Borders of the Heart (10 page)

J. D. DROVE WITH THE WINDOWS DOWN,
pavement rushing underneath whining tires, running toward something. He stayed on the main road until he got to a perch where he could see Win’s place. A police car was still there. At Slocum’s farm it was worse because yellow crime tape surrounded the old schoolhouse and lights illuminated the squalor. It was a set trap, and the cheese was the money he had squirreled away. He doubted they would find it.

The longer he thought of Maria, the more it ate at him. He could just give up, toss up his hands and let her go, but he felt like he owed it to himself to investigate. Follow the trail. He drove the back road, a tractor path that took him close to the well, and parked in the moonlight by the wire fence. The engine chugged and rattled even after he turned it off, and he watched the dust dissipate around him and move like a cloud
toward the hill. It was about as remote as you could get on the planet. He’d been to Moab, Utah, and that had felt as lonely as he could stand. This was worse because except for some cows and Slocum’s family, few had ever walked the area.

He used Win’s flashlight to find the fence, avoiding the stickers and thick cholla. A low grunt stopped him in his tracks as a family of javelinas passed. The adults were huge, and when he shone the flashlight in their eyes, they scurried away. He located the water line and followed it toward the rocky overhang. Slocum had showed him the well when he first arrived. The man seemed skeptical he could actually hold his own on a horse, but it had come back to J. D. quickly—a lesson from his father that actually stuck, the way to feel one with the horse. Slocum’s black mare had been gentle and forgiving as his memory returned.

The well had been dug by Slocum’s grandfather and provided plenty of water for the livestock until it ran dry. Slocum’s father had run the water line a few years before he died, and it was a constant chore to keep the pipes flowing.

J. D. lost his way once, when his eyes stung with sweat and he couldn’t place the landscape. It was one thing to have the hot air moving through the truck, but out here the stillness and heat drenched him and he wondered how anybody ever stayed in a place like this. He’d heard September was the best month and that you could walk barefoot outside at Christmas, but anybody walking barefoot here in any season had to have their head examined.

He found the well. The boards on top had been tossed aside, along with the rock that held them down to protect some tipsy cow or coyote from falling in. The well was beat up on top, so he figured this was where she had gotten rid of the handcuff.
Those chains were thick and it would have taken a good deal of strength and a heavy rock to bust loose. Seeing this made his heart swell for her as he imagined what she’d been through. He glanced west at the way she had come with no flashlight and wearing a skirt and after whatever had happened with the driver who brought her across the border. He shook his head.

J. D. shone the light deep into the well’s belly and saw a satchel hung up on some tree branches. He couldn’t see all the way to the bottom, but he imagined snakes in the mix of glop and rocks. The bottom was probably fifty feet down. There was an old pulley, broken and hanging by a thread at the top of the well. Beside it on the ground was a rope, but until then he hadn’t thought a whit about how he would pull the satchel up. He leaned over the edge and stared, sweat dripping through the LED beams like it was raining. Then he sat by the well and turned off the light, just listening to the quietness and staring at the stars and the lights of the city in the distance and the hazy gray of the sky clutter. In town they couldn’t see what he saw. The vastness of the universe and twinkling galaxies beyond. All you had to do was look and there it was.

Maybe life was as simple as that. Just look up. Don’t ask questions. Don’t try to feel. Place yourself in the hands of whoever or whatever fashioned all of that. It was all predetermined. One death simply fertilized the ground for another man’s soybeans. One choice meant nothing in the span of eternity.

Or maybe the choice did matter. Maybe the choice was whether or not to love and, in doing so, trusting whatever hands you placed yourself in when there was no money-back guarantee. There was no guarantee of any kind as far as he could tell, except that your heart was going to break and spill out in the end. All the things he could have done, all the things he
forgot to do, all the things he didn’t do pressed down on his chest until he had to stand to breathe again.

He picked up the rope and snaked it down the well. It was close to reaching but not close enough. Would the ratty thing even hold the weight of the satchel? He walked to the truck and rummaged in the back until he found a toolbox and inside what looked like a pick with a small handle. It was sharp and curved on the end; what Win had used it for he couldn’t imagine. He also found a bungee cord that looked long enough to reach, and he returned to the well, tied the tool and the cord to the end of the rope, and let it down.

It took him twenty minutes to determine the bungee cord wasn’t working. The satchel had landed on its top amid the branches, and every time he got the hook in the side of the satchel to turn it, it came loose. He pulled the rope up, untied the bungee cord, and thought for a minute. Then he pulled off his boots and slipped off his jeans, tying them to the rope and running the sharp end of the pick through a thick patch near his cuff, and let the whole thing down. The first time he hooked the satchel with the pick, it moved and he let out a yelp. But instead of pulling it up, he nearly dropped it to the bottom. Carefully he swung the rope with one hand and held the flashlight with the other and tried to focus on that pinpoint where the handle and hook would meet. After several tries and sweat drops cascading, he had the satchel near the top of the well. He grabbed the handle and pulled it over the edge as if he had landed a prize bass at a fishing contest. He sat in the dust and cradled what felt more like a suitcase. It had a good weight to it.

He fiddled with the lock but knew the combination would take him years to figure, so he took the sharp end of the hook
and began to pry, cursing and banging when it wouldn’t budge. He even tried making a hole in the leather, but that was futile.

He left his jeans and stepped into his boots to take the case back to the truck, where he found a hacksaw blade and a handle. Careful not to break the blade, he sawed the lock.

Just as the pin snapped, headlights shone on the path behind him in the valley and his stomach fell. He was okay being caught. It would be a relief in a way. But how was he going to explain how he had found a suitcase full of money, if that’s what it was? Or drugs? He pulled back the latch quickly and opened the case. Pieces of a gun and a scope. A really expensive gun. Shiny, like it had never been used. No cash. No drugs. Just the gun and several shells that looked big enough to bring down a rhino at full gallop. What in the world had he gotten himself into?

He threw the case in the truck and started it, keeping the lights off and pulling farther up the hill around the rock outcropping leading to a butte at the end of the property. The tractor trail wound another half mile through the back country toward the Mexican border. He got out and watched the scene from the outcropping. Just him in his boxers and boots, a sorry sight. In the distance he heard the lowing of cattle but he couldn’t see them. He wished he’d had the presence of mind to untie his pants and put them on, but he hadn’t planned on visitors.

The car below parked near where he had, close to the fence, and in the darkness he saw two figures step out and head toward the well with something glowing. The first one held the light in front of him and the next one followed as they walked toward the well. Straight to it, like drawn by a magnet. Maybe they were police with night vision goggles.

The two made it to the well and shone their light inside. The car didn’t look like a cruiser—he could tell that. It also didn’t appear to be Border Patrol. They would have dogs with them.

“Who are these guys?” he whispered. “Whoever you are, leave my pants and wallet alone.”

One of the men went back to the car and zigzagged through the mesquite and cactus to the well. Perfectly silent, J. D. heard them speaking Spanish, but it was nothing he could make out. Something flashed and flames flickered beside the well, and they dropped the burning thing inside. Fire in the desert was not good this time of year.

In the silhouette of the flames the two men hovered over the scene. Then a click and automatic gunfire echoed through the valley as one of the men fired into the hole. What he was shooting at, J. D. couldn’t tell, but he instinctively ducked and kept his face in the dust.

The two walked back to the car, turned around as best they could in the ruts and humps of the path, and rolled away, dust floating toward the night sky.

J. D. watched them drive out of sight and watched some more, thinking he might see the police meet them. He checked his watch. It was a long time to sunup and he had a choice. Several of them. Instead of mapping out his whole life from that point, he decided to take the next step, which was to get his pants.

He drove down the arroyo and searched in the dirt for his jeans. When he looked in the well, he saw the charred mass still smoldering. Great. His wallet was gone and with it his credit cards and the little cash he had. At least he had gas in the Suburban. The ring was gone too, and he felt a pang of remorse.
Something about the ring had made him feel like a little part of Maria was still with him.

He pulled the rope up but the end of it had burned through. As he dropped it on the ground, he stepped on something and shone the light down to see a round object with a hole in it. The ring had either fallen out when he took off his pants or the men had found it and tossed it away. He was going to shove it in his pocket but realized he had none, so he wedged it on his little finger but it would only go to the knuckle. He held the flashlight over the well to see what they had shot at but smoke and branches blocked the view.

He started the Suburban and checked the gas gauge. Something told him to drive straight toward any police car he could find. Men with automatic weapons weren’t to be trifled with. He had no ID, no cash, no credit cards, no pants, and more importantly, no hope.

He put a hand on the steering wheel and stared at the ring. No, he couldn’t leave her. He couldn’t live with the questions. He couldn’t live with giving up again.

He had no idea how he would find her, but he had to try. Before others did.

THE CLOCK SHOWED
just after midnight when Muerte awoke to the ringing phone.

“We located her,” the man on the other end said.

He couldn’t remember the man’s name.
Think.
Pablo. Yes, that was it. “Where, Pablo?”

“We followed the tracking device to an abandoned well in the desert.”

“Is she dead?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have her head?”

Hesitation. And as soon as he heard it, he knew she was alive.

“We couldn’t see to the bottom of the well, but we sprayed it with more bullets than you can imagine. She could not have survived.”

“Did you see her body?”

“No, we could not. It was too deep. But we think someone must have disposed of her there. At any rate, she is dead.”

“What about the satchel?” Muerte said.

“It was not there. However, we did find a man’s wallet.”

When he heard the name, he turned on a light and located the truck registration. John David Jessup.

“Excellent,” Muerte said. “Bring me the wallet.”

“Where would you like us to bring it?”

He told them, then tossed the phone on the bed and opened his computer. He typed in the man’s name and came up with an electrical contractor, a Facebook listing, a dental office in Rhode Island, and a musician. He typed in the name and
Arizona
and came up with the musician, a man in Mesa who sold sports memorabilia, and an attorney whose name wasn’t even close.

He clicked the musician and followed a link to a Nashville newspaper article about the rise of J. D. Jessup. There was a picture of the man, along with his wife. Muerte could tell he was trying to look like the rugged outdoor type but that it was a sham. He had probably spent his early years inside, practicing piano and obeying his mother. Another photo showed the wife in a hospital gown, sitting in a wheelchair trying to smile, her face wan and thin.

Muerte noted the date of the article, a year and a half old, and looked hard at the man. Could he be helping Maria? And how much could he know about her? Had she conspired with him before she came into the country?

Muerte paced the room, thinking, planning. He picked up the phone and dialed another number, then hung up when the voice mail message sounded. Almost immediately the phone rang.

“I have something urgent I need you to research.” He gave the woman Jessup’s name and what he knew. “I want to know
everything about him. Why is he in Arizona? Where does he live? What kind of soda does he drink? And as soon as the sun rises, contact our friend with the Zetas in town. I need their help in another matter.”

The woman had sounded groggy, but when he mentioned the Zetas, she snapped awake. “Is everything going as planned?”

“Not quite. Maria escaped. She had the weapon.”

The woman cursed.

“I am offering one million dollars, US currency, for the person who locates her and can bring her to me. Spread that word to the Zetas and beyond.”

“One million?”

“Yes. One million if she is found alive. Or one million if her body is brought to me. I also must locate the package she was carrying. It’s imperative that I find it quickly.”

The woman typed furiously, sounding nervous as they talked, as if she would be the next person with a bounty on her head. She wasn’t far off in that estimation, though Muerte tried to calm her.

When he hung up, he felt satisfied, accomplished. It wasn’t pleasant to admit the girl had slipped through his fingers, but it was the truth. He would call Sanchez as soon as the sun was up. He would say that Maria had run into the desert and was hiding. It was only a question of who would find her first. He would again promise his absolute allegiance to the family and assure the man his daughter would return. Only Muerte knew her body would be in a different condition than when she left her father’s house.

Before he went back to bed, he used the phone app that tracked the girl and saw it was static as the two had said. In the desert. If it changed, he would see it when he awakened.