Fatal Harvest (14 page)

“Maybe Matt’s innocent about the ways of the world. But he has his head on straight. He doesn’t see the Bible as a book of nice little tales and proverbs. He sees it as a command to action.”

“A command to change the world?” Cole couldn’t imagine it. He had been content to change one little patch of New Mexico. And even that had been rough going. “Do you think Matt sees Hector Diaz as the answer?”

“Part of it. Matt believed he could actually convince Agrimax to alter its practices, and he saw I-FEED as the agent for change. But his plan seems to have backfired.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Cole checked his rearview mirror. A car had been tailgating him for the past ten minutes, and he was concerned. Almost too tired to think, he told himself it was probably nothing. He reminded himself he was driving in Mexico, where stoplights were generally disregarded, and a single marked lane could hold at least two cars side by side as they jockeyed for position.

He and Jill were driving through a residential area toward
the home of Hector Diaz’s secretary. Enjoying two weeks’ vacation while her boss was out of town, the secretary hadn’t wanted to make the trip into the city. But she had agreed to give Jill and Cole the key to the I-FEED office as well as her address book.

“I wonder what Banyon gave Matt before he was killed,” Cole said. “Information? Or some object?”

“Oh, I think it’s information. Matt must know something, and he’s trying to find the right person to tell.”

“Why didn’t he just tell me? And why is this guy on my tail? He’s making me nervous.” Cole honked twice and rolled down his window. “Hey, buddy, back off!”

Jill craned to see. “That looks like the Lincoln. How creepy. It couldn’t be.”

“It’s not a Lincoln. I’m sure it’s just some driver in a hurry.”

“You sure he’s not following us?”

“Well, I don’t think he’s ‘following us’ like that. This is just how people drive here. He’s practically riding my rear bumper.”

“I’ll tell you why Matt didn’t give you the information,” Jill said. “Because he couldn’t trust you.”

“What are you saying?” Annoyed, he rounded on her. “I’ve never been unreliable a day in my life, and my son knows it. He trusts me.”

“Not with this. He figured you’d just turn the information over to Agrimax. Or to the sheriff. Obviously, it needs to get into the hands of the right people. Are you sure that’s not a Lincoln?”

Cole could hardly keep up with the woman’s train of thought. “It’s not a Lincoln, and I wouldn’t have turned over the information if Matt hadn’t wanted me to. I would have…” He paused, searching for the street that led toward the secretary’s home. “Well, I don’t know what I would have done. The right thing, I guess.”

“The safe thing,” she said. “You strike me as someone who thinks it’s important to be safe all the time.”

“And you don’t?”

“The Bible never says we’re supposed to have safety as a goal. We’re to be righteous, obedient, faithful, long-suffering—”

“Yeah, well, it’s a man’s job to protect his family and keep them safe.”

“But you could reach out once in a while. Go beyond your safety zone. Do something—”

“Look out!” Cole tightened his fists on the steering wheel as the speeding car behind him pulled abreast of their rental car, sideswiping it and sending them careening onto the shoulder. “Hang on!”

“Lord, help us!” Jill grabbed the dashboard as Cole wrestled the fishtailing vehicle back onto the roadway.

“He wrecked our car!” Cole could hardly believe it. “Did you hear the metal crunching? And look at him—he’s just driving on past us like it was nothing. Hit-and-run.”

“He did it on purpose.”

“You think so?”

“Cole, I have a bad feeling. You’d better stop.”

“It’s too remote out here. I’m going to find the secretary’s house and—” He stared in disbelief as a set of headlights came straight at him. “Not again! Jill, hold on!”

Again, Cole swerved off the side of the road, this time striking a concrete post. The rental car skidded from the shoulder in a spray of gravel and went airborne. Gripping the steering wheel, Cole braced for impact, the sound of Jill’s scream ringing in his ears. The front end slammed into an embankment and crumpled. The car teetered on its side for a moment, then toppled over.

Cole knew the smell of fuel, the wet drip of something soaking into his shirt, and the silence from the passenger’s seat. He was upside down, his seat belt cutting into his stomach, and he couldn’t see, and then he couldn’t think or breathe, and then…there was nothing.

I
n the wee hours of Sunday morning, Matt slipped through the darkness toward the old adobe house. Even though he’d only been gone since Thursday, he had a feeling he was two inches taller and at least five pounds skinnier than the last time he’d set foot on the Strong ranch. Would Josefina totally freak out when she saw him? More important, would she help him?

Crouching near a scraggly piñon tree, he surveyed the ground of the small, wire-fenced complex where Josefina and her family lived. Her husband, Hernando, was the ranch foreman in charge of cattle. Their children had all grown up and moved away years before, and now Josefina’s mother lived with them. She couldn’t get out of bed, so Josefina worried about her constantly. A rusty swingset stood in the yard, along with two sheds and a garage. A couple of chickens usually wandered around pecking for bugs, but they must have gone into the shed for the night. Even the dog, Ricky, was nowhere to be seen.

Matt didn’t see any Agrimax men or the sheriff lurking around. In fact, he didn’t see any signs of life at all. That gave him a bad feeling.

He checked for the USB key, a habit that was quickly becoming an obsession. It was still there, heavy in his jeans
pocket. As had become his custom each time he touched the small piece of hardware, he prayed that God would give him strength to do what he had to do.

Leaving the shelter of the piñon tree, Matt crept toward the open gate in the sagging wire fence. A couple of pickup trucks had been pulled into the yard, and he scampered across barren ground until he was hidden between them. A growl lifted the hair on his neck, but he counted on Josefina’s little mutt remembering him.

“Ricky!” he called in a whisper. “Hey, Ricky, it’s me. Whatcha doin’, boy? C’mere!”

The dog bounded across the yard from where he’d been dozing on the porch. Front paws on Matt’s knee, he licked the boy’s face. Matt rubbed Ricky behind the ears and relished the comforting feel of thick, warm fur and saggy skin.

“Where’s your mama?” Matt murmured. “Isn’t she home?”

The dog followed, tail wagging happily, as Matt darted from between the pickups toward the front step. After glancing behind to make sure no one was coming after him, he knocked three times.

“Josefina! It’s Matt. Open up!”

He thought he heard a sound from inside the house, but the lights didn’t come on. That was probably good, in case there was somebody hidden outside. He knocked again.

“Hey, Josefina! Open the door.”

Ricky gave a bark that nearly sent Matt’s heart into his throat. He bent down and patted the dog. Standing out here, all he could think about was the last time he had walked into Mr. Banyon’s house. What if someone had murdered Josefina and Hernando, too?

He vividly remembered the moment he laid eyes on that horrible, misshapen face with a bloodred halo spread across the sofa pillow. Mr. Banyon’s blackened mouth had haunted
him all the way to Juarez. Even while hanging out with the Mexican street kids, trying to figure out what to do next, Matt had been unable to calm down. He thought he was probably going to need a psychologist after this was all over. Then he wondered if it would ever be over.

And then he felt the barrel end of a rifle against his ribs.

“Don’t move!” a low voice commanded. The rifle jabbed him harder. “Who are you?”

He was going to throw up. He was going to faint. He was going to die right there on Josefina’s porch.

“I’m…I’m…” He ventured a glance out of the corner of his eye. The familiar face with its thick mustache and black hair was outlined by moonlight. “Hernando! It’s me, Matt.”

“Matthew? Ay-yi-yi. Get in the house!” The man grabbed him roughly by the arm, opened the front door and threw him inside. “What are you doing here,
niño?
Don’t you know everybody’s looking for you? The sheriff and the police and even the FBI. You’re in big trouble.”

Matt hauled himself up from the wooden floor where he’d landed. He brushed off his elbows and kneecaps. “I know they’re looking for me. Where’s Josefina?”

“They say you murdered Jim Banyon.”

“I didn’t do that, Hernando. Why would I kill Mr. Banyon? I liked him. He was cool.”

“Hernando?” Josefina stuck her head around the door frame of the bedroom. “Who’s there?”

“Josefina!” Matt had never been so glad to see anybody in his life. He charged her and threw his arms around her. “Josefina, it’s me!”

“Niño?”
Her hands clamped around his face, and she forced his head backward so she could look into his eyes. “Matthew!
Mi niñito! Ay, mi bebe!
Where have you been, my baby? Everybody’s looking for you. Your father is worried to death! I’ve been sick to my stomach ever since you ran away.”

“Yeah, she’s not even hardly cooking nothing,” Hernando put in.

“Nothing?” Matt couldn’t believe that.

“Sheriff Holtmeyer told us the police found your car abandoned in El Paso!” Josefina grabbed him and hugged him tightly to her breast. “
Ay, mi hijo!
I thought you were dead! I thought somebody killed you for sure!”

“I went to Juarez,” Matt managed over the lump in his throat. He’d had no idea he was going to feel like crying just from seeing Josefina, whom he’d seen nearly every day of his whole life. But somehow her round, smooth face and black hair threaded with silver made her look so great. And the way she was holding on to him and rocking him back and forth caused things to well up inside him that he could hardly hold at bay.

“You were in Juarez?” Hernando asked. “You drove that piece of junk all the way to Mexico? What happened, Matt?”

“Somebody towed it. The police, I guess. Maybe they were looking for clues.” He swallowed hard, as Josefina made little cooing noises while she patted him on the back and smoothed his hair. “I took a bus to Alamogordo, and then I caught a ride the rest of the way home.”

“You hitchhiked!” Josefina exclaimed. “
Ai!
You could have been murdered! They have killers on the highway these days! You don’t ever get in a car with a stranger. Didn’t I tell you that? They kill you and leave your body in a ditch.
Ai, niñito mio!
”

“Stop your wailing, woman,” Hernando told her. “Go fix the boy some tamales or something. Sit down, Matt. I’m not gonna turn the light on, because who knows? Seems like the sheriff’s driving by every hour or two, and other people keep coming over here to ask questions or poke their noses into ranch business.”

Matt wiped the stray tear that had found its way down under his eye, and then he took a seat on one of Josefina’s saggy couches. The house smelled like red chiles and tortillas and the kind of perfume Josefina always wore. Matt
covered the USB key in his pocket with a pillow. Then he picked at the fringe on the pillow while Hernando questioned him.

“So you went to Juarez? What for?”

“I needed to see a man there. But I better not tell you why, in case the sheriff asks.”

“Oh,
si.
I got you.” Hernando looked confused. “Well, anyway, it’s good you’re home again. Your father is over in Amarillo, and he’s been calling Josefina day and night to see if you came back.”

“Cole is not in Amarillo anymore,
mijo,
” his wife said, emerging from the kitchen with a plate of biscochitos and a glass of milk. “He went to El Paso to look for Matthew, remember?”

“To El Paso?” Matt felt stunned. “Why did he do that?”

“Because of what we told you—the police found your truck down there,” she said. “He’s crazy to find you, what do you think? He’s your father!”

“Yeah, but…” Matt didn’t know how to explain the surprise he felt every time someone told him his father was worried about him. Certainly Matt knew his dad cared for him, maybe even loved him in a detached sort of way. But crazy to find him? Calling day and night? That didn’t sound like his dad.

“Now, you just stay right here with us,” Josefina said, “and we’re gonna call Sheriff Holtmeyer—”

“No, we’re not!” Hernando cut in. “He’ll throw the boy in jail. You want that? We’ll hide him until Cole gets back.”

“Hide him? And then what,
mijo?
Then the sheriff will have to come over and get him—and you and me will go to jail ourselves for harboring a fugitive.”

“A fugitive? It’s Matthew!”

“
Si,
but I saw how they do it on TV. That’s what is going to happen, because if we hide him, that makes us guilty, too. Matthew needs to just call up Sheriff Holtmeyer and tell him that he didn’t kill Mr. Banyon in Hope.”

“It’s not going to do any good, because that’s not how it works—and I didn’t see this on TV. I know it’s true, because you remember what happened to my cousin José? First they put the person in jail, and then they get him a lawyer and call out the jury, and then—”

“I have to leave,” Matt said. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Hernando. But I have to go. Tonight.”

“Go where?” Josefina asked. “You can’t run away again, Matthew. You don’t have no place to go that’s more important than your own family right here. You stay with Hernando and me and Mama. We’ll take care of you.”

Matt now understood the full meaning of temptation. What wouldn’t he give to bundle down into one of Josefina’s clean beds and sleep for two days straight? To eat platefuls of good food that wouldn’t make him sick? To have Hernando stand at the front door and defend him to Sheriff Holtmeyer? If he just stayed here, everything would work out. And he’d be safe.

Struggling to resist the lure of security and comfort, he accidentally picked off a whole tuft of the fringe on Josefina’s sofa pillow. “I can’t,” he mumbled, pushing on the fringe as if that would make it stick back on. “I can’t stay here. There’s something I have to do.”

“What? What you have to do that’s so important?” She clucked.
“Matecito, mi bebé—”

“No, Josefina.” He looked up at her. “I’m not your
bebé
anymore. I’m sixteen now, and God has given me something to do. Something I have to do. I don’t want to do it, but—”

“Then don’t do it.” Hernando slapped his large palms on his thighs. “If you don’t want to do it, don’t!”

“But that’s not how it works with God, Hernando. God called Paul to go on mission trips that ended up getting him shipwrecked and thrown in prison—”

“But God would never want you to go to
prison,
” Josefina said.

“How do you know? Paul went. John the Baptist went. A lot of the disciples wound up in prison. And they died, too, Josefina. They died doing what God told them to do.”

“But you’re not a disciple.”

“Yeah, I am. Every Christian is. And if we really listen to God, and if He tells us to do something…then we have to do it, no matter what.”

“What is this thing you’re so sure God said you gotta do for Him, huh?” Hernando asked.

“I can’t tell you.” He slipped his hand under the pillow and made sure the USB key was still in his pocket. “It’s just something I know.”

Josefina looked at her husband. Hernando stared at Matt. Finally he scratched the side of his face and let out a deep sigh. “You’re a little bit loco, you know that, Matthew.”

Matt grinned. “Yeah, that’s what people tell me.”

“Well, what can we do for you? I know you didn’t come here just for Josefina’s biscochitos.”

“I need my passport. Billy’s, too. They’re both at my house. Our youth group was supposed to go on a mission trip to Guatemala. Billy’s dad threatened to confiscate his. And don’t freak out, Josefina,” he added as she threw up her hands in despair. “We’ll be okay. I promise.”

“But you have to finish the school year,” she said. “Don’t you wanna be a junior in the fall? And what about Billy? His mama needs him. She threw her husband out, you know? You should stay and let us take care of you.”

“I can’t do that, Josefina.”

“Where are you going to go, Matthew?”

“I’d better not tell you. But I need the two passports.”

“I’ll get ’em,” Hernando said. “I’ve gotta check on some cows that are calving anyhow. If the sheriff passes me driving around, he won’t think nothing about it being two in the morning. Then I’ll stop at the big house and get the passports.”

“Thanks, Hernando,” Matt said.

“They’re in the top left-hand drawer of his desk,” Josefina told her husband. “I found them when I was cleaning.”

“You cleaned my room?”

“What you think? I’m gonna let the FBI look in there with that mess everywhere? Of course I cleaned it. I found where the ants were getting in, too. You won’t have to worry about them no more.”

Touched, Matt pictured his old room—his comic books, computer, orange sodas—all the things he had thought he loved so much. They seemed far away now.

“How’s Billy doing?” Matt asked Josefina as Hernando pulled on his boots.

“He stayed at Granny Strong’s house in Amarillo while your dad and Miss Pruitt went to El Paso to look for you. They’ve got a real guard standing outside the door to protect them. With a gun, too.”

“Who sent the guard?”