LAUGHTER. A BURST OF MUSIC, A DOOR SLAMMING. SHE JERKED where she sat with her ear to the tin and stood, holding the tile at her waist. A pair of boots shifted and crunched in the grit outside. The chain rattled and clanged and then the door swung open, the orange glow of the yard. In came a flashlight, beam bursting and banishing the shadow from the back of the shed. Next came a clay bowl, some beans and rice. In stepped Cicatriz.
Luz swung from her shoes, putting all of her behind the tile, leading with its hard edge into the bridge of his nose. His face knocked the tile from her hands. She didn’t feel a crunch, didn’t feel an impact at all, but the food erupted from the bowl and he dropped in the doorway. She crashed into the wall with her momentum. His hands were to his face and he rocked on his shoulders, and she leaped over him into the yard.
A barren stretch of brown grass and dirt. A woodpile and a long-handled ax. Music pumped from the adobe house. Smoke shifted pale over the roof.
Cicatriz grabbed her ankle. He was rolling, trying to get up. Wet grunts coming through the black smudge of his face. Blood roped to the dust. Luz pivoted and kicked him, heel to ruined nose, and he flopped onto his back.
She picked up the flashlight. She saw the big knife on Cicatriz’s hip, and while his hands were over his face she bent and drew the blade—heavy, awkward in her bound hands along with the flashlight—and she turned and sprinted to the back of the house. She slid along the wall and crouched beneath a windowsill.
They were listening to hip-hop inside. The smell of woodsmoke and roasting meat. She switched off the flashlight and peeked over the sill. Men sat at a table playing cards, firelight against the cards fanned in their hands.
A moan. Cicatriz rose to his knees. Luz took off, running, leveling the knife and the flashlight ahead of her.
The pickup and two Jeep Wranglers were parked next to the house. The Jeeps sat on tall off-road wheels, and their racks of roof lights bristled like the hackles of angry dogs. She sprinted from the sphere of light around the house, and the stars descended.
In the wash of moonlight, the desert filled with nebulous shapes. Scrub trees and agave and cacti, rushing out of the dark. A distant cordillera existed because the mountains themselves were not filled with stars. Her ghost runner sprang to life. Cold and growing. She felt she could hear him breathing, gaining on her. Run. Her legs were weak, her breath thin. She had grown out of shape and she was beat up.
She was perhaps three hundred meters from the house when she heard the vehicles roar to life, one after the other. She glanced, saw the manifold high beams, and felt her ghost runner brush past her face. Something like a brick—the paddle-shaped limb of a cactus tree—slammed into her shoulder and spun her. She hunched, pulling scorching breaths. The air tasted like blood. A heavy burning in her shoulder from the cactus. The vehicles climbed into gear, a sound fleet and menacing over the desert. Luz wedged the flashlight into the crutch between two limbs of the tree and flipped the switch on. Then she turned and ran in the opposite direction, parallel to the mountain range.
The vehicles angled toward the flashlight. When Luz stubbed her foot against a rock and fell, she rolled to avoid impaling herself on the knife. She retched, bile stringing from her lips. She wiped her mouth and got up and ran. Come on. Push.
Another fifty meters and she paused. The vehicles had converged on the flashlight, and shadowed figures moved through the high beams.
Luz scrambled on, bear-crawling up an outcrop of stone, shins banging against rock. The headlights swung like distant alien spotlights, but once she crested the stone they vanished from view. She gasped into dust. The air was suddenly cool, soaking into her skin. She dragged herself through a sandy wash and then down the bank of a dry arroyo and onto the parched bed.
She sat with her back against the embankment. Listening for engines, for voices. A deep, slow breath helped a little. She squeezed the handle of the knife between her knees, placed the twine around her wrists against the blade, and sawed up and down. Her bindings fell away and the air tickled her numb wrists. Somewhere, a creature yipped.