Devils and Dust (6 page)

“Yeah. So?”

“So that’s not the path you need to be taking. You took that way out of the desert once, and it nearly destroyed you. I feel like if you go that way again…I’m afraid of what might happen to you. You’re an addict, and I’m giving you the needle again.”

“Look,” Keller said, his voice rising. “
You
looked
me
up, okay?
You
came to
me
. If you didn’t want me to—”

“Hey,” a voice said. They turned to see Lucas Berry walking their way. He stopped and regarded them for a moment. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No,” Keller said. “I was just telling Angela she needed to get some rest.”

“We all could stand a good night’s sleep,” Lucas said. “I for one am jet-lagged to hell and back. What did the lawyer tell you?”

“He apparently sent Oscar on to some other people,” Keller said. “Not exactly legal.”

Lucas nodded. “Smugglers?
Coyotes
, I think they’re called.”

“Yeah,” Keller said. “And he’s going to see if they’ll talk to us.”

“In the meantime,” Angela said, “Jack wants guns.”

“Ah,” Lucas said.

Keller sighed. “I know what that ‘ah’ means.”

Lucas shook his head. “You always read too much into it. Whatever. I suggest we table the issue of guns, have an early dinner, and get our heads down for a few hours of sleep. We’ve got a lot of miles to go.” He saw the look on Keller’s face. “You have to eat, Jack,” he said. “And sleep. Tired men make stupid mistakes.”

Keller sighed. “Okay,” he said. “But after dinner—”

“Sleep,” Lucas said firmly.

D
ELGADO WAS
standing at the window, talking into the Bluetooth headset that allowed him to move freely while talking on the phone. “A man was here,” his voice was steady; only the way he drummed his fingers on the window betrayed his agitation, “looking for Sanchez. Or whatever the hell his name was.” He listened for a moment. “Yes. Keller. That was it. So Sanchez told you about him, too?” Another pause as he listened. “What the hell happened out there?” Delgado demanded.

T
HE MOUNTAIN
was burning.

The acrid smoke filled Keller’s eyes and nose, choking him. It was redolent with the sweet aromas of pines and fir, but underneath was the ever-present reek of burning flesh. He looked up into a sky with no sun, no stars, only the smoke flowing and writhing above him as if it were a living thing. Black birds whirled and dipped through the clouds, cawing in harsh rusty voices. He looked down to see a group of figures surrounding him, each with a hand raised and a finger pointing accusingly. They were burning as well, their flesh blackening and melting away as the flame wrapped around them. He saw Marie, the woman he’d loved, her son Ben clutching his mother’s leg as the fire devoured them both. He saw DeGroot, the man he’d shot in cold blood, kneeling a few feet to her right. On his face was a mocking grin that slowly dissolved, the fat sizzling and popping as the flesh melted, revealing the equally mocking grin of the skull beneath. He saw Lisa, the young Hmong girl who’d tried to help him. She was looking at him with the same expression of shock she’d worn when the sniper’s bullet had taken her. Behind her was the man who’d killed her. He was the only one not burning. His face was covered with the camo mask that was all Keller had ever seen of him. He stepped forward, seeming to pass through Lisa’s body as she fell apart into ash and blackened bone.

You bring death
, the man said,
and hell follows with you.

“That was wrong,” Keller thought. It had been Harland, Lisa’s adoptive father, who’d made that accusation. It didn’t make it any less true. “I know,” he whispered.

“KNOW,” one of the birds above him called down in its derisive, croaking voice. The others took up the call. “KNOW. KNOW. KNOW.”

“Jack,” a voice said.

“No,” Keller moaned. “No. No.”

“JACK!”

Keller’s eyes opened. Lucas Berry was bending over him. “Jack,” he said again. “Wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

Keller sat up slowly. “I’m…” he said, then took a deep breath.”I’m awake.” He looked around to get his bearings. He was in a hotel room. He was lying in one of the beds.

The other was unmade, and Lucas sat down on it. He was clad only in a pair of plaid boxer shorts. “Bad dream,” he said.

Keller ran his hands over his face. “Yeah.”

“Tell me about it.”

Keller laughed weakly. “You always do psychoanalysis in your underwear?”

“It’s a new technique. I’m thinking of writing an article on it. Now talk to me.”

Keller swung his legs off the bed. “Can I take a piss first?”

When he returned, Lucas had pulled out a ragged blue terrycloth robe that looked as big as a tent and wrapped it around him. “Better?” he said.

“Much.” Keller sat on the edge of his bed and pulled on his jeans.

“So what was the dream?” Lucas said.

“I don’t remember.”

“Bullshit,” Lucas said.

Keller sighed. “Okay. I was on the mountain.”

“The mountain?”

“Where it happened. Where I shot DeGroot.”

“Let’s start by reframing that. The mountain is where you saved Marie’s life. And her son’s. And your own. She told me all about it.”

“Did she tell you that I shot DeGroot when he was on his knees? Unarmed? Helpless? Did she tell you I shot him again and again, until the gun clicked empty? Did she tell you I was laughing like a goddamn lunatic while I did it?”

“Yes,” Lucas said softly. “She did. And she told me why. She told me DeGroot had some sort of juice. Someone high up looking after him. He was going to get out. He’d told her was going to come back after her. And her boy. He was going to torture them to death because that’s what he did. And he’d get away with it, because that’s also what he did. He had that juice. So he had to die. She also told me that you took the gun from her to keep her from shooting DeGroot in front of her son. You did it so she wouldn’t have to.”

Keller looked down at the floor. “Angela says she’s afraid of what this will do to me.”

“Are you?”

Keller thought for a moment. “A little.”

“So don’t do it,” Lucas said. “We’ll find Oscar some other way.”

“No,” Keller said. “This is something I have to do. Oscar’s my friend. I owe him.”

“You’ve said that. But is that the only thing that’s going on here, Jack? Just duty? A sense of obligation?” Keller didn’t answer. “Back in Arizona,” Lucas said after a few moments. “How was your life?”

“It was fine,” Keller said.

“Looked like it. You had a job. A place to stay. That girl Jules…she seemed nice.”

“She was. I mean, she is.”

“So why leave?”

“I told you—”

“Yeah, yeah, you owe Oscar. But I couldn’t help but notice how much more engaged you seem now than you did back there. Your eyes are brighter. There’s a spring in your step that wasn’t there before. Face it, Jack, you’re enjoying being on the hunt again.”

“Angela says the same thing,” Keller said. “But so what? Are you saying that’s a bad thing?”

“No,” Lucas answered. “Not at all. But you need to recognize that about yourself. You’re a hunter. A warrior. Not a killer. Embrace it. Don’t try and run from it. You tried to run back to the desert. And it didn’t work for you. If it had you wouldn’t have come back.”

“Embrace it?” Keller said, his voice rising. “I killed a man, Lucas.
And I liked it
.”

“Not the first man you’ve killed,” Lucas observed. “Maybe not the last. But as far as I can tell, you never killed anyone that didn’t try to kill you first. Maybe that’s why you enjoyed it so much. How does the song go? ‘It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive’? It doesn’t make you the monster you apparently think you are. You did what you did to protect what you love.” He looked at the clock and sighed. “It’s almost six thirty. I’m going to grab a shower and try to find some breakfast around here. How about you?”

“Yeah,” Keller said. “Breakfast sounds good.”

There was a knock at the door. Lucas got up and answered. Angela stood there, holding a cell phone. “I just got a text…from Delgado.”

“He gets up early.”

“His contact will talk to us. And she’s seen Oscar.”

“She?” Keller said.

She held out the phone. “Rosita Miron. She’s Delgado’s aunt. And she lives a few miles from Fayetteville.”

T
HEY HAD
started out as ten men and five women; now there were only eight men. The women were kept separate, in another one of the long, narrow barracks. The men rarely saw them, but they knew what was going on in that sealed building. They saw guards going in and out, heard the crude comments and jokes they made. It was making them all crazy, but none dared make a move against their captors. Not after what had happened to Diego.

They worked every day from just after dawn until just before sunset, in the blazing heat of summer. Some worked the fields, some were marched to the forest at the back of the compound to cut down trees and clear-cut land. A sawmill built at the edge of the cleared area turned the usable trees into lumber. Every morning, they’d be rousted from their beds by one or the other of their guards banging a metal ladle on a galvanized bucket, which he’d then leave inside the door. The bucket held their meager breakfast, usually thin oatmeal, occasionally a white corn porridge, similar to the
mazamorra
they’d grown up eating. Diego, who’d been north before, told them the dish was called “grits.”

That was before he was executed.

They’d been working the field three days after their arrival, always under the watchful eyes of two men with guns, radios, and belts hung with equipment that Ruben couldn’t identify. The guards varied, but the most common one was the blond man who’d been among the group that had first taken them prisoner. He liked to walk up and down the rows, weapon loose in his hands, and carry on a conversation with his fellow guards about what he’d done the night before, inside the women’s barracks. He always pitched his voice loud enough for the workers to hear. Most of them didn’t speak English, so the words meant nothing to them, but Blondie’s hand gestures and the kissing and slurping noises he made with his thick, wet lips were enough to get the message across. Ruben understood most of it, but he kept his head down. The guards also carried stiff hide whips like the one Blondie had wielded the night they were taken. The whips were used to “smarten up” anyone who lagged in their picking or “eyeballed” a guard, which was the word for anyone daring to look them in the eye. He’d heard Blondie refer to the crop as a
sjambok
, and he claimed it was made of rhino hide from South Africa. Whatever it was made of, it left nasty painful welts with even the lightest stroke. No one wanted to feel what it could do with real force behind it.

Ruben had been picking in the row next to Diego, his mind far away. He’d quickly learned the trick of letting his thoughts drift, going elsewhere. Going home. He thought about breakfasts with his aunt and uncle, who’d been raising him since Papa left. They told him Papa would come for him, would take him to America, away from the violence and the threats of kidnapping that still hung over the cities. He didn’t think of this place as America. America was the country of basketball and fast cars and pretty women. This place…he didn’t know what this was. Sometimes he wondered if the truck had crashed and he was in hell. But he didn’t see how that could be. He’d gone to Mass, made his confessions, said all the words and been granted absolution by Father Enrique. He looked up and saw Diego. The look on the older man’s face startled him out of his reverie. He heard Blondie coming up the row, chattering as usual.

“I tell you, bro,” he said, “I had that pretty lil’
chica
, the one with the ponytail, an’ I was doin’ her from the back. I had that ponytail in one hand.” He demonstrated with a clenched fist. “An’ I was slappin’ her ass with the other. She starts goin’,” his voice went to a high, girlish falsetto “Ay, Papi. Ay, Papi…”

Diego roared with rage. He stood up and charged Blondie. The man was so surprised, he didn’t see the blow coming until it had connected with his chin. His head snapped back and Diego hit him again, this time in the nose. The other guard, a pudgy little moon-faced man with a camo boonie hat shading his fat, sweating face, was running toward them, yelling into his radio.