Borders of the Heart (5 page)

J. D. HURRIED OUTSIDE
and Win followed. Maria turned right out of the driveway and a plume of dust billowed behind her on the road. Which way she would turn when she got to the hard road was anybody’s guess.

“I left the keys in there,” J. D. said. “But she won’t get far. Truck’s almost out of gas. I’ll give her to Main Street in La Pena before it runs out.”

“I’ll call the police and report the vehicle stolen,” Win said.

“No, don’t do that. She’s liable to meet them on the way in, anyhow. Can I borrow your car?”

“Use the Suburban. Keys are in it.”

The Suburban door creaked open and J. D. stepped in, then looked over his shoulder through the open window. “Tell Iliana to save some meat. I’ll be back as soon as I round up my truck.”

“Be careful, J. D. Remember, don’t become a victim.”

Win stood in front of his farmhouse like a sentinel and J. D. felt a twinge in his gut. That was a picture of an easy friendship in the rearview mirror. Despite J. D.’s silence, the man and his wife had taken him into their lives like he was a lost son come back from a forgotten war. And they still had no idea what he’d done or been through. Or maybe they did. Maybe something inside had drawn them to the rough road he was traveling.

The Suburban coughed and sputtered to life and a voice came over the stereo. Some preacher on an AM station talking about trials and the love of God. The book of Job. J. D. was halfway down the driveway before he found the Power button.

The steering was loose, as were the shocks, so the vehicle bounced and shimmied down the driveway like a ride at the county fair. He gunned the engine when he made the turn onto the road and cut it hard but still nearly ran into the ditch on the other side.

He didn’t pass any cars on the dirt road, and when he got to the blacktop, he worried again if she would’ve headed to town or gone south. The southern route led to a lake and a campground, basically a dead end, but she had no way of knowing that. There would be no dust to track her and once he committed, he was stuck with the decision.

He turned left and raced toward the lake, knowing that just over the ridge was a wide-open area where you could see for a mile. He came up over the ridge, his heart sinking when all he saw were a few longhorns in the distance and the rolling desert with the wires running beside the road.

He did a three-point turn and nearly hit a javelina scurrying from the brush to cross the road. Maria was getting farther away every second, but he also knew there was a finite amount of gas in the truck. She had no money, so he would find her eventu
ally. But he didn’t know if he could convince her to talk with the police. If he dragged her back to Win’s place, she might head out on foot. A girl like that might cross the Sahara in flip-flops.

He punched the gas but swerved as something flew through the air toward the truck. A bird in flight had hit a power line, and it tumbled to the ground, wings spread, toppling end over end until it collided with the hot pavement. Feathers flew. It was like his life. Flying along unaware of hidden dangers, things growing in the dark he couldn’t see. He’d thought of writing a song about God watching sparrows fall but not giving a hoot about humanity. He would probably never put it to paper.

He passed the dirt road he had turned from and continued down a winding hill, past a farm with a sign that said
Fresh Eggs for Sale
. Most people here lived on farms, but several developments had begun and were then abandoned when the housing market collapsed. Clumps of two and three homes and then plastic PVC pipe sticking out of the ground with the phone lines already buried but nobody to talk.

Fences lined the roads and he hit a cattle guard. He passed a winery and a little white church—convenient for the Communion tray, he supposed—then a clearing opened up and the road meandered down and up another hill in a V. At the bottom of the hill, off to the side of the road, was his truck.

“Bingo,” he said softly. He felt a lightness, something like the relief of finding a wandering puppy just as coyotes began howling.

He couldn’t tell if Maria was still in the truck, but she wasn’t in the pasture by the road. He barreled down the hill, his front wheels bald and wobbling, and noticed another vehicle topping the ridge ahead and speeding toward the bottom. It only took
a second to recognize the maroon Escalade and that the other side of the V was a lot shorter.

He cursed and mashed the accelerator. The Suburban picked up speed, bobbing and weaving down the undulating roadway, but the Escalade beat him. The driver’s door opened and a dark-skinned man with closely cropped hair got out and moved toward the truck. Now he saw movement inside. Maria was trying frantically to move to the passenger side, as if the distance would protect her.

The gun came up and the man braced himself as he sprayed bullets. Glass shattered and exploded. Maria had to have been hit.

In that split second, acting on something from the gut, J. D. made his decision. Whether it was a protective instinct to help the innocent or levels of grief and revenge that rolled like waves, he did not know or care. He simply gritted his teeth, kept his foot on the accelerator, and bore down on the man.

The gunman looked up, then jumped toward the Escalade. J. D. slammed into the open door of the vehicle. A sickening crunch of the door and then a thud as the man caromed off the hood of the Suburban and went airborne. J. D. slammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt in the middle of the double yellow, but he had already gone fifty yards.

He ran back, heart pounding, trying to breathe. The man lay a good twenty yards behind the Escalade at the edge of the road, his head twisted to the side, blood gushing from glass wounds to his face. J. D. picked up the gun on the other side of the road and ran to the truck.

He found Maria hunkered on the passenger-side floor, wedged between the glove compartment and the seat, looking up at him with tears streaming.

He reached out a hand to help her. “You all right?”

She nodded. Somehow the bullets had missed. Maybe an angel had protected her. Maybe the guy was a bad shot.

J. D. put the gun on the passenger seat and ran to the man lying on the road. He hadn’t moved and his eyes were open and staring into the sun. J. D. put a hand to the man’s neck. No pulse.

Footsteps behind him. Maria holding the gun. She looked down with hatred and lifted the barrel.

“He’s dead. He’s not going to bother you.”

She said something in Spanish he didn’t understand, but he didn’t really need a translation.

“We need to go,” she said.

He stood. “Maria, this is the guy. The police have their man. You don’t have to worry. They’ll match the bullets from that gun, don’t you see? Wait here and we’ll explain what happened.”

“Stay if you want.” She slung the gun over her shoulder like it wasn’t the first time she’d done it and headed for the Suburban.

He glanced back at the Escalade. The tinted window had shattered and the computer lay on the floor, still on.

“Maria, they’ll protect you.”

She stopped. “No, they won’t. They can’t. I told you he would be back. And Muerte is coming. Stay here if you like. I don’t need your help now.”

“You don’t need my help? You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me!”

“Then I say thank you. From the heart.”

She tossed the gun in the Suburban and got in. J. D. looked at the dead man, at the glass, the door smashed and barely hanging on the Escalade, the violence that made no earthly sense at all. Two men had died in the space of a couple of hours and he had been part of it. If he went with her, he’d be a desperado.
Stealing a friend’s truck to go . . . where? Where did you hide from such things?

But staying with the body felt like giving up. Waiting for the police to question him was waving a flag he didn’t even know he had. And he knew what he decided next would likely change the course of his life and maybe hers. Or had he changed course that morning when he brought her in from the desert?

Maybe his course had been set as soon as he came to Arizona.

Or perhaps this decision had been made for him months ago when he tossed dirt on the casket and walked away from life. Maybe all of this was just fate turning the doorknob.

Maria closed the door, and the Suburban coughed and sputtered and coughed again, the starter struggling to fire the points and plugs. And it was then that it hit him full force. He wasn’t throwing anything away because there was nothing left. What was Slocum going to do, fire him? He only worked for the food and knowledge of how to farm. He had no real ties here, just acquaintances at the farmers’ market. And the Slocum kids. Though he had been distant and gruff, they were attracted to him and the feeling was mutual. Win and Iliana too.

He walked slowly up to the vehicle and saw her watching him in the side mirror.

He opened the door. “Scoot over. I’m driving.”

AS HE DROVE INTO THE COUNTRYSIDE,
Muerte tried to focus on the computer screen, but the road became unpredictable. Full of curves and turns. He tried to zoom in on the signal but hit the wrong button and cursed as it expanded.

He was trying to get from a view of the entire US back to this area of Arizona when he pulled up behind an older car with a female driver, slow as frozen molasses. She sat so low that all he could see above the seat was her hair. She was a turtle with a Lincoln Town Car. A small dog stood on her backseat, sniffing at the air, its tongue hanging out on the right side. Twin troubles of heat and genetics were working against the dog.

The road was coursed with solid yellow lines because of the unnerving blind curves. Muerte let off the accelerator and switched to his phone app, looking up to make sure the old
woman hadn’t slowed more. The girl was close. She was somewhere ahead on this route.

He pulled out to pass, and at that moment an SUV barreled up a hill toward him and he swerved back, just missing the vehicle. The computer clattered to the floor and he cursed again. His heart pounded and he caught the old woman shaking her head in front of him, her silver hair matted like a snowy cap. The speed limit here was fifty, but the curve they were coming up on had yellow signs that said thirty-five and her brake lights flashed. He pulled past her in the curve, glancing at her as he went by. She was talking to herself, or maybe to him, and it was all he could do to resist pulling the gun and taking her life. It would have been so easy. Like shooting a crow sitting by carrion.

He came up over a ridge where it looked like he could see all the way to the Mexican border. The world spread out from here and the view made him wish he had taken care of the girl long ago. She could have had an “accident” on the farm and he wouldn’t be going through this trouble. In the distance he spotted two vehicles—one on the right, one on the left. He recognized the maroon Escalade and pulled up behind a body. Miguel lay dead beside the road.

He expanded the view of the tracking device on his phone. The girl was traveling behind him now on the same road. She had passed him. Muerte closed his eyes and struggled to remember the make and model of the SUV. It was his gift. An ability to recall fragments of details from flashes. The surprised looks of those who had no idea this was the way they would die. Dead men with gold fillings. He could remember which molar in some instances. There was no license number, just a flash of color—a two-tone tan. The word
Suburban
and the face of a
man driving. Facial hair. A mustache and beard. Or perhaps it was just growth and not a full beard. Caucasian. A cowboy hat. She had gained help on her journey.

Something squeaked behind him, metal on metal. The old woman, braking. The car took a painfully long time to stop, the brakes like fingernails on a blackboard. Muerte stood over the body and stared at her, willing her to keep going. When she didn’t, he motioned for her to move, and the dog jumped at the back window with its head at an angle, whiteness covering the left eye with a cloudy film. Its tongue slapped the window and a cascade of saliva ran down the glass.

The woman hit the Power button for the passenger window and the glass inched down. She spoke over the barking. “Is that fellow dead?”

Muerte gripped the pistol behind him and leaned down. His stare should have been enough to move her, but she seemed confused. Ancient hands gripped the wheel. Her skin was opaque and wrinkled, and fat hung from the undersides of her arms.

“If you know what’s good for you, ma’am, you’ll keep driving.”

“Is that a threat, mister?” She scanned the scene. “What happened here?”

She studied Muerte and then rose up a little to see the body. Muerte took a breath and counted to three, glancing at the road, giving her time to move. When she didn’t budge, he brought out the gun.

“I don’t know what’s happening to this country,” she said. She stepped on the accelerator and crawled between the cars, talking as she drove, the window still down.

Muerte nudged Miguel with his foot but he could tell the stare of death. He took the man’s wallet, retrieved the laptop from the damaged car, and moved to the truck. The passenger
door was still open. He pulled out the registration under the name John David Jessup and shoved it in his pocket. He thought about dragging Miguel’s body into the Escalade and torching the car but decided it would take too much time, and there was no telling when someone else would come upon the scene. Besides, by the time the authorities figured out what had happened here, the girl would be dead and the country in shock. It would take a long time to make the connection between this road mishap and what he had planned. Maybe they never would.

The image on the screen moved toward the city, so he swung the car around and drove away quickly. Another two miles down the road, he passed a police car heading the opposite direction, its lights off. He slowed his breathing and checked his speed. He couldn’t let paranoia overcome him. He was simply another car on the highway. A hunter, in control.

He would wait until the girl and her friend stopped, wait until they landed, like flies, and then he would strike. Hard. Catch them unaware, finish the chapter, and move to the next.