The Dead Run (8 page)

 

CHAPTER 11

W
hat the fuck was that?” demanded Cantwell, the two of them back in her car, regrouping in front of the air vents.

Nichols took a deep breath before responding and tried to center himself. He'd tried that count-to-ten-when-you're-mad shit a couple years back, but most of the time, he was angrier by the time double digits rolled around, having thought of several more reasons the person on the receiving end of his ire deserved it.

That person was usually a deputy. None of them were half as easy on the eyes as Cantwell.

Nichols felt his jaw unclench.

“That was you acting like some hotheaded frat boy and Seth eating our lunch. That's what that was,” he told her with all the calm he could muster. “Why the hell didn't you tell me he had a restraining order?”

“Because it's bullshit.” Cantwell fisted the wheel in frustration, looked over her shoulder at him. “Don't tell me you bought that lamb-of-God routine. The man is dripping with blood.”

“Maybe so,” Nichols replied, suddenly and thoroughly exhausted—
My kingdom for a Frappuccino
. “But you know what I've got? Nothing. Less than nothing. A girl who's late coming home, and some wild speculation about a preacher a hundred and fifty miles away who took legal action so you'd stop harassing him. None of that's gonna look very good on a write-up sheet, doc.”

“Well, he's not as smart as he thinks. We're bound to find something. Come on, let's investigate.” She stepped out of the car and slammed the door.

Nichols gazed across the barren acres and heaved a sigh.

“
M
OM?
M
OM?”
S
HERRY
banged on the door, jiggled the knob, frisked herself again for a key she'd already determined was gone.

The panic sat in her throat, waiting.

“Maybe she went to the store or something,” suggested Eric, coming up behind her.

Sherry shook her head. “That's her car, in the driveway.”

“Are you ready to call the police
now
?”

They'd argued about it on the way here, Eric with his phone drawn, ready to summon the full force of the law, send one brigade of cop cars screaming toward that godforsaken ranch and a second here, to safeguard Melinda. Sherry had refused. Ruthie didn't trust the cops, and so neither did she. For the hundredth time in the past hour, Sherry cursed herself for not having Ruthie's number memorized. It was speed-dial number six on the house phone. Melinda had never gotten around to erasing it. Had nothing to replace it with.

Fat lot of good that did Sherry.

“For the last time,” she told Eric, “the cops won't help us. They work for
him
.”

Eric's eyes narrowed. “Right. I forgot.” He shook his head and stalked across the porch, tonguing the gap where his tooth had been.

Sherry whirled to confront him. “What is it you find so hard to believe about that?”

Before he could answer—and he didn't look eager to, at all—she turned away and banged on the door again, the panic edging its way up her esophagus. She could nearly taste it now: metallic, like blood, but sharper.

“Mom! Are you in there? Open the door!”

Maybe she'd swallowed a sleeping pill, was snoring on the couch right now. It'd been years since Melinda had taken one, but who knew what she had stashed in her dresser drawer or the recesses of her mind? Sherry had thought her mother was done drinking until the day a few months ago when she'd come home from school to find Melinda sitting on this very porch, working her way through a fifth of cheap bourbon. God had told her it was okay now, Melinda had informed Sherry. That He was pleased with her progress, and she'd earned a drink.

He buy it for you, too?
Sherry had asked.

“Mom! Wake up!”

Eric dropped his hands onto his hips and walked back over. “I can break in, if you want,” he said, as if apologizing.

Sherry swallowed hard and nodded.

“Do it.”

Eric glanced over both shoulders, then lifted his leg and side-kicked the living room window. It shattered easily. Obediently. He bent forward, removed the jagged shards clinging to the frame, then straightened and beckoned her inside with a mock-courtly gesture.

“After you, my lady.”

She high-stepped the sill and was enveloped by the darkness, the odor of the house. It hit her every time she entered: a trace of rancidity she could never pinpoint, or convince her mother existed. Just one more reason the place had never felt like home.

Eric followed her inside, and for an instant Sherry's panic subsided, replaced by embarrassment at the sorry state of the place. Surely, Eric lived in palatial splendor, his house all modern furniture and sloping planes of natural light.

Then Sherry screamed.

Her mother's bare feet.

Her mother's naked legs.

Melinda lay in the hallway, the top half of her body hidden behind the wall.

She wasn't moving.

The panic was everywhere now: burning in Sherry's stomach, shooting through her muscles, spangling her vision.

She ran toward her mother, turned the corner, and fell to her knees, loosing an animal howl.

Melinda Richards lay flat on her back, legs slightly bowed, arms crossed over her breasts.

Her head was gone.

It was an impossible thing to see, to understand. There were her shoulders. There was her neck.

There was nothing.

Sherry was hyperventilating now, the breath coming in ragged gasps that didn't seem to reach her brain. Eric knelt beside her, his form blurry, his arms around her heaving shoulders. Sherry hid her head in his chest and wailed.

And wailed.

Minutes passed before she trusted herself to look—and when she did, she regretted it, tore her eyes away before the image, the flash of gore, could settle in her mind. The carpet squished beneath her knees, soggy with blood.

I'm in shock,
thought Sherry, raising her hand before her face and watching it shake.

If you're in shock
,
do you know you're in shock?

She tuned in to the sound of Eric's voice midsentence.

“ . . . safe here.”

She blinked rapidly, trying to clear the tears. His face was inches away, but she could make no sense of it, of him, of the words. Everything was disjointed, scrambled, the world reduced to jigsaw-puzzle fragments.

“ . . . hear me?” Eric came still closer and squeezed her shoulder. She watched it happen from a great remove, wondered idly what it meant.

Then he was lifting her, hands under Sherry's armpits, fingertips pressed to the sides of her ribs. Sherry's legs came into focus, agreed to bear her weight. She balanced against Eric's forearms, forced herself to take the deepest breath she could, exhaled it slow. Pulled her hair back from her face. Prepared to listen.

Eric bent and looked into her eyes. “Sherry? Are you with me?” He searched her face for a response and seemed to find one. “It isn't safe here, Sherry. I'm going to grab us some food, and then we've got to go. I'm sorry. I know you don't want to leave her, but that's just the way it is.”

She watched herself open her mouth, listened to herself speak. “Try the cabinet next to the fridge. There's granola bars and stuff.”

From the look on his face, he was as stunned by the words as she was.

“Okay,” he said, and looked at her for a long moment, as if Sherry were a fragile vase balanced atop a rickety bookshelf—something he knew would fall, knew he would have to catch.

She held his gaze until Eric turned toward the kitchen. Then Sherry walked past her mother without looking down and stepped into Melinda's bedroom.

The ability to move was a constant revelation. Some part of her brain with which Sherry was unacquainted seemed to be taking over. She resolved to let it. And to be grateful, because the rest of her was still sitting in the hallway, struggling to breathe.

She opened her mother's closet and pulled a shoebox from the top shelf. Inside was all that remained of Sherry's father—at least as far as Melinda was concerned.

His army dog tags.

A thin stack of faded photos.

And a loaded, snub-nosed revolver.

She'd come for the gun, but now Sherry felt her legs go leaden, and she sank onto the bed, transfixed by the Polaroid atop the stack.

A shimmering lake, golden with the sun's refracted light. A broad-shouldered young man kneeling in the shallows, his hands supporting a wriggling five-year-old girl, her little legs kicking up a frozen fountain of droplets. The smile on his face so pure, so full of contentment and pride and love, that Sherry had to look away.

She remembered it so clearly. Her mother on the shore, pink-painted toenails and a matching bikini, cheering and clapping. Her father, endlessly patient, withdrawing his hands a little at a time,
Daddy, don't let go,
so gradually it was imperceptible,
Don't worry, sweetheart, I gotcha,
and then, finally,
Look, look, I'm not holding you at all! You're swimming! I knew you could do it!

She stashed the photo in her pocket and the gun in her jeans, at the small of her back. Ponytailed her hair with a rubber band from Melinda's night table. Each gesture was a wave slamming against the firewall inside her, the blockade that mysterious part of her brain had thrown up to separate Sherry from what was happening and allow her to function.

Eric was in the kitchen, dumping food into a paper shopping bag. He heard her enter and turned, face flushed and sweaty.

“Ready?”

She lifted the telephone from its wall mount. “I've got to make a call.”

Eric stopped packing. “To who?”

“Her name is Ruth. She knows about these people. She can help us. She might be the only one who can.”

Speed-dial number six.

Five rings, Sherry giving up hope by the third.

You've reached Dr. Cantwell. If this is an emergency
,
please call 911. Otherwise
,
please leave a message at the tone, or call my office, at 830-556-8787.

“Ruthie, it's Sherry. I—my mother's dead. Somebody killed her. It was them—the church people. They kidnapped me, but I got away. I'm with a friend, Eric. We've got his Jeep. I know not to call the cops. We're going to hide. We're—”

She broke off, looked at him. “Where are we going?”

Eric did that thing that flared his jaw and made him seem miles beyond certainty, as if whatever he was planning to do had already been accomplished.

“To the caves, west of here. Montesajo Caverns. I know them like the back of my hand. We'll be safe there.”

Sherry repeated it into the phone. Then her emergency generator blinked out, and she collapsed into Eric's arms.

 

CHAPTER 12

T
he shadows were lengthening by the time Galvan ascended the last bluff and caught sight of his men, huddled together with their backs to him. He stared down at his own elongated black image, sloping toward the valley. The machete dangling from his hand looked like a part of him, as if evolution had decided to bet the farm on Jess and granted him a scimitar arm to help out with that survival-of-the-fittest thing.

The shotgun, slung over his shoulder, looked more like a growth, a tumor. He'd been tempted repeatedly to drop it during the hike. All that hardware for one slug didn't seem worth it.

Unless it was one more than the other guy had.

Galvan ambled down the slope and reached the flat plane below. Nearly a fucking hour, he'd wasted.

“Yo!” He waved the machete in the air.

They turned, and Galvan realized why they were standing in such tight formation. On the ground between them was a fourth man, lying on his back. The dude raised himself up a few inches to see what had captured their attention, and Gutierrez pushed him back down, boot to chest.

Never a dull moment.

“Who the fuck is this?” Galvan demanded, closing on them. He swung the shotgun off his shoulder, let it hang by his side. Gutierrez, Payaso, and Britannica each stepped back a pace, left him face-to-face with the new guy.

He was a white boy, skin cracked and blistered raw, eyes dark and beady and shot through with red. The clothes were a patchwork of rags, from the shirt–cum–sun hat tied around his head to the mismatched shoes jammed onto his feet—pulled off a couple of corpses, probably.

At the sight of Galvan, he scrambled backward on all fours and filled the distance with a bony, outstretched arm.

“See? Just like I told you! Just like I said! I know what I'm talking about, man! It's true, all true!”

“Shut up!” Gutierrez roared, feinting toward him, and the guy flinched. Wrapped his arms around his head like a boxer on the ropes and cowered behind them.

Britannica edged close to Galvan and spoke low. “He says his name is Gum. We caught him spying on us, little while after you left. He's been talking a blue streak ever since.”

“Oh yeah? He know any good jokes?”

Britannica drew closer. “The natives are restless, Galvan. Gum says—”

Payaso stepped between them, swaying back and forth as he spoke, both hands cupped over his balls. “He says that creepy old fucker back at Ojos is lying to us, homes. That what's in your box is some virgin bitch's magic beating heart, and we should keep it for ourselves, and fuckin' take you out if you try to stop us. Whatchu think about that, Mr. Messenger?”

Galvan ignored him and glared down at the guy.

“Who are you?”

Gum lowered his hands, pulled himself slowly into a squatting position. “I'll tell you who I
was
—you
.
‘A righteous man beset by evil on all sides.' He sent me out here just like you. Just like that. Look!”

He tore at his tattered shirt, pulled it up over his head.

Sure enough, the crosshatched scars seared into his torso were a perfect match for the wires cinched around Galvan.

He felt the burn of his own pain kick up a notch.

Gum scrabbled to his feet, eyes darting at Payaso, Gutierrez. “Make him show you what's in there, man. He knows. He's lying if he says he don't. It's just like I said, I swear to God.”

Galvan dropped the machete, cocked the shotgun, and leveled it at Gum. “You telling my boys to murder me, motherfucker? Because I don't have time for that.”

Gum raised his hands and dropped his voice. “All's I'm saying is, you're doing the devil's work for him. You, me—all of us, man—we can have it for ourselves. You're good as dead otherwise, keep keepin' on like this. If this desert don't kill you, his son will. And if he don't,
they
will. Swear on my mother's grave, man. Stack of Bibles, fuckin' Koran, whatever you got. All's I'm trying to do is help.”

Galvan adjusted the shotgun. “You look alive enough to me. Who's
they
? And where's your box, if you're so fuckin' smart?”

Gum's eyes grew wide. For a moment, he looked like he might cry.

“I lost it,” he eked out. “I was weak. This ain't alive, man. This is . . .” He choked up, trailed off.

Dude's focus seemed to be slipping, so Galvan brought the shotgun closer. “You lost it, and now you want mine. I should put you outta your fuckin' misery before—”

“Galvan.” It was Gutierrez.

“What is it?”

He stepped between Gum and the gun. “Me and Payaso, we need to see what's in the box, boss.” He bent at the knees and came back up with the machete. “Let me cut it off you.”

“What happened to ‘You saved my life' and ‘Nobody gonna fuck around with you'?”

“I won't, boss.” Gutierrez weighed the knife in his hand, getting the feel of it. “But some things a man's got to see for himself, me entiendes?”

“And what if I say no?”

“Why would you, boss? You can't hardly breathe. Isn't that why you brought back the machete?”

Galvan realized the idea hadn't even occurred to him, in all the time he'd spent lugging the knife across the desert.

Weird.

“Maybe he strapped it to me for a reason,” he heard himself say. “Maybe we're not supposed to see it. Or touch it. I dunno.”

“So you've known what's in there all along,” Payaso crowed, strutting over to stand beside Gutierrez. Nobody seemed very impressed with the shotgun, Galvan thought. Fuckin' tide was turning. This Gum bastard must have been more convincing than he looked.

“Why'd you lie to us, homes?” Payaso demanded.

“Because you wouldn't have believed me. But fine, now everybody knows everything, okay? And if you junior detectives are satisfied, maybe we can get moving, before we all bake to death.”

“Nice try, gringo. Gutierrez, córtala le.”

The enforcer lumbered forward. Galvan swung the shotgun into the space between them. Gutierrez paused just long enough to give him a pitying look, the kind you'd give a fussing two-year-old.

“Come on, boss. Don't be like that.”

Galvan took a step back. Everybody but Britannica edged forward.

The tune had been called, and the dancers were gonna dance.

The gunslinger
/
ruckus bringer / full house the gambler / ain't playin' with a full deck / test and get your shit wrecked . . .

Galvan decided his powers of persuasion would have to carry the day and lowered the gun. Time to pretend he knew what the fuck he was talking about.

“Look, guys. This situation's way beyond us. I'm seeing fuckin'
spirits
because of this thing—hell, I watched Cucuy pull it out of that girl's chest and keep it beating. That pretty much makes him the wrong dude to fuck with, you feel me? Our best play's to follow orders and hope we live through this. Nothing less and nothing more. Britannica, back me up here.”

The priest-or-not-priest furrowed his brow. “Cucuy's not someone—something—you want as an enemy.” He squinted at Galvan, licked his lips. “Then again, I'm not too happy about being the devil's errand boy, either.”

“Fuck him!” Gum blurted, like a playground victim whose big brother has arrived. The others turned to stare, found him pacing back and forth in a familiar three-step line.

They'd all done the same. It was the length of a jail cell.

“I say we take what's his and make him suffer like he made us! We fuckin' chow down on that heart, and then we take the fight right up his ass!”

The spittle was flying from Gum's rotten-toothed maw, his twiggy arms wriggling in wild gesticulation. He looked for all the world like a meth-head tweaking out in some exurban parking lot, Galvan thought. Good chance that was exactly what he'd been. Got caught up in some desperate bullshit on the south side of the border, and the rest was history.

Galvan waited until he tired himself out. It didn't take long. Motherfucker'd likely been scraping by on bugs and cactus water for weeks, maybe more. Miracle he was alive at all.

Or maybe it was something else. Gum didn't exactly look like a wilderness expert. And he claimed to have carried a heart. Who knew what that did to a person.

Cucuy's threat echoed through Galvan's head.
If you fail me, not even death will ease your pain.

No time to riddle that shit out right now.

Stick a pin in it for later, Jess.

“Here's how this is gonna happen,” he said, mustering all the authority he could. “I'm gonna stand right here with this shotgun and let Gutierrez saw the box off. The rest of you are gonna walk a hundred paces over that way and stay put until I say different. Anybody fucks around, I'm gonna test my aim. And my aim's fuckin' impeccable.” He jabbed a finger at Gum. “Goes double for you, puto.”

They complied: Britannica in the lead, Payaso and Gum keeping company behind him.

Fast fuckin' friends, those two.

Galvan leaned on the butt of the shotgun. “Be careful,” he said, sotto voce.

Gutierrez nodded and began going at the metal with long saw-strokes. Galvan felt them as vibrations, the buzz jangling his innards.

The thought crossed his mind that there could be some kind of sensor hidden inside the container, a safeguard against tampering. Maybe the whole thing exploded if you tried to pry it open; Cucuy might very well have preferred his cargo be destroyed rather than stolen. Especially if it was anywhere near as powerful as Billy Crystal Meth over there seemed to believe.

Guess they'd find out soon enough.

The vibrations pitched into a deeper register.

“How's it coming?”

“Nearly there.”

The sound was almost soothing. Gutierrez sped up his pace, clutched Galvan's shoulder.

“And . . . done!”

All at once, the pressure around Galvan's torso eased, and he took what felt like the first real breath of his life. Then the ravines the metal had dug into his skin met air, and Galvan yowled in pain, buckled against the shotgun. The scraps of metal clattered together as they hit the ground. Gutierrez's shadow fell over him, and Galvan looked over his shoulder in time to see the enforcer slip the machete's blade beneath the metal box top.

“Hey! Hold on a—”

A twist of Gutierrez's forearm, and the lid popped like an oyster's shell.

“Órale, homes! Qué tenemos?” called Payaso across the plain.

The big man's eyes grew wide.

The heartbeat pounding in Galvan's ears was not his own. That seemed to have gone on sabbatical.

Gutierrez stared into the box, transfixed. As if the contents were communicating in a language only he could hear.

Galvan shook off the pain and struggled slowly to his knees.

“Might as well take a look,” he muttered. “Give me a hand up, Gutierrez.”

The enforcer didn't respond.

“Yo, Gutierrez! Snap out of it, man, c'mon.”

No sooner had Galvan regained his feet than the big man loosed a savage growl. Then the machete whistled through the air in an enormous arc, nearly slicing Galvan from neck to crotch.

Instead, he dove and rolled, came up with fists clenched tight.

“What the
fuck,
man?”

Gutierrez's only answer was a snarl as he snatched up the shotgun, tucked the box to his chest like a football, and took off running.