“There’s no need to hurt him,” she says to the man with the brown hat.
“No?”
“You got what you were looking for. Just go.”
“Actually, we’re not done.”
“Come on, Lester. Can we just get it over with?” the man with the black hat says, holding a backpack in each hand.
“Go ahead. Do what I told you. Put their backpacks in the back of the car. See if you can find any papers or pictures in there.”
The man with the black hat heads to the car, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do if you let him live,” Sara says to Lester.
Lester looks at her and then at Emiliano and back at Sara. He motions with the pistol for Sara to stand. She turns for one final look at Emiliano. It’s all right, she tells him with her eyes.
As soon as Lester and Sara walk away, Emiliano pulls the rosary from under his shirt. The tape is wrapped around his wrists but his fingers are free. The cross on the rosary is made from some metal that is thin and sharp. Emiliano knows because the cross has stabbed him in the chest a few times while they’ve been walking. He grabs the cross with his thumbs and begins to rub the sharp corner against the tape. Slowly, the tape begins to tear.
Sara climbs out of the gully where she and Emiliano spent the night, Lester behind her. The man with the backpacks is ahead of them, walking toward the car.
“Where are you taking me?” Sara notices that Lester has lowered the pistol.
“Someplace.”
“And my brother?”
“He’ll find a rock and cut himself loose in a while. I’m going to let him live just like you wanted me to.”
She turns to see the grin on the man’s face. “I want you to leave my brother’s backpack. He’ll need water.”
“He’ll be okay if he heads back where he came from.” Lester points with his chin in the direction of the Rio Grande.
“Lester, right?”
“You can call me Les if you want.”
“I don’t think you really want to do this. You don’t need to do this.”
He keeps smiling. “You like to talk, don’t you?” He motions with the gun for her to keep walking. Sara sees the man with the black hat taking money from Emiliano’s backpack.
“Please don’t do this,” Sara says. She stops and turns to face Lester. “If you let me live, I won’t tell anyone. No one will know you let me live.”
“Oh, they’ll know.”
Sara sees Emiliano climb slowly out of the gully. He puts his index finger on his lips and then motions with his hand. Sara turns around and walks. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
“I’ll tell you, all right. Don’t you worry about that.”
Emiliano is halfway between the gully and the man with the gun. The other man is behind the open trunk of the car with Sara’s backpack. Lester is holding the pistol in his right hand. Nothing will work unless he drops the pistol. Emiliano sees the man by the car look in his direction. Now or never.
The man by the car shouts as Emiliano runs as fast as he can. He feels the thorns of a cactus rip through his foot but he doesn’t stop. He jumps onto Lester’s back just as the man begins to turn. He kicks Lester’s hand with as much power as he can muster and the pistol flies toward Sara. Now Emiliano wraps his right arm around Lester’s neck and uses his left hand to tighten the chokehold. Lester coughs, twists, turns, and bends like a wild horse.
“The gun. The gun!” Emiliano shouts at Sara.
The man with the black hat is running toward them, waving his own pistol. Lester pummels the side of Emiliano’s face with his fist. Sara lunges for the pistol on the ground but the other man kicks it away. She falls to her knees, the pistol just out of reach.
“Shoot him!” Lester stammers, coughing and spitting. He turns so that Emiliano’s back becomes a broad and easy target for the man holding the pistol. Lester is so tall that Emiliano’s feet dangle in the air. Sara looks up and sees the man’s hand tremble, trying to take aim, and just as he’s about to press the trigger, she smashes her fist as hard as she can between his legs. The pistol goes off as the man drops it and folds over in pain.
Sara turns, still on her knees, afraid of what she will see. Lester is lying facedown with Emiliano on his back. She looks for the dark red of blood on the white of Emiliano’s shirt but doesn’t find anything. Lester’s gun is lying next to her. The man who fired the shot is holding himself, grimacing. She picks up both pistols and walks toward Emiliano. Lester is not moving, but Emiliano still squeezes his neck harder and harder.
“It’s okay,” Sara tells Emiliano. “I have the guns. You can let go.”
There’s something like a growl coming from Emiliano’s mouth. His eyes are tightly shut, his jaws clenched.
“Emiliano, let go. He’s passed out. Emiliano, don’t. Let go.”
It takes a few moments for Sara’s words to reach Emiliano’s consciousness. The man underneath him is still breathing. He can feel a trickle of air on his forearm. If he lets go now, the man will live. This is the man who was taking his sister away, who told his partner to shoot Emiliano in the back. Why should he let go?
Sara looks to make sure that they are safe from the other man. He’s running toward the car, maybe to get another gun.
“Emiliano, don’t kill him, please. You don’t kill people. You’re a Jipari.”
The words sound silly, but they work. Emiliano loosens his grip. He sits on the man’s broad back, resting, panting.
The sound of a motor starting reaches them and they both look toward the road. The black car is heading west in a cloud of dust.
“Our backpacks” is all that Emiliano can think of saying.
“Is he …”
Emiliano flips Lester over on his back with difficulty, places two fingers on the side of his neck. “No,” he says, standing up. “I cut the flow of blood to his brain so he fainted. He’ll be up in a few minutes.”
“Look.” Sara points to a widening dark spot on the ground beneath Lester’s right leg.
Emiliano kneels and tilts Lester on his side. He sees a small hole in his pants, stained with blood. He tears at the hole with two index fingers. Blood, almost black in color, is trickling slowly but steadily out of an orifice not much wider than a shirt button. The bottom half of Lester’s leg falls loose, connected to his thigh only by skin and a couple of tendons. “The bullet blasted the whole knee. It went out the other side. There’s no bone joint to hold the leg.” Emiliano lifts the leg and lets the calf and foot dangle in the air for Sara to see. She turns her head away.
“Will he die?”
Lester starts coughing. Emiliano and Sara stand back. They wait for him to open his eyes and then for his eyes to focus. He grimaces as he tries to sit himself up, but the leg can’t respond to his commands. He falls back on the ground, recognizing Emiliano first and then Sara.
“Where’s Joe?” he asks through gritted teeth.
He hasn’t felt the pain yet, Emiliano thinks.
“He took off in the car,” Sara tells him.
Lester gives a little nod as if to say that was to be expected.
“We should go,” Emiliano says to Sara in Spanish. “His friend will be back with help soon.”