Ruby sat on her bed. Beside her was her duffle packed with everything she needed. Eighty-four dollars was in her bra. The door was locked, but the hasp was a joke. Nothing more than a symbol of privacy. A mouse could break the lock.
She dragged the bag to the window and pushed aside the curtain. The frame didn’t rise more than a few inches, but if Troy broke the door, she planned to dive through the glass and run. She planned to wake Hector Trujillo and his brother. Or dash to a phone and call the sheriff. Or hide by the road and wait for David Tanner’s car.
A half-hour passed. Her mind fluctuated between schemes of escape and submission to doom. She counted backwards from a hundred in English and Spanish, trying to reduce herself to a number. She was on one side of an equation, and as long as the distance between two bodies, hers and Troy’s, stayed constant, she was safe.
Eventually, the counting and waiting dissolved into futile exercises. She tried to raise the window again. The dry wood cracked but the window didn’t budge. She crouched on the floor, listening. Then, steadily putting her weight forward, she tiptoed to the door, unhitched the lock, and peered into the living room.
Troy was on his back, lightly snoring. His boots were by the bed, their soles caked with mud, the leather casings soaked with water. Empty cans of beer lay on the floor. Tracks of mud crisscrossed the polished planks and Kate’s prized Navajo rugs.
Ruby zeroed in on the money and the gun. She crawled to the bed and crammed some bills into her jeans. Then she reached for the gun. Stubby, lightweight, comfortable. She had a terrific case of jitters. But with the gun in her hand, fright conflated with elation.
Troy groaned and turned over. “Kate,” he called, waking slowly.
He reached across the quilt for his money and shoved it into Charlene’s cousin’s slacks. He fondled the pillow for the gun. He looked on the floor at his boots.
In the darkest corner of her room, Ruby hunched down and aimed the gun at the door. She heard Troy stumble out the front, open and slam car doors, stumble back into the house, banging, rattling, cursing.
She crept to the bedroom door. She stooped and looked through the keyhole. Kate’s bed was torn apart, the garbage can turned upside down, the refrigerator open, the kitchen shelves cleared, the drawers dumped.
Troy stood dejected. Part exhaustion, part alcohol, part confusion.
When Ruby appeared in the doorway, he was surprised.
“I thought you were gone,” he said.
“I’m going now.”
“Off to Idaho in the middle of the night?”
“Far away from here.” Ruby’s jade-green eyes focused on the front door.
“Your mom know?”
With her bag slung over her shoulder and Troy’s gun behind her back, Ruby skipped past the bed.
“What you got there?” he hissed.
He lunged as she ran into the garden.
“You fucking bitch!” he screamed as she streaked to the road. It was only a hundred more yards to the Trujillo farm.
Even barefoot, it was easy to take her down. Troy twisted her arm behind her. But as he balled his fist to punch her, Charlene’s bloodied face appeared like a ghost. Before Ruby could think, in reaction to the pain, she squeezed her right hand. She didn’t look or aim. Only the report told her she had fired.
“Fucking bitch,” he slurred in slow thick syllables as he fell to the ground.
Ruby heard a cry and a curse but she didn’t turn around. She ran to Troy’s car, jumped in, turned the key, and drove away.