Life or Death (38 page)

‘So this was the same day as the shooting?’

‘No, the next day … or maybe the one after.’

‘You said you saw the shoot-out.’

‘I saw flashes in the dark.’

‘And that’s when you met the deputy Valdez?’

‘He said I was going to get a reward and he helped me write a statement.’

‘About the boy?’

‘And the shooting.’

‘What did he tell you?’

‘He told me that if anybody came asking questions about the boy, I was to tell ’em that I found him somewhere else.’

‘Where?’

‘Two mile from here – at the reservoir.’

‘He say why?’

‘Nope.’ Theo slides the woollen cap off his head and looks back at the house and the trailer and the rusting truck bodies. ‘That’s when he gave me a reward. I got two thousand dollars for finding the little cowboy and the paper wrote a story about me.’

‘Did you ever see the boy again?’

Theo shakes his head. ‘I saw the deputy’s picture in the paper. He got a bravery medal for shooting them armed robbers.’

‘And you haven’t seen him since?’

‘He drops by every few years. That’s how I know he got promoted to sheriff. I think he’s hoping I might be dead, but I keep hanging on. This is the first time he’s sent someone else. He must trust you a lot.’

‘Guess he does.’

55

The sun is yellow and high in the sky, raising steam from the deck and making the blacktop shimmer. Max is sitting on the sofa, bent over the photograph of Belita. Audie watches him from the armchair. Waiting. If he squints he can still see the boy, aged three, pretending to read a hymnbook next to his mother in church. Grown up now – almost a man. Audie wasn’t there to read him bedtime stories or put Band-Aids on his cuts or explain that sometimes life is tragic and sometimes it’s wonderful.

‘So you’re saying this is my
real
mother and she’s an illegal immigrant from El Salvador?’

‘Undocumented.’

‘And I was born in San Diego?’

‘Yes.’

The teenager leans back and stares at the ceiling.

Audie keeps talking. ‘She was beautiful, with long black hair that shone in the sunlight, and flecks of gold like honeycomb in her eyes.’

‘Where is she now?’

Audie doesn’t answer. This is the moment he has dreaded since he contemplated kidnapping Max. It’s the point of no return. He either tells the story or he remains silent.

‘I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to meet you. I thought I’d get shot during the escape or drown in the lake or they’d recapture me before now. That’s why I wrote it down so that if something happened to me, there was a chance you might still learn the truth. You can read it yourself or you can burn it. It’s your decision.’

He hands the notebook to Max, who doesn’t take it.

‘Tell me the story.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’

And so Audie speaks from memory and from the heart, bringing past events to life:

On the last day they drove past Austin and headed east along the 290, passing through Elgin, McDade and Giddings. At Brenham they took the 105 toward Navasota and then Montgomery because Audie wanted to show Belita the lake where he went fishing as a boy.

The urgency had gone and they took the back roads, through farmland and wineries, driving with the windows open and radio playing, singing songs about cowboys being home on the range. Miguel had never seen a buffalo. Audie pointed one out.

‘It’s a hairy cow,’ said the boy. They laughed.

Audie asked Miguel if he could count to ten.

He did.

‘Do you know your alphabet?’

Miguel shook his head. ‘I know my ABCs.’

‘That’s the same thing.’

Again they laughed and Miguel frowned because he couldn’t understand what was so funny.

Yet despite the cheerfulness and good humour, Audie felt more and more disconcerted as the miles ticked by. They were getting close to Lake Conroe – a place that he couldn’t separate from his brother Carl, because so many memories of his childhood were attached to the lake; some of the happiest days of his life – before Carl went to prison and the tumour showed up in his daddy’s lungs. Fishing. Swimming. Canoeing. They cooked over a campfire and told ghost stories and jokes, or played hide-and-seek with flashlights.

A mile from the turn-off, Audie drove over a bridge. There was a picnic area set amid trees. A small wooden pier, bleached by the sun, divided off a section of the lake where a floating platform had been moored a hundred yards from shore. The water was black and cool and felt almost silken on Audie’s fingertips.

For lunch they ate a picnic on the shores of Lake Conroe, opposite Ayer’s Island. Afterwards they threw their bread crusts to the ducks and bought ice cream. Miguel stood on Audie’s lap dripping chocolate down the front of his shirt. He refused to take off his cowboy hat or his gun. Later they looked at the boats moored at the marina, wondering what famous people might own them.

Audie put his arm around Belita and rolled her plaited hair around his fist. She looked fresh and young and beautiful.

‘Do you believe things are meant to be?’ she asked.

‘Like fate?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think we make the best of our bad luck and the most of our good luck.’

Audie squeezed her tightly and she squeezed him back and he felt the movement of her hip beneath her skirt.

‘You seem sad today. What are you thinking about?’ she asked.

‘My brother Carl.’ Audie kissed her hair. ‘We used to come here when we were kids. I thought it would be nice to see it again, but now I can’t wait to leave.’

‘There is a saying in El Salvador that memories keep us warm,’ she said, stroking his cheek, ‘but I don’t think that applies to you.’

It was late afternoon before they got on the road again. Audie planned to stop on the outskirts of Houston. He would call his mother in the morning. He didn’t want to visit her until he was sure that Urban hadn’t sent someone ahead to wait for him.

‘I need to do a wee,’ said Miguel.

‘Can you hold on?’

‘What do I hold?’

Audie pulled off the road. ‘OK sport, we’re going to do it behind a tree.’

‘Like cowboys.’

‘Yep, just like cowboys.’

They walked through the trees in the damp air, over a layered mat of dead leaves and pine needles. Mosquitoes rose in clouds from their footsteps.

‘Do you want me to hold you?’

‘No.’

Miguel stood with his legs apart, pushing out his groin, watching the thin golden stream splash against a tree trunk.

‘This is how big boys do it,’ he said.

‘Yes it is,’ said Audie.

The boy began to say something, but Audie’s attention was elsewhere. From somewhere that seemed to be high in the air, he heard the sound of sirens.

‘Is that a fire-truck?’ asked the boy.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Audie, who had looked over his shoulder, but couldn’t see further than the bend in the road.

The sirens were getting closer. Audie couldn’t tell which direction at first. He looked at Belita, who waved from the passenger seat of the Pontiac. Then he turned his head and saw a truck, the twin headlights blazing. It took a moment to realise how fast it was travelling, too quickly to take the bend. It veered to the wrong side of the road and the near-side tyres dug into the soft shoulder. The driver overcorrected and the truck slewed to the left. Audie could picture the man at the wheel, wrestling to get control and then throwing up his arms in that strange way people do when they’re trying to ward off a collision. It was too late. The truck tilted on two wheels for a moment and then toppled over, sliding sideways along the two-lane.

One moment the Pontiac was beside the road and the next it was gone. Audie heard the crunch of metal and convulsions of sparks and a booming sound. Time slowed down. Time stood still. With extraordinary effort, he bent and lifted Miguel, cradling him under his bottom like a toddler. He ran back through the trees until he reached the edge of the road.

He could see the truck, but not the car. He set Miguel down on his feet and grabbed his forearm, his fingers digging into the scant flesh. ‘Stay right there. Put your hand on the tree. Don’t let it go.’

‘Where’s Mommy?’

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Where did Mommy go?’

‘Don’t move.’

Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!

Running. Stumbling. He climbed the rise, trying to comprehend what had just happened. His eyes had been deceived. He would reach the car and find that everything was OK.

There were sirens and swirling lights behind him. The truck was lying on its side, ripped open as if something had exploded inside. Audie tried to breathe but his breath would not come. He saw the upturned Pontiac thirty yards further along the road. It didn’t look like a Pontiac any more. It didn’t look like a car. The twisted mound of metal had two wheels still turning in the air.

Audie screamed a name. He tried to open the remnants of a door, which seemed to be welded shut by the force of the impact. Lying flat on the road, he bent his body and slithered through the shattered rear window, across the collapsed roof of the Pontiac. Fuel soaked the front of his shirt and glass cut into his hands and knees.

Amid the confusion of torn wiring and twisted seats, he saw an arm and a hand with blood running down the fingers. For a split second he thought there was no body.

Gripping the seat above him, he dragged himself forward, almost dislocating his shoulder. Then he saw her. Her body was wedged beneath the dashboard, concertinaed unnaturally. He reached out and touched her face. Her eyes opened. Alive. Frightened.

‘What happened?’

‘An accident.’

‘Miguel?’

‘He’s fine.’

Fumes stung Audie’s eyes and caught at the back of his throat, making him want to gag. He could hear the leaking fuel sizzling as it spilled onto hot metal.

‘Can you move your legs?’

She wiggled her toes.

‘What about your fingers?’

She moved her fingers. Her arm was broken. Glass had lacerated her cheek and forehead.

She tried to move, but her legs were pinned by the crushed dashboard. Audie heard gunshots. There were two men in the truck. They had managed to crawl from the window and drop to the ground.

One of them spun around and then collapsed, clutching at his neck, blood running through his fingers. The other was hit almost at the same time, a bullet smashing into his knee. The uniformed police officer had a gun gripped in both hands, angled upwards. He had a stiff military-style haircut and deeply tanned skin.

Audie was peering through the shattered windows of the Pontiac below the still spinning tyre. He noticed a second deputy about thirty yards away, on the far side of the truck. One of the wounded men tried to stand. He looked helplessly at Audie, his eyes jittering, a pistol dangling uselessly from his hand. The deputy fired. Two slugs found their mark, knocking the man backwards, decorating his shirt with scarlet flowers. The last shot spun him around and he simply sat down on top of his legs, as though his skeleton had vanished.

The officer still hadn’t seen Audie. His colleague yelled. The deputy holstered the gun and disappeared from view. Audie was about to call out, but something made him stop. He saw the two officers again. This time they were carrying sealed canvas sacks toward the open trunk of a police cruiser. They would make the journey again and again. One of the bags caught on a snagged spur of metal and ripped open, spilling banknotes that were caught by the breeze, skipping across the tarmac where they wrapped around weeds and were pinned against tree trunks.

There were more sirens.

Audie crawled back toward Belita, pulling himself along with his arms and elbows. Her head was twisted at an odd angle by the compressed roof. Audie reached for her hand. His fingers took hold of her wrist. He pulled and heard her grunt in pain.

Audie retreated and yelled to the deputies. One of them turned and walked toward him. There were ironed creases in his trousers. Black leather shoes. Audie looked up. The deputy’s pale cheeks were red with exertion. He lowered a sack of money to the ground.

‘We have to get her out,’ pleaded Audie.

The officer turned. ‘Hey, Valdez?’

‘What?’

‘We got a problem.’

Valdez joined him, crouching and resting his arms on his thighs, a revolver dangling from his right hand with the barrel slanted downward. ‘Where did he come from?’

His partner shrugged.

Valdez leaned closer, his breath sour and a tiny web of saliva stretching and breaking between his lips. He turned his head and saw Belita trapped in the wreckage. He scratched his chin.

Audie grabbed the deputy’s shirt, knotting the fabric in his fist.

‘Help her!’ he cried.

In the same instant the road shimmered and the air filled with a whooshing breath as a blue flame slid across the tarmac from the ruptured fuel tank of the truck. Belita’s eyes were frozen wide.

‘Fire!’ yelled Audie, repeating it over and over. He crawled back into the twisted debris, reaching for Belita, trying to pull her toward him. He screamed at the officers to help, but they stood and watched with their hands at their sides. Audie retreated and ran to the far side of the wreckage. Ripping off his shirt, he beat at the flames but his hands were suddenly on fire. He dropped the shirt but kept trying to pry the metal apart with his fingers. The heat forced him back. Valdez picked up his hat and put it on his head. The other deputy lifted the bags of cash.

Belita’s screams softened and died. Audie collapsed on his hands and knees, sobbing. Blood ran in strings down his blackened thumbs. He became aware of a deputy standing over him. Valdez dumped the spent brass and began to reload. He stood over Audie and pointed the gun at his forehead, his eyes clean of emotion, a man who knew that reason and logic had no place in an unreasonable world.

Audie turned his head and saw Miguel standing in the trees still wearing his cowboy hat and holding his bear. He tried to shrink inside his own skin, to squeeze all awareness and sensation from his mind, to become nothing but dust that would float away on the breeze and re-form later into his body and soul, allowing him to become whole again.