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The guard peered off into the cells beyond, past Justin’s shoulder, obviously looking at Aurelia, who sat hunched on the bench. He took the money.
“You’re wasting your money, Mr. Kilgore,” he said as he stuffed it in his pocket. “You know this kind of shit always ends badly. These people would be better off never leaving their villages. We should just press charges and send her back.”
Justin thought Father Augustus might surely agree. The priest felt the contaminating influence of El Norte was ruining the simple life of the villages. But how did you convince the young people of that? Once they had seen the big TVs and the big cars and the fancy clothes? How could you send a girl back south who had journeyed more than a hundred miles inside the border through God-knows-what to meet up with the love of her life?
Back out on the highway, Justin didn’t stop in town. There was no need. He had plenty of gas and the girl was skittish, being in the cab alone with him. She hugged the passenger door like a frightened kitten. Justin was relaxed in the seat but tried to keep his six-foot frame squarely on his side. No need to spook her. In Spanish he said, “You’ll be all right now.”
“Sí,” she said, but he could tell she didn’t quite believe him. Though it was another fifteen miles out to the ranch, he was anxious to get her to Julio. So when the highway opened up outside of town, he set his old pickup’s engine to thrumming. They might not encounter another car for miles now. One could put the pedal to the metal on these Texas highways with some impunity.
As the truck gained speed, the girl looked more and more frightened, yet more and more excited, as well. No doubt she was anticipating seeing her true love. Justin tried to remember how that felt. Somewhere deep inside him there was a spark of the love he’d once cherished for Markie McBride. But out of sheer emotional survival he had quelled those feelings long ago.
He glanced at Aurelia. How had she made it? he wanted to ask her. She had mentioned the sign of the Five Points.
“Did Julio send you a star?” Justin asked her in Spanish. He wanted to know if word of his organization had begun to spread yet among the crossers. He hoped so.
“Sí.” The girl slashed a quick star in the air with an index finger.
The Five Points of the Lone Star. The signal that a crosser had made it as far as the Texas town where five highways converged in a radiating pattern. Crossers sometimes sent a Lone Star home to their relatives in Mexico in one form or another—a trinket, a postcard, a pattern stitched on cloth.
Justin had chosen Five Points as his location partly for that reason. Once they got that far, crossers felt safe enough to rest before fleeing in five directions to hide in the caves and canyons and remote ranches of the Hill Country. If he could get to them at that stopping place, he felt he had a chance to make a difference, a chance to interrupt the cycle.
Five Points.
Outside the truck window, the country Justin had loved since he was a boy rolled by. Evening was coming on and the dark hills undulated endlessly against the purple sky.
When they pulled into the ranch drive, Aurelia spotted Julio. He was high up on a two-story scaffolding, repairing some crumbling limestone on a corner of the immense Kilgore ranch house. Justin had been pleased to learn that the Morales brothers were local Maya stonemasons in their home village, as skilled as their ancient counterparts. The renovations they had accomplished on the aging ranch house were nothing short of art. Even in its current state of decay, the house was an architectural monument of symmetry and well-crafted stonework. Constructed more than a hundred years ago by one of Justin’s Kilgore forebears, the place had a Romanesque simplicity that Justin loved. Rows of limestone pillars defined the first-story veranda. It would take plenty of fresh limestone to restore it, and Justin knew just where he could get it on—the Tellchick farm.
Justin’s father no longer made a pretense of keeping a residence in Texas, and the place had been virtually abandoned until Justin returned to it a couple of months ago. The inside was caked with dust, its timeless beauty only enjoyed by the occasional stray cow or shelter-seeking snake. But Justin had come to the house often as a youth, dreaming of restoring life to it.
And of course, he’d brought Markie McBride here often to share that dream.
Aurelia had rolled down the truck window and was hanging out of it, waving her arms and screaming, “Julio! Julio!”
Julio scrambled down off the scaffolding like an ant off a mound. He ran, his boots kicking up dust, until he came up alongside the pickup. He grabbed the door handle before Justin had even come to a stop.
When the door opened, Aurelia flung herself out into Julio’s strong arms. He swung her light body high off her feet and spun her in a circle with her skirt flying, then clutched her to him, his pelvis jutting into hers, his muscular shoulders hunched around her, his mouth claiming hers in a reunion kiss.
Justin had to look away. Now he did remember. Watching the lovers kiss, he remembered, all too clearly, what it felt like to be so young, so in love.
There was a small celebration in the old house that night. The kitchen was hardly up to sanitation standards, but Aurelia was used to far humbler conditions. She cooked a delicious Mexican feast for the men and Lorn’s wife.
But as in the lives of all crossers, the peace didn’t last long. “Someone comes,” Juan Morales, who seemed to have a sixth sense about these things, announced the very next night.
Sure enough, Justin spotted moving shadows back in a thicket of live oaks.
Lorn went for his shotgun, but Justin restrained him. They would have to get used to the illegals approaching La Luz in all kinds of ways; from the jail in town to hiding in the woods to approaching the ranch in stealth.
“Come with me,” he told Juan, and they went out to investigate.
The Ramos family consisted of a father, mother and two frightened little boys. The priest in town had directed them here. Hasty arrangements were made to feed and bed down the tired travelers.
Later that night, Justin walked out on the upstairs veranda to contemplate the starry sky and think about his mission. Below him the ranch land spread like a peaceful kingdom. Getting the Light at Five Points going was sure to be hard work, but already he had his first real family tucked in for the night.
His reverie was broken when he heard frantic arguing whispers on the porch below and then the sound of Aurelia hysterically crying, “Don’t go!”
Justin hurried back inside and down the wide stone staircase.
“What’s wrong?” he said as he emerged on the porch.
The Morales brothers stood there, with their shabby backpacks slung over their shoulders.
“We didn’t have nothing to do with no fire,” Juan said defensively. “The man paid us to go there for one night and make noise.”
“What are you talking about?” Justin demanded. Were they talking about the barn fire that killed Danny Tellchick?
“The sheriff is asking a lot of questions. These bad hombres.” Juan’s Spanish was so rushed, Justin had trouble keeping up. “They will lay the blame on us.”
“Shut up,” Julio snapped. “We’re leaving,” he declared to Justin.
“No!” Aurelia wailed, clinging to him. She was wearing a simple shift nightgown, probably something Lorn’s wife had given her.
“But why?” Justin asked. “Why now?” It was practically the middle of the night. What had happened to make them want to run?
“We are sorry, my friend,” Julio said a little more calmly. “We thank you for your kindnesses, but you cannot help us. We have been tricked.”
“Let’s go now.” Juan looked frightened as he tugged on his brother’s arm.
“But what about the stonework?” Justin argued as he followed them down the porch steps. “You’re just getting started.” He didn’t care about the renovations so much as showing Julio and Juan that they could be of genuine value in their new country.
“Sorry, amigo,” Julio called. “Someday I will try to finish it!” And then the two young men disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tonight I figured out that when Justin’s brows draw together in that frowny way of his, it doesn’t mean he’s mad or anything. He’s just intense, sorta like his dad, only in a good way. I met the congressman finally. Yikes. He’s even bigger than he looks in his pictures, a bull of a man with a tiny little pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. I took a hard look at him. Then I took a look at Justin. Can they even be related? I wondered. Then I realized people could say the same thing about me and my mother. Nothing alike.
Anyway, I think that look just means Justin cares.
Actually, now that I think about it, it’s the look he gets right before he’s going to kiss me. His brows draw together that tiny bit, like he’s in pain or concentrating or something. His eyes squint up a bit, like he’s studying me real hard. Oh, I can’t describe it. All I know is, I love it when he looks at me that way.
Except tonight I think he was frowning because he really was kind of upset. We took a couple of horses for a moonlight ride out on his ranch, way out to the place where that big flat outcropping of limestone looks so pretty. Justin told me there are caves under there, which I kind of knew, but I’ve never actually been in them. He had a flashlight and was going to take me down into one, but right then we saw headlights and this big Cadillac came rolling up. It just drove right up on the limestone.
Justin stopped the horses back in the trees and said that was weird, for his father to be out here so late at night. And then we saw a shadow get out and carry something into the cave.
It was really kind of creepy.
Justin was in a hurry to split, so we turned the horses around and got out of there.
Later I told him about how my mom is weird like that, too, sometimes, and later he really opened up and told me all about his dad. We’re getting that close. When you love someone, you tell them everything, even about your crazy parents.
“ROBBIE AND THE BOYS WON’T be staying here,” Markie announced without preamble as she bounded down the last few steps of the stairway leading from the attic.
She marched through her mother’s gleaming green-and-white kitchen to the dinette table where her laptop and papers were spread out. The southwest sun was high in the sky now, creating a glaring backdrop at the bay window that cupped around the small table. How deceptively comfortable and serene her mother’s fastidious decorating made the spot feel. The room was already filling with the savory aroma of roasting meat.
Marynell turned from the sink with a half-peeled potato in one hand and a potato peeler in the other. “What fool nonsense are you talking now?” She turned back to the sink and resumed her task. “Of course they’re staying.” Her mouth was pinched tighter than the clasp of a change purse as she proceeded to whack at the potato.
“The boys and Robbie are ready to go home.” Markie proceeded to stack her papers. “I’ll be going out to the farm with them.”
Marynell’s jaw dropped, then she quickly snapped it shut again. “I have already put a roast in the Crock-Pot and peeled a dozen potatoes for the boys’ supper. They’ve been instructed to get off the bus down here at the road after school, just like always.”
“Just like always?” Markie frowned. “It’s only been a week since the funeral, mother. The boys only went back to school the day before yesterday. There is no like always in Robbie’s boys’ lives right now, nothing routine, unless it’s the Tellchick farm, their home. That’s where they belong. I’ll be going out there to stay and help Robbie.”
Marynell carefully placed the potato into a large pot at her elbow. She rinsed the slicer and propped the blade over the edge of the sink, just so. As she wiped her hands on a towel, she slowly crossed the room toward Markie. “You always do this,” she started in a low, threatening tone. “You can’t stand to be in this town two seconds without thinking you have to tear everything up. For once, Margaret, think of someone besides yourself. You can’t seriously be considering taking those children back out there to that place, not after…not after seeing their father killed that way.”
“Robbie has decided that’s what she wants.”
“Robbie decided? Robbie is not herself these days, and you know it.” Marynell grabbed Markie’s arm, gripping it somewhat viciously, but Markie was used to her mother acting this way. She stared, unblinking, while her mother demanded, “This is about that damned diary, isn’t it?”
“You had no right to take it, Mother.” Markie jerked her arm away. “And where the hell is my picture?”
“What picture? I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“When did you take it?” Markie persisted. “How? Back when you and Daddy were moving me the last time? From Dallas?”
Marynell wrung the dish towel for an instant before she folded her arms across her chest and steadied herself. “I simply didn’t want you to be reminded of that painful period of your life. I wanted you to have a fresh start in Austin.”
Her gut wrenched as Markie realized that of course her mother had read the entire diary, every last word of it, the parts written after Markie had left Five Points and gone to live with Frankie in Austin—the parts after she moved to the Edith Phillips Home.
Which meant Marynell knew about Brandon. Well, she didn’t know that was his name or where he lived or who his parents were. None of that was in the diary, thank goodness. And Markie would make sure this woman never did know those things.
“Does anyone else know?” she said, fully aware that her mother knew exactly what she was asking.
“No. And they’re never going to, Margaret.” Her mother seemed suddenly sincere. “As far as I’m concerned, the whole incident is in the past. I would think you would be glad to have all that in the past, too. Why do you want to stir up trouble now, when your sister’s life has been practically destroyed? You should never have taken that diary out of the box.”
Markie sensed a subterfuge behind Marynell’s persistent blaming. Turning things on the other person was the same old trick her mother always used to defend her actions, no matter how indefensible. What had she done now? Perhaps she had, in fact, told someone else about the baby. Or perhaps for some reason the incident was not really in the past as Marynell claimed.
“If it’s all in the past, why didn’t you simply destroy that diary?”
Marynell’s face grew slightly flushed, the same way it had when she was up on the ladder. “You always insist on twisting the most innocent things,” she hissed. “You do it in order to cast me in a bad light. If you must know the truth,” she sniffed, “I simply forgot all about the silly thing. I didn’t even know it was in that box with that other stuff. P.J. keeps so much old junk up there, anyway.” Her eyes shifted sideways. “I intend to give him a good talking to about that room. That’s nothing but a firetrap up there.”
Markie studied her mother with growing suspicion. “Why were you so anxious to get the diary back from me a while ago?”
“I told you, I don’t see that there’s any reason for you to relive your past mistakes. And I certainly didn’t see any reason for Robbie to have to know what happened. I hope to goodness you haven’t upset her. Where is she?”
Another deflection.
But Marynell’s games didn’t matter now. What mattered now was Brandon. Now that Marynell knew Markie had given her baby up for adoption, what would happen when Brandon Smith showed up in Five Points? Markie wondered if she should put a stop to that plan immediately. But how could she? The sound of Brandon’s voice letting out a yee-haw when she told him he’d been chosen for the internship rang in her ears. How could she possibly disappoint a young man who had worked so hard for this opportunity?
“Markie,” Marynell snapped, “I said, where is Robbie?”
“Upstairs. Packing her stuff.” Markie turned away from her mother and started to cram her own things into a tote.
“Oh, this is just plain ridiculous. Robbie has no business going back out to that farm in her condition after the shock she’s had.” Marynell strode back to the sink, picked up another potato and started peeling it as if the matter were decided. “You are making a mountain out a molehill, Margaret, same as you always do.” She spoke with her back to Markie, dismissing her. “Getting in a snit about something that doesn’t matter anymore.”
But the way Marynell was attacking that potato told Markie that the diary, for some reason, did matter. It mattered very much. She quietly moved to the counter and gave Marynell’s profile a wary once-over, wondering with increasing ire why had the woman kept that diary all this time?
Marynell continued to hack at the potato without looking at Markie, but when she said, “What did you do with it, by the way?” Markie’s suspicions were confirmed.
“The diary?”
“Of course, the diary,” Marynell’s voice became suddenly shrill as she turned on Markie. “What on earth have we been talking about here?”
“What does it matter what I did with it?” Despite herself, the volume of Markie’s voice rose to match her mother’s. “The incident’s in the past, remember?”
“You think this is all about you, don’t you?” Marynell yelled, and tossed the unfinished potato into the pan with the others. “For your information, your sister is in an extremely vulnerable position right now and I am trying to protect her.” Clearly flustered, she pawed in the sink for another potato.
Marynell had claimed the same about Markie upstairs earlier—that she was only trying to protect her. The woman, Markie thought with a healthy dose of skepticism, had become a regular Mother Teresa. “What has my diary got to do with protecting Robbie?”
Marynell whirled to face her daughter again, this time with a hard, meaningful stare, as if she held a gun and was tempted to pull the trigger. “All right, then. If it’s the only way to make you give up that diary, then I’ll tell you, you little—” Before Marynell could spit out whatever was stuck in her craw, from the mud porch attached to the kitchen a familiar Texas twang sang out, “What in tarnation is all this racket?”
Markie and Marynell both started at each other, slapped into an uneasy silence by the sound of P. J. McBride’s voice. In the heat of their exchange, they hadn’t heard the screen door open. Or close. Markie wondered how much her father had heard.
His slender, benign face appeared around the doorjamb. “I could hear you hens squawkin’ all the way down to the barn.” P.J. grinned as he awkwardly pulled off a knee-high mud boot, hopping on one foot to keep his balance.
“Oh, shut up!” Marynell snapped. “And stop slopping mud everywhere!”
“Mom,” Markie chastised. Suddenly it occurred to her that she never called her mother Mom except when her father was being attacked like this.
“Well, honestly,” Marynell huffed, “I can’t stand it when he goes around talking in that hick way. It’s so affected.”
“Mom!” Markie scolded again. “Hi, Daddy.” She stepped into the mudroom and gave P.J. a quick, conciliatory hug and a kiss on the cheek. “How’s that low-water bridge looking?”
“Terrible. Still running high. Almost too high to drive across. What’s going on in here?” His tone was more serious now, though he demonstrated his usual wry perspective. “Or am I already sorry I asked?”
“It was nothing,” Markie explained while her mother presented her back to the two of them.
P.J. shrugged and removed his other boot. Markie went back to packing up at the table while the room grew so painfully quiet that the tick of the grandfather clock that had been passed down on Marynell’s side could be heard from the living room.
“Heard a real interesting rumor in town today.” P.J. spoke as if he were offering the distraction of a cookie to a couple of quarreling toddlers. He stepped into the kitchen and smiled. It broke Markie’s heart the way he always strived for normality.
When neither woman responded to the comment, P.J. tried again. “Robbie’s gonna have a new neighbor. Justin Kilgore’s taking over a big hunk of the Kilgore Ranch, moving into the old mansion.”
Markie’s eyes went wide. Her head snapped up to see her mother returning her stare with similar shock. But Marynell’s expression quickly congealed into a mask of fury. “Now, that is interesting.” Her voice dripped sarcasm as her gaze bored into Markie’s.
P.J. seemed oblivious to the undercurrent between the two women. He had gone to the refrigerator and retrieved a pitcher of iced tea. “Rumor is he’s decided to restore the old ranch house. Got some kind of project going with the Mexicans. I always liked that old house—solid limestone. And I always liked Justin.”
Her father turned and gave Markie a bright look as if something had just occurred to him. “As I recall, you and him was pretty good buddies that summer back when you was volunteering on his father’s campaign.”
“I—” Markie started but found she couldn’t speak.
