Night Vision

by Randy Wayne White

  Not since Tula’s father died had the girl witnessed anything more painful. In a way, this was even more traumatic because her mother had encouraged by example Tula’s devotion to God and the Church. Never had there been such a good and loving women—even the villagers said it was true. To Tula, she represented all that was godly and clean, a woman who had vowed to be forever faithful to her husband even though he had been dead for a year when Tula heard her make the promise.

  It was beyond the girl’s ability to comprehend. Here, though, was the truth—an obscene infidelity that seemed to debase the children of all loving mothers and mocked Tula’s deepest convictions.

  The Maiden came into Tula’s head, then, reminding her, Only God’s eyes know the truth. The truth is lasting but often hidden from us. Even though we see, we remain blind.

  Jehanne had written those words centuries ago, but it was if they were intended to comfort Tula at this very moment. The words were true. This photograph represented only a moment in time. It proved nothing other than it had happened.

  But why had it happened?

  Her mother had been forced to participate in this profanity, Tula decided. In fear for her life, probably. It was the only explanation that made sense. Perhaps the naked man in the photo was holding a gun. Or the man behind the camera. Only minutes ago, Tula realized, she herself had made the decision to submit to sin if it meant saving herself or the life of Harris Squires.

  Gradually, the girl felt her faith returning. Her mother had been the victim of threats and violence. The girl felt certain of it now. Her mother would confirm the truth of what had happened when Tula found her. Or . . . should she even mention the photo when they were finally face-to-face?

  No, Tula decided. She would never speak of it. Not to her mother, not to her family, not to anyone. It would only add to the humiliation her mother had suffered. Her mother had given Tula life—like God. And like with God, Tula knew, she would never doubt her mother’s goodness again.

  This photo . . . it felt so light and meaningless between the girl’s fingers now. Yet it was a final justification for the mission on which God had sent her—to rescue her family, to lead her people home from this terrible sinful land.

  Then, as she held the photo, another realization came into the girl’s mind, but not as shocking. Her mother had been here, at the hunting camp. The photo had been taken in this very room. Tula confirmed it by comparing the background with the bedroom’s walls and the mirror hanging above the bed.

  Harris Squires, she realized, hadn’t lied about knowing her mother. It had only sounded like a lie because the man honestly didn’t remember meeting her. Tula felt certain of it, just as she felt sure the giant would have remembered her mother if she had worked for him.

  No . . . Harris hadn’t forced his mother to do this. He might have played a small role, he might even have been aware that it was happening—but only because he was under the spell of someone more powerful. Someone evil.

  Tula could hear her pulse thudding as her thoughts verified what she had sensed from the beginning: Frankie was to blame for this. The drunken woman with her man’s voice, her tattoos, her viciousness. Carlson had seen her giving Tula’s mother a cell phone how many months ago?

  The girl couldn’t remember, but she now knew in her heart the truth of what had happened. The redheaded woman had victimized her mother. Only one of many. Frankie’s many sins lay scattered on the trailer floor, these profane photographs like discarded souls. The woman was evil.

  Her body shaking, Tula got to her feet, aware that Frankie could return to the RV at any second. She had to get herself under control. For Tula to allow Frankie to see her weak and in tears would only give the woman more power over her.

  She couldn’t allow that to happen. She wouldn’t allow it to happen.

  Tula considered tearing the photo of her mother into tiny pieces. Instead, she folded it and put it into her back pocket, while, inside her, the revulsion she felt for Frankie was transformed into hatred, then rage. She had never experienced the emotion before. It created inside her a determination and fearlessness that was unsettling because, in that instant, Tula understood why soldiers in battle were so eager to kill.

  As the girl hurried down the hall toward the kitchenette, it was difficult to keep her hand off the paring knife. She wanted to use the knife now. She wanted what she had imagined to happen: Frankie on the ground, the evil bleeding out of her.

  Which was when the Maiden’s voice surprised Tula by saying, What about the stove? The giant showed you how to turn the gas on.

  The girl was confused for a moment. To be so passionately focused on one subject, it was difficult to concentrate on anything else. But she tried, wondering, The stove? Of what use was the gas stove now?

  Then she understood. Frankie had been smoking a cigarette. If the woman was still smoking when she walked into a room filled with propane, she would die.

  For a moment, Tula was excited. But the Maiden rebuked her, telling the girl that the stove was better used as a diversion, because it was smarter.

  The girl was disappointed, but she understand. If the RV caught fire, Victorino’s men, and Frankie, would be so surprised they might forget about Harris Squires for a few minutes. Maybe they would leave the giant alone long enough for Tula to free him, then they could escape together down the lane to the road.

  No ... not the dirt lane. Tula remembered that Victorino had sent two men to watch the road, so she and the giant would have to escape through the woods.

  But escape without confronting Frankie? That seemed cowardly after what that evil woman had done to Tula’s mother.

  The Maiden entered the girl’s head and comforted her, saying, God will judge her. Can there be anything more terrible than His wrath?

  Tula wasn’t convinced. As always, though, she obeyed. Equipping herself for a hike through the woods, the girl put matches, two candles and a bottle of mosquito repellent in her pockets. Then she knelt beneath the sink and turned the gas valve until it was wide open.

  At the stove, however, the girl hesitated. She had extinguished the candle she was carrying, but there were still two burning candles in the room. Secretly, she wanted to blow out the candles and hope Frankie was still smoking a cigarette when she opened the door. But there were no secrets with the Maiden, who told Tula, Hurry . . . the woman’s coming. Do it now!

  Tula opened both valves on the stove, then ran down the hall, pulling doors shut to isolate the propane, including the door to the bedroom she entered, maybe slamming it too hard, but it was too late to worry now.

  On the far wall was a window. Tiny, but big enough to wiggle through. Tula bounced over the bed to the wall, then flipped the lock, expecting the window to open easily.

  It didn’t. The window frame was aluminum. Maybe it was corroded shut. Tula used all her strength, pushing with her legs, then tried cutting around the edges of the window with the paring knife.

  It still wouldn’t open. As the girl stood there, breathing heavily, she could smell propane gas seeping under the door. She would have been less surprised by smoke and flames. Had the candles gone out, extinguished by the doors she had slammed? Or did the concentration of gas have to be higher before the candles would ignite it?

  Tula didn’t know. She knew only that she had to escape from the trailer before Frankie came in, smelled the propane and realized that a trap had been set for her.

  Next to the bed was a lamp. Tula grabbed it and swung the base of the lamp against the Plexiglas window, expecting it to shatter with the first blow. It made a sound like a gunshot, but the glass didn’t break.

  Panicked because she had made so much noise, Tula began hammering at the window. Finally, it cracked, but the girl had to pull the Plexiglas out in shards, piece by piece, before the window was finally wide enough for her to crawl through.

  She draped a towel over the opening so she wouldn’t cut herself, then dropped to the ground, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief
to be free.

  The feeling lasted only a few seconds.

  As Tula got to her feet and turned toward the shack where she’d last seen Squires, a low voice from the shadows surprised her, saying, “You sneaky little slut. What did you use to break the window, a damn sledgehammer? I didn’t even have to go inside, it was so obvious.”

  Frankie was standing at the corner of the RV, a towering shape silhouetted by headlights. Not smoking now but a pack of cigarettes in her hand.

  Tula’s fingers moved to her back pocket, feeling the lump that was the paring knife. An edge of her mother’s photograph was sticking out, too.

  “It’s because you scare me,” the girl said, trying to sound reasonable. “What I told you was true. I want to talk to you, tell you things I’ve never been able to tell anyone. But my body’s afraid because of the way you look. Why would someone as beautiful as you waste time helping someone like me?”

  With her deep voice, the woman said, “Liar! The whole time, you were lying,” sounding furious but undecided as if she wanted to be proven wrong.

  Tula focused her eyes on the woman’s black eyes, hand inside her back pocket, saying, “We should go inside and let me wash your blouse. I know how to get bloodstains out. Where I lived in the mountains, that was one of my jobs, washing clothes.”

  In her mind, Tula was picturing Frankie pausing at the steps of the RV to light a cigarette, then opening the door.

  The woman was staring back, perhaps feeling the images that Tula was projecting because, for a moment, the woman’s anger wavered. But then the woman caught herself, visibly shook her head as if to clear it and yelled, “What the hell’s wrong with me? You’re lying again! Don’t tell me what to do!”

  Then the big woman charged at Tula, whose hand suddenly felt frozen, unable to draw the knife from her pocket, so the girl turned and ran.

  Frankie sprinted after her, yelling, “Come back her, you lying brat! Just wait ’til I get my hands on you!”

  For a woman her age and size, Frankie was quicker than Tula could have imagined. After only a few steps, the girl felt a jarring impact on the back of her head. Then she was on the ground, Frankie kneeling over her, using a right fist to hit the girl so hard that Tula didn’t regain full consciousness until she awoke, minutes or hours later, in the cookshack.

  Woozy and dreamlike—that’s the way Tula felt when she opened her eyes. Nauseous, too. It took the girl several seconds to organize what she was seeing as her eyes moved slowly around the room. Overhead were bars of neon light. The sound of a motor running confirmed that the generator had been started. There was a strong odor of gasoline, too.

  Tula wondered about that, making the distinction between the smell of gasoline and the smell of propane, which struck her as important for some reason.

  Tula lifted her head to study her body, then lay back again, eyes closed. She was tied, unable to move, her wrists taped to the legs of a heavy table. They had used short pieces of rope on her ankles, securing her legs in a way that suggested they intended to cut her jeans and shirt off next. The owl-shaped jade amulet and her Joan of Arc medallion were missing, she realized, but the girl could still feel the shape of the paring knife hidden in her back pocket. Even so, in her entire life, she had never felt so naked and defenseless.

  Could this really be happening?

  Yes ... it was as real as the blood Tula could now taste in her mouth. The girl strained against the tape again. The table moved a little, but her legs were spread between a stationary counter. Freeing herself was impossible, so she lay back to think, her mind still putting it all together.

  Frankie and the Mexican with gold teeth were standing nearby but not looking at her. The woman was concentrating on a camera mounted on a tripod, angry about something—impatient with the camera, Tula decided. Then Frankie spoke to Victorino, muttering, “I told you the battery was in wrong. Stupid wetbacks, if it’s anything more complicated than a knife, you can’t deal with it.”

  A moment later, though, the woman swore, and said, “This battery’s no good—probably because of the way you did it. In the RV, I’ve got a camera bag full of shit. Send one of your pals to go get it.”

  Tula’s brain was fogged, but mentioning the RV was of interest to her. She had just escaped from the RV, she remembered, where she had left the stove valves open to fill the trailer with propane.

  Slowly, the girl’s attention shifted to Victorino, who was wearing surgical gloves for some reason. The gloves and the man’s wrists were stained with blood. He was glaring at Frankie with dead, drunken eyes, and seemed too preoccupied to respond.

  It was because of what a second Mexican had just said to Victorino. Even before Tula had opened her eyes, she had heard the man speaking Spanish, but her mind had not translated his words yet his phrases lingered. What the man had said was important for a reason, Tula was sure of it, yet her brain had yet to unravel his meaning.

  Poli—she had heard him use the word. Poli was Mexican slang, the equivalent of “cop.” If so, then it was important. But why had the man mentioned police? Tula strained to recall. She squeezed her eyes closed, her brain scanning for details.

  Yes . . . it was coming back to her. The man had said something that sounded like The cop said don’t hurt the girl. They’re coming in. Words close to that. “The girl” referred to her. It had to . . . didn’t it? Don’t hurt the girl. It suggested to Tula that the police were coming to save her.

  Tula wanted to believe it, but what was happening around her was so surreal that she didn’t trust her judgment. Hope was such a tenuous, flimsy thing, after the photograph she had found in the RV, after what she was now experiencing.

  The Mexican who had mentioned police was standing in the doorway, holding a radio. He sounded worried. “We dumped all the gas just like you said. Why don’t we torch the place now and go?”

  Gasoline ... it explained the odor, which Tula filed away as the man, getting very serious, added, “The redheaded witch, she doesn’t understand a word of what we’re saying, right? So leave her here with the girl. Get the woman’s fingerprints on your box cutter and let the cops arrest her for jelly boy. Hell, maybe they’ll think they got into a fight or something. Cut jelly boy free, too—he’s not going anywhere. You know, a steroids war. Let the cops figure it out.”

  The man was referring to Harris Squires. Tula had momentarily forgotten about the giant, but events were flooding back now. But arrest the woman for what? What had happened to Harris?

  Confused, her mind working in slow motion, Tula moved her eyes to where the Mexican was looking. He was staring at something to her left. But to see, she would have to move her head and risk alerting Frankie that she was conscious.

  Into the girl’s mind, the Maiden spoke, saying, Be fearless. You were born to do this! I have not forsaken you!

  To hear Jehanne’s voice at such a moment caused the girl’s eyes to flood with tears. Because she was crying when she turned her head, she was unable at first to decipher what she was seeing. A massive pale shape was lying next to her. Tula squinted tears away, and the shape acquired detail. Even then, it took her several seconds to understand what she was seeing.

  It was Harris Squires. After what they had done to the man, Tula didn’t want to believe it was actually the giant. His body appeared shrunken, deflated. Harris was naked, legs tied wide, just as they had tied her legs. His chest was peppered with shotgun BBs, his ivory skin patched with blood.

  Beneath the giant’s hips, the blood had pooled like oil. Tula didn’t want to look any closer but she forced herself. Her brother was the only male she had ever seen naked, so it took the girl a moment to understand what had happened

  Victorino had mutilated the giant.

  Tula grimaced and turned away, comforted only by the fact that Squires was unconscious, no longer in pain, and also that he was still breathing.

  When the girl opened her eyes again, Frankie was standing over her, staring down. The woman smiled and said, �
��Well, well, well! My sleeping cutie is finally awake.”

  Then, turning to Victorino, she asked, “What are you two yapping about? What’s wrong?”

  Victorino was ripping off the rubber gloves, suddenly in a hurry, as he asked the Mexican man in Spanish, “Where’s my Tec-9? Chapo’s got the other one—is he ready? Goddamn it, he should’ve been in contact! We got to be ready for anything anytime!”

  The Mexican took a boxy-looking gun from the bag on his shoulder and handed it to Victorinio, saying, “It bothers me that we haven’t heard a word from Calavero or Dedos, either. Dedos, he’s probably passed out. But Calavero, if the cops grabbed him—”

  Victorino interrupted, “That’s what I’m telling you,” as he ejected the magazine from the weapon, checked it, then slammed it back. “Shit,” he said, “for all we know, it’s not the cops. It’s some La Mara bangers from Immokalee. Why would cops call and warn us they’re coming? You know, Guatemalan punks talking English because they figure we’re so rich, we got lazy and stupid.”

  In Guatemala City, Tula had heard of the street gang, Mara Salvatrucha. La Mara, for short, or MS-13. It was a murderous gang, always at war with Mexican gangs. She lay back, taking in details, as the V-man asked Frankie, “You and jelly boy ever do any business with La Mara? Maybe that’s who it is.”

  Frankie got taller on her toes again as Victorino slipped by her, the woman yelling, “What kinda shit are you trying to pull now? I don’t know anyone named La Mara! You and your greasers found the money, didn’t you? Now you’re feeding me some bullshit excuse about why you have to run.”

  Holding the box cutter in his hand, the V-man leaned over Squires for a moment, then pushed the razor toward Frankie, saying, “Cut his hands and legs free. Someone finds him, we want them to wonder what happened.”

  Tula remembered what the Mexican had said about fingerprints. Frankie took the knife in her right hand and, for a moment, Tula thought the woman was going to stab the blade at Victorino. The man took a step back, thinking the same thing, which was when the Mexican warned Frankie from the doorway, saying, “Don’t even think about it, puta. It’ll be like shooting balloons at the fair. Like back when I was a kid.”