of a worn-out looking motel. A sign in front announced it was the DES RT S NDS INN.
“Yeah,” Angela said as they crunched across the gravel parking lot. “I bet the place really jumps.”
“You’d be surprised,” Keller said. “I don’t know where they come from, but they start showing up right after five. The place fills up. The motel makes a few bucks giving them a place to sleep it off.”
“Everybody wins,” Angela said. They crossed the road. “Lucas said he’d be at the pool.”
He was. Major Lucas Berry, U.S. Army Medical Corps (Ret.) sat at the edge of the postage-stamp-sized swimming pool behind the hotel, dangling his legs in the tepid water. He was dressed in a brightly colored pair of swimming trunks that provided a sharp contrast to his dark-brown skin. A cooler of iced Tecate beer sat on the edge of the pool beside him. When he saw Keller and Angela, he swung his legs out of the water and stood up. He was taller than Keller by a couple of inches, and broader. He extended his hand. “Sergeant,” he said. His voice was a deep baritone that sounded like it should be coming from a burning bush.
Keller shook his hand. “Major,” he smiled. Then the smile faded. “You here to see just how crazy I am?”
“Pretty much,” Berry said. “Pull up a chair. Have a beer.” Keller pulled up one of the plastic chairs that ringed the pool. He shook his head at the offered beer. Berry raised an eyebrow slightly at that, but made no comment.
“I’m going back in the room,” Angela said. “This heat’s too much for me.”
As she walked away, Keller asked softly, “How’s she been?”
Berry shrugged. “Worried sick about you, for starters.”
Keller grimaced. “Sorry,” he muttered and dropped his gaze to the floor. “When did she and Oscar get married?”
“About three months ago.” Berry grinned. “Funny story, really. She asked him.”
Keller looked up. “She did?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t going to ask her, for fear she’d think it was just for the green card. But, good Catholic that he is, he was getting more and more conflicted about just shacking up. So she broke the logjam for him.”
“Sound like you’ve all talked a lot.”
“Yeah,” Berry said. “Just as friends, though. Not professionally.” He raised his sunglasses and looked directly at Keller. “But I’m not here to fill you in on Angela’s life. She can do that herself. I’m here to talk about you.”
Keller sighed. “I’m fine, Lucas.”
“Uh-huh. That’s why you got up out of a hospital bed, checked out against medical advice, and walked off without saying a word. And why you headed for, of all places, the desert.”
Keller closed his eyes. It hadn’t made any sense to him either. He had never had an easy life, but it was the Kuwaiti desert where things had really gone bad for him. He saw the burning Bradley fighting vehicle, heard his men screaming. Burning, they’re burning…he took a quick, deep intake of breath and opened his eyes. Lucas was looking at him.
“I—we—spent years getting you out of that desert in your head,” he said softly, “and yet you end up here. In the real one.”
“Well,” Keller said, “getting out of that desert meant starting to care about things again. About people. And that’s what put me here.” Lucas acknowledged the point with a nod of his head.
“And,” Keller went on, “to tell you the truth, it’s not bad here. I’m working. And I’m not wrecking myself doing it.”
“You don’t miss it?” Lucas said. “The hunt? The takedown? You used to say you lived for that. It was the only thing that got you up in the morning.”
“And you used to tell me how fucked up that was.”
Berry chuckled. “That I did.” He fished another beer out of the cooler. “So you won’t be coming back with us.”
Keller looked at the water, shimmering in the blazing sun. “I didn’t say that.” He stood up. “How long are you staying?”
Berry gestured toward the nearly empty motel. “Well, much as I hate to leave this fine resort and its luxurious amenities, probably in the morning.”
“I’ll let you know then,” Keller said. He walked off toward the bar.
AT LEAST the truck wasn’t bouncing as badly anymore. It was still stifling, and the smell from the toilet buckets was overwhelming. The last of the battery-powered lights was failing, so it would soon be pitch dark as well. The people crammed into the back of the truck sat shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, knees drawn up, their misery wrapped around them.
“Why is this taking so long?” Edgar asked his older brother Ruben. “They said we’d only be in this truck a little while.”
Ruben shrugged. He put his arm around his brother. Everything had taken longer than the coyotes said it would: the plane ride to Mexico, the bus ride to the little border town where they were taken to a warehouse, then packed like sardines into the truck, and now this. Ruben thought back to the moment a few hours ago when the truck had stopped. He was sure the sound he had heard was a gunshot. So were most of the other people, but they had stopped talking about it when the truck began moving again. Now, everything was silent except the roar of the engine and the whining of the wheels. It sounded like they were on an actual paved highway rather than the rough gravel roads they had traveled on for so long. We must be north of the border. So why aren’t they letting us out like they said? The truck ground to a stop. The passengers stirred. There was a brief silence, then a loud creak, a banging noise, and the cargo compartment was flooded with bright light as the back door rattled up. Ruben tightened his grip around his brother’s shoulder.
The people in the truck put their hands up, shielding their faces from the light. Two Anglo men were standing on either side of the entrance. They were holding weapons pointed at the people inside. A young girl near the entrance screamed. One of the men swiveled his weapon toward the sound. He had a shaved head and a scraggly beard. Ruben could see the tattoos on his arms beneath the sleeves of his black T-shirt. There were more tattoos on his neck. The tattooed man looked for a long moment at the girl who had cried out. She was barely into her teens, and pretty, her long black hair tied in a ponytail. She tried to back away, pushing up against the side of the truck in panic. The tattooed man stuck out his tongue and waggled it obscenely at her. The girl whimpered in fear, causing the tattooed man to laugh.
“Save it,” the other man said in English. Ruben knew the language from school. Papa had written that he should study English for when he came to America.
The other armed man seemed younger. He had a full head of blond hair slicked back from his forehead and the coldest blue eyes Ruben had ever seen. Even in the stifling heat of the truck, Ruben shivered.
“The piss buckets,” the blond man said. “Pass ‘em out.” No one moved.
“Goddamn
