He hoped he could get to Helen before they crossed the border. Maybe that would balance the ledger with the Old Man Upstairs. Is that how it works? Does someone keep track of the debts and credits? Does it all come down to numbers in the end?
He heard a faint scream. He stopped his horse and listened. The screams of a woman and the shouting of a man drifted on the wind. He spurred his horse to a gallop while he drew his gun. He dodged around cactus and shrubs and then crested the hill.
He spied two figures in a struggle. As he neared, he saw it was Helen and a man he presumed to be Callihan. Helen stood at the base of a tree, her hands still bound by rope in front of her, but she wielded a large stick of mesquite. She was beating Callihan about the head.
Callihan was on the ground trying to fend off the blows. “Stop, stop! I should take you back, you stupid girl! No money’s worth this!”
Babcock noted the dirty makeshift bandage on Callihan’s head. It looked like the other bandage Babcock had found on the trail.
He slowed his horse to a walk as he approached and enjoyed watching Helen’s tirade.
She continued to hit Callihan about the head to accentuate her words. “You worthless,” whack, “no-good,” whack, “good for nothing,” whack, “pig!” whack, whack.
Helen stopped and looked at Babcock. She stood straight and caught her breath. “Mr. Babcock, I figured they’d send you. This scoundrel thought he could take me to Mexico and sell me! I did everything I could to slow him down since you were taking your sweet time finding us.” She threw the mesquite branch at Callihan in disgust.
Babcock let out a laugh that went from his toes, through his chest, and filled the scrubby landscape. While dismounting he said, “Come on, Miss Helen. Let’s get you back to your family, and I expect there’s also a certain fella who’s eager for your return. Folks are worried about you.”
She tried to tidy her hair. “They needn’t do that. I can take care of myself.”
Babcock helped Callihan to his feet then cuffed his hands. “Yes, ma’am. I see that now. But I’m sure relieved to see you’re okay. You don’t know how relieved.”
WILD HORSES, by Alexandra Burt
El Paso, Texas, November 1995
Three days had passed since his departure from the Fachada Ranch where Brady had spent his days feeding, watering, herding, branding, and loading horses into trailers. Until one day there was a fight.
His temper had flared. He recalled that frozen second between his anger igniting and throwing the first punch—there was always that split second when he could still go either way—when that fire inside of him made his hands tremble and his stomach quiver. There was a sensation of his limbs elongating and his muscles gaining strength. Shaking to the core, he felt as if he grew in height and weight, exponentially, expanding his slight frame to match the power of his wrath, like a jockey turning into a defensive tackle. There were broken bones, blood, stitches.
Getting into the Ford Bronco and taking off south had been an impulse on his part. Once Brady reached the interstate—speakers thumping and the night with all those stars sparkling above him—he gunned the car and headed farther south. Occasionally, he glanced into the side mirror, fascinated by the wind aimlessly throwing his hair around. But mostly he was anxious and his nerves were frayed to the quick.
On the first day, he was unable to keep down the food he bought at random gas stations. He pulled over by the side of the road, fell to his knees, and allowed the vomit to dribble off his lips. He thought about what he’d done, really thought about it: all he had in his name were a couple of hundred dollars and an ancient Bronco in need of new tires, with a bad transmission, and the brakes, moaning and screeching, were barely a layer away from hitting metal.
On the second day, he dozed off in the backseat of the Bronco in a Cobb’s parking lot—Lubbock, if his memory served him correctly, but he could be mistaken. In that lot he slept off years of backbreaking work cleaning stalls, branding horses, and mending hundreds of miles of fence. In his sleep he heard horses slurping water from troughs, followed by the animals’ snorting sounds. In his dreams he felt the breeze of their tails on his skin. In the sharp draft of the late fall he awoke, his back tight, and drunk with sleep. He cracked his knuckles where his fingers had been broken—his left index finger remained crooked and the pinky on his right hand was unyielding, he could hardly bend it at all.
He kept on driving and on the third day he felt himself coming off that sharp edge and on the fourth day, driving south on I-27, he reached Sweetwater. On I-20 West he pondered turning around for the better part of an hour, but when he hit I-10 West toward El Paso, he vowed to look ahead, the only direction there was.
As the dawn teased the sky into daylight—a sign above the highway announcing El Paso 15 miles—somewhere on the outskirts of the city, the flashing orange fuel light reminded him of reality at hand.
He pulled into a Choice Mart located on a large lot with cracked concrete among donut drive-thrus, pawn shops, and liquor stores. He killed the engine and the Bronco shuddered and shook, then quivered with a sigh of relief as if done roaming this earth. A good night’s sleep and he’d get on with it, call some landscaping companies, maybe moving and construction firms. He was bound to find a job if only he looked hard enough. He was a workhorse, after all, he did the work of three men, never complained, kept his head down. Unless his temper flared.
Scanning the parking lot, he made out newspaper boxes, a bench, a trashcan, a soda machine, a rusty dumpster, a mailbox, and more parking than this gas station would ever need. Harsh rhythmic music and a husky voice, chanting and rhyming words Brady couldn’t make out, drifted toward him from the left.
Three spots down from him sat a Ford Mustang—red and bold and shiny like a sunset—with two teenage kids staring at him. The driver rolled down the window and allowed his arm to dangle in the morning breeze. A cigarette without a filter stuck between his fingers, the orange glow dangerously close to his skin.
Brady checked his phone—the preloaded minutes down to zero—exited the car and approached the payphone. His stiff body felt like a frail puppet being held in place by invisible strings. He walked hunched over until his spine stretched, allowing him to stand straight. The receiver dangled on a metal cable twisted beyond recognition. There wasn’t a phonebook anywhere in sight.
A glowing cigarette butt landed only inches away from his feet. He kicked it with the tip of his boot, embers spilling into the parking lot, coming to rest in front of the red Mustang.
The kids inside the car laughed, slapping their knees. Brady told himself he didn’t need any trouble, he wasn’t going to start a fight. He knew what amused them though: his long and shaggy hair, his tanned skin with hardly any stubble on his face—not because he had shaved but because it had never grown. His stature was short at best, he had started growing early but then around fourteen his body thought otherwise and stunted at under five-four. It didn’t help that his features were soft and feminine and everything about him was what people referred to as petite.
Brady entered the gas station. Cold air hit him and the overhead fluorescent lights covered the world in a blue tinge, making him feel like warm flesh within an icy box. Behind him a magazine aisle took up the entire front of the building, the coolers on the back wall held soda, fruit juices, milk, and water bottles behind glass doors. Some panels were still foggy from customers long departed. He crossed his arms to keep warm. In need of a phone book, Brady approached the register.
Just as he parted his lips, he froze. The man behind the counter looked familiar. Brady rifled through his memory but came up empty. He realized it wasn’t the man who was familiar, but his kind; his pronounced brow ridge, the pocked skin, the greasy hair dyed two shades too dark slicked back into a ducktail.
Brady had done a four-year stint in prison a few years back and this man reminded him of one of his Russian cellmates. During those years he’d picked up a fair amount of Russian, remembered most of it, but everything else that had happened in that cell he had learned