Kevin shook his head, looked to the computer screen where he’d been pretending to vet emails. “She’s not a stalker, Julie. She’s an old friend.”
“I think she might be lost on campus somewhere. What should I tell her if she comes by again?”
Kevin struggled to call up a response. “You don’t have to worry about her, Julie. I’ll handle it.”
The girl backed out of the office a step. “Okay,” she said, lingering a moment before stepping away, her heel clicks fading down the hallway.
Alone now, Kevin closed his eyes and pressed his palms hard against his forehead. “Shit,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not her fault.” Olivia had come unbidden, and like the bad memories, could not be ignored.
Those memories caught Kevin off guard frequently now, the triggers that prompted them multiplying by the day. The nightmares could not be helped, but the daytime memories brought a distinct kind of discomfort, as though he had lost the refuge of his waking hours when the old hurt could be pushed away with the sunlight.
Perhaps it was Olivia’s presence or the breeze that swayed the branches on the planted mesquites outside his window that had brought him back to a place in his mind he did not usually go. As if caught in some kernel of compressed time and space, he found himself in that long ago November morning on the Escrobarra Ridge. The dirt smell of grama and bunch grass rode on a soft wind and the grackles spoke from the tops of the oaks. The sky had begun to whiten in the east, and young Kevin wore the easiness of seventeen years like a light jacket.
The hunt that Friday morning had started with the customary excitement. He’d parked his truck at one of the usual spots, and with him as always was Armando Luna—they had hunted deer and javelina together these last five years. An hour before, Kevin had stopped in Douglas at a ramshackle duplex apartment. Luna had emerged half-dressed, rheumy-eyed with sleep and offering no excuses or apologies.
“Shit, Mondy,” Kevin said. “You told me you’d be ready.”
“I am ready,” Luna said. “Just give me a minute.”
Mondy was broad and thick at the belly and chest, built like a middle linebacker, and despite his 250 pounds walked light on his small feet. Kevin stood in the doorway as Mondy clambered in and out of rooms. A young woman’s voice came from the bedroom, and Kevin recognized it immediately as that of Jolene Sanders, who’d been two years ahead of him in school. Jolene had wavy nut-brown hair to her belt loops and blue eyes. She was stone-cold beautiful and Kevin stood livid and jealous that she now lay in Armando Luna’s bed. He could not for the life of him determine why. Kevin could hear their voices, a soft love-clucking behind the bedroom door, until Mondy stepped out with his rifle and gear and smiled at Kevin quick and smug as he passed him in the doorway.
They took Geronimo Trail east twenty miles to the Magoffin Ranch road, where they unlocked and passed through the gate, then bounced Kevin’s old three-quarter-ton truck to the head of Baker Canyon. They hooked south a mile on a track that quit at a windmill, water tank, and a scattering of salt licks at the base of the Escrobarra. Shot with runs of granite rim rock and dense stands of jack pine, juniper and oak, the ridge occupied a six-mile length of the twenty-five mile Peloncillo mountain range. It started on the Arizona side, doglegged two miles into New Mexico, then tapered into a gentle slope across the Mexican border at the point where the two states and Sonora intersected.
Mondy tried to convince Kevin to park at a different spot, another half-mile up canyon, but Kevin, as usual, ignored him. They stepped out into the chilly near-dawn and gathered their essentials from the truck bed—rifles, binoculars, canteens, a single daypack in which they carried emergency items, and a lunch of left-over roast beef and tortillas.
“We’re pretty close to the border,” Mondy pointed out. “Muy cercanos.”
“¿Qué importa?” Kevin asked. How does it matter?
Mondy shrugged, moved to the other side of the truck bed. “You bring extra ammo?”
Kevin winced at the question but offered no response. He lifted his right foot to the back bumper and tightened his bootlace, allowing the question to hang between them, then looked up at the ridgeline where they would soon break trail. “That’s not a question, Mondy,” he said. “You’re just making noise.”
“I just wanted to know how many shells you had, that’s all.”
Kevin looked at him. “Eleven.”
“I’ve seen you miss that many times.”
“I’ve seen you miss that many times.”
“Everybody misses.”
Mondy’s concern over extra ammo, in Kevin’s estimation, was due to his own lack of talent in marksmanship. In the last five seasons, Kevin had watched him miss a number of game animals, the bullet flying several feet over the intended target’s back. Mondy was twenty-three, six years Kevin’s senior, but age gave the big Indian no advantage.
“I brought extra,” Mondy said, finally. “But I guess you didn’t.”
“Kiss my ass,” Kevin came back.
“Andale pues,” Mondy said, forcing a chuckle. “I’m just shitting you, man. Eleven shells. A good shot like you only needs one. You’re a good kid. I think you got potential.”
For the next half hour they negotiated their usual route over the high saddle to the north, picking through a thatch of cat claw then up over the shale slide and finally to the rim rock at the top, where they squeezed through a small gap, just wide enough for an average-sized man to pass. Mondy turned sideways, hitched up his gut, and inched through while Kevin, smiling on the other side, held his rifle and pack. When Mondy finally grunted his way out, he glared at Kevin’s grin.
“Are you saying something?”
Kevin shook his head, motioned toward the gap. “It’s plain to see the damn thing’s shrunk since last year.”
Mondy gave a quick nod. “Good kid. I knew you had potential.”
“You got potential, too,” Kevin said. “I mean, by Christmas you could weigh…I don’t know…”
Mondy squared another hard look at Kevin. “I got two words for you,” he said. “Jolene. Sanders.”
“Okay,” Kevin said. “It’s all in the interest of your health, anyway.”
“Well, quit being interested in my health.”
When they finally crested the bald saddle, the sun was just touching the top of the ridge five-hundred yards opposite them. Mondy was winded, but Kevin knew, despite the labored breathing, that the big Indian would light a cigarette. So proud of his O’odham heritage, Armando Luna often introduced himself as Armando White Moon—especially to women—and, despite Kevin’s derisive laughter, donned a beaded headband, Concho-spangled vest, and knee-high moccasins to drink at a bar, looking more Apache than Papago. Kevin always carped at him about his smoking, pointing out that Indians in movies weren’t fat and didn’t smoke cigarettes. Mondy fished one from his breast pocket and stropped at his Bic lighter until his muttered curses, it seemed, finally brought the thing to flame. He drew in the smoke and looked at Kevin.
“Smoke ‘em up,” he whispered. “You want one?”
Kevin shook his head. Though he sometimes smoked, the thought of it seemed distasteful when hunting. The wind, gentle on their faces for now, rode out of the ever-whitening east, and the scent of the smoke would not be picked up by any game in front of them. Mondy puffed on his cigarette, and they stood some moments taking in the old familiar canyon. Though Kevin had looked on it from this vantage point many times, the waxing