The Far Empty (39 page)

AMERICA AND MÁXIMO

H
e wouldn’t take her back with him to Mexico. Told her it was not for her. It wasn’t safe, never would be. She told him it wasn’t safe for him anymore either, so they’d go to Houston instead, like Rodolfo had always promised. He asked how they could do that when they had nothing.

She’d gone out to the place Caleb had told her about, that he’d reminded her of with the few words he’d printed on her magazine cutout, the last time she saw him. Out beneath a desert willow at Coates Creek she found the place where he had buried his notebooks, his poems and stories. She found a stack of them, glanced through them once, but as much as he may have wanted her to have them, she left them behind.

She did take the suitcase he’d left for her. Heavy . . . filled with what seemed to her to be all the money in the world. They paid Pilar for her car, drove it to Midland and sold it in a bar, buying a Charger
from a used-car lot with cash, a lot like the one Rodolfo had owned. Different color, nicer, but close enough. They slept during the day and drove at night, by the light of oil-rig fires across the flats.

She told Máximo how Rodolfo had called her his
estrella
, and he told her that was perfect,
perfecto
, and he put his arm around her as she drove and he told her all his stories and jokes. He even sang her songs, making them up on the spot.

They stayed outside Houston for a few days in a nice, not great motel. But parts of the city reminded her too much of Murfee, and parts of it reminded Máximo too much of Ojinaga, and they both laughed at that. He wondered where she wanted to go next, and she said she had an idea. She showed him the magazine picture of the skyline and the beach. He stared at Caleb’s words, but didn’t say anything about them.

•   •   •

She stood outside in the parking lot, searching for stars. In the city, you couldn’t find them at all. In Murfee, they’d been everywhere, every night. You couldn’t escape them if you’d wanted to. She missed them.

She’d left Máximo asleep in their room, to stand out here and breathe for a moment alone and find them. He’d drunk too many beers and had passed out whispering to people who weren’t there, people who haunted him. They hadn’t talked about his showing up to her smelling of oil and smoke, his face smudged with ash, embers dying in his hair; blood on his hands. How he’d been smiling. Now, standing in the dark, she held tight her picture of the beach, the one Caleb had left for her and she’d showed Máximo. She ran her finger over Caleb’s handwriting there, tracing it. It was hard to know if that
picture was really hers anymore, or his; just another city where she wouldn’t be able to see the stars.

On the road she’d dreamed over and over again of that little girl she’d seen with Máximo, the one running in the dead grass, leaving her brothers far behind. Running so far, so fast, but never getting anywhere safe. Not alone.
Our town
—that’s what Deputy Cherry had said before he’d almost died to make that real for her. The dreams of the running girl had replaced all the ones of Rodolfo. She’d been his
estrella
, always would be, but she thought he’d understand.

Still, she couldn’t go back now, not yet. After all, she still wanted to see the beach, the ocean, at least once. She owed herself that, at least. But after that, who could say? She’d follow the stars, see where they led her, and that made her smile, bouncing the car keys in her hand.

And she
glowed
.

Y ella resplandeció . . .

•   •   •

When he awoke, she was gone.

He ran to the motel window, naked, and the car was gone, too. On the little table next to the bed was a newspaper, and inside it was a thick stack of money. Not all of it, but plenty. And on top of that was the gun. Silver and pearl—etched with the Virgen de Guadalupe and Pancho Villa and Jesús Malverde.

All of its
calaveras
grinning goodbye at him.

MORGAN

A
nd she opened her eyes . . .

CALEB

I
’m starting this new journal on the plane, high above Texas. Murfee is somewhere below me. Before too long, it will all be behind me. But can I ever truly leave it behind? That place? All that happened to me? I don’t know. I think it will always be a part of me, forever. Maybe it’s supposed to be. It’s in my blood.

Anne has said I’ll love Virginia. She talks about the
green
, all the green, like it’s an actual place or a living thing, and in a way, I guess it is. I do look forward to seeing that—trees and green grass and water. She won’t admit it, but she’s even more excited than I am.

In the airport I thought I saw Amé—a brief reflection in glass, her face turned away, laughing. I walked toward her, got ready to call her name, but when she turned toward me, I realized it wasn’t her at all.

Just someone who looked a lot like her.

This is the thing I understand . . . that I’ve come to accept. I will forever be searching for Amé’s face—my mother’s face—in every place, in every crowd. I’ll always wonder . . . I’ll always picture them out there, in some distant somewhere, a place as real as Anne’s
green
.

They’re
my
Murfee Lights, and I’ll forever wait for them—ghosts. I’ll just never know if they’re only haunting me. Or I them.

SHERIFF CHERRY

H
e drove out to Indian Bluffs, parked as near as he could remember to the same place he’d parked before . . . when he first walked out to the body of Rudy Reynosa.

There were flowers now, blooming after last night’s rain, and they ran into the distance, every color in the world, and more he couldn’t name. They ran all the way to the mountains and beyond. The sky was pearl, bright, like it had been shined hard with a cloth. It dazzled and hurt his eyes, and it took his breath away. He’d grown up here, always thought it was so goddamn small.

Now he realized it was infinite.

He’d been more or less truthful when he told Anne he didn’t know whether Sheriff Ross had killed his wife. He had ideas, ones that crept into his mind late at night, whenever he thought about that wild place the sheriff called El Dorado. You could get lost there—no
one would ever find you. But he also knew now you didn’t even have to go that far.

Behind him was the shotgun Mel had bought as a present, a Browning A5 Ultimate. Still affectionately called the Humpback, it was the modern version of the world’s first semiautomatic shotgun—a shotgun once carried by Clyde Barrow. She had the barrel cut down so it’d be lighter for him, easier to wield; it had a beautiful walnut stock and the receiver was etched in black and gold leaf. On one side was a desert sun coming up over mountains that looked vaguely like the Chisos. On the other, intricate scrollwork surrounded three words that would mean nothing to anyone other than him and Mel:

Let ’Er Rip.

He had no idea where she got it or what it cost, but she made him promise to always carry it, and he would. It was still so new he could smell the oiled wood and metal. He was going to practice with it, and knew he’d soon get to the point where even with his wounded hand he’d be able to pull the trigger with ease.

A great bird circled high above, vanished before he had a chance to find it in the sky again. He let it go, didn’t wonder where it had gone. Instead, he started up his truck and headed out for the road. Just as before, cell service was still bad out here, and he needed to get back close to Murfee so he could call Mel and tell her that he was finally on his way home.

S
he’d called the department, but had agreed only to meet way out here, not quite ready to come into town. The remains of the house were still visible, loose piles of burned, weathered lumber; a wooden skeleton left to bleach in the scrub, most of it already taken back by javelina bush, althorn, and white guara. The guara’s flowers were still in bloom, pale, like white stars in the grass, growing thick through the broken planks. The pecan grove south of the house had gone completely wild, a tangle so thick it was difficult to see where one tree began and another ended, the upper branches patrolled by crows fighting over the split hulls of nuts.

Once, on a hunch, he’d come out to look for shell casings out near those trees, but a rare rain—the sky dark as a bruise, scarred by lightning—had turned him away. He hadn’t been back since.

She’d changed her hair, cut it short, but she was still pretty. More than that, she was beautiful; taller, her dark skin tanned something
deeper, tropical. He’d last seen her in a sweatshirt and glasses, pulling on a cigarette. The sweatshirt was long gone, replaced by a T-shirt revealing slim arms, but the glasses remained, still hiding her eyes. There was no cigarette in her hand, and he guessed she hadn’t smoked in a while, maybe not since she’d left. Her truck, a late-model Tacoma, almost new, was parked by a large ocotillo, obscuring the plate. He couldn’t see if it had luggage or other bags. Anything. He had no idea where it had come from, where she had been.

She was staring at what was left of the house when he walked up, lost in thought.

“No one likes to come out here. They say it’s haunted,” he said.

She shook her head. “No, I think maybe it was before, but not now. Not anymore.” She turned, smiling. “
Sheriff
Cherry,” and then she surprised him by hugging him. She stood back, taking in his official uniform—jeans and a button-down shirt, a black Stetson Brimstone. His badge and his gun.

“America, it’s been a while.” He wanted to say so much, hardly knew where to begin. “It’s good to see you. Good to know you’re okay. I always wondered . . . Well, I always wondered what happened, where you went.”

She laughed. It was a clear sound, real. “I went to the ocean, that’s all.”

He laughed with her. “And how was it?”

“Blue and big.” She gestured at the sky. “And still not as blue and big as all of this.”

They stood silent together, watching clouds roll away along the horizon. “Are you back for good?” he asked.

She looked at the ruins of the house, at Duane Dupree’s old place.
“No sé.”
She hesitated. “But I missed the stars here, too. It sounds silly,
but I did. I thought they’d be the same everywhere, but they’re not. Or maybe I just wanted them to be.”

He nodded. “No, I get it, I do.”

“And things are okay now?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Things are better. There’s still work to do. I’m trying.” He picked at a guara, tossed it into the wind. “This town has a goddamn mind of its own . . . set in its ways. Old attitudes, older prejudices. I think this whole damn place is frozen in time. Some folks just can’t accept the world outside of here is different now. It’s changed . . .
we’ve changed
.” He grabbed at a second flower, tossed that away, too. “Well, no matter what, Murfee is going to change as well. It has to.”

She stayed silent, following the flowers he’d thrown. One barely missed the ocotillo near her truck, escaped skyward, and was lost.

“The last time we spoke, I said I needed your help. I still do, you know.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

He slipped the badge off his belt, the gold star. He pressed it into her hand. “You said you missed the stars. How about this one? I need a Spanish speaker, someone who grew up here and lived all this and understands it.” He laughed. “God knows the department could use a woman.”

She shook her ahead again. “I . . . I don’t know. This place isn’t ready for that.
Ahora no.
”

“No, probably not. But that’s okay. We have to start somewhere. It’s
change
. It’s good. It’s necessary.”

She turned the badge over and over, a star shining in her hand. “A badge?” She smiled, stole a glance at his holster. “A gun, too?”

“Everything,” he said.

She considered the badge, his words, like she was weighing both. “I’ve been gone awhile. It seems so long ago . . .”

“But you’re here now, Amé. You’re home.”

It was turning dusk, the sky already burning red deep in its heart, catching the mountains on fire. All of the Big Bend, the whole world, it seemed, suddenly ablaze. It was beautiful, a helluva show, the type of sunset you could get only in the West. Night would soon follow, and with it the stars, flickering alive one by one by one, just to set the sky alight all over again.

Amé bounced the star in her palm one last time and then put it in her pocket.

“
Muy bien
, Sheriff Cherry.
Muy bien.
What now?”

He smiled, put a hand on her shoulder. “Okay,
Deputy
, let’s see if you’re any good with a gun . . .”