Luz and the others considered themselves very lucky, she told Matt. Living next to I-FEED’s Mexico headquarters, they sometimes got rounded up by Hector Diaz and taken to a feeding station where they ate like kings and queens for a day. Besides that, the restaurant on the other side of the alley emptied diners’ plates into a collection of smelly trash cans near the children’s cardboard-box houses. This meant lots of half-eaten tortillas, fatty scraps from carne asada, and sometimes burned frijoles. What more could you ask for?
Well, glue, as it turned out. Matt could hardly stand to think about this, and remembering it made him so upset that he ended up back on the outskirts of Amarillo once more. As he started trying to retrace his route back toward Granny’s neighborhood, he thought about Luz offering to share her glue with him. She was huffing—inhaling glue fumes. So were all the others, including little Hernán, who couldn’t be more than three years old and didn’t even have underpants.
It turned out this was what the street children did most of the day when they weren’t begging for money. They sniffed glue and then sat around in a daze, destroying their brains before they’d even had a chance to put anything into them. They had never been to school, and they knew nothing. Nothing at all. Didn’t know the world was round, didn’t know they lived in Mexico, didn’t know how to count or read. They’d never heard of God or Jesus. All they knew were the streets where they’d been born and dumped.
Heartsick, Matt had tried to tell Luz how dangerous it was to huff glue. She just laughed and urged him to try it. He pushed her away and retreated to the farthest corner of the biggest box and tried to sleep. It had been a terrible night.
At one point he woke up and found out that something even worse was going on. Even now, as he drove around and around in Amarillo, Texas, it just didn’t seem real to Matt. What happened was that Luz, who told Matt she thought she was eight or nine years old, had found a man. They were under a couple of burlap sacks in the alley. After they were done, he gave Luz money. And then she went out to look for another man. This was what she did every night, she admitted to Matt.
The next morning, Matt had taken Luz aside and had given her nearly all his cash, his watch, and his laptop. He told her to use whatever money she could get from selling his things to feed herself and the others. And not to use it to buy glue. And not to let any more men buy her body. He could barely speak to her without breaking down, but he talked in the sternest way he knew how—like a really firm father.
Luz hugged him, her skinny arms barely able to reach around his waist, and then she went skipping away with the little ones following behind. Matt walked all the way back to the bridge, all the way across to the Texas side, and all the way to the parking lot, where he found that his pickup had been towed. The whole time, he thought about Luz.
Luz was why, in spite of wishing he could be safe with Josefina and Hernando, Matt knew he was going to get that USB key to I-FEED. He understood now that both Hector Diaz and Josiah Karume were at the food summit in Paris. Mr. Banyon had been planning to travel there himself, and he had told Matt he’d scheduled a meeting with Karume, who was chairman-elect of the organization. Mr. Banyon intended to give the information to Karume at their meeting. So Matt decided he would find some way to get to France and complete the mission. He would turn the data over to Karume or die trying. What choice did he really have?
Somebody had to do something. Somebody had to feed Luz—or she would keep on huffing glue in order to dull her brain enough to let men rape her so she could buy food for the children who looked to her as their mother and protector.
And that wasn’t right.
It wasn’t the way God had planned the world. Jesus had commanded His followers to feed the hungry. He said whatever you do to the least of these, you do to Me. Luz was the least of these. In some mysterious way that Matt didn’t quite understand, whatever happened to Luz was happening to Jesus.
The memory of Luz and that creep under the burlap sacks sickened Matt and made him so angry that when he actually turned onto Granny Strong’s street, he almost didn’t recognize it. But there it was. The boxy little houses lined up in two neat rows on either side of a narrow street. Skinny driveways and one-car garages. Square yards, their new spring grass already withering in the heat.
And right on Granny’s front porch, smoking a cigarette, stood one of the men who had taken Matt out of school and threatened him. One of the men who had murdered Jim Banyon.
NINE
Vince Grant’s cell phone chimed the opening notes to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” right in the middle of the sermon on Sunday morning. Cheryl Grant gasped and threw her elbow into her husband’s side. Several in the congregation turned to scowl at him. Vince couldn’t care less. Sliding the phone from the case on his belt, he peered at the message.
Mack Harwood.
Abruptly standing, he felt his heavy leather Bible slide from his lap to the polished oak floor. The thud echoed from the high, gilded church ceiling, but the sound barely registered.
It was about time his security man got back in touch. Though he was seething with anger, Vince wore a blank expression as he stalked down the aisle. Harwood had last checked in early Friday morning, and he had promised to have the stolen files in his possession by that evening.
“Harwood, where the devil have you been?” Vince barked as he exited the sanctuary into the narthex. “Tell me you have the data.”
“Not at the moment, sir, but I will have it in hand by the end of the day.”
“Not at the moment, Harwood? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sir, the boy has proved to be more elusive than we anticipated. He’s definitely on the run, and it’s clear he has a plan in mind. We just have to anticipate his next move.”
“Well, where is he now?”
“We believe he left Mexico—”
“You believe? You believe he left Mexico? Don’t you know where he is?”
“Sir, the boy has temporarily vanished from our radar screens, but we expect him to surface at any time. We stopped the father from searching for him, and we’ve got the grandmother under tight surveillance. We’re also doing—”
“Don’t tell me what you’re doing, Harwood.” Vince could feel perspiration seeping through his starched white shirt. “I don’t care what you’ve already done or what you’re planning to do. I care about my stolen files! Your job is to retrieve them, and I expect that to happen. Today!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Harwood, you’ve done good work for me to this point, and I’ve paid you well. Isn’t that right?”
“Correct, sir.”
“You have a wife, two grown sons, a nice house, a loyal security force, and an employer who has given you his trust. In a matter of days, your position stands to be upgraded in a big way with twice the salary and three times the personnel. I’m sure you have no intention of letting all this slip out of your hands. But I promise you…if those files are not retrieved…if the information contained on them is leaked to the media…Harwood, you can kiss your future with Agrimax goodbye. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“I do, sir. And let me assure you—”
“Don’t assure me of anything. Just find the kid and get the CDs, USB key…whatever.”
“Yes, sir.”
Vince switched off his phone and slipped it back into its case. At the far end of the narthex, an elderly deacon was frowning at him. The man refrained from speaking, unwilling to admonish the CEO of Agrimax.
Organ music swelled to a crescendo as Vince stepped back into the cool quiet of the sanctuary. Good, the service was over. He and Cheryl would make their round of obligatory greetings and then head to the country club for lunch. After that, he would play eighteen holes with his top aide. That would give Vince the opportunity to discuss the situation privately and make plans. At this moment, though, he couldn’t see any way out of the mess. If the boy handed those files to the media, Vince might as well put a bullet
through his brain.
“Vince Grant!” The pastor pumped his hand as he and Cheryl moved toward the door. “Your phone—I hope everything is all right?”
“His mind is always at work, Reverend White,” Cheryl said. “I must have told him a hundred times to turn that thing off!”
“I certainly understand,” the minister said. “God bless you both.”
Vince knew no one would mention the cell phone again. The church counted on his sizable monthly donations. His money came in handy when the church missions committee started on about feeding the world. Bleeding hearts loved to point out that the world produced enough food to feed everyone. If only the rich nations would share with the poor nations, they whined, everyone on earth could eat.
Vince had nothing but contempt for this line of reasoning. He privately scorned the goody-two-shoes relief organizations that handed out commodities to the Third World’s hordes. He knew that only an efficient distribution system would solve world hunger. And when his plan was in place, the people who produced would have food. The others didn’t deserve it.
“God bless you, too, Reverend,” Vince said, stepping out into the sunshine.
Cole knew two things. Jill Pruitt was dead. And he was trapped. Everything else blurred in and out of his brain, mingling with the pain and fear and rage. As the hours passed, cars and trucks drove over the bridge above him, and not one stopped. He yelled until he was hoarse, and nobody came. Mosquitoes feasted on his bare skin, peppering his ankles where he couldn’t scratch. Flies buzzed around his head and sat on his closed eyelids. Jill’s fingertips changed color from pale white to a sickly green to purple. And now they were turning black.
Whenever he managed to rouse himself into alertness, Cole used his energy to shout or to try to maneuver his way out of the car. When he was too tired or in too much pain to move, he thought about Anna and how deeply he had loved her. She had been a pretty little spitfire—kind of like Jill, only with dark hair and soft brown eyes and a heart only for her home and family. He missed Anna still, even though years had gone by since her death.
Would Anna know him when they met on the streets of Heaven? No doubt she’d be wearing a many-jeweled crown, and the angels would bless her as they passed by on the golden streets. Cole was certain he would be admitted through those pearly gates. He had accepted Christ as his Savior when he was ten years old. But had his life borne any fruit since that day? Or did he resemble the rich landowner in Jesus’s parable—the man who had built big barns filled with grain and had laid up not a single treasure in Heaven?
This startling possibility put Cole’s thoughts on a straight track to the truth about his relationship with his son. He had been a lousy father. Some realities became crystal clear when a man was twisted into a mangled automobile and figured he was likely to die pretty soon.
Jill had been right in making accusations against Cole. His sole focus had been the ranch—just like his own father before him. There was work to do, after all. A lot of work. A man could always convince himself that he really was loving his family by doing that work. Children had to be fed, didn’t they? And housed and clothed and sent to college?
But it was a lie.
Cole worked because he loved working. Ranching was something he could do well. Very well. He had made a success of himself, unlike his own father, who had let the land suffer until the ranch was threatened with foreclosure. But Cole had saved the place and had built it into a monument to his own ingenuity and fortitude. People praised him for what he had done…and he was proud.
He loved his ranch in the same way a man might love a faithful, well-trained dog. The ranch couldn’t talk back or argue. It never asked anything of him he couldn’t give. It never made demands that he couldn’t meet. It only required time and energy, and then it gave him everything it could in return.
People needed more than that, and Cole never had been sure what to do with those needs. He didn’t know how to really talk. Or listen. Both his father and the ranch had taught him to be hard, tough, unbending. Why was it so difficult to be tender?
If he ever got out of this car, he would change that one thing about himself for certain. He would love Matt better. He would spend time with his son—converse with him, hear him, try to learn what made the boy tick. And then he’d tick right along with Matt the best he could.
Penny Ames filtered in and out of Cole’s thoughts now and then. He remembered how much he enjoyed kissing her. He reflected on their first meeting—a water-rights dispute. Penny’s law firm had represented the ranchers of Southeastern New Mexico, and somehow during the hours of interminably tedious meetings, Cole had fallen in love with the pretty young attorney.
At least he thought he was in love with Penny. She certainly made him feel alive again, after so many years of dormancy following Anna’s death. Penny liked Matt, too, and Cole cherished the hope that she would make his son a good mother.
But lying there in the ditch, he wasn’t so sure anymore. Penny didn’t really “get” Matt any better than most people. Sure, she teased the boy…even kind of flirted with him. She didn’t admire him, though. Not the way Jill had. Penny never had understood where Matt was coming from, or what he meant when he talked about the things that interested him. She thought his obsessions were “funny.” He was amusing to her, like a curiosity or a toy that could be put away when it ceased to be interesting.
Cole wished mightily that Jill hadn’t died. If they were pinned in here together, she would have many things to tell him. She would argue with him and provoke him and make him laugh. She would talk about God and speculate on why all this had happened. And she would reassure him that God hadn’t abandoned them.
Cole found a plastic cup from Jill’s supper and let the fetid creek water trickle into it as he’d been doing all day. He poured a little water into his mouth and swallowed. It tasted of coolant and trash and sewage and every other disgusting thing that humans tossed into rivers when they didn’t know any better. If he didn’t die from his injuries, he’d probably die of typhoid.
And somehow, watching the shadows lengthen and thinking about Jill’s dead body above him, Cole wept. Not for where he was and what had happened to him. He wept for what might have been. For Matt. And for Jill. And even for himself.
Matt could not figure out what to do. He felt as if he was frozen in some kind of a space-time warp, and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t make a decent plan. He knew the two men with Granny Strong and Billy were posing as USDA agents, but they worked for Agrimax. Three days ago, they had taken Matt out of class, threatened him, and then killed Mr. Banyon. They were murderers! But what could one unarmed kid do to rescue his grandmother and best friend?
After driving past Granny’s house, Matt parked the pickup at the far end of the street and turned everybody into mathematical integers. He lined them up on a scrap of paper he’d found in the glove compartment—Granny, Billy, Thug A, Thug B and himself. He gave each person a different letter of the alphabet, and then he started working on the problem. He put the integers into different formulas; then he factored in sets of variables in an attempt to predict the possible outcomes of actions he might take.
It turned out to be another one of his dumb ideas. People couldn’t be turned into math formulas, Matt realized after about an hour of this, because they were too unpredictable. One option he came up with was to drive his pickup right through the front door, then grab Granny and Billy and take off. But who knew where everyone was sitting inside the house? What if he plowed Granny and Billy down? Then he’d be charged with killing three people instead of just one. He couldn’t bear the thought of having any part in another death of someone he loved.
For a while, Matt considered calling Granny Strong’s house and pretending to be somebody else. But if Granny didn’t recognize his voice, how would he warn her to get out of the house? Even if he somehow managed to tell her what was happening, how could she and Billy ever slip past the man standing at the front do
or?
What about the back door? Matt recalled that Granny kept a spare key on the overhead ledge. Could he create a diversion at the front of the house and sneak Granny and Billy out the back way?
Matt looked again at his scrap of paper listing all the integers and variables. His eye fell on the juxtaposition of three numbers. 9-1-1. With a jolt, he sat upright and started the pickup. Telephone. He needed to get to a telephone.
A nearby convenience store had a pay phone outside, he recalled. Fishing in his pocket for change as he drove the four blocks, Matt rehearsed what he would say. He pulled into a parking space, left the truck idling, hurried to the wall-mounted phone, and dropped in the quarters.
“Two armed men have broken into an old woman’s home,” he blurted out after the dispatcher answered. He gave his grandmother’s address and then added, “The men kidnapped a teenager and murdered a rancher named Jim Banyon in New Mexico.”
“Sir, how do you know this?” the dispatcher asked.
“Just send the police—and hurry!” Matt hung up and raced back to his pickup. Seconds later, he parked the truck around the corner from Granny Strong’s house. Drawing on his memories of playing in the neighborhood as a child, he cut through Irene Williams’s yard next door, skirted a swingset and crouched behind a rosebush to wait for the police.
When he heard the wail of a siren, he darted to the kitchen door. He stood on tiptoe and slipped the key from the ledge. He sure hoped he could pull this off. Clutching the key, he leaned toward the window, hoping he wouldn’t be seen. Through the glass, he identified Granny and Billy seated at the kitchen table. They were playing Skip-Bo. Granny held a handful of cards and had a victorious smirk on her face. She was winning—like always.
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