Twenty-one miles. Ava keeps shouting out the new distance every few hours, trying to give me something to walk toward. Trying to make me believe she still knows where we’re going.
Lost in fear, we were too shaken to remember our rucksacks. By the time we realized our error, it was too late to go back. Too dangerous. Now we have no map. No compass. Only the highways and farm roads to orient us and lend us any clues we’re headed in the right vicinity. Ava studied the map every night, her tireless eyes poring over every small town, neighborhood, and scrap of terrain. I wonder if she’s recreated the map in her mind. If she sees our precise position and imagines we’re tracking the exact inked line Father drew for us to follow all the way up to the edge of Texas in Dalhart. Or did she just look up at the night sky, turn her body northwest, and hope all roads really do lead to Rome?
Ava walks a good fifty yards ahead of me, Lucía by her side. It started off as ten yards, but mile after mile I’ve let the distance grow, wanting to be alone, wanting to be free of someone listening for my every breath, watching my every move. Ava turns her head to check on me again.
Yes, I’m still here. I stop and wipe the dirt from my eyes and let another yard extend between us. I don’t know why this protective gesture annoys me so much—she almost lost me, and I almost lost everything. But it does.
Ava’s gaze shifts to the bulge now unmistakably visible beneath Lucía’s linen jacket. She pulls down the soaked cloth she cut from the ends of her shirt to protect her face from the grass and sand and addresses Lucía. The howling wind carries her words to me.
“Nunca he visto a un civil con una pistola.” I’ve never seen a civilian with a gun.
Her voice is weak. I hear the strain. See the exhaustion in her hunched body. In her short and heavy steps.
“De donde vine yo, no se puede sobrevivir sin ella,” Lucía responds. You don’t survive where I’m from without one. She drapes her soiled scarf over her shoulders, maneuvering the frayed ends to blanket her secret weapon.
“?Usaste tu última bala?” Did you use your last bullet?
The wind brings me nothing more except its own violent shrieks. Yes, the wind screams for her, she used her last one.
I hug my body and take five sizable steps forward, narrowing the distance. Ava turns her head, checking on me once more.
Still here.
I can feel the sun now.
My numbness has thawed. Sweat leaks from my every pore, my insides seeping dry. The thirst is so bad, I keep reaching for the water bottle that I know isn’t there, like a ghost limb. My head aches. The relentless wind twists and whirls and spins my brain. I squint my eyes and my lips crack. I see a thousand windmills far on the horizon. Or is it an army of soldiers come to watch us melt away in this immeasurable wasteland?
“Nine more miles!” a voice shouts back to me.
I shake my head and focus my parched eyes. Two figures walk before me, miles and miles between us.
My sister. She’s so far away. She’s an extension of me. Half of me. And she’s so far away.
I reach out my arm for her and become distracted by the dancing numbers on my wristwatch. The watch’s hands twirl and swivel, disorienting me, and I stretch out my fingers to catch the maddening arrows when suddenly they stop, revealing the time.
1:35 p.m.
A rush of clarity. The hottest time of day is still ahead.
I stumble on.
It’s better than what’s behind.
I’m running on autopilot.
I blink and somehow find myself walking beside Ava, Lucía on my other side. Our ragged breaths and the steady tread of our mechanical slog are the only sounds left on this earth.
We stop in unison when we see it—a stone ranch house, small in the distance. I blink again, ensuring it’s not a mirage.
“This has to be it,” Ava rasps. She puts her hands on her knees and tries to clear her throat. “West of Route 385, north of Ranch Road 767. We passed both,” she barely manages to finish.
“You should sit . . .” I wheeze into my sister’s ear, placing my hand on her shoulder.
She jerks from my touch like fire licked her skin and looks up at me, instantly forcing images of last night’s torment to reflect in both our eyes. Lucía steps forward, saving us from having to talk. To acknowledge what happened.
“?Crees que es la casa segura?” You believe this is the safe house?
I turn my gaze back to the stone homestead. Still there. It shimmers in the scorching air.
It could disappear at any moment.
Ava rises, her nod of assurance nearly imperceptible. I watch her scan the large property guarded ominously by high barbed-wire fencing and warning signs. Leery, Lucía surveys the land with a hunter’s eyes, searching for a target. You don’t have any more bullets. We’re the prey, I want to remind her. But if I talk, I will fall.
She seems to hear me.
“?Cómo podemos estar seguras?” she asks. How can we be certain?
Her body teeters dangerously, and I know her fixation on this assumed refuge is the only thing keeping her upright. Ava gives Lucía a look before setting off to meet what might merely be an illusion on the horizon.
“Nunca podemos estar seguras,” I interpret Ava’s expression aloud. Nothing ever is.
As we walk closer, I discern a row of crumbling limestone buildings neighboring the main residence. Fractured deer antlers are mounted above several doors that appear sealed shut from sand and time. This must have been a hunters’ lodge in the ranch’s past life.
There’s no one in sight.
Ava keeps her eyes right, Lucía fixes hers dead center, and I watch the left. A few yards beyond the fence, I spot a water-pumping windmill working hard above a well. The multiple blades catch the strong wind just like the sails on a boat, sending the wheel into a dizzying eternal spin. There’s a meter near the base of the well that monitors groundwater withdrawals. Surely no water pushes through these pumps. The source of this well, undoubtedly the Ogallala Aquifer, has been sucked dry for years. But I’m tempted to see. Tempted to unscrew that well cap and dive headfirst into its concrete tube. To dig and scratch until I unearth the treasured aquifer itself.
It’s the smell that stops me. A pungent, musky odor blended with the sharp scent of dung, blown to us from the house by the sudden shift of wind.
Animals.
Massive holding pens line the gravel path leading up to the main residence. Cattle? Sheep? Horses? I can’t tell from this distance, but all three seem unlikely to survive in these hellish conditions, out in the center of nowhere.
We keep our line and inch deeper onto the grounds. We move slowly, but I feel my heart racing. There are a hundred yards of gravel road before us. I hold my eyes open and slap my sunburnt cheeks, willing myself to concentrate and fully awaken from my muddled haze.
As we draw closer to the pens, a distinctive curry-like smell hits my nostrils, overwhelming my senses. When I peer through the metal bars, I think the sun must be deceiving me again. I swear I see a mob of furry creatures hopping languidly on two legs. Or is it three legs?
Kangaroos.
The acre-wide fencing that borders either side of our pathway houses at least fifty or sixty of the massive brown and gray creatures. Most rest in shallow holes dug alongside the shadowed edges. The two nearest me lick their front paws and rub the moisture onto their pale chests in what I can only guess is some sort of cooling technique.
The rocks crush and grind beneath our feet, openly announcing our arrival. The kangaroos are taking increasing notice of our presence, several disgruntled ears twitching at the sound of our intrusive approach. I turn my gaze to the house but find all doors and windows closed and empty. Cold sweat slides down my body. I know eyes are on me somewhere close by.