Fatal Divide

by Jamie Jeffries

  Defeated, she climbed back down and crawled to a corner, where she slumped against the wall and allowed herself to cry. After a few minutes, though, thoughts of her predicament, worry for her husband, even her hunger, took a back seat to her need to pee. In shame, she crawled to the corner behind the ladder and lowered her pants, then squatted and did what was necessary.

  Disgust followed as she realized she had neither a way to wipe away the pee that clung to her, nor a way to clean her hands. Shuddering, she pulled up her clothes and made her way to the opposite corner. After a while, Wanda took up some dirt from the floor where she sat and rubbed it through her hands vigorously. It was all she could do.

  Minutes or hours passed, she couldn’t tell which. Being in this room was like being in something she’d read about — a sensory deprivation chamber. The temperature was steady, there was no sound, except her own breathing and occasional mutter to herself. When a scraping noise alerted her to the door above her head, she almost shouted with joy.

  Wanda called out. “Please! Let me out. I promise not to say anything. Please!” Strangely, though she was very hungry, she didn’t think to ask for food or even water. She just wanted out, no matter what that meant. Even if they planned to kill her, out was the goal. However, out was not in her captors’ plan. A rough hood was thrown down through the hold, and a gruff voice instructed her to put it on.

  Willing to comply with almost anything to gain some concessions, Wanda pulled it over her head and called that she had it on. She heard some shuffling, and smelled food. Then a thump nearby made her jump, but no one touched her.

  After a moment, the scraping returned, and Wanda dared take the hood off. The room remained pitch dark, but someone was now in the room with her. She could hear breathing, and there was food nearby if she could find it without spilling it.

  “Who’s here?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer. But, there was no answer. Carefully, she scooted sideways in the direction of the thump, patting the ground until her hands found the other person. Assuming the other was unconscious, she began exploring the body to find a clue as to his or her identity. A sinking feeling accompanied her exploration. The body felt very much like Hector’s — same size, same shape.

  She shifted her hands to the face, drawing back with a sharp cry when she encountered a thick, sticky moisture on the side of his head. It was blood, she knew without seeing. She raised her hand to her nose and confirmed it by the odor. “Hector?” she asked, too quietly, as if afraid to wake him up. Her hand went to his chest, where, to her relief, she found a strong heartbeat.

  Wanda threw herself on her unconscious husband’s chest, tears rolling down her face. “Hector, what did they do to you?” She hugged him fiercely, hoping against hope he would wake up.

  At last, when he remained unresponsive, she crawled back to find the food and was gratified to find a bottle of water as well. Rubbing her hands with what she hoped was clean dirt again, Wanda separated the food on the plate roughly in half, and ate her share of the mutton stew and beans with her fingers, since their captors hadn’t provided a utensil.

  She took only two sips of the water, conscious that she would need to share with Hector when he woke up, and they’d need to conserve it if they were to only get one bottle per day.

  When she was done, Wanda placed the plate and bottle close to the wall, near the corner. Then she crawled back to her husband and curled up with her head on his chest. At least she had him with her now.

  THIRTY-TWO

  7:00 a.m.

  Jimmy lit a cigarette, and then went outside to smoke it after Sophia sent him a poisonous look. He didn’t know what she was so pissed about. His own dad had smoked in the house; everyone he knew smoked in the house, kids or no kids. But he had more important things to worry about, so he didn’t want to spend any energy arguing with Sophia. He didn’t have any wish to harm the boy anyway.

  Anna had come to the house last night, upset because a deputy from Dodge had asked her questions. Jimmy also questioned her sharply, about exactly what the sheriff asked and what she answered. All of that had been okay. What concerned him now was what happened to Wanda. She told Anna she was going to ask around among the old people, and then she disappeared. Why?

  His best guess was that she had asked at the wrong house. He didn’t want to go bumbling after her, but he couldn’t get past the fact that she was probably in danger, if not dead, because of him. It was bad enough that his grandfather had been killed. He told the old man not to go to that meeting. He knew it was a trap, that the man Grandfather had spoken to on the phone was not the friend he claimed to be. When it came down to it, he refused to go, believing they wouldn’t harm the old man if he wasn’t there.

  Well, he’d been wrong. The fact that he’d be dead too, if he’d gone, wasn’t much comfort. It was his fault, and now Wanda could be facing the same fate, or already dead. Or, Los Reyes could be holding her as bait. If he went looking for her, they’d both end up dead anyway.

  Jimmy didn’t realize he was pacing in furious circles, waving his hand around and arguing with himself audibly, until Sophia came out to look at him. “Who are you talking to?” she asked, glancing around.

  “No one,” he muttered. “Go back in the house, woman.”

  She flinched and went back inside. Jimmy slammed his fist into the palo verde that shaded the back yard. Who could he trust? Who could he send in search of Wanda that wouldn’t end up just like her, either captured or dead? He wished he could decide which was the most likely. Hoped it was captured, even though his older cousin would be terrified.

  Dead was more final. If someone had her and was holding her to smoke him out, would they send a message? Or would they wait, assuming he would eventually come looking?

  They’d send a message, wouldn’t they? Of course they would. Jimmy kicked the palo verde, angered at his indecision. All right, he’d wait until noon. If there was no message by then, he’d have to think about who to contact. He went back into the house, roaring, “Where’s my breakfast, woman?”

  THIRTY-THREE

  7:00 a.m.

  Alex stepped outside, prompted by Dylan’s honk. In her hands she had two travel cups full of coffee and over her shoulder, the strap of her carry-bag cut deep, as if she had something very heavy in it. As soon as Dylan saw her, he jumped out of the cab and ran around the front to open her door, taking one of the coffees out of her hand.

  “Thanks,” she said, hauling herself into the seat with the sissy-strap. She set the other coffee cup in the holder on the console, and leaned forward to swing the strap over her head.

  “What have you got in there?” Dylan said. “Looks heavy.”

  “Just my tablet, a picnic lunch, and some muffins for breakfast.”

  Dylan started laughing.

  “What? What’s funny?” Alex asked.

  He tried to stop, but every time he thought about what had to be at least ten pounds of food in that bag, he snorted and started laughing again. Finally, he got control.

  “That thing has to weigh over ten pounds. You must have a week’s worth of food. They do have food on the rez, you know.”

  She looked ruefully at her bag, now sitting on the floor between her feet. “Well, I did put a couple of bottles of water in it. And we have no idea whether we’ll be near Sells, or even a village, at lunchtime. I’m just trying to be prepared.”

  “That’s okay, baby, you’re a good Boy Scout,” he said, suppressing the urge to laugh again. She looked offended. “Thank you for thinking of it.” He jerked his head to indicate the back seat. “I’ve got a case of water back there.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

  By then, they were leaving the southern edge of Dodge, and the sun was peeking up over the distant peaks of the Sauceda mountain range.

  “By the way, I called in and took personal leave, so we’ve got all day. Where do you want to start?” Dylan asked.

  “I guess the best place would be th
e market,” she said. “Do you think anyone would tell a stranger where to find Anna?”

  “Maybe if the stranger were Native,” he answered. “I don’t mind asking. Unless you...”

  “No, it’s okay. I want to do whatever will get us the fastest answers. Should we have gone over to check whether Wanda and Hector came home last night?”

  “Way ahead of you. Before I picked you up, I called, and then went over when I didn’t get an answer. There’s no change.”

  “That was smart. I would have hated to make this trip for no reason,” Alex said. “Look, Dylan. Is that antelope, or deer?”

  He ducked down to look out her window, to where she was pointing, but couldn’t see what she spotted.

  “Probably deer, if they’re very far from the road. Antelope are much smaller, and you’d have a hard time seeing them this early in the morning.”

  Dylan visually checked the road ahead of him, and then looked back at her. She was still staring out the window. He could only see a quarter of her profile, but he got the impression that she was soaking in the scenery. She didn’t often get to be a passenger on the desert roads. He was lucky to be the passenger at work half the time, so he could soak it in, too.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked, his voice quiet.

  Alex turned to him and revealed eyes bright with unshed tears. “I’m thinking I’ll miss this country when I move to Phoenix,” she said.

  Dylan’s heart did a stutter. He got it. She didn’t want to be stuck in tiny Dodge for the rest of her life. Hell, he didn’t either. He needed to be here for his mother and the boys. If not, he wouldn’t be here. But then, he wouldn’t have rekindled his feelings for Alex. So, no matter what pain it had cost him to come back, there was one good thing to come out of it, besides his brothers, of course.

  He understood Alex’s desire to escape. He couldn’t move the boys anytime soon, though. Even if he got them before the end of the year, they would still have to be near their mom, until the end. He’d been reading up on parenting too, and he figured he needed to let them settle for at least a year after his mom died or after they came into his custody. It wasn’t good for kids to have too many big changes too quickly.

  Dylan hadn’t responded to her remark, his thoughts turned inward. Before he knew it, they were at Why and he turned southeast, heading for Sells and the Baboquivari range. As if no time had passed, he said, “It is beautiful country, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t turn to look at her, needing to keep his eyes on the road with the sun at such a low angle and driving almost directly into it. But he heard the smile in her voice as she asked, “Where have you been, Dylan?”

  Surprised, he risked a glance at her. With the sun shining on her mahogany hair, she was the most beautiful thing in sight. He took a deep breath.

  “I’ve been thinking of how much I’m going to miss you when you move to Phoenix. Tell me there’s a chance we can work things out long-distance. I don’t want to lose you.”

  Her hand crept over the console to rest on his leg, and he covered it with his. “I’m not planning that far ahead, Dylan. Of course I still want to be friends, always. I just can’t see the future. Try to be patient with me, okay?”

  Dylan squeezed her hand. “Of course, baby. We’ll take it one day at a time.” Inside, he was panicking. How could he make her understand how important she was to him? Neither of them had grown up in a complete family. Did they know how to be one? He hoped to God they did, because he didn’t want the same life for his brothers, or for his future children. He wanted them to have a mother and a father.

  Right now, Alex looked a lot like the woman of his dreams — except in his dreams, she was always willing and eager to be with him. She wasn’t running off to Phoenix to pursue a career.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Alex was trying to keep her mind off Wanda and Hector by enjoying the scenery. Dylan’s anguish about her offhand remark came out of left field. He was trying to hide it, but she could feel him suffering. They’d already talked about this, though. Even though they were enjoying a physical relationship, until they were sure they had a future together she and Dylan were supposed to keep it casual. Was he changing the rules?

  She didn’t know anything about long-distance relationships, except what he told her when he broke up with her before leaving for school himself. He said they didn’t work. But, maybe long-distance was relative. After all, Phoenix was only a couple of hours from Dodge, give or take. She’d be back often to see her dad. He’d have to take the boys there for school shopping, at the very least. Unless he chose to go to Tucson instead. The point was, they could still see each other.

  Of more importance were their other differences. He’d been raised Catholic, though he didn’t seem to practice it. She’d been raised nothing. When she was younger, she went to Sunday school when her mom went to church, but she didn’t remember that; it was something she was told.

  After her mom left and Nana came to live with them, no one went to church. Her Nana was a free spirit, her dad always said. Alex suspected that meant that Nana was a hippie in her day. Her dad didn’t go to church either, but she didn’t know if he had before. She thought he’d changed, after her mom left, but it was so long ago that now it was just a ghost of a memory. She couldn’t point to anything specific. Anyway, there was the matter of religion.

  She didn’t care that he was Native and she wasn’t, but she suspected finding out he was full O’odham changed things for Dylan. She’d have to wait and see how that worked out, because she didn’t know how she’d feel about it if he got more involved with the tribe. Or, how he’d feel about her if he did.

  Dylan had only been back in town for a few months, not long enough for them to get to know each other the way you know someone to commit to a lifetime with them. It was true they’d had some intense times since then. He’d hurt her once though, left with no contact and no sign of remorse. Would he do it again? Could she trust him not to?

  It was too soon to know. For now, she liked being with him. More than liked, maybe. He was as good to look at as he ever was. She more than enjoyed their intimate moments, and he made her feel safe. But was that enough? At nineteen, she was a lot smarter about love than she’d been at fifteen, when he’d swept her off her feet.

  Alex was prepared to take things slow, enjoy his company and wait for something more than lust to develop between them. Now it seemed that Dylan might not be. It made her sad; she had no desire to hurt him. She wanted something like Wanda and Hector had. Not that she could see any sexual heat between them, but then they’d been married forever. Maybe that didn’t last. Wanda adored Hector, and he, for all his taciturn ways, loved Wanda more than life. That’s what she wanted.

  Thinking about Wanda reminded her they had a monumental task ahead of them, and they were going blind.

  “Dylan, do you know how many people live on the rez?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’ll bet Anna Redhawk will. A good ballpark, anyway. I wonder if we could get her to go with us when we start searching. I don’t even know whether Wanda would have started with people in town or in the remote villages,” he answered.

  “Where would you start? As a law officer, I mean?” she asked. “You know more about the cartels than I realized.”

  “We have to deal with their fallout,” he said. “We’re always getting updates from the feds, and sometimes the people we pick up on ORPI land tell us things. I really should make an effort to learn more Spanish, though. I don’t speak enough to get what they say, sometimes.”

  “I wonder why they don’t specify bilingual when they recruit?” said Alex.

  “They do, but they have trouble filling LE positions in this park,” Dylan answered. “It was designated the most dangerous national park to work in back in 2008, when that ranger was killed.”

  She shivered. “Are you safe?”

  “As safe as I can be,” he answered. “They send us out with partners now, and we’re armed.
Things have changed since then.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to lose you, either.”

  Once they started talking, the miles seemed to go faster, and before long they were in Sells, cruising the streets looking for groups of people. Alex was disappointed not to see a farmer’s market or flea market somewhere. It seemed Basha’s grocery was the only game in town.

  Dylan parked his pickup and the pair automatically clasped hands as they walked toward the store. Inside, they found a crush of shoppers that matched the full parking lot outside. Alex paused, unsure how to start a conversation leading to Anna Redhawk’s whereabouts. Dylan pulled her forward and walked up to one of the checkers whose line was empty for the moment.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but do you know Anna Redhawk? She is my grandmother’s sister, and I’ve come a long way to visit.” It sounded like a very thin cover story to Alex, but the woman broke into a wreath of smiles.

  “I know her. You want to see her?” she said.

  “Yes, please. Can you tell me how to get to her house?”

  “I could, but there is no need. That’s Anna.” The woman pointed with her chin at a short, rotund woman of Wanda’s age who was waiting at the bakery for her turn to order. Alex had a moment of panic. What would happen when Dylan walked up to her and she didn’t know him? But Dylan apparently didn’t share the same apprehension. He was already striding confidently in Anna’s direction. Alex hurried after him.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Dylan followed the eyes of the checker to the woman standing in the bakery counter line. From the back, she could have been Wanda. The resemblance gave him the confidence that he could talk to this woman, not like law enforcement, but like an acquaintance. He started walking over and got halfway there before he remembered Alex. She wasn’t beside him, but that was best. He hoped she understood to hang back a bit.