Do They Know I'm Running?

by David Corbett

  The path had led them across one rise after the other, sometimes a leisurely upward grade, other times as steep as a ladder, descending only briefly before resuming uphill, to the point he would have given anything to feel the ground dropping off into a reliable, continuous downgrade. His leg muscles burned, the small of his back was a tight ball of pain. He could only imagine what misery Lupe was enduring in silence.

  They’d brought no water. They’d had no time, they hadn’t known Melchior would drive them out to the foothills and leave them to run or die. Roque wondered if the man was still alive, if his act, the feigned robbery, had fooled the others. He had no such doubts about Happy. He’d heard the gunshots as he and Lupe climbed beneath the tree canopy deeper into the hills. There’s no one left but me and Tía Lucha, he thought. Me and Tía and now this one, Lupe.

  They came to another rock face, rising like a wall from the truncated path. Flipping on the flashlight briefly, he saw exposed roots and small rock ledges that might provide a fingerhold here, a foothold there. He would have to feel for them in the dark. The bluff extended indefinitely in each direction, there would be no getting around it that he could see. It rose only twenty feet or so, hardly an impossible climb.

  Switching off the light he turned to Lupe.—What do you think?

  His eyes readjusted to the dark as he waited for her reply. He could just make out the lines of her face. Though quick, her breath had settled into a rhythm and her left arm hung limp, the shoulder of her shirt crusted with blood.—I can try. She licked her parched lips.

  —You can hold on to my belt, watch where I put my hands and feet.

  She flexed her left hand, testing its strength, wincing.—Let’s hurry.

  On again briefly with the flashlight—he mapped out his strategy in his mind’s eye—then off. He reached for the highest root he could without jumping, dug into a crevice in the rock with his toe, waited for Lupe to grab his belt, then hoisted himself up. Catching his balance, he felt for the next exposed root, got his hand around it, found a second foothold and pulled himself up again, this time feeling Lupe’s weight until she scrambled for her own hold below him.

  —You’re okay?

  —I’m fine, yes. The words a hiss of air against her teeth.—Quick. Please.

  He patted and pulled his way upward, until finally his hand reached the top of the bluff. He searched the ledge blindly, hoping for another root to grab hold of, only to encounter a scaly scuttling thing. Before he could pull back his hand the poisonous sting flared down into his arm like a streak of molten wire. He shouted in pain then said, “¡Bajo! ¡Bajo!”

  They tumbled to the bottom, her first, him on top, tangling up as they tried to scramble to their feet. His hand burned, he shook it as he reached for the flashlight, flipped it on. The wounds were small but deep, two of them, vaguely parallel. A spider not a scorpion, he thought, probably a tarantula. It would be painful, not dangerous but he couldn’t imagine trying the climb again—he doubted his grip would hold, especially with Lupe’s added weight, and for all he knew there was a nest of them up there, not just one.

  —Let’s wait here a moment while I think things through. He cradled his bad hand, chewing his lip.—Maybe there’s another way. But he knew there wasn’t. They could try their luck, slash through the trees, see if somehow, somewhere, they stumbled upon another path down the mountainside. But if such a path existed why would this one be here—who forged dead ends up the sides of mountains?

  He tried the flashlight again, looked left, looked right, saw only the dense forest and the mountain wall, the twenty-foot bluff that might as well be a mile high. His hand felt afire, his whole arm had turned weak but the pain was only half of it. He remembered his Day of the Dead benedictions with Tía Lucha, her steadfast conviction that her sister, his mother, lay just beyond a veil of incomprehension—someday they would all gather together again, laugh, sing, weep. When young, he had believed, not so much now. But maybe that wasn’t the point. Could there possibly be anything waiting beyond death that would be so much worse than this?

  He heard a rustling off to his left. Another mountain lion, he thought, or the same one, it had been tracking them all along. That’s how it will happen, he thought, a predator smelling the blood. He moved the flashlight to his left hand, his good hand, then drawing Melchior’s pistol from his belt with his swollen aching right. He didn’t know how many bullets were left.

  To hell with being seen, he thought, turning the flashlight on and pointing it at the noise, discovering not a mountain lion but a small raccoonlike face protruding from the broad-leafed greenery—immense and probing eyes, a whitish snout, a long curling tail like a monkey’s. A coatimundi. He’d never seen one except on nature shows. They stared at each other for a moment, long enough for Roque to believe he heard someone say the single word: Here.

  To Lupe:—Did you just say something?

  She stirred from a daze.—No.

  The animal withdrew into the underbrush and Roque puzzled at that, wondering why he’d not seen a way to escape in that direction before. Here, he thought, remembering the voice, unable to place it, following its direction, breaking through the scrub and pointing the beam of the flashlight down into a deep and narrow ravine, terraced with rock, dotted with scrub and spindly trees, opening at the bottom into a densely overgrown blackness.

  Only then did he remember the dreams, especially the second, that night at Rafa’s service station before they crossed from El Salvador into Guatemala—the image of his sickly mother beckoning him forward, the tarantula.

  —We’re going this way. He gestured with the flashlight for Lupe to follow. They would scoot down the rock ledge into the crevasse, come out somewhere lower on the mountainside, take their chances that way, forge a path of their own through the forest if need be.

  —I’ll go first. He got down on his haunches, tucked the pistol away, clutched the flashlight. The drop was long and steep and he could almost feel himself tumbling head over foot but he kept his weight back, plummeting like a sled. He crashed into tree roots and nettled plants, sharp outcroppings of rock, finally hitting bottom with a crunching thud.

  He bounced up, fearing he might be bitten by something unseen, then pointed the flashlight up the cluttered rock face. The beam caught her peering fearfully over the ledge.

  —It’s all right, he called upward.—Follow the light down.

  It took her a moment to get into position and when she rocketed down it seemed for a moment she too might begin to tumble head over heels but she stiffened into a blade, continuing down. At the bottom he broke her fall and the two of them hurtled recklessly into nearby scrub. Dazed, they untangled themselves, rose to their feet, swaying.

  Roque pointed the flashlight toward the mouth of the ravine.—This way.

  There was no path to follow, no way to tell the right direction, an excellent plan for getting lost, but he focused on one tree and then the one behind it, fashioning as straight a line as he could, taking heart from the downward slope of his footfalls and figuring once they were off the mountain he’d get his bearings. Maybe they’d still be in Mexico when that happened, if so they’d somehow turn themselves north and go. It was the best plan he had now. An idle touch of Lupe’s shoulder revealed the wound was seeping again. Her breath came in coughing gasps more often, her steps fell heavy, she tripped and staggered to keep up, sometimes gripping his belt.

  Time dissolved. The minutes dragged like hours and the hours collapsed into minutes. He heard only the rush of blood in his ears and the crunching monotony of his footsteps, hers behind him, the chafing rustle of her breath in her throat, interrupted now and again by the yipping barks of unseen coyotes. He couldn’t pinpoint when it happened, but the oaks and pines gave way to mesquite and paloverde and tormented Joshua trees, the earth turned a coppery red in the flashlight beam, thickets of spindly ocotillos and tall agave spears rose up from the desert floor. For the first time in hours he realized how cold it was, his shivering
a kind of irritated happiness, forcing him awake.

  In the distance he saw a pinpoint of light—maybe from a house, maybe a church. It remained unchanging and he set his course by it, keeping it always in sight, increasing his pace.

  They came to a barbed-wire fence—the border?—struggled through it, shirts snagging, and ten steps beyond she finally collapsed, falling first to her knees then her side. She winced from pain and curled up, teeth clenched, rocking, trying to will herself into numbness he thought as he stood over her, grabbing at her wrist, her arm, telling her to get up, please, try. He barely recognized his own voice. To the east, dawn smeared a cold white line along the hillcrests. A raven soared overhead, black against blue, tilting wing to wing in the tumbling wind. In the distance, a lone mule grazed in the scrub.

  —You have to get up. We’re almost there.

  She said nothing, struggling to find some purchase, gathering strength, pulling herself to her knees. Hooking her good arm around his shoulder, he hoisted her the rest of the way up but her eyes rolled back, her knees buckled. He nearly fell, dragged to the ground after her, but he redoubled his hold and pulled her upward, leaning her body against his.—Let’s sing, he said, something we both know. The way you sang for the bikers, you were so beautiful, so brave. You’re my hero, know that? You’re so much stronger than me. Come on. We’ll sing.

  In a tuneless whisper he flailed at the melody—“Sin Ti,” what else?—butchering the lyrics. By the time he realized a dog was barking he’d been registering the sound in the back of his mind for a minute or longer—like the wind, the cold, and yet a haunting reminder too of his dreams—twilight, the stickiness of blood, the barren plain. Something precious he’d have to fight to keep. He redoubled his focus on the old sad song, on her dragging steps, her sliding weight. He could see it now in the dawn light, a sprawling ranch-style house. The dog was lurching at the end of a chain, frothing as it barked. He opened his shirt in order to get to the gun. The one last thing in his dream not yet revealed: a gun blast. But he didn’t want to shoot the dog, wanted no harm to anyone or anything now. He wanted only to stop, rest, have someone look at Lupe’s shoulder, clean and dress the wound. And after? That was impossible to picture.

  “¡Alto! Tengo una escopeta. Esta es propiedad privada.”

  Roque glanced up. For the first time he saw the tall lean silhouette marching forward. A man. His voice had mileage on it but his Spanish was wooden and nasal. He held a weapon—una escopeta. A shotgun. No, Roque thought, please, trying with all his might to pick up his pace. If the man can just see us up close he’ll understand.

  “I said stop! Alto, damn it. Won’t say it again. Next thing I do is shoot.”

  Roque remembered the first time he saw her, sitting in the corner of Lonely’s makeshift recording studio, her face bruised, her eyes fierce and untrusting. He remembered hearing her voice that day, the throaty heartbreak in it, the way it awakened something tragic and gentle and wise inside him. We’ve come too far, he thought. Not even God is that cruel.

  The tall rangy man with the shotgun charged forward. He shouldered the weapon.

  Summoning the words from a place inside him, a place he couldn’t be sure existed even a few hours ago, Roque called out: “Don’t shoot! Help us … please … I’m an American …”

  He felt the full force of her weight against him as she lost consciousness. He buckled sideways with her fall, then the shotgun blast.

  BUNKERED IN HIS KITCHEN, STARING OUT THE SMALL CURTAINED window above the sink, the rancher watched the two figures milling about the drag line just beyond his property. One of the two was suited up in Border Patrol tan, the other wore a blue raid jacket over street clothes, the back emblazoned with large white letters he couldn’t read from this distance. An SUV with that distinctive rack of lights on top stood off by the side.

  They were inspecting the ground, looking for tracks. The skills of the local cutters were legend, the number of ants on a candy wrapper like a clock, telling how long since the litterbug blundered through. So the stories went, anyway. The rancher had no reason to doubt them. He dragged a calloused palm across his stubble. The tracks would lead straight this direction, blood trails too, the questions would start. Questions he wanted no part of.

  He turned from the window, wondering at the things that trip you up, unraveling the promise of life right before your eyes, testing you. Audrey, he thought, there had always been Audrey or it felt like always and all he’d ever wanted was to make sure she was safe. You can’t make another person happy, that’s their affair to manage, but with luck, yes, their safety you might manage. But, God bless her, she had been happy. He felt humbled by that.

  He wasn’t one to put stock in fairness but there was a point beyond which the unfairness seemed nothing short of vicious.

  He tried a mental tally, good versus bad, a lifetime’s worth, but the exercise felt pointless—how does one weigh the good against death? As for testing his mettle, his spine, his spirit, it was years since any of that mattered. I’m an old man, he thought. He would have been grateful—insane, down-on-his-knees grateful—for yeah, sure, just a touch of dumb luck.

  Following the murmur of voices down the hall, he stopped in the door to the guest room. The girl lay on the bed, fluttering in and out of bad sleep. Audrey sat beside her, holding her hand, talking to Doc Emerick. The boy sat in the corner, his right hand bandaged, looking at the girl like every breath was a signal. An empty jar of peanut butter sat between his feet, a spoon inside; he’d plowed through the stuff like a swarm of termites through damp pine.

  The rancher had fired his first round into the air, to let them know he was serious, but the girl had already gone down. The boy dropped to his knees, first to see to the girl, then to plead at the top of his lungs for their lives. His English lacked accent, though he was clearly Hispanic. Audrey, hearing the boy, said, “Good God, Lyndell, help them.”

  “Get back inside, damn it. He’s armed.”

  “Tell him to toss the gun off someplace.”

  He eased forward, shotgun trained on the boy. “Toss off that gun,” mimicking her words, too scared to think up another way to say it.

  The boy looked down at his midriff like he was angry the thing was there, then plucked the gun from under his belt and heaved it into the scrub. “She’s been shot,” he said, his voice hoarse and dry, a bobcat hiss. “Her shoulder.”

  He helped the boy bring her inside, figuring they’d call the Border Patrol and have them handle it, but Audrey would have none of that. She sensed something between the two of them—she was uncanny that way, more so since the sickness—and she refused to let him call the law before she had some idea if she was right. But they couldn’t wait caring for the girl, so she’d called Doc Emerick and he’d come straightaway, thinking the emergency had to do with her, Audrey, not some stranger. He’d even brought the morphine drip he’d promised, the final morbid tool, thinking that was the reason for her call.

  She’d pulled him aside when he first saw the girl. “I know what you’re gonna say, John Emerick. I know you’ve got obligations under the law. But there are other laws. You’ve known me over thirty years. Don’t make me die with this girl on my conscience. I can handle the cancer, I can handle the chemo and the endless string of bad news, handle all of it. I can’t handle turning that girl back to whatever it was that drove her so hard, so far.”

  And so the doctor sutured the girl’s wound, shot her full of antibiotics, hydrated her with fluids. While he did, the boy murmured the tale of all he and the girl had been through. And if Lyndell hadn’t spent his life married to a woman like Audrey he might’ve said: Well, that’s unfortunate and all but too bad, sorry, law’s the law, straighten it out where you came from. Except the boy came from here and the girl’s going back was a death sentence. He could no more load that onto Audrey’s conscience than the doc could.

  Audrey glanced up at him from her chair, still gripping the girl’s hand. “Lyndell, this young man
is gonna call his aunt. She lives up near Frisco and she’s gonna come down in her car. Too risky, them taking the bus. And I doubt this girl could make that kind of trip anyhow. Show Roque, that’s his name, show him where he can use the phone, would you?”

  The boy glanced up with foxlike eyes. Lyndell nodded for him to get up and come along. He figured the phone in the kitchen would do. He led the boy back, pointed to the wall mount.

  The boy said, “I want to make this up to you.” Lyndell raised his hand, trying to cut the boy off, but, “We wouldn’t have made it this far if people we met along the way hadn’t been kind here and there. None more so than you.”

  Lyndell made a show of clearing his throat, thinking the boy had the presence of somebody twice his age. “Sounds of it, you met plenty of unkind too.”

  The boy seemed to drift away for a second. “Just more reason to be grateful. I want you to know, I don’t take this for granted. I’ll find some way to repay you.”

  Flustered, Lyndell went to the sink for a glass of water he lacked any thirst for. Looking out across the scrub, he saw the two men out by the Border Patrol SUV, Rooster barking at them, chain rattling as he darted back and forth. The two men were pointing along a line that led straight to the back porch. Lyndell felt his pulse jump. “You might want to hurry up with that call,” he said.

  LATTIMORE LISTENED TO THE SIGNCUTTER, WHOSE NAME WAS IRETON, extol his expertise. “We’ve seen this thing we call foamers? Guys tie squares of foam to their feet, thinking it won’t leave tracks. Idiots—you have weight, you’ll leave an imprint, and if it’s not windblown or caved in, it’s recent. Like these. Even in the desert, there’s moisture, that’s what holds the form. No sign of tracks crossing them, a centipede, a snake. That means they’re recent. This set—I’d say it’s a girl, or a woman, given the size of the shoe—the drag in the left foot and the heavy implant of the right, all that tells me she’s hurt. And the steps so close together, the bigger one’s holding up the hurt one. They’ve kicked up rocks, you can see where they used to be, the sand’s paler. Sun bakes the hardpan so it’s almost like a varnish.”