The Far Empty (35 page)

AMERICA

S
he sat in Pilar’s car near the edge of the Comanche lot, where she’d sat with Dupree before. She had the engine off and the radio on, listening to a Mexican station from over the border. There was no music, just words; a
fútbol
game somewhere over there, but for her, still so much closer than the school bonfire. She’d never gone to it, didn’t even know where it was.

Máximo had kept begging her to be patient,
tener paciencia.
He was in no rush and she couldn’t figure out why. Maybe he was in no hurry to get back over the river, but over
here,
she needed it done now. He just wanted to look at her and hold her hand and tell her it already was.

She’d sent Dupree a picture of her own for once, one she’d snapped in her bedroom, but he hadn’t answered her. Not yet. She had never taken a picture of herself like that, and wondered what Caleb would have thought of it, or Máximo. Máximo had wanted Dupree way out
here, away from Murfee and everyone, but she didn’t tell him about the picture she’d made to draw him out of town. Draw him
to
her. She’d stared at it a long time before sending it, afraid to let it go, wondering if it even looked like her, because the girl in the photo was so different. Someone she didn’t recognize, because she never looked at herself anymore, avoiding even the mirror in her bathroom, since Duane Dupree. Wondering if this was how Caleb and Máximo saw her, wondering if she was pretty. Before deciding that
sí
, the girl in the picture was, very much so.

She was about to give up when he finally called, said he would come. But his voice sounded strange, lost, like each word burned or there were other voices speaking for him. He giggled, whispered things so that she knew he was high,
drogado
, as high as she’d ever heard him. She wasn’t sure if that made him more or less dangerous, but at least he was coming. She texted Máximo, let him know Dupree was on his way. She wished she could be more like Máximo, who acted like he had all the time in the world. Like he wanted
more
time. And maybe he did. He never talked about what waited for him back across the river, what waited for them both.

Caleb had given her a note at school before disappearing during his last period. Once she had it in her hand, felt it, she’d realized it wasn’t a paper note at all, so she went into the bathroom, stood in the stall with the door shut, to look at it alone. She’d unfolded it and it was the picture he’d taken down from her wall, when he’d last been in her bedroom. That magazine cutout of a city skyline along a beach, once glossy but now faded. The picture with the numbers she’d written down on the back, including Dupree’s, over a year ago. So many times before she’d looked at that picture and wondered if the colors were real—the blue of the sky and the blue of the ocean. A
blue so bright and the pale white of those tall buildings the same white of the coldest desert moon, taller than any she had ever seen with her own eyes. She’d played a game with herself, picking out a window in one of those buildings as her own, the highest point, imagining herself living there, staring out that window, looking back at herself, waving goodbye. Caleb had written a few words right across
her
window, as if he’d known which one it was all along.

Dupree’s truck pulled in, slow, pinning her beneath his headlights. He sat like that for a long time, the rumble of his engine carrying low across the gravel lot. But he didn’t pull forward or shut off the truck, just smoked his cigarettes. He was watching, waiting, wary—as if he knew there was trouble, as if he could smell it. She tried to will him over to her, make him cross that distance, and when that didn’t work she got so frustrated she almost got out of Pilar’s car and walked right over, even though she didn’t want to be that close to his truck. It was an open hole, ready to swallow her up. If she got too close, he’d make her disappear for good. If she didn’t know any better, she thought she caught Dupree’s eyes glowing red in the truck’s cab, but it was only the flare of his matches, the tip of his cigarette burning bright with each breath. Minutes passed. There was the flicker and flash of the luminous screen of his phone as he took a call or a picture, maybe both. A
puta
phone call.

Ten paciencia.

Ten paciencia.

Máximo had wanted her to stay in Pilar’s car, do exactly what he’d told her, exactly
how
he had told her to do it. He was worried about the
ayudante
springing his own trap, but with Dupree alone, only feet away, smoking without a care in the world, it was so hard. She held her breath, but didn’t know if she could hold it much longer.
Her window was down and through gritted teeth she could smell cigarette smoke, Dupree’s skin. The same smell that had been trapped in her clothes and her room for what felt like forever. What happened next wouldn’t make it go away, not at first, but it was a start. A start she could live with, that she would have to.

Ten paciencia.

She took her eyes off of Dupree, taken for a moment by the stars. Wondering if they were the same ones she had watched from her bedroom window the night she’d dreamed of Rodolfo, after Caleb had come to her. Maybe they’d been following her all along, right up to this moment, watching down on her, without judgment. She knew she loved the stars here, the way they hung above the mountains, shined across the desert, glittered high over the town. She hoped they’d be the same everywhere, that they would always follow her, no matter where she went, but wasn’t sure, a part of her understanding that it was possible to see
real
stars only in a place like this, far from big city lights. That’s when she truly understood the stars weren’t just scattered points, but were so many and so close they could light the sky with a fierce radiance, bright enough to read by. At times close enough to reach up and grab, so bright they hurt. So hot any one of them would burn to touch. She had been Rodolfo’s
estrella
. All he’d asked of her was to
glow
for him—to wait for him, to guide him. But he never found his way back to her, because she had become lost, too. She’d been all alone, needing a light of her own to show her the way.

When she was gone, she’d miss the stars here. She was still looking up, searching for her star, when her phone buzzed, a text from across the parking lot. Not from Máximo . . . finally,
Dupree
. But just another picture . . .

. . . of a man’s face up close, eyes bruised and open. Out of focus and gone away, and there was dirt in them . . . in his hair. There was blood too, on his pale lips, spotting his cheeks like tears. Everything else was blackness. It was a picture of a starless night, a shuttered room—of nothing at all; a square of dark like the deepest well or a grave in the desert or a hole to nowhere.

And Duane Dupree had taken a picture of her dead brother deep down in that hole, staring upward at the last thing he ever saw.

Then she was out of the car, running toward him, screaming. But before she got there, Dupree gunned the engine on his truck, pulled it in a wide circle, and with a wave of his hand was gone.

She had thrown her phone and its horrible last picture after him, crying too hard to stop, when Máximo walked up from where he’d been hiding in the dark. All of his patience, all of his worry and caution, and he’d waited too fucking long. Instead he put his arms around her, holding her close, still holding Rodolfo’s gun.

CALEB

H
is father got home late, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and sat in the kitchen by himself. Caleb tracked the steady clink of the glass on the wood, a drinking rhythm. From his bedroom window the sky had long gone blue to purple; above that, a deeper darkness and the lonely burn of brighter, distant things. Some of them moved left to right—planes or satellites passing far overhead.

His father finally came up the stairs and his weight moved past Caleb’s bedroom, stopping only long enough to peer in, where Caleb lay sideways on his bed, asleep, still wearing his earbuds. But there was no music in them, no sound, and Caleb wasn’t asleep. He listened to his own heartbeat and the sound of his father standing at his door, watching him; holding his breath, because of his damaged ear from the night on the mountain. Finally, faintly, catching the echoes of his father walking down to his own room. Caleb said his mother’s name three times and reached down under his bed for the Ruger.

In his mother’s mirror, his father moved, shapeless. Caleb thought he might take a shower, but instead he just pulled off his boots, lying down on the bed, unsteady. He was drinking downstairs for a while; too long, too much, and he’d probably had a few during his dinner with Anne. His father’s reflection reclined and came to rest, motionless, hands across his chest. Caleb waited and tried not to breathe, tried not to cry anymore, as his father turned into one shadow among many, threatening to disappear altogether.

Caleb was paralyzed, knowing he was waiting too damn long. He hadn’t planned on shooting a sleeping man, but he would. Then he was in motion from where he crouched in the hallway. The gun heavy, so goddamn heavy, he thought it would pull him through the floor. He’d never held anything with such weight, such importance—all the years between them and all the years that would never be—and he struggled as he burst into his father’s bedroom, the muzzle leading him more than he wanted.

He glanced up quick enough to see the bed was now empty, nothing reflected in the mirror. His father had disappeared, faded away right in front of him as he tried not to shoot himself in the leg. The gun’s impossible weight threatened to bend him in half, leaving him kneeling on the floor, as if he were praying. His finger slipped on the trigger when he fired blind, shooting out his own reflection and anything that hid within it.

He never heard his father, never saw him, when he was struck hard and sharp across the mouth, tasting blood.

THE JUDGE

T
he room was full of sudden rage, the one bullet shattering the old mirror. It rang like a church bell. And then the boy lay sprawled on the floor covered in broken glass, the rifle a handspan away. The Judge marveled at the gun, as if he couldn’t imagine such a thing, while he fought for his balance and shook the muzzle blast free from his eyes.

He’d gotten up to take a piss and was coming out of the bathroom when Caleb stumbled into his room, yelling. But he saw the rifle first and hit Caleb as hard as he could across the mouth, surprising him. Still, the boy was not half as surprised as he was. He wasn’t angry or particularly scared, either. He’d had too much to drink, and it had nearly cost him, but getting up to piss it all away had probably saved his life.

He thought about just kicking the gun clear, but instead bent over, picked it up, checking to make sure it was still loaded. It was. He
leaned against the dresser, steadied himself, and then pointed the Ruger at the crown of his son’s head.

“Damn, boy, goddamn.” He had to say it loud, since they were both still half deaf from the gun’s blast. But Caleb looked up, heard him clear enough, his eyes dark. He had a cut on his cheek from the mirror glass and blood crawling down his face, mixing with what was already running from his mouth.

“I know what you did,” Caleb breathed.

“Is that the truth now?” He raised the gun to make his point, took a step back, opening distance between them. “What exactly would that be?”

“You’re not going to kill me, not here. Not like this.” Caleb pulled himself up, and he could see now just how tall the boy had grown; still thin, but tall, nearly his own height. He couldn’t remember when Caleb had gotten big, maybe because his son was always hunched over, disappearing into his clothes, or maybe because he hadn’t been paying enough attention. Or he saw only what Caleb had showed him.

“Don’t test my patience, boy. You’d be surprised what I am capable of.”

“No, no, I wouldn’t. I’m not surprised at a goddamn thing.” Caleb touched his mouth, leaving blood on his fingers. He wiped them on the bedcover. “There’s not a thing about you that surprises me anymore. Once I really understood that, I wasn’t scared of you anymore, either. It made picking up that gun a lot easier. I had to do it, no choice.
You
are my business to handle, always have been. It was in my blood all along.” He held up a stained hand. “I am my father’s son.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You killed my mother, you fucking monster, and Rudy Reynosa.
Tried to kill Chris Cherry, and God only knows what else you’ve done. No one in this town knows what you’re capable of, but I do. I’ve known all along. I believe it all.”

“Your whore of a mother ran off.” The Judge ignored the rest of it.

“Don’t you talk about her like that, don’t you dare say that. You don’t get to do that anymore.”

He lowered the gun, his old Ruger that he hadn’t shot in years. He couldn’t imagine why Caleb had chosen that one, when there were a dozen others that would have done the job better. And he was tired, as tired as he’d ever been. “You were going to kill me over her? She left us . . . left us both.”

“She wouldn’t have done that. She never would have left me with you.”

“Are you so sure? Do you really believe that? I don’t think so. You didn’t know your mother half as well as you want to pretend.” Doubt flickered in Caleb’s eyes. “Ah, but you suspect, don’t you? You’ve suspected all along. I can see that you do. What sort of mother leaves her son behind?
But what sort of son were you, that she was willing to do it?
”

Caleb pushed his hands against the side of his head. “Is there anything that comes out of your mouth that isn’t a fucking lie? Do you even know what the truth is anymore?”

“You just haven’t been listening, Caleb. I’ve been telling you the truth your whole goddamn life. Hard words . . .
hard truth
.”

Caleb laughed, crazy. “So this was all somehow for my benefit, your way of making me a man? Jesus Christ.”

He nodded at the boy, took the Ruger, put it up on the dresser—still within his reach but out of Caleb’s—and raised his hands. “Man enough. You tried to handle business just now, and I’m proud of you for that.”

Caleb kept his eyes on the gun, breathing hard. “Do you fucking hear yourself? You’re crazy . . . fucking crazy.”

“I’m your father,” the Judge said, smiling. “As much as neither of us might want it, you are my blood. You see that now, you said it yourself. I love you the only way I know how. I know you, and you know me.

“Like father, like son.” They stood that way for what seemed like forever, watching each other, listening to each other breathe.

He knew Caleb could still make a move for the Ruger. It was even money as to whether he would try. He had Evelyn’s eyes, the way she’d always stared at him—that same intensity, all the same questions. Full of mysteries, deep as the ocean. There were no answers there, ever.

Caleb broke the silence. “I know what’s up in the attic. I found what you’ve been hiding there. All that damn money . . . I guess that was the price of your family, this whole town.”

Now,
that
did surprise him. He didn’t have anything to say but didn’t have the chance to anyway, because right then someone started hammering on the front door. It echoed throughout the otherwise still, silent house. The aftermath of the gunshot.

“Expecting visitors?” He glanced at the windows, the stairway walls, waiting for the smear of reflected blue-and-red lights. It wouldn’t be his own deputies coming for him, but he wondered if Caleb or Chris Cherry had already talked to the feds or the Texas Rangers. But Caleb looked twice as surprised. He glanced down the hall, as if he might see a ghost walking toward him.

The Judge reached out and hefted the gun, pointed it at his son, making him lead the way.

“Clean your face and get the goddamn door, Caleb. Let’s see who we have for company.”