Her heart was pumping so fast she could barely understand him. When he started walking toward her, she heaved the shotgun to her shoulder. Manny was not afraid. “Don’t shoot me now,” he said, easily disarmed her, and laid her weapon in the grass. “We’ve only just begun.”
He passed the revolver to Kit and clasped her hands between his, warming them. She suddenly felt the weight of her feet on the ground, could hear the breath move through her, and on her skin, the cool of deep night. She felt less alone, that there was one other soul in this world that saw things as she did.
“Here,” he said, “I’ll hold it steady, you fire.”
With that she steered the gun toward the pup she had carried with her all day, the one she’d so hoped to save. She’d take him first, because he was the hardest, and because she didn’t want him to be the last of his kin to go. He had curled up on top of the head of his sister and slept, little belly rising and falling with his breath.
She said no goodbye. She squeezed the trigger, but it wasn’t enough to fire. Her eyes shut and she felt Manny gently correct her aim. She pulled as hard as she could and felt the gun swing up and back in recoil, steadied by Manny’s sure grip. The crack of gunfire sang in her ears well after the shot went off. She heard the other pups react, harsh squeals of fright and confusion, and quickly took aim and fired twice, this time eyes open to make sure she did it right.
The next morning, they packed up the few things they had. Manny tossed his bag on the backseat of the Mustang and lay the shotgun on the floor.
“Off to Auntie Eleanor, right?” He looked to her for confirmation, and she nodded and stared out the window, squirmy under his gaze.
He fished a map out of the glove compartment and made a show of unfolding and refolding the edges around the route to Pecan Hollow.
“Let’s see, okay, here we are right now just outside Navasota.” He tapped their location on the map. “So, where’s this Aunt Ellie supposed to be?” he asked. She pointed to the town in tiny print.
“Okay then, vámonos,” he said and eased the car into gear.
She felt heavy from last night. She knew she had done right by those pups. Killing them had been an act of mercy. No food, no mother to look after them. Nothing good ahead of them, she thought. They would have died anyway, from hunger or from predators. She had been driven by a sense of duty. But even the act of justifying her choice struck her as wrong. Now guilt and sadness crept in, almost imperceptibly, an odorless poison. She wondered what Manny thought of her and was still trying to figure out why he had helped her finish them off. Maybe he had been punishing her, rubbing her face in the mess of her own decision. It didn’t seem like him, but then, who was he after all? He seemed friendly, caring in the little ways he would think of her. He gave her space, but she never felt ignored. He seemed interested, curious, and yet he was patient enough to let her be known at her own pace.
The humid air, hot already, rolled over her like nausea. She debated what her next move was going to be. On the one hand, she was getting close to what she thought she had always wanted. Family. A home. How many times had she daydreamed about what it would be like to wake up knowing she’d never have to leave, never want to. That something deeper kept her there, not an arbitrary placement by an overworked system, but something connected to who she was, in her blood. Still, Eleanor was no one to her, not yet. They were kin, but that hadn’t been enough for her aunt to take her when she was a newborn. Why did she think her aunt would want her now?
Manny rolled onto the shoulder of the road and slowed to a stop. Kit looked around. To their right, a horse farm for sale; to their left, cars speeding past on the interstate.
“Hey, can you listen here?” He rapped her on the head with his knuckle. “I need to tell you something important.”
She looked at him out of the side of her eye.
“Last night, the coyote pups,” he said.
She had hoped they wouldn’t have to talk about this.
“That was pretty messed up, don’t you think?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, focused on a crack in the windshield the size of a bullet hole. A grasshopper bounded through her window and landed on her, its claws clinging to her skin through her T-shirt. Manny reached over and flicked the insect from her shoulder back through the window.
“Well, I think it must have taken guts.”
She exhaled a little breath she had been holding.
“You see, the point is”—he turned toward her—“you are special. I suspected it when I first caught you swiping my lunch like a little bandit. You have a wildness about you. Not that shallow, anxious thing most people have. You’re strong, Kit. You’re fearless. You can do things others can’t.”
Special. This sounded like a good thing, but she couldn’t make sense of how it had anything to do with her. It felt strange to hear him talking about her with enthusiasm. She only vaguely had a concept of herself at all. Life had been a series of capture, punishment, and escape. If anything, she had always been punished for being herself—for being a leech, a reject, for taking up space. She wasn’t special. She wasn’t anybody. She was formless, liquid, slipping out of sight or absorbing into her background. She was wretched.
“You wouldn’t think it, but we’re the same.” He went on, “I’ve been alone all my life, and so have you. Don’t you feel a bit . . . different than other people?”
Something tweaked inside her. A lump formed in her throat.
“I think I found you for a reason. Do you understand?”
She looked down at her lap and took a few steadying breaths. His words were sweet beyond anything she had dared hope for. This swelling warmth, this desire to please, this urge to be a part of something important. It felt like the answer to everything. She didn’t need some old aunt who hadn’t bothered to look for her, who probably didn’t even want her. She needed a friend.
Kit got out of the car and kicked through the high grasses and sat on a salt lick by a feed trough. Horses had come here to eat, but not in a long time. Grass had reclaimed the places worn by many hooves; the lumps of manure turned to powder underfoot. Carefully, she pulled the baggie from her pocket and removed the note inside. Kit read to herself the pretty cursive, carefully drawn.
Take this child and care for her. She will be something.
She folded the note, bagged it, and replaced it in her pocket. In a bashful voice, she said aloud, “She will be something . . . special.”
She got back in the car, and with all the courage she could summon, she spoke, nearly faint with the stress of asking for something she wanted so dearly.
“Could I just stay with you instead?” She forced herself to look at him. He smiled.
“Kiddo, that’s what I was getting at,” he said, and he held out his hand. She high-fived him as hard as she could, splitting with joy.
Manny put his arm across the seat back and one-handed the car to merge with the fleet of vehicles speeding away, his tires kicking up gravel and smoke.
Chapter Ten