The cash from the traveler’s check scam was in his hip pocket. He’d left his new gun and the ammo hidden inside his mattress, had ripped the stitching just enough to slide them in. Not very original, but they wouldn’t be there long. His cabin didn’t offer a lot of options, not even a cupboard under the sink. But no one seemed to have been in there since he’d moved in, his few personal possessions, his clean clothes, Mae’s picture on the dresser, never seemed disturbed.
He had dreamed of Mae again last night. He didn’t dream of her often but when he did the scene was shockingly real. Again she had been in a strange place, lying half asleep on a flowered couch, a blanket tucked around her, and her face very pale. She woke and looked up at him, looked right at him. “Cowboy,” she said, reaching up to him, her thin little hands cold in his hands. She was telling him that he had to come and help her, when Lee woke.
It must have been around midnight, though in his dream it seemed to be morning. Outside his window the moon had already moved up out of sight above the cabin roof. He lay wakeful a long time staring into the dark, seeing Mae so vividly, hearing her voice so clearly—Mae’s voice, and yet not quite her voice. There was something different in the way she spoke, an accent of some kind. Dreams could be so deceiving; but something in her voice left him uncertain and puzzled. The child had to be Mae, but something was different not only in the way she spoke, butsomething in her searching look that wasn’t quite like Mae, something that teased and puzzled him so that when he slept again he worried restlessly. Even as he stirred and tossed in his dreams, part of him knew that Mae would be an old woman now, if she was still alive. Maybe he had dreamed of a time long past, when Mae needed him and he wasn’t there for her?
But he didn’t think so. This child belonged to the present, this child so like his small sister, this little girl was real and alive, now, today, this child reaching out to him, badly needing him.
Trying to settle his puzzled uncertainty, he told himself he’d let last night’s dreams run away with him, that he needed to calm himself, not indulge in crazy fancies. Forking up the last of his eggs, looking out through the screen to the bunkhouses, he watched half a dozen pickers lolling on the long, roofed porches, and he could hear the murmur of Spanish radio stations clashing together in a senseless tangle. In the yard, a ball game had started, loud and energetic, lots of shouting and swearing in Spanish. He watched four young pickers leave their bunkhouse all dressed up in clean shirts, clean jeans, and polished boots, laughing and joking. They piled into an old blue Packard and took off, heading for town. He hoped that wasn’t the last car to go. The next step in his plan depended on a ride into Blythe—but he could still see Tony polishing his car, and that was what he was counting on. Smearing jam on the last of his toast, he crammed it in his mouth, washed it down with the last swallow of coffee. He got up, picking up his plate, thinking about the day ahead.
He hadn’t had much time to get himself organized but so far the moves had been smooth. It was the dreams that unsettled him. When he dreamed of Mae, the devil’s urgings had backed off. But then, when he least expected it, the dark presence would return, pressing him to center his attention on the Delgado payroll, to set Jake up for a long prison term, and to move in on Lucita. He would wake from these encounters angry and fighting back.
No one but Lee himself, the cat, and the dark incubus knew the inner battles of Lee’s sleepless nights, his dreams sometimes so conflicting that he began to think of himself as two people: his own natural self with the code he had known all his life, and the stranger whose hunger and viciousness didn’t really belong to him. He didn’t see Lucita much during the day. When he did, he knew she wouldn’t play his game. But his hunger for her could still turn fierce, wanting her for himself—and too often the devil would reappear, urging Lee on to pursue her.
Last night the cat had waked him from such an encounter, had spoken so angrily that Lee had had to listen. Crouched on the foot of the bed, Misto had awakened Lee hissing and growling, kneading his claws so hard in the blanket, catching Lee’s foot with a claw, that Lee rose up out of sleep staring at him, startled.
Why do you listen to him?the cat hissed. You have grown oldernow, Lee, and you are wiser. But in your resolve, and in your body, you are weaker, while the devil is still strong. He will always be strong. Now, in your declining age, do you plan to let him beat you? Is Satan strong enough, now, to beat you?
Now, leaving the table, still hearing the cat’s words and angry at his own weakness, Lee returned to the kitchen, rinsed his dish and cup and set them to drain, then he headed out toward the bunkhouses.
Beyond the softball game two young Mexicans were tinkering with the engine of a cut-down Ford, the car’s radio blaring its hot music. Near them Tony Valdez, stripped to the waist, was sloshing a last bucket of water over his two-door white Chevy coupe. The car was maybe fifteen years old, but looked in good shape. Lee went on over. “Nice car, Tony.”
Tony grinned.“Haven’t had it long.” He picked up a rag and began to wipe down the roof and hood.
Lee ducked to look inside. A Saint Christopher medal dangled from the rearview mirror, but the interior was clean and uncluttered.“Don’t suppose I could talk you into driving me into town?”
Tony gave the hood a final swipe.“Sure can.” He wiped the rest of the car quickly and efficiently, then turned away from Lee, wringing out the rag. “I’m leaving, pronto. Five minutes.” He grinned at Lee again. “She doesn’t like me to be late.” Turning, he headed for his bunkhouse.
Waiting for him, Lee stood watching two men playing with a thin, mangy black dog, shaking a stick for it to grab. The radios were still dueling, metallic music against what sounded like a Spanish church service. When Tony emerged from his bunkhouse he was as clean and polished as his white car, a fresh white shirt with cuffs turned up once, open at his chest to show the silver cross against his brown skin, a pair of freshly creased blue slacks that made Lee guess the men must have an ironing board in the bunkhouse. Tony walked gingerly through the dust, trying to save the polish on his black boots. Easing into the clean Chevy he held out each foot and wiped off the dust with a rag.
Getting into the clean car, Lee held out his boots and brushed them with his hand, hiding a smile.“You better be careful, Tony. She’ll have you before the altar.”
“That’s okay by me. Maybe Delgado would give us one of the cabins, that would sure beat living in the bunkhouse.” He backed the Chevy around real slow so not to raise any dust, pulled out of the yard heading for the road into Blythe. Not until they were on the harder dirt road did he give it the gas, the car coming to life like a spurred bronco. They were rolling through the crossroads burg called Ripley when Lee spotted a FOR SALE sign on a rusty truck parked beside the gas station. “I’ll get out here,” he said quietly. “Something I need to do—catch a ride later.”
Tony pulled over, glancing at Lee with curiosity.“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” Lee said, swinging out. Tony sat a moment looking around the bare little crossroads, then put the car in gear. “See you tomorrow, then,” he said, easing away, looking at the gas station and the old truck with interest. When his car had disappeared, Lee walked back up the dustyroad to the filling station.
He circled the old pickup. There was a rusted hole in its bed, covered by a piece of plywood. The tires had little tread left. Years of use had worn the ridges on the running boards smooth and concave. Lee opened the driver’s door, studied the worn pedals and cracked leather seat. A few rusted tools, a hammer, a length of cotton rope, and a trenching tool were stuffed into the narrow space behind the seat. He got in, stepped on the clutch, moved the shift through the gears. They seemed all right. He stepped out, walked around the truck again. It had a spare tire, and it had a trailer hitch but no ball. As he turned toward the office a fat man in bib overalls came out through the screened door. “Like to hear it run?”