Dusty, uninvited, followed us into the trailer. “Lena, why the hell didn’t you call me?” His eyes were red again, something I now recognized was a danger sign. He was probably back on the sauce already.
I collapsed onto the sofa to take the weight off my throbbing feet. “Maybe I just wanted you and your redhead to leave me alone. God knows my life is complicated enough.”
Behind us, Jimmy banged around in the trailer’s kitchen area trying to make a pot of coffee, but succeeding in doing little more than spilling coffee grounds all over the counter. “Folks, could we have a little less noise, please,” he begged.
Dusty sat down next to me, so I edged as far away as the small sofa would allow. “Bab…Lena, I was out on one of those city slicker cattle drives. I didn’t know about the explosion until I got back and saw it on the news.”
A likely story. “No cell phones or transistor radios out there in God’s country?”
He looked hurt. “We were in the Little Grand Canyon, Lena. You know you can’t get a signal there.”
Maybe the likely story was true, but so what? Dusty and his redheaded “wife” had caused me nothing but trouble, not to mention major drywall expenses. I decided to stop things before they got any worse. “Dusty, every relationship eventually burns out, and it seems to me that we’re wading around in a pile of ashes here. Let’s cut our losses, okay?”
A crash from the kitchen made us both look up. Jimmy had dropped the Mr. Coffee, whether by accident or design, I couldn’t tell. His face wasn’t pretty, and for a brief moment, I remembered Owen’s words about Native Americans’ warrior heritage. A frisson of fear crawled up my spine.
“Look, you two,” he growled. “I may have been raised Anglo, but I’m still Pima, and I can’t take this White silliness anymore. You two are in love, so for God’s sake, stop ragging on each other and do something about it. I’m leaving for Esther’s. Try not to get blood on the walls.”
With that, he stomped out. Seconds later, I heard his truck start up, then gravel hitting the sides of the trailer. He’d left us alone to make either love or war.
Neither of us said anything for a while. Then, with a tired sigh, Dusty walked into the kitchen area, knelt down, and began picking up the mess on the floor. “Looks like you’ll have to hit McDonald’s for your morning poison.”
“That’s better than the kind of poison you’ve been hitting.”
As much as I like to see a man on his knees, the look he gave me from that position made me uncomfortable. “I told you, Lena. I stopped drinking.”
“Let’s hope.”
The rattle of plastic, the clink of broken glass. Then the cabinet door opening, shutting. Footsteps coming toward me. The sofa sagging under his weight. Gentle fingers on my cheek.
“I got back to the ranch this afternoon, and as soon as the dudes were all squared away, I drove over to your apartment. When you weren’t there, I went across the street to Cliffie’s to find out where you were. He told me about the explosion, about you getting hurt. Then he said I’d find you at Jimmy’s.”
Maybe he was telling the truth. Today was Thursday, which was always Art Walk night in Scottsdale, when the art galleries stayed open until nine. And heaven knows that Cliffie—an unreconstructed romantic—would be more than delighted to rat me out to my no-good, two-timing boyfriend.
Gentle lips replaced gentle fingers. “Oh, Lena, I love you so much.”
I turned my face to meet his kiss.
Screams in the distance. Explosions. Angry voices.
I am running through a forest, a tall blond woman running alongside me. I am small. Only a child.
“The ranger station isn’t far. I think we can make it.” A man’s voice.
I look ahead to see a big man with red hair. His face looms white against the night but a stripe of moonglow reveals green eyes.
Running with us are more children, white, black, Hispanic, Asian. Most of them are older than me, except for one, a dark-haired little girl of around four. My age. The blond woman who holds her hand is almost dragging her through the woods.
I am fleet, like the blond woman. I don’t need to be dragged.
More noises behind us, now. Closer.
My legs hurt. I have a stitch in my side. I want the red-headed man to pick me up and carry me along, but he can’t. In each arm he holds a baby. There is no room for me up there. Thoroughly miserable, I begin to whimper.
“Quiet, Tina! No tears!” The blond woman. As we leave the shadow of the trees and enter a moonlit clearing, I can see that she looks like me.
Obediently, I shut up, earning from her, “My brave little girl.”
But then the dark-haired girl, not so brave, begins to wail.
“No, no!” the man cautions her. “You can’t.”
The girl, now as frightened by the red-headed man as by our pursuers, wails even louder. The babies in his arms, startled, join in. Their screams blend with hers.
Angry voices now. Right behind us. “I hear them!” someone calls. A man. Then a woman, her voice shrill in the night, answers him. “Don’t let them get away!”
All emotion leaves the red-headed man’s face. There is no longer anything there I can recognize, no love, no fear. It is as if he has already died, yet remains standing.
“We have to split up,” he says to the blond woman. “You take Christina and the other two, and double back. If they catch you, pretend you were never with me, that you plan to do as they demand. Maybe you can find a way….”
“No!” The blond woman doesn’t want to go. Neither do I.
But his will overrides her love, and eventually she obeys. He hands over the silent children to her and tells the noisy ones they need to follow him.
We can hear our pursuers’ footsteps.
Before we leave the red-haired man, the blond woman tells him she loves him. He tells her she owns his heart.
Then he looks down at me and says, “Christina, remember me.”
And with the crying children trailing after him, my father strikes out across the clearing.
I awoke screaming.
“Lena, baby, it’s all right. You’re safe now, safe with me.”
Dusty’s arms tightened around me.
Like those long-ago children, I wailed into the night.
I knew I’d never be safe again.