Wolf swore softly.
“Threatening notes too, talking about how he’d teach me to be a good girlfriend this time.”
He swore louder.
“I called the cops. Detective Marcia Simms had me start documenting everything. So I did. He was brought in, questioned, lectured. We were gathering evidence for arestraining order when he just…” She raised her open hands. “Stopped. I assumed the cops talking to him shook him, you know? But no, turns out that’s right around the time he changed his status from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘in a relationship’ and tagged that poor girl who’s now dead.”
She closed her eyes. “Mary Jo Gallagher.”
“You’re safe here, though,” Wolf said, because he could see that talking about Earl brought the tension back to Camellia’s face, to her eyes, to her body. She was all tight and trembling again.
“I feel safe,” she said. “But I need a little distraction.”
He could use a little distraction, too, but she probably wasn’t thinking of the same kind he was. She went into the tent and came right back out with his mother’s diary. “Shall we read?”
That would probably do it. “Okay, but it’s my turn,” he said, holding out a hand.
She handed him the old journal. He opened to where they’d left off on the drive, cleared his throat, and said, “Wow, she took a long break. This section was a few months later later.”
Cilla
January 15th
Our lives changed entirely today. I need to get this down while it’s all fresh in my mind, for Wolf.
He’s four months old, near as I can figure. He has sleek black hair and skin like the red rocks that rise among the more common brown ones. The older he gets, the prettier he gets.
We’ve been venturing farther into the rocky badlands from the park, way up into the tops of those towering cliffs above the Rio Grande, and then farther from the river, among the boulders. I carry Wolf in the backpack-baby carrier I made from his diaper bag. I didn’t know what we were looking for until today when we found it.
A tumble-down shack with a rock formation behind it that looks like an anvil balanced on top of a pole—like it’s just waiting for Wile E. Coyote to pass by so it can fall on his head and flatten him. It’s up high, and it smells good there. Even better than below. There’s no fishy smell from the river, and the warm, dry wind comes fresh from the sky, and isn’t yet contaminated with all the nonsense down below.
The outside of the shack is made of wide boards that have more splinters than a porcupine has quills, sun-bleached to palest gray. There are two windows in the front, covered from within. A crooked chimney of cobblestones is the most solid-looking part of the whole building. Outside, there’s a tiny, falling-down barn, a well with a hand-pump, and patches of weeds that look more or less cultivated. The place looks abandoned, but not.
It looks as if itwantsto look abandoned.
Okay, I’m writing this as closely as I can to how it happened.
Wolf chattered like I’d never heard him before as we got closer. The shack didn’t feel empty. It felt…sad. Lonely. From a few feet outside the door, hanging crooked with one hinge loose, I called, “Hello?”
No one replied, so I moved closer and said it again. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
“Please.” Her voice was soft and hoarse. It came from inside the shack.
I went to the door, but hesitated. I had to think of the baby, after all. What if this was some kind of criminal, holed up out here in the middle of nowhere, luring us in to…rob us, or whatever?
“I need water.”
That was definitely a woman’s voice. I was sure of it. An old woman, I thought, and I opened the door just a little bit, so I could get a look inside.
An old Black woman lay in a bed inside the house, over near the front window to the left of the door. She had pure white hair like a ripe dandelion and skin of faded leather. Her fireplace was cold and dark. Herbs hung upside down in bundles from the ceiling.
She said, “There you are,” in a raspy voice and asked for water.
I looked around the place to make sure nobody was waiting to jump me before going inside. But the shack was empty. So I grabbed the pitcher and ran back out, then started pumping the well handle up and down.
At first nothing came out of the well’s spout, and I was afraid it had gone dry. But then I heard an encouraging gurgle, and after more pumping, water gushed out. It hit the pitcher so hard it rebounded back up into my face, and I sputtered.
Then I realized I was thirsty, too, and this water was sweet. I pumped a few times till it ran clear, then rinsed the dust from the pitcher and filled it. I took a sip as I hurried back inside, where I quickly rinsed and then filled the glass.
