by Sharon Sala
At that point, one of the guards called out to her.
“Señorita!”
She turned, purposefully arching her back as she looked at him over one shoulder.
“Yes?”
He smiled, then held the door open for her.
“You are free to go. Have a safe trip.”
She flashed him a quick smile as she slid behind the steering wheel.
“Thanks so much,” she said.
“De nada,” he replied.
She was still smiling as she drove into Mexico.
* * *
The sun had gone down hours ago. More than once, Cat had thought about pulling off to the side of the road, crawling into the back of her SUV and sleeping until daylight, but she hadn’t done it yet. Part of her reasoning was that, even if she stopped, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. And even though she was driving on a well-defined road, it wasn’t well-kept. The potholes were only slightly less startling than the armadillos and coyotes she kept dodging.
It was sometime after midnight when nature finally called loudly enough that she had to pull over. With nothing remotely resembling a gas station or a diner at which to stop, she chose the nearest cactus. After grabbing a flashlight from the glove box, she aimed the beam all around, making sure there were no snakes nearby before undoing her jeans.
A minute later she was zipping up her jeans and about ready to head back to her car when she heard something that didn’t fit in with the night sounds of a desert. She held her breath, waiting to see if she could hear it again, and when she did, a chill ran up her spine. Unless she was mistaken, she’d just heard a baby crying, which made no sense. According to her maps, the nearest village was about twenty miles south.
Still, she listened, trying to convince herself that it must have been an animal—one that just sounded human.
Then she heard it again, and this time, the wail was accompanied by another sound—the yipping of a pack of coyotes.
The implications of those two sounds together was frightening. Cat grabbed her flashlight, then ran for her car. She started the engine, then swerved off the road on which she’d been traveling and headed slowly out into the desert in the direction from which she’d heard the sound. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be far. She just had to make sure she didn’t drive off into some arroyo and get herself stuck.
As she drove, the rougher ground caused the beams from the headlights to bounce up and down, giving her nothing but brief glimpses of the landscape. Once she braked and hung her head out the window to see if she could hear that same haunting cry, but either the engine was too loud or the sound had stopped. One thing was for certain, her presence had scared away the coyotes. She didn’t hear them anymore.
Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she ducked back into the car and accelerated slowly. Just when she thought she’d imagined the whole thing, a flash of red and yellow caught her eye. As she turned toward the color, she quickly realized it was a blanket—covering a woman.
The woman was lying on her side, facing the headlights of Cat’s car.
She wasn’t moving, which any normal person would have done if they’d been faced with headlights coming toward them.
Cat’s stomach lurched as she hit the brakes and slammed the car into park. She got out on the run, trying not to think of how she’d found Marsha’s body by the color of the coat she’d been wearing. Within seconds, she was on her knees beside the woman, feeling for a pulse.
There was none.
She reached for the blanket, her hand shaking, then pulled it back and shined the flashlight—into the face of a baby, who was looking right back at her.
It wasn’t until the baby closed its eyes against the glare of the flashlight that she realized it was still alive.
“Oh God…baby…poor baby. Poor little baby.”
But when she tried to pick it up, the mother’s grip—even in death—was so fierce that Cat couldn’t pull the baby free. By now the baby was wailing again, but the sound was so weak, it was scary. Cat had no way of knowing how long they’d lain like this—or how long it had been since the baby had been fed. Finally she managed to pull the mother’s arms away and gather the baby up into her arms.
The scent of urine and feces was strong as she headed for her car. She opened the back hatch of the SUV, using the flat surface as a changing table, and began a quick check of the baby.
It was a girl. Except for almost certain dehydration and an incredibly dirty diaper, she could see no obvious bruises or injuries. She didn’t know much about babies, but this lethargy couldn’t be good.
She tossed the filthy diaper out into the darkness, then began cleaning the tiny child with some of the antiseptic hand wipes she kept up front. Within moments, the baby began to shiver. Cat stripped off her own sweater and, using it like a blanket, covered up the child. She knew the little girl was in need of food and clothing, but short of giving up her sweater, she had nothing. Praying that the mother had the foresight to have been carrying supplies, she made a quick run back to the body.
The headlights were still on, keeping the tragedy in the spotlight. Cat wanted to scream, to cry and rage at the injustice of what was before her, but there was no time. The baby’s survival might depend on what she could find.
At first she saw nothing, but she wouldn’t give up. She couldn’t believe that a mother would be out here, this far from anything, without food and water for herself and the baby.
She crouched with her back to the headlights and searched the darkness with her flashlight. The scent of death and the desert were strong in her nose as she swept the small beam out into the night. Within seconds, she saw what appeared to be a large bundle a few feet away. Lunging toward it, she grabbed it, then ran, dashing past the headlights to the back of her car. She laid the bundle inside, near the baby, and opened it up. Within seconds, a scorpion crawled out from the folds, its upturned tail curled threateningly as it moved.
“Son of a bitch!” Cat yelped, and swept the scorpion and the entire bundle out of the car and into the dirt before anything else could crawl out.
The sweater she’d laid on the baby was now down around its feet, and the night air on the little girl’s fragile skin was chilling her moment by moment, reminding Cat that she didn’t have time to be squeamish.
She stomped the scorpion into the dirt, grinding it beneath the heel of her boot, then went down on her knees, using the flashlight to search for what she needed. To her relief, she found a handful of disposable diapers. It had been years since she’d diapered a baby, but it did not deter her. The chore had been part of her life while living in foster care. After a few missteps, she finally figured out how to make the little tabs stick and the task was done. The diaper sagged sideways, but it stayed put. Her hands were shaking as she went back to the bundle. When she found a handful of baby clothes, she breathed another sigh of relief. After giving the clothing a vigorous shake, she dressed the little girl in a small T-shirt, then wrapped her up in a clean baby blanket.
A brief sob slipped out from between clenched teeth as she put her sweater back on. For a few silent moments, she stared down at the baby, knowing that her efforts could be too little, too late, and tried not to panic.
The baby’s eyes were closed, but her little hands were beating the air as she wailed against the hunger and discomfort of her situation.
Cat felt helpless. What now? Oh. Food. That was it. The baby was surely hungry.
She went back to the bundle. When she found some cans of condensed milk and a plastic baby bottle, she silently praised the dead mother’s foresight. Cat had no time to wonder where the woman had been going or how she’d died. Her whole focus was on saving the baby from dying, too. She stared at the cans of milk, knowing it was going to save the baby, but how? The little she knew about feeding babies involved diluting the milk, but to what extent?
The baby squeaked again, raising Cat’s anxiety.
“Hey, little girl…give me a minute. I
don’t know what to do with this stuff,” she muttered, then brushed her finger against the side of the baby’s cheek. As she did, the baby moved toward the feeling with her tiny mouth wide open.
“Okay, honey, I get the message,” Cat said, and got down to business.
She popped the top on the can and poured until the bottle was about a third full.
“Water, water, I need water.”
Unaware that she was talking aloud, she ran around to the front seat and got her water bottle from the floorboard. There was no time to worry about measurements as she filled the bottle the rest of the way full. She gave it a quick shake, then gathered the baby up in her arms, crawled into the back of the car and pulled the door shut.
The engine was still running.
The heater was still on.
The headlights were still burning.
Cat’s heart was pounding as she cradled the baby up against her and pushed the nipple against the baby’s mouth.
Again the tiny lips parted in that life-affirming motion, urgently seeking the sustenance that meant life.
Cat watched in awe, seeing how the baby’s tongue curled around the nipple, watching the tiny nostrils flare in an effort to breathe and drink at the same time.
At first it seemed that the baby was too weak to suck, and Cat didn’t know what to do. But the baby persisted and, when the first trickle of milk slid down her throat and she swallowed, Cat shuddered. It wasn’t until the baby settled into a steady, sucking motion, that Cat began to relax.
She listened to the lip-smacking, sucking and swallowing sounds of a feeding baby and tried not to think of the dead mother only a few feet away. The weight of the tiny child was next to nothing in her arms, but the weight of responsibility was huge. For the first time in her life, Cat wasn’t focused on her own agenda.
Ghost hunting had just taken a huge backseat to a little girl’s fate. She hadn’t been able to save the mother, but she would save this little girl’s life if it was the last damn thing she did.
Cat sat in silent awe as the baby emptied the bottle and didn’t even know she was crying until tears dripped off her face down onto her hands.
CHAPTER FIVE
The bottle was empty, and the baby was asleep. Cat had put what was left of the opened can of milk in her small ice chest, along with the empty bottle. Well aware of the urgency of the situation, she knew she had to get help. Just because the baby was momentarily satisfied, that didn’t mean it hadn’t suffered something that could precipitate a health crisis.
But for the first time in her life, she’d fallen in love, and for Cat, it was a whole new set of distracting emotions. For every breath the baby took, she took one, too, until their respiration was in sync. When a tiny milky bubble formed on the baby’s pursed lips, she didn’t know that she was pursing her own lips, as well. When the bubble popped, Cat watched, entranced by the perfection of the baby’s dark eyebrows knitting above a perfect little nose.
Cat took a deep, shaky breath, knowing that, once upon a time. her own mother would have sat like this, watching her breathe and looking for herself in a baby’s tiny face.
It wasn’t until she saw a pair of dark shadows moving past the rear end of the car that she remembered the mother’s body—and the coyotes.
Damn scavengers. In a panic now that she’d delayed the inevitability of dealing with the body, she leaned over between the headrests and laid the baby down on the backseat. When she was satisfied that the child was comfortable and safe, she rolled back to her knees, popped the hatch and jumped out with her handgun drawn. She saw the tail of a coyote disappearing into the darkness and started to shoot, then remembered the baby. The sound would surely wake her, then she would cry, and if that happened, Cat would most likely cry with her.
So she pulled the hatch shut, then circled the SUV, frowning as she realized the coyotes had already been at the mother’s body. The red and yellow blanket had been pulled off to the side, and there were bite marks on the flesh. However, with the blanket off, Cat was pretty sure she knew how the young mother had died.
Snakebite.
The skin was all red and swollen around a pair of puncture marks about six inches above her ankle.
The sight made Cat a little nervous, and she began to look around more carefully to see where she was walking, not wanting to end up like this poor woman had.
She looked down, trying to figure out what would be the best way to move the body. Ants were crawling in and out of the woman’s nose and mouth. She wanted to throw up. Instead, she gritted her teeth and went after the blanket the coyotes had pulled away.
The woman was small, barely five-feet tall, so when Cat spread out the blanket and rolled the woman’s body onto it, the only part of her still hanging off the blanket were her feet. Using the blanket as a sled, Cat pulled the body all the way to the back of the SUV, lifted the hatch door, then looked down.
Decomposition wasn’t pretty, but it came eventually to every living thing. Cat’s jaw jutted angrily as she bent down, brushed away most of the ants, then began rolling the body up in the blanket.
“Sorry, lady. Life sucks. Death isn’t any better.”
Gathering all her strength, Cat picked up the body and laid it into the back of the SUV. As she brushed sand and ants from the front of her clothes, she glanced out into the darkness. From where she was standing, she could see light reflecting on the eyeballs of the watching coyotes. Their silence was ominous. But for the safety of her vehicle and gun, she would have been at their mercy, just as the mother and baby had been.
Suddenly anxious to be away from the whole ugly scene, she turned her back on the pack, gathered up everything else that had been with the mother and tied it back up in the bundle, then tossed it in beside the body.
She closed the hatch before circling the car to the backseat to check on the baby. A quick glance confirmed that she was still sleeping. The tragedy of the situation was not lost upon Cat as she glanced from the baby to the body in the hatch. It would be the last time mother and child slept together.
But indulging in emotion wasn’t something she could afford right now. She picked the baby up in her arms, got into the driver’s seat, then shut and locked the doors.
The baby squirmed a bit, then settled again. Cat knew there were rules about babies and car seats, but in this situation, rules did not apply. She laid the baby in the seat beside her, then reached for her seat belt. As soon as she was buckled in, she reached for the baby again. Once she had her settled safely in the crook of her arm, she put the car into gear and made a big U-turn before heading back to the old road.
When her tires finally rolled up onto the hard surface, she breathed a sigh of relief. Now all she had to do was find the nearest village and the local police. She didn’t know what was ahead of her, but she knew what was behind, and certainty was a better bet than a maybe. She would have to go back to the last village she’d driven through, Casa Rojo.
Cat glanced out the windshield toward the east. The darkness of the sky was beginning to thin. Morning was en route. She didn’t know what the day would bring, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be worse than what she’d just encountered.
She glanced down at the sleeping baby again, and then, without thinking, bent down and brushed her lips against a ripple of dark curls feathering the little girl’s forehead.
Baby skin was soft—softer than anything she’d ever felt. She suspected a change of diaper was needed again, but as long as the baby was sleeping, she wasn’t going to mess up a good thing.
She glanced up in the rearview mirror and imagined she felt the spirit of the dead mother rising up from the back to check on her child. She knew the eerie thought was nothing more than a reaction to hauling a dead body, something she had to get over, but it still gave her a chill.
The laptop was on the front floorboard. She couldn’t help but notice that the blip on the screen was still moving northwest as she was moving east. But it couldn’t matter—not now. No
t until she knew she’d done all there was to be done for a little lost girl.
* * *
Sunrise had already come and gone by the time Cat drove back into Casa Rojo. Her first trip through it had been in the dark, so she had no idea if the village had a police station and was in serious doubt about a place this small having a doctor. Still, it was somewhere to start.
The baby had been awake and squirming for a good fifteen minutes, definitely in need of a diaper change, but that would have to wait.
A cat strolled out of an alley and into the street as Cat drove past, making her brake for its passing. As she did, an old man walked out of a doorway, then stopped, looking at her with a mixture of curiosity and surprise.
Her Spanish was pretty close to nonexistent. She hoped his English was better as she rolled down her window.
“Buenos días, señor. Habla inglés?”
He nodded.
“Do you have police here? Policía?”
“The tin roof,” he said, pointing to a building down the street, where the early-morning sun reflected from a shiny new roof.
Cat accelerated slowly. When she got to the end of the street, she pulled up, parked, then killed the engine. The silence was brief. The baby’s discomfort was obvious as she began squirming in earnest.
“I know…I know, little girl,” Cat whispered, then held the baby closer as she unbuckled her seat belt and got out.
The morning sun was bright on her face, although the air was still chilly. She pulled the blanket closer around the baby, then moved toward the building. There were no curbs, because there were no sidewalks—and only one small, dusty window facing the street. She didn’t want to think about handing this baby over to strangers, but it was the only thing she could do. Just a few more steps and then her responsibilities to the dead woman and her child would be over.
