He pointed along the drag, the track of brushed desert sand the Border Patrol created exactly for this purpose, to see where walkers had crossed, leaving their distinctive trails. These two—and only two, he thought, one a girl, not knowing what to make of that yet—they hadn’t bothered with a brushout, dragging a tree branch behind to wipe out their tracks. Like Ireton said, at least one of them, the girl, was barely standing. Even a city boy like Lattimore could see that.
“You say you got a tip about these two?”
“Indeed.” Ireton flipped another stone over, checked the coloration of the earth beneath. “A call, plus they set off some sensors nearer the foothills. Wasn’t the spot we were expecting, given the tip, which just goes to show you.”
Lattimore waited for more, a little tutorial on the unreliability of informants. It didn’t come. “The call, who was it from?”
Ireton looked up from the ground, a trained eye, trained on Lattimore. “Somebody on the other side. No name. Probably some pandillero, felt like he was screwed out of his money.”
Lattimore pointed along the tortured line the tracks formed, aiming toward the lone house half a mile off. There were traces of blood along the way. “So I guess we ask the folks up there if anybody stumbled through.”
Ireton shook his head. “You can bet they stopped. Like I said, the one that’s hurt, she’s hurt bad. If they made it all the way to the house, good for them. Any farther? I’d be amazed.”
Lattimore nodded obligingly but the charade was wearing thin. Anonymous call my ass, he thought, rising from his crouch, dusting off his hands. “Let’s go pay a visit,” he said.
THE DOCTOR WASN’T GONE TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE TWO LAWMEN showed up on the front step. Lyndell closed the door to the guest room and told them all to stay quiet, he’d deal with this.
The one in city clothes was taller and older than the one in uniform. They both had that sad sort of gotcha in their eyes, like they were so damn sorry they had to ruin things.
“Mr. Desmond? I’m Donny Ireton with the Douglas Station, Border Patrol? This here’s Special Agent Jim Lattimore, FBI. We’re tracking a couple walkers, came over the mountains last night. One of them looks like she was pretty badly hurt. Think it’s a she, given the tracks, maybe a boy. They lead right up to your house here. I was wondering, anybody stop here this morning, asking for water or medicine or …”
The question hovered between them for a moment, like a dare.
“Only one here who needs medicine,” he said, “would be my wife. She’s got the cancer. Takes chemo twice a week, through this port they sewed into her shoulder? Not like it’s done any good. Just makes her sicker, you ask me. Hell of a thing.”
The two lawmen made a feeble show of sympathy. Ireton again: “You didn’t see anybody?”
“I’m kinda busy with other things.”
The city one, FBI agent, Lattimore, was studying Lyndell’s face.
“Things ain’t been easy here in a while,” he added, telling himself inwardly: Shut up. Surest sign of a liar, he talks too much.
Ireton said, “I gotta tell you, Mr. Desmond, it looks like they headed straight for your door. And weren’t in good enough shape to get much farther.”
“Like I said, I been preoccupied.”
Ireton tried to steal a glance inside the house. “Would you mind if I spoke to your wife?”
Lyndell rose up full height—the years hadn’t worn him down, not like some men his age. “What part of cancer did you not understand, young man?”
“Mr. Desmond?” It was Lattimore. “I can imagine what it must be like, having two strangers show up at your door at the crack of dawn, one hurt, both of them with God only knows what kind of story as to how they wound up here. Nobody wants trouble. I can understand your helping them out, seeing them on their way, not wanting to make any enemies among the people they may be involved with. But we can help you if you’re scared or—”
“I say I’m scared?”
“Not in words. Your eyes, though—”
“Lyndell, who is it?”
She came out of the guest room, stumbled down the hallway, using the wall as a brace. How could he chastise her? She wore only one sock, her robe wrapped tight. She gripped his shoulder hard, staring at the two visitors with empty eyes. “Is there something wrong?”
The two seemed shaken, put off their game. Ireton said, “We’re tracking two walkers who came over the mountain last night, Mrs. Desmond.”
She looked into her husband’s eyes with infinite regret. “Did you tell them?”
He swallowed. It felt like a child’s fist in his throat. “I did not.”
She glanced back at the strangers at her door. “These two young ones, a boy and a girl, they came by a little after dawn. The girl, she was cut up pretty bad. A wildcat got to her along the pass down the mountain, tore her arm up pretty good. The boy got bit by a tarantula. And he had a pistol. He asked for food and water and a ride to a pickup spot north of Sierra Vista. We’re pretty isolated out here. My husband, he fears for me. We couldn’t tell what might happen if we put up a fight. Most likely, it wouldn’t end too good. So we fed them, gave them a couple bottles of water, looked to their wounds best we could and then my husband here drove them to the spot they wanted. He can tell you better than me where that was.”
All eyes turned to Lyndell, none more pleading than hers. His mind froze up—say something, he thought, Christ say anything, it doesn’t matter, but his tongue was locked up. “I’m not sure I want to say,” he managed finally. “Like you said, the people these folks get tangled up with nowadays, I want no part of them.”
“No one needs to know you told us,” Ireton said.
“Funny how they always find out though, ain’t it.”
“They’re probably long gone by now, regardless,” Audrey said.
“I think we’d still like to know,” Ireton said.
It would be the only way to get rid of them, Lyndell realized. “You know the old Rogers place, about a mile beyond the Bisbee slag pond? There’s an outbuilding behind the house. That’s where I dropped them. About eight this morning, it was. I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t right. But you gotta understand what we’re dealing with here.”
He looked at them pleadingly, his need a truth embedded in his lies. Both men stared back, then Lattimore said, “We’re grateful for your time.”
Lyndell nodded and watched them turn away, sidle down the walk, then closed the door and said nothing to Audrey—he felt relieved but angry, the anger oddly stronger now that they were gone and that confused him—helping her back to the guest room. The girl was awake, looking weak but stable. The boy held her hand, his chair pulled up close beside the bed.
“I don’t think it would be wise for you two to stay here much longer,” he told the boy. “Call your aunt, tell her to get to Tucson as fast as she can, any way she can. We can put you up in a motel there until she arrives.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Roque said.
“It ain’t a favor,” Lyndell said.
THEY WAITED UNTIL THE BOY CALLED HIS AUNT AGAIN, MADE ARRANGEMENTS for her to come quick, then the girl tried some broth. It seemed to muster some color. She was strong in spirit, stubborn, you could see that in her eyes once she had her bearings, and she said it was not a problem, she would go whenever and however it was best. Audrey gave her a fresh shirt, something better for the cold than the things she’d brought along in her sad little bag. The boy helped her to her feet and she bit her lip but fixed her eyes on where she had to step and they made their way down the hall, a bump here, a stagger there, then through the kitchen to the garage.
“We’ll use the wagon, not the truck,” Lyndell said, and the boy helped her into the backseat, let her lie down, covered her with a Hudson blanket Lyndell brought from inside the house. “You go ahead and get yourself situated, I just want to check in on Audrey before we head out.”
She was already back in bed, inspecting the tall chrome car
riage holding her morphine, a curious look on her face, half grim, half tranquil. His heart sank. He knocked gently on the doorframe and it broke the spell. She glanced up.
“I guess we’re heading out.”
“Come here, please.”
He approached the bed and she opened her arms, he leaned down for what he thought would be a hug but she took his face in her hands, kissed him drily, tenderly on the lips. “I have loved you with all my heart, Lyndell, but never so much as today.”
It felt like she’d stabbed him with a knife. “You’re not gonna do something foolish.”
“Not foolish, no.”
“Audrey, please.”
“You do love me, don’t you, Lyndell.”
He was trembling all over. His voice left him, then came back, a whisper. “Good God, woman.”
She put her fingers to his lips. “Go do what you need to. You know I’d come with you if I could. I’ll be here when you get back, don’t fear that, all right?”
“Promise me.”
“Lyndell, one of these days and soon, too, you’re going to have to say—”
“No. Promise me.”
“I love you, Lyndell. You are the best man I have ever known.
That day, you remember? Easter Sunday, over at the Murrays’ place—my God, you were so damn good-looking. So humble, so shy, so rough. Luckiest day of my life.”
“Don’t talk like this.”
“I’ll talk as I please, mister. I’ve earned that much.”
“I can’t leave you here, not like this.”
“You have to leave me here. And yes, just like this. Now go.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise. Go.”
He didn’t dare search her eyes, fearing the lie he would find there. But she was stronger than him and he knew the only thing talk would accomplish would be the wasting of more time. He needed to spare her conscience. He needed to get those two kids somewhere far away.
“I’ll be back soon as I’m able.”
“You come back as soon as it’s right.”
He leaned down, kissed her again, lingered—she closed her eyes, the lids webbed with thin blue veins—then left hurriedly, not looking back. Out in the garage he pulled open the roll-up door and squinted against the light, then eased behind the wheel of the station wagon. “My brother-in-law runs this motel near the airfield in Tucson.” He cranked the ignition, tugged the gearshift into drive. “You’ll be safe there till your aunt comes.”
“TOLD YOU,” IRETON SAID, TAPPING HIS PEN AGAINST THE STEERING wheel. His other hand held the binoculars. “And it didn’t take long.”
They were hidden from view, parked on a rise, nestled in a shallow red-rock gulley scruffed with mesquite and cholla. Lattimore watched as the station wagon clipped past on the two-lane road below, heading north toward Tucson.
“Someone in the passenger seat too,” Ireton said, “not the wife. A man or boy. Plus a third person, lying down in back. Learn more when we pull them over.”
Lattimore tracked the path of the car, thinking: a boy. Most likely the kid brother, Roque. Somehow he’d survived, made it over. With a girl in tow.
They’d found Happy’s body yesterday outside Naco, sprawled below a scarp of rock, like somebody’d shot him out of the sky. The coyotes didn’t improve things. Lattimore had tried to keep a handle on himself, project a stern remove as the Mexican forensics crew waved off the flies, probing the corpse for its secrets, but he remembered the edgy young man who couldn’t get down even a mouthful of soup in the Vietnamese restaurant that rainy day. Probably the worst CI ever, he thought, which was a kind of testament, snitches being what they are. He thought as well of the woman, Élida—Lucha, her family called her, tough old bird, had to admire that. Just a few days ago, she’d had a family. Now, maybe, she had a nephew. And his fate was hardly enviable.
As for the girl, she was a singer, or so McIlvaine said, one last tip, surprisingly low-key. He seemed rankled by the ungodly spin the Mexicans were putting on Samir’s death—terrorist my ass, words to that effect—but like the bureau, he and the Banneret group, whoever the hell they were, saw no percentage in exposing the sideshow for what it was. Let it go, he told himself, walk away, everyone involved in this mess had an angle. The world as it is. The things you don’t know about what happened the past few weeks would no doubt fill a very fat book.
Exhibit A: Andy McIlvaine. He’d predictably gone cagey as to where or how he’d come across his info on the girl but she was some sort of tribute from the Salvadoran mareros to Don Pato, the gangster who ran this stretch of the Arizona line. Which meant Roque was a marked man. Killers are sentimental. They remember the gifts they’ve been promised, none more so than the ones that never show up.
There was just one last thing to take care of then. Lattimore wished he could find some way to feel better about it.
They’d done a net-worth analysis on all the agents out of the Douglas Station. Ireton’s ex-wife had inexplicably come into some very valuable property around Lake Havasu. Interesting thing about ex-wives, even the ones still friendly. Forced into a corner, they tended to talk.
Ireton put the binoculars down. “Let’s wrap this up.” He reached for the gearshift.
Lattimore, getting there first, lodged it in place. “Tell you the truth,” he said, “I’m a lot more interested in this call you got from across the border than I am in following that wagon.”
THEY RODE IN SILENCE, NOTHING BUT THE RUMBLE OF THE MOTOR AND the hum of the tires against the pavement, the crush of the desert wind. Lyndell’s eye traveled from the road to the speedometer to his mirrors, making sure he did nothing to encourage a restless cop hoping for a pull-over. Occasionally the boy, Roque, glanced over his shoulder at the girl and a couple times he reached out his hand, she took it, and they rode like that for a while, no words between them.
Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, Lyndell caught the boy’s expression and saw such devotion there, he felt humbled. His mother, his uncle, his cousin the badass, his brother the war hero—the boy had lost them all. And yet look at him. Maybe that was the key. Was there a way to know love, he wondered, before you understood death? So much of life seemed like a rush to get elsewhere. He felt small—only now, with Audrey so near the end, did he really get it. How much time did I waste, he wondered, because I thought there was a way out?
Out of nowhere, the boy said, “Your wife, she reminds me of my aunt.” He sat with that a second, studying the desert. “I owe her, my aunt I mean. Same way I owe you and your wife.”
Lyndell spotted a red-tailed hawk soaring low over the sunlit bluffs. A feeling like envy came over him: to be free like that, to fly. “Forget about owing us anything.”
“I won’t forget.” Again, he reached back for the girl’s hand. “I’m not just saying that.”
AT THE MOTEL IN TUCSON, LYNDELL SPOKE BRIEFLY WITH CHET, Audrey’s sister’s husband. The place was timeworn but clean, a pre-freeway relic used mostly now by families visiting someone at the air force base. Chet had inherited the motel from his mother’s people. He was a soft pale man with an ample face ruined by drink then reclaimed by Jesus. He’d already gotten a call from Audrey, knew the situation. “Don’t know what’s gotten into you two.” He said it in a whisper though no one was there to overhear, handing over the room key. “But if somebody’s gonna call the law, ain’t gonna be me. Too damn old to find new kin.”
“They won’t be trouble,” Lyndell said. “They’ll stay in the room till the aunt shows up, should be late tomorrow. I’d stick around myself, make sure it all goes okay, but I want to get back.” He had a hard time getting that last bit out. He breathed in deep, then added, “You know.”
Chet shook his head, his eyes a sorrow in themselves. “I can’t hardly imagine.”
“Yeah. Well.” Lyndell coughed into his fist. “The girl out there in the car, she’s not in too good shape, neither.”
“What if she needs doctoring?”
Lyndell shook his head. “She should be okay. If not, it’s not your problem, go ahead and call 911. Only so much you can do.”
Chet glanced up at the TV perched over the reception desk. “Roger that.”
Lyndell returned to the car, helped the boy get the girl up and out of the backseat, let them into their room. The door was pitted from years of windblown sand. Inside, the raw ammonia smell hung like a pall. The girl walked as though the pain was holding her up and plowed straight for the bed, collapsed onto the edge, then shamefacedly refused to lie down, sitting there, panting, eyes closed. Proud. The boy stood there, waiting for her to say something, tell him what she needed. Look at us, Lyndell thought, two men, a lifetime between us, both so damn helpless.
He stirred himself into motion. “Lie low till your aunt gets here,” he told Roque, turning on the bedside lamp, fussing the curtains closed. “You’ll get no trouble from Chet.” He found it hard to look at the girl, too much like looking at Audrey. “There’s a market just up the road, get yourself some food or drinks. But I’d stay inside as much as possible, I were you.” He stood there a moment, feeling weighed down, then: “I need to get back.”
The boy walked him out to the car. Lyndell had nothing more to say and hoped the boy didn’t, either. You don’t need to repay me damn it, he wanted to say, but why be rude?
Finally the boy cleared his throat and started in again on how he’d never forget their kindness, Lyndell only half listening. It felt like his whole insides were tangled up in nettles. A sixteen-wheeler rumbled past and screamed to a hissing stop at the traffic signal but the boy just raised his voice and kept on talking and despite a kind of weary grace what Lyndell saw in his eyes was fear. To love is to be afraid, he thought, then suddenly the boy was pumping his hand and he turned back and disappeared inside the room, at which point Lyndell found himself just standing there, his mind as blank as a wall of chalk.
Do They Know I'm Running? Page 42