night…. It was me! I watched you dance, so don’t you dare die.”
Horror mingled with delight when he stirred and she felt his gaze.
“You’re just scared there won’t be anybody to teach you horse if I die,” jeered a thready voice that made her heart leap.
4
Its wings spread wide, a hawk circled low over Roque. Talons curling, the bird hurled itself at the highest branch of a tall live oak, stilling the roar of the cicadas’ night chorus. In that brief silence, the dark field felt warm. Then the humid wind licked his skin, bringing with it the sweet, familiar smells of grass and salt and sea, and the cicadas began to sing again.
Not that Roque noticed any of those things on a conscious level. The hot little daggers of pain that spiked up his arm were so fierce they dulled his awareness of all else. He couldn’t move his arm or feel his fingers.
The hollow beneath his right eye felt stretched and itchy. His temple throbbed. Half of him was numb; the other half burned. He wanted to twist and writhe and howl like a wolf at the bright sliver of moon hanging straight over him. But the ragged whisper he uttered cost him so dearly, he bit his lips.
“Roque? Did you say something?”
Had he? He tried to speak again.
He heard her gasp, felt her fingertips on his mouth. Then pain blurred everything into nightmare again. He was in the wire mesh round pen. Caleb was begging him to teach him to ride, and since their father was gone for the day he’d said yes. But suddenly his father, who’d looked shorter and squattier than usual in baggy jeans and custom-made boots and yet unreasonably terrifying, was stomping toward him, yelling and swearing nonsense that he was trying to kill Caleb again.
Pausing to grab a chain off the nail outside the tack room, he’d pushed Pablo and two cowboys out of his way.
“Nobody had better interfere with me—y’all hear!” When the cowboys lowered their heads, Benny raised the chain. “You trying to kill Sunny on that damn horse, you stupid Mexican son of a bitch!”
Mexican. The way his father said it, had made Roque writhe.
“I begged him to teach me, Daddy,” Caleb said.
“Every summer he comes, you want to race bulls or something else crazy!”
“No, Daddy—”
He slammed the chain down on Roque’s back.
Roque screamed. Caleb jumped as if he’d been hit. The next blow cut Roque’s thighs and sent him sprawling facedown into wood shavings. He hit the ground so hard he swallowed dust laced with horse dung.
As he spit and choked, Caleb hurled himself at his father’s knees.
“You idiot!” Benny yelled at Roque. “You won’t stop until you kill my good son—you, who never should have been born!”
Again the chain zinged, this time gouging out a hunk of flesh. Roque rolled into a ball, grabbed his knees.
“Say you won’t disobey….”
“You’re not my father!”
“Say you’re sorry!”
“Go to hell.”
“He wouldn’t hurt me, Daddy!” Caleb shouted. “He’s not stupid. He was teaching me horse and…and to ride.”
When Benny raised the chain again, Caleb let go of his father’s leg and threw himself on top of Roque. “He’s sorry, Daddy.”
Caleb’s thin body was hot, and he was crying as he circled Roque’s neck with his arms. “If you hurt him, I’ll…. I-I’ll run away to Mexico! I’ll be a Mexican, too!”
“Get off me, kid!” Roque whispered. “I don’t want you to hate him…or love me.”
“But I do…love you.”
Her soft voice cut through Roque’s anguish and pain. Her gentle fingers trailed his throat, soothed. He strangled a curse.
Dios. Pain stabbed him again.
“I’ll even give you Buttercup!” the girl said.
Chinga!
She was holding something and praying to St. Jude. Roque wasn’t religious. Still, he’d been brought up Catholic.
He hung on every syllable of the girl’s prayer and went still when she fastened her St. Jude medal around his neck. When her voice died, her hand skimmed along his throat and jawline. She lifted her medal and kissed it.
So, it had been her last night. Her. He’d wanted to hold this girl close and dance near the fire, to dance. Suddenly he wanted to feel those lips on his skin.
“So, you’re just scared there won’t be anybody to teach you horse if I die. I—I could teach you to kiss too,” he whispered.
She dropped the medal and jumped back.
Híjole!
He stole a peek. Big glasses. Smudged clothes. She wasn’t much to look at—at least, not yet. Better to keep his eyes closed. But she sure as hell had a pretty voice, especially when she prayed. Those low, husky tones shouldn’t belong to a bratty little girl with wires in her mouth. That voice went with a real woman.
Dios. She was just a kid. Younger than Caleb.
Her fingers came back, cautiously gliding along his skin as she prayed again, her comforting words and warm breath falling against his earlobe.
Uno. Dos. Tres… He never made it to ten. The pressure against his fly was too extreme.
Pervert. She was a kid. Fourteen. Not even pretty.
When her gaze drifted down his body, he broke into a sweat. Then he slitted his good eye wider. Even though he was partially color blind, his vision at night was extraordinary. Like a cat, he could see shapes and figures that were invisible to anyone with normal eyesight.
Like now. Every freckle on her pert, slightly upturned nose stood out. Her tears glistened like diamonds. More than a hundred yards away, he saw Buttercup grooming herself.
A sliver of moon in a vast black sky peppered with stars enveloped them. Cicadas were buzzing louder than ever. In the moonlight her ugly glasses glimmered on her thin, unsmiling face. If only she’d been pretty like her friend with the big boobs.
It was hard to imagine her ever growing a figure or ever being beautiful. But she’d spied on him last night and today she’d stood up to him. She’d flown with him. He’d had fun with her before he’d fallen and hit his head. With her he didn’t feel homesick.
Nobody here, except for Caleb, ever made him feel as if he belonged.
But she did. Maybe she was a Keller, but she was an innocent, shy and sweet. As sweet as
