Border Roads

BORDER ROADS With Bonus Story

A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE

Sarah Black

® www.loose-id.com

Warning This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id® e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

***** This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable.

Border Roads with bonus story A Snowball’s Chance Sarah Black This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by Loose Id LLC 1802 N Carson Street, Suite 212-2924 Carson City NV 89701-1215 www.loose-id.com

Copyright © July 2007 by Sarah Black All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including, but not limited to printing, photocopying, faxing, or emailing without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC.

ISBN 978-1-59632-495-4 Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader

Printed in the United States of America

Editor: Judith David Cover Artist: April Martinez

www.loose-id.com

And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. -- T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets Clayton Clayton dumped his gear on the end of his bunk and stripped off his utility uniform. It was stiff and grimy with a week’s worth of dried sweat and blowing sand. He got a clean pair of skivvies out of his bag and set them on his pillow, grabbed a towel and the bar of soap out of his kit. Luke must already be in the shower. A clean T-shirt was folded on his pillow, and his gear was neatly stowed under his cot. A pocket knife lay on the olive-green sleeping bag, with a little carving in dark red wood. Clayton picked it up. Luke was carving a fallen angel, a man with wings spread and torn by the wind, tumbling from the sky. Clayton walked down to the shower room. Luke was letting the water spill down over his head and back, his blond hair plastered to his skull. It had been a miserable patrol. They’d taken small arms fire from three directions, and their lead Humvee had rolled over a piece of red det cord attached to a mortar buried in the road. The heat and the noise, and the weight of their flak jackets and Kevlar helmets left them all with headaches and stiff necks. Luke had both hands braced against the tile wall in front of him. Clayton studied the long line of his back, the strong muscles of his thighs. He turned the water on and stepped

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under the shower head, soaped his underarms, his chest, the creases down between his legs where the sand liked to migrate. Luke turned to watch him, and his strange blue eyes followed Clayton’s hands as they traveled down his body. Clayton reached for him, tugged him by the wrist until they stood together under the same showerhead. He took Luke’s hand and put it flat against his chest. Can you feel my

heart? Do you know what’s in my heart? Luke stepped into him, slid one hand down between Clayton’s legs. The water from the showerhead was cool, drenching them, cooling their overheated skin. Luke opened his mouth to Clayton’s tongue, hands sliding down over dark, soapy skin. “Clayton.” Luke’s voice was a whisper. He sank to his knees, his mouth moving down over Clayton’s belly. It was their first time, and the cool water poured over Clayton’s shoulders. Then he felt the heat of Luke’s mouth moving across his cock. Clayton gasped out loud and reached for Luke’s head. His heart was lodged in his throat, choking him. Luke was nuzzling him gently, his mouth hot against the cool water from the shower, his tongue sliding underneath Clayton’s cock. Luke, you love me. You love me, right? Clayton felt the pressure building low in his belly, felt his thighs tighten and his balls clench as pleasure swept across his skin. Then Luke was falling, falling out of a white-hot sky, his body on fire, huge wings the color of blood sprouting from his back. He tumbled from the sky, his face destroyed by the gods. Clayton took a harsh, choking breath and tore the sheet off, his hands moving to his throat. It was the middle of the night. The Marines around him were asleep, except Chris, who was sitting next to him, a book open on his lap. Gary was asleep in a folding metal chair propped against the end of his rack. He had one big hand wrapped around Clayton’s ankle, like he was trying to keep him from flying away. Clayton looked over at Luke’s cot, set head to head with his own. Luke’s gear was neatly packed for shipment back to the States, and his sleeping bag and pillow were rolled up and waiting on the end of the bed. Clayton could hear the breath rattling in his throat. Waking up, this was despair. How many times would he have to wake up tonight? Hell would be like this, having this dream, and each time it was over he would wake up to this night. He stuck his hand underneath his pillow and found the little carved wooden angel. Chris handed him a bottle of water. “Here, Clay.” His voice was quiet. “Have something to drink. He’s still alive. Staff Sergeant Wilson came by, said he was in Germany, at the hospital there, but he doesn’t know any more than that.” Chris hesitated. “Were you having a bad dream?” Clayton shook his head. “I was dreaming about taking a shower.” He lay back down, feeling his skin suddenly, sticky and hot with dried sweat and grime. He reached over to Luke’s rack and took the pillow, switched it for his own. He pressed his face into the warm

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cotton and took a deep breath. “I knew it was a dream. I was cool and clean and I smelled good.” The fallen angel was clutched in his fist. “Oh, that dream,” Chris said. He reached over and ran his hand gently over Clayton’s head. “Yeah, that’s a good one.”

Chris This was not a friendly place. That’s why he picked it. Chris shoved a crumpled five across the bar. “Coors in a bottle.” The bartender hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and he was sucking down bourbon from a smudged glass under the edge of the bar. The place smelled like dirty carpets and stale, spilled beer. Chris hadn’t wanted to go back to any of the places he knew from college. He didn’t belong there anymore. He didn’t want the slaps on the back, the welcome homes, the questions: How was it? Was it really bad? What did you have to do? Did you have to… The guys in his platoon got matching tattoos on their left calves before they shipped out for Iraq. Luke had drawn the design: a snarling Devil Dog with an American flag clutched in his teeth. They’d wanted something to help them feel tough, to show they were ready to tear some new terrorist asshole. Now they didn’t need the tattoo. Anyone looking at his face would see the bloody, snarling jaws of a killer dog. Anyone who looked at him would see blood, and a shadow that wouldn’t ever go away. That’s who he was now. The man he was before? He shrugged. Into the wind. There were only a few other people here besides the miserable and bad-tempered Marine looking back at him from the mirror behind the bar. Most of them were young guys playing the pinball machines and video game consoles that lined the back wall. They looked like they worked construction and hadn’t bothered to shower and change before coming into the bar with their girls. He drained his beer and raised the bottle to the bartender. The noise was unbearable. The TV was on over the bar, some news show, but the sound was drowned out by the video games. Bells and buzzers, sirens, artificial, tinny gunfire from toy automatic weapons. Head-banger rock from the jukebox, shrieks and giggles from the girls. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand at attention. Coming in here had been a very bad idea. A girl in low-cut jeans and a tank top stared at him until he returned her gaze, then she gave an exaggerated shiver and retreated to stand behind the guy at the Soldier of Fortune video console. Chris turned away. He wasn’t gonna play games with her. The guy with her was young, with dirty jeans and lank, scraggly hair hitting the collar of his plaid flannel shirt. He was clutching a bright orange toy AK-47, attached to the video game by a long plastic spring, moving it in an arc, left to right and back again, spraying imaginary bullets into an imaginary crowd. His high-pitched giggle grated like knives on a chalkboard.

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“You see that? You fucking see that, baby?” He jerked the toy rifle in and out of his crotch. “They ought to send me over there, take care of those sorry rag-head motherfuckers!” The noise dimmed suddenly, became muffled, and Chris could hear himself breathing, hear the slow beat of his heart in his throat. He stood, then reached down and picked up his barstool. He was in the back seat of a cop car, hands cuffed tightly behind his back. The bright neon from the front window of the bar filled the car with painful, garish color -- bright orange and gold, blue and green. Miller High Life. Coors. Budweiser. Chris closed his eyes and leaned forward. The cop who slid onto the seat next to him was in uniform, and she held the key to the handcuffs. She was also his CO’s wife. “Jesus, Chris. When did you get back?” “This afternoon.” She was none too gentle unlocking the cuffs. “Are you kidding me? And this was your first stop? Do me a favor, stop acting like some stereotype of a screwed-up vet, okay?” She studied his face. “I know what happened in Mahmudiyah. I’m sorry for it, Chris, and I’m sorry it was you, but I’m glad my husband isn’t coming home in a body bag. I called your dad. He’s here, and he looks worse than you do.” Chris turned away, rubbing his wrists. He couldn’t move the fingers of his right hand. The knuckles were torn and bleeding. He thought he’d probably broken a bone. She had her tough-cop voice on. “This is your one and only free ride, kid. Next time I’m hauling you off to the VA, to the psych unit.” Her voice softened a little, and she touched his shoulder. “If you want, I’ll take you there now.” He shook his head. “I got it under control. Thanks, Anne. I’m, you know, sorry.” “Okay, then. Take your dad home, Chris.”

***** Chris and his dad had talked a lot of things out over the years sitting in the Vietnamese restaurant down the street from their house, surrounded by the smells of lemongrass and garlic and cilantro. Something about the smells seemed to help the old man steady, to quiet the jazz than ran along his nerves and made his hands shake. Chris thought the smells reminded him of when he was young, when he had done the hard thing. Robert still spoke a little Vietnamese from his time in-country, and he liked to talk to the waitresses. The cook would come out at the end of the meal, and he and Robert would speak quietly together next to the swinging door into the kitchen. The cook was a short, wiry guy, with stringy muscles in his arms. He was in his sixties, maybe, with a balding head and a limp that seemed to get worse when he was tired. Chris always had the feeling, growing up, that when his dad disappeared on a Sunday afternoon he

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was somewhere with this guy, watching a ballgame, maybe, but he never asked. Even when he was young, he knew it was something private. Robert had never spoken about Vietnam to his son, not even when Chris was getting ready to deploy to Iraq. He’d been desperate for a word – anything -- to help him stay strong, something to make sure he would come out of it in one piece and without doing anything wrong. Now he was glad Robert hadn’t said anything. Chris had been back a couple of weeks, and they sat together in the Vietnamese restaurant talking about what would happen next. “Son, I don’t see why you have to give up school. You can be done with college in three more semesters. That’s the big mistake guys make when they come back. They walk away from everything they had before. They don’t try to pick up the pieces and start again.” Chris put down his spoon and pushed the bowl away. “Dad, I… There are no pieces to pick up. It’s not gonna work. I’m not going to be a teacher, not ever. That’s over, gone. I need to find something else.” Robert stared at him. “So find something else here. Why do you want to go to Arizona, back to the desert? Jesus, Chris, the Border Patrol? Look, whatever happened, you don’t have to punish yourself, son. It’s dangerous on the border, and you just got back home safe…” Chris kept his eyes on the damask tablecloth. A tiny drop of brown soy sauce stained the cloth. How do they get the stains out? Some stains are permanent. Soy sauce was

permanent. It ran through his mind all the time in slow motion -- the bitter yellow dust burning his nose and throat, the sun’s ferocious white light bouncing off the buildings and piles of concrete rubble. The stink of explosives, gun oil, sweat. And the boys running through the street, laughing, swinging around in slow motion, bringing the weapons up, holding them tightly in small brown hands. Pointing them at his face. Pointing them at the guys in the platoon. Their hands were too small to work the guns. They couldn’t have made them work. That’s what Chris figured out later. Chris looked up at his dad. “What? I don’t have to what? You say I don’t have to punish myself?” They stared at each other, and Robert finally dropped his eyes. “I guess what I meant, son, is I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life trying to make up for a war. For what happens in a war.” The old Vietnamese cook was standing by the door to the kitchen, watching them. Chris locked eyes with him, and then he pushed himself up and out of the booth and put his arms around his father. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

*****

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A couple of days later he had his old Jeep tuned up and packed with camping gear. Robert had volunteered to take some leave from work, go with him, but Chris shook his head. “I’m okay, Dad. I’ll just go see my friend, check out this deal with the Border Patrol. I’ll keep in touch. You remember how I showed you to check your email?” Robert nodded. “So I’ll send you an email -- let you know how things are going.” Chris was more than ready to roll. After the Iraqi desert, the humid air of south Texas was as soft and warm as his mother’s hand against his cheek. It was hard to breathe. The enormous live oaks and the bright green grass seemed unreal, like he had stumbled into a cartoon drawing of home. He found himself yearning for the dusty colors of the desert, the dryness, the silence. The desert was tooth and claw. All this green was putting a twitch between his shoulder blades. But that wasn’t all. He kept having this weird feeling that he was floating a little above the ground, like there was nothing keeping him tied to the earth. He missed the familiar weight of his gear, his ruck and water bottles and ammo and his weapon. His gear kept him grounded somehow, kept him tethered, and his platoon kept him part of a whole, his hand on the shoulder in front of him, a hand on his shoulder from behind. Now he thought he might float away, with no one standing by to pull him back down to earth. He picked up I-10 West and was breathing easier by the time he hit Fort Stockton. He ate a good burger cooked in a gas station mini-mart by an old man who looked so scarred and tough he had to be an ex-con. Or a vet. A gray haze hung over the southern horizon, and the old man told him it was from coal-burning factories south of the border. It was late when he stopped in El Paso -- well past midnight. He found a tired little motel a few blocks from the interstate. The motel was worn and sand-blasted concrete block, painted dull mustard brown, all the vowels in the VACANCY sign burned out. He was tired, but he knew he couldn’t sleep. He could feel the jazz ripping around his veins. He thought about those bottles of pills from the hospital in Bethesda. One of them was to help him sleep. The nurse practitioner had lined them up on her desk. “First priority is sleep,” she said, pointing to one of the bottles. “Your abnormal state of arousal will keep…” She’d laughed at his look. “Not that kind of arousal. I mean you’ve got a low startle point. It might keep you from sleeping. But speaking of arousal,” she went on, “I’ve seen a couple of guys come home and try to commit suicide by sex. Like HIV is something they deserve. If you enjoy having sex with strangers, don’t forget to use condoms.” Chris had liked her, but he hadn’t tried her pills. The woman at the front desk of the motel didn’t speak much English, but she understood “coffee” and pointed Chris toward the little diner across the road. He walked over, took a seat at the counter, and turned his coffee cup right side up. The waitress filled it, then opened up her order pad. Chris just stared into her tired face, then stared at the pack of Camels in her pocket. Why did he think he wanted to choke down some food? Finally he shook his head. “Just coffee.”

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The waitress nodded and went into the back, pulling the cigarettes from her pocket. It couldn’t have been five minutes later when the girl pushed open the door and sat down on the stool next to him. Chris didn’t know if the waitress had called her or the woman at the motel. It didn’t really matter. She was young, some pretty American mix of Spanish and African. Her hair was piled up on top of her head, and her mouth was rich with lip gloss that smelled like bubble gum. She was just a kid, wounded around the eyes, skinny wrists sticking out of the frayed cuffs of her denim jacket. “How old are you?” “Eighteen,” she said. “I swear.” “You got anything I need to know about?” She shook her head. “How about you?” “No. I just need some help getting to sleep. Want to help me unwind? Fifty bucks.” Her eyes got wide. Fifty must be a bit more than her usual. Then she looked scared. “I won’t hurt you, baby, I promise.” He put two dollar bills on the counter next to his coffee cup. When he got to the door he pushed it open and walked out, not looking back to see if she was going to follow. In his hotel room he gave her the money, and she stashed it in her jacket pocket. She started undressing, folding her clothes neatly in a pile next to the door. Chris pulled his Tshirt over his head and dropped it on the floor, then shucked his jeans off. He went into the little bathroom and turned on the shower. The shower head was low, so he ducked his head under, then bent over so the water could pound into his shoulders. The girl stepped into the tub behind him. He felt a little pang, seeing her body. She was very young. She filled her hands with lather from a little bar of soap and ran them down between his legs. She pressed herself against his back, her arms wrapped around him, her touch against his cock gentle. She leaned against him, and his breathing rocked her body. “I want you to stay with me tonight.” She nodded. After the shower she lay down on the bed with her knees drawn up. Chris sat next to her and looked down into her face. A little sad, he thought. Resigned and a little sad. He would try not to hurt her. He put his hands on her knees and tugged them apart. She didn’t resist. Her skin slid against his hips as he moved between her legs, the skin of her thighs and belly softer than anything he had touched or felt before. He ran his hands up her body, over her waist, until her small breasts filled his palms. She turned her head on the pillow and closed her eyes. A pulse was beating in her throat. He pushed inside her a little, watching her face, but she didn’t move. Chris braced his arms on either side of her head, palms pressed into the pillow, and pushed inside her until she was filled. He put his mouth on the tender small breast, tasting her skin, fresh as soap, then moved his mouth up to the pulse in her neck. Her heart was

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beating, she was alive under his mouth, alive under his hands. He started moving into her, and her hips moved in rhythm with his. She was alive, breathing with him, and joy caught in his throat. Her arms were around his shoulders, her sweet breath on his cheek, and he pounded into her until sensation swept across his skin, down his spine, and up into his balls. She let her arms and legs fall open like the petals of a flower, fainting, sighed against his neck. He burrowed into her, let the smell of her skin fill his mind until the jazz running along his nerves quieted, and he slept. In the deepest part of the night he came flying up out of sleep, took a great, desperate, sucking breath as if he had been submerged underwater. The sounds of automatic weapons fire, of mortar fire, faded from his mind into the night. His heart was ready to explode in his chest. She scrambled away from him, pressed herself tightly against the headboard. Chris held up a shaking hand. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” She nodded, watching him carefully. After a moment she scooted down the bed and took his hand. She pulled him down until his head was resting on her chest, his ear pressed over her racing heart, and he listened to it slow and felt the steady rhythm of her breathing as she fell back to sleep. About six he pulled away and left her asleep in the bed, shaved, got dressed, and threw his gear in the back of the Jeep. Then he dropped his key in the box and drove away. He wasn’t on the interstate ten minutes when he pulled the Jeep off to the shoulder. He could feel the jazz burning through his skin, his nervous system jacked up hard. By 0600, his platoon would be fed, geared up, and ready to roll, the jazz pumping through their hearts like something illicit. The jazz kept them tuned up, on task, kept them safe. You just couldn’t always turn it off long enough to sleep. And you couldn’t turn it off when you got back home. The booze softened the edges enough, sometimes. So did a little reefer, but neither one was Chris’s thing. Who needed it? He figured he needed to find a way to use it, because his jazz was locked and loaded in the “on” position. That’s why he was going to see his friend, Gary, who’d joined the Border Patrol when he got home. Gary was like him. And Chris figured he needed the girl. He drove across the median and made a U-turn, headed back to El Paso. At the hotel he knocked quietly on the door. After a few minutes the girl opened it a crack, looking sleepy and a little scared. “I thought you left.” “I did.” He stood there, looking at her. She had wrapped herself up in a towel from the bathroom and was hiding behind the flimsy wooden door. Finally she opened the door a bit more, and he came into the room. He stared down at her, his hands on his hips. “You got anybody here in El Paso? A kid? A mother?” She shook her head. “Well, if you want, you can come with me. I’m going to Arizona.” She stared up at him, chewing on her bottom lip.

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“You decide you don’t want to stay, you tell me, and I’ll bring you back here.” “Okay.” Her eyes were almond shaped and very dark. He nodded. “Get your shower or whatever. You want coffee?” “A Dr. Pepper?” “I’ll get it and wait for you in that Jeep outside. Twenty minutes I want to be on the road.” Fifteen minutes later she slung her purse on the floor of the passenger seat and climbed in. “Anything you need to pick up here before we go?” She shook her head. “I’ve got my purse. I called Carmen, you know, from the diner? So she wouldn’t worry.” He put the Jeep into gear and backed out of the parking lot. He picked up the interstate and headed west, into the desert. “What’s your name?” “Melody.” “I’m Chris.” “Hi, Chris.” She reclined her seat and curled up, facing away from him, sipping on her Dr. Pepper. He didn’t stop to think about what he was doing. He didn’t need to. He could feel the jazz ratcheting down, a tiny bit of soothing, a little quiet under his skin with her sitting next to him. Cool. They stopped for lunch in New Mexico and got a couple of cheeseburgers with green chilies at a downtown diner. She had been quiet in the car, like she didn’t want to say something wrong and get in trouble. He didn’t mind the peace, but he found his curiosity growing about her, this girl who was willing to climb into his Jeep and leave town with nothing more than her purse. And he didn’t want her to be afraid of him. “Did you finish school?” She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about trying for my GED, though.” She squirted ketchup on her fries. “Maybe I can be an ambulance driver, an EMT, something like that. When I was little, I wanted to be a nurse.” Chris thought about his platoon’s Navy corpsman, pulling open his backpack as he ran, tearing open thick packages of gauze with his teeth and slapping them on bloody hands and legs, bloody chests, bloody faces, bloody bellies. The whomp-whomp-whomp of the medevac chopper, the blades blowing sand in every direction. The chopper didn’t drown out the sound of the corpsman’s voice, “I’ve got you. You’re okay. I’ve got you.” Chris looked up, and she was staring at him, looking scared again. “It’s okay. I just got back from Iraq. We had some good ambulance drivers over there.”

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“I don’t have my driver’s license yet.” She was skittish, her fork rattling against the edge of her plate. She put it down and folded her hands in her lap. “Listen, Melody. You coming down off anything? Meth? Crack?” She shook her head. “No, I don’t do that shit. My mom, she did when I was little. It’s just that I don’t sleep good, and sometimes I get whacked out, and my hands shake. I smoke a little weed, that’s all.” “I don’t sleep good, either. Your mom still around?” Melody shook her head. “I don’t know where she is. I’ve been in the shelters some, but I never could sleep there. Then I started working nights at the diner. They’ve got a shower in the back room and a little couch, so I could crash there sometimes.” “How long have you been on your own?” She shrugged, not meeting his eyes. “Couple of years.” “You been to the doctor lately? Got tested?” She bristled at that. “I told you I don’t have nothing!” He reached across the table and flicked a finger down her nose. “Girl, there’s no way for you to know that.” She stared down at her burger, then shrugged and picked it up and took a big bite. “I knew this guy who was a vet from the shelter. He was kind of scary. He would drink, then he would start mumbling and sometimes he got into fights and hit people.” He grinned at her. She wasn’t going to be a pushover. “I’m not gonna be like that.”

***** They stopped at a motel outside Tucson. Melody stepped into the shower, and Chris called his friend in Ajo. “Gary, how you doing, bro?” “I’m good, Chris. Tired, man. Working hard. I told the old man about you. He wants to meet you, says Iraq Marines make the best Border Patrol.” “You’ve been out a couple months. You coming down any?” “I’m still jacked. Long, hard days help. I’m doing okay, I guess. Some days I just sit in the car -- driving, driving, driving -- for hours. That isn’t so good.” “Listen, I’m bringing a girl with me. Can you hook us up with a motel down there?” “Sure. But you can bring the chick to my place.” “No, it’s okay, Gary. You just got engaged, man. Let’s keep things simple.” “You mean we need to keep our women apart?” Gary laughed, then stopped. “Uh, actually, maybe that’s a good idea.” “I’ll be there in the morning, okay?”

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“Get a room at the Sunshine Motel, Chris, then come on in to the office. Sunshine’s got weekly rates, a little kitchenette. That’s where I stayed when I first got down here. The boss fixed it up so you can do a ride-along.” “That sounds good, Gary. I’ll see you then.” Melody came out of the shower and sat on the side of the bed, wrapped in a couple of towels. Chris pulled his T-shirt off. “Want a pair of my underwear?” She nodded, and he nudged the bag over with his foot. “Get what you need out of my bag. When I get out of the shower, we’ll see if we can find a mall, get you some clothes.” “We passed a Wal-Mart at exit seventeen,” she offered. “I don’t need anything fancy.” “My friend told me about a place down in Ajo, a motel with a kitchenette. Why don’t we get some food and some sodas and stuff? Coffee for me. You pick it out, and I’ll give you the money.” She sat up straight, smiling, looking delighted. “Okay. What do you like? Ham and cheese, peanut butter? Like, Doritos or chips?” Chris stepped into the bathroom. God, she was so young. She thought it was cool to play house. “It all sounds fine, Melody. You decide. You can be in charge of the food.” “Chris, maybe I can buy some new underwear. Is that okay?” Chris studied her face. “Yeah. Get whatever you need, Melody.” Her chin was up, and she looked scared again. “What kind do you want me to have? I mean, do you want…” He shook his head. “No, baby. You get you some panties that you like. You don’t have to dress for me. I like you just fine wrapped up in a towel.” She bought food, jeans and T-shirts, white cotton underwear, and more condoms at Wal-Mart -- a month’s worth. He stood in front of her, and she sat on the edge of the bed and rolled a condom up his cock with her fingertips. She was suddenly too shy to meet his eyes. He tilted her chin up until she had to look at him, then he gestured toward the bed. He climbed into her, sank down into her heat, felt the jazz melting off until his skin was soft and new. She lay still underneath him, open and waiting, her sweetness a mystery to her. He took her hard and then slept.

***** “So what did you do before the Marines?” “I was in college. I joined the Reserves to help with the tuition, get a little exercise.” Melody was eating a short stack of pancakes with enough syrup poured on top to give half of Arizona a sugar rush. “Were you studying to be a lawyer? That’s what you look like.”

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Chris shook his head. “Education and history. I was going to be a high school history teacher.” She stopped, a forkful of pancakes halfway to her mouth. “Wow. A teacher.” “I’m not gonna do that now.” “Oh.” She looked a little disappointed. “How come?” Chris pushed his plate away. “You know how sometimes something happens? And then afterward, nothing is ever the same again?” Her face went bleak. She nodded. “Yeah, I know.” “We were outside Mahmudiyah. The unit was taking a lot of fire, automatic weapons, RPGs, and there were IEDs fucking everywhere. We couldn’t turn around, I mean, there was no place that was safe. So there were these kids. They’d found some guns at one of the uncle’s houses. They went running through the streets. Playing, you know? Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, Americans and Insurgents.” He picked up his knife, then put it back down again. “The thing is, teachers aren’t supposed to kill kids. I mean, that’s pretty much a rule. You can’t be a teacher if you kill kids.” Melody put her fork down. Then she cut a piece off her stack of pancakes and put it on his plate. “Try this. They’re really good.” He grinned across the table at her, relief spreading like cool water through his stomach. This was the first time he had told someone who wasn’t a doctor or another Marine. He took a bite of her pancakes. “I guess you’ll have to be the lawyer. I’ll just go to work for the Border Patrol.” She gave that delighted smile again. “You think I could be a lawyer?” He nodded. Her pancakes were drenched in butter. He stashed her at the motel, left her folding her new underwear into the drawers. Then he drove to the Border Patrol station. Gary looked good, tan and still fit, like he was keeping up with his Corps training. It looked like a cop shop -- lots of radios and maps and telephones. Chris shook hands with the station chief. Gary introduced him as Cal Jackson. He was an older man with a salt-and-pepper moustache and piercing blue eyes. He gave Chris a head-to-toe. “How long you been home, a couple weeks? You still got your shakes?” Chris stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’m still pretty jazzed, yeah. A little trouble sleeping.” “Flashbacks? Drugs? You hitting the bottle? You seeing someone at the VA?” Chris shook his head. “I’ve got it covered.” The man reached out his hand, and they shook. “Okay, then. We’ll see you when you get back.”

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Gary loaded up the back of the Durango with bottles of water and checked the EMS bag. “Most of the walkers who get lost go down pretty fast with hyperthermia and dehydration. We never find them alive -- only their bones.” They set out driving into the desert. The path was rocky, deeply rutted, and they passed an old Jeep, pitted with gunfire and up to its axles in sand. “They call this El Camino del Diablo. We’re in Cabeza Prieta now. Over that way,” he pointed, “that’s the Barry Goldwater bombing range. It belongs to the Air Force. Then south is Organ Pipe. It’s a national monument so they got park rangers. East of here is Tohono O’odham land. Clayton’s back with the Tribal Police. I called him, told him you were heading out this way. He’s coming over to see you, tonight or tomorrow.” “You heard how Luke’s doing?” Gary shook his head. “Still in the hospital. Clayton’s okay, though. He’s just in a bad fucking mood.” “He’s been in a bad mood since Luke got hurt.” “Yeah. There’re some tinajas over that range.” Gary pointed at some low mesas through the windshield. “Sometimes the walkers try for those, try to get some water.” “You guys stake them out?” Gary shook his head. “Most of the walkers I’ve apprehended? It’s more like they were waiting to be rescued. We’ve got this system of signal towers. People can ring a bell and wait for us, and we’ll come and get them. The land out here, it’s vicious, man.” Chris looked out the window. The glare off the sand and rocks was painful even through the darkened windows of the Durango. The saguaros and cholla were twisted and deformed, grown huge. Sandstone boulders were tumbled about like a giant’s tantrum. “Gary, you have to use your weapon out here?” “Not on the walkers. But we’re down here to stop terrorists coming over the borders, and those fucking drug smugglers, man. Yeah, I’ve had to draw my weapon, but not on any walkers, and not on any kids, Chris.” Gary had been in Mahmudiyah when Chris killed the kids playing with the guns. He had been five feet away, his weapon out and leveled. If Chris hadn’t killed those kids, Gary would have. “This is Charlie Bell Well. See the tower?” Chris slid on a pair of sunglasses and a cap and followed Gary around to the back of the Durango. They loaded up a couple of backpacks with water, and Chris slipped his on, feeling the familiar weight of his gear slide into place on his back, his hand automatically moving to check his weapon. He started to slip into his groove, felt something familiar locking into place. He could feel the sand and desert rocks through his boots. Melody was probably putting those little silk flowers she’d bought at Wal-Mart into a Dr. Pepper can, trying to make their place pretty. Gary was watching him, smiling behind his dark glasses. “You ready?”

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Mike Mike forked the last bit of scrambled-with-salsa into his mouth and studied the list in his memo book. The waitress was hovering with the coffee pot. “You want some more?” He shook his head, and she set the coffee pot down on the table and started paging through her order book. He looked over the edge of the table. She was wearing battered plaid slippers, and her ankles were already swollen. She put the ticket on the table in front of him and picked up her pot. She had the cushiony, middle-aged backside of his Aunt Carmela. Mike turned back to his list. Cameras, spare batteries, recorder, extra disks, topo maps. Cooler of Diet Pepsi and a couple of sandwiches. Four gallons of water -- let’s see, two for him, two extra in case he got lost or got a flat or something. Oh, wait, he needed some extra water to give to the walkers he was going out to photograph. The Border Patrol called them walkers, he noticed. They didn’t call them wetbacks anymore. Walkers, as in, Dead Man Walking. What else would you call someone with a can of Pepsi, no hat, and a cheap pair of knock-off Nikes, preparing for a three-day jaunt into the Sonoran desert in July? Mike had been reading hair-raising stories for weeks, preparing for his trip down to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Bones scattered by scavenging predators, people passed out helter-skelter among the cactus, blistered and thirsty and miserable. Border Patrol tough guys would be standing tall over them with automatic weapons, ready to kick terrorist ass trying to sneak in America’s back door. If they hadn’t swum the Rio Grande from Mexico to Texas, they shouldn’t even be called wets, really. But in Mike Sanchez’s family, the word had a more personal meaning. Grandpa had taken the plunge when the Rio had been a raging torrent of death, to hear him tell it, not this current little dried-up piss-poor excuse for a creek. “We should call them wet ankles, not wetbacks!” Grandpa would have a six-pack of Shiner Bock and the remote control next to his armchair so he could watch NFL on the cable, and he’d tell anyone what he thought of the sorry goings-on at the border. He’d also tell anyone that he was a wetback. In private it made Mike feel kind of tough, like bandito blood ran through his veins. Mike’s Spanish was marginal, but he had enough of his grandpa in his face that he was sure he could get some of the walkers to talk to him. He usually could get people to talk to him. He just couldn’t get them to say anything that mattered. Maybe he was asking the wrong questions. Five years out of college with a degree in journalism, and Mike felt his failed promise sitting like a lump in his stomach, like he’d just eaten his favorite double chili cheese burrito. One of his professors, Jim Anthony, used to lecture on risk-taking and reaching your potential. “The quality of your mind is visible to the world when you write. It’s visible in the

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topics you choose to write about, in the respect you show your subject matter, in the risks you take. I don’t mean physical risks, though they do occur. I mean how much of yourself you are willing to expose to the world.” The quality of Mike’s mind hadn’t made much of an impression on anyone, and he stood accused to himself of failing to live up to his potential. It had been five years, and safety had become a habit. The Border was going to be his escape. Not the way it was for the dirt farmers coming across with their sons. They just wanted to pick enough strawberries to make it on their land another year. No, this story was going to be the one to show the quality of his mind, and that mind would not be average. His plan was to get some pictures of kids and babies passed out in the heat, something like that. That’s what America couldn’t stand, babies with little arms and legs like sticks, clinging to Mommy who looked, maybe, fifteen. And from what he had read, there were plenty of photo-ops of that type leaning up against any available paloverde tree in Organ Pipe. He’d called the Border Patrol office in Ajo, and they invited him to come down and do a ride-along. The clock at the bank downtown announced it was 7:49 AM and 94 degrees. The weather was on his side in his quest for a killer Border story. He cranked the Jeep’s AC up, and the frosty air came pouring out to bathe his face with icy kisses. He patted the dashboard. Oh, yeah, this was his baby, and she was fine, a Rubicon, olive green. She made him feel good splashed with river mud, like he was a war correspondent racing through Darfur, Kabul, Kosovo, with the rebels hot on his tail, and the pictures safe on the hard drive. That’s what these high-dollar slicks didn’t get. You’re busy looking at Africa, you don’t see the same damn things happening in Arizona! He met The Right Stuff at the station in Ajo, two big, pumped-up guys with tight Tshirts and loose cargo pants, their pockets stuffed with enough high-tech gear to talk to the International Space Station. Gary was blond, hair cut in a high-and-tight, a Devil Dog tattooed on his bulging forearm. Chris was dark, with a droopy black moustache and liquid dark eyes that probably got him a lot of play with the underage crowd. Chris greeted Mike with some rapid-fire Spanish street slang. Mike felt like a fool standing there with his mouth open, which he figured was the prick’s intention. Even Gary seemed to speak this border patois better than he did. He shrugged. Okay, whatever. They wanted to make themselves the big dicks on the block, fine. As long as they took him along. Mike climbed into the back of their white Durango, and they started down that narrow road through Organ Pipe, Highway 85 south to the border. There was no shoulder, only sand and rocks and scrubby cactus, a million different kinds, it looked like. There was a lot of traffic for such a small road out in the middle of the wilderness, and Mike noted that much of it was white SUVs of the type he was currently riding in, or forty-foot motor homes with big-ass diesel engines. There was also a security checkpoint, with Border Patrol agents

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climbing around inside every one of those big RVs. Where were these people going? Maybe down to the campground at Organ Pipe, maybe over the border into Puerto Penasco. “You ever find any illegals hiding in one of those RVs? I mean, they could take the wife hostage in the back, force the old man to drive them out.” Gary was driving, and Chris turned around and stared into the backseat. He didn’t answer, just looked at Mike like he was stupid beyond repair. Fine, if that’s the level of interaction they were going to have, then he would just be quiet and take pictures. Pictures were worth more than the story, anyway. Pictures were what America really wanted, so they could see for themselves what was going on. They drove through the Monument, down to Quitobaquito. There was a natural spring there, and sometimes the walkers could find water, and sometimes the Border Patrol could find walkers looking for water. Gary told him all this in a bored voice. Just another day in the office. Someone over the radio reported a walker at Quitobaquito in need of medical assistance. Mike perked his ears up. They were only a couple of miles away, but Gary floored the SUV like the President had just passed out in the heat and fallen face-first into a cactus. They pulled into a paved parking area next to a dusty white van. A couple of women were standing there, middle-aged women who looked like retired schoolteachers from Iowa or something. They were geared up in hiking boots and walking sticks, with sunscreen on their pink American noses. Chris ran around the back of the Durango and pulled out an EMS bag, and he and Gary took off up the path the way the teachers pointed. Mike ran behind them. The group was under some shade trees, and they were all white Americans, six or seven older folks dressed for a desert hike, water bottles slung like bandoliers or holstered on sturdy hips. The group parted for Gary and Chris, and Mike could see an older man on the ground, his white hair standing up in tufts, his face an alarming bright pink. His eyes were open, though, and he was talking to a man kneeling by his side wearing a green and brown uniform. A park ranger, it looked like. This must be one of those nature tours the rangers at Organ Pipe arranged for the campers. Mike put his camera back in the case and backtracked to the parking lot. Well, that was a bust. He talked to the two schoolteachers, both retired, both with the cushiony, middleaged backsides of his waitress from this morning and his Aunt Carmela. He hadn’t realized they made hiking gear in women’s plus sizes. Huh. You learn something new everyday. Well, it was a good idea. If anyone needed active wear, it was plus-sized American women. He made a little note in his memo book to check up on this later. It might be good for a story if he didn’t have any better luck with the walkers. They stood around in the shade until the ambulance arrived, almost forty-five minutes, and that was when Mike realized he had left his water and his cooler of Diet Pepsi in his Jeep. His throat was so dry it felt like it was cracking. His stomach gave a little jolt of panic, remembering the stories he had read before he came out here, healthy, active young men,

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felled in one, two hours by heat and no water. Dehydration and hyperthermia. You wouldn’t even realize how bad off you were. You would just be on the ground, looking up, and a buzzard would be circling overhead, waiting. Mike forced himself to take slow, deep breaths. He told the two Border Patrol guys he had left his water back in Ajo, and Gary pulled a couple of bottles out of a big crate in the back of the Durango and gave them to him. Then they started telling stories about places they had been stuck without water or food, other deserts and other wars. He should have known they were a couple of jarheads. Were they trying to make him feel like one of the guys, some kind of male-adventure bonding through story-telling? By the time he thought of this, his chance to join in the conversation with a story of his own had passed, and the inside of the SUV had lapsed into silence. They spent the rest of the afternoon driving around on empty, bumpy, dirt roads, the AC blasting. They passed a group of teenaged boys, Chicago Bulls T-shirts, Orlando Heat, black hair and sunburns, sitting by the side of the road and drinking bottles of water with the Border Patrol agents who had them in custody. One of the boys wiggled his fingers and grinned at them as they drove by. These were the only walkers they saw. The one time they stopped, and he stepped out of the backseat, the sun was so brutal and the glare so bright he reeled backward. Gary and Chris had both put on black sunglasses and nylon mesh caps before getting out of the car. Mike was reminded that he didn’t know what he was doing, and that he wasn’t adequately prepared or equipped for this place. The nagging headache behind his eyes that had started at Quitobaquito was getting worse. He could feel that old, helpless feeling of incompetence trying to creep over him, but he stomped down hard on the feeling and followed Chris into the brush. He had felt that way a lot when he was younger, like he was on a roller coaster of incompetence. The rest of the world knew how to climb off. The rest of the world knew how to stop the thing. But he only knew how to hang on and swallow his panic and fight back those voices that told him he was useless, a failure, not good enough, not smart enough. And the really pathetic thing about it, Mike thought, tramping after Gary and Chris into the desert, was no one had ever used those words on him except himself. Gary raised his hand and they stopped, then he said, “I think they’re over here. Yeah, here we go.” Mike stepped up between them and saw a litter of gray-white bones on the desert floor, scattered underneath a paloverde tree. An ancient saguaro had fallen next to the bones. The cactus’s skeleton arced over the bones like the pale ribs of a stranded whale. “Are those human?” he asked, his voice hushed. He felt like he was in a cathedral, the massive saguaros looming above their heads standing guard, or bearing witness. “Yeah,” Chris said. “Listen, Mike. Most of the kids who get lost out here? We never find them until they end up like this. Don’t try to come down here on your own to find your story, okay? I don’t want to stumble across your bones one day.”

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They made their way back to the Durango. Their footsteps in the sand were crisp, three pairs, and he wondered how long they would stay there. “We’re going by a water buffalo on the way back, check if the Humane Borders people got out there yet to fill it up,” Gary said. “That might be a good story for you. They give out food and water, and give the walkers rides into the hospital if they need medical care. Those folks, they save some lives.” Mike nodded, feeling the burn of tears behind the bridge of his nose. He was tired, and the headache was worse. He didn’t know if it was the bones, so lost and forlorn, or that these guys were so unexpectedly nice and trying to be nice to him. When they got to the Humane Borders water station, Mike could see a white PVC pole sticking high into the air, a blue flag on top, and a big, pale-blue water tank. A couple of men and a young woman were filling the tank with water from a heavy-duty pickup truck. Gary put his arm around the girl and kissed her. “Hey, baby. Everything going okay?” “Yeah. So far it’s been quiet.” She kept her arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder for a minute. “Newlyweds,” Chris said, grinning. “Wow.” Mike felt a little shocked. “Seems like you’d be on opposite sides or something.” Chris shook his head. “We’re all on the same side. We just want to keep people alive.” Chris clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go get a burger. My lady, she’s a waitress at this burger joint in Ajo. I found a girl for you, man. She’s meeting us there.” Mike stared at him. With his black sunglasses and Marine Corps arms and chest, Chris looked like a damn cyborg or something. “Oh, thanks, but I don’t really date much, Chris. Gotta keep my nose to the grindstone, you know?” Chris grinned at him. “Not like that. A story, Mike. I found you a story.” Back in the Durango Chris told him about the girl. “We found her a couple of months ago right where those hikers were today. She’d been lost in the desert two, maybe three days. She’s in a foster home in Ajo now.” At the restaurant Mike watched Chris slide his arm around the slender waist of a pretty, dark-skinned girl. She came over to their table and held out her hand to Mike. “Hi. I’m Melody. You thirsty? Want a pop?” “Yeah, Diet Pepsi. Thanks.” “Burgers?” She looked around the table, and they nodded. “Gabriela’s coming in a few minutes. School just let out.” She looked at him, started to say something, then just shook her head and went behind the counter. Mike looked at Gary and Chris. “What?” Chris shrugged. “The girl, Gabriela. She’s real young and real mixed-up. A lot of people feel sort of protective. But that doesn’t mean…”

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“Okay.” Mike pulled out his notebook. “So tell me about it.” Chris and Gary exchanged looks, then Melody was back with their drinks. The girl who pushed the door open looked like any American kid in middle school, twelve or thirteen, dark ponytail, a backpack slung over her shoulder, wearing Cruel Girl jeans and platform sandals. Chris waved her over. She had little-girl fingernails painted with sparkly green polish. Melody brought burgers to the table, and Gabriela dismantled her burger and removed the onions and pickles. Mike watched her for a moment. “I’m a reporter. I’m writing a story about things going on at the Border.” His Spanish was slow and unwieldy, but she nodded like she understood him. “Where did you come from?” “Veracruz,” she said. “Two years ago my mother died, and my dad, he’s disabled. My older sister took care of the babies, but we didn’t get along. So I was gonna come up here and find work.” Mike made a few notes in his memo book. “How many kids in your family?” “Seven still alive. One of my cousins, he went across, and then he was gonna go to Florida to work in the orange groves. I thought I could find him.” “Do you know how much your family had to pay the coyote to bring you across?” She shook her head and ate a fry. “We don’t have no money for that. See, my father, he got a good deal for me. The guy that took me across, he gave my father four pairs of Converse All-Stars for me. One pair was black leather, and one pair was, like, this bright green. Then one pair had a tiger on them, like a drawing of a tiger. The other pair was just plain. I didn’t like those as much. Me, I don’t have to pay. They pay for me.” Mike turned to Chris. “Chris, my Spanish isn’t good. It sounded like she said her father traded her for four pairs…” Chris nodded. “That’s what she said.” “Oh.” Mike picked up his burger to give himself time to think. “So what happened next?” “The guy who was bringing me, he starts saying shit like he owns me, like he can make me suck his dick anytime he wants! So I tell him, sure, but I want a Game Boy SP and one game, Super Mario. I don’t know what the guy gets so mad for, I mean, I’m carrying his dope just like he said, but he hits me in the face, tells me to shut up!” Her fingers creep up her cheek. “He says he’s gonna sell me in the camps. No way I’m waiting around for that! So I wait until he’s asleep, and then I run. These guys found me the next day.” She gestured toward Chris and Gary with a fry. Mike nodded. Her story didn’t make much sense, even if it did make him feel like throwing up. Four pairs of Converse All-Stars, that was like $350.00 dollars if you bought them at the mall. Why would the guy pay that much and then agree to take her over the

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border? People paid thousands for the passage across. He stuck his memo pad back in his pocket. She studied him. “You have a Gamecube?” He shook his head. “Playstation.” She narrowed her eyes, then shrugged and went back to her burger. When they finished eating, Melody took the girl up to the counter, and they sat together wrapping silverware in napkins. Mike walked outside with Chris and Gary. “So, what’s the real story?” Gary shrugged. “I don’t know, man. I don’t think she knows. We found her trying to cross back into Mexico, no papers, out of her head with dehydration. The doctor said she’d been in the camps maybe six, eight months.” “In the migrant camps? Doing what?” Chris looked toward the horizon, his jaw like granite. “Paying her way. Six men a day, maybe seven. Maybe more. She’s twelve, Mike. That’s what’s happening at the Border. Can you write that story?” Mike shook his head and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I don’t think so, Chris. Did she get her Game Boy?” Gary clapped him on the shoulder. “Sure she did. This is America.” Mike thanked them and shook hands, then climbed into his Jeep. He felt stronger, more himself behind the wheel, the headache receding one step. The Jeep felt like freedom, like a fast way out of this shithole. He got a Diet Pepsi out of the cooler and drank it on the road east. He didn’t have a story, that much was clear. This whole Border thing was way out of control, and who were these people, anyway? Chris and Gary were nice, they looked normal, they had girlfriends, but they were down here on purpose. All he wanted to do was get home, lock the doors, fill up the bathtub with water, and sit in it up to his neck. Maybe he’d sleep in there. He was driving east on Highway 86. The landscape outside his window was as desolate as anything he had ever seen. He must be on the Tohono O’odham reservation. The wind rocked the Jeep, strange whining moans, and the pale sand was sucked up off the desert floor and thrown at his beautiful paint job. The few buildings he saw looked abandoned, concrete block and tar paper shacks with busted-up outhouses stuck behind. Only one car passed him on the road east, a rusted-out white Buick. It had to be at least thirty years old, filled with teenaged boys. They looked Native, with blue bandanas tied around their heads, and their long black hair flying out the open windows of the car. One of the kids threw an empty cardboard box from a case of Bud out of the back window at his Jeep as they passed, and Mike nearly swerved off the road trying to avoid it. The roadside was littered with empty beer bottles and the bodies of dead dogs.

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He stopped in a gas station in Sells, filled up the tank and went inside for the bathroom. There was a little diner attached to the gas station, and a sign printed with Magic Marker on cardboard said fry bread was one dollar. He thought about trying a piece, but decided no. It had all been too much, the day had been way too much, and he didn’t think he could take one more new thing. When he came back out of the mini-mart his Jeep was gone. It hit him like a punch in the gut. No wheels. No food and no water. He was lost, on foot in the desert, on foot with the predators and the bones. He ran back inside. The waitress from the diner and the woman behind the cash register were speaking in some language he didn’t recognize. “Help me!” They stared at him, shocked. Didn’t anyone here speak English? “911! 911!” The woman behind the register grabbed the phone and dialed, and the Tohono O’odham woman who made the fry bread, another woman with a cushiony, middle-aged backside like the two schoolteachers, his waitress from this morning, and his Aunt Carmela, leaned over him. His vision was tunneling black, but he clearly heard her say, in English, “Don’t worry. I know CPR.” He was only out for a couple of minutes. Cold water was splashed on his face and an EMT knelt next to him, taking his blood pressure. The tribal police were right behind the EMTs. The policeman had a couple of long-haired teenaged boys by their necks, and he dragged them over, shaking them like puppies. “Oh, fuck, man, what happened? You didn’t have a fucking heart attack? We just took your ride for a minute, man, just to, you know, see what it was like…” The cop shook him again. “Sorry, man.” “Your Jeep’s outside,” the EMT said. “It’ll be safe here until you get back from the ER.” “No!” Mike scrambled up. “No, but thank you. I need to get home tonight. Right away. I mean I have to leave right away.” They all stared at him in worried silence as he backed out the door. He was a couple of miles down the road before the tears started. What a miserable fucking day. Nobody talked about this, about the panic when things went wrong, the panic when you got lost, the fear that no one understood you, that you were alone, that everyone was an enemy. Mike’s stomach was aching like he’d eaten a bad bowl of chili. He couldn’t write this. No one would believe it. He took a deep breath. Okay, stay calm, don’t panic. Think. Active wear. Hiking gear for the plus-sized woman. American ass, it all looked the same, and it didn’t matter if it was Anglo or Chicano or Native. Was this McDonald’s at work? He could check out a couple of those online places from his apartment, write a story, and then call in sick. Maybe he’d just stay home for a couple of days.

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Clayton Henry unwrapped the blood pressure cuff from the man’s arm. “Your Jeep will be fine here until you get back from the ER.” “No!” The man struggled to sit up, and Henry reached a hand for him and pulled him to his feet. “No, but thank you. I need to get home tonight. Right away. I mean, I have to leave right away.” Henry glanced at Clayton. The tribal policeman was the senior man at the scene. “He looks okay, Clayton. It was just the shock.” Clayton nodded, and they watched the man back out of the double glass doors of the mini-mart and bolt. Clayton had the boys by the backs of their scrawny necks. Emmaline came around the counter and shook her finger in their faces. “You bring this trouble into my gas station? You embarrass me! You shame me! I’m calling your grandmother. I can’t believe you care so little for your family you would do this to me. Just look at this place.” Sells, Arizona, on the Tohono O’odham reservation, had one gas station/minimart/diner combination, and at the moment it was overrun by the ambulance crew and the tribal police and the teenagers caught in the act. The flashing blue and red lights bathing the scene showed the parking lot rapidly filling up with pickup trucks. People from all over town were racing to the scene to see what had happened. “Look at all these people. I’ll be making fry bread until midnight. That poor man, his eyes were wheeling in his head like a panicked horse! He dropped right in front of me. The shock could have killed us both!” Elliot tried to wiggle free, but Clayton gave his neck a warning squeeze and dragged both of the boys away from Aunt Emmaline. “You jack a brand-new Jeep. Like nobody would notice you driving it around here? What if that guy had really had a heart attack? What if he had died right here because you jacked his car? That’s murder in the commission of a felony. That is your miserable life over.” Clayton was pretty sure this wasn’t true, but he wanted to scare them a little. What did they know? His little bro, Elliot, and his idiot friend, Rascal, hadn’t made it out of eighth grade. Clayton called Henry over. “Hold him a minute, okay?” He shoved Elliot into the guy’s arms and fastened plastic flexi-cuffs behind Rascal’s back. Then he pulled Elliot over and cuffed his hands the same way. Henry was a slow-talking, solid man, famous for being the tallest man on the reservation. “That’s harsh, Clay. You gonna put your own brother in jail?” He gestured toward Rascal with his chin. “And mine?” Clayton nodded. “Yes, I am.”

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He put the boys together in the single cell at the Tribal Police substation. The Tohono O’odham didn’t really need a big jail system. They used the federal jails when they had serious crime. The Tribal Police were there to stop idiot brothers from doing crimes so stupid that the government would feel obligated to step in and haul them away for the good of everyone. Clayton explained this through the bars of the cell, but the boys assumed the blank, numb gaze of teenagers who had heard every possible adult lecture before. The Tribal Police did, in fact, have a bigger job than watching idiot brothers. Clayton spent half his time, maybe more, dealing with the walkers who were coming over the reservation border and all the trouble they brought with them. Part of the US-Mexico border belonged to the Tohono O’odham people. Clayton didn’t care if Mexican farmers walked through his backyard on their way to pick lettuce in California, but he did mind when the dealers used kids to walk their dope north through the rez. The smugglers didn’t seem to care if they were smuggling people or dope. When he found walkers carrying dope, Clayton turned them over to the United States Border Patrol without a pang. They were usually just young boys, but the Tohono O’odham had plenty of home-grown trouble of that kind to deal with. Two of his old platoon mates were with the Border Patrol unit in Ajo, and they would drive over to Sells to pick up the kids and have a burger with him. The phone rang, and his mother was yelling before he got the receiver up to his ear. “Clayton! What have you done now? Your grandmother just called me and said you dragged your brother in handcuffs through the streets and threw him in jail! What did he do that was so bad you have to treat him like a criminal?” “Elliot and Rascal stole a car. The guy stopped at Emmaline’s gas station to fill up and the boys helped themselves to his Jeep when he went in to use the bathroom.” “But you got it back, no harm done. They were just joy riding, Clay. Why you take everything so serious? Since you came home you act like you don’t even have a family. I think that war did something to you.” Clayton had threatened his grandma with jail the week before when he found out she had rented her shed for a couple of nights to a stranger. “But he just wanted to park his van,” she said over and over, her voice quavering. She was trying to sound older and feebler than she was, but Clayton wasn’t amused. His mom had chewed his ass over the phone for an hour, Grandma wailing in the background. Half the family was mad at him, but then, half the family was hoping some nice Mexican man would ask them to rent out their sheds for a couple of nights every month, and slide them some green to do it. Grandma had known exactly what she was doing. She just didn’t know how dangerous it was. Grandma wasn’t speaking to him. Neither was Elliot. Clayton hadn’t had a satisfying conversation with Elliot since he came home from his tour of duty with the Marine Corps. He’d come home a hero, his name on plywood banners in the dusty yards, tattered yellow ribbons on the phone poles and fences. The ladies cooked fry bread and potato salad and

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barbecued chicken drumsticks for the picnic. Then everyone went home, and the silence came down on him like a hammer. He should never have come back here. Clayton had walked outside his mother’s tiny, two-bedroom house, the cinder blocks the same yellow-tan as the sand, stared at the trash blowing down the empty street. Dust swirled in the hot air, coating everything with a yellow haze. The houses had been built by the BIA back in the sixties, concrete block houses built close together so they could share utilities. When the old aluminum-clad windows fell out, they were replaced with plywood or plastic or miscellaneous pieces of window glass shimmed up to fit. The roofs were dotted with tires. The tires helped hold the shingles on when the wind was strong. When Clayton was in high school, all he could think about was getting away from here. The Marine Corps was escape, escape from the reservation and from drugs. The only kids he knew who didn’t go through school stoned were the ones who were going into the military. He hadn’t missed this place once when he left for basic, hadn’t missed it through infantry training, hadn’t missed it when he landed in Iraq. The villages outside the cities reminded him of the reservation -- the dust and the heat, the chickens wandering loose, the yellow-tan block buildings, the poverty. The misery was the same. Chris, one of his platoon mates, had brought a book on Persian art with him. The other guys razzed him, there isn’t no time for a trip to the museum, we’re at fucking war! but Clayton loved that book. Beautiful color photos of fantastical beasts rendered in gold with inlaid stones, stories of great battles fought with spears and swords, warriors fighting forever across the face of a cup or a vase. And now look at Persia. Whatever it had been before, all he could see now were drainage ditches full of sewage, trash piled high against buildings damaged by mortar fire and rockets, concrete rubble, and death peering out at them from every window, from around every corner. Clayton figured the Marines were gonna get the blame for the lot, and it wouldn’t do any good for them to stand around and say, Uh, it

looked like this when we got here. Elliot and Rascal had been little kids playing with Power Rangers when he left. By the time he got back, they had dropped out of school and grown their hair past their shoulders. Now they spent their days roaming around town dressed like Chicano gangsters and smoking dope. Henry parked the ambulance out front and climbed down from the front seat. He locked the door and pulled off his radio, and Clayton opened the door to the substation for him. He sat heavily in the visitor’s chair next to Clayton’s desk. Clayton turned his chair around, too, and they stared into the cell where their little brothers were giggling and calling each other Ese. Henry shook his head. “They’ve been spending too much time over in Tucson ripping off the Wal-Mart and buying meth to sell back home. And the thing is, Clay, they really

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want to be big-ass dope dealers. What they don’t know is that your successful dope dealers don’t sample the merchandise.” Clayton was frozen in his chair. Were the boys really dealing? They couldn’t be. They were only fourteen. Who would buy dope from these two idiot kids? “The thing is,” Henry continued, “what is there to be done? The clinic, they don’t have any treatments that work once they get hooked on that stuff. What else will they be able to do besides deal, once they become users?” The boys were quiet now, listening. Henry turned a little in his chair to face Clay. “See, I think they’ve been smoking that crystal meth, and it has fried their poor brains.” Clayton wiped the palms of his hands down the thighs of his uniform trousers. If his little brother was using meth, dealing meth, then his life expectancy had just dropped to less than if he’d contracted HIV. “Henry, are they really dealing?” His voice was strained. Henry nodded. “Meth?” “Did you search them, Clay?” Clayton shook his head. “I just thought they were fucking around with that guy’s Jeep. I was gonna, you know, keep them here…” Henry stood up and walked to the cage. “Get over here, dickheads.” “You can’t make me do nothin’, man!” The giggles had been replaced with sullen mouths and downcast eyes. Clayton unlocked the door. “Sure he can. Get your ass up, Elliot, and empty your pockets.” “Fuck you, man. And the name’s ‘L’, not Elliot.” Clayton moved into the cell and snatched him up off the bunk. “Do you even remember your name starts with an e, not an l?” Clayton was furious, a sick ball of panic in his stomach. “Empty your pockets, L.” Elliot spit at him. “You can’t…” Clayton spun him around and slammed him up against the wall, tore the bandana off his head, pulled his T-shirt up until it was tangled with his wrists. He held his wrists against the wall and kicked his legs apart. Rascal jumped up. “What the fuck you doing, man?” Henry had him by the front of his shirt and pushed him roughly against the wall. Clayton reached for his brother’s jeans, had the snap undone and the zipper down before Elliot could say another word. “Get your jeans off,” Henry said. Rascal dropped his pants, and Henry reached down and picked up both pairs of jeans.

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Clayton let Elliot go, and Elliot turned around and tried to swing at him, a pathetic little-brother punch that nearly broke his heart. He shoved him away and followed Henry out of the cell. Eight bags of glass, crystal meth. Twelve bags of marijuana, packaged for selling. Two lighters and a homemade pipe. Rolling papers. Four hundred and eighty dollars in cash. The panic in Clayton’s stomach moved up. It felt like he was trying to breathe with a stone block sitting on his chest. Henry gestured to the door, and they walked outside and leaned up against the ambulance. “The thing is,” Henry began, “neither one of those boys is worth a piss. I don’t understand why their moms love them so much.” Clayton crossed his arms and shook his head no to the cigarette Henry offered him. Henry lit up and took a long drag. “I hate this place, Henry. I couldn’t wait to get away. I don’t know what I was thinking coming back here. I can’t even remember…” He sighed and stared up at the night sky. The cold night air, the unfeeling gaze of the stars steadied him some. “I could send them to the juvenile detention in Tucson.” Henry nodded. “Yeah, that’s one way. They’re what, fourteen? They keep them a couple, three years, they come back here, Clayton, stone cold killers.” Clayton nodded. “You still go to that AA meeting? The one down at the church?” Henry nodded. “What if we make them go to AA, make them go back to school, and keep their sorry butts in jail the rest of the time? Make them sleep here. Work them on the weekends, picking up trash or something.” Henry paused, the cigarette halfway to his mouth. “That’s a lot of work for you. And you know it probably won’t work, Clayton. It might be too late.” He hesitated. “It’s probably too late.” “Yeah, I know.” Silence filled the night. Henry smoked, and Clayton dreamed about leaving. The mountains of New Mexico. Canada or Alaska. Alaska might be good. Someplace clean and cold. “Clay, you still got those two Marine buddies in Ajo? The ones who joined the Border Patrol when they got out?” Clayton nodded. “Why don’t we get them over here to do a little informal interrogation? You know, see if we can find out where the boys got the stuff to sell.” Clayton felt the weight ease off his chest a little. “That’s a good idea. I’ve been missing those guys. There was a time they were like my brothers.”

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***** It was dusk the next day before Chris made it over from Ajo to question the boys. Clayton walked outside and stood on the broken concrete sidewalk, looking east. Sunset turned the desert to gold, and the wind started to cool when the sun went down. Clayton liked to smell the desert at dusk, creosote after a rain, sometimes cactus flower, strange and fleeting smells. He looked east, as he often did at dusk, east and north toward Magdalena. He could drive to Tucson, pick up Interstate 10 east, then drive north into New Mexico through the mountains on Highway 180. It might be faster to pick up Interstate 25 north, go up through Truth or Consequences, drive west from Socorro on Highway 60. He could get there in a day, easy. Clayton had the route mapped out in his head. Luke had sent him an email a week ago. Well, not just to him. He’d sent the email to the whole platoon. “Busting out of the hospital at last. I’ll be home in a couple of days. The

doctors decided I was too good looking, so they stopped trying to fix my face. I’m gonna open my cabinet shop again. Any of you guys ever in this corner of the High Lonesome, look me up.” Clayton knew a little bit more, but not enough, and none of it from Luke. A couple of months ago he’d woken up in the middle of the night, a horrible bloody nightmare clawing at his brain. He’d called Bethesda and got Luke’s room number. Luke’s aunt answered the phone. She probably told him more than she should have. He’d said he was a platoon mate, and he just wanted to check on his buddy. The aunt had started crying and it all came spilling out. The reconstructive surgery to repair the jaw and mouth had failed miserably. Luke had had some kind of reaction to the anesthesia, had a seizure on the table, his heart had stopped, and by the time they got it going again, those plastic surgeons were sure that reconstructive surgery was not going to happen again anytime soon. Luke was left with half his jaw. Only remnants of a tongue. The nerve endings to his vocal cords had been cut. His mouth was torn and twisted, and one ear was gone. Clayton didn’t know what to write on a postcard that would probably be read by the aunt. Luke, I miss you. Stay alive. He couldn’t think of anything else. What else was there to say? I’m sorry you won’t be talking anytime soon. How will you be able to eat without a

tongue? Was I the last person you ever kissed? So he’d sent the card with just those words, and he hadn’t heard anything back from Luke except for the email to the whole platoon. He didn’t expect he would. Chris came out of the station and walked over to him. “Let’s go get a burger.” Clayton nodded, and they walked a couple of blocks to Emmaline’s gas station. “So tell me about Gary’s honeymoon.”

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“You’re not going to believe it, Clayton. Sally’s a nice girl, don’t get me wrong, but she’s implacable, man. For their honeymoon, she and Gary went down to Haiti.” “What, like a Caribbean island sort of deal? Haiti? That doesn’t sound…” “It’s not. They’re building hurricane shelters out of tires. You know, those Earthships. It’s one of her relief organizations. I can’t remember which one.” Clayton stuck his hands in his pockets. “Wow. Sounds like fun.” He and Chris looked at each other and cracked up. “I think he’d go build shelters on the moon if she asked him to.” “So how’s Melody?” “She’s good,” Chris said. “She started those GED classes.” Clayton nodded. Chris had only told him and Gary that Melody had come from El Paso, from the streets of El Paso. She’d been a child prostitute, probably wasn’t much older than that now. Chris wanted them to help her if anything happened. The Border was getting more violent and out of control every day, with drugs and people and weapons pouring out of the desert, like blood pumping through a dying heart. And Chris was United States Border Patrol, standing right in the middle of it all. Emmaline’s diner was nearly full, and Chris and Clayton took the last booth. The diner was normally closed by this time, but Emmaline was taking advantage of the excitement over the previous night’s events. Clayton’s cousin Sarah came to take their order. “Green-chili cheeseburgers on fry bread, right?” “Some places, people order their food, Sarah. The waitress doesn’t tell them what to eat.” She curled her lip at him and turned a charming smile on Chris. “Tea or pop?” A number of curious looks were being cast in their direction, but no one approached them. Clayton was wearing his most forbidding cop face. “He wouldn’t tell me anything, Clay.” Clayton nodded. “I figured, but I thought it was worth a chance.” “Well, he did tell me that he and Rascal were political prisoners, and when drugs were made legal he was going to sue you. He also told me how much money the family would be getting every month if you’d been killed in Iraq.” Clayton felt the weight of that settle in his stomach. “I hate this place.” “The conversation went downhill from there. Why don’t you take a break? Come stay with me in Ajo. Go up to Magdalena.” Clayton froze. Sarah came back to the table and slid a couple of enormous burgers on fry bread in front of them. Clayton kept his eyes on his plate and cut his burger in half. Chris did the same.

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“There must be half a cow in this thing.” “Chris, did you get that email from Luke?” “Yep. I’ll go up and see him in a couple of weeks. There were some roughnecks in town last weekend. I think they were going across the border into Puerto Penasco to party. Anyway, they reminded me of Luke. They had that cocky walk, those busted-up knuckles like his, you remember? Like guys who start punching before they start talking. I thought you’d be on the road already.” “Really? Why?” Chris put his burger down and stared across the table until Clayton looked up and met his eyes. “Because you were best friends. Because you’re walking around like you got a wolf gnawing at your balls.” His voice was low. “Because something happened between you two, and then he got hurt, and you didn’t get a chance to make it right.” “It was my fault,” Clayton said, his voice strained and so low it was almost a whisper. “He was tired and upset, and he didn’t…” “He didn’t make the IED and put it down in that road. Neither did you.” Chris took a bite of his burger. “I figure it was one of those don’t ask, don’t tell situations, so I’m not going to ask.” Clayton abandoned all attempts at eating and covered his face with his hands. “Brother, don’t you think he misses you as much as you miss him?” “I hope not,” Clayton said. “I can’t bear to think…” “Listen. You know him, Clay, better than anyone. You know what he needs now. And I’m not saying that because you read his journal the night he got hurt. You didn’t need to read his journal to know what he felt. Go fix things. Gary’s been worried you’re gonna eat your gun.” Clayton stared at him across the table. “I told him you probably wouldn’t shoot yourself unless Luke died.” The next morning Clayton was ordered to report to his lieutenant. “I’ve got two pissedoff mothers who want to know why we’ve got their boys in jail. They’re what, fourteen? We don’t incarcerate fourteen-year-olds if they have parents who are willing to take custody of them. Did you forget how the department handles juveniles?” “They’re dealing meth, Jim.” Jim picked up the inventory sheet. “I know they are. But it’s not enough, Clay. To successfully prosecute for dealing, you’ve got to have a lot more product than this. This amount is considered personal use. And they’re still fourteen. Too dangerous to send them into juvie.” “What about the money?” “And you know the statute doesn’t include methyl amphetamine. We could only use the pot.” “What?” Clayton was half out of his chair, and the other man waved him back down.

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“It’s not on the federal register of controlled substances. I thought you knew that. I guess eventually they’ll get around to changing the…” “Jim, that’s utterly fucking ridiculous!” What was he doing, screaming at his boss? “And that isn’t the point. You want them to learn that we can’t do anything to stop them?” “The point, Clayton, is you can’t refuse to release them to their mothers.” He leaned forward. “Do it today, right now, or I will have your ass in a sling.” Jim stared at him, shaking his head. “What the hell’s the matter with you, boy? You’ve been back, what, two months? Have you got that PTD or whatever they call it? That war sickness? You need to go see a medicine man.”

What is the matter with me? Clayton thought hard about this on the drive back to the substation. I’m surrounded by idiots. I am surrounded by people who will not see, that’s what’s the matter with me. He’d showed his mother the drugs the night before. “Maybe he was holding it for one of his friends. It’s not that much, Clay, only a few little bags.” Elliot sneered at him when he opened the cage and let them out. “Hey, call somebody and get us a ride. I ain’t walking.” Clayton had his hand on his weapon before he realized what he had done. “Your mothers are coming to sign you out,” he said, carefully. “In the meantime, get the fuck out of my sight, or I will beat you to a bloody pulp.” “You can’t do that. Who the fuck you think you are?” Elliot stuck his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. “I’m already gonna file a lawsuit against that jarhead friend of yours. He threw me up against a wall! And I’ve got a witness.” Rascal nodded. “I saw him do it. You think you got a badge, that means you can do anything you want?” Clayton unclipped the radio from his belt and put it on the desk. The he reached for his uniform shirt, unclipped the badge, and threw it down next to the radio. His chest felt frozen, like a block of ice was growing in there, cracking his ribs. “I don’t have a badge anymore, L. I guess that means they won’t do anything to me if I fuck you up bad, right?” Elliot backed away from his brother until he was pressed against the double glass doors. Clayton leaned forward. “You try to mess with my friend, I’ll slice off one of your balls and feed it to you.” He could tell by the look on Elliot’s face that the kid believed him. Christ. “I said wait outside.” The boys pushed open the double doors. Clayton finished unloading his gear onto the desk. Harlan, the afternoon shift officer, watched him, one booted foot propped up on the desk. Clayton didn’t say anything as he cleaned out his desk drawer into a plastic grocery bag. He didn’t need to. Harlan was the biggest gossip in the department. Clayton dropped the boys’ paperwork into his lap, then went out the back door without another word.

*****

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Luke was a three-beer memory, at least. Clayton wasn’t much of a drinker, and sometimes, when he was busy at work, he might not think of him for an entire day. Not lately, though. When Luke was still in the hospital he was in limbo, out of reach, but since he’d read the email, Clayton had had a hard time keeping Luke off his mind. He was just walking blind through the motions of living, his feet numb, waiting for whatever would come next, memories, heart, feelings wrapped up and stuck in the deepfreeze. He didn’t know if this was war shit, the way he seemed to be moving through some sort of frozen fog, but he didn’t think so. This was Luke. But he wouldn’t let himself start thinking, didn’t let the memories swarm up out of his head until he was alone in his little apartment with empty beer bottles scattered all over the floor next to the couch. He’d read Luke’s private journal, read it and then stolen it before they shipped Luke’s gear back to the States, kept it tucked up in his uniform until he got home. It was under his pillow right now. He’d memorized every word. But Clayton hadn’t needed the journal to tell him this whole fucked-up mess was his fault.

August 12 We got a new grunt in today. He’s from down on the Border, Tohono O’odham reservation. Chris said he’d been a tribal cop before he joined up. Wonder what he’s looking for? He looks strong, like he’s strong inside, and quiet about it. Will I look like that when this journey’s done? The Corps, that’s my journey, and we’re going to war in a couple of months. The warrior’s path, that’s all I ever wanted, and my feet already love the pain and the trial. But this new guy, Clayton, he looks like he’s already started down his path. Clayton put his hands up over his eyes. His head was spinning a little, but it wasn’t the beer. He felt his loss, the sorrow of his loss like a sob that couldn’t escape. The weight of it was crushing his chest. And he felt the thrumming beat of passion between his legs. Luke had blue eyes. They were speckled with gold, like songbird’s eggs, and they’d been laughing the first time Clay had ever stared into his face. Luke met his eyes, and that cocky grin got wider, his jaw shaded gold with whiskers. They were on the basketball court, and Luke had thrown the ball to him, straight into his chest, straight into his heart. They’d become buddies right away, partners. Most of the Marines had one or two guys they got along with more than the others. Chris and Gary were best friends that way. They were a close platoon, but he and Luke, they had something special. Neither were big talkers. It wasn’t long before they could communicate with a look or a hand gesture. After work they would hang together in some quiet corner of the barracks. Clayton would read, and Luke would whittle. He always had a pocket knife and a little piece of wood, and he carved the animals from the mountains of New Mexico, where he was raised. Clayton loved him and kept that love deep in his chest like the dark glowing coals of a juniper fire.

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October 17 Clayton’s funny. He’ll make some smart-ass remark, stare straight into my eyes with that stone face, waiting for me to get it. Me and Clayton, we’re the best rifles in the company. Staff let us practice with the sniper rifle. One spots, one shoots, and you lay flat on your belly in the dirt. You got to wrap your leg around one of his, so you hold each other still. That’s how the snipers do it. Staff watched us, said don’t grab his ass, Etsitty. I was ready to kick that cocksucker’s ugly face, but Clay just pressed me down with his leg. I could hear him in my head. Just shut the fuck up, he was saying. He put his head back down to the scope, and he said I’m not gonna grab his ass, but I ain’t gonna promise I won’t suck his big white cock, I get the chance. Staff stomps off, muttering some shit under his breath, and Clayton’s laughing, the scope still pressed up against his eye. I just stared at him until he looks over at me, and he says Jesus, shoot already, Luke. He’s got that smart-ass grin again. I won’t suck your cock until you tell me to. Clayton reached over the side of the couch and got the last bottle of beer. He held the cold glass next to his face. The whole thing was his fault. Clayton slid his hand down the front of his shorts and wrapped his fingers around his cock. Luke had a thick, curly nest of golden hair between his legs. His skin was pink and ivory and gold, almost pretty for such a tough-talking hard guy. Clayton loved the way his skin looked against Luke’s, the way Luke’s tousled golden head looked, buried between his dark thighs. It was Clayton’s fault. He was the one who had touched his friend first, who changed them from friends to lovers. And being lovers wasn’t good for active-duty Marines in the middle of a war zone. It was distracting. Marines needed to concentrate during combat operations.

December 23 Clayton’s in my fucking head, and I can’t get him out. I’ve lost my path, it was right there in front of me, and now I can’t even remember why, what I was trying to do. Is this part of the deal? Sounds like some kind of Buddhist shit, like to walk the warrior’s path you have to give up all desire. The path is pure, no desire, no jealousy, no love. I never remember feeling like this, having desire like this. Clayton’s right there, standing right in front of me, and I want him. I’m gonna reach out and touch him, and then I’ll fall. That’s what’s gonna happen. Because of my desire, I’ll lose him, everything gone, because we’re fucking Marines. But I think it would be worth it, to hold that one shining moment in my hands, it would be worth it, to lose everything. If I could have him just once. Because the path isn’t the light. He’s the light. Clayton held the beer up to his mouth until he’d drained it. He couldn’t think about that now. Because Luke hadn’t touched him. He didn’t get the chance. Clayton did it first. Now he just wanted to remember, remember the taste of Luke’s mouth, like ripe melon, remember the way his blue eyes looked when they held each other, their bellies sticky and wet. His hand moved roughly over his cock, the picture in his head of Luke’s eyes open and looking down into his. He saved his favorite memory until he was close to coming. When the golden hair between his legs was sweaty and sticky with come, Luke smelled like the musky dark honey Clayton’s people harvested, honey from cactus flower. He pictured it, a puddle of dark honey spilled across a pale wooden floor, and the smell flooded his mind.

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Yearning gripped him, need and longing and lust, and came roaring up out of his balls and spilled across his hand. On the day that memory failed him, when he couldn’t remember Luke’s smell anymore, he would put a bullet in his brain.

January 18. We’ve been sent up north, fucking MREs again. I hate MREs, and Gary walks around like he’s ready to kick down a stone wall when he doesn’t get decent chow. Chris is okay, and Clayton is Mister Cool. He is so fucking strong it pisses me off sometimes. Nothing bothers him. He grew up in that shithole, with his mom and brother like rocks pressing down on his neck. He never said that about them, but I can tell. It didn’t ruin him. It just made him strong. That’s what I want, to be strong like him. I feel weak inside, like I haven’t been tested yet. Maybe if I’m strong enough I can be with him. I’m fighting him and he just looks at me, and I don’t know why, I don’t know why I’m fighting it. He scares me, and I’m not strong enough yet. The dream came during the night like a rattlesnake crawling out of a burrow. They’d had a brutal fight the night before. The platoon had been on combat operations for over a month, and they were exhausted. Nobody could sleep from the heat and the noise and the constant alerts, eating shit food, nerves fraying like rotted silk. Clayton had walked in and found Luke re-reading an old letter from his girl back home. He freaked, tore the letter out of Luke’s hands and ripped it into pieces. Then they were rolling in the sand, punching each other in the head. “Clayton, you don’t own me. You think I’m gonna let you put a fucking collar and leash on my dick?” “Hey, you don’t want me, I’m gone. You think you’re the only fucking one? You think you’re the only person I’ve ever loved?” Luke had his big hands on either side of Clayton’s head, squeezing like he wanted to crush his skull between his palms. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I think.” Then Luke was kissing him, biting his mouth hard enough to draw blood. The next morning they didn’t speak, just splashed some water on their faces and got dressed, their lips swollen and cut. Staff Sergeant told them to knock this shit off, and the rest of the platoon cut a wide swath around them both. Luke looked exhausted when he climbed into the Humvee, his face strained and grimy, his jaw like a rock. The blast was just a puff of sooty black, a harmless-sounding double thump, except for the shriek of tearing metal. Clayton was out of the back and running before the smoke and dust cleared. IED. They all knew the sound. The bombs could be anything, an abandoned car, a plastic bowl of dates, a child’s toy. They were everywhere, there was no place safe. Clayton was there first, and he cut the seat belt with his knife and pulled Luke out of the cab. The device had detonated under the driver’s side wheel. Pieces of twisted metal had lodged in Luke’s neck. Blood bubbled up from holes in his neck and the place his mouth should have been. Clayton tried to start CPR, but he couldn’t find a place to breathe, Luke’s mouth was gone, the ragged hole spurting blood.

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Clayton stared down into Luke’s blue eyes, and he could hear what Luke was thinking.

I can’t breathe, Clayton. Help me, I can’t breathe. Clayton rolled off the couch and hit his knees, then staggered into the shower. It wasn’t even midnight. He’d never get back to sleep now. When he came out of the shower, Henry was standing in his living room, staring at the mess of empty beer bottles. Henry got a trash bag from the kitchen and started cleaning up. Clayton went into his bedroom and got dressed. He heard Henry in the kitchen, opening cabinets and drawers. Was he looking for more beer? Booze? He wouldn’t find very much, just some mustard and bologna, and half his burger from Emmaline’s wrapped in foil. Clayton had finished the beer. Clay shaved and brushed his teeth, then joined Henry on the couch. “Did the boys get home?” Henry nodded. “Yeah, they’re home. Clay, it’s all over town, what happened. How you walked out. Elliot and Rascal, they’re not men yet, but they’re old enough to be responsible for some choices. They chose this path. They learned today…” “They learned today,” Clayton interrupted, “that no adult will choose to stop them.” “They learned that their choices have consequences,” Henry continued. “Elliot learned that his choice will cost him his brother. The big brother he has always worshipped.” Clayton sighed and propped his bare feet on the coffee table. “I nearly hit him, Henry. I don’t know…” “I don’t think you can do anything for them, Clay. Not now.” He gestured to the grocery sack full of empty beer bottles sitting in the doorway to the kitchen. “What’s that all about? The Marines teach you to drink? You know you can always go to meetings with me, brother.” Clayton thought later that he must have still been a little drunk, or more miserable than he realized, or he would never have spilled his guts to Henry like he did. “Something happened when I was with the Marines, Henry. I fell for someone in my platoon. I didn’t do it on purpose, but things happen. I mean, things happen that you don’t have any control over.” Henry looked over at him. “I didn’t know you had girls in your platoon. I mean, I knew there were girls in the Marines, but I thought they were, you know, segregated or something.” “It wasn’t a girl.” Henry’s jaw dropped. “I know! It’s crazy! I don’t know what happened. But it was great, Henry, it was like nothing that had ever happened to me before… I know it’s crazy…” “Clay, listen. Have you told anybody else about this?” Clayton shook his head. “Okay, good. That’s good. Maybe…maybe you shouldn’t. Not around here, anyway. People aren’t…” Henry shook is head. “That doesn’t matter. It’s okay. So what happened?”

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“He got hurt, Henry. Hurt bad. And he’s still hurt. I don’t know what to do. I don’t think he wants to see me. I mean, he doesn’t want me to feel sorry for him. But maybe he doesn’t want me at all. If I go, and he doesn’t…want me, then that will be the final straw, Henry. The final fucking straw.” Henry put his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. “You shouldn’t have come back here, Clay. In your heart, this has never been your home. You’ve spent your whole life counting the days until you could get away. You were so happy in the Marines, everybody said so. They’d read your letters and say, ‘Is that from Clayton? He sure sounds happy.’” “It wasn’t the Corps. Most of it was utterly fucking miserable. It was him and my platoon. My friends.” “I think you need to find a way to leave. Find a way to not come back here again if things go wrong. What I came here to tell you is this, Clayton. This place, this land down here, it’s implacable, man. It’s like the wind. You don’t want to go and leave the vulnerable ones to their drugs. You don’t want to be another man who quits and leaves them to the wolves. But this place will roll over you and crush the life out of you, and it won’t matter, Clay. The loss will only be the life you could have had. And only a few of us will care. But just remember, no matter what you decide, I’ll be there for you, brother.” Clayton walked Henry outside, shook his hand and watched him drive away. Would it really be that easy, just to climb behind the wheel of his pickup truck and not look back? The night sky was filled with stars, and they looked down on him, cold and merciless and unfeeling. Could he really just leave, leave his mom to handle Elliot alone, leave his grandma and aunts and cousins to careen recklessly toward the disasters they seemed to seek out? He didn’t like to think of himself as that kind of man. What had Henry said, had he told anyone else about Luke? And maybe he shouldn’t. What would it be like to live here and have people know? What would his family do? Most of them would shun him, probably. He wouldn’t be able to do his job. His credibility would be destroyed, no question about that. But that was okay, he’d just quit that job. It just didn’t happen here, two guys together. People who were different, they left. They bolted for anywhere else as soon as they could run. Every little pissant like Elliot would have leave to make him a target. They would make Luke a target, with his blond hair and swagger and ruined face. No, it could never happen. Luke would stomp somebody’s head, and… Clayton opened his laptop. He wasn’t going to think about it any more. He could almost taste it, leaving. Burning bridges felt reckless good. What had he been waiting for? He pulled up his email and clicked on Luke’s message.

Can I come see you? He hit the backspace. That didn’t sound right. What if Luke said no, what would he do then? I want to see you. No, that wasn’t right, either. Luke, I’m coming. He sent the email, closed the laptop, and started packing. The truck was loaded by

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two, but he could still feel the beer sloshing around in his head. He slept on the couch for a couple of hours and was on the road before the sun was up. Clayton made better time than he thought he would. The highways of southern New Mexico were empty, and his foot was heavy in anticipation. Mile after mile, and he felt something thawing out in his chest, something that had been frozen. He pulled into Magdalena just after lunchtime. It was a small town, just a couple of blocks on either side of the highway. He went into the post office to ask for directions. The woman behind the counter had wrinkles around her mouth, like she was a heavy smoker, and lipstick a shade too dark. “I can’t give out that information,” she said, looking him over with suspicion. “Do you know him?” “Yeah,” Clayton said, sticking his memo book back in his pocket. “We were in the same platoon. We served in Iraq together.” “Oh, you were a Marine. So you know about…” The woman gestured toward her face. “Where do you suppose I could go, where they could give me that information?” Clayton knew he was using his cop voice, but he couldn’t help it. He was so close, and he had very little patience left. “Well, his aunt works in the drugstore on the corner. She’s the waitress behind the lunch counter.” Clayton thanked her and left. Everyone in the post office stared at him until he got in his truck. At the lunch counter, he took a stool and waited for the older woman to approach him. She folded back her order pad. “What can I get for you?” Clayton pulled out his memo book. “I’m looking for directions. I came up here to see a buddy of mine, Luke Miller.” She stared at him, shocked. “He sent me an email, said he was coming home from the hospital.” “Oh, my goodness! Are you one of his Marine friends?” Clayton nodded. “I’m Luke’s Aunt Mary. Are you the one I talked to on the phone?” “At the hospital?” Clayton nodded. “I’d really like to go see him. Can you tell me how to get out to his place?” “I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you over there. Does he know you’re coming?” “I think so. I sent him an email.” “I was just going to take him some soup,” she said. “You know, we have a Navajo reservation near here.” She stopped, and Clayton wondered if he was supposed to respond to this. “Are you…do you mind if I ask? You’re Indian, right? Oh, sorry. Native American, that’s the right word these days, isn’t it?”

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Clayton nodded, wondering if this was behind the funny looks at the post office. “I’m Tohono O’odham and Navajo. Clayton Etsitty,” he said, holding out his hand. She reached out and shook it. “You just follow my truck, Clayton.” She drove down a gravel road on the outskirts of town and pulled into a red-dirt driveway. There was a big white metal garage with a wooden stairs going up the side to a small apartment on top. “He lives upstairs,” Mary said. “Down below is where his wood shop used to be. It’s a mess in there. While he was gone somebody broke in and stole his tools and his big table saw. I don’t know how he’s going to get things back into shape. He doesn’t have as much strength as he thinks he does. Well, anyway. He doesn’t like me to fuss.” She picked up the package with the container of soup and led him in through the big metal doors. Luke was sweeping, a blue bandana pulled up over his nose to keep the dust out. He was wearing jeans and a chambray shirt. His eyes were the same, bird’s-egg blue, but he looked weary, thin, stretched to the limit. Clayton sighed. He didn’t realize he had been holding his breath. There was a moon-shaped scar under Luke’s right eye.

What do you want, Clayton? Clayton could feel the words in his mind, like he always could with Luke.

You. I want you. Clayton held up his empty hands. I didn’t bring a collar and leash. Luke was a tough guy, but just for a moment Clayton got a glimpse of something else in his eyes. Love, loneliness, maybe. Something that told him it was okay, that he could stay. Aunt Mary was bustling around, chattering nervously. “I can heat some of this up for you now, Luke, if you’re hungry. Oh, I didn’t ask your friend if he wanted anything when he was in the diner! I bet you don’t have anything to eat here.” “Mrs. Miller, I’ll take care of that.” Clayton took the bag from her and set it down on the workbench. Luke walked up to his aunt and patted her on the shoulder, then nodded to the door. “Oh, well, okay, honey. I’ll just go back to work. But do you need anything?” Luke shook his head. “Well, I’ll just check up on you in the morning, okay?” Luke sighed, and the woman became a little flustered. “Oh, sorry, honey. I said I would stop fussing…” She was still talking when he walked her out of the door. Luke came back through the garage doors and closed them. It was quiet and dark inside the workshop. Dust floated lazily through the air. Luke walked slowly over to where Clayton was leaning against the workbench. “Can I stay, Luke? Let me stay.” Clayton wasn’t sure if he’d said the words out loud. Luke’s face was strained, new lines of pain etched between his eyes. Clayton reached for him and tugged the bandana down. The scars were still bright red, the flesh melted and torn. The left side of his jaw was gone. So was that ear, replaced by ropy, shiny red scar. His mouth was a gaping wound. A line of drool slid out the corner. Luke raised the bandana and blotted his chin.

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Clayton ran gentle fingers over Luke’s face, not touching the scars. “Do they still hurt?” Luke shook his head. “No big deal, then. You look the same. The rest of your face is okay, it’s just this little part here. Maybe a little thinner.” Tears were sliding down his face. I don’t know where to kiss you. He leaned in, and Luke closed his eyes. He kissed Luke’s forehead, his eyelids, his nose, his cheeks. Luke didn’t reach for him, though. He didn’t pull Clayton close, he just stood there, waiting. Clayton raised his head, and they studied each other. Luke tugged the bandana back up, so the worst of the damage wasn’t visible.

Don’t make me go. I’m lost without you, Luke. Luke studied his face, then reached for his memo book. “You feeling a sense of obligation? Because I’m fine, Clay.” Luke’s hand was shaking, the knuckles white as he wrote. “I don’t need you. I’ll do just fine here by myself. I don’t need anybody.” Clayton shook his head and started unbuttoning Luke’s shirt, feeling a tremor of panic in his chest. He was the most hard-headed, stubborn…“No obligation. That’s what took me back home, and it was a total fuck-up. This isn’t about you getting hurt, Luke. It’s nothing to do with that.” When the buttons were undone, he ran his hands flat over Luke’s chest, counted ribs with his fingertips, brushed his nipples. “Luke, you’re so thin. I just came to see you. Buddy, you may not need me, but I’m lost without you. Did you lock that door?” Luke nodded. “Good, I want to…I need to see you. Just let me see you, okay?” He reached for Luke’s jeans. They were loose. Clayton could fit his fist between Luke’s hips and the waistband of his jeans. He unzipped them and started to push them down. Luke was wearing a pair of old brown boots. Clayton knelt at his feet. “We better get these off, cowboy.” He tugged the first boot off and tossed it across the floor, then reached for the second. Luke’s face wasn’t so strained, and a hint of his old laughter was back in his eyes. Clayton stayed on his knees, tugged Luke’s jeans down and pulled them off. Then sat back on his heels.

Will you lay down with me? Luke went to his knees, one hand on Clay’s shoulder, and Clayton pushed him gently backward until he was lying on the floor. Clayton rolled the jeans into a ball and put them under Luke’s head, then he tugged his boxers down and off. Luke was already erect, his cock dark against the ivory skin of his belly. Clayton buried his face between his legs, buried his nose and mouth in the golden hair, ran his cheek up and down Luke’s cock, felt something tight let loose and relax in his chest. Luke’s hip bones stood out like wings, and Clayton could see a pulse beating in his groin. The femoral pulse. He put his fingers over it, and then his mouth. Every beat of Luke’s heart, and he could feel it here, under his lips. He was alive. Clayton’s face was wet with tears. He took Luke into his mouth, wrapped his fingers around the base of his cock, his thumb caressing that muscle underneath where Luke was so sensitive. When he caught that scent, Luke’s scent, the one from his memory, he went a little crazy, his mouth frenzied,

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Luke’s cock so deep in his throat he thought he would swallow him whole. He wanted to swallow him, he wanted to reach into his chest and eat his beating heart, crawl inside his body and curl up, asleep. Then Clayton could taste him on the back of his tongue. Luke filled his mouth, hips pumping, breath harsh in his throat, his hands reaching for Clayton’s head. Luke’s eyes were hungry and sweet with longing. He reached for Clayton, his hands moving over his face, over his chest and stomach until he reached for the button at the waistband of Clayton’s jeans and twisted it open. Clayton stared into Luke’s beautiful eyes. They trapped his heart, and he spun there like an insect caught in a spider’s web, waiting to be devoured. Luke pushed Clayton’s jeans and boxers down over his hips to his knees, then tugged him down, clutched his ass and pressed them together. His skin touching Luke’s skin, his cock touching Luke’s cock, finally, finally, staring down into Luke’s sleepy, sexy eyes, just like the first time. Clayton felt his heart squeeze tight with longing and love and gratitude. Luke’s skin underneath his; Luke’s smell surrounding him, love touching him. Just that fast he was jerking and thrusting, wave on wave of pleasure sweeping over his skin, deep inside his cock, the power of the orgasm curling his toes. Luke reached between them before Clayton was still, touched Clayton’s come with his fingertips, brought the fluid to his nose. Clayton watched Luke’s eyes change, the pupils dilate with pleasure, the smell of their sex between them. They made it upstairs to Luke’s apartment. It was tiny, a studio with a double bed against the wall. They lay together, Clayton talking, Luke’s eyes never leaving his face. Clayton told him everything, six months worth of everything, like he’d been saving up his words until he could get here. He told him about Chris and Gary and the other guys from the platoon, about what had been happening at home with his mom and grandma, and he told him about Elliot. “I packed everything I own and stowed it in the back of my pickup, Luke. I don’t know…I don’t know what’s next. I’m not going back. I guess it depends on you. If you want me. If you want to be with me, and we can figure out how to do it. ” He rolled over and stared into Luke’s eyes. “You want to run? Let’s run.” Clayton was quiet at last, listening to Luke breathe. His sounds had changed. His breathing was audible, a harsh whistle through his damaged throat and mouth. Clayton reached his hand for Luke’s chest, let his palm rest over his heart, feeling the gentle rocking of his chest with each breath. Luke slid down next to him on the pillow, adjusted the bandana carefully over his ruined face, then he slid his legs down between Clayton’s, tucked Clay’s hand between his thighs and closed his eyes. Clayton was asleep in minutes. He slept all evening and all night, and if he dreamed, he didn’t remember it.

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The next morning Clayton pulled Luke up and into his arms. He loved the contrast between their skins, the way his dark skin looked against Luke’s pale body. “I think your aunt was a little shocked that I’m Native.” Luke shrugged and reached for his memo pad and pencil. “She’s old fashioned. There’re a lot of problems with alcohol and drugs around town that people think come from the reservation.” “She taking good care of you?” “She’s making me baby food to eat. She would be powdering my butt if I let her. She wants to find a nice little cage for me to live in, so I won’t get hurt again. I used to be a grown man.” He stopped writing and looked over at Clayton. Clay, I didn’t think you’d ever

come. I thought the wanting would kill me. I don’t know how to stop wanting you. Clayton felt his heart tip over in his chest. “I haven’t stopped, either. I think it’s just getting stronger. But I didn’t want to make things harder for you, Luke. And, to tell you the truth, buddy, I was afraid if you didn’t want me, I’d end up with a gun in my mouth. How do you eat?” Luke held up a straw. “Everything liquid?” Luke nodded, then bent over the memo pad again. “I can chew soft stuff with the other side of my jaw, I just can’t coordinate swallowing very well. It’s supposed to get better with practice.” Do you remember how to do the Heimlich maneuver? Clayton smiled at him and nodded. “Luke, have you seen Jenny? Is she still…” “Still in love with me?” Luke shook his head. “It wasn’t my pretty face that ran her off. I told her I was in love with someone else.” Luke reached a hand down between Clayton’s legs and traced his cock, gave it a friendly squeeze. Then he climbed out of bed and went into the kitchen. Clayton heard the refrigerator door open and close, and Luke came back with a handful of butter. Clayton felt himself flush hot, then go damp all over. They’d only done this once before. There hadn’t been any place private enough. It was his most secret fantasy, imagining this, imagining himself buried in another man’s body, no, in this man’s body. His cock was throbbing. Luke started smearing the butter up and down, over the glans. His eyes were wide and the pupils dilated. “This won’t hurt you? You’re sure, Luke?”

I’m sure. I want you, too. Luke gave him the rest of the softening butter, then he climbed up on the bed. Clayton moved behind him, the slow throb between his legs coming faster and faster as he smeared the butter around Luke’s anus. He slid the tip of his index finger inside and watched the tiny muscle contract around it like the mouth of a sea anemone, opening and closing. He could hear Luke’s breathing become ragged.

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“Luke, I don’t know if we should. I don’t want to hurt you.” But his cock was already in place, pushing forward, and Luke pressed back toward him. He held Luke’s hips in his hands and pushed inside. They were both shaking. Clayton pushed in a little more, an inch. Luke’s ass was contracting around his cock, tight as a vise, pulsing with the rhythm of his heartbeat. His heartbeat, his living, beating heart. Clay slid forward, wrapped a hand around Luke’s cock and the other around his balls. They started moving together.

I’m inside you. A touch in his mind, a hand like suede stroking his brain, his thoughts and Luke’s wrapped around each other like a double helix. The gathering pressure in his cock became almost unbearable, and he started moving faster, rougher. When Luke tensed and spilled into his hands, he brought his hands to his face and smelled, filled his memory again, and the scent tipped him over. He held Luke’s fragile body close against his, shudders moving through his skin, his belly, down into his cock. They were still lying together, legs wrapped around each other, not talking, when Aunt Mary unlocked and opened the door to the little apartment. “Honey, how was your visit with your…” She let out a hoarse, outraged shriek, snatched up the broom from the corner and started whacking at Clayton’s back and legs. He tried to roll over and cover Luke, but Luke sat up and grabbed the broom, jerked it out of her hands and tossed it across the room. “What in heaven’s name is he doing to you, honey?” She had her fists parked on her hips, staring down at them. Luke scowled at her. “You’re so weak, I can’t believe he would take advantage of you that way! You’ve just been lonely, that’s what it is.” She turned to Clayton. “Do they let you do this sort of thing in the Marine Corps? Down on that reservation you come from? I can’t believe they would. And even if they do, I can tell you right now that we don’t allow this in Magdalena!” She pointed a trembling finger at Clayton. “You get your clothes on and get out before I set the law on you.” She looked over at Luke. “Honey, you get cleaned up. I’ll be back in thirty minutes to help you with breakfast.” When she left Luke rolled over and looked into Clayton’s eyes. I’m going to be trouble

for you, always. When Aunt Mary came back, with Uncle Jack along in case they needed some muscle, the truck was gone. Written across the front of the garage in spray paint: Gone to Alaska.

Juan Juan’s face was as broad and flat as a shovel, and his teeth stuck out a little in front. Not much, just enough that sometimes he slurred his words, and sometimes when he got excited, he spoke very quickly and spit. This was why the man had broken his arm, because Juan had spit in his face. It was an accident, but still, people didn’t like being spit on.

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But maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe the man broke his arm because he, Juan, was very stupid. Juan knew this was true because his mother had told him so many times. “Juan,” she would say, her big, doughy hands on either side of his face. “You must work harder and be quieter than the other boys, because you were born with very little brains.” Sometimes Juan thought, from the way that his mother looked at him, that his birth must have hurt her very much. After the man broke Juan’s arm, he threw him out of the back of the pickup truck, so now Juan was walking on the side of the road somewhere south of Ajo. He cradled his arm against his chest and tried not to move it, but the pain was really more than he could ever remember feeling before. He felt very thirsty and sick, and he wasn’t sure what to do now. The man had said that some of them would go in the white van to Phoenix and some would get into the red pickup truck, and eventually, go to California or Oregon. That’s where the crops were that needed picking. Juan hoped he was with the Phoenix group, because Phoenix was near to Gallup, New Mexico, and Gallup, New Mexico was where the All-Indian Rodeo Cowboy’s Association Rodeo was being held in two weeks’ time. In fact, now that he thought about it, it was while asking if he could go to Phoenix in the white van that the man got so angry and threw him out of the back of the truck. He sat down on the edge of the road. He couldn’t let go of his broken arm, which meant the cactus spine in his foot would have to stay there for now. His head was spinning, and he thought his tongue might be swelling up in his mouth. He was thinking that this was the very worst of his three trips into America, when the red pickup truck pulling the horse trailer slowed next to him and then stopped. “Maggie, look. The boy’s hurt bad.” Knees covered in denim knelt beside him, and he felt his head lifted and a plastic bottle of water tilted up to his mouth. Some of it ran out of his mouth because his dry throat could not swallow fast enough, and this failure brought the burn of tears to his eyes. An old woman was leaning over him. Her face wrinkled up when she smiled. She had a little sunburn across her nose and cheeks, and she had blue eyes. She looked friendly, so he wasn’t afraid. “Go slow with that water. Here, try a little more.” She tilted the bottle toward his mouth again, and this time he got some of it down. She squinted at the man kneeling on his other side. “Clint, help him up now. Let’s get him into the clinic. That arm looks broke.” Juan turned to look at the man. He was old, too, and he looked like a cowboy. He was wearing jeans, like the woman, and a battered straw hat. His hands were big and rough, but he was gentle when he took Juan under the arms and hauled him upright. Juan was having trouble standing, and the man reached down and picked him up, one arm under his knees and another under his shoulders. The mountains and the blue sky tipped and spun around, and Juan closed his eyes.

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“He’s nothing but bones, Maggie. Look at him. And he’s so young.” Juan had learned some English on his previous trips to the United States, mostly from Cartoon Network and the Disney Channel. It wasn’t enough, though, to understand the woman at the clinic. When he awoke, he was on a bed with metal rails and there were white curtains surrounding him. A woman with red hair was speaking to him. “In-Sur-Ance,” she said, slowly and loudly. He shook his head, not understanding. She said it again, “In-SurAnce,” then twitched the curtain aside. “See if Maria’s here yet. Anyone else speak Spanish?” The old woman was standing next to the bed. She leaned over. “What’s your name?” “Juan.” He kept his eyes on her, and she moved closer and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll take care of the bill,” she said, looking at the girl. “Are you sure? You don’t have to do that. He looks illegal. We’ll call the Border Patrol, let them…” “He’s working for me. I’ll take care of the bill.” His arm was X-rayed and put in a cast, and the cactus spine was pulled out of his foot. A nurse put a needle in his hand and let two bags of water run in. Juan stared at the water dripping into his hand through the clear plastic tubing. This was American water, and he wondered if it would make him smarter. No one asked him how his arm became broken, so he was not able to tell anyone about the man and the white van. Not that he had anything to tell. He didn’t know the man’s name, had never seen him before yesterday. But Juan felt like he wanted very badly to tell someone that this man had broken his arm and thrown him out the back of a truck for no good reason. The cowboy pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the cubicle. He studied the bag of water and the cast and the old woman standing there with her hand on his shoulder. “He almost done?” She nodded. “With this part. I don’t know…” “Why’d you tell them he was working for you? You’re gonna have a big medical bill here.” She shrugged. “So you want to take him with us, Maggie? There’s a bed in the bunkhouse.” They looked at each other for a moment, then the cowboy sighed and pushed the hat back a little on his head. Juan watched him eagerly. This was a real cowboy. He could learn…Well, he could learn everything watching him. “Where are you supposed to be, son? Are you meeting somebody?” The cowboy spoke Spanish, very slowly and with a strange accent.

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Juan shook his head. “I was supposed to get in the white van or the red truck in Ajo, and go to work. But since the man broke my arm and threw me down in the road, I’m not going with him.” The cowboy looked down at him, his hands on his hips. “I think the man was using drugs. That’s why he was so mad all the time.” The cowboy nodded. “Well, drugs will do that, no question about it. You want to come with us? I’ll work you hard, but I won’t break your arm. Not on purpose, anyway. I can’t say what the horses will do.” “Horses? I want to ride horses, ride wild horses in the rodeo!” Juan felt his heart swelling in his chest. He had never said the words out loud before, but this was his greatest dream. “You do? Well, we’ll see about that. If you want, you can come with us.” Juan wasn’t sure how it happened. The old woman left the cubicle, and she came back with a nurse. The nurse winked at him and opened up the small wheel on the tube from the bag of American water and let it all drain into him. Then she pulled the needle out of his hand and taped a square of gauze across the hole. Juan didn’t watch. The cowboy and the old woman walked him outside and put him in the backseat of the red truck. The cowboy put a horse blanket in the corner against the door for his head, so he could lie down. Two horses stuck their heads out the side of the trailer and looked at him. The horses looked friendly, the cowboy looked friendly, and the old woman looked friendly. Juan leaned back against the horse blanket and closed his eyes. They drove through beautiful country, mountains dark against the sky, and by sundown they pulled up in front of a small ranch house with a long front porch made from cedar logs. There was a stables and bunkhouse out back. Juan climbed out of the back seat and tried to help the cowboy unload the horses from the trailer. Mostly he held onto the door and watched. The horses backed down the ramp and then turned to investigate him, ears pricked and interested. Juan reached out to touch a soft brown nose and laughed out loud when the horse blew warm breath into his palm and shook his head. It was the first time he had ever touched a living horse. He had ridden horses in his dreams his whole life, though. Real horses were bigger than he’d thought they would be. He followed the cowboy into the house. The old woman was cooking something on the stove, and the house smelled like meat and onions and garlic. His stomach rumbled, and she smiled at him. “I think a pot of chili and some tortillas might hit the spot. Child, my name is Maggie, and this is Clint. We’ve got a bed for you out in the bunkhouse, and you’re welcome to stay here with us.” She paused. “At least stay until your arm is healed up, son. Then we’ll see.” She glanced at Clint. “We’ll see how things go.”

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Clint taped a plastic bag to his cast and helped him into the shower. The little bathroom was next to Maggie’s bedroom. When he came out, Clint had put a pair of underwear, some bright blue sweatpants, and a white T-shirt on the end of the bed. “These are Maggie’s sweatpants,” he said. “I think they’ll fit you just fine.” Maggie’s chili was good, different from his mother’s, with meat in every bite, but hardly any peppers. Juan ate two bowlfuls, then sat on the couch while Maggie and Clint did the dishes. Maggie put the iron skillet on the stove and turned the fire on underneath it. “We’ve still got some of those frozen peaches left from last summer,” she said. “Maybe I’ll make some cobbler.” Clint glanced over at the couch. “The boy’s about asleep, Maggie, and neither one of us could eat another bite.” “That’s all right, cobbler’s better the next day.” She got a stick of butter out of the fridge and put it in the iron skillet to melt. Clint put a hand on her waist. “You happy?” She looked back at him, smiling. Juan must have fallen asleep on the couch. When he woke up, it was morning, and there was a blanket over his legs and a pillow under his head. His arm hurt. It was throbbing inside the cast, and his fingers looked swollen and purple. When he sat up he must have made a noise, because Maggie came in from the kitchen and looked at him. “Well, look who’s up! Is that arm hurting you?” Juan held it gingerly against his chest. He knew he was crying, but he couldn’t help it. The pain was so bad, and he was feeling mad about the man who had hurt him. Why did he have to do that? The man’s meanness, his anger, had hovered over all of them like a dark cloud. They had been afraid of him, but what was there to do? Some of the older men tried to protect the boys, but Juan didn’t have anyone to stand up for him, to stand between him and the man. Maggie sat down next to him on the couch. He told her everything that had happened, from the time his mother told him it was time to go back to work in the fields up north. Maggie listened to him, nodded and patted him on the knee. When he finished talking she pulled the bandana out of her pocket and wiped his face. “We better get you something for that arm,” she said. She brought him two white pills and a cup of coffee with sugar and milk. When he woke up again it was late afternoon, and Clint was just coming in. He was dusty, and he looked down at Juan on the couch, then over at Maggie in the kitchen. “How’s our boy doing?” “I bet he’ll be up by tomorrow,” Maggie said.

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“I can be up right now.” Juan swung his legs over the side of the couch. He followed Maggie into the kitchen and sat down at the table. She poured him a glass of tea and handed him a couple more of the white pills for the pain in his arm. Clint only took a few minutes in the shower. He came into the kitchen with his hair still curly and damp, wearing a clean pair of jeans. “Juan, come out with me and see the chickens. Maggie’s got some Rhode Island Reds in a pen out back.” They walked outside, and Juan caught his breath. Late afternoon gold was spread out across the valley. He could see a big garden fenced in, and a chicken pen next to it. There were five horses in the corral, chewing on alfalfa hay. Clint pulled a handful of hay and handed it to Juan, then took another for himself. “Those chickens love alfalfa.” They walked to the pen and went inside. The chickens were bright brown, with shiny feathers. A couple of them rushed over and snatched the alfalfa out of his hand, and Juan laughed out loud at how bossy they were. “I’m going to let you help me with these chickens,” Clint said. “We feed them and give them water every morning and every evening, then we collect the eggs about noon.” “I can do that,” Juan said. “And I can help you with the horses, too?” “Sure you can, son. I know you’ll be a big help. Juan, is there anyone you need to call on the telephone? Do you want to send a telegram? Anyone at home?” Juan thought about this. How could he explain? What would he say? No matter what he said, his mother would be angry. He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that now. Clint walked him over to the bunkhouse. It was a tiny building attached to the stables, and inside was a bed with a patchwork quilt spread over it, a bedside table, and a chair. Clint pointed out the small bathroom. “It’s kind of rough, but it’s peaceful, too. I lived out here for a couple of years before I moved into Maggie’s house.” Juan looked at him, surprised. He thought they had been married for a long time. “We’ve only been together a few years,” Clint explained. “She was married before, has a son, and he’s got a new wife. Her husband died real sudden about five years ago, and it was lonely for her out here. Lonely for me, too.” Clint put a big hand on his shoulder. “It’ll make her happy to cook for you. Come on. We better go get ready for supper.” Over the next month Juan followed Clint around, watching carefully to learn the ways of the cowboy. He watched him feed and water the horses, and studied the leather tack until he could say the name of each piece. Juan wasn’t allowed to ride a horse yet, though, not until he got the cast off his arm. When it had been six weeks, they climbed into the red pickup and made the trip into town. The doctor was young, with a very white smile, but his eyes didn’t look friendly. “Maggie, you picking up strays again? I bet Gary would be interested in this little puppy. Maybe I’ll give him a call.” Maggie didn’t answer, just stared at him until he turned away and started slicing through the fiberglass cast.

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Juan thought his arm looked funny, pale and skinny like one of the chicken’s legs. The doctor felt along the bone, and turned the arm this way and that, and finally handed Maggie a blue fabric splint. “He can wear this for a couple of days.” “You can speak to him,” she said. “He’s learning English.” “Really.” The doctor crossed his arms over his chest, but didn’t look at Juan. Maggie shook her head at him. She had her hand on his shoulder as they went back to the waiting room. Clint stood up when he saw them. He looked out of place on the orange plastic chair, with his jeans and boots and his straw hat held in his lap. “How’s that arm looking?” The smile slid off his face when he looked at Maggie. “What’s wrong?” “Everything’s fine,” she said, her hand still on Juan’s shoulder. “Let’s go get some ice cream.” Maggie and Clint talked together at the little table in the ice cream shop while Juan picked out an ice cream cone. They had so many flavors it was hard to pick just one. He finally decided on chocolate chip cookie dough, a single scoop. When they left the ice cream shop, Clint said, “I think we need to get this boy some new jeans, and maybe a hat. He’s putting on some weight from your good cooking, Maggie.” At Western Warehouse Clint went with him to try on some Wranglers. His arm still felt weak, so Clint helped him pull the jeans up. When they found the right size, Clint folded two pairs over his arm. They looked at hats, too, and Juan found a straw Bailey with a narrow leather band that looked like Clint’s. Juan felt sleepy and happy both, in the truck on the way home, and held his new jeans in his lap. He heard Maggie say, “I better call Gary when we get home.”

***** Juan was up early the next morning. He fed the chickens and put fresh water in their concrete trough. The boss chicken followed him around until he got her some alfalfa. When the chickens had eaten he walked over to the corral and showed the horses that his arm was out of the cast. He was just telling them that today might be the day for his first ride when Clint walked over and joined him. “I thought you might be out here early,” Clint said. “Maggie just put the biscuits on, so we’ve got time for a ride before breakfast.” Juan helped Clint saddle Mary, who was the oldest and sweetest of the horses. “She’s a good horse to start with,” Clint explained. “When you know what to do on Mary, then we move you up to the other horses. Won’t be long before you’re riding wild horses in the rodeo.” Juan covered his mouth with his hand so Clint wouldn’t see his teeth sticking out so much when he smiled. He couldn’t seem to stop smiling today. Mary liked him, and she stood very still when he climbed on her back. “Boy, you’re wiggling like an eel,” Clint said. “Slow and calm, that’s the way to be on a horse.”

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Juan put his feet in the stirrups and gathered the reins. Clint showed him how to put the reins in one hand, so he could rest his other hand on the pommel. Mary took him for a slow walk around the paddock, and Clint grinned up at him. “Quit bouncing, boy!” Then Clint led them out of the paddock and they walked up a trail that skirted the foot of the mountains. Juan didn’t have anything to do but hang on and find his balance. Mary followed Clint, her hooves sure on the trail. After a few minutes of riding, Juan felt her rhythm, and started to move with her. “You’ve got it now, son,” Clint said. “Tomorrow we’ll go again, and you can learn how to use the reins to get Mary to go to the left or right.” Clint stroked her nose. “Not that she will. This old girl goes just where she wants to go, so you might as well just go along with her.” When they got back to the paddock, Maggie was leaning against the fence, watching. “He’s gonna be a fine horseman, Maggie,” he said, helping Juan climb down from the saddle. “You don’t think it’s too soon? That arm…” “Now, don’t fuss over the boy. He’s been real patient, waiting for his turn.” “You two better come in and get some breakfast, then. I’m about ready to put the eggs on. What needs doing today?” “I need to service that tractor, I think.” At the breakfast table Maggie buttered two biscuits and put them on his plate. “Juan, did you like riding a horse? Was it as good as you imagined?” Juan was overflowing with happiness, with the smell of buttered biscuits coming up from his plate and his first horseback ride, so he made a fool of himself and burst into tears. “Now, boy,” Clint said. Maggie chuckled and wiped his face with her napkin. “Don’t let that good food get cold.” He nodded and bent his head to his plate. It was late afternoon when the truck pulled up in Maggie’s driveway. Juan had been helping Clint clean the tractor and putting WD-40 on some parts. Juan was learning the English words for the parts: plugs, points, belts. Clint stood up, squinting at the truck, then he started cleaning his hands with a rag soaked in kerosene. “Son, I want you to finish picking up in the shed, then get cleaned up over in the bunkhouse before you come up to the house. Maggie’s son is here, with his new wife.” Clint hesitated. “Now, son, don’t get scared, but Gary, that’s Maggie’s boy, he’s with the Border Patrol.”

“La Migra?” Juan stood still and felt shock flood through him.

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Clint put a hand on his shoulder. “Pay attention. It’s gonna be important to Maggie that we all get along together. She’s been cooking all afternoon. Juan, I won’t let anyone hurt you. You got to trust me, son.” Juan watched him walk into the house, then turned back and started cleaning the tools. Clint had a piece of brown pegboard hung on the wall with little hooks, and each tool had its own hook. He had felt full of happiness earlier today. Now, just that fast, sadness flooded him and filled him up. It was a familiar feeling, but what a thing to happen on the day of his first horseback ride! Maybe it was supposed to happen like this. A happy thing had to be followed by sadness. After the shed was cleaned up Juan wiped the tractor down, then walked back to the bunkhouse. He took a shower and brushed his teeth, and put on his new jeans and his new hat. Then he sat down on the bed. It was nice to be in the bunkhouse. The old quilt was very warm and soft, and it reminded him of Maggie. She made it a long time ago, she’d told him. He liked having this small space of his own, and he would miss it very much. For the first time he let the words crawl back into his mind. La Migra. He had heard so many stories. He knew some of them were probably not true, but which ones? What would they do with him? Would they send him back home? His mother would be very angry to hear about all the trouble he caused. They might throw him in American jail and let rats and cockroaches crawl over his face while he slept. They might take him out in the desert and put their guns on him and shoot him in the head, and he would fall under one of those ancient saguaros, and the coyotes would come out at night and eat his arms and legs and his belly that was getting fat from eating Maggie’s cooking. He put his face down on his knees and cried. A girl knocked on his open door. “You must be Juan.” He sat up and wiped his face. Was this the wife? She had a curly brown ponytail and a bossy, smiling face. She was talking very fast, switching from Spanish to English. She reminded him a little of the head chicken, who wouldn’t let him in to fill the water trough until he had fetched her a few sprigs of alfalfa. Juan wiped his eyes and hiccupped. She fell silent, then spoke again in a soft voice, very gentle and slow. “I’ve come to bring you to supper, Juan. Come on with me, now.” He nodded and followed her to Maggie’s house. They walked into an argument.

La Migra was big, with bulging muscles in his shoulders and chest. He looked like Maggie, only mean, his blond hair cut very short. He had a tattoo on one arm of a snarling dog with big teeth and a spiked collar. The letters USMC were next to it in fancy writing. Clint had those same letters tattooed on his arm. Juan had seen them when Clint got out of the shower. Clint would walk around the house in bare feet and clean jeans after his shower, and wouldn’t put on a shirt until Maggie called them to come to the table. “I am a federal agent,” La Migra said. “What kind of position does this put me in?”

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“It’s not about you, son,” Maggie said. “Don’t tell me you expect me to walk away from someone who needs help, who needs food and a place to sleep, not when I’m sitting here with an empty bunkhouse.”

La Migra cursed under his breath. “So while I’m in Iraq you bring an ex-con into my father’s house? And now you bring a retarded illegal home because he needed help, and you didn’t have anything better to do? And you expect me to do nothing?” Maggie gasped and sat back like he’d slapped her. Clint stood up. “That’s enough. Boy, don’t you use me to hurt your mother.” Maggie was up now, and she stepped in front of Clint. “You were a Marine, and you went to war, so now you know everything about men and war? You know nothing.” She was talking like her teeth were clenched. “You don’t know what Vietnam did to those men, to all of us. Your time was different. You don’t have any right to pass judgment on him or on me.” Juan felt his heart tearing into pieces. He didn’t know what they were talking about, but he knew it was his fault. He was here, and he wasn’t supposed to be here, and now Maggie and Clint both looked like they were getting ready to cry. Juan sobbed, then sobbed again and put his hands up to hide his face. The girl with the pony tail put her arm around his shoulder, and she was so mad she was shaking. Juan could hear it in her voice. “I cannot believe what I just heard,” she said. “Your father’s house. You think your mother should have thrown herself on your dad’s funeral pyre? She doesn’t have the right to go on living? How can you say such a thing? It makes me feel like I’m married to a stranger.” Juan couldn’t stand the angry voices another minute. He tore out of the front room and ran across to the paddock, jumped the gate, and threw his arms around Mary’s neck. The other horses crowded around him, touching him with their soft noses. Maggie and Clint came out to the bunkhouse about dark. She brought him a bowl of beef stew and a piece of cornbread. “I’m not letting you go to bed hungry,” she said, setting the bowl down in his lap. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “We missed you at supper, Juan.” Clint sat next to him on the bed. “Sometimes grown-ups have disagreements. But that don’t mean somebody’s gonna get their arm broke.” He reached over and touched Juan’s arm. “That won’t happen to you around here. Not from me and not from Gary, either.” “My son, Gary,” Maggie said. “He’s always been real emotional. Strong and loyal, but he don’t have a good handle on those emotions. I think he misses his father. He went off to war without his dad waiting for him at home, to tell him how good he did.” She glanced over at Clint. “I sure am sorry. I don’t know what to say to you.” “Don’t you apologize to me, Maggie,” Clint said, his voice gruff. She put her arms around him and they hugged each other for the longest time. Juan ate his beef stew and watched them. He wrapped the cornbread up in his napkin for later.

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***** Juan started walking about midnight. He had the cornbread in his pocket, Clint’s old canteen full of water, and his extra pair of jeans rolled up and roped to his waist. La Migra and his pretty wife were still at the house. Juan was sure that tomorrow there would be more anger, more yelling, then La Migra would force Maggie and Clint into the bedroom, where they couldn’t protect him. La Migra would put the handcuffs on his wrists and put him in the truck and Maggie would cry. Maybe he would hit the pretty wife. If he started drinking, someone would get hurt. That’s the way it happened. Juan would try to get to Gallup, New Mexico. In Gallup he was sure he could find someone with the All-Indian Rodeo Cowboy’s Association who would recognize the Indio blood in his face and would let him take care of their horses. He ate his cornbread and drank some water from Clint’s canteen about sun-up. The canteen had the letters on the front, USMC, the same ones Clint had on his tattoo, and La Migra, too. The sadness was heavy in his chest, but it was familiar, too, nothing he hadn’t felt many times before. He tried to feel a sense of adventure. He was on his way to Gallup, New Mexico, to take care of the horses in the All-Indian Rodeo Cowboy’s Association Rodeo. He repeated this to himself several times, but it felt like his heart had hands that were stretching backward toward Maggie’s house. An old blue Dodge pickup pulled up next to him. It looked like pickup trucks from home, battered, missing one headlight, the tailgate secured with wire. There were two women in the front. The driver was a dark-haired woman about his mother’s age, with brown skin and dark eyes. The old lady next to her was ancient and shrunken, her face like a little brown apple, with a flowered headscarf and a turquoise brooch at the neck of her blouse. “I’m going to Gallup, New Mexico,” Juan said. “Climb in the back,” she said, gesturing with her chin. “We’re not going to Gallup, but we’ll get you a little bit closer.” There were three teenagers in the back of the truck already. At first, Juan thought they were all boys, but then he realized it was a girl leaning up against the cab. She had on baggy pants and a blue work shirt that said Dickies over the pocket. Her long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she’d wrapped a bandana around her head. She opened her eyes, looked at him, and then sighed and closed her eyes again. This was the reaction Juan was used to from girls, but he wasn’t sure it was directed at him this time. The two boys were pulling out their stuff, a battered plastic baggie with some clear chunks of crystal and a homemade pipe. The pipe was made out of a lug nut and a tiny piece of copper tubing, wrapped around with electrical tape. Juan knew the name of the lug nut. Clint had told him when they were cleaning the tractor.

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Juan couldn’t understand what the boys were saying. There was a lot of slurring and giggling and Oh, fuck, man, over and over again. It didn’t sound like any English he’d ever heard, and it wasn’t Spanish. They were American, though. Their long, black hair was very shiny and clean, and their T-shirts came from West Coast Choppers. They both had Converse All-Stars on their feet, new ones that fit them. Juan moved over so he could sit by the girl. One of the boys stuck a crystal in the pipe, carefully licking his fingers. He flicked the lighter to the bowl and inhaled, then passed the pipe. The second boy sucked on the pipe, a couple of short, choppy breaths. Then he looked over at Juan, eyebrows raised, and offered it to him. Juan shook his head. His spirits were sinking fast. He knew what that stuff was. It was the same stuff the man smoked who broke his arm. His arm twinged a little, and he rubbed it. Here he was, exactly where he had started, in the back of a pickup truck with people using drugs. One of the boys reached over and poked his knee. “Where you from, man?” “Chihuahua.” The boys laughed like a couple of hyenas. “That’s where those little fucking Taco Bell dogs come from, ehya? What’s your name? Never mind, fuck, we’ll just call you Taco Bell.” Juan pointed to his face. “Indio,” he explained. Why didn’t anyone see it? Everyone in Mexico noticed his Indio blood first thing. They both cracked up. “Oh, man, that’s so fucked up! Don’t you even know what you are?” The girl opened her eyes. “There were indigenous people all over North and South America before the oppressors came. You two are so ignorant it’s embarrassing.” She sounded disgusted, but resigned. The boys just hooted at her and pulled out the plastic bag again. The one closest kicked Juan in the ankle after the girl had closed her eyes again. Juan just stared at the mountains. He needed to get out of here before another bone got broken. An hour later the two boys were flying, falling all over each other, talking in their strange language and laughing like idiots. The first boy stood up, weaving a little, and unzipped his pants. He was trying to pee off the side of the truck, but the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, and the urine flew back and landed on the girl’s face. She opened her eyes, furious, and reached out for him. “Elliot! I’m gonna tear you to pieces!” She tugged him backward by his T-shirt, then turned around and pounded on the window to the cab. The woman driving turned around to look, then pulled the truck off the side of the road. There was a lot of yelling after that, and Juan had to cover his ears and hide his face on his knees. When he looked up the old woman from the front seat was watching him through the glass. Juan climbed down out of the back of the truck.

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She handed him a vanilla wafer through the window, then took one for herself. He told her thank you, in both English and Spanish. She didn’t appear to speak either language. How many languages would this country hold? Juan started walking again. The day was long and very hot, and he was hungry. Something felt wrong in his chest, too. Juan filled his canteen at a gas station and kept walking. He got another ride, this time in the back of a flat-bed work truck full of dirty tools, shovels and hoes and post-hole diggers. There were already a couple of men in the back. They looked tired and bad tempered, and neither reached a hand down to help Juan climb into the back of the truck. They drove a couple of hours, the heat and wind and noise from the rattling tools making conversation impossible. Juan was so tired. He could barely think, but the thoughts that marched through his head were a parade of horrible memories. The time the teacher at the school told the other students he was just as smart as the rock sitting in the middle of the road, and everyone had laughed. The time his mother had said, Indio, and spit into the dirt, and her voice was full of disgust. The time the boys had chased him and put him in the well, and when he climbed out the women screamed and hit him on the head with sticks. The time the man screamed at him, snapped his arm like a twig, then threw him out into the desert like he was a piece of trash. He was having all these bad thoughts because he was not supposed to be here. Whatever it took to be in American, he didn’t have it. He probably never would, because if there was a test, he would fail it. No one here was like him. Even the Indio kids from the pickup truck could tell that he wasn’t like them. And no one wanted him. But that wasn’t true. Maggie and Clint wanted him, and he had brought La Migra down on their house like a thundercloud. Because he wasn’t supposed to be here, and you could not break the rules. People in America had rules. They stopped on the outskirts of a little town. Juan didn’t know if they were still in Arizona, or had moved into New Mexico. He looked around, then asked one of the men if they were in Gallup. The man shook his head and pulled a small, flat bottle of bourbon out of his pocket. He was tough looking, with a grizzled black beard and a black mole on his cheek. He took a pull off the bottle, then offered it to Juan. Juan shook his head. He knew what that stuff was, and he didn’t like the way the man had been looking at him with his eyes so flat and dull. Juan took off up the street. He still had his extra pair of jeans, rolled up and roped to his waist, and he had Clint’s canteen. He stopped in the shade of a tree to have a drink of water and think what to do next. He felt very hungry. He’d thought he could ask the man driving the truck if he could use a strong boy who worked hard, but then he changed his mind. Those men, they didn’t look right to him.

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He needed to find some food, someplace safe he could sleep tonight, and then he needed to find some work. This didn’t look like a good town for farm work. They had been driving up into the mountains the last few hours, and the town was surrounded by forests of tall pine trees. Maybe he could find work chopping wood. Juan used some of the water from his canteen to wash his face and hands, but his face felt so gritty and dusty he decided to go into the bathroom at McDonald’s and wash in the men’s room. The food smelled so good when he pushed the door open that his stomach growled, and a woman leaving by the other door gave him a strange look. In the men’s bathroom he washed his face and hands carefully, but couldn’t find any paper towels. He used his new jeans to dry his face, then rolled them back up. An older man came in and used the urinal, then washed his hands at the other sink. He was old like Clint, with silver in his black hair and sunburn across his dark cheeks. Juan had wrapped Clint’s canteen over one shoulder and was tying the rope that held his jeans back around his waist. “You look like a young Jack Kerouac, heading out on the road,” he said. He spoke Spanish, but his accent seemed soft and blurry to Juan’s ears. He thought the man might be one of those Mexicans who had come to live here when he was a small boy. He wasn’t sure what the man was talking about, but he nodded carefully. Juan had been warned to be careful in men’s bathrooms. The man pointed to Clint’s canteen. “I had one just like it when I was younger.” He studied Juan’s face, and he started to look concerned. “Son, do you need some help? How old are you?” Juan was feeling more scared now. The man reminded him of Clint, the way he looked so carefully into Juan’s face, and the way his dark eyes looked kind. But he was a stranger, and Juan knew that not everyone would be like Clint. Not everyone would help him and take care of him. Some people might try to hurt him, like the man who had broken his arm. So Juan didn’t say anything to the man, just left the bathroom. Juan saw the men from the truck in the lobby of the McDonald’s. The one with the beard waved Juan over. “I’ll buy you a hamburger. You look hungry.” He pulled Juan in front of him in line by the edge of his shirt collar. When the older man came out of the bathroom, he studied the men in line with Juan, then shrugged and went back to his table. The man bought him a Cheeseburger Happy Meal, and it had a small toy car inside. Juan put the little car in his pocket and thanked the man for his supper. The men from the truck didn’t speak, to him or to each other. When they walked outside, the man with the beard kept his hand on Juan’s shirt collar. “I know a place you can sleep tonight.” He pulled Juan into the alley behind the McDonalds, then shoved him forward suddenly so that Juan stumbled and fell onto his hands and knees. He scrambled up and tried to run, but the man backhanded him across the face like he was swatting a fly.

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Juan felt his lip split, and blood poured out and dripped off his chin. The man had him by the hair, was dragging his head up. Then he must have heard something, because he stopped and looked around. The old man was there, the one from the bathroom, and he was holding a rifle. He lifted the rifle and leveled it. “Nobody’s gonna care if I shoot you,” he said. “You let that boy go.” The man shoved Juan down and away from him. “You can’t do anything to me, old man.” “Sure I can,” the man said, easily. “I’m the sheriff.” The man with the beard turned back around and spit on Juan, who was still on his hands and knees, then he backed away and started running. The sheriff didn’t move until he was gone, and even then, he didn’t lower his rifle. “Come on, boy,” he said. “You come with me, now.” Juan got up and followed him out of the alley. In the parking lot the old man handed him a handkerchief and opened the passenger door of a beat-up truck with a camper shell on the back. “I’ve been out fishing,” the man said. “Let’s get you someplace safe.” The sheriff’s office had two cages and a young deputy sitting with his feet on the desk, reading Sports Illustrated. He sat up quick when they came in. “Chief, what are you doing back?” “We got us a lost boy here,” the sheriff said. He opened the door to one of the cages and gestured Juan inside. “Use that sink in the corner to get cleaned up, boy.” They didn’t close the door, but Juan could hear it in his heart, that clang of metal. The sheriff came into the cell with him. He handed Juan a towel. “Give me your canteen.” Juan pulled Clint’s canteen off his shoulder and handed it to the man. “I didn’t steal it.” He splashed cold water on his face until the blood cleared away. He traced his fingers over his nose. There was a lump about the middle of the nose, and his upper lip was split. He sat down on the bunk and watched the sheriff. The man unsnapped the green canvas covering on the canteen and pulled the cloth down until he could see something inside. Then he went over to the computer and started typing. He worked on the computer so long Juan started to fall asleep. Then the sheriff took the phone and went into his office. Juan couldn’t hear what he was saying, because he closed the door behind him. When he came out, he spoke with the deputy for a moment, then he came into the cage and sat down with Juan on the bunk. “Somebody’s coming for you. They’ll be here in the morning. Why don’t you bunk down here tonight? It ain’t fancy, but it’s safe.” Juan nodded, and the sheriff said, “You can have your canteen back in the morning. That deputy there, he’ll find you some pajamas and show you where to take a shower. Then you go on to sleep. You look like you’ve had a long, hard day.”

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Juan was having a hard time thinking. His face was throbbing, and he couldn’t breathe very well out of his nose, and he felt like he could sleep forever. In the morning, La Migra. There wasn’t anything to do, though, so he just nodded and followed the deputy into the shower room. Juan was eating a fried egg sandwich in his cell the next morning when Clint came in with La Migra. The deputy opened the door, and Clint walked in and sat down next to him on the bunk. He didn’t say anything, just studied Juan’s face, then he put his arms around him. Juan dropped the fried egg sandwich on the floor and held on to Clint. He didn’t cry, though, not even when Clint stroked his hair and promised him they were going home. The sheriff walked in, looked briefly into the cell, then he and La Migra went into the office. Clint kept his arm around Juan’s shoulder, told him what the chickens were doing, and how Mary had looked for him this morning. After a while the two men came out and joined them in the cell.

La Migra sat down on the bunk, on Juan’s other side. “Juan,” he said. “Do you know how old you are?” His voice was very gentle. “Fifteen.”

La Migra glanced up at the sheriff, who nodded. “Can you tell us your mother’s name and your home village?” Juan told them, his heart sinking. They were going to send him back. He stood up. “Juan, I’m going to call your mother, but for today you can go back to Mom’s house.” Clint gestured to the sandwich on the floor. “You better get that mess picked up, son. I’ll be right outside.” Clint walked outside with the sheriff. Juan could see them talking through the glass, their heads leaning toward each other. They talked for a long time, then they shook hands.

La Migra was helping him pick up the sandwich he had dropped. Juan was afraid to look at him. He had blue eyes that looked just like Maggie’s, and what if Juan looked at him and saw that this man could shoot him and leave him in the desert for the coyotes?

La Migra put a hand on his shoulder. “Kid, look. Relax. I’m not gonna hurt you. You don’t have to be so scared when I’m around. If I don’t make sure you’re okay, my life is going to be a living hell on earth, you know what I’m saying? You just can’t fight your women.” Juan wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but he was starting to feel a little relief in his stomach. “Mom will take good care of you.” He looked out the window toward Clint and the sheriff. His voice sounded like he was dragging his feet. “And he’ll take good care of you.” He turned back to Juan. “You think your mom will want you to come home?”

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Juan shook his head. “I’m not a good help to her. I cause her trouble, and I can’t work hard enough to make up for being very stupid.”

La Migra nodded. “I see. So what do you want to do? What would you do, if you could do anything?” Juan stood up straight. He didn’t know why, but La Migra was holding open a couple of pieces of a barbed wire fence just wide enough he could slip through. “Sir, if I can, I want to stay at Maggie’s house, and I will work very hard, and I will be honest. I will take care of the chickens every day. And one day I want to go to the All-Indian Rodeo Cowboy Association’s Rodeo in Gallup, New Mexico.”

La Migra gave a bark of laughter. “Better you than me, kid.” He sighed. “Okay. We’ll see. We’ll see what we can do.”

Chris and Melody Gary put the Durango in gear and backed out of the parking lot. “So here’s the kid, face all banged up, split lip, standing up like an Eagle Scout. He’s trying not to cry. He promises to be honest and work hard and to be a good American. Jesus, he practically had his hand over his heart. And Clint, he’s, you know, the guy, he’s outside with the sheriff, and they’re talking about their days in-country. I guess they were both in the same province in Vietnam, just different times. They’re getting so tight they look like they’re ready to hunker down in a foxhole and roll a joint.” Chris looked over at him and took a sip of coffee. Gary scrubbed his hand hard over his bristly short hair. “All right, yeah, I’m an asshole. I guess I was wrong about the guy. The sheriff told me he remembered it when it happened. Clint, he’s up for discharge in ’68, dumped off the plane. He’s downtown in his uniform and gets hassled by a couple of hippie girls. So guess what he does?” “Goes into a bar and gets drunk? That’s what I did when I got home.” “Yeah. Exactly. So he’s drinking and watching TV in this bar and getting more and more pissed off at the news. He’s still in his uniform, right? He’s not discharged until the next day. So when these guys come in, tripping on something and making comments, the pump was primed, you know what I’m saying? One of the dumb fucks asks the bartender when they started letting baby killers in the dive, and Clint, he turns around and starts hitting. And he doesn’t stop until he beats the guy to death.” “Jesus.” Chris felt a shiver run up his spine. “Jesus, Gary. That could have been me, you know? I got into a bar fight the night I got home.” Gary shook his head. They were driving down Highway 85, a two-lane blacktop through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. “Chris, they threw him into Leavenworth. For twenty years. He came out west after that, working as a ranch hand, and finally ended up

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at Mom’s place.” He looked over at Chris. “You’re the last guy I would guess would get into a bar fight. You’re like, Mr. Cool.” Chris sighed and stared out at the desert. “I went looking for it, Gary. I wasn’t even drunk. It was just, being back, suddenly I felt so different, like I was marked or something. I was different, not in a good way, and there was no going back. Blood on my hands, man. These dudes, they were just so clueless, playing shoot ‘em-up video games, drinking beer, being shitty to the girls hanging with them. I don’t know. I just felt like there wouldn’t be a place for me anywhere. So I picked up a stool and brought it down on the back of the loudmouth’s head, then just stomped the rest of the ignorant fuckers until the cops pulled me off.” Chris ran his thumb over the knuckles of his right hand. “Jesus, Chris.” “Yeah. My old man, he was, like…” Chris sighed. “Yeah. So what happened when you got the kid back to your mom’s?” “Mom was cool. She just looked at his face and gave him some Tylenol and an ice pack and a piece of pineapple upside-down cake big enough for all of us. Then she put him to bed out in the bunkhouse, so Sally could have some privacy to chew my ass. “Sally took one look at the kid’s face, and her eyes got real narrow, and she pinned me with a look, man. I don’t really think that much about Sally being a lawyer, you know? She’s not really the pinstripe-suit type. But she had me backed against the wall, asking these lawyer questions in this lawyer voice about how he got hurt. And I’m getting pissed off because she’s real close to accusing me of some bullshit police brutality. “So Clint, he pours a glass of milk and cuts himself a piece of cake and says, ‘The boy got in with some rough men, Sally. He was just looking for someone to take care of him. He didn’t know any better.’ And I’m wondering if he’s talking about the kid or me. She takes his word for it, but she’s still pissed at me, says he could have been raped or worse, and it would have been my fault.” Gary shook his head. “Jesus, man.” “So what’s wrong with the kid? His name’s Juan, right?” Gary tapped his fingers on the wheel. “Yeah. Mom thinks he’s autistic, not retarded.” He shrugged. “I don’t think he knows. He seems real sensitive to noises, especially raised voices. Especially my raised voice.” He looked over at Chris. “Yeah, yeah, I’m just a fucking bully.” “Did you call his mother?” “Yeah, I did. She said she wasn’t. His mother, I mean. But then she asked, real casual, if he had found work? I’m gonna have to go down there, see what’s up with the mother. Make sure it’s okay for him to stay up here. He’s just a kid, Chris.” Chris looked at him for a moment, then back out the window. It was early, just after six, and the mountains still looked purple and misty. Pretty soon the sun would pour across this desert, and the landscape would turn to gold. He liked this place now, liked the way it

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was tougher than he was. A man had to walk lightly, with respect, or the desert would eat you alive and spit out your bones. What would it take out of you to try and make a living off this land? Would that harsh life lead a mother to send a child away, to deny him? An autistic child, who would be harder still? Chris didn’t know. He couldn’t imagine Melody doing that, but her own mother had abandoned her, lost her head in a cloud of drugs and left her daughter to survive on the streets. Melody had been fourteen.

***** Chris opened the front door and smelled spaghetti sauce cooking. Melody was in the kitchen, mashing up garlic with salt and olive oil in a bowl. She had a loaf of Italian bread on the counter. “Hey, baby.” He kissed her cheek, then went to the stove to stir the sauce. “It smells good in here. You didn’t have to work today?” She shook her head, kept her gaze on the garlic. They didn’t get to eat together every night. Melody worked the lunch and dinner shift as a waitress at the Crazy Bun Café, and Chris and Gary liked the early shift. They were usually on patrol by six. Chris looked at the table, already set with a tablecloth and real dishes. He was happy with a paper plate on his lap on the couch. They usually used the table for his laptop, and Melody studied there for her GED classes. He looked back at her, but she didn’t raise her head. The hair on the back of his neck was standing at attention. “Baby, what’s wrong?” She gave a little gasp, raised her wrist to wipe at her eyes. “Nothing. I’m not crying. It’s just the garlic.” Chris leaned back against the sink, his arms folded across his chest, and watched her. “What do you want me to do, put on the noodles?” “Nothing. I’ve got it.” She looked up and gave him a brief smile. “I’ll call you in thirty minutes, okay?” Chris nodded and left the kitchen. He had a weight bench set up in their tiny garage, so he went out there and lifted for a few minutes. His heart wasn’t in it, though. Anxiety was grinding through his stomach. Something was wrong. She had demons. On the streets at fourteen, a baby prostitute without a safe place to sleep, without enough food, surrounded by dangerous people. She still had nightmares. She still got spooked. She liked to stay in her few safe places: their house, the café where she worked. She’d panicked at the library a couple of weeks ago, thought she recognized someone from the bad old days, someone who had hurt her. Chris did most of their grocery shopping. But they were okay, still finding their balance together.

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Chris had come back from Iraq to face an inquiry into the killings of some kids, four boys playing with guns. His head had felt blown to pieces. He’d been spooked all the time, shaky, not sleeping. But he was getting it back together. He liked Border Patrol, and he liked the desert. Gary was his partner and his best friend. Clayton was over in Sells. And he had her. Melody had saved his life, saved him from the craziness, the weird psychotic ramblings of a brain that would not shut up after three days with no sleep. It was no surprise to Chris, the number of vets who ate their guns. She’d saved him. He didn’t know why, but smelling her skin, sinking into the heat of her body, and his brain, skipping like an old LP with a scratch, repeating the same snatch of music over and over, smoothed out, let go, sank into quiet, and he could sleep. Chris got into the shower and rinsed the gritty salt of southern Arizona off his skin. He slipped into a pair of shorts. It was over a hundred degrees outside. The swamp cooler kept their place cool, but it was like having an airplane engine in the living room. Most of the time they used it while they were cooking, then shut it off and just used the fans, so they could have some quiet. Both of them were sensitive to noise. Melody was putting salad into two bowls. “You ready to eat, Chris?” He slipped his arms around her slender waist. “I guess so. Smells so good, I don’t think you could make me a better offer.” She gave him her shy smile. Her eyes were red and swollen. “Come on, Chris. Let’s eat.” “Did I ever tell you that spaghetti was my favorite food, even more than pizza?” He sat down and dished pasta into his bowl. “Yeah, I think you mentioned it once or twice,” she said. “Here, let me give you some sauce.” She ladled the spaghetti sauce over his pasta, then sat back to watch him. She wasn’t making any effort to put food on her own plate. He rolled the noodles around his fork. “So when I come home to spaghetti for supper and you’ve been crying, it makes me think the fucking sky has fallen. Did you wreck my Jeep?” He shoved the spaghetti into his mouth, his stomach tight with anxiety. She shook her head, and tears started trickling down her cheeks again. “I went to the doctor today. That’s why I didn’t go to work. He said the HIV was positive. The test, I mean. They did a blood test.” She stared at him, her enormous brown eyes drowning in tears. She was sinking, cold, salty water closing over her head. She was waiting for him to throw her a lifeline. The spaghetti sauce was the best he had ever tasted. Olive oil, garlic, fresh oregano, fresh tomatoes, sorrow, salty as tears. Had she cried into the sauce? Second by second the flavors turned to ash in his mouth. His tongue could feel the shape of each individual noodle. Why did she have to tell him when he had a mouthful of spaghetti? It was his favorite food,

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and now it was ruined. He swallowed and put his fork down. “No. I’ll make them do the test again. It’s a mistake, baby. This isn’t right. You don’t worry about it now. I won’t let this happen.” “Chris, there’s more. I’m pregnant. That’s how they found out, on the prenatal exam. I’m pregnant, and you might have it, too, Chris, and I’ll get an abortion if you want me to. The doctor said that was the responsible thing to do. If you want me to, I will…” Chris jerked the table out of the way to get to her faster. Then he had her in his arms, squeezing her so tightly he knew it must hurt, fingers over her mouth. “Hush, baby. Don’t say anything else.” He held her in his arms, turning around and around in a circle, and she gazed up at him, her dark almond eyes asking the question over and over. He had some experience with the world spinning suddenly out of control. All you could do was hang on, hang on and keep breathing. “Baby, you don’t worry, now. I’ll fix this, I promise. I’ll make them do it again, and then you’ll see. Everything will be okay.” She had a beautiful mouth, full and tender. He moved his fingers, but she didn’t try to talk. She just opened her mouth and let him kiss her. He touched the tip of his tongue to hers. She always opened to him this way, her mouth or her legs, with a little sigh he didn’t understand, with total acquiescence. Like her body belonged to him. It was all she thought she had to give. Chris carried her into their bedroom and laid her down on the bed. His hands were shaking, he was shaking all over, panic rumbling through his chest. He’d felt this way once before, unable to take a full breath, standing over four small brown boys who were riddled with bullet holes from his gun. He tugged on her T-shirt, and she held up her arms, humble as a child. He lowered his mouth to her breast. This was the softest skin in the world, Melody’s breast against his mouth. He was gentle, his teeth scraping slowly across her skin. Pregnant women were sensitive there, right? Pregnant. She was pregnant, his baby was growing like a tiny seed in her belly. This should be a happy day for them, the happiest. He raised his head. “I don’t believe it, Melody, about that test. It’s a mistake. Labs make mistakes all the time. Doctors make mistakes.” He cupped one of her breasts in a hand rough with callus and scar tissue, and his hand was shaking with the effort of be gentle, to not rage and tear into something and frighten her. “Chris, maybe you shouldn’t touch me. What if you get it? You could get it from me. The doctor…” He put a hand over her mouth. “Listen to me now. No abortion. Never. You’re mine. The baby’s mine. I’m not giving up either of you. And I’ll make love to you every day for the rest of my life if I want to.” He hesitated. “If you want me.” “I want you,” she said, her voice soft as a whisper of wind. “But I don’t want to kill you, either.” She reached for his chest, her fingers barely stroking his skin. That was a bold move for her. She was the most passive lover he had ever had. He didn’t even know if she had

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orgasms when he made love to her. They didn’t talk about it. What happened between them in bed was too desperate. He put his hand on her flat belly. He couldn’t feel a bump yet. “Have you felt anything? Like, a baby moving?” She shook her head. “I don’t know when that’s going to happen. I better get a book or something.” “We can ask the doctor.” Melody shook her head. “They don’t want me there anymore. The doctor said I had to go see a specialist, at the public health in Tucson, but that wasn’t it. I could tell. They didn’t want me there. They wouldn’t look at me, no one would meet my eyes. The nurse put on two pairs of gloves to take the blood, and I could tell by her face that her skin was crawling. She didn’t want to touch me.” Chris lowered his mouth to her breast again, sucked her gently into his mouth until the nipple came erect against his tongue. “I want to touch you.” He moved his hand down her slender waist and across her belly, into the curls between her legs. “No! Chris, what if you have a cut on your hand? Your hands are always scraped up, and you could get it, the…the thing could just crawl in through a cut and…” Jesus. So now some tiny little virus was going to kill him? He knew what killed, and it was bullets in the gun of a Marine who was exhausted, hungry, homesick, and too distracted to notice the boys he was killing were just boys, just boys playing with guns. He hadn’t been careful enough, and the boys had died in front of him, lying together like a pile of puppies in the dirt. It didn’t matter what the fucking sociologists said was the reason for what happened in a war. The reason had been in his hands, and that was all there was to that. And now he was supposed to be afraid of some germ, this disease, after what his platoon had lived through in Iraq? He looked down at her. Her eyes never left his face, and they were beautiful, dark as bittersweet chocolate, full of every careless hurt that a man had ever inflicted on her body. He reached a hand for her face, ran his fingers down over her eyelids until she closed her eyes and wasn’t looking at him anymore. What was he supposed to do with her now? She looked like a stranger all of a sudden, like a scared child clinging to his neck as the lifeboat sank. He didn’t know what to do with her if he couldn’t make love. What if he couldn’t crawl into her arms every time the jazz started screwing with his head? Did he even know her well enough to have a conversation about anything important? They’d been coasting along, doing the day-to-day thing. He hadn’t thought about who she was. He just made sure she was okay, reasonably happy, and naked in his bed every night. What was he supposed to do with her now? “I’ll leave if you want.” She was lying on her back now, staring up at the ceiling. “I know this isn’t what you bargained for, back in El Paso. You don’t have to take me back to Texas. I’ll find my way, Chris. Don’t worry about it.”

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Is that what she thought about him, that he would let her walk out his door, make her own way across the desert? Fuck that. He’d made his choices. She hadn’t. She just tumbled along with whatever hurricane happened to be blowing over her head. But he was a grown man. There had been a time when he’d believed himself to be an honorable man. Maybe on the day he’d graduated from Parris Island. But the uniform doesn’t make you honorable. It’s

what you do as a man, the choices you make. You have to live with honor to call yourself an honorable man. He’d stand up now. This was on him. “I want you to stay, Melody. Please stay. Let’s figure this out.” She looked at him for the longest time, and then she nodded. “It’s not just about sex. I mean, I want you. All the time. But I would miss you if you were gone.” “I would miss you, too, Chris.” “Do we still have some condoms? Condoms are okay, right?” And if they weren’t, that

was just too fucking bad. She laughed then, laughed with her hands up over her face to hide her tears, and he wrapped her up in his arms and held her against his chest.

***** Early the next morning on patrol Gary and Chris got a call from their station. There was a report from a woman somewhere out by the border with the Tohono O’odham reservation. She had spotted a group of walkers. Tribal police were also being dispatched. “Maybe we’ll get to see Clayton,” Chris said, hanging up the radio. “Yeah, that would be good,” Gary said. “You talked to him since that thing with his brother?” Chris shook his head. “What a little pissant. I sent Luke an email, but I haven’t heard back.” Gary looked over at him with a crooked little smile. “We talk about Clayton, and we’re talking about Luke, too. How’s that happen?” “Gary, we’re out of the Corps now. That thing with them, whatever it was, it was strong, man. I think they’re gonna end up together.” “What, you mean like together?” Chris nodded, then shrugged. Gary took a couple of deep breaths. “See, this is what I don’t get. Luke’s the toughest motherfucker I’ve ever come across. He’d beat your head in just for spitting in his dirt. Clayton’s not a hothead, but he’s still tough, hard, like one of those ironwood trees. I just can’t see…”

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“They’re not gonna start wearing pink and carrying purses, Gary. I mean, I think it’s about being friends. About love. Soulmates or some shit like that.” “Okay, okay, whatever.” Gary waved the words away like a cloud of mosquitoes had come into the car. “Jesus, I don’t even want to think about it. I mean, we’re friends, Chris, but friends don’t include your dick in my mouth.” Chris laughed and shoved him hard on the shoulder. “You’re an intolerant son-of-abitch. I ought to tell Sally. I bet she could find you some sensitivity training.” Chris had a topo map on the handheld computer in the car. He was usually the navigator, Gary the driver. They were driving through the reservation, down rocky desert paths so barren it seemed like they were on another planet. “Where the fuck are we?” Gary asked. “Why don’t we call the Tribal Police, see if they have better directions. Didn’t anybody think to put in roads out here?” “Look.” Chris pointed to a trailer up ahead, an old camper on concrete blocks. There was a small plywood outbuilding and a rusted-out Ford pickup. All the tires had gone flat. A Tohono O’odham Tribal Police cruiser was parked in front of the camper. Chris and Gary had met Harlan before, on other trips through Sells. “Hey, they’ve sent in the Marines! We can all relax now.” An ancient old woman peeked out the camper door, a bunch of kids hanging around her knees. Chris took a deep breath. This wasn’t a good morning for Harlan. Harlan was lazy and covered it with a currency of gossip and bullshit. “I already called the ambulance,” he offered. Chris and Gary just stared at him. “Uh huh. Did you find some walkers?” Chris asked, pointedly. “Anyone need medical attention?” “I don’t know,” Harlan said, shaking his head. “Yeah, I found some walkers. But I don’t know about medical attention.” “Where?” Chris asked. Harlan pointed behind him with his thumb. There was a sleepy black-and-white mutt back there, chained to a tree, and there was a young woman lying underneath a saguaro cactus. The sun had shifted and was full on her face. The skin over her nose and cheeks was deeply burned, and her lips were swollen and cracked. She was holding something against her chest, and Chris peeled back what looked like a white nylon slip edged in lace. She was holding her baby against her chest, and neither one of them was breathing. Gary was cursing under his breath, and he started back toward Harlan, shoved him hard in the chest. “You think that was funny, you stupid son-of-a-bitch?” Harlan held up his hands in a helpless gesture. “I didn’t do nothing! I was just waiting here for you Federales to show up and take charge.”

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Chris pulled Gary back, and they saw the ambulance bouncing over the rocky path toward them. “I’ll call from the vehicle,” Gary said, with a last, malevolent look at Harlan. Harlan just grinned. Chris recognized the ambulance driver, a massive, slow-talking man named Henry. He walked over and shook hands. Henry looked at Gary, storming off, and Harlan grinning, and shook his head. “Henry, there’s a dead girl back here. She’s holding a baby.” “Oh, no.” Henry walked back with Chris and knelt down next to the body, put his hand up as if to shade her face from the sun. He looked back at the little camper. “I wonder if she asked for water.” Chris shook his head. “We haven’t talked to anyone yet. The FBI will be here soon to take care of her. There may be more in her group. We need to go look for them, make sure there isn’t anybody else in trouble. They probably left her behind when she couldn’t keep up, but there’s no water along these paths. The reservation wouldn’t let Humane Borders put up water tanks.” Henry smoothed the edge of the slip back over the baby’s face. “Oh, Chris. She looks so young, doesn’t she?” He said a few words, stroking the baby’s head. It sounded like song, like a part of a song. “What’s your name, girl? I wish you could tell us.” “You seen Clayton?” Henry gave him a funny look and stood up. “Yes, I have. Actually, something happened, Chris. Maybe something good.” “Old Clayton snapped like a rubber band.” Harlan was standing right behind them. Chris turned to look at him, brushing sand from his knees. “Must have had one of those crazy-vet flashbacks or something. He dumped his gear on my desk, packed up his truck, and split for parts unknown.” Harlan had the gleeful look of a naughty child telling tales. Chris was in his face before he realized he’d moved. “Crazy-vet flashbacks? What the fuck does that mean?” Henry’s heavy hand landed on Chris’s shoulder. “That’s not what I heard, Harlan. He said you were always trying to grab his ass, some shit like that.” Harlan spit in the dust next to Henry’s foot. “Yeah, right.” Then he turned around and went back to his cruiser. “I think he went to New Mexico,” Henry said, gazing off into the distance. “Magdalena. To see an old friend, or something.” “Really?” Chris felt his spirits lift just a bit. “Good. That’s good news, Henry.” Chris remembered how miserable Clayton had been the last time he saw him. Miserable because he wasn’t with the person he loved most in the world. Chris glanced down at the girl. She was wearing a white cotton skirt printed with bright red poppies, and rope sandals. She was

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very young, maybe even as young as Melody. His heart felt like it weighed a ton. The sorrows of the world seemed to live on the shoulders of young women.

***** Chris pushed open the front door. The house smelled like spaghetti sauce again, and he could hear Melody in the kitchen. She was going after that garlic like it had done something personal to her. He leaned against the door frame, and she looked up, her chin aggressive. “We are going to eat this spaghetti, Chris.” Her eyes dared him to disagree. “Okay.” Now her eyes were full of tears. She sniffed. “Fine, then.” When he didn’t move, she wiped her eyes. “Please, Chris! Just go lift weights or something. I’ll call you when it’s ready.” Chris slipped into a pair of running shorts and went back outside. It was over a hundred degrees again, but he needed a run. He could feel the tension of the last couple of days in his chest, like a fist closing. He ran for nearly an hour, until he started to feel lightheaded, then he stood in the yard with the garden hose, pouring cool water over his head. He went inside, stepped into the bedroom to change. Melody was curled up asleep on the bed, tears dried on her face. He spread a soft yellow blanket from the top of the closet over her legs. In the kitchen the spaghetti was getting cold. He fixed a bowl and heated it up in the microwave. He checked she was still asleep, then slathered his spaghetti with Tabasco sauce. His taste buds belonged to the USMC now. He stretched out on the couch, the bowl of spaghetti balanced on his stomach. Had he done something wrong? Not done something she was expecting him to do? She expected so little. Melody had gone without for so long she didn’t take anything for granted. In truth, he hadn’t had a minute today to think about…this thing. This grizzly that had moved into their house. She probably hadn’t thought of anything else. He took his bowl back through into the kitchen and put it into the sink. In the refrigerator was a bowl of salad and a bright red, fresh strawberry pie. He pulled out the pie and cut a piece, actually, more like a quarter of the pie, put it in a bowl, and slathered whipped cream on top. Then he took one of the dining room chairs into their bedroom so he could eat his pie and look at her pretty face. She looked so young, long lashes resting against soft cheeks. She had the blanket clutched in her fist, like a child. He could feel it in his throat all of a sudden, an enormous clutch of love, tenderness, the desire to protect her, fear that someone would hurt her. He took a huge bite of pie. She opened her eyes and looked at him and smiled. “Good pie,” he said, his voice thick. She closed her eyes again, still smiling, and he sat next to her, watching her sleep.

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Chris sent Clayton a long email, telling him about the woman they had found, and about seeing Henry. Then he told him about Melody, about the baby and the HIV test. Chris didn’t really know why he wanted to tell Clayton and not Gary. Maybe because Clayton understood about suffering. He was surprised to get a return email in a few minutes. Chris, I’m so sorry. What can

we do? Just ask, brother. You want us to come? Chris, this is Luke. Say the word, buddy. We’ll be there. Chris emailed back, feeling ridiculously relieved. You okay, Luke? I’m good. Clayton’s got a hard-on for Alaska, so I came along to keep him company. I don’t know about settling up here. Why don’t you two come to Ajo? I miss you guys. Clayton could go to work for the Border Patrol or down in Organ Pipe as a park ranger. You could set up your wood shop. It would be good. Good for me, he thought, to have them around. Like having a family.

***** Chris pushed open the glass doors to the public health clinic in Tucson. His jaw felt like an enormous block of granite. He’d been grinding his back teeth for a hundred miles. He had a list in his mind of what needed to be done, and the first thing was to demand a repeat HIV test, with an apology when it came back negative. Then he was going to shove a lawsuit so far up their tight asses they would never… The nurse practitioner who called them into the exam room took one look at him and put Melody in a different room. She spoke to her in private for a moment, then came back into the office. “Want to have a seat?” She sat behind her desk and opened the chart. Chris shook his head. He stood in front of her desk, arms crossed, frowning down at her. She was wearing jeans, and had a mass of unruly, graying brown curls. What was she, some kind of aging hippie? “Melody has given me permission to discuss her medical test results with you,” she said. She handed him a couple of pieces of paper. “I want the test repeated right now.” “I did repeat it,” the woman said, pointing at the papers. “Look at the results.” Chris glanced at the papers. “You see that CD-4 level? That’s a confirmatory test. Good news, in a way. The level’s low. If we get medicine started right away, Melody and the baby have a very good chance. But we’ll repeat it until the cows come home if it will help you to calm down. We need to do your testing today.”

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“That doesn’t matter,” Chris said, looking through the pages. He couldn’t understand what the papers were saying, just the word positive in red, repeated on every page. “I disagree,” the woman said. “It matters a great deal. This baby will need two parents. Melody will need you. To be calm and to act rationally.” She pointed to the chair, and Chris sat. Something felt loose in his belly. It was a feeling he recognized, panic whirling like a black tornado. He handed the papers back over the desk. She watched him for a few minutes, rocking back and forth gently in her chair. “My name is Beverly Hansen. I’m going in to Melody now, to start her exam. Listen, Chris. She told me how you two met.” He felt his cheeks flush. “I’ll take care of her, always,” he said. “She never has to worry about that.” He looked up and studied the woman’s face. No judgment there. She must hear lots of stories. “If you’ve been in the habit of sleeping with young prostitutes without wearing a condom, maybe you gave it to her, Chris. That’s what I meant when I said we need to do your testing today.” Chris felt something rip deep inside his chest, and he raised a hand up and pressed in hard, like he could hold himself together. He shook his head. “I use condoms.” Could this be on me? Am I going to kill someone else? He thought about that nurse practitioner at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, the one he saw right before he was discharged. “I think they checked before I got out of the Marine Corps. Nurse practitioners, you guys are like everywhere I go. I think that’s all you think about, getting condoms on every dick that comes across your desk.” She raised her eyebrows, a little grin starting up. “With good reason, wouldn’t you agree?” Having won that point, she leaned back in her chair and rocked again. “But you’re right. The Corps does check.” She sat up and put her hand down flat on top of Melody’s medical record. “You and I, we’re going to get along fine. You need to stay calm and keep things in perspective so you can take care of Melody. For some reason, she thinks she’s ruining your life. Your job is to convince her otherwise.” They drove home in silence. Melody held a bag of pills in her lap, a month’s worth of AZT and prenatal vitamins, looking out the windows of his Jeep at the desert surrounding them. It was somebody like him who had hurt her. A man had taken what he wanted from her and then left her like she didn’t matter at all, left her with a disease she would always carry. “I’m sorry, Chris,” she said, resting her head against the window. “I know this was more than you planned for when you picked me up in El Paso.” Her voice was as thin as a ghost. “Will you do me a favor? Don’t tell Sally about the HIV. I don’t want to become one of her social service projects. The poor homeless. The poor illegal immigrants. She doesn’t see any of them as real people. I mean, she doesn’t have conversations with people. She talks,

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and you’re just supposed to nod and listen gratefully to her advice. You know what she told me? That it was very brave of me, to have been a professional sex worker. I guess that’s the PC term these days. I wanted to slap her face.” Melody took a couple of deep breaths. “Just promise you won’t tell her.” “Okay,” he said. “Will you do me a favor?” She raised her head and looked at him. Her eyes looked bruised and old. “What?” “Listen, you don’t ever try and take the baby and walk…around.” She was staring at him. “What? You mean you don’t want me to walk the baby in a stroller?” “No, I…I don’t want you to get lost, you know, out in the desert. Don’t try and walk around out there, head back to Texas or something like that. I mean, women die out there with their babies. You could get lost. It’s dangerous.” He felt like a fool. What was he trying to say? She didn’t answer, just stared at him. “Look, just promise you’ll stay with me. Don’t run away. Let me take care of you. I need to…take care of you.” She reached for his hand. “Okay.”

Clayton and Luke Clayton felt something warm and happy opening up in his chest when they hit the southern coast of Alaska. It was so green, green everywhere, dripping wet with icy cold winds coming down off the glaciers. Clean and cold and green and wet, as far different from his southern Arizona desert home as was possible to get on this earth. He was close to flinging himself face first into the icy blue waters, but Luke had a firm grip on the waistband of his jeans.

Slow down, cowboy. Luke was looking around with a bit less enthusiasm, his lips taking on a bluish tinge and strong shivers rocking his frame when those icy winds rolled in. They were both wearing denim shirts, and Clayton was enjoying the shivers and goose bumps. Clayton turned and wrapped his arms around him. “I’ll buy you a sweater. A hat with earflaps. Something. I’ll keep you warm. Luke, do you see it? Do you see everything?” Luke turned in his arms, his hands gentle on Clayton’s back. I see it. But he wasn’t looking at the mountains, the glaciers and the lakes. He was looking at Clayton’s face. They were being careful around each other. Clayton was still a little afraid of it, how happy he was, his life’s desire warming his skin at night. It was enormous, to have everything he wanted in this world.

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Their time together in uniform hadn’t prepared him for Luke in his life. He could feel his heart swelling with joy and possibility and risk, and sometimes he had to press his hand to his chest, to keep it all in, to keep breathing normally. Clayton didn’t wear the uniform anymore, but he still walked like a Marine, his back proud and his shoulders strong. Don’t ask, don’t tell? Maybe they had a point. But how could the Marines keep people from falling in love? Love didn’t have a place on a battlefield, there was no question about that. What happened to Luke was on him. Clayton knew that as clearly as he’d always known Alaska was the place his soul craved. It was on him, and so he had to make sure that Luke had everything in his life that he would have had if his face hadn’t been wrecked by a roadside bomb. A bomb he didn’t see because he was exhausted and distracted. Clayton had this one chance, to love him and give him a good life, and he felt like every precious minute could be their last. Clayton was not such a fool as to let Luke know what he was thinking, though he probably did. Luke had that way of studying his face, his eyes narrowed, then he would put his hand on Clayton just for a moment, his hand flat against Clayton’s chest, or his thigh, and Clayton could feel his worry ease off, anxiety flow out of him like warm water. Luke pushed open the door to a bar that smelled like fish chowder and beer and took a stool. Clayton slid onto the stool next to him. “What do you want, a draft?” Luke nodded. Clayton looked at the bartender. His grizzled gray hair was pulled back in a lopsided ponytail, and his fuzzy white beard would have done Santa proud. “You got Michelob on draft?” The guy nodded, slid a couple of brews in front of them. He studied Clayton’s face and his Marine Corps haircut, looked carefully at Luke, at the bandana he kept up over his jaw. “You boys just back from overseas?” Clayton nodded. Luke moved the beer around on the bar, leaving a string of wet circles on the wood. The bartender looked at him, then slid a couple of straws and a bowl of pretzels in front of Clayton. Clayton picked up the straws, stripped off the paper, stuck one in his beer and the other in Luke’s. The bartender moved down to the end, where he was watching the weather report on a little black-and-white TV. Clayton sucked down his beer. It wasn’t bad through a straw. “You want to try some of that fish stew? We could take some with us.” Luke shook his head, worked on his beer. Clayton eased back on the stool. Luke wouldn’t eat in public. It was messy. He spilled half of what he tried to eat down the front of his shirt. He wouldn’t eat in front of Clayton, either, not if he could help it. He had a head like a rock, and more pride than was healthy for a man with only half a jaw. “Luke, I want to go fishing. Or maybe out on a boat. You up for it?” Luke nodded. He studied Clayton’s face with more interest than he’d shown so far for Alaska. “I don’t know what to do, though. I’ve never been on a boat.”

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Luke reached for his memo pad, the lines next to his eyes crinkling into a smile. “I know what to do.”

***** Clayton put his thumb on the button and tried a side-arm cast. The lead weight and red-and-white bobber flew high and straight, then plopped into the frigid waters of Resurrection Bay. He started reeling in to try again. He wasn’t really fishing, not yet. He was just practicing his casting. But it felt like fishing, with a flat-bottomed boat rocking gently under his feet, and if this was fishing, he was going to love being a fisherman. It was just before six, and he and Luke were bobbing around on a lake famous for salmon. Luke had bought him a rod and reel at a fishing and outdoor gear shop down near the docks. They didn’t stay in the shop long. Clayton was still walking in a circle, reading the signs -- there must have been a thousand poles in that place, and a million brightly colored little lures -- when Luke tapped him on the shoulder. He was holding two rod-and-reel combos, a box of weights, and a little plastic bag of bobbers. The man at the checkout counter wasn’t quite as scarred up as Luke, but he looked like he’d lived a hard, physical life, leading with his head. He gave them both a quick once-over. “You boys just back from overseas?” Clayton nodded. What was it about Alaska? The place was full of vets. The man handed the poles over the counter. “Get a boat and go out on Resurrection Bay, you want some privacy to fish. Snuffy’s boats, down at the dock, their engines won’t crap out on you, and he asks a fair price.” “Thanks,” Clayton said. Luke looked up and nodded. “Don’t you boys need some lures?” Luke shook his head slowly, and the man grinned. “Well, then, you have a good time fishing.” The morning was cold, mist rising off the lake, and Clayton could smell wood fires from campers somewhere on the shore. They had a couple of fried egg sandwiches wrapped up in aluminum foil and a thermos of coffee and a cooler full of soda. Luke was sitting in the end of the boat, looking warm in a new blue polar fleece pullover, watching him cast and watching the far shoreline through the binoculars for animals. He had his camera, too, wrapped up in a plastic bag with a little hole cut out for the lens, and he was taking pictures of Clayton with his new fishing pole. Clayton had felt like an idiot at the boat dock, and Luke had stepped up and pulled out his memo pad. He wrote down the name of the boat they wanted, the engine they wanted. When they climbed in, Luke did a quick safety check of the boat, pulled out the life jackets and shook them out, looked over the engine. Luke stood up and picked up his fishing pole and cast his line. The weight flew low over the water, a good ten feet farther than Clayton’s best cast.

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Clayton nodded. “Okay, buddy. We’ll just see about that.” They both reeled in, then Luke cast again, farther this time, the line seeming to hang forever before the weight plopped into the water. They cast for the best part of the morning, but Clayton couldn’t come anywhere close to Luke. Clayton thought this might be the very best day of his life. When the sun was overhead, and they were tired of playing with their fishing poles, Luke started the engine, and they motored to a quiet corner of the lake and sat together in the boat, the cushions propped behind their backs, a warm fleece blanket covering their legs, listening to the silence. Luke reached for his hand under the blanket, the first time they had ever held hands. Clayton was sure he would smell this place, would taste this day and this lake again in his dreams for all his life. They bought some flaky steamed salmon that night after they brought the boat in, and Clayton drenched it with lemon and butter. Luke took his piece and moved over to the window to eat. Clayton could only see his back and the side of his head, but he didn’t want to push it. They’d had a good day, the best. They were still finding their slow way around each other, stepping carefully, afraid to make a mistake that would shatter the peace, and end up with them rolling around on the floor, punching each other in the head. Clayton knew that could happen because it had happened before, and the memory of that horrible time simmered just under his consciousness. Luke’s, too, he suspected, because Luke was being just as careful around him. Luke stood up and wrapped the remains of his fish in the piece of aluminum foil, threw it into the trash and went into the bathroom to wash his face. Clayton threw his trash away, too, then lifted the bag to take it outside. Luke had only eaten about half his salmon. Clayton sealed the bag and carried it out of their cabin, stuck it in the bear-proof garbage can. Luke was at the table with his laptop when Clayton came back in. He gestured for Clay to join him. “It’s been really great up here, but I’m wondering when you’ll be ready to go back home,” Luke typed. “How long you planning to stay in Alaska?” Clayton stared at him. After today? After the most perfect day, this? He felt like he’d been punched in the chest. “Do you mean…Luke, do you mean you want to leave? You want me to take you back to Magdalena?” Clayton flashed for a moment on what it had been like, the months without Luke, the yearning, the loneliness, the aching misery of missing him, the misery of wanting him all the time. No way was he going back to that. He thought about Alaska, and he thought about the pistol in the glove compartment of his truck. He sat back in his chair, but he couldn’t look at Luke anymore.

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It wasn’t working. Luke didn’t want this between them. It was too much, too strong, and he didn’t want what Clayton wanted. Everything, forever. That’s why he’d been so loving today. Because he knew he would be leaving. “Sure, buddy. No sweat. You just tell me where you want to go. Where you want me to take you. I’ll do…whatever.” Luke didn’t move, and Clayton closed his eyes, remembering something he’d read in Luke’s stolen journal.

I’m so fucked up. There ain’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I can stop this thing with Clayton, not without killing one of us. It’s gone too far. It’s like I can feel him down in my gut. I had a dream about my father, first time in years. He was pissed, standing over me in dirty Wranglers and boots with one of those big-ass belt buckles he used to wear, and I’m like a little kid again, the age I was right before he died. He’s chewing tobacco, and he turns his head and spits, but he doesn’t spit tobacco juice, it’s blood, and it hits the ground next to my foot and splatters up my leg. So he leans over and says, what the fuck you doing, boy? You don’t want to be a man? So that’s what your life’s gonna be, bending over and taking it up the ass? That’s what you want? So go ahead, bend over, and he reaches for his belt buckle. Shit, I must have made some kind of noise when I woke up, ‘cause Clayton sat up at the same time as I did, and he just looked at me. I shoved my feet into my boots and grabbed my flak jacket, and I’m out the door, he’s just watching me, doesn’t say a word. It’s raining outside, and I walk over to where that piece of metal hangs out over the roof, back of the barracks. I stick my earphones in. I had Rainy Night in Georgia on my iPod. Who was that, Sam Cooke? No, Brook Benton. That man sings like he’s got something hurting him down inside. So I’m leaning up against the wall, listening with my eyes closed, and Clayton ducks under the overhang, leans up next to me. He’s looking out at the rain, eyes dark as night, and he says, you okay? So I say I’m okay, but then all of a sudden I’m telling him about that bullshit dream. He just stared out at the rain. He ever touch you like that, Luke? I say, no, Clay. I gave him one of the earpieces, cause I don’t want to talk about it anymore, and we both moved our heads together so we could listen to the song. Then he just turned me into his arms, wrapped me up, and we’re slow dancing, connected by the ear phones. Rain’s coming down on that metal roof, and that sorrowful song is playing in our ears, feels like it’s raining all over the world, and Clayton’s got his arms around me. My forehead’s against his, his hands are on my back, keeping me warm, and I’m thinking, yeah, Dad, I want to be a man. I want to be a man, and I want to slow dance in the rain with Clayton’s arms around me. But I don’t think I can do both. And it’s gonna kill me to choose. Clayton stared at the wall, then closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. Luke, did you just choose? Am I making you feel like you aren’t a man? This was why it was too fucking hard to try, to keep trying, because when it all went wrong it was just like having a house crash down on your head. Luke was so proud. Had he been fussing too much, smothering him? Luke wasn’t the kind of man to let someone take care of him. What had he said about his aunt? She’d be powdering his butt if he’d let her. Had Clayton been doing the same thing to him? He didn’t think so, but maybe he had. Or maybe Luke just didn’t love him the way…

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Luke was typing again. He reached over and swatted him on the thigh, and Clayton opened his eyes and leaned forward to read. Clayton, you are a fucking idiot. Great. Now he was going to have to read a list of his failings as a person. Was he really going to have to sit here, listen to why Luke couldn’t love him, why he couldn’t bear to spend… Luke reached for his thigh and squeezed hard, then he stood up and pushed between Clayton’s knees. Clayton looked up at him then. Luke was shaking his head, smiling, but he looked like his heart was breaking. He let himself sink into Luke’s eyes. He had never seen anything more beautiful, speckled blue like robin’s eggs. The first time he had ever looked into Luke’s eyes, he’d been lost for all his life. How many more times would he get this chance? Luke was unbuttoning Clayton’s plaid flannel shirt, running warm hands against his chest. Then he was tracing letters against Clay’s skin. I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U-L-I-K-E-T-H-E-SU-N. Oh. Tears were burning behind his eyes. He was such a fool. Luke was back at the laptop. “Clay, I was thinking about what Chris said about Ajo, about us going to Ajo. Chris and Gary are there. We could settle, find us a little place. Stop running. We need to stop running, because nobody’s chasing us. Listen. I know you like it up here. If you want to stay in Alaska, I’ll stay with you. But I’d just as soon get back closer to home. It would be nice to be around the guys. Like being around family. Just think about it.” Clayton nodded and rubbed hard across his face. “Okay. Yeah, I will. Sorry.” Luke grinned and shoved him gently. Bonehead. Clayton climbed on the bed and buried his face in the pillow. Why was he acting like such a fool? Luke didn’t need to put up with this, and it wasn’t like him, anyway, fussing like an old woman. He was a Marine, a combat vet. He’d been a cop. He knew how to stay tough, keep his feelings under control. Except with this man. He turned his head and looked at Luke. He’d pulled a chair up next to the bed, propped his feet up on the edge of the mattress. He was just sitting there, looking at Clayton, waiting for him to roll over and start talking. Luke reached out and shoved Clayton gently with his foot. Clayton rolled over, and Luke let his toes dance across Clayton’s thigh until his foot was lodged up against his cock. Clayton reached for him, soft wool and silk covering his toes. “Nice socks.” They’d bought four pairs on sale earlier in the week. “Luke, I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m acting like a damn girl. Maybe I’m pregnant. Hormones or something.” Luke did not look amused. He kept the damaged side of his face turned away, and the bandana pulled up, so Clayton just saw his silvery-blond hair, getting shaggy and long on his forehead, his beautiful cheek, and those mesmerizing blue eyes. Luke reached for his memo pad, wrote a note, and passed it to Clayton.

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“Clay, you’ve got to learn that you don’t have control over everything. You work so hard to try to fix everything, make everything right, but it’s not always in your hands.” He hesitated. “And you got to learn to trust in us, bud. I got in your truck and came away with you, Clayton. I did it because I wanted to be with you. I don’t want to have to keep telling you that we’re okay. You need to trust me.” “Luke, listen. I think I need to tell you I’m sorry.” He gestured toward Luke’s face. “I’m sorry about what I did when I found you reading Jenny’s letter. It was my fault, the whole thing was my fault…” Luke looked up, and his face was still and furious, then he was writing again, his knuckles white on the pen. “Don’t you ever say that to me again, Clayton. I’m not spending my life with you, watching you flog yourself with guilt. Because of what the other guys did in a fucking war.” They stared at each other. “How about you stay with me because you love me?” And I

know what I know, brother. Nothing you say is going to change the truth. Luke smiled at him, his face grim. I know what you’re thinking, Clayton. You think you can keep anything from me? Luke got up and went into the bathroom. Clayton heard the shower come on. He rolled back to his stomach and buried his face in the pillow again. What was Luke asking him to do, stop worrying? Stop trying to make things right? Like that was going to happen in this lifetime. But he trusted him, Jesus, of course he trusted him. They’d been to war together. Luke had his back. If he ever was face-to-face with a crowd of meth-crazed idiots carrying automatic weapons that had not been properly field-dressed -- Elliot and Rascal flashed into his mind here -- he wanted Luke at his back. And Gary and Chris. His brothers. Maybe Clayton was right, and it would be good to be around family. Could you choose your own family? Luke came out of the shower, and Clayton slid in behind him, the bathroom still full of steam and the strange clean smell of a bar of soap called cotton that they’d picked up on the way north at Mesa Verde. Luke liked the cotton, and Clay liked the juniper soap. Luke said they smelled like home. When he came out of the bathroom, Luke was still sitting in the chair next to the bed, a towel wrapped around his waist, reading a book by Cormac McCarthy. Luke looked up and crooked a finger at him. He picked up his memo pad. “I want you to let me try something, Clay. Lie down on the bed.” Clayton stared at him, didn’t move. “I want to show you what it feels like to not have everything under control. How it won’t kill you. So you can learn to let go a little bit. Will you trust me, Clayton?”

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Clayton sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at him. “Yeah, I trust you, Luke. I’ll do whatever you want. But I haven’t felt like I was in control of anything since you got hurt.” “But you still want to be. You’re still trying to fix me. Let me show you. I won’t hurt you.” Clayton studied his face. He looked more serious than usual. “Yeah, okay.” Luke pointed to the bed. “Lie down. Like you were before, on your stomach.” Clayton lay down, and Luke pulled his towel away and walked into the bathroom. When he came back out, he was naked except for the bandana tied around his damaged face. He sat down next to Clayton on the side of the bed. Clayton turned his head on the pillow and looked at him. Luke touched his face, moved gentle fingers down his cheek, across his neck and down to Clayton’s big shoulders. He moved next to Clayton on the bed, pulled Clay’s arms up until they were above his head. Clayton could feel when Luke climbed on his ass, stretched out until he was covering him. Luke stroked two fingertips over Clayton’s eyelids, so he kept his eyes closed until he felt Luke tying something around his wrists. His arms were above his head, and Luke was using his bandana, the one that covered his ruined face. He was using his bandana to tie Clayton’s wrists together and bind them to the metal headboard of the bed. Clayton froze in panic. No fucking way. Clayton stared over his shoulder at Luke, at the echo of the old, cocky grin on his face. “What do you think you’re doing? I ought to kick your scrawny, blond ass.” Luke grinned wider, gave him a little “come on” gesture with his hands.

“Bring it on, Clayton. You bring your sorry brown game over here, I’m gonna kick your ass.” They were playing basketball on a broken concrete court, and Clayton couldn’t break away. His softest dribble, his slickest twists, Luke was there, moving with him, a square, strong hand on his hip. “I don’t have a sorry brown game. I’m Tohono O’odham, you ignorant son-of-a-bitch. I got red game, and you play ball like a cowboy cracker.” He turned, pivoted off his foot, drove hard toward the basket, but Luke was with him, moving with him, both hands on his hips now. “I’ve seen you in the shower, Clayton. Your game is brown, baby.” Clayton stumbled, and Luke stole the ball and drove down the court. He didn’t make it to the basket, though. Clayton tackled him from behind, and they rolled across concrete, scraping the skin off elbows and knees and chins, and ended with Clayton on his stomach, clutching the basketball, and Luke sitting on his back. “I win, Clayton.” “I got the ball. I win.” “I’m on top. I win.”

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Luke touched him then, ran gentle hands down over his face, slipped his finger into Clay’s mouth. It was comforting, Luke’s finger to suck on, the smell of his skin and his hair filling Clayton’s senses. Clayton’s panic melted away in the silence, and when Luke took his hands away, he closed his eyes again and rested his head on the pillow. Luke was working his way across Clayton’s shoulders, strong hands kneading the muscles, working down his back. He was rubbing something in, something slick like Vaseline. Clayton felt his muscles start to relax, turning warm and liquid under Luke’s hands. The feeling was almost too strong when Luke slid fingers into his ass, slid them into place. His cock was throbbing, the feel of the sheets against his skin almost unbearably prickly and erotic. But he was starting to feel a looseness in his chest, early blooming panic, at having someone behind him, someone touching him intimately, someone he couldn’t see. Clayton couldn’t tell what he was doing, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t roll over… Wait, wait. It was Luke. He trusted Luke. The breath moved slowly in and out of his chest, and the panic ebbed just a bit. What had Luke said? He needed to learn to give up control. He couldn’t control everything. Luke pulled Clayton’s hips up off the bed, moved him until he was kneeling on the mattress, his eyes closed, hands bound. Luke reached between his legs, ran his fingers up Clayton’s cock, cupped his balls, and that gentle touch tipped him over, sensation running wild under his skin. Clayton exploded into Luke’s hands, his body jerking and bucking so hard he thought he would rip the headboard to pieces. And before he was finished coming, Luke was behind him, shoving into him, and that helpless panic turned into passion, a warm gush of erotic pleasure in his belly and between his legs. Luke. Anything he wanted, he could have. Anything. Forever. Clayton dropped his head between his outstretched arms.

Luke, you win.

***** Clayton drove with his left hand propped on the steering wheel of his old pickup. He snagged a fry and popped it into his mouth. “Fine, you do whatever you want.” You hardheaded son-of-a-bitch. “I can’t drive and do the Heimlich maneuver at the same time. If you start to choke, you’re on your own.” Luke waved a lazy middle finger in his direction, and Clayton had to turn his head to keep from laughing out loud. Luke pulled his memo pad out and wrote a note. He tapped Clayton on the leg with it. “Pull over when you see a nice big tree. I need to take a piss.” “You couldn’t go in McDonald’s? We were there ten minutes ago.” Luke took his memo pad back. “NO.” In big block letters. Then he adjusted his pillow against the door frame and closed his eyes.

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Clayton pulled into a roadside picnic area a few minutes later. The single table and trashcan were surrounded by a thick forest of pine trees. He reached over and shook Luke’s shoulder. “How does this look?” Luke stretched and looked around. He nodded and started to climb out of the truck. “Hey. Can I come watch?” Luke grinned back at him and shook his head. Clayton, you are one sick fucker. They were driving south into Yellowstone on Highway 89. Clayton wanted to hit Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons on their way back home, the canyon country, maybe the north rim of the Grand Canyon. If they could avoid the crowds. Everywhere they went, people stared at them. Not because they were together, but because of Luke’s face. Being stared at put Luke in a bad fucking mood. When Luke climbed back in the truck, Clayton said, “Hey, navigator, find us a nice drive in the guidebook. What do you want to see? The geysers? They got wild bison, too, all kinds of wildlife.” Luke bent his head over the map in the guidebook, tracing routes with his finger. After a few minutes he looked up, and Clayton eased the truck to a stop in the next scenic vista pullout. The scenic vista was a view of mountains so remote and wild and beautiful that Clayton felt a chill go through his chest. It was like stepping into Valhalla. This was a land for the gods, not for men. He moved closer to Luke. “They’re not very friendly, are they?” Luke looked at him, surprised, and then smiled. Luke smiled with his eyes now, and Clayton fell a little bit more in love with him every time he saw those laugh lines getting deeper. Luke reached over and put his hand on the small of Clayton’s back. Luke held up the map and traced a route with his finger east on Highway 212, through the Northern Range. Clayton nodded. “We can drive down through Shoshone National Forest if you want. I bet we can find you some animals.” Luke had brought his camera along, and almost nothing else. Up in Alaska he’d filled a handful of memory cards with pictures of the animals, brown bears in Katmai, orcas and otters in Kenai Fjords, herds of moose in Denali. They climbed back in the truck and started driving again. The land changed, high plateau ringed by mountains against a startled, clear blue sky. The land was all scrub and sagebrush, grasslands. These must be the grazing lands for the animals that lived here. This was good, driving on empty roads through beautiful country, Luke dozing next to him, head propped on a pillow against the door frame. Clayton worried about money, because they didn’t really have enough to keep going, and he worried about Luke not eating enough, getting thinner and thinner. But still, these days on the road, the two of them alone deep in the American wilderness, these were some of his happiest times. He didn’t want them to end, and he didn’t want to go back home.

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We can always come back again. Luke was reading his mind. We can come again, Clayton. Have a little faith. You and me, this thing with us is just starting. We’ll come here again. He nodded and reached for Luke’s thigh, gave it a squeeze, and then left it there. “This traveling is hard for you, isn’t it? It’s hard for you to be out so much, with people looking at you. You want to eat in private. Where even I can’t see you.” Luke glanced at him, then he put his head down against the door frame and closed his eyes. Don’t start, Clay. They stopped that night in a little cabin in a campground deep in the Shoshone National Forest. Clayton unpacked their sleeping bags from the back of the truck, and Luke pulled out the cooler and the electric hot plate. Then he looked into the bag of groceries Clayton had bought in the only town they’d passed through all day. He unpacked the cans, lined them up in a row on the table. Wolf chili with beans. Cream style corn. A package of corn tortillas. And a little blueberry pie. He held it up. “Dessert,” Clayton said. “I was hungry for some blueberries.” Luke reached for his memo pad. “Is this food some sort of payback for tying you up? I told you I wouldn’t do it again.” He studied the cans, shook his head. “I think I need to take over the cooking. This is a perfect meal for a lost bear.” Clayton laughed. “I hope one doesn’t smell our chili and pie and show up here for supper.” “I know you’re worried about the food.” Luke hadn’t moved and was staring straight into his face in a way Clayton couldn’t ignore. “Worried about me eating enough. Clay, I’m not hungry so much anymore. It’s getting harder to find anything I want to eat.” “I know.” Clayton finished spreading the sleeping bags out on the bed. “And it’s not okay with me for you to starve to death. I want to try some new things.” Clayton picked up the blueberry pie and went out to the porch. Luke snagged a small bottle of yogurt and a straw from the cooler and followed him, sat next to him in the old double rocker on the porch. He held up the bottle.

See? I’m being good, Mom. Clayton narrowed his eyes. “Don’t be a smartass. Not about this.” “Look, I’m not trying to starve myself,” Luke wrote. He set the memo pad between them and drank his yogurt. “I know, Luke. It’s just that you’re scaring me. You’re still losing weight, and I think you’re getting weaker. I mean, you’re sleeping all the time. But that’s not the real problem.” Clayton sat back, rocking gently. “You got way too much pride. You won’t let me see your face when you eat. You don’t want me to see your face at all. I think if you don’t find a way to get comfortable with me seeing you, all of you, then I’m gonna look up one morning, and you’ll be gone. You’re gonna let go and drift right out of this world. I don’t want you to leave

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me here alone, Luke. You thought the Corps, going to Iraq, was your warrior’s path. I don’t think so. This is harder. I think this is it.” Clayton had a little wood carving in his pocket that Luke had made right before he got hurt, a fallen angel tumbling out of the heavens. He stuck his hand in his pocket and wrapped his fingers around it. Luke looked out into the forest, sipping the yogurt slowly through the straw. He had to stop and breathe, coordinate his swallowing. He turned a face comical with outrage toward Clayton. Did you steal my fucking journal? I knew it. I knew you had it. I ought to kick your

ass. “I think that’s what the problem is,” Clayton continued, ignoring the issue of the stolen journal. “You’re trying to hide what it looks like when you eat, and I’m not going to go sit in a closet so you can have your privacy. Buddy, you got way too much pride. Food falls out of your mouth when you eat. Big deal. You start to choke, you bend over and cough it out. Big deal.” Luke picked up the memo pad again. “Maybe I do have too much pride. Not that I seem to have any privacy. But it is a big deal if I choke and food gets down into my lungs. I got pneumonia from that before, right after the surgery. They put me on one of those breathing machines.” “What, the ones with the tube in your throat?” Luke nodded. “Clayton, you put a bullet in my head before you let them do that to me again. They tie your hands down. You feel like you’re smothering with your mouth wide open, and you’re tied down, and you can’t move, and you can’t talk. Don’t let them do that to me again. You just take me out of the hospital and take me up into the mountains, that happens again. Take me back to Alaska and dump me into Resurrection Bay. Promise me.” “Jesus, Luke. Yeah, okay, I’ll promise. But you have to promise me something, too. You have to try harder. Listen. I’m not trying to baby you.” Clayton stuck his fingers into the blueberries, then put them in his mouth and sucked the blue gel off his fingers. “You hide your face from me. I know what you look like already. I don’t care if your scrambled eggs fall out of your mouth when you’re chewing. And I know it sounds really fucking weird, but I don’t even see it most of the time. You just look like yourself. Like yourself, but too skinny. That’s what bugs me, not your face.” He had his fingers back in the pie, and he pulled them out, covered with berries. He tugged Luke’s bandana down and held his fingers up. “Stop hiding from me.” Luke studied his face, then he leaned forward and let Clayton slide gooey, sticky fingers into his mouth. “It’s okay to make a mess when you eat. It’s kind of fun.” Luke sucked on Clayton’s fingers, using his cheek and the bit of his tongue that was left, and he swallowed without choking. His eyes never left Clayton’s face, and he was smiling.

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Clayton, your dick’s getting hard. You are one sick fucker. Everything about you makes my dick get hard. Clayton scooped up some more blueberries. “This is good. This is the way the bears eat them.” He stuck his fingers into his own mouth and leaned forward. Luke frowned at him, but he didn’t move away, and Clayton slid his tongue into Luke’s shattered mouth, slid blueberries into his cheek. Then he was kissing him, kissing Luke’s mouth, kissing the scars along his missing jaw, the scars across his chin and throat. He had both hands in Luke’s hair, holding his head close, smearing blueberries all over both of them. It was the first time Clayton had kissed his mouth since the night before the explosion that had destroyed his face, the first time Luke hadn’t jerked his bandana up and moved away. “I’ve missed kissing you, Luke.” Luke was smiling, shaking his head, blueberries mashed all over his cheeks. He reached for the pie and dipped his fingers in, then slid them into Clayton’s mouth.

Jesus, Clayton, can’t you get enough? Of you? I don’t think so. Clayton was scrambling eggs in their frying pan the next morning. Luke handed him the bottle of Tabasco. “Grand Tetons today. More of these scary big mountains. They are kind of fun to drive through, though. Except for the falling rocks.” “Our mountains are different,” Luke wrote. “We’re used to the desert mountains. Friendlier.” Clayton had to admit he was right. The desert mountains in southern New Mexico and Arizona had a dusty, sleepy, afternoon-nap-in-the-porch-rocker sort of look. They were pale gold and sage green. It was only up close you realized how harsh and unforgiving that land could be, with its secret water and searing heat. “I’m looking forward to seeing the canyon country,” Luke wrote. “Canyonlands and Arches. I’ve never been up there.” “I’m not looking forward to going home.” Clayton scooped some scrambled eggs onto two plates. “I could stay out here with you forever. We could hang out in the woods like a couple of mountain men. And then I wouldn’t have to share you with anyone. I think I’m jealous of the way people fall for you.” He put the frying pan down and poured the coffee. He stuck a straw in Luke’s cup and set it on the table. “You’re one of those people, I guess. The kind that other people fall in love with.” Luke mimicked sticking a finger down his throat and gagging, and Clayton laughed and sat down at the table. Luke started to pull up his bandana and turn away, but he caught Clayton’s eye and sat back down. He pulled his notebook over. “If you’re really into this sex for food deal, maybe you could balance a little treat on your dick, and I could gobble it up like a seal going after a fish.”

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Clayton pulled the notebook over to his side of the table and wrote, “That’s a good idea. Fish is good protein, and we all need those Omega-3s. One of those little round sushi should fit on the end of my dick just right. You like sushi?” Luke’s eyes were crinkling up. “I could probably learn to like it. We’ll have to practice.” He ate slowly and lost some egg along the way, but Clayton was relieved to see he got most of it in, plus a yogurt. And he didn’t turn his face away. They got packed up and loaded their gear in the truck, but Luke lingered on the front porch, studying the unpeeled logs that served as beams. “I’ll build us a house if you want,” he wrote. “I always wanted to build a cabin myself.” “Really?” Clayton looked at him. “Wow.” “Clayton, I’ve been thinking. If we stay in Ajo, why don’t I build us a house or fix up an old house. Not open up a cabinet shop. You think we can afford it?” “Yeah, if I work. I think I’m gonna try and get on at Organ Pipe. You’ve got your disability. It’s not much, but we could probably make it if we’re frugal. Why don’t you want to set up your shop again?” Luke glanced at him. “I was thinking I would paint.” “What, pictures?” “Wildlife. Animals. Cowboys and Indians. Maybe do some carving.” Clayton felt himself start to grin. He gestured toward the camera. “Is that what…?” Luke nodded. “I painted when I was younger. I don’t know. I haven’t done it in a while. But I thought I might give it a try. I mean, people need good cabinets, no question. You can make a living as a cabinet maker. But I always had it in the back of my mind that maybe one day I would try and be an artist. Carving stuff or painting or taking pictures. I don’t know, Clay. Now I feel like maybe I shouldn’t wait until some day to try it out. I don’t know if I’m any good, though. I guess I could always go back to making cabinets if it didn’t work.” “Let’s do it. We’ll find some land or an old house with a good studio.” He put his hand on Luke’s shoulder. “That’s all I ever wanted. When we were in Iraq, before things started up between us, I used to have this daydream that after we got out, we could live next door to each other. I would move to Magdalena and live in the house next to yours, so we could see each other every day, and drink coffee together in the morning.” “I’ll build us a good cabin like this,” Luke wrote, running his hands over the old logs. “I’ll make it strong, so it’ll last until we’re old. That’s what I used to dream about. Being with you when you were old.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you already know that? You shit. Are you gonna give me my journal back?” “Nope. You want to stay with Chris and Melody when we get down to Ajo?”

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“No, I don’t.” Luke was emphatic, underlining the last word. “Luke, don’t be mad at her. It’s not her fault she’s got HIV. She’s the most… She’s the most inoffensive girl you can imagine. I don’t think she’s got the gumption to duck if a fist was heading into her face. Don’t blame her. Chris said his test came back negative. I’ll tell you what I think. You’re gonna fall in love with her, ’cause she’s a pretty, wounded little songbird.” “We’ll see.” Luke stuck his memo pad back into his pocket and climbed into the truck.

***** They were driving down through the red rock country of the Colorado plateau, south of Page on the Navajo Reservation. They’d stopped at Lake Powell on the way south, and Clayton had jumped into the clear blue water by the Glen Canyon Dam. Luke had eased himself in as well, but he kept his face out of the water. They stayed for a couple of hours, watching the kids fishing from the rocks. Clayton felt his mood getting more dour and depressed by the mile. Now the landscape outside their windows was native. No place else in America was so untouched. The land looked just as it had two hundred years ago, except the trails were paved over now, some of them. It was a scene of great drama and beauty, the Vermillion Cliffs outside the truck windows, and Clayton just couldn’t make his mind see anything good. He saw poverty. He saw drugs and no jobs and despair. He saw Elliot, smoking dope and selling meth. Luke reached over and touched his knee.

What’s wrong? “My dad was Navajo, did I tell you?” Luke shook his head. “I never knew him. He didn’t stick around. Elliot’s dad was a different guy. He didn’t stick, either.”

And now you’ve done the same thing? It’s not the same, Clay. “I’m not so sure, Luke. I’ve judged those men my whole life for not standing up, for not being responsible, and now, it’s like I’ve never been happier than this month I’ve been gone, and with you. And I wish there was a way we could stay gone and never go back, never have to listen to another teenager whine about how there’s nothing to do but smoke dope, so it isn’t really his fault. How can I blame them, when I did the same thing, and it was…” He looked over at Luke. It was wonderful. Luke pulled out his memo pad. “Don’t fool yourself. You’re not going back for the kids. You’re going back because you’ve decided I’ll be better. I’ll eat better if we can find a place and settle down close to the other guys. Clay, you don’t need to take care of me. You shouldn’t give up your dreams for someone else. It’s not supposed to be everything you can give and everything I can take.”

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“Oh, yeah? Doesn’t seem to me that’s the way things are with us. But everything I do for the rest of my life will probably have something to do with you. You’re just gonna have to put up with it, buddy.” Luke shook his head. “Bonehead. What’s Ajo like?” “It’s pretty. There’s this Spanish Colonial downtown square. But I’ll tell you what the problem is. No, what the problems are in Ajo. There’s the Native problem, that’s my people. No jobs, poverty, and drugs. There’re the people used to work in the mines. No jobs, poverty, and drugs. Then there’re the illegals. Enough said about them. There’re the retired folks who come down for the winter. They’re old, and they do not appreciate illegals sneaking through their yards to get a drink of water from the hose. Nobody gets along. The kids rumble over at the high school like they’re living in 1958. And Highway 85, down through Organ Pipe? Dope Central, man. I think the worst problem is drug smuggling, not the illegals. Because the drug runners carry weapons, and they’re not afraid to use them. Half the time those stupid fuckers are stoned, and they can’t be trusted not to do something so stupid people end up bleeding in the middle of the road.” Luke was smiling at him, but his eyes looked a little sad, too. He bent over his pad. “You sure you want to put on a uniform again? If you want to go back to Alaska, Clay, become a professional fisherman, I’ll go with you. Don’t do this if you don’t want to.” Clayton shook his head. “We’ll go back, for as long as I can stand it. And I’ll put a uniform on. It’s what I know, and there’s nothing else I want to do. I’m not an artist like you. But, Luke, you just can’t imagine how fucked up my family is, and how likely it is we’re gonna get sucked into whatever trouble they’ve got brewing.” He sighed, his face dark. “But this work? It’s okay. I guess I feel like it’s a job that someone needs to do, and if I don’t do it, it might not get done.” “Clayton, you’re such a Marine.” “Luke, listen.” Clayton drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Now you know about me swiping your journal, can I ask you something?” Luke cut his eyes sideways at Clayton. “Remember the night you had the bad dream? When we slow danced in the rain to that old Brook Benton song?” Luke nodded, but he turned his face away from Clayton, looking out the window. “Luke, that stuff you wrote. You still feel the same way? Like you have to choose between being a man and being with me?” He turned to look at Clayton, and he looked at him for a long time before he shook his head no. “So you’re okay with this? Being with me? Living with me?” Luke held his hands up. Why, Clay?

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Clayton shrugged. “I don’t want to hide. I want to slow dance with you again. I want to dance with you forever.”

***** They drove into Ajo two days later, down from Gila Bend on Highway 85. Ajo looked like a little oasis after the desert. Clayton had been to Chris and Melody’s place before. They had a tiny old house on a city lot downtown, surrounded by a chain-link fence. Melody was out in the yard, transplanting bright pink and white petunias into a little window box hooked onto the porch rail. Clayton shook his head. Those flowers were too delicate. They’d never last in this heat. They climbed out of the truck, and Clayton gave her a hug. “Melody, you’re looking good, Mama. No little bump yet?” She shook her head, cheeks pink. She pulled off her gardening glove and held her hand out to Luke. “Hi, I’m Melody.” Luke shook her hand gravely, glancing at Clayton. She’s just a baby, Clay. He reached for her face, gave her cheek a gentle pat, and Melody’s eyes filled with tears. She turned to Clayton. “I thought you were mad at me. Or you didn’t want to stay here, you know, because of…” “Come on. Let’s go inside.” Melody nodded, her hands up over her eyes. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I start crying five times a day. Chris is getting a little tired of it. He’s getting this real patient look, you know?” In the kitchen Melody washed her hands at the sink and then opened the refrigerator. “You want a pop? I’ve got iced tea and milk, too.” Clayton glanced at Luke. “I’ll take tea, Melody. You want milk?” Luke nodded, and Melody poured a couple of glasses of milk and tea for Clayton. She got a straw out of the cabinet and put it in Luke’s glass. “Chris told me a straw makes it easier for you to drink,” she said. “He was supposed to be back by now.” She looked at Clayton, her face apologetic. “I’ve got too much time to worry. And I use every minute of it, believe me.” Clayton set down his glass of tea and took a seat at the kitchen table. “I thought you were working at the Crazy Bun.” She shook her head. “I quit. I didn’t want…I didn’t know about serving food. The nurse practitioner said it was okay, but then I thought, if people knew, they wouldn’t want me to, you know, touch their food.” Clayton nodded. “So you’re staying home? Well, it’s hard to take good care of yourself and a house and get your GED. And I know how much Chris eats. You must be cooking six hours a day.”

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“Actually, I’m kind of bored, Clayton. No, I’m real bored. But once the baby comes I’ll be busy.” Her voice was determinedly cheerful. “Hey, I found you a room at the Sunshine. That’s where we stayed when we first got here. They’ve got a refrigerator with a freezer and a little microwave. So I made a few things just to get you started. Potato soup. And barbeque made in the crock pot, so it’s soft. And meatballs and spaghetti, but I made the meatballs real small so you could chew them. Will that be all right?” She looked at Luke, anxiety spilling out of her eyes like tears. He was smiling at her, his face tender, and he got the memo pad out of his pocket to write her a note. Clayton sat back and finished his tea. The little kitchen was bright, with sunny, yellow-checked curtains that looked like they were homemade. She had sewn a double row of yellow rickrack along the edge. Chris came in the front door with Gary, and Clayton walked out to meet them. “Clayton, how’d you get so tan up in Alaska, man?” Chris shook his hand, grinning. Gary shook his hand, too. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve seen you, bro. Where’s Luke?” “He’s in the kitchen talking to Melody.” “Clayton, I thought he couldn’t talk.” “Well, you know. He’s got a little memo pad, Gary.” Chris was looking at him, arms crossed over his chest. Gary threw up his hands. “What?” Chris just shook his head. “Want a beer?” “Yeah, I guess,” Gary said. “Just one, though, or I’ll have to walk home.” Luke pushed open the door from the kitchen and came into the living room. Chris hugged him. “You must have a head like a rock.” Chris ran a hand back through Luke’s hair. “Nobody else would have made it, brother. I’m real glad to see you.” Gary was next, and he studied Luke’s face, what he could see of it over the bandana. “Jesus, Luke! Those fuckers. Look what they did to you.” He hugged him gingerly. “You’re like skin and bones, man! What, Clayton won’t feed you?” Melody came through with a couple of beers. She looked at Clayton and Luke. “Would you like a beer, too? Sorry I didn’t think about offering you one.” Clayton shook his head. “That tea was good, Melody. I’ll take a little more if you’ve got it.” Gary was staring at Clayton. “So, what’s up with you two? Are you, like…” He flopped down on the couch and waved his hands like he wanted to brush the question away. “No, Jesus, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. You’re roommates, right? Yeah. You’re just roommates. Lots of guys are roommates these days. I mean…” Luke was grinning again. You can take the boy out of the Marine Corps, but you

can’t…

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***** Clayton was lying on his back on one of the double beds in their room at the Sunshine Motel. He’d had an email from the Chief Ranger at Organ Pipe, inviting him to come down for an interview; they were very interested. “You’re a vet and a Native American, and you’ve been a cop,” Luke wrote. “That’s three ticks on the affirmative action worksheet for the price of one ranger.” Clayton sighed. Back in the saddle again. But it was okay. He might even like being a park ranger. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument had the reputation as being the most dangerous National Park in the entire system, but that was because it shared a border with Mexico, and the wilderness country was irresistible to the people who smuggled illegals and drugs north across the border. Luke was better here, more relaxed and settled in, just like Clay had known he would be. He seemed to like Ajo, liked having their platoon mates around, and so Clayton was determined to like it, too. Even though they were very close to Sells, very close to the reservation and his multitude of relatives and all their disasters. Luke and Melody were going out to look at houses for sale tomorrow. Luke had fallen for her, for her sweetness and that vulnerable gaze. He was standing guard over her like a big tough Marine brother who would scare away all her demons. She was feeding them a couple of times a day, making meatballs the size of marbles and enough soup to start her own soup kitchen. Clayton wondered if Chris knew his grocery bill was covering four. Yeah, probably. Ajo was okay. Luke came strolling out of the bathroom, steam from the shower rolling into the room. He was naked, rubbing the towel over his wet hair. He’d been letting his hair grow out since the hospital, probably hoping it would cover some of the scars, and now it was long and shaggy and silvery blond. Clayton felt a flash of heat, watching him. It was getting stronger, this thing between them. Clayton couldn’t get enough, and Luke was starting to tease him, starting to like the way Clayton’s mouth dropped open and his dick got hard every time they got near each other. Luke tugged the bedspread off the bed, smoothed the white sheets with his hand. He got his memo book from the top of the TV and wrote Clayton a note. “I want you to get undressed and lie down on the bed. And let me take pictures of you.” Clayton squinted up at him. “You mean naked pictures?” Luke nodded. “Why?” “I want to paint you, Clay.” “How come?” Luke got a bandana out of the drawer and carefully blotted his face dry, then tied it around his neck. He rubbed his hand over his chin, feeling for whiskers, studying Clayton on

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the bed. “You scare me. You always have. Because you’re the only one I’ve ever…loved like this. You’re the only one.” Clayton nodded. Luke smiled, his beautiful eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yeah, I guess you know.” “No tying me up,” he said, and Luke laughed. Luke pulled a pillow over to the corner and gestured toward the bed. Clayton pulled his T-shirt up and dropped his boxer shorts onto the floor. He lay down on his stomach, sprawled out on the white sheets, and Luke started taking pictures. Luke tugged his legs this way and that, pulled his arms up above his head until his shoulders bulged. Then Luke nudged him and sketched a circle in the air with his finger. Roll over. Clayton rolled on to his back. Luke pulled both arms back up above his head, then bent down and nuzzled between his legs. Clayton caught his breath. They’d only done this a few times before Luke had been hurt. And they couldn’t now. Luke’s mouth was too damaged. Luke reached for his memo pad. “Iraq changed everything for me, you know? It’s like my life was cut in two, before and after.” Clayton reached for his ruined face, touched the scars with gentle fingers. “No, Clay. I don’t mean this.” He gestured to his face. “I’m not talking about the bomb. I’m talking about you. The first time you touched me. Do you remember the first time?” They had been in the shower. Clayton had touched him first, had reached for him and tugged him close and put Luke’s hand over his heart. Clayton leaned up on his elbows, desire washing over him, his heart thumping painfully in his chest. Yeah, he remembered the first time. He remembered Luke’s blue eyes smiling up at him from between his legs, and his thighs trembling so hard he thought he was going to fall. Luke had bent his head, his blond head buried between Clayton’s dark thighs, and then Clayton had felt his mouth. Clayton lay back on the bed, stretched his arms up, his cock bouncing gently against his belly. Luke was moving all over the room, bending low with his camera, taking pictures from different angles. He twitched the drapes back, let a shaft of sunlight cut across Clay’s body, then adjusted the Venetian blinds until he was striped with light. Clayton couldn’t stay still. He moved his hips just a little and reached for his cock, memories washing over him, and Luke put the camera down and climbed on top of him. Luke smelled like musk and desert honey, and his skin tasted sweet, like peaches.

I love you the way the moon loves the night sky. Clayton opened his eyes, surprised. Luke was burrowing into his neck.

I want to be the only one. I want to be the only man you love, Clayton, for all of your life. Luke. You’ve always been my only one. Didn’t you know?

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Their cocks were rubbing against each other, long, slow strokes as Luke lifted his hips, then slid back down again. He reached between them, gathered them together in one big hand. Clayton was nearly out of his mind. Luke’s hands were controlling him. He gave himself over to it, let his feelings flow like melted butter across his skin. Then he was coming, Luke was coming, their bodies thrusting against each other, semen spilling out of Luke’s clenched fist. Luke sighed against his neck, snuggled in, and Clayton brought his arms down, wrapped them around Luke’s shoulders. Whatever he had to do to keep them safe, to make a home for them, he’d do. This thing between them, it was forever. Ajo was okay.

Mike Mike pushed open the door to the Crazy Bun and looked around for Gary. They were meeting for lunch and an interview. He spotted him right away, sitting at a table near the front counter. He looked like he was in the middle of a fight with the woman sitting next to him. She was cute, tiny, with bouncy brown hair cut in a pageboy, and wearing a dark blue business suit. Mike had seen her before, out in the desert filling up water tanks with Humane Borders when she and Gary had been newlyweds. He thought she looked better in jeans and a tank top, with her hair up in a little ponytail, but no one was asking him. Most of the patrons of the Crazy Bun did not seem to be embarrassed to be listening openly to the argument. Mike didn’t blame them. Gary couldn’t help but attract attention. He was wearing the Border Patrol uniform, but he looked like the Incredible Hulk, shoulders and arms bulging until it seemed like cotton thread couldn’t possibly hold those seams together. His blond hair was still cut in a Marine Corps regulation high-and-tight. He was scowling at Cute-As-A-Button, who continued to make her point, finger jabbing the table top. “There is nothing for me here, Gary. You know that, and you don’t seem to care! If I really want to do work that’s important, that had meaning for many people, then I need to be in Phoenix. Or DC.” Mike took a stool up at the counter and turned over his coffee cup. The waitress filled the cup, then slid the coffee pot back onto the burner, her eyes on Gary. “So what you’ve been doing down here doesn’t matter? You want to be an immigration lawyer, you live in a place like this, and you help people one at a time. That’s where you make the real difference, Sally. One person at a time. But that’s really boring.” He tipped his chair back on two legs and crossed his arms over his chest. “And that’s not the real problem, is it? You say there’s nothing for you here. I’m not working out quite like you planned?”

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“You could be anything, Gary. You could do anything. You could make something of yourself, instead of just settling for this. But you won’t even try.” His big shoulders swelled at this, and even the waitress sucked in her breath. “I’m already something. I’m a federal agent. I’m a Marine Corps combat veteran. And I’m the same goddamn man you married.” Sally shook her head. “I thought you were like me. That you were a person who valued ideas. That you wanted to do something important in the world.” “What I do every day is important.” Gary was grinding his back teeth. “And I do it right here.” He sat back in his chair. “You go on to wherever you want to go, honey. You go chase that ambition. It’s just like chasing a big dick. And you know how to do that, don’t you?” She stood up, her face furious. She was gripping the back of the chair so hard her fingers were white against the oxblood vinyl. “You…you bastard!” Gary stood up, too. The woman didn’t come to his shoulder. He leaned over. “You walk out of my house, out of this marriage, you don’t come back.” She spun on her heel and marched out the door. Gary watched her go, hands on his hips, oblivious to the fact that the entire café was gaping at him, open-mouthed. He made his way up to the counter and took the stool next to Mike, offered his hand. “Mike, how you doing, man?” Mike took his hand. It was rough, a line of callus on his palm. “Sorry about that, Mike.” He took a deep breath, but Mike could see both hands were trembling, and his eyes were looking a little wild, like a horse just before it bolts. The waitress set a glass of milk down in front of Gary. “You drink this milk now, baby.” She was in her forties, a pile of dark curly hair on top of her head, dark red lipstick, and a pack of Marlboros in the pocket of her apron. She looked like sex in comfortable shoes. She looked at Mike. “Now, you look like you need a piece of hot cherry pie.” She flipped her order pad open. “You want that with ice cream or whipped cream? I just opened a new carton of vanilla.” “Uh…” “Angie, don’t start up with that cherry pie again. You’re driving me crazy.” Gary picked up a fork and tapped the Formica counter. “Men like to pick their own pie, and it don’t matter to us how many cherry pies you got sitting in the back.” She ignored him and leaned over the counter toward Mike. “It’s yummy,” she offered. “Hot and sweet. Plenty of butter in the crust.” Mike wasn’t sure that she was talking to him. And he really wanted a cheeseburger, but he thought he might as well eat some cherry pie instead.

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Gary was writing something in his notebook. The waitress straightened up. “So, that’ll be two orders of hot cherry pie with a scoop of vanilla each.” Gary ripped the page from his memo book and handed it to Mike. His hands were shaking worse now. “I told you before I wanted pumpkin.” He turned to Mike. “Listen, Mike. Come over to my place after work. Now’s not a good time, brother.” He grabbed the waitress by the wrist. “And you come with me. I ought to arrest you for being a pain in the ass.” He pulled her through the swinging doors, into the hallway fronting the doors to the kitchen and bathrooms. Mike heard a sharp gasp, a sigh, the rip of Velcro on a polyester uniform coming apart, a stifled moan, and then a thud, a rhythmic thud that shook the tray of water glasses sitting next to the ice machine. An elderly woman with a helmet of coifed red hair started for the swinging door, but Mike stood up and intercepted her. “Uh, ma’am? The bathrooms are out of order.”

***** Mike drove down Ajo’s downtown streets until he found Gary’s house. It had been six months since he had first come here, first met Gary and Chris. His failure that day would not let go of his head, but that wasn’t why he’d taken the incredibly stupid and fiscally irresponsible step of moving to Ajo to go to work for the tiny Copper-Wire News, the weekly paper that was most often found wrapping melons at the grocery store. It was Gary and Chris, the way they were so nice to him, the way they seemed to care about that girl, Gabriela. Mike had the idea that Ajo might just be the place, that lost Valhalla where people cared about each other, where neighbors knew each other, where if you fell and broke a leg in your tiny apartment, you wouldn’t lay there so long with no one noticing you were missing that you ended up gnawing on your forearm for a little snack. Ajo wasn’t Valhalla, as it turned out, but it wasn’t bad. People were nice. Maybe in other places they would be called nosy, but he was a reporter, so he could hardly by throwing the first stone there. The thing he was still having trouble with was that he hated the hard stories, and Ajo was full of those. He needed to strengthen his character, firm up his resolve. His plan was he was going to force himself to write about something real, something meaningful. A woman holding a baby had been found dead in the desert, walking into America from the border. He was going to write about her. He knocked on Gary’s front door, heard Gary yell for him to come on in. Green Bay was playing the Chicago Bears on the widescreen TV, it was a bloodbath, and the place was littered with guys draped over recliners and couches, holding bottles of beer. “Hey, Mike.” Gary waved at him from the floor, a bottle of Coors in his hand. He was lying down there with a big pillow, the floor around him littered with empty brown bottles.

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“Go grab a beer and watch the game. Join in the fun. The QRF is here. The Marines have got me on a suicide watch.” Suicide watch? Because the wife had walked out on him? Because he’d screwed Hot Cherry Pie in the hallway of the Crazy Bun this afternoon? Mike pushed open the door into the kitchen. A dark-skinned man was making sandwiches, about twenty slices of brown bread lined up on the counter. He looked Native, with his black hair still cut Marine Corps short. He looked up and studied Mike’s face. “Hey.” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute. I know you from somewhere. Not here, though.” Mike felt his face going red, and he stuck out his hand. “You’re the cop. From Sells. I was going through there in my Jeep, about six months ago, and…” “Holy shit. I’m Clayton.” He shook Mike’s hand. “Small world, man. Beer in the fridge. I’m making sandwiches, ham and cheese or salami. How many you want?” Mike felt absurdly pleased. “One, salami. If you’ve got enough. If not, ham and cheese is good. Or just cheese. Or, you know. Ham.” Clayton grinned down at the slices of bread. “We got plenty.” “Hey, is Gary okay? He said you guys had him on a suicide watch.” Clayton studied his face. “Uh, yeah, it’s just an expression. It’s a Marine thing.” Mike nodded. “Oh, good. It’s not because his wife left?” Clayton started putting tomato slices on the bread. He looked up at Mike, a quizzical expression on his face. “I was at the Crazy Bun at lunchtime. What’s a QRF?” “Quick Response Force.” Clayton wiped his hands dry on a paper towel. “You want me to introduce you to everybody else?” “I already know Chris,” Mike said. “The other guy’s Luke. He doesn’t talk. He got hurt in Iraq. He’ll write you a note if he wants to say something.” Another hard story, Mike thought, going back into the living room. They were everywhere. You couldn’t avoid them. He sat down on the couch next to Chris. Chris waved his bottle of beer in greeting, but he didn’t speak. Mike looked around the room. They were watching the game, wearing loose shorts and no shirts against the heat. Chris and the other guy, Luke, had their feet propped up on the coffee table. They had matching tattoos on their left legs, that Marine dog with the teeth holding an American flag. Under the tattoo was “Semper Fidelis” in black, gothic letters. When Clayton walked into the living room holding a stack of sandwiches, Mike saw he had the same tattoo. These guys had probably known each other for years. Luke stood up, adjusting his bandana. He had long, wavy, blond hair, but Mike still got a glimpse of his face, jaw

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mangled, red scars up to his ear. He touched Clayton on the arm and pointed to the kitchen. Clayton nodded, and when he finished passing out the paper plates he went back into the kitchen with Luke. Chris watched them, then turned to Mike. “Luke doesn’t eat in front of other people. He gets self-conscious if people look at him, you know?” Mike nodded and looked back at the TV. Green Bay had the ball, and Brett Favre had just been sacked. Gary moaned. “What the hell sort of offensive line is that? The guy’s a legend. He’s a national treasure, and he’s getting mauled, and they are doing fuck-all to protect him.” Was Chris trying to tell him not to stare? Had he been staring? He didn’t think so, but maybe he had… Don’t think so much. This advice had been offered to him many times over the years by women. He took a big bite of his sandwich and watched a slice of tomato slither out the bottom and land on his shirt. “You guys all have the same tattoo. Is that because you were in Iraq together?” Chris shook his head. “We’re brothers, Mike.” Okay. Mike shrugged. Marines, they had a secret language all their own. He never did quite get what they were saying. He ought to Google that Semper Fi thing they were always saying, try to figure out what it meant. “Hey, Gary? How’s Gabriela? You seen her lately?” Gary groaned and rolled his face into his pillow. “Oh, fuck. Chris, you tell him.” Gabriela was gone. She had run away from her group foster home. “We didn’t know where to start looking,” Chris said, draining his beer. “She could have gone anywhere. She talked about Phoenix, Los Angeles, El Paso. She could have gone back down south, tried to make it home. We looked for her down in the desert, you know, just to make sure she wasn’t lost out there. We never found a trace.”

***** Mike was driving east on Highway 86 between Why and Sells. He hated this road. Last time he had driven this road he found himself counting dead dogs. So this trip he decided to play a game and count how many living things, people or animals, he could spot. So far, thirty-three miles in, the count was zero. Clayton had told him that Henry had been the ambulance guy when he’d passed out like a fool the last time he was in Sells. “It was probably just the heat,” Clayton said, kindly. “Happens all the time.” Chris chimed in. “Henry knows all about the girl, what little there is to know. He’s kind of, I don’t know, he’s taking it hard. Because we never found out her name or the baby’s name. She just seemed so alone. So abandoned, and Henry, he’s a guy who wants to help, you know? I think he’s mourning her, because there didn’t seem to be anyone else to do it.”

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Henry had seemed eager to talk about the woman when Mike called him up. He knew lots about her and would be happy to tell Mike everything. Mike’s pulled into Emmaline’s diner and gas station (count, three) and carefully locked his Jeep. He set the alarm, wishing instead of an alarm, it could have a system of deadly shocks that would electrocute any long-haired punks who came close enough to breathe on her paint. Henry was already inside at one of the booths in the diner. He was scooping spoonfuls of sugar into a big glass of iced tea. Mike didn’t remember him well. He just had an impression of great size and squareness, like a refrigerator with a head on top. “Are you Henry?” Mike gave him his hand. “Hi. Mike Sanchez. Thanks for agreeing to talk to me.” “Oh, I’m happy to,” Henry said. “Anything to help our poor girl.” Mike hesitated for a moment as he was sliding into the booth. Help? He wasn’t sure how he was going to help. Was Henry expecting him to do something? “Get the green-chili cheeseburger on fry bread,” Henry said. He shook his head at the waitress, who was trying to hand them menus. Mike nodded. “I thought I would write a story about the girl and the baby,” Mike said. “But nobody at the Border Patrol knows anything about her. They don’t even know her name, or where she came from.” Henry ran a big hand down over his face, and Mike could see his hand was shaking. He also smelled like he’d had a beer or two for breakfast. “I know things about her,” Henry said. “It’s just not anything you can confirm.” “How do you mean?” Mike asked. “She talks to me. She talks to me in dreams.” Henry leaned forward. “She’s trying to tell someone her name, because they buried her and the baby under the wrong names. Juana Doe. Baby Juan Doe. But her name is Maria Sanchez, and the baby is Jesus Sanchez. I can’t sleep, Mike. She talks to me every night.” Mike sat back, a cold chill running up his spine. This was creepy. This guy was seriously teetering on the brink. And Jesus Sanchez was his grandpa’s name. The burger was maybe the best thing Mike had ever eaten, with onions and green chilies cooked on the grill and piled on top. He asked the waitress what the fry bread was cooked in, hoping for olive oil or at least canola, but she laughed like he was funny and said lard. She shook her head at him. “Don’t try and make it healthy. You want healthy, eat a tortilla.” Henry shrugged, so Mike shrugged, too, and picked up his burger. He didn’t know what to do about Henry. Chris and Gary and Clayton all knew him, and none of them said anything about him being psychic or talking to dead people. He

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looked exhausted, and he was talking about the girl like he…well, like he had feelings for her. “She comes from a village in the mountains,” he explained. “It’s got a river, but she won’t tell me the name. I was gonna try and drive down there, you know, talk to her mom, let them know where she was buried. Her mother, she’s waiting for word back home. Nobody knows what happened to her, and the sadness, Mike, the sadness comes down with the weight of a thousand storm clouds.” O-kay! Mike slipped out of the booth. “Henry, listen. I need to call back to Ajo. Do the cells work out here?” Henry shook his head. “No towers. The same council that wouldn’t let Humane Borders put up water tanks won’t put up cell towers. And they just ignore young girls and their babies dying on our land.” He rubbed his eyes. “Man, I’m tired. I know this all sounds crazy, but it’s important, Mike. I can feel how important it is, but I just don’t know why. It’s like everything’s about to change. You can call from my place if you want.” “Thanks, Henry. I’ll just follow you, okay?” Henry lived in a little box-like duplex made out of yellow-tan concrete blocks with a brown roof. The yard was hard-packed earth, and Henry’s was the only yard without a tangle of bikes and kid’s toys and old trucks up on concrete blocks parked at the curb. There was a pillow and a rumpled sheet on the worn brown couch, and the plastic trash bin was overflowing with beer cans -- each one crushed precisely into a flat disc. It smelled dusty in here, like the windows didn’t open and Henry didn’t own a vacuum. Henry looked around like he didn’t recognize the place. “Uh, phone’s in the kitchen, Mike.” Mike walked through and picked up the receiver. Henry started picking up empty beer cans from the floor. Mike didn’t know what to do, but he was sure that getting into his Jeep and driving as fast as he could out of this hell-hole was the wrong thing to do. Henry seemed sort of lost and confused, and Mike understood that, because that was the way he felt most of the time. He pulled out his memo book. Time to call in the Marines. Chris and Gary were out on patrol, but Clayton was home. “Clayton, listen. Is Henry psychic in any way?” There was silence over the line. “No, Mike. I wouldn’t say so. Why don’t you give me a sit rep.” Man, Clayton still sounded just like a cop. “Um, well, he’s having dreams about the girl they found in the desert. She’s talking to him. He seems a little shaky, Clayton. I don’t know. Maybe he’s drinking a bit too much.” “Mike, are you sure Henry’s drinking? Because he’s been going to AA for something like ten years.”

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Mike peeked into the living room. Henry had sat down on the couch and lowered his head into his hands. “Um, yeah, Clayton. He’s drinking. You know, empty beer cans everywhere.” “Mike, I want you to do something. I want you to get Henry into your Jeep, and I want you to bring him here, to my house. Mike, don’t take any answer except yes. Don’t worry about a change of clothes or a toothbrush. And if you cannot get this job done, I want you to call me back.” Mike put the phone down and went into the living room. Jesus, he thought he would rather crawl through the desert on his knees than call Clayton back and tell him that he could not get this job done. Those guys, there were just so competent and tough. They made him feel like a marshmallow sometimes. “Henry, I just talked to Clayton. He wants me to bring you to Ajo, to his house.” Henry stared at him in surprise. “What for?” Mike wasn’t sure what to say, so he just told the truth. “Henry, I like those guys. You know, Chris and Gary, and Clayton and Luke. So if they ask me to do them a favor, I’m there, man. You know? So Clayton tells me to put you in my Jeep and bring you to him, I want to do it.” “You tell him I’ve been drinking?” Mike nodded. “Yeah, I did.” Henry sighed. “Clayton’s like a bird dog with a duck in his mouth, once he gets an idea. He’ll just keep on and on. I’ve been meaning to get over to Ajo and see them.” “If you’re there in Ajo, you can help me,” Mike offered. “Maybe we can figure out something about the girl. You want to hear something weird, Henry? My grandpa’s name is Jesus Sanchez. He swam the Rio back in, oh, something like 1948 or 49.” Henry studied his face. “You look like her, Mike. You got cousins in Mexico?” Mike felt his stomach turn to ice. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

Chris and Melody Dawn filled the bedroom with soft, gray light. Chris reached over for Melody. She was gone, but the sheets were still warm. He pulled her pillow close and put his face against the linen. It smelled like her shampoo, like tiny purple flowers or something. He could hear her moving around in the kitchen. A few minutes later she poked her head into the bedroom. “You awake? I’ve got coffee ready.” Chris had been smelling that coffee for ten minutes. Also cinnamon and butter and something with yeast in it. She must be baking. He rolled over. “Come back to bed for a minute.” He held out his hand.

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She took it, slipped the apron off over her head and climbed between the sheets with him. He traced the lines of her face, watching her shy smile bloom. “What are you making? It smells good.” “Cinnamon rolls for Henry and Mike to take on their trip. You don’t know if Henry has diabetes, do you?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. They leaving for Mexico today?” “I think so. Mike said he wanted to talk to those insurance people again before he takes his Jeep down over the border.” Chris grinned at her, his hands moving down her belly. “Everybody’s got their babies.” He could feel the small lump in her lower abdomen. He could cover it with both hands, but the nurse practitioner said the baby was growing well. He kept his hands in place, hoping to feel the baby move. “Are you happy, Melody?” She smiled at him and nodded. Henry was in their second bedroom, a couple of weeks into drying out. She checked on Luke every day, went with him whenever he had to go to Home Depot for sheetrock or studs for their house renovation. She was cooking for every hungry boy she could find. She seemed happy. She was busy, and people needed her. Every once in a while he caught her crying or talking to the baby growing in her belly, saying she was sorry. But Chris was sure they could beat the HIV. He could feel it. He would keep her happy, keep her stress-free, and make sure she was taking a shitload of anti-virals. No one and nothing was going to get in his way, and he was going to beat this. “Melody, you want to make love?” She looked at him, a question in her eyes. “Do you want me, Chris? Are you okay?” “Baby, I always want you. And yeah, I’m okay. I just thought...” He felt a little tingle of nerves in his stomach. “I was laying here, and I started wondering what you wanted. What you liked. If you wanted me to do anything different. You know, some women like sex because it feels good. It’s more than just a gift they give their men.” Her beautiful dark eyes smiled up at him. She didn’t look like the scared prostitute he had picked up in a small diner in El Paso. Her eyes didn’t look so lonely anymore. “I like giving you that gift, Chris.” “I know you do. You saved my life, girl.” Melody smiled again, her face filling with tenderness. She reached up and kissed him, and her mouth tasted like cinnamon and butter, yeast and cloves and nutmeg, the way their house smelled. He kissed down across her pretty, soft cheek, down her neck and into the curves and hollows of her collarbone. “You can trust me, Melody. Trust me to take care of you.” She nodded. “I do trust you.”

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“So tell me what you like.” She was silent, her bottom lip between her teeth, and he studied her face. “Do you know what it feels like, Melody? When you have an orgasm?” She shook her head, color staining her cheeks. Chris felt himself start to grin, and he looked down at her, at the soft curves of her body. “You’re a virgin. Baby, I’m gonna make you feel so good.” “I’m a virgin?” She had the tip of one finger between her teeth now, her eyes wide. “Yeah. You’re a virgin until you come with your man inside you. Didn’t you know that? You’re gonna fall in love with sex.” “I already fell in love with you.” He looked at her, surprised, and she dropped her eyes. He took her chin and raised it until she was looking back into his eyes. The tears spilled out then, and he laughed down at her. He held his hands up in front of her face. “Want to check me for cuts? I think we’re good to go.” He slid his hand down her curvy belly, into the curls between her legs, pulled her thighs apart and slid down into her damp heat. “This is the place that feels good, right about here,” he said, sliding one hard finger gently against her clitoris. He moved his finger back and forth, saw her breathing quicken, felt her start to get wet. He dipped a finger into her vagina, then spread her slick fluid up over his thumb. “Relax, baby. I’m gonna take care of you.” His cock was throbbing between his legs, smelling the fresh morning seashells and salty ocean smell from between her legs, the skin as tender as the petals of a rose, coral pink and vermilion, her body falling open against his hand like a peony fainting in the afternoon sunshine. He pulled her thighs farther apart. She was melting against him, as warm and smooth as chocolate. He took her tiny nub between his thumb and finger, rubbed back and forth as slowly as his heart was beating. He could feel her start to swell between his fingers, see the breath coming faster from between her lips. “Oh, Chris.” He reached for a condom, rolled it up his cock. “A little more, baby. Let me have just a little bit more.” She was moving her hips against his hand, so he started to move faster, a little rougher. “I want to be inside you when you come.” She thrust up against his hand. “Come on, then.” He moved between her legs, pushed inside her just a bit. The heat and wet swallowed him like a hungry mouth, and he thrust against her, ready to plunder, wanting it rough. But he stopped, moved one hand back down between her legs. Her clitoris was sweet against his fingers, and he stroked it, leaning up on one big arm, looking down into her face. She reached for him, traced a trickle of sweat down his cheek with her fingertips. Then her eyes got wide, and the flush started on her neck, flew up to her cheeks. She couldn’t speak, but the sounds coming out of her throat, the sight of her big dark eyes, wild with passion, her hands, reaching for him, tipped him over. He put both hands up next to her head, pressed into the pillow, and pounded into her. She had her legs wrapped

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around his waist, and then he was exploding, his balls exploding, his heart exploding. She pulled him in deeper, deeper, deeper, her nails digging into his back. He rolled over, pulled her around until she was sprawled out, exhausted, on top of him, tasted the salty skin on her shoulder. “Marry me. Melody, I want you to marry me.” An hour later the house was full of hungry guys, and Melody had her apron back on. They were all driving down into Organ Pipe to see Mike and Henry off on their trip into Mexico. Mike and Henry were the only two people who believed in what they were doing, who believed that they were going to track down the girl, find her family, and give her a name. Neither of them spoke Spanish worth a piss. Chris shrugged. Well, you never can tell. Their Spanish will get better with practice. Maybe…just maybe. They wouldn’t go into the desert hungry, that was for damn sure. Melody was rolling scrambled eggs with sausage and cheese into tortillas. “Here, just eat a small one, Gary. Eat something. I think you’re losing weight.” He held his head, looking a little green. “Nothing. Just coffee. Not in that smiley-face mug, either. I hate that mug.” She reached into the kitchen cabinet for some Alka-Seltzer and dumped a package into a glass of water. “I’m worried about how much you’re drinking, Gary. I got this medicine for you. You have a hangover every time I see you.” He stared up at her dumbly. “Melody, it’s not a hangover. I think I got food poisoning at the Crazy Bun.” “No, you didn’t. If you don’t want eggs and sausage, I could fix you a piece of pie. How would…” Gary snatched the glass out of her hand and gulped it down. “No pie,” he choked out. He staggered away from the kitchen and flopped down on the end of the couch, groaning. Melody turned to Henry. “You don’t have diabetes, do you, Henry?” When Clayton and Luke came in, Chris saw Melody pull Luke aside in the kitchen. Chris knew what she was saying. She looked so happy, her hands fluttering around like little brown birds. She was telling Luke that Chris had asked her to marry him. Melody stopped, her hand going to her belly, then she reached for Luke’s hand and put it on her bump, so he could feel the baby move. Chris watched Luke’s head come up, those weird blue eyes of his swivel around until Luke found him. You okay with this, brother? Luke was the best-looking of the whole group of them, even with his bombed-out face. And he was ferociously loyal. Melody felt safe with him, felt like he was her personal warrior. She had even gone back to the library with him. Chris had felt a twinge or two of jealousy, with Melody happily spending all day with Luke. But Luke had settled into the big brother job.

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After a few minutes Melody hugged him and wiped her eyes with her fist, like a little girl. Luke’s hands were gentle on her shoulders. But he never looked away from Chris. Chris walked outside, and Luke followed him a moment later. They stood together, looking at the heat haze already shimmering over the desert. Chris held out his hands. “I won’t tell you that I was trying to save her when I took her out of El Paso. I know she told you all about it.” Luke nodded. “I didn’t do it for her, Luke. I needed her. I was hurting bad. I didn’t…I wasn’t sure I was gonna make it, and she helped me. So I just picked her up and brought her along. If it hadn’t been her, but some other chick needing a couple of bucks, I would have just banged her and left the next morning. I nearly did. But…she was something different.” He felt like he was strangling, his voice choking in his throat. “I didn’t know about the HIV. And I didn’t mean for her to get pregnant. I know she’s young.” Luke stared off into the desert. “She means something to me now, brother. Now we’re a family. You can trust me to take care of her.” Luke looked at him and nodded, his blue eyes full of compassion, and he pulled out his memo book and wrote a note. “You feeling obligated to her, Chris? Is that why you asked her to marry you? Because you know she’s in love with you.” Chris shook his head. “It’s not obligation, Luke. It’s something more, but I don’t really know what to call it. I like to be with her, and I want to take care of her. That’s reason enough, don’t you think? I mean, everything else will come, if it’s gonna come.” Luke nodded, and Chris felt relief like cool water spreading in his stomach. “Listen, Luke. You’ll take care of her, right? If something happens to me?” Luke grinned and gave him a friendly shove. Yeah, that’s what he thought. Melody had people around who loved her, who would love her even if Chris… “I’ve been wanting to ask you and Clayton something. It just takes a minute, Luke.” He held up his hands, then let them drop again. “It just takes a minute, and then nothing is the same, ever again. Listen, talk to Clayton first. See what he would think about the baby coming to you two. If something happens to me and Melody.” Luke turned and stared at him, his eyes wide in shock. “You know the baby might be born sick.” Luke shook his head no. “It could happen, Luke, so you guys need to think about it. Melody is fine, she’s doing real good. Her CD-4 counts are low, and the nurse practitioner says she’s real healthy. But we talked about what we should do if, you know. If. And we want the baby to go to you and Clayton.” They looked off into the desert. Chris sighed, and finally said out loud what he had been thinking for weeks. He wouldn’t have said it to anyone else. Only one of his brothers would understand. “Maybe this thing that’s happened to Melody is my fault. Retribution or something. Payment for the

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boys. There’s always comeback, Luke. It’s not like I’m gonna just get away with killing those boys.” Luke pulled his memo pad out again. “Chris, don’t be a fucking bonehead. The boys came out of a house that was a known point of origin. We’d taken mortar fire from that neighborhood, probably from that house, for weeks. Any one of us would have done what you did. You were protecting the team, the other guys. It’s time to let that go and stop waiting to be punished. Chris, you need to live with us, right here in Ajo. With your pretty girl and your baby. You don’t live in Mahmudiyah anymore. Neither do I.” Chris looked at him, at the calm in his ruined face, and felt his spirits lift a bit. “No, I guess you don’t. That’s good. You look good, Luke.” “You want to take care of her and the baby, you want to try and make a family, that’s good, but you just remember how fragile she is, Chris. She’s depending on you. You can’t decide you’re tired of balancing your karma, then go and fall in love with someone else. If you hurt her, I’ll beat the living shit out of you.” “Fair enough.” Clayton stuck his head out the door. “You two better wrap it up and get in here, or there won’t be any food left. Gary just finished off the hash browns.” Mike double-checked the maps, double-checked the passport and visa and money strapped to his waist in a secure belt from TravelSmith, double-checked the card with the emergency contact numbers in his wallet. He thought about it, lower lip caught between his teeth, then he moved the card from his wallet into the travel belt. Gary dropped a big hand on his shoulder. “Chill, bro. You’re making me nervous. You and Henry just go have a good time. Be a couple of tourists, you know what I’m saying? You find something, then you find something, but…” “Oh, man! I meant to check that spare tire before we left Ajo. What if we get a flat, and we can’t get it repaired, and then we get another flat?” Mike was as jittery as a teenager on his first date, and he would not be calmed down. It was his first trip into Mexico. Henry came out of the store with a couple of gallon jugs of water and stowed them in the back. “Mike, you want me to drive?” Mike’s eyes grew huge. “Uh, no, Henry. That’s okay. I’ve got it. I mean, I’m good to go.” “Then let’s go,” Henry said. “I’m ready to roll.” Chris studied them. It looked like a shaky crew to him. Mike was anxious, like his usual self only more so. Henry was strained, still not sleeping well, still a little wired from kicking the booze. Maybe this trip would be good for them. Maybe not. They might drive each other right around the bend.

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Chris and Gary shook hands with them both and watched as they inched forward into the departing traffic lane at the border crossing. “Oh, fuck, no.” Gary was staring at the line of vehicles in the incoming customs traffic lane. The customs officers were rolling a big machine with a long metal arm, a scanner, over groups of cars and trucks, three or four at a time. “Chris, look over there.” Chris squinted into the sun. The heat haze off the black asphalt road was so strong it was hard to see. He raised his arm, wiped his forehead. “What is it?” He saw an RV with an older couple standing next to it. There was a pickup, a new Silverado with a horse trailer attached, and behind it was a rattletrap old white pickup, a Ford F-150, must have been older than the kids driving it. There were a couple of young guys leaning up against the cab, Native kids with long black hair. Blue bandanas tied around their heads. An immigration agent looked through their passports, then moved to the older, Mexican man leaning up against the Silverado. They looked at each other and grinned when the agent had cleared them, and Chris felt his stomach drop. Oh, shit. “Chris, isn’t that Clayton’s brother, the idiot he caught dealing meth?” Chris nodded and pulled his cell phone out. “How old is he?” Gary looked outraged. “I thought he was fourteen or something.” Chris nodded, started punching in Clayton’s cell number. “Last I heard he was fourteen. Maybe fifteen by now.” “He’s fucking driving? Into Mexico and back? I think Clayton’s up at Quitobaquito with Luke, taking pictures or something. Jesus, man, if that pissant gets caught bringing drugs up through Organ Pipe, they’re gonna think Clayton was involved.” “Nobody who knows him would believe it.” “Yeah, but they don’t know him yet, Chris. He only started a couple months ago. That kind of shadow, man. It just doesn’t go away. You know how law enforcement is.” “Etsitty here.” “Clayton, this is Chris. Listen.” He hesitated, not really sure how things stood between Clayton and his brother, not sure if Clayton would want this phone call. Chris shook his head. Clayton was a Marine. He’d never hide his face, hide so he wouldn’t have to see trouble coming. “Clayton, listen. I’m with Gary, down at Gringo Pass, at the border crossing. Elliot just came through from Mexico. I think Rascal’s with him. They’re driving an old white Ford pickup.” Clayton was silent for a moment, then Chris heard him yell. “Luke! Double-time, we got to go! Chris, I’m gonna stop him on 85, going up through the Park. I’ve got to shake him down. He might be bringing drugs in. He’s probably bringing drugs in, that stupid little fuck. Listen, thanks for the call. I’ll take it from here.”

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Chris could hear the sorrow in his voice, sorrow and simmering fury. “Clay, me and Gary, we’ll follow him up until he gets to you. Just be cool, brother. Let us take your back.” “Thanks, man. Jesus, does Elliot even know how to drive?” Elliot’s pickup pulled out of the customs lane, headed north into Organ Pipe. “He’s leaving, Clay. We’re on it.” Gary was running for their vehicle. Gary was driving close behind the pickup, but Elliot never seemed to look back at them in the rearview mirror. Rascal’s head never turned between the two seats to see who was in the white SUV following them. The road was like an arrow down through Organ Pipe, the desert creeping up on it at night, the asphalt rough with patches and holes. “Chris, call it in,” Gary said suddenly. “Why? What’s wrong?” “I don’t know; I just got a bad feeling. That guy in the Silverado, maybe he was with them, watching them or something. Somebody helped get them passports with forged birth dates, and that ain’t something that those boys are gonna know how to do. Somebody helped them. And if they got faked passports and an old truck full of drugs, maybe they got guns.” Chris felt his stomach twist into a knot, and Melody’s pretty face came into his mind for a moment. He pulled out his radio, keyed the mike. “This is unit 1-3. I need to talk to Cal. He there?” Their unit chief was always there. Chris thought he probably slept on a cot in the back room. “Go ahead, 1-3.What’s your 20?” “North on 85 through Organ Pipe. Listen, we’re gonna check something out. A couple of kids came through the border crossing, looked fishy.” “You want me to call the rangers? DEA?” “One of the rangers, Clayton Etsitty, he was a Marine, our platoon. He’s got the front door. One of the kids is his little brother.” “He was a Marine? So why’s he a ranger and not Border Patrol?” Chris laughed. Cal never gave up his peculiar recruiting. “Listen, you keep an eye on the back door, but don’t get cocky. Little brothers can still be dangerous. I’ll see who is in the area, you run into trouble.” “Thanks, Cal. Out.” Chris stuck the radio back into his belt. Clayton had pulled the park ranger unit across the road. He was walking toward the truck, holding a hand up for them to stop. Elliot and Rascal came spilling out of the truck. Chris and Gary were still a half-mile back.

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Clayton Clayton was gripping the steering wheel so hard his fingers were bloodless and numb. Rage was crushing his chest. He couldn’t ever remember being this angry, blind fury rocking through his head. Luke grabbed his arm, but Clayton shook him off. Calm down, Clayton. But he couldn’t calm down. Those stupid fucking kids, coming across the border. Across the border? They were bringing drugs in, bringing drugs up through Organ Pipe, his park. Elliot didn’t give a shit if he ruined this for Clayton, ruined his reputation. Who wanted a law enforcement officer with a brother running drugs through his territory? Helpless rage, his throat was closing, and he couldn’t speak, he could just feel everything he’d built so carefully with Luke crumbling, destroyed by carelessness, recklessness. Everything destroyed. He was ready to tear Elliot’s fucking head off his shoulders. He skewed the car across the road, the tires screaming, and opened his door. Luke grabbed his arm when he got out of the car, tried to slow him down, but Clayton shook him off and started down the road. The pickup slowed, then stopped, and the boys came tumbling out in a cloud of reefer. Clayton never even slowed down. He grabbed Elliot by the shoulders, shook him, slammed him back hard against the hood of the pickup truck. “You stupid fuck.” Clayton could hear his voice shaking, but he couldn’t control it, couldn’t control the rage. He reached out and grabbed Elliot by the throat, squeezed until his face shaded dark. Rascal was screaming. “Oh, fuck, man! What are you doing?” He ran around the front of the truck, jumped on Clayton’s back, clawing at his face and neck. Clayton let go of Elliot, flipped Rascal over his shoulder and down on the black asphalt road. “You think I’m gonna give you a free ride? You think I’m gonna let you bring your filthy drugs into my country?” Elliot wasn’t listening. When Clayton turned around and reached for him, Elliot pulled a cheap knock-off Glock machine pistol out of the pocket of his jacket with hands that were shaking. He didn’t know what to do with it, but he pointed it at Clayton and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked and jerked in his hand, spraying bullets across Clayton’s vest, then down into his belly, below the bottom edge. Clayton felt the bullets tear into his flesh, and it felt almost cold, then a sharp burning. Clayton felt the warm gush of his blood spilling through his fingers. Rascal was still screaming, on his hands and knees, and Elliot was pointing behind them, waving the gun.

Luke. Rascal had his pistol out now, and he and Elliot were leaning into the open doors of the pickup, aiming the guns, firing at the white SUV that was nearly on top of them. Gary must have been doing eighty. Clayton heard the tires scream, the shriek of tearing metal. It

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sounded like an IED had detonated, but it couldn’t be. They weren’t in Iraq anymore, were they? Clayton tried to sit up, go to his brothers. Then Luke was there, straddling his body, a gun rock steady in his hands. Don’t move,

Clay. Don’t make a sound. No, Luke. Clayton watched Rascal turn toward him, then Elliot, watched their guns swinging around like they were moving in slow motion. Luke fired twice, and a deadly black flower bloomed on Rascal’s forehead, and then Elliot’s, and they fell, guns clattering across the road.

Chris Gunshots, and Clayton falling to the ground, blood flowing from his belly, between his fingers. Those idiots were shooting at them now. Gary stomped on the accelerator, and one of the kids shot out a front tire. The Durango spun around, tumbled off the edge of the road, and rolled over into the desert. The airbags deployed, punching Chris in the face. He couldn’t see, couldn’t see what was happening to Clayton. And where was Luke? He pushed the airbag away and reached across the front seat. Gary had blood streaming down his face. He spat out something that looked like a tooth as he wrestled his seat belt off. “Go. Go! I’m right behind you.” Chris got his seat belt off and crawled out the back passenger door. “You call it in. I’m going to Clayton.” Chris could hear scattered gunfire, and he clicked the safety off his weapon with his thumb as he ran. Clayton was on his back in the middle of the road, groaning, and Luke was straddling him, one knee on either side of his body. He had Clayton’s gun in his hands. The boys were lying on their backs in the road, shot through the head. Chris walked forward, his weapon leveled. He glanced down at Clayton. The bullet had hit him in the gut, below his vest, but he was still conscious. Blood was gathering on the black pavement under him. Luke pulled his T-shirt off and rolled Clayton over, braced the soft cotton against the exit wound. Chris pulled his radio out and thumbed the key button. “Border Patrol Unit 518, Code 3, repeat Code 3. I need 10-60 Highway 85, between Quitobaquito and the crossing. There’s an officer down.” He dropped to his knees next to Clayton after he made the call. “BORSTAR’s on the way, and it sounds like every uniformed and non-uniformed law in southern Arizona.” The black pavement was too hot, it was burning his knees through his uniform. He pulled off his uniform shirt and put it under Clayton’s head, tried to scoot it under his shoulders, but he didn’t want to move him too much. The desert was full of cactus right up against the edge of

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the road, there was no place safe to move him. “Gary! Get the EMS bag! And bring a blanket, hurry!” Luke had the T-shirt wrapped around Clayton’s side, pressing at the entry and exit wounds. Chris looked down into his face. Clay was still conscious, grimacing in pain as Luke pressed down, but the bleeding had slowed. “Jesus, Clayton. It’s just a scratch. Don’t be such a fucking pussy.” Chris ran his hand back over Clay’s head, remembering the night that Luke had been hurt. Clayton had been dreaming then, some nightmare tearing through his sleep over and over, and he’d had that same look on his face. “We’re all here, bud.” Gary ran up and dropped the EMS bag next to him. Chris stared at him. “Holy shit, Gary. You all right?” Blood was pouring down his face, and he was holding his left arm and shoulder tightly against his body. Chris opened the bag and pulled out the IV fluid. “Gary, can you hold this? Can you stand up? Luke’s got pressure on the wound. He can’t let go.” “Yeah.” Gary let go of his broken arm and held the bag of saline up high. His arm swung down, limp, and he swayed with a groaning, teeth-grinding moan. His legs were spread to help him keep his balance. “Clayton, you with us, boy? Come on, dickhead. Open your eyes.” Clayton looked up, blinking against the sun. “Guys.” His voice sounded like he had a throat full of blood. Chris had the large bore needle in his arm and was getting the second bag of IV fluid ready to hook on. Clayton looked around until he found Luke. Luke bent over, still holding the T-shirt tightly in place, and they looked at each other. “When we’re done here I want to go fishing. That place in Alaska, Luke.” He grimaced, squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, Jesus, it hurts. Luke, what did I do? I’m not wearing my dog tags. I’m O pos. You’ll tell them?” Luke nodded, his eyes never leaving Clayton’s face. “Luke, I’ll wait there, Resurrection Bay.”

Don’t leave me alone here, Clayton. I stayed alive for you. Now you stay alive for me. I’ll wait for you in Alaska. Just in case. I never saw anything as blue as that water. Dripping green and that icy wind blowing down off the glaciers, Luke. Can’t you smell it? Alaska. This stinking tar’s burning the skin off my back. Luke, I know the boat to get now, the one with the flat bottom. Let’s just get out of here and go fishing. Luke, what did I do? I killed my brother. Luke leaned forward until his forehead was resting against Clayton’s. Not you. Me. Gary was groaning. “Oh, Jesus, look at them. Luke, don’t you fucking give him some sort of good-bye kiss, or I will kick your scrawny ass.” Clayton closed his eyes. The BORSTAR helicopter landed near the border crossing. Clayton was alive, but he’d lost consciousness. He’d lost so much blood, maybe too much. Gary had a broken left arm

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and collarbone, a cut lip and chin, and a broken tooth, but he wouldn’t let the EMTs touch him until Clayton was safely on his way. Chris walked over to Luke. He was sitting alone in Clayton’s vehicle, staring out into the desert. “Where’d you get the gun?” Luke tapped the glove compartment. “The FBI’s here. You ready to talk to them?” Luke nodded and started to climb out of the car. “Luke. Did you know that was Clayton’s brother? Before you shot him?” Luke nodded his head slowly, his eyes full of weird gold light. I knew. Chris nodded. “Good. We’ll go to the hospital as soon as they finish with us. Melody’s on her way. She’ll stay with him, Luke, so he won’t be alone. The other boy was Rascal. He’s, he was, Henry’s little brother. I don’t know where Mike and Henry were going in Mexico. I guess we need to try and find them.” Border Patrol agents were pulling plastic-wrapped bundles from a storage compartment under the truck, shoe-box sized packages of white powder and what looked like marijuana in solid blocks. Luke turned and stared back at the bodies, at the patch of Clayton’s blood on the road, and the vultures circling overhead.

Mike Mike walked around to the back of the Jeep and stared down at the rear tire. He looked over at Henry, who was climbing out of the other side of the Jeep. “Henry, I knew I should have got an extra spare before we left Ajo. This is my fault.” Henry sighed and pushed the ball cap back on his head. “I wasn’t expecting this road to be so rough. Your Jeep’s done noble work, Mike. She’s a brave warrior.” Mike felt a little glow of pride, and then he felt ridiculous. He looked up and down the road. Nothing, nada. Desert stretching up to the mountains in the distance, a few spindly and twisted cactus that made the desert around Ajo look positively lush. “We’ve got water,” Henry commented, opening up the back and pulling out the jug. “We’re doing okay. If we can get a lift into the next town, maybe we can get another spare or find a tow truck.” Mike nodded, trying to conceal a wince. He knew Henry was right, but he sure didn’t want to leave his Jeep out here alone. “Okay, Henry. That’s probably best.” They pulled out backpacks. Mike stuck a notebook and pens into his bag, and they each picked up a gallon of water and started walking.

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It was nice having Henry along. Mike had felt himself settling down a bit, this last couple of weeks in Mexico, knowing there was another person along to help out if something went wrong. He didn’t feel as stupid or incompetent as he usually did. Henry was a relaxed sort of guy. Henry was still relaxed, which surprised Mike, considering they’d had no luck so far finding the girl. Mexico was having a good effect on them both. Mike felt himself being just a little more daring, a bit more willing to try. And there was lots to try down here and lots to like, new foods and smells, charming, courteous people welcoming them, and beautiful land to drive through. Mike had never realized Mexico was so beautiful. When a work truck pulled up next to them and offered a ride, Henry climbed into the back, then reached a hand down for Mike. The exhaust belched black diesel fumes, then they were off, bouncing and jostling down the road. Henry and Mike sat on their backpacks, shoulder to shoulder, and Mike wondered how much exposure to the fumes of unleaded gasoline would be considered toxic to humans. They climbed out of the truck next to the only hotel in town, a little building on the town square painted mustard brown, with bright blue wooden window frames. They got a single room for the night with two beds, to conserve their dwindling money, and went into the café for supper. The woman at the desk, who also brought the towels and served their supper, told them her husband would find the man with the tires, and he would take them out to the Jeep in the morning. The café smelled like meat cooking, and the lady eyed Henry’s massive frame with pleasure. “Sit! Sit!” Then she started bringing out the food. “Cabrito,” she said, setting a platter of grilled meat down on the table. She was back with pico de gallo, fresh tortillas, a bowl of beans, then she stood next to the table, her hands tucked into her apron, and watched them eat, nodding a bit. Mike thought she looked a lot like his grandmother would have looked, if she had lived to be this age. Her husband came out of the kitchen, wearing faded Wranglers and boots, his hair flattened to his scalp by his cowboy hat. He pulled a chair up to their table, poured three small glasses of mescal, then set the bottle down on the floor by his foot. Henry glanced briefly at Mike, who was frozen, his mouth full of the spicy, tender cabrito. Henry nodded slightly and tossed back his mescal. The old man did the same, then reached for the bottle and refilled their glasses. They both looked at Mike. He sipped from the little glass. It didn’t taste like anything he could recognize, but it was very sharp and strong. Mike put a piece of cabrito in a tortilla, spooned in some pico de gallo, and rolled it up. Mike knew Henry shouldn’t drink, but he hadn’t drunk anything the entire trip, and there didn’t seem to be any polite way to refuse the old man. Still, Henry was tossing back the mescal with the quick wrist and gulp of a pro.

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The old man was asking them about the festival, if they were here for the festival. “Semana Santa,” he said. “The Tarahumara do their play. Those crazy Indios, they live down in the canyons, Copper Canyon, they call it in the north. They call themselves Raramuri, people of the swiftly running feet.” He chuckled and poured another half glass of mescal. “They should call themselves people of the swiftly flowing tesguino.” “What’s tesguino?” Mike asked. “That crazy Indio corn beer. That’s all they do, grow corn, turn it into tesguino, then get drunk and laugh like fools.” He reached over with the bottle and topped off Mike’s glass. Mike took another small sip. “That tesguino, it’s bitter, like their lives. Mescal is better.” He slapped his chest with a gnarled hand. “Mescal, it makes your heart strong.” When he left, Mike didn’t say anything to Henry about the mescal. He could see Henry was feeling it, his eyes looking fuzzy and warm. But Henry just finished his food, paid for the dinner, and walked with Mike around the town square. When they got back to their room, Mike eased back on his bed, the thin pillow propped under his head. He got his backpack and shoved it under the pillow. That was better. Henry watched him, then did the same. “Listen, don’t sweat it, Mike.” Mike stared up at the ceiling, ivory plaster with a small water stain in the corner. “Henry, it isn’t my business.” He hesitated. “But I sure hope you’re okay with this drinking thing. I don’t want to stand around and watch you get hurt, or watch you hurt yourself, and do nothing to help.” Henry sighed. “Thanks, brother. I’m okay.” They stared up at the ceiling for a bit, then Henry said, “Mike, listen. We aren’t going to find her, are we.” It wasn’t a question. They had been traveling for three weeks without finding a single clue. Henry had grown less sure the farther they went into Mexico. They had crisscrossed from village to village, but no one wanted to talk about a girl and her baby who had walked north and disappeared. Mike chewed on his bottom lip. “Henry, I think we won’t ever find her. But I’m willing to keep looking, if you want to go on.” Henry stared up at the ceiling, too. “She’s not talking to me anymore. It’s actually… Mike, it’s a bit of a relief. I’ve been feeling like we need to get home, anyway. Before we head home you want to go see this thing the Raramuri do? That might be a good story for you.” “I wouldn’t mind.” Mike chewed on a fingernail. “You don’t have to worry, Mike. I’m not going to drown in a vat of corn beer. Who was that, drown in a vat of beer?” “I can’t remember. A vat of beer? A keg of whiskey? Somebody British, I think. Some royal assassination.” “I guess it would be fitting if I drown in tesguino, then.” “How’s that?”

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“Well, you know I’m Tohono O’odham, Mike. Tesguino is native beer. Maybe you can write a story about how to make it. Corn sales at our major universities will skyrocket.” Mike smiled up at the ceiling. “I forgot about you being Native. You speak Papago, Henry?” “Yep.” “I wonder if the Tarahumara language is close to yours.” “I don’t know. We’ll see soon enough.” “Hey, Henry. If you ever decide to move to Ajo, you can stay with me. I was thinking maybe we could be roommates. Or, you know, you could just come to visit, and you could stay with me.” Henry rolled over and looked at him. “Thanks, Mike. You’re a good guy.” Mike studied the ceiling again. That felt good, warm in his chest, like one of Henry’s strong hands coming down over his heart, warming his skin. “Henry, since we know her name now, maybe we could put up one of those things for her and the baby.” “What, you mean like a memorial stone?” “No, I was thinking about one of those reliquaries. Like the ones they have by the roads down here. They look like fancy boxes with glass fronts, and inside are flowers and holy cards and prayers, like that. A picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I bet Chris and Gary would write a little note, since they found her. Maybe Luke could build the box. He’s good with building things.” “That’s a good idea, Mike. We can pick some flowers from down here and dry them, put them inside. So she’ll have something from home.” The next morning they had the tire repaired, breakfast eaten, and a load of coffee drunk before eight, and were on their way to Copper Canyon for Semana Santa. The road was no more than a track the last few miles, then they hiked down into canyons so deep they looked endless. The Raramuri put on their Semana Santa play, a strange blend of native ritual and Christian myth, every year before Easter. Some of the men were painted with whitewash, some with white polka dots. A small boy attached himself to them, acting as translator. “Those white guys,” he said, pointing, “they’re bad. They’re Anglos, like you.” He looked at Henry, puzzled, then shrugged and turned back to Mike. “We call them Judas. The guys with the dots, they’re good. They’re Raramuri, men with feet as swift and sure as hawk’s wings can fly.” Mike was writing a fast as he could. “That one’s Jesus, the one with the gray feathers on his head.” “Ah. He looks…uh, good. Very authentic.” Henry turned and gave him a look, and Mike handed Henry his camera. The boy was hopping from foot to foot. “Will you take my picture?”

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“We sure will,” Mike said. “Do you know anyone who is making the tesguino, who will tell us how it is done?” The boy looked shocked for a moment. “But…everyone makes it! Everyone knows how!” “I want to write down how to do it in English words. And take pictures.” The boy stared at him, his hand over his mouth. Then he nodded his head. “I think I know the one. Let me ask her.” He darted away, leaping from rock to rock like a little goat. Mike looked at Henry and shrugged. They sat together, watching, and Henry took pictures of the Raramuri acting out the battle of good and evil. “See, this is the problem, Henry.” “What’s the problem?” “Me. Tesguino.” Henry looked at him, and Mike could see only acceptance and good humor in his face. “It’s like a character flaw or something. I’m more interested in how to make corn beer than in the anthropology or whatever it is going on down there.” He gestured toward the Native dancers in their feathers and paint. “I mean, this is like a big deal, a big cultural deal or whatever. And I couldn’t care less. But I sure want to know how they make that tesguino.” Henry tipped his ball cap back and scratched his head. “So the problem is you aren’t supposed to be yourself?” Mike thought about that. “I guess I just want to be better than I am.” Henry grinned and slung an arm around his shoulders, pulled him over until they were hip to hip on the rock. “I want to know about that tesguino, too, more than I want to know about Jesus in feathers. It might be good to be roommates, Mike. Something about you, I don’t know. We’ll get along all right.”

Juan La Migra had one big arm around Juan’s shoulder, and a bottle of beer in his other hand. “Hey!” he shouted. “Look who’s here!” Juan looked back over his shoulder. Maggie and Clint were right behind him, and Clint gave him a nod and a little wink to tell him not to be scared. They were at the house of La Migra’s friend. His wife had had a baby, and they were having a party to celebrate the baby’s first smile. Maggie had been sewing on a little quilt for weeks. “Hi, Juan.” It was the friend. He shook hands with Clint and Maggie. “It’s great to see you guys. Thanks for coming down.” “Chris, where’s that baby?”

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He smiled and pointed into the living room. “Mom and baby are on the couch, supposed to be resting. See if you can keep her down. She was cooking at five o’clock this morning.” Maggie pulled Juan’s arm. “Juan, you come on with me now, say hello to Melody and the baby.” Chris turned to Clint. “Clint, let me introduce you to my dad. He’s here from Texas for a couple of days.” Melody was pretty, with her hair in a fat ball of curls on the top of her head. She was smiling like she would never stop smiling. The baby was dressed in tiny yellow pajamas, and was blinking and looking around out of huge dark eyes. Maggie sat down on the couch next to the girl and hugged her. “Oh, honey. You look beautiful. And look at this baby! She sure does look happy. Well, happy mommy, happy baby, that’s what they say. Is she sleeping through the night?” “Not yet, but that’s okay. Daddy doesn’t want to put her down, and he sits in the rocker with her all night long so I can rest. They just rock and stare at each other for hours. You want to hold her?” Melody passed the baby over, and Juan reached his arms out. Juan stared down at the baby, with her pretty smooth skin and her big black eyes. The baby was looking right at him, and then she smiled and blew a tiny bubble. He felt something prick his chest, like her little bubble had lodged in his heart. “Is it a girl? She’s very pretty.” Melody smiled at him. “She is a girl. Her name’s Lily.” Juan looked down at her again, and rocked her a tiny bit in his arms. I will protect you, he promised her. I will not let anyone hurt you. The baby grinned again, then gave a little sleepy squeak and closed her eyes. Maggie put her hand on his shoulder. “She likes you, Juan.” She turned to Melody. “I’m not surprised. Juan has all the foals out on the ranch following him around. He’s gentle with the little ones.” Juan looked up as two men came into the living room. He smiled, because they looked funny together, one very big and one very small. The small one had a camera. “Melody, I think Henry got the camera working now. Want me to take pictures?” “Thanks, Mike. You want to take a picture of Juan holding Lily?” Juan felt his heart swell again. His picture! He sat up as straight as he could. The man took his picture, then showed Juan the photo at the back of the camera. He was smiling too much, and his teeth were sticking out. But he didn’t mind. He couldn’t feel anything but happy today, with Lily smiling at him. “Let me hold her now, Juan. It’s been a long time for me since I got to hold a baby.”

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Maggie snuggled Lily up in her arms, rocking back and forth. “Oh, you’re a beautiful girl, Lily. What a fine, fat girl you are. I can see you’re a good eater.” She looked up at Melody. “I’m so happy for you, honey.” “Thank you, Maggie.” Melody wiped her eyes. “Juan, I hope you came hungry,” Melody said. “We’ve got burgers and hot dogs on the grill, and potato salad, and peach cobbler. I made the peach cobbler like Maggie’s recipe. That way I knew you’d like it.” “We brought a couple of pies, too. You shouldn’t be worrying about cooking right now, Melody. Son, you go on into the kitchen and get you some tea or a soda.” Juan pushed the swinging door open and went into the kitchen. La Migra and his friends were crowded around a computer at the table. There was a tall man with silvery-gold colored hair down to his shoulders and a blue bandana over his face. He was working the keyboard. Chris leaned forward. “Luke, show me the painting from the gallery opening.” The man pressed another key, then he stood up and stepped back. Chris gasped. “Holy shit, Luke. Gary, come here, look at this.” Gary choked on his beer. “Jesus, Luke! That’s Clayton!” Gary turned his head a little, like he couldn’t stand to look at the screen. “What the fuck’s the matter with horses, you want to paint pictures? Mountains or some shit like that?” The blond man was smiling over the top of his bandana. Chris slapped Gary on the back. “Oh, yeah, he’s hot, ain’t he?” Gary made a growling sound deep in his throat. “Never saw old Clay looking quite like that before. Wow, Luke. Deeply private, man. I mean, you just spilled your love across the canvas for the whole world to see.” Luke nodded, smiling at Chris. Juan stood on his toes and looked over La Migra’s shoulder. The computer screen showed a painting, a dark-skinned man lying across a bed on white sheets. He was on his back, leaning up on his elbows, and his face looked like… Juan didn’t know how to say it. He looked like he wanted to kiss somebody. And he was totally naked. Juan studied the man’s face some more. He was Indio! The man was Indio, like him. The back door into the kitchen opened, and a man stuck his head inside. “This charcoal ain’t getting any hotter. Where’re the burgers?” It was the man from the painting. Juan looked around the kitchen and saw the platter of burgers covered with clear plastic wrap. He picked them up and followed the man into the back yard. “I will be your helper,” he announced.

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“I’m glad to have a helper,” Clayton said. “You must be Juan.” The man studied his face. “Wow. Look at you. You could be my little brother.”

A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE

Ahmed crouched behind the back tire of the Humvee, then lay down with his cheek in the snow. The American soldiers were running, leaping like goats, and shouting. Ahmed could see the powdery explosions when the snowballs hit the ground. Ahmed’s older brother, Hamid, peeked around the muddy back bumper. “They’re throwing snow at each other.” Ahmed sat up, joined Hamid at the bumper. The soldiers were wearing their uniforms. They had their bulletproof vests and their helmets and some of them had their rifles slung across their backs. But they were playing, flying across the ground and throwing balls of snow, ducking behind the vehicles, then popping up with great shouts. “Let’s go,” Hamid said, tugging on his arm. “They won’t have any work for us if they’re playing.” Heavy boots crunched through the snow, and a giant American soldier ducked behind the Humvee. Ahmed froze, made a tiny bubble of noise, and the man flinched, his hand jerking toward his belt. Then he relaxed and smiled. Ahmed knew this soldier. He had carried his laundry sack twice, and the American had given him quarters. “Hey, little buddies, what are you two doing back here?” A snowball hit the bumper of the Humvee, and soft snow rained down on Ahmed’s face. “You ever have a snowball fight? Sure you have. It’s in our boy chromosome.” The soldier had eyes that were deep, clear blue, like the sky in summer. He reached for a couple of handfuls of snow, formed a rough snowball, and handed it to Hamid. Hamid dropped it and backed away, his face stiff. The soldier opened his mouth, then he knelt down on one knee next to them. “It’s just a game.” He made another snowball and handed it to Ahmed. Ahmed turned the snowball over and over in his hands, packing the snow down hard.

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Sarah Black

“Stop it!” Hamid tugged on his arm. “You can’t throw anything at them. They can shoot you. They’ll say it was a rock and shoot you!” “It’s just a game, little buddies.” He was still down on one knee. The soldier make a tiny snowball, tossed it at Ahmed. It disintegrated with a splat, and an icy tickle of snow slid down his chest. Ahmed felt a sudden delight, like his head was full of clear blue summer sky, and he threw his snowball at the soldier. The soldier fell over backward in the snow with a comical gasp, clutching his chest. Ahmed’s heart stuttered, and he leaned forward, but the soldier popped up with a big, goofy grin, knocked on his chest with his knuckles. He was wearing a bulletproof vest. The soldier gathered a small lump of snow, the size of a nut, and tossed it at Ahmed’s chest again. He threw one at Hamid, too, but Hamid had his arms crossed over his chest and was staring at the ground. Ahmed slid around the back of the Humvee, scooped up snow on the fly, pounded snowballs, leapt up, and threw them at the soldier as fast as he could. The soldier ducked and yelled and fell over backward, threw some snow, but mostly he just opened his arms and made his big American chest a target. Ahmed’s arm felt as strong as his grandfather’s. He was running so swiftly he didn’t feel his feet touch the ground until one of his snowballs hit the soldier in the face. The soldier gasped and put his hands to his cheek, and when he pulled them away his fingertips were bloody, with a cut dark as night under his eye. Hamid gave a low, keening wail, slapped Ahmed hard over his ear. Ahmed landed on his knees in the snow. “Ahmed, what did you do?” “Whoa, whoa, little buddies, let’s not get…” But Hamid was gone, racing across the compound, and the soldier bent over and lifted Ahmed into his arms. Ahmed felt his hands suddenly, aching with wet and cold. The soldier carried him to one of the B-huts where they slept. There were eight bunks inside, with lockers and shoes and games and a microwave and a stereo and a computer. Ahmed couldn’t believe how many things the American soldiers slept with. The big soldier set him down on his bunk, went down to his knee again. “You’re not in trouble, okay? Just relax.” The soldier took a white cloth and wiped the blood off his face. Then he taped the cut closed. He turned around and winked at Ahmed and checked his ear carefully. “Band Aids. Great American invention.” He wiped muddy tears off Ahmed’s face. “You got an arm like a rocket, kid. In America, I’d have you signed up for Little League in a minute. You ever played baseball? You look a little like Nolan Ryan. But you and me? We’re Diamondback fans.” The soldier winced, pressed his fingers gently next to the cut. “Can you say Diamondbacks?” Ahmed shook his head. The soldier reached down and pulled a cap out of his locker. “What’s your name?”

A Snowball’s Chance

3

“Ahmed.” His head was spinning a little, and he held his hands between his knees to warm them up. The soldier wrote something inside the cap. “I put your name in there so you’ll know it belongs to you. You better run on home, okay?” Ahmed scrambled off the bed. At the door he looked back, but the soldier wasn’t looking at him anymore. He ran through the compound, the cap hidden against his belly. When he was close to home he pulled it out and looked at it. It had a purple brim and a picture of a snake curled up and a fancy letter D. Ahmed fitted it over his head. “Diamondbacks,” he said to himself. “An arm like a rocket.”

Sarah Black “These are my boni- fides.” Richard Boone, Big Jake Sarah Black is a veteran and a retired Naval Officer. She is the daughter of a veteran, the sister of a veteran, the niece of a veteran, the granddaughter of a veteran. Proud to serve.