"They're not alive," Lone Cloud said. "Or, if they are, they're not human."
"Then how are we going to kill them?"
"What do you mean, how? We brought guns."
"What if guns don't work on them?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
They drove for a moment in silence.
It is only you. You are the one.
"Why did they come to the casino?" Full Moon wondered aloud. "And how come I was the only one who saw them?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Maybe it does."
"Black Hawk doesn't know any more about this than we do."
Full Moon didn't believe it, but he nodded. "I hope you're right," he said.
Death Row.
Full Moon got out of the pickup and stood on the hill above Rojo Cuello, looking down. The street looked exactly as he remembered it. Around the street, the city had been transformed, the empty ground between buildings paved over with parking lots, built up into condominiums, the buildings themselves torn down or made over.
But Death Row remained unchanged.
He had known that would be the case, and it frightened him. He glanced over at Lone Cloud, and the blanched look on his friend's face mirrored his own emotions perfectly.
For all of his bravado, Lone Cloud was just as scared as he was.
He scanned the street below for the spot where his father had been killed, found it almost instantly.
The past returned in a rush.
He 'd been awakened by his father in the middle of the night, shaken awake, and he opened his eyes to see his father sitting on the edge of the bed. "Get dressed," his father said. "It's time to go."
"Go where?"
"Rojo Cuello. Death Row."
He cried almost all the way there, begging his father to turn back, but his father drove on through the darkness, repeating grimly that he had no choice.
Full Moon was supposed to drive the pickup back home.
His father would give his life to Death Row but not his truck.
Truth be told, Full Moon had been frightened more for himself than for his father, filled with dread and terror and the horrifying certainty that he too would be killed, but when his father parked the pickup on the hill above town, gave him the keys, told him to take off, and started walking down the path that led through the weeds and brush on the side of the hill, Full Moon drove down the Rojo Cuello highway instead, his heart thumping so hard it felt as though it would burst through his rib cage as he sped down the winding road to Death Row.
He and his father reached the street at the same time. And he saw the men take his father down. He 'd driven to the street with no plan, with only the vague notion that he would rescue his father and save his life, but his mind had been a terrified blank as he 'd sped down the curving road, and though he often thought later that if he had floored the pedal and barreled down the street he might have run over the murderers, he braked to a stop at the head of Death Row.
His father emerged from between two buildings, walking slow and straight, head held high as though unafraid, and the man with the mustache came out from the lingering sunrise shadows and shoved a knife deep into his stomach.
Full Moon screamed, and the man looked down the street at him and grinned.
His father fell, clutching his midsection and rolling on the ground, and the other two appeared out of nowhere, the man with the patch laughing as he yanked down his father's pants and cut off his penis, the man with the beard screaming as he used a hatchet to hack off the top of his head.
For a brief second, Full Moon considered speeding down the street and running over all three of them, but he knew he'd hit his father's body as well, and then the three men were bending over his father and there were even more knives in their hands, the multiple blades glinting orange in the dawn sun, and he understood that if he did not get out of there then, the men would come after him, too.
He threw the truck into reverse and took off, barely able to see through his tears, looking more at the rearview mirror than through the windshield, seeing the men gleefully carving up what was left of his father, and then he smashed into a bush, nearly going off the road, before he quickly righted the vehicle and sped back up the hill, this time keeping his eyes on the pavement.
He stopped at the top of the hill and looked down, but Death Row was empty, and he quickly put the truck into gear and took off.
"I don't see anyone down there."
He glanced over at Lone Cloud, wondering how his friend's father had been killed. They had never discussed the details.
Full Moon walked toward the pickup. "It's getting late," he said. "Let's go."
They parked in the middle of the street, in front of an old livery stable at the east end of the Row. The pavement had faded into dirt some yards back, and before them the dusty road narrowed as it passed between the wooden buildings. There was something threatening about the stillness of the street, about the silence and the utter lack of life. One block over, cars and trucks were driving by office buildings and fast food restaurants, but here on Death Row it was as if the modern world did not exist.
Except for them.
Lone Cloud got out of the pickup, tucking the .45 in his belt, the shotgun cradled in his hands. Full Moon followed his friend, holding the .22, ready to shoot anything that moved.
Lone Cloud cleared his throat. The sound was loud, jarring. "Do you think they're hiding?" he asked.
Full Moon shrugged.
"You think we should look for them? Or should we wait for them to find us?"
Full Moon did not know, and he was about to shrug again, when he noticed a one-story building halfway down | the street on the left side, situated between a small hotel and what looked like a sheriff's office. The building stuck out, f protruding into the street, and its architectural style was radically different from that of the surrounding structures.
He took a tentative step forward, sucking in his breath. A wave of cold washed over him as he looked at the building. It was their house, their old house, the one his father had built.
The one that had burned down after his father's death.
His father's murder.
How had the house burned down? Was it arson? A fireplace accident? A leaky gas line? He couldn't remember.
Had he ever known?
His gaze was drawn to the blackness within the open doorway. He could not remember the last time he had thought of their old home, but now that he considered it, everything about the situation seemed suspect. And the fact that he could remember no details, that his mind glossed over the specifics of that time, retaining only the broad brushstrokes of occurrence, worried him.
He walked toward the house, toward the open door, his hands gripping the rifle so tightly that his palms and fingers hurt. He heard Lone Cloud following behind him.
It is only you. You are the one.
There was something about Black Hawk's words that didn't sit well with him, that made him uneasy, though he hadn't really thought about it until now. The one? What did that mean? Was he the one chosen to kill these creatures? Or was he the one chosen as a sacrifice to them?
Had his father been sacrificed?
Full Moon stopped walking. He had never thought of that before, had never even considered that the tribe might be complicitous in the killings that had occurred on the Row. But it made sense. He had wondered at the time why the law had never been brought in to investigate, why there had never been any police or FBI or BIA or any sort of officials looking into the murder of his father, but when he'd asked his mother about it, she had told him to shut up, to not say anything, that there was nothing that could be done about Death Row.