22
Lee was back in Blythe four days later, another welcome break from the long hours in the fields, the dust choking him so he coughed up phlegm every night. Riding in the pickup beside Jake, he knew Jake’s pocket bulged with cash, money to buy a drilling rig, a pretty expensive proposition. Ramon Delgado had heard there were a few jerry-built rigs for sale and they were headed for the farm auction, ready to buy if Jake found what Ramon wanted. Looking out at the green fields and the harsh glare of the desert beyond, Lee thought about the information he’d already picked up on some of the local businesses, and what more he meant to accomplish today. He felt good, things were coming together. The way the plan was shaping up, he wouldn’t head for Mexico right away. He meant to lay a circuitous path that would put him back in the slammer for a short time before he moved on across the border. The degree of risk hinged on how dependable Mark Triple would be, in getting him out of Blythe when he needed to disappear. But the robbery itself was still nebulous, his mark still uncertain, andeven as he considered the possibilities, still the dark shadow whispered to him that this wasn’t the smart way. That whatever alternate plan he chose would surely fail and he’d be back behind bars for more years than Lee could count. The relentless prodding stirred in Lee a deep anger at the devil’s persistent invasion of his free will, he wished to hell Russell Dobbs had foundsome way, that half century ago, to keep from dragging his future descendants into his unholy bargain. Stubbornly Lee willed the shadow away, while beside him on the seat of the truck the cat rolled over, silently purring, his unseen smile heartened by his friend’s growing resolve. Lee, sensing Misto’s pleasure, hid a grin.
The truck rode like an edgy bronc, bucking through each dry wash, through the deep gullies that, though the sky might be clear overhead, could flood suddenly from a fast, heavy runoff pouring down from the far mountains. Sudden walls of frothing water boiling down faster than a horse could run, racing so hard across the desert and roads that it would roll a truck over and sweep it away. Lee, well aware of the danger, looked up toward the mountains where heavy clouds were gathering, where rain must surely fall soon. But Jake drove relaxed and unconcerned, listening to the softly tuned weather report on the radio.“If it starts to rain,” Jake said, “we’ll stay over in town, wait until the gullies dry up again.”
Lee nodded.“You think you’ll find the rig you want, that Delgado wants?”
Jake shrugged.“They’re all home-built jobs, but with luck we’ll find a good one. Ramon has planned this for a long time, drill some wells of his own, step out of the battle over water. The water table’s high all over Blythe.” Lee had always thought it strange that, even with water so close to the surface, the cotton and alfalfa and vegetable farms had to run irrigation canals from Blythe’s complicated aqueduct system.
“Water table so high,” Jake said, “that, come winter, the whole land will flood, destroy a man’s crops, wash away tons of good topsoil. But then in dry weather we still need the aqueducts—or wells,” he said, “to bring the water up.”
According to Jake, back in the twenties before the weir and aqueducts were built, Delgado was one of only a handful of men who dreamed of making the dry, barren desert produce any food crops at all. Most people said they were crazy, but the men had stuck with what they believed, and Lee had to admire that.
He looked at Jake, thinking about the complications of his job, envying what Jake had made of his life, his and Lucita’s lives. Lee knew he couldn’t have given her this much, that he would have ended up running off, following the only life that seemed to suit him. He thought about this noon, how she had reached to touch his hand as she’d brought fresh towels and linens over to his cabin. He had just been changing his shirt, discarding his ripe work shirt, ready to head for Jake’s truck, leaving Tony to handle the men, hoping the kid would act like a man and not like a snotty-nosed boy. He was buckling his belt when Lucita appeared at the half-open door, calling out to him.
She stood on the porch, but made no move to enter. Taking a step closer, she handed him a stack of clean sheets and towels. When he asked her in, she shook her head, but her eyes said something different. As she handed him the linens her hand brushed his and remained there, still and warm, for a long moment, her eyes on his generating a shock of desire.
Then she shoved the linens at him and was gone, down the steps again heading for the ranch house. He had stood looking after her, his pulse beating too fast, and then feeling let down and angry.
Turning back inside, he’d dropped the linens on the dresser, stripped his bed, wadded the sheets and used towels into the clean lard bucket she left in the room for laundry, pulled on his jacket and headed out to Jake’s truck. But there had been one other incident, two evenings before, that had left Lee even more shaken.
The horses had been spooky ever since their panic when the dark spirit lurked in their paddock—for what exact purpose the wraith had come there, Lee wasn’t sure. Simply to frighten Lee himself, to show his power? Some kind of promise of what hemight do, what he was capable of doing? Whatever the devil’s purpose, the horses hadn’t really settled down, even days later. Lucita rode hermare every morning, to try to get her over her nervousness. The Appaloosa was pretty good in the daytime, but Jake said that on their evening rides both horses were spooky as hell. Having to be gone overnight upto Hemet where Delgado wanted him to look at some land, Jake had asked Lee to ride with her. He wanted to keep the horses on a steady schedule, wanted to keep working them, and he didn’t want Lucita riding alone.
Lee was wary of being alone that long with Lucita. And he was eager as hell for the opportunity. When he headed on over to the stable, he found she’d already saddled both horses, and had strapped on scabbards. She handed Lee a loaded rifle, stowed her own rifle, and mounted matter-of-factly. She moved on ahead of him out of the ranch yard, the mare always liking to lead, and the good-natured gelding giving in to her. As the evening light softened around them, both horses were steady, nothing bothered them. Moving up the northbound trail between the verdant fields, Lucita didn’t talk, she gave him no heated glances, they rode in a comfortable silence between the green crops and then, before the evening darkened, they gave the horses a gallop on a hard, narrow path in between the dry desert hills, where the trail was less apt to offer chuckholes. Lee wanted to stop there among the hills, out of sight of the ranch, and let the horses rest. He wanted to swing down out of the saddle and hold her close, wanted this night to lead where he dreamed it should lead. He wanted not to turn home again discouraged, knowing this was never going to happen. But that was how they did turn back, with nothing else between them, both paying attention to their horses and to the trail ahead as the evening darkened around them. He knew she felt what he felt, her little movements, her small glances; but he knew just as clearly that she would do nothing about it, that she belonged to Jake, that he was Jake’s friend, and that that was how their lives would remain, no matter how his hunger for her stayed with him.
It was two-thirty when Lee and Jake pulled into Blythe. The thermometer on Jake’s dashboard said a hundred and fifteen, and that was with the windows open and a middling breeze blowing in. They’d passed a few trucks on the narrow desert road, all headed for the sale, same as they were, some with empty trailers rattling along and most likely those drivers carrying a wad ofcash, too. They’d passed a number of trucks already coming back pulling loaded trailers. When Jake parked in the auction yard, Lee left him to wander the grounds.