on that? We need this.”
“We need something,” Dad says. “I’m not sure it’s this.”
“But I’m good at this,” I say. “Didn’t you hear him? I beat out some of the best combat pilots in the country.”
“Oh, I heard him, all right,” Dad says. “He said your primary language is ‘drone.’ And all these years I thought it was English.”
We go on like this, but Dad doesn’t have a case, and he knows it.
When the colonel returns, Dad signals for me to do the talking.
“I’ll be your drone pilot,” I say. “But on one condition.”
“Let’s hear it,” the colonel says.
What I’m about to tell him has been rolling across my mind since Mom died, a distant wave that finally pounds the beach.
“I won’t take anybody out,” I say. “I’ll do the advance work, the reconnaissance. I’ll get in as close as you want me to. But I won’t push that button. Because you never take out just one person. You do more damage than that. And I’m no killer. So I won’t. I just won’t.”
“You won’t have to, Arlo,” Colonel Kincaid says. “Your role will be purely recon. We will never ask you to do anything lethal.”
“Gotta be that way,” I say.
Dad nods. “Yes, it absolutely must be that way.”
“It will,” the colonel says.
“He’s seventeen years old, Carl.”
Dad’s eyes fill with tears. Tears are like prayers, and you don’t talk when somebody is praying. You don’t touch your fork or coffee mug. The most you do is glance at your phone. Or read the road signs across the street.
I’m feeling a bit funny, because recon is the first step to lethal—it’s all tied together. It’s not like I don’t know that.
Colonel Kincaid taps the envelope. “What! You haven’t opened this? Well, I’ll sum it up for you. Go on with your lives. Keep quiet. Whistle to the bank. Arlo, this takes priority over everything else. When you get a call, stop what you’re doing. I don’t care if you’re taking a damn SAT or rolling in the hay with a rodeo princess. When you get the call, haul your ass down to White Sands. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“I’m old-fashioned,” Dad says, thrusting a hand across the table. “Let’s shake on it.”
We shake all around. Kincaid is a bone crusher.
“Arlo, I will message you on a need-to-know basis,” he says. “The fact is, you need to know very little. Most of the content you receive will be redacted. Do you know what that means?”
“Blacked out,” I say.
“Right.”
Colonel Kincaid signals for the check. “You will say nothing about this to anyone. A breach—even the merest—is grounds for termination. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
Dad looks away.
Colonel Kincaid gives me a final, assessing look. “I wish to hell you were five years older, Arlo. I’m going way outside of channel with you. I’m doing it for one reason—because you have an aptitude that cannot be denied. You fly drone like nobody else, and by God you know the Frontier. Still, it’s a risk. Don’t let me down.”
“I won’t, sir.”
Colonel Kincaid opens his wallet and plants some cash on the table—stirs a hand to tell us it covers all the churros and coffee.
“Oh, I almost forgot . . .” He reaches into his coat and pulls out a copy of Imperial Rider magazine. The motorcycle on the cover is a Ducati Monster 1100 EVO. Diamond black. A rocket of the open road. Rigged to draw you into a curve at an insane angle.
If Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime had been a motorcycle, he would’ve been a Ducati Monster 1100 EVO. Not the biggest on the stage, but the shiniest and most ripped.
Colonel Kincaid hands me the magazine.
“Just a little reading material for the ride home,” he says.
Chapter 21
GREEN SIGNS FLASH US NORTH—Los Lunas . . . Santa Fe . . . Wagon Mound.
Dad doesn’t say a word. And Siouxsie hasn’t spoken all day. So I celebrate alone, the fireworks limited to the space within my skull.
Springer . . . Maxwell . . . Clay Allison.
When we turn in at our mailbox, the house looks more than dark. It looks deserted. Not two days deserted. Five months deserted.
El Guapo materializes in the window, a fuzzy ghost. All those hours of waiting—he’s not going to let us off the hook. Because he’s a very sociable dog. He hates to be left alone. His idea of paradise is a big party featuring dogs, ducks, and beautiful women—the kind that wag with him. (“Oh, aren’t you a nice dog—yes, yes, yes!”)
I open the pickup door and turn to Siouxsie. “Want some help?”
Her head jerks no.
We leave her sitting in the pickup. Dad unlocks the back door. Turns on the porch and kitchen lights.
I grab a tennis ball from the kitchen closet, go out onto the porch, and pitch it into the driveway. Guapo’s off like rabbit. He returns with the ball and the hint of a wag in his tail. I pitch another and another until he’s his old self, wagging and grinning. All is forgiven. All is forgotten. Dogs are easy that way. If only people could forget.
Every couple of minutes, Dad goes to the kitchen window. “She’s just stubborn,” he says. “She’ll come in when she gets tired.”
“Or cold,” I say.
I go out to the barn to check on the mares. Water, oats, alfalfa—Cam and Lobo have done a good job. The floor is swept. The pucky piled. Cam and Lobo may be absent-minded about some things, but you can count on them in a barn. Life is here, and babies are on the way.
The mares cling to the quiet of night. We’ll talk in the morning.
On my way back to the house, I rap on the pickup.
“Hey, wanna blanket?”
Siouxsie’s on her cell phone.
“Who you talkin’ to?”
She turns her back on me.
Hell. I go up to bed, and even though I’m totally dog-assed, I can’t fall asleep. I conjure Mom on the mesa. Today she’s wearing her jeans jacket—the one embroidered with sunflowers and bachelor buttons, a gift from an old boyfriend. Mom and I go along, ponder-walking through the eyelash grass, never getting near the rim but extremely aware of it—that sheer edge. That clean fall.
I’m just drifting off when I hear tires crunch up the drive. I get up and go into the hall. Dad’s already there, standing at the window.
We watch Lupita and Lee Fields walk over to the pickup. Lupita gets inside with Siouxsie. Lee stands by the truck, the barn light shawling over her, shadow and gold.
“You goin’ down?” I ask Dad.
He shakes his head.
“Well, I am.”
Dad snorts. “Don’t blame you, Arlo.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“Like you don’t know,” he says.
Damn! Is it that obvious?
I go down to the kitchen, toss Dad’s duster over my boxers, and step into a pair of muck boots. Normally I wouldn’t go outside like this—half naked. But time is ticking. Opportunity is knocking.
I open the door and shamble forth into the night.
“Nice raincoat,” Lee says as I walk up.
“Naw, don’t call it that,” I say. “This is a tin-cloth duster. A real, old West longcoat. Jesse James wore one. So did Clay Al
lison. And Clint Eastwood in some of his movies.”
Lee cuts me a smile. “Well, Jesse James, your sister’s having a hard time.”
The door of the pickup opens. “Evening, Arlo,” Lupita says, getting out. “You look like the cowpoke who scraped down the trellis.”
“Evening, Lupita,” I say.
“We’re going to borrow your sister for a while,” Lupita says, helping Siouxsie out. “She needs a little girl time.”
“Girl time?” I say, something creeping into my tone that probably shouldn’t.
Siouxsie glares at me. “Yes, girl time. I sure don’t need any more time with you. All you ever do is ride your dirt bike and play Drone Pilot.” She thumps her chest. “You can’t get away from what happened, Arlo. ‘When in doubt, talk it out.’ That’s what Mom always said. Well, you don’t ever talk it out. That’s the problem. You and Dad—you’re clueless as cows.”
“C’mon, Siouxsie,” Lupita says, walking her to the Dodge.
“And don’t think I’m coming back,” Siouxsie says, over her shoulder. “I’m staying with Lupita and Lee from now on. May your days be merry and bright. And may all your Christmases be white.”
Lee brushes up against me as she passes. “And may your Rice Krispies go snap-crackle-POP!” she says, the last syllable bursting breathily in my ear.
Before she gets in, Lupita spots Dad in the upstairs window. Something in her eye sparks. If I had to guess, I’d say it meant “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of her.” But it could also mean “You bastard!”
They pull out, and I go inside and find Dad staring into the fridge.
“To hell with it,” he says, reaching for a beer. “Let her go.”
“Wow, really!” I say. “Just drink a beer and let her go. Is that all you can do?”
I bound upstairs and burrow under my covers, hoping sleep will get me through the night. But all this excitement has El Guapo in one of his moods. He jumps onto the bed and starts to hump me. I push him away. When he tries again, I shove him, and he lands on the floor on skittery toenails.
He jumps up and curls beside me, defeated. What must it be like—to want to hump a world that does not want to be humped? It saddens me to think of it.
But not for long. Because with Guapo, when you shut off one quirk another starts up. Now he begins to lick the air, his tongue moving in and out.
Thup-thup-thup.
Thup-thup-thup.
I clamp my hand on his snout.
Silence.
Release my hand.
Thup-thup-thup.
On and on.
What the hell. Just live with it.
He was Mom’s dog; now he’s mine. I didn’t choose him. He chose me. There’s honor in that, I guess.
Every ten minutes or so, Dad pops open another beer, adding a tssst and a chink to the thupping soundtrack.
And just a few hours ago, life was looking up.
I wonder, is there something in the universe—some teeter-totter—that automatically kicks in when things start looking up and starts them looking down again?
Teeter up.
Teeter down.
Never in balance.
I think about Siouxsie. Two years ago versus today. Teeter down. Way down.
I think about Lee, how she bumped against me and murmured “snap-crackle-POP!”—the “POP” tickling my ear.
How the barn light reflected shadow and gold in her hair.
Teeter up.
Teeter way up.
Teeter so damn far up that I better call the fire department, because somebody’s got a seven-alarm inferno in his boxers.
There’s only one thing to do.
But it’s tricky, with El Guapo curled beside me.
Plus, the guilt. I don’t want to think about Lee this way.
So I hit the remote button in my mind and switch to a memory of Dolores de la Cruz. One night last summer walking up to me all wine-happy and sparkly at the Orphan County Fair. Bustin’ out of her peppermint tank top.
She asks for a ride on my 250. When she’s saddled behind me, she reaches out to grip my waist and misses by about a foot. We go straight to the river park—to the cottonwood shadows. Just enough light to see lace on skin. Plenty of dark to taste wine on tongue.
Dolores isn’t even on my radar. But that night—and right now:
Oh my God.
Oh . . . My . . . God!
Chapter 22
I CAN’T SLEEP. SO I roll out of bed and fire up Drone Pilot.
For the next couple of hours, I go and go, blowing away attackers, pulverizing targets, lost in the Zone yet aware of the beauty around me—the geometric orchards, the rushing Arghandab River, the rugged-brown hills, and on the horizon the Hindu Kush mountains, spiked like a picket fence.
Sometime long after midnight, my laptop pings. What the—? It’s Colonel Kincaid.
Arlo, please see the attached memo. It contains a reference to you.
I open the memo. This time, it’s not quite so redacted. I can actually see some content, though not much:
To: Mideast High Command and Coalition UAV Strategic Units
RE: Operation Brave Panther
Embedded between blacked-out chunks of text is this unredacted paragraph:
In all exercises, the pilot has handled difficult weather and limited resources effectively. It may well be that his lack of formal training is to our advantage. He is forced to solve problems in real time without the knowledge of our step-by-step or legacy procedures. In every case, his solutions were solid or superior.
Teeter up.
And then this:
Tuesday’s strike on the known hub of militant activity killed six enemy soldiers.
Our attack Thursday on the suspected militant safe house resulted in eight enemy killed.
Then this:
The attack resulted in sixteen civilian and three friendly fire deaths.
Two things stand out to me. First, the drone strikes killed more friends than enemies. Second, the information looks backward at what’s already happened. Nothing talks about what’s planned for the future.
The exception is a single sentence near the end of the document. I wonder if Colonel Kincaid wants me to see this—or did he just forget to redact it?
Every day he lives is a day of victory for the enemy.
Chapter 23
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE Superman to see with x-ray eyes,” Uncle Sal says.
We’re sitting in the den at Two Hole, Uncle Sal’s ranch. The real name is La Paloma Verde—Green Dove. But everybody calls it Two Hole because of the outhouse out back, under the elm. Lobo’s Great-Aunt Portia still uses it. God knows why. They have plenty of bathrooms at Two Hole.
“X-ray eyes,” Uncle Sal says, tapping his eye bags. “Or as they say at the Harvard Business School: creative visualization.”
Cam, Lobo, Lee, and I sprawl on his big Denver Broncos couch, taking it in.
“Let’s use our x-ray eyes right now to see Rio Loco Field,” Uncle Sal says. “It’s homecoming Friday. A mere eleven days away. Halftime. Packed house. The band wraps up and files into the bleachers, piccolos to tubas.
“Now it’s your turn, Arlo. You mount up and rip that throttle. I want to hear you way up in the high seats. Every damn cc. Can you see it? Can you hear it?”
“Pretty much,” I say.
My real focus is on my shoulder pressing against Lee’s. If I add a bit more pressure, will she do the same? I lean against her. She edges away.
“Arlo, are you listening?” Uncle Sal asks.
“Yeah,” I say, snapping back. “But hey, won’t the refs and officials chase me off the field if I ride my bike on it?”
“Arlo, you’re a headline entertainer now,” Uncle Sal says. “You have new rights and privileges. No one’s going to chase you off the field. I’ll see to that. I want you to ride out there, front and center. Preen a little. Do a wheelie. Knees to the breeze. Warm up the crowd. Prime them for your jump.”
“Where will you be?” I ask.
“Up in the announcer’s booth introducing you. Now, remember, I want to hear every damn cc. You’re a chainsaw. Got it?”
“Got it,” I say.
Well, sort of. Because x-ray vision is a personal thing. Like art. You got your Norman Rockwells, and you got your Picassos. Norman Rockwell is like looking through window glass. Picasso is like looking through a Coke bottle.
Uncle Sal sees it more like Norman Rockwell.
I see it more like Picasso.
As I visualize, my eyes drift to the wall behind Uncle Sal. It’s filled with photos tracing the history of the Focazios in America, from the immigrant coal miner brothers to the official army portrait of Lobo’s dead brother, Davy, to the many aunts, uncles, and cousins in between.
Uncle Sal is the Pied Piper of the family, leading it out of the coal mines in one generation. He stands tall and barrel-chested at the center of most photos: grinning in his army paratrooper fatigues; rodeo clowning; flipping pancakes at a Kiwanis breakfast; rockin’ a bolero jacket on Cinco de Mayo. On and on.
Plus a photo of him and Alex Trebek standing on the Jeopardy! soundstage in Culver City, California. This was taken long ago, during their mustache phase.
“Now, listen!” Uncle Sal says, snapping me back again. “I’ve lined up Wingo Lumber and Hurtado Toyota. Masterson Electric should pony up too. They better—they owe me. That’s three sponsors. By local standards, we’re a success. But I’m not interested in local standards. And this team sure as hell is not a local team. Arlo, remember what I said about changing your name—to something you can write sideways on a scorecard?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“How do you like the sound of Jett Spence?”
“Jett Spence?” I say. “How come? Everybody knows who I am.”
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