A REMOTE GROWLING STIRRED LUZ AWAKE—A JET, SCRATCHING its contrail across a pale sky. She sat up, terror clutching her when she realized she had failed to keep watch. Her heart slowed; she was alone in the creek bed. She let go of the knife—she had held it all through the night—and flexed her stiff fingers and thought of her mother’s hands. The jet crawled across the sky. There were people up there.
Luz’s skull ached. A wicked thirst in her throat. It seemed that red ants had bitten her while she slept, and her ankle was on fire. She stood and peered over the rim of the arroyo and saw nothing but scrubland folding into hills and the green ridge beyond. A shadow of cloud crested the hills, galloped toward her, and then passed, leaving the sky clear and blinding. Distant telephone poles came into focus. She climbed from the dry creek. The adobe house must be nearby, but she couldn’t see it anywhere.
The hardpan road beneath the power lines was empty, dusty. A radio or perhaps cell tower rose in the hills and she set out for it along the road, hoping a phone might wait in that direction.
She was so thirsty, thirsty like she had been those nights after crossing the river—and God, how the river had stunk, her uncle’s clothes reeking of it. She’d borne her gallon of water, feeling it lighten. The thirsty men all around her. Word came back that it was time to walk again. A rind of moon caught in the sunset, the world out of order. An old man didn’t get up. He lay with his head against a rock, holding his hand out to all who passed. His mouth moved, no words. His lips looked like wax, like the coagulated rings around the candles in the church grotto where Luz and her mother prayed for Papá. There was a little water left in her jug and she started for the man, but her uncle yanked her back, shouting at her. She begged him, she was crying. In some deep place she knew that the man was going to die, but it didn’t matter—she could give him what she had left. You need it, Luz, her uncle said, you alone. He dragged her, sobbing, through the Texas brush, and in truth Luz finished the water before midnight and she was still thirsty. Her uncle told her to listen for frogs. If you hear frogs, then you know there is water. But they never heard any, and Luz now wondered whether this had been meant to occupy her, to take her mind from the dying man. She still had dreams about his colorless lips, and the guilt gnarled beneath her breastbone.
A high whining. Luz only heard it now and looked. A small vehicle was coming fast down the road behind her, a plume of dust. A four-wheeler. She could see it and the man riding it. The flat scrubland around the road offered no place to hide. He would have seen her, regardless. Acid bubbled in her throat and her limbs grew cold. She squeezed the knife handle in her fist and stepped off the road.
The driver decelerated, finally braking and rolling to stop even with where she stood. The four-wheeler was black and streaked with mud, and a curved hunting knife was sheathed along the steering column. A headless rattlesnake was wound around the handlebars, its tail and rattle pendulous with the idling motor. The driver turned out to be no more than a boy. He wore jeans and boots and a flannel shirt, and a pump shotgun was slung across his back. Sweat glistened on his smooth face. Neat, combed hair. He let go of the throttle and rested his hand on his knee, and Luz noticed he only had four whole fingers—his middle finger ended at its first knuckle. He looked at her and then he looked at the knife. Under his gaze she felt the abrasions around her wrists, the scrapes on her fingers, the blood that had dried down her jawline. She stepped backward and raised the blade. The boy was stone-faced.
“I know that knife,” he said.
Luz tried to speak, but her arid windpipe seized and she could only croak. The boy stood. She waved the knife at him and shuffled farther off the road. He shook his head and removed a metal thermos from the compartment beneath the seat. He held up his four-fingered hand as if this should calm her and tossed the thermos. She caught it against her body with her free hand. The thermos was slick with condensation.
“Water,” the boy said.
With the thermos clamped in her armpit she twisted the cap off and dropped it and then drank until a cramp stitched across her belly. She watched the boy, kept the knifepoint raised. She tossed the thermos back and said, “Are you with them?”
His eyes moved over her, intuiting her ordeal. “No,” he said. “I am not with them.”
“You said you know the knife.”
“How did you get it?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he asked if the man who owned the knife was dead. Luz shook her head. The boy turned his head down the road, toward the mountains. “I live that way. I can bring you there. My grandmother will help you.”
Luz looked. “Can I use your cell phone?”
“I don’t have one.” He swung his leg over the four-wheeler and beckoned. “Come on. My grandmother will be angry with me if I leave you here. She can help.”
The muscles in Luz’s arm quivered. The knife was heavy. Her mind raced. “What is your grandmother’s name?”
“Armanda.”
“What is your name?”
“Felipo.” A weary smile. “I am fifteen. I live in San Cristóbal, there”—he pointed down the road—“with my grandmother and my brother. I am not lying to you.” He patted the seat and swung the shotgun around so that it rested across his lap. “Come with me. You don’t want to stay here.”
There was nobody else around. No vehicles. The road lay empty and still in the heat. Her clothes were stiff with salt and dirt and some rust-colored blood. She didn’t want to get onto the four-wheeler, but she didn’t know what else she could do, either.
She sat down behind Felipo and he told her to hold on. She placed the knife along his ribs under his arm and said, “If I see the narcos’ house I will stab you.” She hoped he didn’t hear the tremor in her voice. He snorted and throttled up, and as the four-wheeler leaped forward Luz almost fell from the vehicle. The big silver knife tumbled from her grip and she squeezed Felipo around the waist. She glanced, wind filling her ears. The silver knife glared in the road like a sliver of sun.