The Far Empty (25 page)

CHRIS

I
n the car on the long drive, started just after dawn, they talked elk. All about bulls and solos and harems, about how big they could get—well over seven hundred pounds—and how late September and early October was the real rutting time, although a late-season hunt could be just as successful. Chris also messed around with the cow call; checked out the rifle that the sheriff had lent him (along with all the other hunting gear)—a Weatherby Vanguard Back Country. It was a beautiful weapon, and even with the heavy scope, barely weighed in at seven pounds. Still, it didn’t hold a candle to the sheriff’s Sauer 303, built to take boar in Europe. Both rifles were more than Chris felt comfortable with. Both were made for a better hunter than he. The sheriff told him not to worry, Chris wouldn’t be taking the shot anyway.

Once on foot, they lost themselves in the oak brush and red oak and mountain scrub, in a maze of canyons. Snow dotted the highest
peaks, but the sheriff said the elk were down below, where there was still forage. He knew these lands like the back of his hand, had built tree stands along good water and wallows. They’d first see if they could draw in and stalk a bull before resorting to tracking one. They’d lay up overnight and try with the dawn.

When Chris asked if Caleb enjoyed coming out here to hunt, the sheriff looked at him for a long moment before saying that Caleb never had the stomach for it.

They kept moving as a light rain fell. Chris hadn’t used these muscles in a while, and it played hell on his knee. He lagged behind, the sheriff a shadow constantly appearing and disappearing ahead. That’s what happened out here, in this place; everything disappeared eventually. Chris imagined it all as nothing but one huge ghost town, just memories of people and places and things that were long gone. Scarred middens and pictures painted on rocks. An abandoned mine and a lone wooden lean-to, battered by the wind. Arrowheads and old shotgun shells and musket balls left on the ground. Fool’s gold and the bones of fools.

The going was even harder as they worked their way down the roughs, cutting through a mosaic of spruce, fir, and aspen. They finally found a break in the basin and a scattering of monstrous boulders thrown up hard against a water run, trees circling like a crown. The sky turned dark at the edges with dusk. Sitting on a rock, taking water from his borrowed canteen beneath cracked limestone looming close and tight, felt like being gripped by a huge fist.

Chris was breathing hard, trying to hide it, but the sheriff laughed. “Haven’t been out like this in a while, have you?”

“Hell, I’ve never been out like this. I did a little bit of hunting with
my dad, but not way out here. I’m not sure I’m going to be much use to you.”

“Your dad was a helluva dentist, best this town ever had.”

“Yeah, but not much of a hunter.”

The sheriff said, “Well, let’s see what you’re made of.”

By the time they camped they still hadn’t seen another living soul—an eagle, maybe, before nightfall. Something small and dark and distant, high on invisible drafts, held aloft by unseen hands. Later they drank coffee spiked with Black Maple Hill, stared together into the fire. There would have been a million stars if the clouds from the earlier rain hadn’t held over, smattering drops that were now flakes—like white ashes—blowing down and catching in Chris’s hair. Something howled high on a ridge behind them; became a series of barks before fading to nothing.

“Do you like what we do, Chris?” The sheriff nudged the fire with a boot, poured out his cold coffee and bourbon and set up another.

“I’m sorry?” Chris said, unsure.

“Being a deputy, working in Murfee?”

“Sure, sure I do.”

The sheriff watched him through the fire. “Maybe it’s not what you thought you’d be doing, but we’re glad to have you back home. The people like you, they trust you.” The sheriff sipped from his mug. “I’m not always going to be sheriff. May not seem that way, but my day is coming, sooner or later.”

“I think you’ve got a lot of years left. Remember, I just hiked around these woods with you today.”

The sheriff grinned, pleased. “Well, it’s still best to plan, to look ahead. And that’s part of the reason I wanted to spend this time with
you. Looking ahead. Someone will sit in my chair one day and they’ll have to run for my office. That’ll be easier if that man has my support.”

“Sir, I appreciate that, but there’s Hayes and Busbee. There’s Duane . . .”

The sheriff kicked at the fire again, releasing smoke, embers. “All good men in their own way, necessary men. Duane is a fine example. You always need a Duane Dupree because he serves a purpose; makes the hard decisions, the ugly ones. The people of Murfee need him and don’t even know it and will never appreciate it the way I do. They can’t, so they won’t follow Duane, and that’s the difference. I think they’ll follow you.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re not the sort of man who thinks that way. You don’t covet another man’s possessions.” He held on to the last a little too long. “That’s another reason why people trust you. They believe you’re decent, and so do I.”

“I’m trying to do a good job, that’s all.”

“Everyone starts that way, Chris. You’d be amazed at how hard that can be.” The sheriff looked up to the dark trees, the faintly falling snow. “Anyway, I want you to give it some thought. There’s still time. I’m not quite ready to hang up the spurs.”

“No, I don’t think you are, and Murfee isn’t ready for it, either.”

“Ah, the town gets on, it always will.” He took another long sip. “How about you? How are you and Mel getting on? Duane’s been chatting her up at Earlys. She seems to like the work there. Is she finally taking to Murfee?”

Chris held his own mug tight. Mel hadn’t said anything about Duane Dupree, and as far as he knew, she sure as hell didn’t like Earlys.
“She needed to get out of the house a bit. Earlys is a way to do that. She’s fine.”

“Well now, you know Dupree. He can’t stay away from a pretty lady. If he’s bothering her over there, tell me and I’ll handle it. He doesn’t need to be lingering, drinking his damn pops.”

“No, I’m sure it’s fine.” But Chris didn’t know whether it really was or not. The fire popped, throwing a handful of sparks. They hung in the air, burning in the dark, leaving orange trails in their wake.

“He’s been eyeballing that new teacher, too. Anne Hart. I’ve heard around that you two are friends.” The sheriff’s eyes reflected new fire.

Chris’s hands were as cold as the mug in them. He shook his head. “Not so much. I’ve introduced myself, talked with her in passing, like at the carnival. But just about books. There’s still a bunch of them up at the house. My dad and I saved almost every book we ever had. Mel wants me to get rid of them.” He trailed off.

“Mind that woman of yours, Chris. Otherwise, she’ll bring you sorrow . . . I should know.” He shifted, backing up a bit, disappearing into deeper darkness. “I actually met our new teacher even before she came here, before she’d gone back to her maiden name. She was married to a police officer in Killeen. She was Anne Devane then.”

The sheriff said it as if the name should mean something to him, but it didn’t. “The pair of them got into a mess of their own up there. Tragic. You didn’t know that? Maybe it never came up when you two were talking about all those books.”

“No, no, it didn’t.”

The sheriff was so completely hidden by the dark and fire he might as well not have been there at all. “I’m surprised at that, Chris, really surprised. It was quite a big deal in the news for a while . . .”

AMERICA

T
he house was beautiful, like a picture in one of her magazines. Better than her magazines. It was wide, open, real. Rambling on and on, one room spilling into other, like the whole place was taking wing. There was nothing scary about it at all. Caleb always talked about this place in hushed tones. In the years she had known him, this was her first time inside it—
la casa del Juez
. Caleb said he was out hunting with Deputy Cherry and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow or the day after, but he didn’t look happy about it.

When she asked about that, something passed in front of his eyes before he said, “I think he’ll be fine. It’s all still okay.”

She didn’t ask any more.

•   •   •

He got beers from somewhere, warm bottles, too afraid to drink the ones already in the house. She held one but didn’t sip it as they
walked from one darkened room to another, everything wrapped in shadow, all light and color gone. He showed her the things his mama had bought, put up on the walls. She’d cleaned out everything from the other wives and tried to make the place her own. Amé knew it didn’t matter—those past women still haunted the place, and Caleb’s mama had known it as well, every time El Juez touched her. Men didn’t discard things, places, people. They forever held on to the touch and scent and sound of every woman they’d ever had, like holding on to whatever years had passed them by. El Juez saw those other women—remembered them—in every corner, in every shadow, of the house he’d shared with them. Even when Caleb’s mama was here by herself, hanging her own pictures or repainting a wall, she was never truly alone. Her own mama used to say,
“Las paredes todavía tienen ojos.”
The walls still have eyes.

If Amé had been Caleb’s mama, she would have burned this place to the ground before ever setting foot in it.

•   •   •

The room for El Juez was different. Simple. If it had ever had a woman’s touch, it was hard to tell. Caleb stood at the door, afraid to enter, leaving the hallway light on for her to see. They were reflected in a big mirror, smoke trapped in the glass, and the bed was smooth as a stone. There was a dresser of pale wood, no pictures, and little else. Caleb stayed silent, like this room explained so much on its own . . . that it revealed secrets. Amé felt her life was nothing but empty rooms just like this, going on and on, revealing nothing. Then they were in Caleb’s room, door shut. The lights were off, only the glow of the iPad on the desk as it shuffled through songs. Songs he liked. They were lying next to each other on his bed.

Earlier they’d stood outside on his back porch and smoked the weed she’d gotten from Eddie Corazon until they were both too cold, her bare arms left shaking. But it was warm here, now, lying next to him. They’d never been this close for this long. He whispered that Deputy Cherry would finally prove that her brother had been murdered, that Duane Dupree had done it. He whispered that everything would soon be different. She didn’t know if he was trying to make her believe it, or himself.

She rolled over, propped herself on her arm. What if no one cared about Rodolfo Reynosa, like no one had cared when he first disappeared? What if no one believed the deputy? Or he told El Juez? He was out there with him now, somewhere in the mountains. What if he was left there, like Caleb had been left, but now forever? If something happened to the deputy, what would happen to her, her family?

“It won’t be like that,” Caleb said. “It won’t. I promise.” But his eyes weren’t convinced, and neither was she. But she let his arm creep over her stomach to hold her and then she let him kiss her—what he’d wanted for so long. And it was okay. For a few minutes, she wanted it to be. She accepted he was incapable of seeing, no matter what she showed him. His beautiful eyes were blind and always would be.

His music stopped, started again, at the first song. The room was so warm—like the paper beaches taped to her walls—and so was he. She remembered then something Rodolfo once said when they were coming back to the United States over the Puente Ojinaga, the bridge above the Rio Grande. Hidden behind his big narco glasses, shiny like mirrors, Rodolfo had watched all the people crossing both ways over the bridge, Mexican and American. He’d said in his perfect English:
More than a river will always separate us.
He hugged her then, laughed at his own silliness, dropped back to Spanish and called
her his star,
mi estrella
. He reminded her that as long as she glowed, he’d always find his way home.

He disappeared two weeks later.

Caleb’s mouth and hands and body found her and she didn’t stop him. Let the walls watch all they want. No matter what happened, she wanted him to remember this, hold on to it forever. It was all she had to give.