I turn my attention back to the jeep, and watch the guards stop parallel to my hiding place and jump out. My heart seizes as the one with the binoculars yells and points in my direction. Even though I have masked myself to match the desert behind me, I duck down and shuffle sideways so my entire body is hidden. There is complete silence for a full ten seconds, and I am about to stick my head back up to see what they are doing, when I hear a rifle crack, and a few yards to my right something goes flying up in the air.
I hear triumphant shouts as I watch the rattlesnake fall to the ground, twisting in nerve-damaged death throes. Easing myself up, I see the shooter being clapped on the back by one of his fellow guards, and bumping knuckles with another.
“Ah, man, I want that rattle!” he yells, eyeing the dead but still-writhing snake through the fence.
“Yeah, well, we’re not going to cut off the juice just so you can go get your trophy,” says another.
“Why not?” the snake slayer asks. “We’ll just tell the boss another deer got stuck in the wires and we had to reboot the section.”
Two guards get bored with the conversation and head back to the jeep, leaving the shooter and his buddy to argue. “If anyone double-checks the video, they’ll know we fooled with the fence. And I’m the one who’ll catch shit for it.”
The men stare at each other, one unsure and the other pleading. “Come on, Sergeant, I’ll give you a bottle of my bootleg Oaxaca.”
“Is that the tequila Sully drank when he mistook the cactus for a bear and unloaded a semiautomatic into it?”
“Same poison,” the shooter says.
The sergeant rubs his chin, and then says, “Hell, Sanders, you’ve got yourself a deal.” He pulls from his pocket an object that looks like Miles’s cell phone, and aims it at the metal box affixed to the top of the fence. The red light underneath it stops its slow flashing and turns a steady green. Letting out a whoop, Sanders climbs three times his height to the top and scrambles halfway down the other side before dropping to the ground in a crouch. I squeeze myself tightly behind the boulder, my brown, cracked skin blending in like an extension of the rock as the man jogs over to the dead snake. Mere feet away from me, he draws a long hunting knife from a sheath at his waist and chops the rattle off the snake, leaving the stump spurting blood in the dust.
I can almost taste my anger: It is coppery like the taste of fear. My nose wrinkles in repugnance as I look at the rattlesnake’s remains. Killing for sport is something I will never understand. Killing for protection . . . for food . . . that is the way of nature. Killing for fun is the vilest of crimes.
As Sanders pockets his prize he scans the landscape, looking right through me as he does, and then jogs back to the fence. In a minute he has scaled it and is climbing back down the other side. I see the guards joking among themselves, and the sergeant points the black box at the green light. “Let’s see you jump, Sanders!” he calls, and the light switches to red. Sanders immediately lets go and drops the final ten feet to the ground.
Face scarlet, he turns to the sergeant and his two companions, who climb into the jeep roaring with laughter. “Goddamn it, you could have killed me, Sarge!” he yells, and though I can see he is shaking, I’m not sure if it’s from fear or rage. Probably both.
“Get your fat ass in the jeep,” the driver calls, and starts driving off slowly without him. Sanders runs, grabs the side of the vehicle, and swings himself over to land in the backseat.
I sit down, my back to the boulder. Unscrewing the top of my canteen, I take a swig, careful not to drink too much. I’ve been hiking since before dawn, and have eight more hours before nightfall. If my estimates are right, I’m halfway to where the two rivers end. And if my hunch is correct, that is where I’ll find my people.
I think of Miles and wonder what he thought of my letter. I’m sure it hurt his feelings, but I didn’t want him to follow me. And although I didn’t come out and say it, I’m sure he read between the lines. I had no other choice. Miles would only have slowed me down. He could have gotten us captured. Or worse. Besides, knowing that he’s alive and waiting for me is additional motivation for me to find my clan and get them out of there as soon as possible. And after that? I wonder.
I will go wherever my clan decides. Miles and I will say good-bye, and he will return home, make amends with his dad, and go to college. Get on with his life. That’s what has to happen—I know it like I know my own name. So why does it make my heart twist painfully in my chest?
I can’t think about that now. I need to stay focused. I scan the horizon and spot my next hiding place—a large patch of yucca in the distance. I adjust my backpack, and, unable to maintain my camouflage without concentration, I let it fade and get ready to run.
28
MILES
I CRUMPLE UP THE PAPER AND THROW IT ACROSS the clearing. “Fucking hell!” I yell. But there is no one to hear, and my words feel as empty as the hole in my chest.