On Wings of Deliverance

by Elizabeth White

  Owen chuckled. “‘I want to marry a Mexican who can sing.’ Classic top-forty lyrics. What’s the second verse?”

  “El hijo del rey me manda un papel, me manda decir que me case con el.”

  “Okay, ’The son of the king gave me a paper’? What’s that mean?”

  “It’s a nursery song. I don’t think it’s supposed to make much sense. Something about the prince sending an order to marry him. Then the last part is ‘Con éste sí, con éste no, con éste mero, me caso yo.’”

  “‘With this one yes, with this one no, with the simple man I will wed.’ Every girl’s dream, huh?” She felt his focus on her. “Is that what you want, Benny? A simple man? Somebody you can lead around by the nose?”

  “Me?” She laughed. “I don’t want a man at all.”

  “Hey, you gotta admit, we come in handy occasionally. How would you have gotten out of that pickle on the beach without me?”

  “You simple guys have your uses,” she teased. “What I mean is, I don’t need to get married to be…complete.”

  “Oh, come on. Every girl wants to get married. Didn’t you play with dolls and junk like that?”

  “I suppose. A long, long time ago.” So long ago she could barely remember it. “My mom and I were in a women’s shelter one time and somebody gave us a shoe box full of toys for Christmas. There was a little plastic baby doll with a lacy dress and a hole in its mouth for the bottle.”

  She hadn’t thought about that doll in a long time. That had been a happy Christmas. Then they’d gone back to Mama’s boyfriend.

  Owen squeezed her hand. “Guess that’s where you got your sympathy for orphans, huh?”

  “Maybe. But I went to the orphanage for a lot of reasons. When I finished seminary, they tried to get me to stick around and teach Hebrew. I turned the job down because I was tired of the classroom.”

  “Don’t you ever want your own family? Babies?”

  “Owen…” She’d prayed through this with Meg, gotten it off her heart. Revisiting the subject with a six-foot-two cowboy border cop, even in the intimacy of the dark and the pale moonlight, made her squirm.

  “Come on, it’s just your buddy Owen. Humor me. It’s a long way to Ciudad Victoria.”

  My buddy? Hardly. “Let’s just say I have some scars I wouldn’t inflict on a husband.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Apparently, the sensitive streak was over. She should tell him just enough to scare him off. “Every man wants to be first. I can’t give that.”

  He absorbed her words in silence, then let out a breath. “I don’t know many women nowadays who can.”

  “Owen, before I came to know Christ, I was…promiscuous.” There. She’d said it. The bald and ugly truth.

  “So was Mary Magdalene and she got to start over. I may be one of those simple men, but even I know that.”

  Why was he not shocked? He should be running away, fast and furious. If he knew the whole truth, he would. “Oh, Owen, I know that, too. I’ve forgiven myself, really. It’s just that the consequences never go away.”

  Although most people wouldn’t get drilled by a hit man….

  “Is that what this is all about? An old boyfriend is out to get you?”

  At the growl in his voice, she winced. “Something like that.” But she wasn’t going to give it any more space in her thoughts. The rage would come in and take over like it had so many times before. “Hey, I think I hear a car coming.”

  “Great. Here’s our chance. You ever hitchhike?”

  “Not in a long time.”

  “Okay. Watch the master.” He turned to walk backward, right thumb held high.

  The car sped toward them, a station wagon with massive headlights and grill. The reverberations of four mondo speakers, blasting salsa rock through the open windows, made the car bounce as if it were on springs. It zoomed past at about eighty miles an hour without even slowing down.

  “Hey!” Owen lowered his arm, indignation in every line of his body. “What’re they in such a big hurry for?”

  Benny chuckled. “The noise would’ve given me a headache anyway. Try the next one.”

  “There may not be a next one.” Owen shifted the backpack. “But let’s hope there is.”

  “At least the closer we get to Ciudad Victoria, the more traffic there’ll be.”

  Fortunately, a few minutes later, Benny heard another vehicle approach from behind. “Owen! Get ready to try again!”

  “Good night, you’ve got supersonic hearing.” But he turned backward again, wildly jerking his thumb as a black pickup truck barreled past. At least it honked on the way by.

  “Maybe there’s something wrong with your technique.”

  “What do you mean? There’s no technique. You just stick out your thumb and look hopeful.”

  “Really? Then how come nobody’s stopped yet?”

  “There’ve only been two chances. Give me a break!”

  “You know what this reminds me of? That old Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert movie. You know, where he does the Bugs Bunny impression with the carrot?”

  “You mean It Happened One Night?” Owen laughed. “I think it was the bunny doing a Gable impression, not the other way around.”

  “Whatever. Remember how they finally got a ride?”

  “Yeah, she stuck out her leg and lifted her skirt. You gonna try it?”

  “I would, but I’m in pants.”

  “Sure you would…” Owen teasingly bumped her elbow with his. “Miss Modesty. Anyway, you’d cause a traffic jam. We wouldn’t want that.”

  Benny felt herself blush. That was a sweet thing to say, in a wrong-side-out kind of way. “Look, Big Mama’s trotting right along. You think she smells food?”

  “Beats me.” The pig disappeared around a hairpin bend in the road. “Let’s catch up and see.” He started to jog and Benny ran to keep up.

  A minute later, they reached the turn. Benny jerked to a halt.

  Owen laughed. “Veracruz KOA.”

  The pig was waddling up to a fruit truck parked just off the road. A canvas awning on poles stretched across its bed and extended to form an open-sided tent. Beneath it, a family sat on wooden folding stools around an oil lamp.

  Charming scene. Benny would love to have had Owen’s camera out right then.

  “Fernanda!” A little girl in pigtails who looked to be around ten ran to throw her arms around the sow. “Where have you been, you bad girl!” She looked up with a frightened gasp when Owen tugged Benny into the light. “Mama! Strangers!”

  Owen lifted a hand. “We won’t hurt anybody. Our car broke down back there—” he gestured over his shoulder “—and we’ve been following your pig.”

  The eldest member of the group, a grande dame in traditional embroidered dress and head scarf, rose from her stool, hands extended. “Welcome, children.” Her dark, wizened face creased in a smile. “Come and rest with us.”

  Briggs could be charming when he chose to be. After all, he had been raised in a family whose Southern roots went all the way back to Jeb Stuart. However, for the past forty-eight hours he had been operating on no sleep, very little food and a truckload of frustration.

  When he walked in the front door of the Poza Rica Inn and saw the same gum-chewing little Mexican Gen-Xer who’d waited on him previously, he came unglued.

  “Your uncle is a crook!”

  She removed her headphones. “Señor?”

  “I said—” He started to wheeze just as his phone rang. He unclipped it from his belt and looked at the caller ID. “Boss!” he gasped. “How are you?”

  “What’s the matter with you, Briggs?” The sonorous voice was irritated. “I’ve been trying to call you for an hour. Where have you been?”

  Ray glanced at the desk clerk. She had put her headphones back on and gone back to her magazine. Still, he walked into a corner where he was less likely to be overheard. “Sorry, boss. Cell reception down here stinks. I’ve been trying to track down the gi
rl.”

  “Well, if you’d answered your phone, I would have told you where she was. The border cop used his credit card at the Poza Rica Inn restaurant.”

  “What? When?” Ray’s migraine had just come on full force.

  “About five hours ago. Talk to the waitstaff and find out if they heard anything.”

  Five hours ago. He had been standing here in this lobby, and the restaurant was right over—

  He wheeled. The tall man in the tourist shirt and the little boy in the straw hat. Could they have been…What if Carmichael had dyed his hair and the girl had changed clothes?

  “Okay, boss, I’m on it.” He shut the phone.

  Owen sat on the outer edge of the family circle, taking shots with his digital camera of Bernadette playing a clapping game with young Reyna Fronteras. Reyna’s father, Noé, accompanied the song on a small acoustic guitar, while her mother, Ana Maria, and little brother Jefe sang along. Elderly Marta of the head scarf dozed on her stool, chin against her chest. Fernanda the pig lay like a side of pork under the tailgate of the truck.

  He focused the lens on Marta and pushed the shutter button. If she’d been awake, he would have asked permission first, since elderly Mexicans were often superstitious about being photographed. The nexus of the family, she had entertained them all with a story about her first trip across the border to pick fruit at the end of World War II. Then she’d fallen asleep with the abruptness of the innocent.

  Snapping another picture of Benny and the little girl, he let out a jaw-cracking yawn. He was dead on his feet, too. He didn’t know how Bernadette had the energy to socialize after the day they’d had. This whole bizarre series of events was turning into a spaghetti Western adventure. He found himself listening for the eerie whistling of a wooden flute and watching for Clint Eastwood to come riding up on a paint pony.

  He was thankful for the Fronteras family. They were headed to the border with a truckload of mangoes, papayas, oranges and bananas. Not only were he and Benny saving the money they would have spent on two hotel rooms, but they avoided the awkwardness of spending a night alone together. Benny’s concern about that made more sense to him, now that he knew more about her background. He hoped he’d managed to hide his shock.

  Promiscuous. The distasteful word conjured up all kinds of undesirable mental pictures. How many boyfriends had she had? Three? Five? He winced as he scrolled through the pictures he’d just taken. Ten?

  Impossible to bring his image of gentle, straight-arrow Bernadette in line with this new concept. She was right about one thing. He had wanted to be first. He wanted to be the husband and father of a Christ-centered home, just like Eli, and he’d endured a considerable amount of spiritual discipline to keep himself pure for that future virgin bride.

  From the moment he laid eyes on Bernadette, he’d hoped she was the one.

  Had it just been a year and a half ago? He and Eli had taken on that singles project with their church, delivering toys and clothing to the orphanage. He’d walked into Niños de Cristos to find her in the kitchen, supervising peanut butter sandwich construction while simultaneously listening to an elephant joke and bandaging a skinned knee.

  Barefoot under one of those gauzy skirts, black hair spiraling like live silk, a welcoming smile had lit that dark-flower face. And when she’d laughed, husky and unexpectedly deep, his knees turned to jelly.

  Eli gave him a hard time about hopeless cases all the way home. But he could take everything his brother dished out, and he was willing to be patient with Bernadette. She was worth the wait.

  He lowered the camera and watched her with his heart instead of the objective camera lens. He still saw purity. He still saw incandescent kindness and deep spirituality.

  She was the one. He just had to make her see it, too.

  EIGHT

  Heading north toward Ciudad Victoria, Briggs swiped a hand across his scratchy two-day beard. He couldn’t wait to get to a hotel where he could get a meal, brush his teeth and take a shower. Plus, his head hurt so bad he could hardly stay on the road. Nearly drove right into one of the garlic stands that lined the highway.

  When he caught up with this girl, he was going to make her pay for his inconvenience. Kill her lover, too. Right in front of her.

  The thought made him feel marginally better. Revenge would be so sweet, he wouldn’t even charge the judge extra for the double hit.

  After leaving Poza Rica, he’d driven north toward Ciudad Victoria, looking for the blue Dodge. He’d almost missed it abandoned on the side of the road in the dark. Cursing, he doubled back and got out to make sure that was it.

  It was, and they were gone.

  Well, at least he knew where they were headed. A little ways further, he’d passed a bunch of Mexican fruit Gypsies camped on the side of the road. He’d stopped to ask if they’d seen the girl and the cop, but when he opened the car door, a wild boar had appeared in his headlights, snorting and threatening to charge. So he got back in and drove on.

  He’d find them when they got to Victoria City.

  Benny woke up when a rooster crowed beneath the bed of the truck in which she’d slept alongside Marta and Reyna. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Talk about getting up with the chickens…

  Owen had spent the night under the tent extension, rolled up on a quilt beside little Jefe, with Noé and Ana Maria on an air mattress nearby.

  Benny peered over the side and found him crouched on the ground, brushing his teeth with the contents of a bottle of water. He looked up and grinned around his toothbrush, then spat and rinsed his mouth.

  “Good mornin’, sunshine.” He sneezed, then sneezed again and again, five times in all.

  “Wow, that was impressive. Bless you.”

  “Don’t know what makes me do that. Sometimes it’s eight or ten times before I quit.”

  “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Then you don’t get out much.” He smiled and rose. “If you’re hungry, Ana Maria has tortillas and fruit for breakfast.”

  Benny located the source of the smoke and delicious smells in a little cast-iron cooker over a campfire. The entire Fronteras family had gathered around it, leaving her asleep. Amazing that the laughter, singing and loud, affectionate disagreement hadn’t woken her up. She must have been more tired than she’d thought.

  “El baño’s thataway.” Owen aimed a thumb at a stand of trees a few yards off the road, then sauntered toward the campfire.

  When she sat down beside him a few minutes later, he reached over to pluck a couple of oranges out of a basket. Slicing off the tops with his knife, he handed her one, along with a smile. “You sleep okay?”

  “Like the proverbial rock.” Feeling inexplicably shy, she sucked the juice out of the orange, delighting in its fresh sweetness. Better than anything she’d had in the States. She glanced at the backpack between Owen’s feet. “I don’t suppose you have a comb in there, do you?”

  “Ask and ye shall receive.” He rooted around in his backpack and produced a small plastic comb. At least it was clean. He’d apparently already used it; his black hair was still wet, smoothed back from his face.

  “Thanks.” Tossing the orange rind into the fire, she combed out snarls and listened to Owen tease Jefe about the cartoon mermaid on his T-shirt. By the time she’d finished plaiting her hair into a French braid, Ana Maria was wrapping a warm tortilla around a banana for her breakfast. Smiling, the older woman handed it to her, along with a handful of animal crackers.

  Benny bit the head off a rhinoceros and chased it with a swallow of Owen’s bottled water. The banana was firm and ripe, and the tortilla’s lovely roasted-corn flavor eased the pinch of her stomach. Completely at peace, she sat with her elbows on her knees and ate her fill. She smiled as Reyna pulled Owen to his feet. They danced a silly, innocent version of the “Macarena” as Jefe kept time on the bottom of an aluminum pot.

  “Where are you going, my dears?” asked Marta as Benny finished the last of
her cookies. “Is this a wedding journey?”

  “No, señora.” Why did everyone assume they were honeymooners? Was there something in her face that she hadn’t put there? She hoped Owen hadn’t heard the question. She felt a blush climb her neck. “We’re just friends—traveling companions headed back to the U.S. There was an accident with our plane and we had to go down just north of Veracruz.”

  “Ayi.” Marta vigorously scrubbed the skillet with sand. “What a terrible thing! It is because of the good God that you are alive, eh?”

  “Indeed it is.” Benny reached out to touch the crucifix on a leather string around the woman’s wrinkled neck. “God has had His hand on us for the last two days.” She paused. “Do you know Him?”

  “Yes, my daughter. He is my Father and my Friend. I saw in your faces that you belong to Him. I told Noé that it would be good to take you in.”

  “Mama Marta is wiser than many libraries full of books.” Ana Maria took the skillet and wiped it briskly with a clean cloth. “She thinks you will bring us good luck. We will sell many oranges and get a big price for the bananas.”

  Benny laughed. “I don’t know about that, but if you have room for us, we’ll work hard in whatever way we can. How far are you going?”

  “Ciudad Victoria is less than an hour away.” Noé, engaged in pulling up a tent stob, looked over his shoulder. “We’ll stop there for water and gas, then go on to the border at Reynosa.”

  Benny clapped her hands. “Wonderful! When can we go?”

  “As soon as we pack the tent.”

  Owen helped roll up the tent, pack the poles and store the camping supplies in the truck. He laughed until he cried, watching Ana Maria coax fat Fernanda into her trailer by placing hunks of banana, one at a time, along a ramp composed of two stout planks. He wondered if the pig would have been so greedy if she’d known she was headed for her execution.

  Noé, Ana Maria and Marta piled into the cab of the truck. Two chickens, the rooster and the fruit filled the back, except for a tight corner near the cab, where Benny wedged herself with the two children. Owen, perched on top of a wooden crate, negotiated Jefe and Reyna’s squabble over who would get to sit in Benny’s lap. Jefe, younger but of far stronger personality, wound up in the seat of honor, with Reyna and her doll snuggled under Benny’s arm.