All the while, she listened intently, though he doubted she understood one word in ten. And when he finished, she tilted her head to one side, looked at him as if she knew exactly what he'd been going through, and said, "I'm sorry. Lo siento."
He took a deep breath. "I find a dead man," he said in English. "By the water."
Isobel went very still. No surprise. No horror. Instead, her eyes, usually as brown and deep as rich coffee, went flat. As if she was looking in, rather than out. "By the water," she said. "Where? ¿Dónde es?"
He didn't know the English word, so he made rippling, winding motions. "El arroyo." He arched his hand up and over, representing the mountain, then traced the water's course along the imaginary edge of the property.
She drew her knees up and bent her head forward. Her face disappeared behind a curtain of hair. "¿La policía?" she asked, after a while.
"Yes." He felt sick at the thought she had something to do with the bloated thing he had seen that morning, but he had to curl his hands into fists to keep from taking her by the shoulders and drawing her near. She looked up at him. Her eyes shone with tears. She said something low and rapid he couldn't make out, and he realized, at bottom, it didn't matter what she had done, he would still help her in any way he could.
"I help you," he said.
She shook her head.
"Please," he said.
She smiled, just a little, and the change in her expression broke the water in her eyes so that tears rolled down her cheeks. She said something else-he caught the word "man" and the word "good"-and then reached out and took one of his hands in hers.
He squeezed it. "I help you," he insisted.
She looked at him for a long moment. Finally, she nodded. "Okay." She rose, tugging him up with her. She released his hand, scooped up the empty paper sack, and walked across the bales to the open doorway. She jumped to the ground with an easy grace, and he followed her as she slipped around the corner. She stopped, dropped the sack on the grass, and traced the edges of the clapboards where they butted against the stone foundation.
Isobel tugged one of the peeling boards. "Help me," she said. He stood beside her, wedged his fingers into the narrow gap between one board and the next, and pulled. Once, twice, and a four-foot section of board came off, reeling him backward. She plunged her hands into the narrow slice of darkness. There was something odd about it, a space where there shouldn't have been any more than a few inches to the interior lathing, but before he could get close enough to study it, she hauled out the biggest, ugliest pistol he had ever seen and thrust its butt end toward him.
He dropped it. "De qué joder!"
She was still digging around inside the gap. He stared at the gun, horrified. She dragged something else from the interior and turned toward him. She had a hard-covered writing tablet in one hand and a cell phone in the other. She followed his gaze to the gun. Her eyes widened. Whatever she said was unintelligible to him, but he got the gist of it. He grabbed the thing awkwardly, trying not to touch the trigger, the barrel, or the grip. He wound up pinching it between two white-jointed, sweat-slick fingers, as if he were holding a dead rat that weighed eight pounds. He eased the gun into the sack. He had no idea if it was ready to fire or not. He didn't even know how to check to see if it was loaded.
She dropped the notebook on the grass. Considered the sleek, flat cell phone in the other. Finally, she shoved it into her jeans pocket. Reaching back inside the space, she emerged with a large padded envelope, the kind of thing used to post books or small presents. She pressed against the sides, popping the top open and tipped it upside down over the paper bag. With a mixture of fascination and repulsion, he watched as brick after brick of American cash thudded into the sack.
She bent down, retrieved the writing tablet, and stuffed it into the mailer. She put it back into her hiding space. Picked up the board and fitted it over the gap. Wedged it back into place.
The sack was still dangling, open, from his nerveless fingers. Isobel took it and rolled its edges down until it resembled an oversized lunch bag. She held it out to him. "Hide," she said.
God almighty above. He looked at the unremarkable brown paper sack in his hand. Looked at her face, full of desperation and fear and hope. "Isobel," he said. He cradled her cheek in one hand. How could he ask her what he wanted to know? Did you kill that man? Is this your gun?
"Amado." Only a whisper between them. Then she stepped toward him and not even that remained. Slowly, shyly, she wrapped her arms around him. He dropped the sack. Cupped her face in both hands.
He didn't know what made him tear his eyes away from her, toward the woods at the other end of the pasture. An instinct for self-preservation forged during two illegal crossings, maybe. Whatever it was, he looked-and saw a burly, blond Anglo framed in the footpath's opening. Even from that distance, he could tell the man was related to Isobel.
"Mierda," he whispered.
Isobel whirled. Inhaled. Turned to him. "Go," she said.
He shook his head. He wasn't about to leave her to face her family alone. "No. You come."
"Please! Go! Vamanose!" She glanced back over her shoulder. Said something fast and full of despair. She pushed at him. "Please, Amado, please. Go. No come back. I okay."
"No!"
She dragged him around the corner of the barn, out of sight of the approaching man, and pinned him in place with her body. "You no come back! I okay. He-" She struggled to find a word, then sliced her finger across her throat. Then she leaped over all those high bars and good reasons keeping them apart as easily as she jumped from the haymow and kissed him.
Time stopped in an endless moment of soft and wet and the taste of coffee and corn chips. His breath caught and his eyes fluttered shut, and then she pulled away and shoved him toward the woods. He tucked the sack under his arm and ran, his mind fogged, until the thrash of branches and the sawing of his own breath alerted him to the fact that a blind man could follow the noisy trail he was making. He stopped, chest heaving. Wait. He had to make sure she was all right.
He doubled back toward the barn, slipping between hemlocks and birch trees. He stayed low, sticking to shadows and scrub brush. He spotted a deadfall pine, moldering into the forest floor, and he dropped belly-down next to it.
He could hear them, faintly, the big man bellowing and Isobel yelling. He was demanding, she was defying-that Amado got from the pitch of their voices. Then-oh, God-there was the meaty sound of flesh hitting flesh. Isobel shrieked. He heard it again. He was up from his hiding place, up and moving, his hand flailing at the paper bag, reaching for the gun, when he heard her, over the sound of his thudding feet.