Kitty drew in a deep breath, exhaled, and stared into José's pleading brown eyes. “All right, José. Get your shoes on, Jordan,” she said, pulling her apron off. “Let me get my things and we'll be right out.”
The sun was slowly dropping in the evening sky, tall gray thunderhead clouds lined the western horizon, and the streetlights hadn't come on yet. Blue sky still hung overhead, but it was being pushed away, swallowed up by the certainty of a coming storm.
Jordan did as he was told, running quickly to the bedroom that was now his to grab his tennis shoes. He could hear Kitty rummaging through the closet in the bathroom. He'd seen her launch into action before, knew her routine of preparation like it was written down.
Jordan felt numb, afraid as he sat on the edge of the bed to put on his tennis shoes. He had never been to the Mexicans' camp before, and the sight of blood on José's hands made his stomach queasy. More than anything else, he wished Spider was with him, was able to go with them. He wouldn't be so afraid then. Spider would be teasing him, smacking him in the back of the head when Kitty wasn't looking, making him laugh when he wasn't supposed to.
Kitty appeared at the door, her arms full of towels, and a heavily worn blue canvas bag thrown over her shoulder. “Maybe you shouldn't go,” Kitty said. “Holister and Celeste are gone, and I don't know if Ginny's home or not to watch you. I really don't want to leave you here by yourself.”
“I want to go,” Jordan lied. He didn't want to stay by himself, either.
“Are you sure?”
“Somebody's hurt, right? And you can help them?”
“I hope so,” Kitty said, her soft eyes focused on Jordan, a sad frown on her face. “Come on, then, let's go.”
He followed Kitty into the living room, a small twenty-by-twenty room with a red brick fireplace centered on the outside wall, the mantle lined with trinkets and family pictures. Heavy wool rugs covered the hardwood floors, and furniture that had been there ever since Jordan could remember surrounded the fireplace. A green brocade sofa his mother called a Davenport, two light yellow high-back winged chairs, the arms covered with lace doilies, and a coffee table with a glass top that never had seen a fleck of dust on it. It looked the same as it always had. Nothing ever moved or changed in Kitty's house.
“There's not anything to be afraid of at the camps,” Kitty said, making her way into the kitchen. She sat the canvas bag onto the simple wood kitchen table, and started searching through the pantry where she kept her herbs. It only took her a second to find what she was looking for; the jars were in alphabetical order. Kitty quickly packed the jars in the bag and slung it over her shoulder.
“I know,” he answered. “Will I have to see any blood?”
“No, heavens no, you can sit in the truck and wait if you like.”
Jordan sighed and followed her out of the house. “Okay.”
The thunderheads on the horizon had reached the house, covered it with a thick gray blanket, and the breeze was now a constant wind coming out of the southwest.
Jordan climbed into the truck's bed and sat in the opposite corner of the girl, who had moved from the passenger seat. She looked to be nine or ten, and just stared at him, her eyes big and wide like buttons on a black leather coat. She was barefoot and wore a thin blue flowered dress with mustard stains on her chest. Her feet were dirty and her knees were caked with dust from the fields. He could see tear streaks down her cheeks, dry riverbeds etched in a red dirt desert.
“Hola,” Jordan said softly. It was one of the few Spanish words he'd learned since coming to live with Kitty.
The little girl looked away, toward the darkness on the horizon, and coughed.
Kitty eased into the passenger seat and slammed the door closed. The back window was open. José yelled out for the girl and Jordan to hold on, first in Spanish, then in English, and let his foot off the brake.
Jordan watched the dust dissipate behind them as José gunned the truck down the alley and out onto Lincoln Street. The wind blew in his face, and he could hear nothing but the truck's engine rumbling as they passed through town. He saw Sam Peterson delivering newspapers from his bike and eased deeper into the bed of the truck so Sam wouldn't see him. The last thing he needed right now was Sam giving him a hard time about hanging out with the Mexicans. They'd fought the week before because Sam called Kitty a spic lover.
They headed west toward the SunRipe plant on Main Street, crossed the railroad tracks, passed by the American legion, and turned left onto an unmarked gravel road. Tomatoes by the truckload had already started to arrive from as far away as Arkansas. A small crew of migrants came in the spring to hoe the fields, and they were trickling into town now for the coming harvest. The early arrivals worked in the fields pulling weeds the herbicides wouldn't kill, and in the plant coring and sorting the out-of-state tomatoes. Jordan could smell the sour, acidic odor from the plant. It wasn't as bad as rotten eggs, but it was close. He pulled his shirt over his nose as they drove by the plant.
The little girl laughed, and started coughing again.
“Do you speak English?” Jordan yelled.
The little girl shook her head.
“Are you all right?”
The girl stared at him and cupped her hand over her mouth.
Jordan didn't know whether to believe her or not. Most Mexicans said no when they were asked if they spoke English.
The sun had disappeared behind the clouds, darkness was coming earlier than normal due to the impending storm. Rain was in the air, the smell sweet and fresh, overwhelming the odor from the plant. The first clap of thunder rumbled in the west, barely loud enough to hear over the roar of the truck's engine.
Kitty looked out the back window and yelled above the noise of the wind and truck the best she could. “You all right?”
Jordan nodded. The little girl smiled at Kitty and coughed again.
“I've got some medicine for that cough—I'll give it to you once we stop,” Kitty said.
José said something Jordan did not understand, and Kitty agreed, sadly shaking her head.
The road straightened for about a half mile past the plant. The girl stared at the sky, and Jordan followed her gaze. The clouds were rippling in layers; thin whispers of white wandering aimlessly under the thick gray thunderheads, swirling, dancing like scarves thrown from an invisible army of ballerinas. Every once in a while he felt a raindrop. He could taste nothing but the dust rising from the road, and the vibration from the gravel road under the truck sounded like popcorn popping.
Jordan saw a house off to the side of the road, vanishing in the dust as José sped up trying to outrun the storm. It took him a minute to realize the house was where Tito Cordova had lived. It was abandoned, the front yard covered with tall weeds and all of the windows broken out. He tried not to think about Tito anymore.
José slowed the truck and Tito's house disappeared completely. They turned right onto another gravel road, and then turned immediately right again onto a dirt lane that ran between two tomato fields. A line of shacks fronted the road, and old beat-up cars and pickup trucks were parked haphazardly, anywhere they could fit, among them. Some of the shacks, which didn't look any bigger than Kitty's living room and were in need of a coat of paint, had the lights on, but most of them were dark, still vacant. He peered over his shoulder, through the windshield, and saw a crowd of people, seven or eight Mexicans, standing on the front porch of the last shack on the lane. They were waving at José. Not because they were glad to see him, but because they were panicked.
Sprinkles turned into an earnest rain with large drops blowing sideways in the wind.
“My momma is going to die,” the little girl said.
“What?” Jordan asked, pulling his shirt over his head to keep as dry as he could.
“El diablo es flojo. The devil is loose. And he's coming to take us all away.” Her English was broken, but a lot clearer than Jordan expected. He couldn't tell if her tears had returned or if her face was wet from the
rain, and he didn't care because she had lied to him about not speaking English, had made him feel stupid.
The truck came to a stop and José and Kitty jumped out. José reached into the bed and picked up the little girl. She broke into a coughing fit. “Come on now, my little Rosa, your momma will be all right. The abuela will not let her die,” he said.
Kitty hurried to the tailgate and pulled it open. “I want you to wait in the truck, Jordan.”
He took Kitty's hand and jumped down onto the road. It was already turning to mud. Kitty ushered him into the cab and said, “No matter what, Jordan, I want you to stay right here. Don't move unless I call for you. Do you understand?” She looked after José and the girl, a concerned look in her eyes that frightened Jordan.
He knew that tone in her voice, and he wasn't about to argue. He wished he'd stayed at home the way it was. “Yes, ma'am.”
The crowd on the porch parted as Kitty and José made their way inside the shack. The little girl vanished into the arms of an older Mexican woman wearing a red shawl. Rain bounced off the roof of the truck and flowed down the windshield. It was like he was sitting behind a waterfall. The people on the porch were distorted; he could barely tell one from the other and they all looked connected, swaying back and forth.
His T-shirt and baseball hat were soaked to his skin, and he was cold. The inside of the truck smelled like cigarette smoke and beer, like his father's tavern. As odd as it was, the smells gave Jordan the first bit of comfort he'd had since they'd left the house, and he quickly fell asleep.
A loud voice, followed by a long extended scream, woke him up. Jordan sat straight up and looked at the shack. It was lit from the inside and he could see shadows moving beyond the thin curtains. The crowd had left; only the little girl was sitting on the front step, holding a candle. He looked at the clock in the dashboard, drew his face close so he could read it, and saw that it was almost midnight.
The door opened and Kitty's silhouette filled the doorway. She stepped out, stopped and crouched down by the girl, hugged her, and pulled a bottle of homemade cough syrup—honey and whiskey—out of her bag. Rosa was crying again. Kitty stood slowly, her bag slung over her shoulder, and made her way to the truck.
José Rivero followed, carrying a small bundle of blankets. Even in the dark Jordan could see the redness in José's eyes, and his shoulders were slumped as if he had just been beaten in a basketball game after trying to win really hard. Kitty opened the door and motioned for Jordan to slide over. He did, not taking his eyes off José as he put the bundle of blankets in the bed behind the cab.
“I'm sorry it took so long, honey,” Kitty said as she eased into the seat. She smelled like sweat, like she'd been working hard in the garden. She smelled like something else, too. The smell was metallic, he could taste the sharpness of blood on his tongue.
“Did you help her?” Jordan asked, pulling away from Kitty.
“We did the best we could.”
José climbed into the truck and put the key in the ignition. He hesitated, touched the crucifix, and then made a cross against his chest. His shirt was covered with blood.
“Shouldn't you go to the priest, José? To Father Michael?”
“Please, señora, you do not understand.”
“There is nothing to understand, José, there is only the right thing to do, and the wrong thing to do.”
“Padre Michael can do nothing, would do nothing even if he knew what has happened. Nina was unmarried. The baby is . . . was a, oh, how do you say, um, a bastardo. It had no father, the church will not baptize a child of this sort. It is condemned to eternal damnation. I am sorry to speak this way in front of you, Jordan,” José said.
The engine revved to life as José turned the key. He flipped on the headlights, catching Rosa in the beams. She stood still as a statue as they pulled away, the candle stiff in her hands. Jordan wondered if she was trying to keep the devil away with the flame.
“You must take the baby to the funeral home then, José,” Kitty said.
“It is not the way things work for us, señora, not here, you know that is true. There is no money to pay the mortician. It is different for us.”
“What will you do?”
“It is best not to worry about it, señora. You have done enough for us, and I am very grateful that you saved my Nina's life. But please leave this to me, trust me to do what I must.”
It was silent all of the way back to town. José pulled up in front of the house on Harrison Street and stopped. Kitty grabbed the door handle. “This is not right, José,” she said.
“You must forget this night has happened. No one will ask any questions, so you will not have to lie. They would not care as it is. Just a dead Mexican baby. As invisible as the rest of us who toil the fields. It may be better off.”
“That's a terrible thing to say, José.”
“It is the truth,” José said. He reached over and pulled the door closed. “Gracias.”
Kitty stepped up to the curb and headed to the house. Jordan followed, but he stopped midway to the front door. He watched José's taillights as he pulled away, watched the red lights all of the way to Main Street where the truck turned right, east toward Longer's Pond, and then disappeared from sight.
July 11, 1986 10:15 P. M., Patzcuaro, Mexico
They called him El Fantasma, the ghost, because of his light skin, blue eyes, and his silent ways. One minute the boy would be standing next to the hundred-foot ceiba tree in the middle of the courtyard, and the next minute he would be gone. It was a game he played with the other children. He knew he was different, and he was accustomed to that, but he had found a new power since he'd arrived at El Refugio. Power in fear, power in making the other children uncertain of him. And he found he liked that. It evened the playing field when he was at a loss for words, when he didn't understand what someone was saying.
Slowly, the nuns were teaching him the language, and to his surprise, it was coming easy. The lessons made the days pass a little more easily, along with Mass and schooling and visits to the doctors—his life had fallen into a routine that was far different than what it had been before he arrived in Mexico.
But at night, when the owls hooted and screamed like an injured woman, he became scared. The nuns assured him that his mother was dead, that they were most certainly his legal guardians—but his dreams told him otherwise. His dreams told him she still walked the earth, but she was trapped in paradise, and she longed for him as much as he longed for her.
The owls were calling him home, and there was nothing he could do to escape what he heard in the wind as night fell and the lights in the orphanage were put out.
“Tito, Tito, where are you? Please come home. Please come home. Tito, Tito . . .”
CHAPTER 14
August 22, 2004, 7:29 A. M.
Angel Lamont was sitting in Spider's lap when Jordan walked out from the apartment. She looked over her shoulder when she heard him enter the tavern, smiled, and then gave Spider a deep, passionate kiss.
“Damn, Jordan, you look like shit,” Angel said, standing up.
“Seems to be the general consensus,” he said.
Angel chuckled, and took Spider's hand in hers. “You want some breakfast, baby?” Angel was about five foot five, with short blonde spiky hair cut around the ears like a man, and penetrating blue eyes set in a face that looked older, harder than it should have. She didn't wear makeup, and had a line of gem-studded earrings in her right ear and a single gold hoop in her left ear. When the light caught the earrings just right, her ear looked like a rainbow or a neon sign. Her body was tight, her arms muscular from lifting weights. A thin black leather bracelet adorned her right wrist, and a tattoo of a simple red heart with a sword through it peeked out of the black tank top she wore without a bra, just above her right breast.
Spider never had trouble attracting girls, especially after the accident. He never gave up the conquest. He loved women and they loved him. Jordan was never sure how he
did it, how Spider drew so many women into his life, but the best he could figure was that Spider never played the victim, never felt sorry for himself once he took over the tavern. What happened beyond that was none of Jordan's business; he'd never asked and he didn't want to know.
“Sure, I'm starved,” Spider said to Angel.
“Got the morning munchies is more like it,” Jordan added.
Angel let go of Spider's hand, grabbed the joint out of the ashtray, lit it, and took a deep hit. She exhaled and smiled. “You going to arrest him, officer?” she asked.
“I'm off duty, last I heard.” He sat down at the bar, took a quick look out the window across the street at the police station, tapped his fingers nervously on the bar, and reached for the pack of cigarettes he'd left there before showering.
“How do you like your eggs, Jordan?”
“I'm not eating. I've got too much to do.”
“Your choice,” Angel said, offering the joint to Spider.
He shook his head no. She ground out the roach and disappeared into the kitchen. They both watched her walk away.
“A little young for you, isn't she?”
“You should eat some breakfast and mind your own goddamned business,” Spider said. “She's had a tough time of it. There's a lot worse places she could have ended up than sittin' in my lap.”
Angel had succumbed to the lure of meth, tried it once and forever after had a taste for it that could not be quenched. She'd stole money from her mother, got caught shoplifting clothes in Morland to sell for drug money, and spent six months in jail. Spider had rescued her—Jordan knew the story, knew full well why Spider had her working in the tavern. He just didn't totally trust Angel, and truth be told, he was a little jealous of Spider. Jealous that Spider could save Angel, while he would not allow himself the same kind of heart to pull Ginny out of her horrible, fucked-up life.
Jordan put up his left hand and scrunched his shoulders. A motion that meant: All right, I get it. You're right. I overstepped my boundaries. Regardless of how separate their lives had been, there was still an unspoken language that existed between them. Subtle glances of victory and defeat, and silent acts of redemption that only they understood. They had not lost their ties of blood, or the bindings of the past, as they had grown into adulthood. They had just chosen to walk in different worlds, even though they only lived two blocks from each other.
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