Our Home is Nowhere (The Borrowed Land, Book 1) (18 page)

29

‘Take it easy with her, Joe. She’s an antique,’ Phillip called out, half-laughing, from the front porch as Joe screeched to a stop in front of the brightly lit house. His face wilted when he saw Joe sprint across the front of the truck, his jacket soaked in blood to open the passenger door. There sat Amanda, pale, bloodied, wide-eyed, slumped in the seat. Phillip’s whisky glass hit the deck, amber liquid spilling around his feet, flowing beneath the cracks.

‘Help me,’ Joe screamed, unbuckling her seatbelt, his hands slick with blood.

Phillip threw Joe to the side and moved his hands frantically over Amanda, over her belly, her face, the dress his wife had worn so many years ago. ‘God, God. No, it can’t…this can’t…’ He lifted his hands and they were covered in her blood.

He turned to Joe who was sitting on his ass in the gravel. ‘You killed her, you…you…’ The words dried in his throat as Phillip said something so softly that Joe couldn’t hear.

Joe lifted his head and through his tears saw the rage and despair pouring out of Phillip’s eyes. Then there were hands around his throat, hands covered in thick sticky blood, and fists being driven into his ribs and chest. Joe didn’t put up any resistance. Another voice came from nowhere and Phillip’s weight was lifted from him.

Phillip fought to get back to Joe. ‘He killed her! He killed my daughter!’

Gravel and dirt flew as Zeb held Phillip by both arms. Finally Phillip stopped, breathing madly, insanely, sobbing. Then he pushed past Zeb to the truck. He picked up his daughter and carried her to the garage. The light flickered on. The garage door groaned closed behind them.

Zeb knelt down next to Joe, his blonde hair hanging across his eyes. ‘What happened?’

‘I tried to stop them.’ All Joe could think about was Amanda’s face when the shiv was in her stomach—her horrified, surprised expression, unable to control her own features. What if he hadn’t tried to get the gun? Would she still be alive? ‘I couldn’t…’ Joe began to cry. ‘I couldn’t stop him. I was right there. So close to both of them.’

Zeb put a hand on Joe’s shoulder. ‘This isn’t your fault.’

Joe didn’t know how to respond to that. How couldn’t it be his fault? He was supposed to protect her. He should have been the one who was killed, not her. He dug his fingers into the gravel and dirt, cutting his fingertips and bending his nails back.

Zeb sat with him for close to twenty minutes before leaving to check on Phillip. When Zeb was out of sight, Joe stood up and wandered to the porch. He stripped off the bloodied jacket and threw it in the corner out of sight. He sat on the porch swing. Amanda’s book of poems lay beneath it. Instantly, she was there with him, alive and beautiful, her hair pinned back, wearing a loose-fitting t-shirt and torn jeans, laughing and joking about something. He felt like he could reach out and touch her.

Bravery
. He laughed bitterly. What good did bravery do him in the end?

.........

Joe jerked awake to the smell of gasoline, scorched rubber, and burning grass. The porch swing rocked beneath him. In his hands he held Amanda’s book of poems, though he didn’t remember picking it up. Bloody fingerprints smudged the cover. The sky remained shrouded in a veil of silvery black. In the field in front of the house, something burned. Joe stood up and walked unsteadily to the railing where he stood staring out.

Fire bloomed from the truck’s roof and open doors. There didn’t seem to be an inch of the truck not consumed by flames. The smell of it wafted all the way to the house. It was a horrible smell, but Joe refused to turn away. He let it hit him with full force.

Phillip appeared out of the field, striding up the gravel path towards the house holding a can of gasoline. He looked dreadful—haggard, ashen, as if the life had been sucked out of him. His hands still wore the maroon cast of dried blood. He dropped the gas can and began up the steps. Joe looked at him, wanting to say something. But Phillip brushed past without looking at him and went inside. Joe watched him through the window, moving through the kitchen to the sink where he began washing his hands feverishly, ripping at the skin with his nails to peel off the blood. Joe turned back to the field where the truck burned, spitting yellow and red flames into the air.

When the sun came up, Joe, Phillip, and Zeb went to the hilltop overlooking the house. Phillip walked ahead of them, a shovel pitched over his shoulder like a rifle. They followed a well-worn path to the top, where a beautiful tree grew, casting its shade over a cross and grave.

Phillip’s wife, Joe thought.

Phillip went to work digging a hole. Dirt arced through the air as he grunted and heaved and sweated, his pale face turning red and his cheeks puffing out like sails. His yellowed eyes were distant, spent. Exhausted, he handed the shovel to Zeb who, after some digging of his own, handed it off to Joe. Three hours later, they had a hole dug that a man could step inside and not be able to see out of.

Phillip wiped his face with a dirty, blistered hand. ‘The funeral’s in an hour,’ he said, his voice hollow. ‘Let’s get cleaned up.’

As he spoke, a prop plane curved round from the north. Joe raised a hand to block out the sun. It skimmed close to a clump of trees, circled them three times,
then came in to land below, next to the house. Two men stepped out.

‘Tesh,’ Zeb said.

Phillip nodded.

Joe watched as one of the men from the plane walked towards the truck smoldering in the field and waved the other one over. As the plane’s propeller groaned to a stop, they stood staring at the truck quivering with trapped heat.

30

And then they lowered the casket Phillip had been saving for himself into the ground. Zeb and Phillip stepped back from the grave, their shoes crunching over dirt and rock, clothes clinging to sweaty skin.

Tesh and someone named Ben had joined them for the funeral. Ben stood solemnly off to the side, watching the proceedings from afar, while Tesh remained near Phillip, a hand clasped on his shoulder.

Tesh looked like the kind of big-game hunter Joe had read about when he was younger. All he needed to match his earthen-colored clothes and crocodile skin boots was a musket strapped over his back. Ben was harder to work out; he looked hard, like stone.

For several minutes, they were all silent. The only sound was the wind whipping up from the valley, scattering debris and rustling through the leaves of the tree looming over them. Then Phillip began speaking, more to himself and his daughter than to those around him.

‘If your mother was alive, she would have been proud of the woman you became. You were strong.
So much stronger than I ever was. You handled everything so well, never letting anything…not even my drinking…get to you. Always smiling and sarcastic. So funny. Lord, you could make me laugh.’

Phillip choked and cradled his face in his hands. Zeb put an arm on his back. Joe couldn’t bring himself to look at Phillip. He stared at the indentions in the casket, thinking back to his time with Amanda at the Queen Bean. Phillip wiped his eyes and went on.

‘I remember once when you made me laugh so hard, milk and eggs came out my nose.’ He chuckled softly to himself through his tears. ‘I was mad at first, but that was on me, never you. How could I blame you? Being who you were. I wish I’d been as good a father as you were a daughter to me. I can’t tell you how lucky I was to have known you, to have had the honor of raising you. I’ll miss you more than you can know.’

Silence fell once again, and in that silence Joe thought of his father’s funeral, the only funeral he’d ever attended before Amanda’s.

A massive memorial had been held for all the men who had died protecting the border. There had been too many bodies and too few caskets. So anyone who had lost a loved one was encouraged to walk up to the front where a huge cork board frowned down on the congregation. Joe could still remember the noise around him as he waited his turn, clutching a picture of his dad that his mom had given him. People had wept as they’d hobbled to the front, barely able to contain their emotion, and with shaking hands pinned their photographs to the board. When Joe’s turn came, he made his way to the front and sunk the pin into the cork board over his dad’s head. The paper around the pin had wrinkled, but his dad’s face remained smooth, unblemished. He could remember looking at the rows of closed caskets, wondering if maybe his dad was in one of them, just sleeping peacefully.

Then Joe’s mind went to the woman who had been raped at the truck stop. She’d died alone, surrounded by vicious men. The last thing she’d seen was a naked man
towering over her like an evil god. Joe shook his head imperceptibly; he hated the places his mind wandered to now. Ever since leaving Hell Paso, all he’d seen was death.

31

After the burial, Phillip remained on the hill beside his lost wife and child. Nobody tried to convince him to come down, knowing it would have been pointless. Joe had gone down with Zeb to talk business with the two newcomers.

Tesh pulled his hands out of his pockets. ‘We haven’t been properly introduced,’ he said to Joe. ‘I’m Tesh.’ They shook hands. ‘I wish we’d arrived under better circumstances, but those are hard to come by these days.’

Ben looked at Joe. ‘Sorry for your loss,’ was all he said.

Joe guessed that Ben was only a couple years older than him and nodded his appreciation. ‘We were supposed to leave for Ararat today,’ he said, and almost added,
She wanted to go too.

‘We’re still going. We have to be there by nightfall. The invitation still stands of course,’ Tesh said.

‘I shouldn’t, considering what just happened.’ Joe cast a quick glance towards the hilltop, where he could see Phillip hovering over the graves.

Zeb pulled the cigarette from his mouth, exhaling to the side, and said cautiously, ‘I think it might be best that you go, Joe. Phillip, y’know—he might need some time alone.’

Joe understood. Phillip blamed him for Amanda’s death and Zeb was afraid of what would happen if Phillip was forced to be in close quarters with him so soon afterwards.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Joe said, though he realized he wasn’t sure if he still believed that.

‘I know it wasn’t. We all know it wasn’t. But he’s a grieving father. The man’s lost his entire family. He’s lookin’ for someone to take responsibility.’

‘What if I talked to him?’

‘It wouldn’t help. I’ve known Phillip a long time. He needs time. You wouldn’t imagine how it was after Mary died. I took Amanda in for a week because we were afraid for her. You’re not family. You don’t have any safety net with Phillip.’

‘You really think it would be best?’

‘Yes. Go to Ararat. When you get back, we can continue work on the Cloudhorse. I’ll do what I can while you’re gone. Phillip will have realized by then that you aren’t to blame.’

‘He’s right,’ Tesh said, lighting a cigar. ‘Distance is your best bet.’

Joe left them outside and went upstairs to gather his things. He grabbed his backpack from the guestroom bed and slung it over his shoulder. Before going back down, he went to the bathroom and splashed water over his face, then bent over the sink staring at the drain. Water dripped from his nose into the bowl. ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he said to himself. ‘I did not kill her. I tried to keep her safe.’ He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the cool mirror over the sink. Just as tears were beginning to form, he jerked back and dried off his face with a hand towel.

‘Ready?’ Tesh asked when Joe walked through the front door onto the porch. Joe nodded and came down the steps to the gravel walkway.

‘Let’s get to it then.’ Tesh gave two cigars to Zeb. ‘For when he comes down.’

Zeb thanked him. ‘See ya around, Joe.’

‘See ya, Zeb.’ Joe tossed his backpack into the cargo compartment and climbed into the cramped single seat behind the cockpit where Tesh and Ben sat. Ben reached out and slammed the door shut. Joe watched Zeb through the dirty, watermarked window.

‘Safe travels,’ Zeb called out, retreating backwards from the plane.

Tesh began working the controls up front. The propeller whirred to life and the plane eased forward, a creaking mass of metal and bolts. Joe gazed through the cockpit window at the indistinct landscape. Trees, fields of dirt and grass, all blended into a colorful still life. Zeb disappeared from view just as he was lighting up another cigarette.

Up front, Tesh doused his cigar in an ashtray. The plane began picking up speed. Ben stared out the window, two knuckles tapping inaudibly against the glass. ‘How long’s this goin’ to take?’ he asked. Joe got the impression that there was a great deal on Ben’s mind. Maybe they had something in common after all.

‘Eight hours as the crow flies.’

‘I’ve never flown before,’ Joe confessed.

Tesh pulled something from beneath his chair and tossed it over his shoulder. ‘Puke in that,’ he said.

Joe grabbed it on the fly. It was a simple white bag with wire ties at the top to seal it up when there was nothing left to puke. Joe set it on his knee, keeping it close at hand.

His stomach levitated into his throat when the plane rose into the air, clearing the trees, climbing higher and higher. All Joe could see were the clouds and blue sky. The sun glowed somewhere to the left, its light streaming through the cockpit. Tesh steered right and circled the house, getting his bearings from the landscape. Phillip appeared momentarily down below, a hazy statue on the hilltop standing next to Amanda’s grave.

Joe missed her. He wanted someone to share this moment with, someone to share his life with, although he hadn’t had the courage to admit it until now.

‘Is Ararat really in Mexico?’ he asked, trying to keep his mind on other things.

‘Correct,’ Tesh said. ‘But it won’t be for much longer.’

Joe didn’t know what Tesh meant by that and he didn’t feel like prodding him.
I’ll figure it all out when we arrive
.

They passed over Slushland and Ben tensed, staring down at the mangled city sliced by the muddied river. Joe searched for his apartment building, but everything just looked the same as they tore through the annihilating sky.