I push my fingers into the dark green fabric, smooth the starched jacket out over the back of the kitchen chair. Through the front windows the wind kicks red sand up into the paloverde bushes. My fingers trace the stitched letters on the front of the jacket: JOHN MCCARTY U.S. BORDER PATROL. Outside the sunlight is a pale milky version of its angry summer self, but it grows hotter every day. John’s footsteps pound in the hall. I press my nails deeper into the gold letters of his name.
“Layna,” he booms in his preacher voice, “what are you doing, honey?”
My shoulders stiffen before his hands even reach me.
John lets out a mouthful of air. “Give me my jacket, Layna.”
I don’t lift my hands.
“What are you doing?” he asks again. “Laying hands on it? Trying to curse me?”
“Laying on hands is for healing,” I say, lifting my fingers and sticking them into my apron pocket.
He rests his right hand heavy on the base of my neck and grabs the jacket. He smells of mint toothpaste, Old Spice, and hair gel. I breathe deep, smell for something more. I found a bottle in his truck the other day, an almost empty liter of mezcal with a pale worm bobbing at the bottom. In the glove box, beside the mezcal, lay a silver bracelet and pink hair clip. I didn’t ask him about them. He would have told me some illegal alien left them, told me he forgot to throw them away.
John lifts his hand, guiding his arms into the stiff sleeves of his jacket. “Layna honey,” he says, “you worry yourself too much.”
The linoleum under my bare feet is gritty with sand. It’s time to mop again, fourth time in one week. That devil sand won’t stay outside. At night it opens the door, slips in, and settles itself into the seams of my furniture, the eyes of my child.
From the cabinet I pull out a bag of yesterday’s biscuits, take two, and place them inside the mouth of the microwave. Behind me, John fixes his belt. I wrap the warmed biscuits in tinfoil, set them beside John’s thermos, and busy myself with the few dishes left from last night’s dinner.
John grabs the thermos. “Thanks,” he says and walks toward the front door, leaving the biscuits sitting on the counter.
He turns his pickup around in the dirt yard and maneuvers out between the prickly amargosa, driving past the rusting Oldsmobile parked under the cottonwood tree. He brought it out here a few months ago and fixed it up pretty good. Taught me how to drive stick shift in the evenings after work, bouncing the old boat over the sand hills until the sun got too low and the coyotes came out.
I set the last dish in the rack and open the tinfoil package of biscuits. They are dry and I’m not hungry. If only we had a dog to give scraps to. One of our dogs got killed by javelinas three months back and John shot the other one to save him from the same fate. He said a gun is better protection than a dog any day. He took me out into the dry creek bed and taught me to shoot the .22 he keeps in the hall closet. For a moment things felt like they did when we first got together, before His Beautiful Blood Holiness Church told us they didn’t want John to be their preacher anymore, before we moved halfway across the United States. He held his hand over mine and gripped the gun just like he’d traced my fingers along the pages of Job and Exodus back in Tennessee. But when I tried to kiss him he ducked his head away.
On the front stoop, transplanted prickly pear clippings and night-blooming cereus sit in cut-open milk jugs. I grab my watering can from behind the rocking chair and fill it at the side of the house. The first few months out here my transplanted pansies and mums shriveled to a crisp. I took to looking at a desert plant book from a shop in Arivaca. I grew what I could.
The perimeter of the yard is outlined in amargosa, creosote, and ocotillo. Fat red buds nest among the crucifixion thorns of the amargosa at the end of the driveway. Just past the bush, a chaos of footprints spill across the shifting dust of the road. The footprints run all together, one over another like a cattle trail. Illegals. We live out here for just this reason. John’s boss owns the house but never comes out. He used it for a hunting cabin of sorts but then he started finding evidence of the aliens staying here. Aliens were sleeping in it, coming across the border in droves and holing up before making the last trek to Arivaca. He lets us stay for practically no rent, just to keep the illegals off his land. Only they don’t stay off. At night their shadow footsteps surround the house. Most of the time they’re out in fields beyond the mesquites but sometimes they come right up in the yard. They’ve got babies with them and old folks sometimes. John sleeps with his 9 mm on the bedside table.
My eyes search the clumps of buckbrush for movement. They mostly go by at night, but it worries me some. One time, an illegal came up out of the bushes once and grabbed my leg as I unloaded groceries from the truck. He was old, his skin like the leather of a baseball glove, his small eyes sunken into his skull. He spoke words like the devil whispering in the trees, and saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. John said he probably hadn’t had water in two or three days, said the rest of his group probably left him. John took him on into Arivaca to the border patrol office.
The sun sears the skin along the back of my neck. I pick up my watering can and head back inside to check on my baby. Nathan’s six years old, but he’s special. Advanced Muscular Dystrophy is the medical term, but John told me when he was born that it meant we were blessed, for the meek shall inherit the earth.
Nathan lies in his crib and stares at the ceiling where a water leak made a tree pattern. I flip the switch, toggle it up and down a few times, but the light won’t come on.
“Hey buddy,” I call to him, “hang on a second.”
In the kitchen the clock on the coffeemaker does not glow and the overhead light will not turn on. John must have forgot to pay the bill. We don’t get mail out here so he pays the bills when he goes through town. I cross the kitchen and pick up the phone, listen to the steady rhythm of the dial tone for a minute before deciding not to call. John hates for me to phone him at work, says it’s embarrassing, says everybody else’s wife seems to get along fine without calling in grocery lists every day. Our stove runs off propane and we’ve got a bunch of candles and one of those old-timey lamps in the closet somewhere. John can pay up tomorrow.
Nathan lies on his side, face pushed up against the wooden rails of his crib. I lift him up, kiss his cheek, and carry him to the changing table. His body is so small and immobile, like the delicate shells the cicadas leave behind.
“The amargosa’s gonna bloom real soon,” I whisper, “today maybe.”
He blinks. My finger traces his lips. Nathan rarely smiles.
We spend the morning at the kitchen table. Nathan sits strapped into his high chair with a plastic bib around his neck while I guide tiny spoons of applesauce into his mouth. With the electricity out and all, I plan to go for an easy dinner. Cornbread and beans and wieners, maybe. I wonder if our money’s run low. John never talks about money but he works long hours and we hardly spend anything living out here.
I wipe Nathan’s face, pull a small baseball cap down onto his silky head, and carry him out front to the amargosa bush. The blood petals are packed in tiny fists among the thorns. Nathan coos. Among the roots of the bush two big ants struggle to carry the body of a third. We sit and watch the funeral procession play out across the miniature sand dunes.
The sun is too strong, so I carry Nathan inside. Lay him down in his crib and lay myself on the couch. I should sweep and mop the floor, should go look for that oil lamp. But I don’t like the sound of all the quiet, the way the wind rakes the branches across the tin roof and taps at the windows, so I plug my ears, close my eyes.
The sun has passed the tops of the cottonwoods and mesquites. With the electricity out there’s no way to tell time, but it seems like it must be past five. John will be home in an hour. I visualize the ingredients for dinner mixing and preparing themselves.
Nathan sits in his chair with his teddy bears and watches me cook. By the time the sun sets out the western windows, John is still not home. By May the sun never sets before seven-thirty. John’s usually home by six. I light candles in the windows and call the office in Arivaca, but Agent Malone says John left work early, took off sometime around four. I hang up the phone and press my forehead against the wall. My mind goes to the mezcal, the silver bracelet and pretty hair clip in John’s truck, the dark shadow images of the woman who might have worn them. My belly moves like it did during my pregnancy with Nathan. I push the vague thread of thoughts away and tell myself he left early to go get groceries and pay the overdue bill, then the truck broke down and he’s out there working on it, on his way home soon.
After Nathan goes to sleep, I get the .22 out of the hall closet and lay on the couch, the gun beside me and my eyes trained on the front door. The sand slips inside and coyotes bark from the bluff out back. Our house is a small vessel in a shuddering sea of darkness and wind and voices I can’t quite make out.
Nathan’s whimpers wake me. My muscles ache and my fingers struggle to unclench their grip on the .22. I stumble into the kitchen, wiping my eyes, and lift the phone to my ear. No dial tone. Only empty air. My gut twists. Nathan burbles from the other room but I can’t go to him. Panic questions fill my mind and Nathan doesn’t have any answers. I look out the window toward the Oldsmobile.
The day is hot already. The sky is blinding blue and the metal car door burning to the touch. I duck into the seat, push the key into the ignition, and turn it. The car coughs and whines, trying faintly to turn over. I pull the key out and take a deep breath, fit it back into the ignition and turn again. This time there is no noise at all. A wave of fear leaps up in me, swells my tongue, and wets my eyes. My mind skips to John and I don’t even know what lies to tell myself about him now. I lean back in the seat, push the sweaty hair off my forehead, close my eyes and picture the cool green of the creek at my Grandpapa’s house back in Tennessee, the creek that ran down to the well-house where you could lift the cedar bucket, bring the cold metal ladle to your lips and drink long swallows with your toes spread out across the slippery rocks of the well house floor. White hot light sears my skin through the glass. I get out of the car, leave the door hanging open and the key in the ignition.
I sit on the couch and watch the shadow of a mesquite tree jump across the kitchen wall. My eyes follow the line out to the tree and beyond into the endless landscape. Just where the brown sand meets the brilliant blue something moves, a flicker of a coyote or a dog or an illegal. The more my eyes focus on it the more it disappears.
Nathan whines again from the bedroom so I set his breakfast out on the table and go to fetch him. When it’s just me and Nathan at home, my mind wanders. The doctor said it’s good to engage him a lot, but after running through the list of songs and patty-cake games my mind just wanders. Mostly it doesn’t seem to bother Nathan; he’s an old soul and he understands me. But sometimes the silence out here gets so loud. I wish like hell he could talk. With the electricity off, there isn’t even the radio to listen to. The Gospel Hour out of Tucson usually comes on at noon. It’s especially for housewives, runs from twelve to two. They’ve got good songs on there, spirited enough to make you want to get up and mop the floor.
We stay at the table long after Nathan is done eating. He smears the applesauce across his cheeks and into his hair. Out the front window a jackrabbit leaps, then freezes. A vulture hangs motionless amidst the puffs of clouds. The sun inches along its course across the horizon and Nathan falls asleep in his high chair, head resting on his shoulder. I go to move him, to wipe his face and carry him into his crib, but my arms are too heavy to lift. The stripes of sunlight on the wall above the stove move and change color. Must be past two. Gospel Hour would be over. On a normal day I would turn the radio off and run a bucket full of suds to mop the kitchen floor. I can almost see myself doing it. Mopping and drying, pulling potatoes out of the bin and chicken breasts out of the freezer.
The bedroom closet is a jigsaw puzzle of cardboard boxes and suitcases. I pull open five containers before finding the lamp. On my way out I pass the bedside table and stop. John’s 9 mm is gone and his wedding ring lies in its place.
My throat constricts. I turn on my heel, cross the room, and jerk the top bureau drawer open. My eyes search for the gold gleam of John’s granddaddy’s pocket watch, but there is only a nest of handkerchiefs with a small coil of money inside. Three twenty-dollar bills curled in a circle like a snake. I let myself go, dropping down onto the floor. The bureau drawer forms a roof above my head. I try to concentrate but my mind keeps bouncing, keeps mixing up images of silver bracelets and pink hair clips and the twenty-five miles of sand and chaparral that separate me from civilization.
Nathan moans. My fingers press flat against the floorboards till my knuckles turn white.
On the third day a river forms, spreading out from the Deepfreeze and into the hall. I pull up the lid, stare for a moment at the mound of thawing chicken, hamburger, ribs, and pork butt, then snap the top closed. Out the window the amargosa bush shakes in the wind, its blood blossoms spread wide open.
Nathan is already awake, so I lift him from his bed and bring him outside in his pajamas. The bush trembles with the faint fluttering motion of hundreds of small brown moths. Ignoring the growing heat, they hover and descend among the clusters of red petals and yellow stamens. We sit down in the buckbrush and watch the quivering amargosa while the sun burns strong and stretches shadows across the sand.
When Nathan pants and sweat drips down his forehead, we head inside. I set him on the kitchen floor with two stuffed bears for company and turn the oven on. We cook all through the afternoon and as I lift the last burger out of the frying pan the sun dips behind the amargosa. A rush of deep orange through tangled blossoms.
Nathan is busy devouring his teddy bear.
“You hungry, buddy?” I ask him, pointing to the towering stack of meat. Nathan can’t eat meat. He can’t chew good enough.
The kitchen grows thick with shadows. I pull the glass dome off the oil lamp and twist the wick up. Oily smoke curls into the darkening air. There’s not a whole lot of fuel in it, but it’ll do for a while. The room smells rich with meat, but the thought of eating makes me sick.
“Well, we won’t go hungry,” I say to Nathan.
The lamp on the windowsill turns the glass into a funhouse mirror, reflecting and distorting my sunburnt face. Over the regular pattern of night noises, the rhythm of crickets and katydids, comes the soft yet undeniable sound of footsteps and the whimper cry of a baby. I reach for the lamp, ready to extinguish it. But the silence of the house has grown so heavy that these strange human rustlings don’t scare me like they once did.
A knock sounds out sharp against the wood of the front door. There is a pause and then the sound comes again over the background of shuffling feet and whispering voices. I gather Nathan and his bear up into my arms and cross to the front door. The metal knob is cold in my palm as I open it.
A man stares up at me with dark diamond eyes. His right hand is raised, ready for another knock. Behind him crowd five others. An older woman, three teenage boys and a mother with a baby tied to her back. They look worn out and used up. They’ve become a part of the desert, shifting sand people. Fear darts across their faces like a bird in a house.
The man says something, and his words come out all jumbled up and unintelligible. I squeeze Nathan. The man’s words mean nothing to me and he has not taken a step back; in fact he leans his stocky body forward into the frame of the door, nearly touching my elbow. There is a form like the curve of a pistol butt below his cotton T-shirt, tucked into the waistband of his pants. He says the words again, raises his right hand in a drinking motion, and lifts an empty milk jug up toward my face.
“Oh … water,” I say, “you all need water.”
My relief at the simplicity of their request is so complete that I turn quickly toward the kitchen, leaving the door open. The man enters with me and my stomach flips but I keep walking. The others follow us inside, each carrying an empty milk jug.
In the kitchen the smell of the meat hits me full in the face. If they need water they are probably starving too. John has told me how they lose their way sometimes, wander for days with no food or water. I set Nathan in his high chair and point to the kitchen sink. They line up quietly. The first man fills his jug halfway and then steps aside and empties it down his throat in vicious audible gulps. The baby begins to fuss and the mother passes her jug to the older woman and shifts the child from her back to her chest. No one breathes a word but their eyes jump to the plate of meat on the counter.
“Do you all wanna eat?” I point to the platter.
The man who knocked looks up at me and mumbles more foreign words. I pull a stack of plates down out of the cupboard and set them beside the food.
“Go on,” I say, “eat.”
And the Mexicans eat, right there at my kitchen table. The mother shifts her baby from her chest to her back, tightening the blanket in a knot between her breasts. I wonder if I could carry Nathan that way. He’s bigger but he doesn’t weigh much. While the Mexicans eat, I go to the hall closet, pull a sheet out and tear it down the middle with my teeth. Hold the larger half up to my body and drape it around my shoulder. I can’t let the only humans I’ve seen in three days go and leave me alone again. If we walk at night the sun won’t hurt Nathan. The more of us there are, the less the coyotes and javelinas will bother us. We can’t walk twenty-five miles in one night, but there must be shade someplace where we can wait the day out. I have no plan beyond arriving in Arivaca. The full fear of waiting out here alone blooms open in my chest and leaves me breathless.
The kitchen is full of the clang of forks and strange voices. I fill an empty gallon jug for myself, wrap the rest of the meat in tinfoil, and put it in a grocery bag. The head man stands and the others rise with him. There is no way to tell them that I am coming along. The mother is last in line. She turns and smiles at me and I hold up the ripped sheet, point to Nathan and then back toward myself. She wrinkles up her nose with laughter but helps me all the same. She bends me over and sets Nathan on my back. His knobby knees fit on either side of my spine, curled up just like when he was inside me. The mother pulls the sheet tight across my chest and laughs once more then waves good-bye. Shaking my head, I look back at the kitchen table filled with scattered dishes. My mind glances lightly over John, wondering if he will recant and come back looking. A part of me itches to leave his three twenty-dollar bills there on the table. But I’m not stupid; we’ll need food and bus tickets. I blow out the lantern and the room goes dark as a river at night.
Outside, the sky is so full of stars there is hardly any space between them. The milk jug pulls painfully at my fingers. The weight of Nathan presses down on my shoulder blade and my mind goes to the ants under the amargosa, struggling across the sand.
The Mexicans form a line behind the man and I step in place at the end after the mother. She looks back over her shoulder and wrinkles her forehead. She says something to the woman in front of her who sends the message up the line. When the man in front hears, he steps out, putting his hand up to halt us all. He walks back toward me, shouting. His words are jumbled up but his intention is clear. He’s a short man, comes only to my nose, but he is strong and angry like some enraged animal, all muscle and shout. My heart leaps inside my ribs but I do not step back. I will not stay out here alone.
The man’s teeth flash in the moonlight as he bellows and points toward the house. My eyes glance away across the yard to the shadow shape of the amargosa, filled now with more moths, white ones and dark ones, swarming so that the blossoms are almost invisible. His breath feels hot on my neck. He sounds like he is speaking in tongues the way they did at the revivals back in Tennessee. My fingers grip tight to the milk jug and I pretend it is the Lord’s words he is burbling and not the Devil’s. The man kicks sand at me. I move closer to the mother. He spits at my feet but turns then and marches back to the front of the line. The mother glances over her shoulder and her mouth twists into a tiny smile. My feet fit into the tracks of the six who walk before me. I follow them through the dark and my eyes trace their soft shapes against all that desert and all that sky.