The Far Empty (34 page)

CHRIS

C
hris was surprised when Caleb came in.

He looked as tired as Chris felt, grayish circles under his eyes, carrying a plastic bag in his hand. Caleb took it all in, the stark white of the room, the humming chrome machines, and the TV turned down low, fixed to a corner between the ceiling and the wall. It was showing an old black-and-white movie, one Chris didn’t recognize and couldn’t imagine that Caleb did, either. They watched it together for a while anyway, before Caleb asked if it was okay if he sat down.

Chris told him of course, no problem, and then asked what had been on his mind the moment Caleb entered the room.
Did the sheriff know that he was in El Paso, visiting Chris
?

Caleb smiled, his eyes far older than they had any right to be, shook his head, and sat down.

•   •   •

“I guess it’s late for visitors, they didn’t want me to disturb you. I had to use my father’s name, tell them who I was, and then it was no problem. They may call and check, who knows? Can you believe that? Even now his name is like a goddamn key.” Caleb looked at him, studying him. “You’re going to be okay, right?”

“It’s your name too, Caleb.” But Chris knew Caleb didn’t want to hear that, so he held up his hand. “Probably not throwing any footballs for a while—actually, like forever—but I’ll be fine.”

Caleb eyed him more. “You don’t look fine.”

“That makes two of us.” Chris punched the remote off, sat himself up a little straighter in bed and tried not to wince. “You shouldn’t be here, Caleb, shouldn’t have come. I appreciate it, but there was no need.”

“I know. It’s not just about you, though. I wanted to thank you for believing me, and Amé, too.”

“Well, nothing’s come of it yet. But it will when I get out of here.”

Caleb shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, though, does it? Not really. We can be right, all of us, and it won’t mean a damn thing.” The words didn’t sound like him; they sounded borrowed and probably were—Amé Reynosa outside Mancha’s, abandoning her cigarette, letting it fall to the ground.
Do you think it matters, really?

Chris hardened. “Rodolfo Reynosa was murdered at Indian Bluffs, just like you said. I can prove that. I can prove who did it, and I have people who will help. People who believe me . . . believe
us
. Don’t tell me what happened to me won’t matter.”

Caleb shuffled his bag from one hand to the other. “We’ll all be gone by then.”

Chris thought it was a weird thing to say. “Look, there are others who know about this now. What you did took courage, and you should be proud of that. This is far from over.”

Caleb laughed, brittle. “No, that wasn’t courage, it was fear. I’ve been afraid forever. And this was over the minute I got you involved. It was over the minute my mom disappeared and I didn’t do a damn thing about it.”

“Jesus, Caleb, what else do you think you could have done? What are you trying to say?”

“I’ve already said it all.” Caleb raised the bag. “Here.” He put it at the end of the bed, like Garrison before, and stood to leave.

“Did you drive here by yourself? Is America with you?” Chris asked.

“No, I came alone.”

“The sheriff will find out you’re here.” It wasn’t so much a question. “He’ll be looking for you.”

“I don’t think so. I had a little help. Right now, I’m at Tippen’s bonfire. Goodbye, Deputy Cherry. Get better and get the hell out of Murfee.”

“Wait.” Chris struggled, trying to sit up, stand. “What sort of help?”

Caleb stood at the door for a second. “Someone was nice enough to let me borrow her car.”

•   •   •

Chris sat for a while, staring at the space where Caleb had been and also at the pile of books on his bedside table that Mel had left him. Trying to avoid the bag Caleb had left behind. She’d dug through the boxes he’d put away, and brought ten or fifteen of his old books, a random collection, anything she could grab, figuring he would want
them while trapped in the hospital. Even
Something Wicked This Way Comes
. She said she didn’t know if these were ones he liked, didn’t know anything about them, but brought them for him anyway. He told her he loved them all.

He struggled to reach down and pick up the bag Caleb had left. He could have called the nurse to do it, but didn’t. Whatever was in the bag was for him alone. It felt like a book, too. And it was—a small, thick notebook, like a real diary, loosely wrapped in even more plastic, smeared with what appeared to be dirt, as if it had been buried. Chris’s hands were dusty by the time he got it exposed. He turned it over, looking for something to identify it, a name or title, but there was nothing.

When he opened it, his fingers passing over the stiff pages, money fell out.

Dozens of hundred-dollar bills, trapped between the pages, now free, fluttering over the white sheets around him. He went to the first page, nervous. A very real part of him wanted to wrap the book up again and have Mel take it, burn it, rebury it. Part of him wanted to do anything but read it.

His heart hurt at the neat writing, the words.

“My father has killed three men . . .”

MELISSA

S
he woke to the sound of a phone ringing, couldn’t figure out if it was the hotel phone or her cell, fumbling for both. The shades were drawn but it was still dark outside, twice as dark, and she had no idea exactly what hour it was. By the time she got her cell in hand the ringing had stopped—
missed call
—but she recognized it. It was the hospital. She sat in bed and held on to the phone, used it to keep her hand from shaking. She didn’t want to call back, didn’t want to have to face what that call might mean. Chris had been pale, weak, but he had been okay. He’d been cold, then hot.
He had told her he was going to be okay.
Fuck him all to hell if he’d lied. God help Murfee if he was dead.

She was halfway to tears when her phone rang again, and she counted to five before she answered. She held it as far away as she could; she’d still hear the voice, barely, but it wouldn’t be so close. Still not far enough away that the words, however bad they might be,
wouldn’t touch her. It was Chris, calling out her name, so she had to bite her free hand to keep from crying, relieved.

She listened, trying to sort out what he was saying. He wanted out of the hospital. The doctors would fight him, even he knew he wasn’t well enough to be up and around, but he didn’t think they could actually stop him if he demanded it. Plus she would be there with him, supporting him, helping him. He added something strange too, almost as much for himself as for her—that they needed to be gone and on the road before anyone in Murfee figured out he’d left.

She wanted to know what the hell he thought he was doing, what was going on. Where did he need to be other than a hospital? Which, as near as she could figure, was the only place on earth a man who’d been shot three times should be. He said he knew, understood. But she needed to hear him out. Really hear him and trust him. He’d explain it in the car. It was about Caleb Ross, who wasn’t returning his calls now, and the sheriff.

The morning was too late, and none of it would matter anyway if they didn’t get on the road. They were going home.

DUANE

H
e was at the bonfire, the flames rising and falling. Faces leered out of them; a few he recognized, but most he didn’t. One even looked like his own, staring back, mute, without a goddamn thing to say.

•   •   •

She texted him, wanted to meet out at the Comanche. Said she had what he needed . . . what he’d been wanting all along. Then she sent
him
a picture. Naked skin, the curve of a shoulder, hair a beautiful mess, dark eyes beckoning—staring right through him. She’d never answered his messages before, never even acknowledged him at all, and here she was, sending him a picture that made his hands shake—not that they didn’t do that on their own now.

She had what he needed. What he wanted.
She couldn’t even imagine what that was anymore.

She was up to something, something
bad
, but he didn’t care. Someone else was up to something, too. He noticed it when Dale Holt pulled up in Caleb Ross’s truck, without Caleb. Duane sat around for another hour at the far edge of the fire light, not once seeing Caleb with the other kids. Curious, agitated, gnawing his lips, he walked up to Holt and finally asked him about it, leaving the other boys around him to scatter into the dark. Holt was nervous, looked so much like his dead older brother that Duane had to look twice to make sure it
wasn’t
him. Holt smelled like weed, beer; stammering over every word, even
Hello, sir
. Duane wanted to grab him by the throat and scream into his face, eat out his goddamn eyes, because he had to admit he was barely in control of himself anymore, but forced a smile anyway that was probably twice as terrifying, and eased the scared boy along by telling him he knew that Holt and Ross weren’t really friends—hell, everyone knew Caleb Ross didn’t have friends.

So why the fuck was he out and about in Caleb’s truck?
And by God, he’d get an answer one way or another. Holt did come clean eventually, nearly pissing himself, admitting Caleb had paid him a few hundred dollars to drive the truck around a bit and keep his mouth shut about it—then leave it parked a few streets over from the Hi n Lo.

Duane mapped it in his head, saw a street lined with poplars, and knew exactly where it was and what it meant. He didn’t even have to ask Holt where Caleb might have gone. He thanked the boy, told Holt that was all just fine and dandy—and that he’d better keep his hole shut and start running, fast, unless he wanted Duane to cut out his fucking tongue with a fucking knife. Not before reminding him not to get too close to the bonfire, so he wouldn’t get burned.

•   •   •

After that he drove over to Mancha’s, found Eddie Corazon, pointed his gun right into Eddie’s face and shoved him into his truck in front of an audience yelling,
Hey, you can’t do that, he ain’t done nothin’,
all in thick accents. He took him to the beaner’s trailer, where he pistol-whipped him until Eddie gave up his stash. He kept it hidden in tinfoil in his freezer. Duane didn’t care anymore, felt so sick he couldn’t stand, so he took it all.

And then for one long moment he was back . . .
walking among his daddy’s fields, a boy but all done up in his deputy’s uniform, carrying his grandaddy’s Smith & Wesson and shooting his cows all over again. Except now they had human faces, all of Murfee kneeling in the grass, staring at him, calling his name. Even his favorite, Big Boss, wearing the face of the Judge . . .

He may have left Eddie Corazon dead too, didn’t stick around to check. There sure was a lot of blood on the floor.

CALEB

H
e’d gotten a pretty decent head start to El Paso by skipping out of the last period of school, so even with driving all the way up there in Anne Hart’s car, he was on his way back to Murfee before the bonfire was really going. More or less about the same time Anne and his father were halfway to Terlingua.

His phone had lit up most of the drive back, though—calls and messages from Chris that he ignored, let go. He wanted more than anything to see Amé, make sure she understood the note he’d given her at school, and before heading up to the house he stopped at her place, but she wasn’t around; his own texts and calls to her were still unanswered. He knew she wouldn’t have gone to the bonfire, but couldn’t guess where she might be.

When he asked her mother where she was, using all the Spanish that he remembered, she said nothing and pushed him away from the door, back into the darkness and away from her light, and shut it in his face.

He drove around Murfee a little more, up Main Street, toward Archer-Ross. He drove out to the Hi n Lo, counted people coming and going for a bit. Saw John Snowden, the dentist, walk out with a small bag and get in his car, where his wife was waiting. In the brief moment they were illuminated by the car’s dome light, he bent forward, kissing her as if he’d been gone a long time, to a place far away. Caleb left them like that, circled his hometown once, twice, and then he was done.

He dropped off Anne’s car like they’d agreed—a couple of streets over from her house but close enough for her to walk to it—and turned for home. He walked fast, past so many darkened houses. By the time he got to his street at the edge of town, he was running, trying not to cry.

When he got inside he took the Ruger out of the gun locker, loading it with the stolen shells he’d recovered two days earlier from his hiding place down by the creek. He wiped and cleaned it till it shined, checked his work twice, and slipped it beneath his bed to wait.