Slowly, so as not to wake Néstor, she rose. Even after nine years apart, she still knew the pattern of his breathing. Still knew when his sleep was deepest, when she could rise and step carefully away without waking him.
The line of salt she put across the doorway hours ago was exactly as she had left it, tidy and straight as the seam of a shirt.
But beyond it, the body of the Rinche was gone.
As far as she could tell, squinting into the gloom, there were no drag marks through the puddles of blood that darkened the patio floor. No indication that someone had taken it away. It simply vanished.
But when?
Gooseflesh rippled over her arms, lifting the hairs to stand on end.
Néstor would have seen something. Néstor would have defended the jacal from anything monstrous, injured though he was, and that would have woken her.
Then the body must have disappeared during her watch.
She retreated from the doorway. There was a gun at her hip, but she had seen how ineffective that was. She reached for the machete and gripped it tightly. She stood just behind the line of salt and did not move for the rest of her watch.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“I HATE FEELING this useless.”
Siesta’s heat hung heavy over Nena’s shoulders. They had set out at dawn and ridden for hours, until the sun was high in the sky and Néstor’s face was gray with pain. He was unable to saddle and unsaddle the horses without help, but he curried the horses vigorously with one hand, swearing to himself periodically. He was far from useless: even with his injury, his movements had the rhythm of habit. He was in his element the way Mamá ruled a kitchen or commanded the schoolhouse. Still, there were things he could not do, so Nena followed his instructions and set a snare for something, anything to eat alongside their anemic supply of acecina, stale tortillas, and nopal. Néstor had said the day before he planned to make pan de campo, but now he was injured. Her mouth watered as she waited by her trap, distracted by reveries of her tías’ cooking and what she might do if they caught a jackrabbit. Or maybe a thick javelina, cut off from its herd by coincidence or injury. How its fat would crackle over the fire; how its juices would soften the stale tortillas and drip over her hands as she ate.
No javelina would be had; a quail that had seen better days became their afternoon meal.
After they ate, Nena bathed in the river. She inhaled deeply the smell of water as she scrubbed off blood and dust and sweat, relishing the silence that closed over her when she submerged herself in the water. Soothing coolness swept over her hundreds of mosquito bites. She dried off as best she could and dressed quickly, spurred by the knowledge that Néstor was not far away at their camp up the bank, and that he could be sneaking looks at her through the trunks of mesquites and sabales.
But every glance she shot over her shoulder was met with an innocent sight: him cleaning up their meal, whistling to himself, or currying the horses. Never looking at her. Not once. Of course he didn’t. He shouldn’t, and he knew that.
So why did she feel her mood dip when he didn’t? Why should she want him to see her combing her wet hair, half dressed? It was a stupid thought. She ought to banish it immediately. Mamá and Papá would already be shocked to hear that she had spent so much time alone with a man unaccompanied. They would come to understand that it was preferable to her riding alone with Rinches and worse prowling the chaparral, but Mamá would wring her hands until they were bloodless and pale over Nena’s honor all the same.
Thus far, however, Mamá’s imaginary future hand-wringing was over nothing. Néstor was behaving as he should. He might tease and flirt, but otherwise, he gave her space and averted eyes when modesty required it.
It was Nena who had toed the line.
She could tell herself it was in the service of mending his dislocated arm, but was that the whole story?
She lay on her back with a thump in the shade of the trees, humidity and ill humor weighing on her like a too-hot blanket. She swatted away a mosquito and listened to the click of bridle buckles and Néstor’s increasingly inventive curses as he checked the tack for damage and cleaned it. Finally, he stood, took off his leather vest, and then, with a soft grunt of discomfort, pulled his shirt over his head.
Nena’s mouth dropped open in surprise. She propped herself up on her elbows.
“What are you doing.” The sentence came out flat, as if it were not a question but an accusation.
Néstor shrugged. “You had a chance to clean up,” he said, gesturing at her plaits, which were still damp enough to leave dark shadows on her shirt. “This,” he said, balling the shirt in one hand, “will never be rid of blood unless I wash it soon. Then we’ll pack up and ride just before twilight.”
He turned and walked toward the riverbank. Sunlight licked over his hair and back, gilding them.
“If you’re going to watch, you may as well sit closer,” he said over his shoulder. He gestured for her to follow. “Better view from over here.”
“Very funny,” she shot back.
But she was glad that he did not turn around to look at her. He would have seen that her face was aflame.
She rested by the dying embers of the fire over which they had cooked their meal, half drowsing. Lazily watched a horned lizard skitter over rocks in the sun, lulled by the hum of chicharras and the sounds of the horses eating grass. She didn’t realize she had fallen fully asleep until she was woken by the sound of footsteps and a click of the tongue, as if to urge a horse to hurry up. Néstor stood beyond the shade line, his hair wet and slicked back from his face. His chest was still bare—beyond him, toward the river, Nena caught a glimpse of a white shirt spread across a short, gnarled mesquite to dry in the sun, bright as a flag of surrender.
“When you wake up, could you do me a favor?” Néstor asked.
“I wasn’t asleep,” she murmured.
Amusement tweaked one corner of his mouth. “Of course,” he said. In one hand he held the small tin bowl she had used to clean the saddle; in his other hand, still in the sling, he held a polished metal circle. “Would you hold up my mirror as I shave? If I can shave,” he amended, with a touch of annoyance.
“All right,” Nena said. She moved into the sun and rearranged her legs to mirror his as he sat cross-legged and took the mirror. It was nothing more than a polished piece of tin, warped and imperfect, but bright enough for Néstor to see his reflection as he covered his jaw in suds of Los Ojuelos soap. She had seen Papá and Félix shave dozens of times over the course of her life, but she had never watched a man shave while sitting directly opposite him—she was so close that her knees almost brushed his. She was surprised that she didn’t feel shy. Perhaps it was because Néstor kept his eyes on his reflection as he worked in short, confident strokes over his jaw. The angle of his jaw was no different from Casimiro’s, but she could not help but be struck by how his face was so much sharper. Perhaps it was the cut of his cheekbone, the proud way it and the corner of his dark eyes drew toward his temple. Perhaps it was how refined his features were. If other men were charcoal sketches, he was drawn in fine ink.
The bare razor blade winked up at Nena. She blinked, then made the fatal error of glancing at Néstor’s eyes just as he looked at her.
She looked down quickly, suddenly flustered. She had been staring at him.
“What do you think—should I grow a mustache?” he asked quietly.
This startled a bark of laughter from her.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “You’d look so old.”