Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds) (23 page)

The man looks at me with black eyes, light shines
from them. He holds out his right hand and in one small jerk, he bids me
“come.”

Hayden’s hand rests on my knee. “Haunting…beautiful,”
he says and puts his other hand on his own chest to restrict his breath, or
encourage it. Is he as overcome by the song as I? The flute remains perched on
my lower lip.

“Why are you crying?”

“I…” Why am I so afraid if Clint is gone?

“Sparrow?”

“I thought I had authority …” I drop my flute to
my lap and weep. “I thought I could overcome my curse.”

“Sparrow, if I led you to believe you could
overcome your curse, I’m sorry.”

What could he know about my curse?

“That’s why Jesus Christ, God’s son took our
curse. He took it on himself when he died.”

“Jesus?” The name Clint knew. He didn’t just know
that name—when the rose couple spoke of Jesus’ love, he shuddered.

“Jesus is the prince, the one who took the arrow
in my story.”

“Are you the glass slipper?”

“Oh.” Hayden’s forehead becomes a tectonic shift.
“I have truly failed you.”

“You haven’t—you saved me.” He was my barrier from
Clint.

“I can’t save you, Sparrow.” He sighs. “I can be
the fairy godmother in the story. I can tell you to go to Christ, tell you
about the ball. But Christ is the one who hung on a tree, became cursed to
redeem us.”

“Redeem?”

He goes on to explain a loving God, creation, the
first sin, which he calls “the fall.” We speak for hours. His words are true.
The sun rises and his words are still true.

“Sparrow, would you like to know the words to your
song?”

I hold my flute up. “You know the words?”

“Play it again.” and when he touches my flute his
hand caresses it.

While I fill the morning with the song I thought
my father wrote, Hayden sings: “Santo, Santo, Sa-an-nto. Dios poderoso.” He inhales
and his voice matches the otherworldly strain of my flute. “Hosan-na,
Hosan-an-na. En las altur-as.”

Without stopping, we sing it twice.

We face each other and a strange, intimate peace
envelopes me. I’m euphoric and spent. There’s no reason to believe only some of
what Hayden said. Either it’s all true, or all false. Either his God becomes my
God, or there is no God.

But to say there is no God would mean there is no
evil. And I’m not a fool.

“Sparrow,” Something has changed in the way he
says my name, the way he looks at me. “Let’s go to Salt Creek, look at this CD
and call Malcolm.” He loads my backpack.

Hayden is relaxed, freer than I have seen him
since he beat up Brody. There’s a closeness beyond what I felt when I kissed
him. Something I imagine should be between a husband and wife, or a mother and
child—if the mother doesn’t abandon her baby with the dad.

“What’s this?” Hayden holds up a smooth black and
gray object, about two inches long, with rounded corners.

“A tiny, cordless mouse?” I take it from his hands
and flip it over. It fits in the palm of my hand.

“Sparrow.” He jerks it back. “This is a GPS
tracker.”

“Tracker?”

His jumps up out of our shelter. A little kid
screams, startled no doubt by the homeless people jumping out of the trees. The
kid has a basset hound on a leash, and the dog starts baying. Hayden ignores
him and spins, sweeping three-hundred, sixty degrees with eager eyes. I step
the rest of the way out and put my pack on. The panic in his face makes me hot
all over. I remove my jacket and tie it in a knot around my waist.

I follow him to a table by the entrance to the
rest stop. The little boy points at us and the trees, and his parents glance
around with worried faces. They shuffle several kids into the car and almost
squeal their tires leaving the rest stop.

It isn’t us they need to worry about. Hayden
fiddles with the tracker and finally puts it on the ground and smashes it. “I’m
surprised they haven’t found us yet.” He pulls pieces apart and throws the
silver disk battery in a separate trash. “Maybe a bad signal?” He scans the
area again. “Or the mountains.”

Without a word, we trek out toward Salt Creek. The
pace he sets is unreal, I almost have to run to keep up with his walking
strides. At every car, he turns to watch. I don’t know what we’d do if the van
showed up here. Head out into miles of abandoned mountain desert? But I’m glad
he looks anyway.

We get to Salt Creek in half the time it took me
yesterday. We both have dark stains under our arms; Hayden also has a sweaty
strip down his spine and around the neck of his shirt. He walks directly to the
Truck Stop & Go. I try to walk behind him, close.

“Do you have a pawn shop in town?” Hayden speaks
to the same attendant who was here when I walked through yesterday with George.

“Yeah, right next to Joan’s place.” The attendant
makes eye contact with me, but doesn’t seem to recognize me.  

Hayden looks in the direction the man’s pointed
arm.

“The gentleman’s club.” I wish I hadn’t clarified
as soon as the words leave my mouth.

“Got it.” Hayden turns and walks through the front
door without waiting for me. I don’t try to keep up. It will always be this
way. I’ll always have the same history.

When I step outside, Hayden puts a sweaty arm
around me. He doesn’t speak but I see it as an apology when he kisses my
forehead. The manly scent of his body mingles with my own unwashed odor. It
isn’t entirely unpleasant.

“Can I carry this for a little while?” He lifts my
backpack and I let him.

“Why are we going to a pawn shop?”

“I know Malcolm will come get us, but in the
meantime, we need to…”

“Take a shower?”

He doesn’t smile. “Hide.”

I guess a pawnshop is as good of a place as any to
hide. We enter the door and a noise buzzes.

“Hola.” The overweight man has an untrimmed black beard
and rimless glasses. “What can I do for you today?” His words jut out so fast I’m
not entirely sure he said them in English.

“I have something to sell.” Hayden swings my pack
around and unzips it.

I should have known. My life is a starved carcass
and this is a vulture tearing the last scrap of dried meat from sun-bleached
bones.

Hayden doesn’t hold my flute when his hand
emerges, but a harmonica. “It’s gold.” His voice is quiet.

The clerk slides a blue velvety cloth across the
counter and Hayden lays it down. He begins to inspect it.

I grab hold of his arm. “You have a gold harmonica?”

“Yeah.” Hayden zips the pack and lays it by his
feet. “It’s more resistant to acids from your mouth or hands.” He holds his
hands up awkwardly and then shoves them into his pockets.

“Where’d you get it?”

“My parents…when I left Spain.”

“I’ll wait outside.” I turn from him because I
have nothing to offer. Will I ever give like he gives? Love like he loves?

It isn’t long before he joins me. “How much did
you get?” I don’t want to know, but I can’t think of anything else.

“Enough. We’ll get a room, shower and hide.” He
takes my hand and holds it tenderly, not interwoven, but like I’m fragile and
small. “Don’t worry. I’ll get it back when Malcolm comes.” His hand tightens
and releases like a hug. “You can’t take things to heaven, only people.” He smiles.

“I guess I understand.” We are almost back to the
Truck Stop & Go. “I lost my flute once. Well, it was stolen. I could lose
it again.” I won’t tell him how much I thought I was losing it a minute ago.

“There is only one thing you’ll never lose.”
Hayden’s voice is soft.

“What’s that?”

“God’s love.”

I’m eager to believe him. “I was so mistaken about
the idea of love.” We’ve arrived at the Truck Stop & Go, but don’t go in. “I
only saw the action of love, the making love part.” Hayden nods at me to
continue. “That isn’t love at all though. That’s just a base action, an animal
instinct or something.”

Hayden blushes and swallows. “Maybe when that is
all there is, but Sparrow…” He swallows again. “God created sex.”

It’s a while before he joins my laughing. “No. I’m
serious.” He smiles beautifully. “I think what most people experience as sex is
just a vague shadow of what God intended.”

A shadow. A dull shape of the actual object. An
evil shade.

“Hayden, if that is true…” No words appear. What
can you say about a God who creates like that? A God who dances over you? Gives
to you, protects you. Hayden looks at me like he is on the verge of saying
something or doing something important, but he can’t go through with it. We are
close enough that I smell his breath. Before I can help myself, I glance over Hayden’s
body. He is so lean, tan, strong. He exhales and his warm breath is like musk
and honey mixed. My legs tremble. Thankfully, I suppress the urge to place my
palm on his chest—I’m curious what it would feel like, though. I am hungry for
his love.

Hayden doesn’t back away. I was wrong that day, at
the Jones’ house, when I said he didn’t know what to do when somebody kisses
him. He knows. I see it in his eyes.

“We aren’t getting a room.” He doesn’t smile; he
just turns and opens the door.

I follow him, but not too close. We pick out food:
microwavable burritos and under-ripe bananas. Hayden also buys me a grape soda.
My legs still quiver a bit at the thought of being with him. When he pays at
the counter, he adds two private showers and an hour on the computer in the
driver’s lounge. We walk down the hallway where I followed George yesterday.
Hayden says he wants to call Malcolm and look at the disk, so I eat and then
let myself into the women’s locker room.

I turn the deadbolt and use wet paper towels to
wash off dirt spots from my jeans. Next, I shake out my clothes. It probably
isn’t wise to hand wash my shirt since I have no way to dry it, but I can’t put
that thing back on in its current condition. After I rinse my shirt, I wring it
out as best I can.

“Shower number,” the automated speaker pauses,
“fifty-three” another pause, “is ready. Please proceed to shower room,” I pull
the ticket from my jeans, “Two.” It’s my turn already. I duck down the hall
while the speakers repeat the directive and slip inside the private shower
room.

The dull, white tile is cold against my feet. When
I finally get warm it’s time to get out. I’ll have to ask Hayden more detail
about the perfect, complete cleansing he mentioned. I try out a little prayer,
not a ritual—just simple communication. “God?” It isn’t a question of his
existence anymore. I just address him.

Suddenly, I don’t know what to say. “Would you?
Please?” I think the kind of God Hayden painted would understand all my
unspoken thoughts.

The wet T-shirt clings to my arms and feels
horrible. I don’t want to be nearly washed, a wrung out rag that is better than
filthy, but still not new. I need to make sure things are right. I can’t step
out that door until they are.

“God.” I try again. “I am…”

I picture myself running from this place
yesterday. “I am in need. Completely. I have nothing to offer.”

He doesn’t show up in the literal sense, but I
still feel him. Stronger than the terror of my curse, of Clint, of my
grandfather—there is this glorious fear of a God who dances over me.

When I leave the women’s stall, George waits in
his wheelchair. Seeing him has less impact than it should. His eyes shrink and
crinkle at the sides when he smiles.

“Are you here for your room?”

“No.” I tuck a loose hair behind my ear. I wish
Hayden didn’t have the backpack; I need something to hold in front of me.

George cranes his neck as though he wants secrecy.
“Need more money?” His chair zooms back, and he opens the door to his office a
crack.

“No.” I answer again and start to step back. I
turn to go down the hall, hoping Hayden isn’t long in his shower.

“Need anything else?” Something in his voice makes
me turn back.

His right hand cradles Hayden’s harmonica. The
gold gleams, even under the flickering florescent lamp. He stretches out his
arm to offer it. I step forward. Hayden intended to get this back by the end of
the day. George’s hand draws back slightly, and the door to his office simultaneously
opens wider.

I have the power, the control to retrieve Hayden’s
harmonica. My body has been my form of control—in it is the power I always wanted.
At the same time, that power is like my dingy, wet T-shirt. Insufficient. Less
than insufficient, next to the kind of love that takes the arrow. Love that
gives something up for someone else.

When you give yourself up for someone else.

“No,” I say quietly. “It isn’t what God wants for
me. I’m done making my own way.” God knows where Hayden’s harmonica is, just
like he knew where my flute was.

George’s face tries out anger, but settles on
confusion. I leave him for the driver’s lounge. It doesn’t look like Hayden showered
and he abruptly stops pacing when he sees me.

“I called Malcolm. Salt Creek doesn’t have a
police station, but I called for a highway patrolman.” He whispers even though
we are alone. “Sit down.”

I sit quickly.

“Your disk, Brody’s disk…” He holds it up. “This
is something bigger. I already emailed the contents to Malcolm and my captain.
It’s like a journal, a log of names, dates, payment, locations.”

“What?”

“Domestic sex trade. And we aren’t talking about
pimps that sell girls to support their drugs—or some isolated case in a remote
corner of the city. A huge, organized operation. With hundreds of addresses. In
several states. It was like Brody wanted insurance because of the details he
kept.”

“How does that even work? Sex Trade? You mean
prostitution? I already know he has a brothel.”

“No, not just ‘legal in the State of Nevada’ brothels,
this is illegal human trafficking. Sex slaves, Sparrow. Runaways. Other girls
they coerce or capture, American girls. Brody recorded a mobile service,
several traveling vans with girls in it. There are also a few addresses; one of
them had a dozen names and ages, mostly young girls. Only a handful were listed
as over eighteen.”

“If Brody knows the disk is gone, they’ll probably
come after me.”

Hayden doesn’t answer right away.

“What are you thinking?”

“If Brody tells them about this disk, they will
have two reasons to come after us,” he says.

Prickles run all over my neck as a man walks into
the room with us. “Two?” I ask, without turning to see who it is.

Hayden doesn’t look up either. “Your name was the
last entry.”