PART ONE

THE GIRL WITH THE GUN

1

It was damn hard to follow a blood trail at eighty miles per hour.

Not that Sheriff Chris Cherry needed to see actual blood; he knew it was there all the same. Thick drops of it all down U.S. 90, bleeding off the rear fender of the Nissan Maxima that was trying hard to disappear in his windshield and throwing up dust as it swerved across lanes and the shoulder.

All that blood from one of his deputies, Tommy Milford. Chris still didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.

Another of his deputies, Dale Holt, was ten miles back with him. He’d been riding shotgun with Tommy when it all happened, and although he was barely one year older than the injured boy, when Chris had left them both behind, Dale had been holding Tommy’s hand like a father might a son’s, telling him over and over again to hang in there, brother, hang in there while they waited for the ambulance, because no one had been sure if it was a good idea to move Tommy or not. Honestly, it hadn’t looked good either way. But Dale, even before calling it in—even before kneeling down next to his damaged friend and grabbing his shaking hand and shielding his body with his own—had gotten off a handful of rounds at the fleeing Nissan, and after this was all done they’d be out here looking for them in the desert, shining bright among the ocotillo and the cat’s-claw and the creosote; prying them out of the car’s metal body. At least one had definitely punched through the rear windshield, spiderwebbing the safety glass and X’ing the spot where a passenger’s head might be.

Chris tried hard to focus on that, rather than his deputy’s blood drying on the asphalt.

He prayed that Tommy was hanging on to Dale’s hand right now, squeezing back just as hard with each heartbeat, letting Dale and everyone else know he was still alive.

Hanging on tight.

Please don’t die. God, not today.

Not today. Not Tommy’s first damn day on the job.

•   •   •

DEPUTY AMÉ REYNOSA blasted past Chris, shooting up the shoulder, close enough they almost traded paint. He’d already barked at her once on the radio to stay behind him but she wasn’t listening and clearly wasn’t going to. He caught up to her and pushed ahead. They were both pushing ninety now, heading toward a hundred, chewing up the distance on the Maxima, whose back end suddenly fishtailed, brake lights flickering on and off. The driver must have seen the red and blue strobes on Chief Deputy Ben Harper’s truck up ahead, bright and clear and ominous even in broad daylight, leaving him surprised and really scared and unsure of what to do; maybe even bleeding out, if Dale’s bullet had bent the curve and clipped the driver while passing through the car’s interior. Harp had been out at Artesia most of the day but had been rolling back to Murfee when Dale fired his first shot, which put him right in the path of the fleeing car, so Chris had radioed for him to lay up at mile marker 67 and toss out the spike strip.

Chris glanced over at the small green signs blurring past his window.

Marker 65

The strips were an expensive Stinger Spike System. He’d been reluctant to buy them at first, reading that some officers and deputies had been killed trying to deploy the damn things—struck by the very cars they were trying to stop—and Harp hadn’t helped the cause by admitting that the Dallas PD had recently banned them.

But out here there was so much empty space, so much straight-line nothing, that you could chase someone all the way to El Paso or right down to fucking Mexico if you didn’t have a way to slow them down.

So Harp had pushed and pushed for them, and in the end, Chris had agreed. Caved. That had become the defining nature of their relationship.

In fact, Chris had ordered two sets for each patrol truck, enough to cross both lanes. They’d proved easy enough to set up when his deputies had practiced it out in the department parking lot, but so far they’d never been used—not in real life, not like this.

Marker 66

Almost there.

Chris backed off the gas and hoped those damn spikes worked . . . and hoped to hell that Harp was out of the way.

•   •   •

THE NISSAN’S TIRES GRABBED the pavement hard—spitting rocks and boiling smoke—as the driver locked them up, with both car and driver holding on for life as the Nissan started to slide sideways. It tipped ever so slightly up, catching air as the whole car shuddered, looking for one horrible second like it might roll and tumble down Highway 90 in a mess of buckled metal and broken glass, before straightening out and hitting the strips square at sixty miles an hour. The hollow spike tips punctured all four radials clean, and Chris swore he saw a dance of bright sparks beneath the Nissan—a July Fourth light show—as it plowed over the strips and kept going even as its tires died beneath it.

Chris drove off the shoulder into the scrub, giving the strips a wide berth and catching air himself, as Harp’s truck roared to life and paralleled him from where it had been parked on the opposite shoulder. Harp had gotten clear from the truck, never even bothering to use it for cover in case the Nissan’s driver lost complete control and plowed into it. Instead, he’d been crouched low with his Colt AR-15 aimed straight and steady into the other car’s oncoming windshield. As it slid past, he’d calmly stood up and tracked it with his sights, before running back to his own truck.

Now, he and Chris were slow-rolling up to the Nissan, which had finally come to rest in the middle of the road, nose canted at an angle, the driver’s door visible to both of them but still closed. The car sat wreathed in smoke, all of its tinted windows dirty. The car itself looked exhausted, worn-out, sporting an ugly metallic scar down the left flank—another one of Dale’s bullets.

And Tommy’s blood, which had been so bright and visible to Chris only moments before, was now lost to the dust.

Chris got out with his Browning A5 and positioned himself behind his engine block, while Harp opposite of him did the same. Amé rolled to a hard stop behind them both, and with his attention full on the Nissan, Chris felt rather than saw her join him at his shoulder.

She was breathing hard, her Colt 1911 resting over the hood.

Son of a bitch, she said. Pendejo.

Exactly, Chris agreed. He stole one glance at her; hair in her eyes and those dark eyes narrowed and angry, trying hard to see beyond the Nissan’s windows. And for the first time since he’d made her a Big Bend County deputy, he was regretting it. Not that she wasn’t capable—she had more than proven her worth and was tougher than he ever could have imagined—but because of moments like this one, right now.

He didn’t want to send her in harm’s way and he knew that was exactly what he was going to have to do.

In two years as sheriff, none of his deputies had gotten hurt on his watch. It was like a run of cool, calm weather, or a desert rain. It couldn’t last forever and maybe it wasn’t supposed to.

But he was going to make damn sure it wasn’t two in one day.

•   •   •

"SHERIFF, TIME IS WASTING." Harp’s voice carried over the road.

His chief deputy was pushing, his idea of subtle. Harp always complained that Chris was too slow, too measured; too goddamn deliberate . . . just like their long debate over ordering the Stinger system. Even though he won more than he lost, the older man still liked to needle Chris: It’s all about action versus reaction, Sheriff . . . you can’t finish what you don’t start. These were Harp’s idea of lessons, freely and frequently given, and Amé Reynosa had already taken way too many of them to heart.

It didn’t take much for Chris to imagine what his two deputies would think about his first impulse here and now: to keep them all safe behind their trucks and just wait the fucking guy in the Nissan out.

All afternoon if they had to; hoping against hope that he got tired and gave up.

Now that was goddamn deliberate.

But there was another of Harp’s sharp lessons: Chris, hope is not a strategy . . .

Sheriff, time is wasting.

Fuck me.

•   •   •

CHRIS TOOK A LONG BREATH, turning to Amé. "Okay, I’m going to call him out. If we’re lucky, there’s only the one and maybe he’s already hurt. I’m going to walk him backward between us, and when I stop him and tell him to get on his knees, you’re going to go up, put him facedown, and cuff him. I’ll stay covered on the car in case someone else is in there. I’ve got the best angle on it, so Harp is going to stay covered on you. If our bad guy so much as flinches, reaches for anything, even breathes too hard, Harp will take the shot. Got that?"

Amé nodded, already grabbing for cuffs and making ready to move down to the rear of the truck, near to where she’d have to expose herself. It wouldn’t be much and it wouldn’t be long, but it would be enough.

Chris put a hand on her shoulder. You’re angry, we all are. It’s not personal. Just do it by the numbers. Wait till he’s on his knees. Chris let her go. You good? he asked.

She smiled, grim. Bueno.

Chris waved toward Harp to get his attention, raising his voice. I’ll call the guy back. Amé is contact, you’re cover. Harp never took his eyes off the Nissan, didn’t respond, but hitched up a thumb . . . okay.

In a perfect world, Chris would’ve put hands on the guy himself, but he didn’t have faith in his bad knee. It had never fully recovered after he’d reinjured it at the Far Six. You’ve never fully recovered. He pushed that cold thought away. But fortunately Harp had spent almost three decades on the Midland PD, many of those years as part of their SWAT team. Even though he and Amé had spent a lot of free hours together at the makeshift range near Chapel Mesa, and Harp claimed she’d developed a hell of a shooter’s eye, Chris still felt comfortable with Harp taking a tight shot more than anyone, far more than even himself. The chief deputy was the only person who had killed more men than Chris. That left Amé as the best choice, the only choice, to approach the driver if he ever showed himself.

Chris took another deep breath, steadied himself. He squinted past the shortened barrel of his A5 to the Nissan. Still there, still waiting.

Waiting for him to do something. Just like his two deputies.

Driver, roll down the windows and throw out the keys. Then extend your left hand through the window and open the door. His voice surprised him, too loud.

Nothing happened and the Nissan kept idling.

Driver, roll down the windows and throw out the keys. Or what, exactly? Chris didn’t want to send Harp and Amé up to the car to forcibly pull the driver out, there was too much open ground to cover and it was too naked, too exposed. And they sure weren’t going to start pumping lead into it from here. Even if he made that threat, would the driver believe it? Could he even make it sound believable? Maybe he’d get his wish after all and they’d just sit here the rest of the day like Old West gunfighters in a duel, forever trapped at high noon; neither of them ever drawing.

Fuck me.

Sweat collected in his eyes. None of his options were good, all of them just different kinds of bad. His shirt stuck to him like a second skin—that high white sun hammering hard. It had been infernally hot for days, with no end in sight. The scrub all around was burned brown, skeletal, brittle and quick to turn to dust. Except for the yucca standing tall, crowned with its ivory flowers and marching into the distance toward the mountains, the world out here looked and felt lifeless. Like a hot breath would be all it’d take to set it aflame.

The air above the car rolled back and forth in waves, reflecting the engine heat back skyward, where it got lost.

Impatient, Amé started inching forward, moving beyond the safety of his truck’s tailgate; too far away from him to pull her back. Just like he feared, she’d been listening to Harp too damn much.

Driver . . . He started again, angrier, but before he could call out anything else, the driver’s-side window slid down.

Chris braced, found a point in the darkened interior and kept his A5 on it, realizing the engine had also stopped.

The car was now silent, still.

Long moments passed, everyone holding their breath.

Then keys tumbled out of the open window, jingling loudly, and landed on the asphalt.

Followed finally by a slim arm, grabbing the door handle as he’d instructed and opening the door.

•   •   •

A MAN GOT OUT.

No, that wasn’t quite right; he was younger than that, early twenties, maybe, a Hispanic male in black jeans and a white T-shirt. His hair was slicked back and he still had sunglasses on—metallic, small frame, designer.

There was no sign of blood.

Chris put the A5 on him. Driver, turn around once, and then lock your hands together behind your head and walk backwards . . . slow . . . until I order you to stop.

The kid—and that’s how Chris saw him, even though Chris wasn’t a whole lot older than him—did as he was told. The watch on his wrist was big and looked expensive. It caught all of that impossible, fiery sunlight, and winked it back at Chris and his deputies as he put his hands behind his head. They might have been shaking, too, just a slight tremble matching the kid’s heartbeat. He started walking backward, trying to catch a glance over his shoulder.

Look straight ahead and keep walking. Slow. Now that the door was open Chris could see all the way through the cabin. There was no one else in the front passenger seat, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone curled up in the back. He still needed to clear the car while Harp and Amé dealt with the kid.

He heard it then, tinny music echoing over the desert. Some popular rap song he might have dialed past once or twice on the radio. It was the same few bars, over and over again—a ring tone—a cell phone somewhere inside the car. Is that what the kid had been doing while fleeing, making a call? Waiting for a goddamn call back, while Tommy Milford bled out on the asphalt behind him?

By the time the driver backed within the arrow formed by the two trucks, the cell had stopped.

Driver, take five more steps. Count them with me and then get on your knees. Keep those hands behind your head.

One.

Two.

If the kid was counting along, Chris couldn’t hear him.

Three.

Four

Five.

The kid’s knees had barely flexed when Amé was already in motion, clear of the truck, handcuffs carried like a church cross in her right hand, moving toward him.

Goddammit.

Impatient.

Chris shifted aim and tried to zero in on the black mouth of the car, the open door, scanning for movement. But he couldn’t help keeping one eye on Amé as she went to put her free hand on the back of the kid’s head, her hand over both of his, ready to push him facedown. And just like that, inches away, the kid turned to stare at her, quick as a snake. His chin was up, like he was looking her up and down and giving her a once-over. Even hidden behind his expensive glasses, Chris had the idea there was something important passing through the kid’s eyes . . . recognition . . . and then he said something to her, lips clearly moving, but whatever it was, it was low and fast so that only she could hear.

She didn’t respond, just pushed him down hard and straddled him as she cranked his hands behind his back to get him cuffed. They look so young . . . his deputy and her prisoner. It was easy to imagine them as kids roughhousing in the yard, a brother and sister with their matching dark hair. Without too much effort she pulled the kid to standing and started to drag him back behind their trucks, while Harp moved toward the abandoned car, his AR-15 sweeping left to right; smooth, steady, like the hands of a clock. Now that Amé was clear with their prisoner, Harp could work up the passenger side and Chris could move in on the open driver’s door, so they could finish clearing the car and then figure out what the hell was going on.

But then the kid said something else to Amé. Louder this time, in Spanish, just before he flicked his tongue out—quick, again, like that goddamn snake.

The kid was still talking, fast.

Chris held up, now forgetting Harp and the car. As hot as it already was, the temperature seemed to boil up another few degrees, releasing sparks and turning the air around them all to embers.

"Amé . . . no . . ."

It was hard to read her face: anger, surprise, something else. Or nothing at all. She nodded, like she was considering whatever it was the kid had said or maybe Chris’s warning, and then she hit the handcuffed son of a bitch anyway in the face as hard as she could.

2

It was hours later, the sun lost and the Chisos and the Santiago mountains gathering long shadows beneath them, when Chris stood on the porch of his unfinished house and polished off the first of what promised to be several beers. Stars were taking their time coming up, holding their breath, waiting—letting summer lightning play havoc on the low hills, chasing its own bright tail.

All that lightning and still there’d be no rain. There hadn’t been any in weeks and none was expected.

Some folks thought it bad taste that Chris had sold his dad’s place in town and bought this piece of land so far out, a sliver of the old Far Six ranch. Chris had grown up in Murfee and everyone knew he’d never shown much interest in returning home, much less owning his own piece of land . . . this land . . . but all that had changed over two years ago, when he’d nearly died out here. When he’d been shot three times and then killed three men himself. While those same folks who wondered about it wouldn’t say it to his face, they did raise it to Melissa at Earlys—wanting to know as they mulled over their beers or whiskeys why he would want to live out here when it had almost killed him before, and why the hell she’d let him. But she always just shrugged, smiled, and asked if they wanted another drink. Chris didn’t know if he could explain it—not easily—so there was no way she could do it for him. Maybe it was all about moments like this, watching the world put on a show just for him. Maybe it was because the land was dirt cheap and it got him away from the town itself, which had always felt too small even before the shootings and twice as small after, with people driving by his old house and pointing it out like they still did for Sheriff Ross’s place.

Out here, in this vast empty land, he could see a car coming for miles. He could see everything.

Or maybe it was just because he’d bled on it, and figured he owned the land now or it goddamn owned him. Either way, he’d never had to explain it to Mel. She’d never tried to talk him out of it or questioned it; even now, when it meant long drives for her back and forth to town and to the hours she still kept at Earlys. He’d told her more than once to quit, but the truth was they needed the money and she never complained. He knew she smoked those long miles away, careful with her ashes so she wouldn’t start a fire in the scrub and caliche, listening to the radio with her window down as she drove.

And it was beautiful out here on the outer edge of empty, a perfect wildness.

The house itself was another story, a continuing source of frustration. Most things worked, although not all at the same time. The septic tank had its issues and the electrical was balky and the wraparound porch wasn’t quite even. Chris had tried to do a lot of the work himself, but eventually relented after Mel had made some jokes about it at Earlys, and Judah Canter and his crew had offered to come out and shore up the whole mess. Judah had squinted and clucked his tongue just looking at some of Chris’s handiwork, afraid even to take a sip of the beer Chris had offered as if that, too, might be off-kilter, but he’d promised to help. Judah was as good as his word, and cheap—he’d been doing building and electrical in the area for decades—and he and his men had at least made the place habitable. Just recently they’d put in two large Vogelzang potbelly stoves, one for the kitchen and one for the study, but with the summer heat it would be months before he and Mel would have a chance to try them. At least with Judah having finished the work, it was likely they wouldn’t fill the house with smoke when they did.

There was something good to be said about the lack of rain . . . it meant Chris didn’t have to worry about what parts of his roof might leak.

•   •   •

MEL CAME THROUGH THE SCREEN DOOR, handing him another Rahr & Sons, the bottle still nice and cold even where her fingers had been. She curled herself up in the porch swing they’d brought with them from the other house; one of just a handful of things they’d kept. It had been his mother’s and for reasons all her own, Mel had been just as reluctant to part with it as he’d been.

So Amé hit him in the face? she asked, picking up their conversation from a few minutes before.

Yeah, a nice right hook. She rocked him right down to his knees. He spit blood.

Mel shook her head. Jesus, what did he say to her?

Something about Tommy supposedly, something about running him down, at least that’s what she said. To be honest, I don’t really know.

Mel watched the slow and darkening sky. What does Ben think?

Chris shrugged, took a long pull on his beer. What does Ben think? had become a familiar question over the past year. Ben Harper had retired from the Midland Police Department planning to spend the rest of his life drinking and bass fishing with his wife Jacqueline out at Falcon Lake in Starr County, but Jackie had gotten sick—a sudden stroke—and passed just as suddenly. After Chris had formally been elected Big Bend County sheriff, Harp’s name had been passed to him as someone who had a lot of police experience and might be willing to help shore up a department still in disarray after former Sheriff Ross’s murder at the hands of his own chief deputy, Duane Dupree. When Chris had called Harp out of the blue, the man hadn’t asked many questions, easily reading between the headlines and understanding there was a hell of a lot more to that story. But he’d still agreed to help Chris, who’d admitted that he’d been elected after Ross’s death only because he was something of a local hero—a known quantity—and not because he had any goddamn clue how to run a sheriff’s department. Ben Harper had forgotten more about law enforcement than Chris could ever have hoped to have learned in his one year on the job before getting elected, and he’d proved to be a steadying hand and a reassuring presence. He never questioned Chris openly, never used his long experience to press a losing point, but had no problem waiting until they were alone to share whatever was on his mind; giving plenty of suggestions and advice. His lessons. Chris had made him the chief deputy from day one and he’d become a mentor to the other deputies, particularly Amé, and had become a friend to Mel, as well. He kept a small apartment above Modelle Greer’s garage in town and spent a lot of nights at Earlys, keeping Mel company at the bar.

Chris liked him and trusted him, they both did.

Harp was closer and could hear the kid was talking in Spanish but not much of what he said. Chris turned the beer bottle in his hand. No reason to doubt her. Harp asked her about it later and she gave him the same story. Doesn’t matter, really. You can’t go hitting a guy in handcuffs, no matter what he said or did.

Mel’s look suggested she might feel otherwise. You call the hospital again? How’s Tommy?

Better than we could have hoped, and a helluva lot better than he looked laying out there on the asphalt. He was awake, even cracked a couple of jokes. Buck and Dale are there and will take turns sitting with him. He wanted a burger from the Hamilton and they brought it over. He’s not even old enough for a beer, but I let them sneak him in one anyway. The injuries read like a goddamn grocery list. Punctured lung, bruised spleen, broken ribs. Bunch of other stuff busted up. The left leg is bad . . . real bad. He’s not walking for a while. Not running again ever, maybe. Chris refused to glance down at his own leg. He knew a thing or two about bad injuries, ones where you had to relearn to walk a straight line and where a lot of things still weren’t quite straight again no matter how many steps you took. He finished off the beer. "Harp warned me not to put those two out there together. He likes Dale but doesn’t think he’s got much sense, says he’s watched too many movies. And he caught Tommy dry-firing his gun in the bathroom, speed-drawing in the mirror. It was just going to be for a couple days, babe, just to get Tommy up to speed. That was it. Harp can’t be everywhere. He can’t ride with everyone."

And neither can you. It happened. It’s going to happen again. Mel stretched out a leg, tapped him with a bare toe to get his attention. You couldn’t have known.

Sure, but maybe I’m supposed to know better. He grabbed her foot, held it. "Dale is barely twenty, Amé not much older than that. Till Greer is what, twenty-three? Same for Buck Emmett. Jesus, Tommy turned nineteen two days ago. They’re all kids, babe. Kids I’m putting out there to get hurt."

Mel laughed. Says the old man of twenty-six. We just agreed that you and Ben can’t be everywhere all the time. You two have to train them the best you can and then hope for the best. Hope they do the right thing, the smart thing. And you know what? Even then, sometimes it’s not going to be enough. That’s the job and you know that as well as anyone.

He let her foot go. "Harp always reminds me that hope isn’t a strategy. But you’re right. Hell, I know you’re right. It’s the goddamn job. Still, it doesn’t make it any better. Maybe I don’t know enough to show them what to do."

She got up and went to put her arms around him, following his gaze out to the summer lightning and the places where stars would soon appear, if they appeared at all. You know plenty. After all, you’ve been spending a fortune on all those books, right? She laughed again and this time he joined her. He’d been ordering book after book on law enforcement techniques, police psychology, professional leadership and management. Anything he could get his hands on to teach himself how to do his job. He kept them in his truck and by the nightstand, even hiding a few in his desk drawers at the department. Harp had seen them and never made a big deal about it, but a couple of months back gave Chris one of his own, a well-thumbed copy of Edward Conlon’s Blue Blood. Chris hadn’t pegged Harp as a reader, but the man had surprised him more than once. He hand-painted his own fishing lures and liked to play chess against himself, easily beating Chris the few times he’d challenged him, and Chris at one time hadn’t been a bad player, either, having learned the game from his dad. He also knew an unfathomable amount of Old West history, could endlessly recite cowboy poetry, and listened only to jazz. He didn’t even own a TV, instead keeping a huge collection of Art Tatum, Charles Mingus, and Thelonious Monk CDs on constant rotation in his apartment and his truck.

Why did Tommy and Dale try to stop this guy? Who is he, why did he run? She paused, stepping carefully before adding, Drugs?

That was a thorny subject, far too sharp, given Murfee’s history and that of its former sheriff and chief deputy, as well as Deputy Amé Reynosa’s own brother, Rodolfo.

Just speeding, but they saw the Arizona plates and got curious. Chris didn’t offer the other reason, the real one, he suspected. His two white deputies had caught a young Hispanic male driving a late-model car probably worth more than a year’s pay instead of the usual rusted-out trucks with Ojinaga plates they were all too familiar with, and that had gotten their attention. A wetback in a nice car is what really had made them curious.

He pulled over when they first lit him up, but when Tommy approached the car, he gunned it, went backwards, hit him. Maybe he was just as nervous as they were. Maybe it was an accident. Who in the hell knows? Right now, he’s not talking. I’ll be meeting with Royal in the morning and see where we are then. Royal Moody was the district attorney for Big Bend, Terrell, Jeff Davis, and a couple of other counties—a good chunk of the Trans-Pecos plus some—almost sixteen thousand square miles. Over half of which was patrolled by Chris and his deputies in Big Bend alone. Royal kept one office in Murfee and another over in Nathan.

His license says his name is Azahel Avalos. He’s twenty-three years old.

Mel put her face against Chris’s neck, breathing soft against him. Not much older than Tommy and Amé and the others.

Chris kissed the top of her head, held her tight, counting lightning strikes and listening for thunder that never reached them.

No, not much at all.

Chris had fallen asleep, the sheets kicked off; his long, thin body pale and exposed. He’d never really gained back all his weight after the shooting, after the recovery. And if you just looked at him nowadays, standing against his truck or out on the porch like he was earlier, with his scars hidden beneath his clothes, you’d never guess all that had happened to him. You would have had to have known him before, to really see how much it had cost him.

How much of himself he’d left behind and lost—both good and bad.

Mel slid next to him above the sheets, the way he was. She’d put up two box fans in the bedroom and even with them turning full-blast the room was still too hot. Chris had on boxers but she was naked, trying to stay cool, wanting to lie closer to him yet feeling the heat coming off his body. He moved in his sleep, said something to himself, as moonlight touched his face.

It was hard sometimes for her to imagine how he’d almost died out here, somewhere just outside, maybe within sight of these very bedroom windows. She’d never admit to him how she was afraid to look out them when she was here alone; afraid she might see the ghost of who Chris once had been walking over the creosote and caliche, lost and unable to find his way back home. She knew he took some sort of strange comfort from being out here, as if he could reach out to that younger version of himself; maybe have a talk and remind himself of who he’d once been, even though that person was truly dead and gone. Everything that had happened at the Far Six, in Murfee, had changed him irrevocably. It had killed some parts and strengthened and darkened others, all made worse now by the constant stress he was putting himself under to run the department well and protect those who worked for him. To be nothing like the men who’d tried to kill him—Sheriff Stanford Ross and Duane Dupree. But she’d lost something, too, when he’d been attacked: a sense of security, an untroubled future. She needed him and it was a need that was as strong as ever, since any Chris was better than no Chris at all. But she’d always be afraid living out here, sharing space with the ghost of the man she’d first fallen in love with. The only man she could ever love.

It was the sort of fear that wouldn’t go away with alarms and security lights, even though they had plenty of both installed in the house.

Maybe it was the sort of fear that’d never go away at all.

•   •   •

IN FACT, Ben had wanted her and Chris to get a dog, a couple of them even, to keep her company out here alone, and she knew he’d been out to Artesia this morning looking at some before the chase. He’d mentioned it a few nights back while nursing his drinks at Earlys, when she’d told him if anyone needed a dog, or a friend, it was him. Better yet, he needed a new woman in his life.

Mel wasn’t sure if Chris knew just how much Ben continued to struggle with Jackie’s death. How he barely slept in that efficiency above Modelle Greer’s garage and was probably drinking way too much, even when she wasn’t serving him at Earlys. She really liked the older man, who was still good-looking in a sharp-edged, cut-your-finger sort of way. He was too damn thin—always pulled tight like a wire—with his peppered hair shaved down to a memory and his eyes the color of a cold sky threatening snow; eyes that reminded her of the smoke and clouds streaking the oil fields of her youth. She enjoyed his company, trusting his wisdom and appreciating the help and confidence he gave Chris. She couldn’t imagine Chris managing the department without him, but also couldn’t imagine Ben Harper without the job of managing Chris. The two men appeared very different, true, but they were really just opposite sides of the same coin. Chris and Ben needed each other, even if they didn’t know how much. Still, she worried about him, wondering about all his empty nights drinking alone and listening to his jazz music in his apartment. Dreaming—when he slept at all—about his wife.

She thought about Amé Reynosa hitting Azahel Avalos and smiled. Just like everyone else in Murfee, she’d questioned whether it was smart to bring the young girl on as a deputy. Even now, Mel still caught the occasional whispers about Amé’s long-dead brother and her remaining family in Mexico. But Chris swore she was doing a damn good job and that hiring her had been a needed step forward for the Big Bend County Sheriff’s Department. A necessary one. He trusted her, and told Mel that the young deputy reminded him of her when they met back in Baylor—that they both shared a hell of a temper and a mouth. Baylor seemed like such a long time ago, first seeing Chris standing on the sidelines with a football in his hand. He hadn’t thrown one since the night he was shot, when she’d watched him throw ball after ball into the cold desert dark at the old house before heading out to meet Duane Dupree here at the Far Six. They’d been having troubles for months by then, arguing over stuff that didn’t matter anymore and probably never did, but he’d been the old Chris for at least that night, laughing with her, kissing her, throwing his footballs before holstering his gun and walking out the door. After all their fighting, she’d felt like she’d just gotten him back that very night, only to find out that the man who returned from the Far Six—survived it—wasn’t the same; but, then again, neither was she. There was no way she could be.

The Melissa Bristow Chris had met at Baylor was now a ghost, too.

Mel was turning thirty this year, and although Chris was older than all the deputies who worked for him except for Ben—always joking about the kids—she still knew they were both way too young to feel this way. They were scarred, true; but only bent, not broken. She wasn’t sure what to do about it, but she didn’t want them ending up together and somehow still alone, holding on to nothing but the memories of how they used to be.

She rolled over, watching him sleep. Wondered what he dreamed about. A few months back he’d started writing longhand on some yellow legal pads he kept for just the occasion, hiding them away in a drawer in the study. She had no idea what he was writing—stories or memories or just notes about things he wanted to change at the department—but he always had the same expression on his face when he did it, the same as when he’d thrown those footballs that night in the yard at the old house. Focused, completely lost in the moment—his body present but his mind somewhere else; traveling far away. He looked like that now, too, dreaming, with his eyes closed.

She kissed him lightly, not wanting to wake him, wishing him well on his journey, before closing her own eyes.

•   •   •

SHE WOKE SOMETIME LATER—panicked—to the sound of Chris’s voice. He was sitting up on the bed, talking low on his cell. She’d never heard it ring, the sound lost behind the turning fans.

Something’s happened . . . to Tommy Milford, or the kid they were keeping in the Big Bend jail. Maybe to Ben? She struggled upright, covering herself with the abandoned sheet, checking the windows where moonlight had been replaced by a different kind of glow, the hint of a dawn sun—that brief moment when a brand-new sky comes up all gray, like an old photo exposing. Chris clicked off the phone and was now looking out the window with her, right into that slow and rising light, pulling himself together.

Getting ready to leave, when he realized she was awake.

What happened? Is everything okay? she asked.

He shook his head. That was Harp. There’s a body, just found over in Terlingua, outside the Wikiup. That’s a little bar there, been there forever.

I’ve heard of it. Mel sat very still, holding the sheet close, holding it tight; cold now, even though the room was thick and hot. The last time a body had been found, Chris’s attempts to discover its identity had been like a match starting a fire, leading to the death of one federal agent and the murders of drug-corrupted Sheriff Ross and Duane Dupree, and Dupree’s house actually burning to the ground around his decapitated body. It had forced Sheriff Ross’s teenage son Caleb to flee Murfee and fueled Amé’s desire to join the department after they learned the body Chris had discovered out in the desert was her brother, Rodolfo—murdered because of his own drug connections. It had finally flamed out, with Chris nearly dying right here on the Far Six, but not before shooting three cartel killers himself. It sounded wild, improbable, like someone else’s story, but it was every bit true and it was theirs—hers and Chris’s. And if the thing with Tommy yesterday was bad, Mel was afraid another murder so soon . . . another goddamn nameless body . . . was going to be a lot worse. She searched Chris’s face for clues.

It’s . . . Do we know . . . ?

Yeah, we know who it is, a river guide, Billy Bravo. He’s been identified by his girlfriend. She’s the one who found him. Doesn’t look like an accident, but . . . Chris let it go and stood up, and even in the dim, his white scars seemed to glow. I’m sending out Harp and Amé. I have to deal with our prisoner today and meet with Moody.

I’ll start some coffee, Mel said, getting up as well. She was relieved Chris wasn’t going to Terlingua and twice as relieved that this body already had a face, a name; that there was no mystery about it. Those were ugly thoughts, but true. People died all the time, bad things happened, and she wished they didn’t all have to be Chris’s sole responsibility, his personal burden; except maybe out here, they did.

You don’t have to, but thanks, babe. You know, when it rains, it pours, Chris said, still looking out the window into the light. It was growing brighter by the heartbeat, turning the glass copper and blood.

But goddamn, it’s going to be another hot one today.

3

Ben Harper couldn’t count the number of dead bodies he’d seen; too many by his very own hand.

Between his decade in homicide and twenty years on SWAT, he’d gotten used to them all, except for one—his own wife laid out at the Jessup Funeral Home, wearing the dress she’d married him in. Her face had been dusted with too much makeup, the touch of the mortician’s finger almost visible on her cheek, as if he’d brushed a tear from there. Her eyes had been bruised and closed but so much like sleeping; almost alive.

No matter how they died, the dead all had the same tragic beauty about them—a body in motion stopped suddenly; a snapshot, forever suspended, a well-aimed grace. The beautiful dead were trapped between clock ticks and heartbeats. It was their moment . . . their place. So goddamn small, but spanning a lifetime. It was a sanctuary where they’d never feel pain or be hurt again, unlike all those they had to leave behind.

No matter what people said, dying was easy, effortless. It was living that was twice as hard.

•   •   •

HARP SIPPED HIS COFFEE, glancing up from the body to Amé Reynosa, who was standing a dozen yards away with the woman who’d found it and who claimed to be the girlfriend. She was young, Hispanic, like Amé, her black hair one long thick braid tied up by different-colored bands. She was crying, moving her hands, and even if he could hear what she was saying, he wouldn’t have understood it. They were talking in Spanish, fast. Every few words Amé looked over to him as if something might have changed with the dead man sprawled beneath the ocotillo.

Nothing did, nothing would again.

Amé had picked him up with two black coffees, both for him, and four aspirin, which he’d dry-chewed with a couple of wintergreen Certs on the drive down to Terlingua. She knew he’d been drinking since he drank pretty much every night, but she didn’t make a big deal about it. She drove and he drank and chewed and neither of them talked about what they’d find out here as the sun slowly came up to meet them.

Sunlight that did nothing to make Terlingua look better, or give the old ghost town any more weight or substance. It had started as the base for the Chisos Mining operation in the 1800s after cinnabar—quicksilver—was discovered, but all that remained now were the capped ancient shafts with names that meant nothing to anyone anymore, like the Rainbow, the 248, and the California Hill. In the years since, Terlingua had become an out-of-the-way hideout for all sorts of drifters and artists and hippies. It had gained some notoriety for its November chili cook-offs, and Harp had been here once before with Jackie to experience it.