But then she studied the giant’s face, seeing how empty and tired he looked, and decided no, he would not hurt her. Not now, at least. So the girl added, “If you think you have to chain me, I won’t fight you. If it will allow you to sleep for a little while, I think it’s what you should do. I won’t mind.”
The Maiden had been imprisoned in chains, and Tula felt an unexpected thrill at the thought of sharing the experience. It was exciting, the prospect of being locked up alone, but safe with God and Jehanne in her head, while the giant slept nearby.
But the man disappointed her by saying, “If you promise to shut your mouth for a little bit, I don’t care what you do. Run off and get eaten by panthers, that’s your decision. Just stop your damn talking for a while. My ears are starting to hurt.”
Four hours later, when Squires exited the trailer wearing slacks and a polo shirt instead of shorts and flip-flops, his hair wet and slicked back, Tula tried to compliment him by saying, “You look very nice. Blue is a nice color, it shows your eyes. When you were sleeping, you looked so peaceful, I hated to wake you. But it’s getting late.”
The girl was nervous because Squires was carrying the iPhone she had used an hour ago to type a quick message to her patron, Tomlinson, while the giant slept. She had done it just to let him know that she was safe and not in trouble. It was the first text Tula had ever attempted and she had hit the sEND button accidentally before she was done.
Would the big man notice?
Tula watched Squires glance at the phone, then held her breath as he looked at it more closely.
“That’s weird,” he said, swiping his fingers over the screen. “Usually, I don’t get service out here at the camp, but it looks like someone called. No message, though-probably because of the shitty reception.”
Tula relaxed a little when the man swore again softly, adding, “It was Frankie, I bet. I bet she is one pissed-off chick. If I’m lucky, I won’t never see her again.”
As they approached the truck, the redheaded woman with muscles was still on Squires’s mind because he asked the girl, sounding serious, “Tell me something. At Red Citrus, you ever talk to Frankie? Did she ever try to get you off alone?”
“I saw her at the trailer park twice,” Tula said. “I had a bad feeling about her, though. So I stayed away from her.”
Squires was interested. “A bad feeling? What do you mean by that?”
“A feeling that there is something dark in the woman’s brain. That’s the only way I can explain it. She scared me. I’m glad you don’t want to see that woman again. I think she is a bad influence for you. And she’s too old, anyway. A man who looks like Hercules could choose any woman in the world. You should marry a nice woman. A young girl who cares about you and can cook you food.”
Realizing how that sounded, Tula threw her hand over her mouth, embarrassed.
But Squires didn’t appear to notice. Sounding like it was hard for him to believe, the man said, “That surprises me. Frankie never said even a single word to you?”
“Her eyes watched me when she saw me,” the girl replied. “I could tell she wanted to speak with me, but I didn’t give her the chance. Her eyes are very blue. I felt like she was trying to see through my clothing. And that there might be something bad inside her. Maybe evil, I’m not sure. So I stayed away.
The man appeared satisfied, maybe even relieved. “Good,” he said. “That was real smart of you. Never ever let that bitch get you alone.”
Squires grunted as Tula, getting into the truck, tried to buoy his spirits by saying, “There’s no need to worry about the redheaded woman now. The Maiden is my protector. Now she is your protector, too.”
“Sure, yeah, right,” the man replied. “Whatever you say, sis. But if you really want to impress me, try shutting that mouth of yours for a while.”
“You’ll see,” Tula insisted. “Jehanne is right about the churches tonight. We will find people there who can help us. And that woman-Frankie? Even if she is evil, you and I have nothing to fear.”
By the time they’d spent a couple of hours in Immokalee, with its Circle Ks, tomato-packing warehouses and migrant housing, Squires had stopped trying to figure out how the weird little Jesus freak had gotten so famous among all these Mexicans who came out of the woodwork to see the girl, once word got around that she was in town.
Squires knew that the chilies back at Red Citrus had built some kind of voodoo-looking shrine to Tula. Why? He had no idea. But how did these Mexicans know about the girl way out here in cattle-and-tomato country, sixty miles from the Gulf beaches and his trailer park? Christ, Tula had been in Florida for only a week or so. Now here she was with strangers fawning over her like she was some kind of damn rock star.
Something else that surprised the man was that the Maiden-whoever the hell she was-was right about churches being open on a Wednesday. Not all, but a couple.
More likely, though, credit went to the strange little girl who heard voices but sat quietly, hands in her lap, during the twenty-mile drive from the hunting camp to this city linked to the outside world just by train tracks and a winding road.
The only time Tula had stirred was once when they passed a state trooper’s car going the other way. When the girl saw Squires’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel, she stroked his forearm and said, “If a policeman stops us, don’t worry, I’ll tell them you’re my friend. And that we’re looking for my mother. They’ll believe me. Know why? Because it’s the truth.”
Squires had tried to catch the news on the radio, hoping for an update on the dead woman they’d found. It was also in his mind that Tula could have been reported missing and that the cops might make the connection.
Hell, for all he knew, Frankie had blown the whistle on him herself, once she discovered that all their cash missing. Blame the dead girl’s body on him, that would be easy enough for Frankie to do-and maybe even try to prove it, the bitch was such a good liar.
But no luck with the radio-there were only FM stations out here in the boonies. So Squires decided, screw it, he would just go with the flow and stick with the girl. He couldn’t make himself kill his crazy little eyewitness, so maybe he was better off joining her. For now.
At the edge of the Everglades, the open highway became Main Street, with palm trees and gas stations, and lots of small brown people, some of them woman, wearing what looked like colorful blankets. And lots of scrawny, bowlegged Mexican men, too, wearing straw cowboy hats.
At a supermarket named Azteca Super Centro, Squires turned right past Raynor’s Seafood amp; Restaurant, then drove backstreets, zigzagging through a residential area, because that is what the girl told him to do.
The man had never been in a town so small with so many wetback churches. Iglesia Bautista Jesucristo. Pentecostal Church of God. Evangelica Redimidos por la Sangre de Jesus. Amigos en Cristo.
It was like being in a foreign country, the names were so strange . A lot of Spanish praying went down on this plateau of asphalt and lawns bleached brown by the Florida heat, the entire city opened wide to an Everglades sky above.
Not all of the churches were busy, but a couple were, with parking lots full-pickup trucks and rusting Toyotas-church doors open, with people inside singing hymns or shouting out wild words in Spanish.
Squires could hear all this, as they idled along in his truck, windows down. A few blocks later, they came to an adobe-colored brick building with a tin roof, Iglesia de Sangre de Cristo, and the girl told him to pull in. She’d start here.
“I’m staying in the truck,” Squires said, giving Tula a look that told her Don’t bother arguing. “But remember this: If you try running out on me, there’ll be hell to pay. That ain’t a profanity, it’s a promise.”
Tula stared at him a moment, the door open, her wounded expression asking the man When will you ever learn?