The Hunted (23 page)

Shy followed the boy back toward the ghost town, only this time they veered toward the hilly stretch a few hundred yards behind all the tents. It was just the two of them now. When the girl refused to go with her brother, Carmen walked with her back to camp.

The sun was already beginning its slow descent, but it was still scorching hot. An awful smell had materialized, and it seemed to grow stronger the farther they hiked. Like rotting manure. Shy covered his mouth as he followed the boy up the small, rocky hill.

He decided he liked this kid. Maybe it was his resemblance to Miguel. Or the fact that his family had been so nice. Shy felt like he needed to do something for him. And the one thing he could do was protect him from Romero Disease. Anyway, what was the point of having a lifesaving vaccine if you never actually saved a life? Shy began using his diamond ring to rip open the second extra compartment Shoeshine had sewn into the gut of the duffel.

The boy stopped at the edge of a steep drop-off and stared at the valley below.

Shy fumbled with the duffel, opening up the tear he'd just made while at the same time trying to cover his nose and mouth with his arm to block the overwhelming stench. It wasn't working. He looked up from the duffel to see why they'd stopped and found himself staring down at a field of rotting corpses. The valley was a giant graveyard.

Some of the bodies looked like they'd been dumped weeks ago, and a pack of vultures picked the meat off their bones and tore through their clothing. But what made Shy even sicker was the fact that at least two of the bodies were still moving.

They were
alive.

“What the hell
is
this place?” Shy asked.

“If you are diseased,” the boy said, “you have to come here to die so no one else is sick.”

Shy stared at one of the moving bodies—he could tell it was a man by his clothes—who was furiously scratching at both legs. “They come here on their own?” Shy asked.

The boy nodded. “If their eyes become red.”

“Jesus.” Shy crouched down and studied the rest of the bodies. There were at least twenty of them scattered among the tumbleweed. He thought of Addie and her dad. And everyone else associated with LasoTech. The supposed “heroes” who'd created a supposed “cure” for Romero Disease. It disgusted Shy. In reality they'd murdered each and every person who'd had to die in this kind of agony.

Like Shy's grandma and his nephew.

And Rodney.

And Carmen's dad.

Shy turned to the boy, who was still staring down into the valley. He had to use one of the precious vaccines, not just for the boy but for Miguel, too. For his whole family. When he finally loosened the extra pouch inside the duffel, he slipped out one of the syringes and held it behind his back. He just needed to figure out a way to vaccinate the boy without him knowing.

A few seconds later it came to him.

WWE.

“My sister never will come here with me,” the boy said. “But I have to. Every day.”

“I get it,” Shy told him. “Out of respect, right?”

The boy grew fidgety. He shoved his hands in his pockets, then pulled them out and crossed his arms and looked up at Shy. “I come,” he said, “because my mom is down there, too.”

“Your mom?”

The boy nodded, his eyes glassy.

“Shit, man. I'm sorry.” Shy turned back to the valley. He couldn't imagine the heartbreak the boy must feel every time he looked down into the valley. All those bodies. And the vultures. And the smell. His mom.

Shy took the kid by the arm and told him: “Come on, man. Let's get out of here. They're probably waiting on us.”

As they started back down the hill, Shy occasionally glanced at the boy. He seemed like such a good kid. Tough, too. No kid should have to be this tough. Shy cleared his throat after a few minutes. “You know, me and you are actually a lot alike.”

The boy looked up at him, his eyes no longer glassy.

“For real,” Shy said. “We both got sisters. And grandmas who can cook. And we both lost people to this bullshit disease.”

The boy nodded and looked straight ahead.

“And you know what else?” Shy said.

“What?”

Shy nudged the boy's arm. “We're both WWE fans.”

He gave Shy a little smile.

“But lemme ask you this, little bro. You ever heard of a move called the Triple Shinola Throw-Down Deluxe?”

“There is no move like this,” the boy argued. “I know all moves they say on TV. This is fake.”

“Fake my ass. It's only the best wrestling move ever invented.” Shy stopped in the middle of the overgrown baseball field. “Here, I'll show you.”

The boy stopped, too. A big smile on his face.

Shy set down the duffel bag and got into a wrestling position, the syringe now unwrapped and sticking out of his back pocket. “First, you pop 'em one in the throat with the heel of your hand.” Shy faked hitting the kid in the Adam's apple. “Then, when he's pissed off, you use his weight against him. Charge me.”

The boy moved forward, and Shy grabbed him by the shoulders, while at the same time crouching so that he was able to flip the boy over his shoulders, onto his back. Just as the boy hit the ground, Shy reached for the syringe and stuck him in the leg.

“¡Ay!”
the kid exclaimed.

“Jesus, man!” Shy shouted, tossing away the empty syringe and scrambling to his feet.

The boy got up, too. He reached for his leg, looking at the ground, and Shy made a big production of grabbing for his right arm. “Yo, you got mad spiders around here or some shit?” he asked, frowning. “I think I just got bit by a spider.”

The kid attempted to look around at the back of his own leg, but he couldn't quite manage it.

“Damn, man,” Shy went on. “Guess I shouldn't be horsing around out here in tarantula territory.”

“You saw a spider?” the boy asked innocently.

Shy nodded. “I can't stand those bastards, man.” He was still rubbing his arm. “Anyway, now you know what the Triple Shinola Throw-Down Deluxe is.”

The kid's smile came back. He gave Shy a little shove, saying: “I don't believe you.”

As they continued walking, a bright spot opened in Shy's chest. Nothing he could do would help bring back the boy's mom, but at least now he was safe from Romero Disease.

In the distance Shy spotted Carmen walking toward them from the tent community. As she got closer, he could tell she was upset. “What's the matter?” he called out.

Carmen held out a set of keys on her finger. “Shoeshine says it's time to leave,” she told him.

“The sun hasn't even set yet.”

“And he also says…” She covered her mouth, like she was trying not to cry.

“What?” Shy asked, worried. “Is he okay?”

Carmen dropped her hand and took a deep breath to compose herself. “He's not coming with us, Shy. He says we're on our own now.”

“Come on, man,” Shy pleaded, as he inched the truck alongside Shoeshine, who was limping down a long dirt path. “Just get in. We
need
you.”

Shoeshine wiped his brow on his shirt and waved Shy off. “It's
your
time now, young fella.”

“You're wasting your breath,” Carmen told Shy. She was in the passenger seat, turning the flashlight they'd found in the glove compartment on and off. “I tried everything I could think of before you came back.”

Shy was sweating his ass off. Even though the sun was starting to set, the heat was stifling. And it wasn't like the truck had working AC. “I'm just gonna keep following you then,” Shy told Shoeshine. “Guess now we'll
never
get this vaccine across the border.”

The man coughed and kept limping along.

Shy and Carmen had left camp in a rush. They didn't even get to say a proper goodbye to the boy or his sister or the old ladies. When Shy showed up with the boy, Carmen told him Shoeshine had already set off down the road. And he wouldn't tell her where he was going. Shy took off immediately to fetch the truck.

Now here they were. Barely traveling two miles an hour. Wasting precious gas.

Something had to give.

“For real, Shoe,” Shy tried again. “Don't you wanna see what this border's all about? Don't you wanna see the looks on those LasoTech guys' faces when their asses get cuffed by the FBI?”

The man just kept creeping along with his walking stick, mopping his brow every few seconds with his shirtsleeve. Coughing. He looked bad now.
Really
bad. His limp was more exaggerated, and his clothes were soaked through with sweat. For the first time since Shy had known him, his braided chin beard had even come undone.

They went on like this for another fifteen, twenty minutes, until Shoeshine suddenly stopped in front of a rusty chain-link fence that looked out of place in the middle of the desert. Shy put the truck in park and grabbed the duffel and got out with Carmen, the two of them walking right up to the man. “See, you can't get rid of us that easily,” Shy said.

Shoeshine pulled the bottom of his shirt up to mop his drenched forehead. He coughed into his hand. “There's no pretty way to say it,” he told them. “But this is where it ends for me.”

“What are you even
talking
about?” Carmen barked. She turned to Shy, disgusted. “You know what? I'm not trying to listen to this shit no more. He needs a doctor, Shy. I said we'd take him to one, but he
still
doesn't wanna come. It's just stupid.” She threw her hands in the air and stormed off.

“Carm!” Shy called to her. “Hang on!”

She didn't turn around, though. Just kept marching away from them, out into the desert.

Shy looked at Shoeshine. “Fine, you don't give a shit about yourself. But what about
us,
man? We'll never make it without you, Shoe. You're the one who's been leading us this whole time.”

“Am I?” Shoeshine asked.

Shy frowned. “Hell yeah, you are.”

“Or have we all been following
you,
young fella? Think back to your time on the ship. The man in the black suit. Addie and her father. Carmen. Myself. What if I told you we're all reacting to your actions?”

“There's no way,” Shy said.

“And now out here in the desert,” Shoeshine told him. “You can't even see it, can you? You have no idea who else you're leading.”

Shy shook his head, beyond frustrated. Shoeshine was doing his stupid riddle thing again. And Shy didn't have
time
for riddles right now.

Shoeshine gripped the chain-link fence in front of him. Shy stared at the back of the man's singed gray hair for a while. And then it dawned on him where they were. The ancient figures scraped into the earth. The ones Shoeshine said he was obsessed with back when he was young and mining gypsum for Hollywood.

Shy cleared his throat, said: “This is one of those intaglios, isn't it?”

“This here's the largest,” Shoeshine said, pointing through the fence. “It's hard to see from the ground like this, but like I said earlier, it's a hundred and seventeen feet long.”

Shy stared through the fence, but he couldn't really make it out. “Why's this thing so important to you anyway?”

“It marks a different time,” Shoeshine said, without turning away from it. “Back when humans moved freely across the land, like animals. Before capitalism set its invisible trap.”

“Some people still live free,” Shy said. “
You
do.”

Shoeshine chuckled and looked back at Shy. “It's not the same, I'm afraid.” He coughed and mopped his brow again, then pointed at the duffel hanging over Shy's shoulder. “Do me a favor. Make sure my notebook ends up in the Hassayampa River. It's on the way to Avondale. You'll see the signs.”

“What do you mean?” Shy asked, confused.

“I need you to chuck it in the river for me.”

Shy studied the black key hanging around Shoeshine's neck, the one that unlocked the man's journal. “Why do you spend so much time writing in there if you're just gonna throw your words in a river?”

“For me the power is in the writing itself,” Shoeshine said. “Not the record of it. Once the word is on the page its energy is lost. Once a journal is full, it's no different than dead skin to be shed.”

“Okay, fine,” Shy said, sensing this might be his last conversation with the man. There was still so much he wanted to know. “But why that particular river, then? Why not throw it in the one here?”

“According to legend,” Shoeshine told him, “when a man drinks from the Hassayampa River, he will never again be able to tell the truth. I'm afraid that's where my thoughts belong. Much as we try, young fella, no one man can ever own the truth. Not even a small sliver of it. Truth is not a fixed thing. It evolves and morphs and inverts. What is true today may not be true tomorrow.” Shoeshine coughed and glanced at the fence again. He was eager to be on his way. “But you'll do that for me, won't you?”

Shy shrugged. “I'll do it.” Deep down, though, he knew he'd never be able to throw out any part of Shoeshine.

Shoeshine tossed aside his walking stick. “I have one other favor to ask, and then you should be on your way. Can you give an old man a boost?”

“Over the fence?” Shy said, surprised. “You're going
inside
?”

“It's time.”

Shy stared at the man, searching his head for ways to stall him. “Can I ask you something first?”

The man nodded.

Shy glanced through the rusted fence, trying to come up with some kind of worthy question. “I know you were in the military,” he started. “And Mario told us you left home when you were young. And you never went back. And you obviously worked a bunch of different jobs. But that's all I really know. Which is
nothing.
You've always been this huge mystery to me. Ever since I met you.”

Shoeshine looked disappointed. “Don't do that, young fella.”

“Do what?”

“Try and label everyone you meet.” The man coughed again. “It's lazy.”

“I'm not trying to label—”

Shoeshine covered Shy's mouth with one of his big leathery hands. “I'm exactly what you see, young fella. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Shy jerked away from the man's grip and stared.

He realized he'd never get a straight answer out of Shoeshine. Not even at the very end.

“So am I gonna have to climb this myself?” Shoeshine asked.

Shy had stalled enough.

He linked his fingers and held them low enough for Shoeshine to use as a step. When the man's shoe was securely in his hands, he hoisted him up over the chain-link fence, watched him land in the dirt on the other side with a thud.

Shoeshine struggled to his feet and brushed himself off. He didn't say goodbye or even turn around. He just set off slowly toward the ancient figure, limping worse now that he was without his stick.

Shy could see the figure more clearly now. He made out one of the giant hands. And then the head. And he realized Shoeshine was limping to where the heart of the figure might be. And that's where he sat down, facing away from Shy, craning his neck so he could look up into the colorful sunset sky. He remained in that position for several minutes before slowly lowering himself onto his back, where he became still.

Shy stood there for a long time, staring at Shoeshine.

He didn't know how to feel, because he never knew the man. Not really. He only knew that some powerful presence, or energy, had left him. And he knew he'd never encounter anything like it again for as long as he lived.

Eventually Shy turned and started back toward the truck, where he found Carmen already sitting in the passenger seat. He climbed in the driver's side and closed the door and started the engine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carmen reaching across the cab toward him, and inside he cringed. He thought she was going to wipe away one of the tears that had managed to sneak down his cheek.

But she didn't.

She pinched something near his chest and lifted it for him to see.

Shy froze.

The thin rope Shoeshine had always worn around his neck was now around Shy's neck. And at the end of it was the black key that unlocked the man's journal.