Chapter Sixteen

Lyle's elation at the sight of the house doubled as the first signs of morning's light brightened the predawn sky in the east.  Within the hour it would be full daylight, and it appeared that the wind was beginning to calm even though the snow was still falling in weighty flakes.  Lyle hoped against the odds that the house was occupied by generous people who would welcome them in to soup, hot bread and butter, a steaming mug of coffee, and a chance to call Maricruz.  But Lyle recognized when the house was still a ways away that there wasn't any smoke coming from the chimney and there weren't any vehicles parked out front.  He didn't say anything, though, because he didn't want to dash Amanda's hopes.  

Lyle could tell that his silence only granted Amanda about a minute or so of continued anticipation.  Her posture betrayed her disappointment when they came close enough to the single story wood-framed ghost, leaning toward the east without a single window or door left in its shell.  

"Well, shit," Lyle said for the both of them.  "I bet this old dump has been empty since the dust bowl.  Folks probably moved off to California and never looked back."

"I was really hoping for some grandma and grandpa types to be here," Amanda said. "Just waiting for us with blankets and hot chocolate."

"Yeah, me too."  Lyle rubbed his forehead as he often did when things didn't turn out the way he'd hoped.

"Can we rest here anyway?" Amanda asked, perhaps for the first time sounding to Lyle like the child she actually was.

"Might as well," Lyle agreed, leading the way into the house over the half collapsed porch while holding his flashlight in one hand and the .38 in the other.  He saw something tiny quickly scurry away from the light. "Nothing but a little mouse," Lyle assured Amanda, who was following behind him.  "He won't bother us." He didn't tell her that there was a pretty good chance that there were other critters hiding somewhere too. Lyle shined the beam of his flashlight around what must have been the house's living room.  The plaster had long deteriorated from the rotting wooden slats on the wall and the crumbling floor that was covered with dirt, plaster dust, boards that had fallen from the walls or roof, and probably the droppings of several different species of animal.

"Let's clear off a spot over here," Lyle said, pointing toward the west wall in between two empty window frames.  "I'm going to gather up some of these boards and see if I can get us a little fire going.  You've still got that bottle of whiskey, right?"

Amanda nodded.  "Told you it'd come in handy."  She grabbed one of the stray boards from the floor and used it to push the rubble out of the way to clear some space for the two of them to sit down while Lyle made a small pile of splintered boards and asked Amanda to pour a few swigs worth of the whiskey on the pile.  Lyle then squatted down and used his cigarette lighter and a piece of an ancient curtain he'd found to light the pile on fire.  It took a little while for the flame to get going but he finally had a decent fire that warmed Lyle and Amanda's frozen skin and bones. The two of them sat on the floor, four or five feet apart, and rested against the leaning and crumbling wall with their eyes closed, soaking in the fire's warmth.  Lyle had been rodeo tired, farm tired, and drunk tired, but until then he had never been stuck-in-a-blizzard tired.  But just as he started to fade into sleep, Amanda's voice jarred him back into that house, next to that fire.

"My dad got stabbed to death in Leavenworth when I was just a toddler," she began.  "I kind of remember meeting him once at the prison when I was maybe three or so. I think that's a real memory.  In my mind he looks kind of nice, you know... I mean nice for someone who'd killed somebody."

Lyle's head still rested against the wall with his eyes closed.  "You don't have to tell me your story, Amanda," he said without opening them, although the truth was that from the few things he'd picked up since he met her, he was afraid to hear her story, to know the world can be that dark.  However, he forced himself to say, "But I'll listen if you want to."

It took her a moment to respond, but she finally said, "I do.  At least I think I do.  I've never really told it to anybody, never had anybody willing to listen."

When Lyle opened his eyes she had turned to face him, so he fought off the sleep to give her his attention as she said, "My mama died about three years ago when I was thirteen."  She paused and sighed before continuing to speak very slowly as though she was having to pull the memories free from a thick mud.  "She was all cold and gray and covered in sweat when I found her after school one day in the fall, all sprawled out on her bedroom floor just wearing an old nasty pair of underwear.  The crack pipe was broken in her hand and there were crack rocks all over the floor.  I just started screaming and screaming and I didn't know what to do, but eventually I stopped thinking about what happened to her and started thinking about what was going to happen to me with her dead.  She'd been letting her boyfriend Keith crash at our place and he was always walking in on me when I was getting out of the shower and rubbing up against me and stuff.  I'd told my mom about it a few times but she either didn't believe me or didn't give a shit."

Lyle whispered, "My God, Amanda."

Amanda looked away from Lyle and started to toss broken slats into the fire as she spoke.  "There was no way in hell I was staying there with him but the only other option was to be thrown into foster care, and I'd be damned if I was going to do that either.  I had friends at school who were in foster homes and you wouldn't believe what they told me.  So I packed up a bag, took all the money from my mom's purse, kissed her on the forehead, called 911, and then I took off running with no clue where the hell I was going.  I couldn't go to my friends' places because the cops would sure as hell come looking for me there, so I caught a bus to Chicago hoping to find my mom's brother Dwayne that she used to talk about.  I slept on the street until I found him but when I showed up at his place he was so drunk he couldn't even understand anything I was saying.  There was no way I was sticking around there with that drunk bastard but I didn't have any money left so I was stuck in Chicago.  I was so scared and hungry."

"This is when you were thirteen?" Lyle asked so she'd know he was listening.

"Yeah, about three years ago.  I started begging for money just off Michigan Avenue, which was getting me by but I knew winter was coming.  So this guy G-Man, whose real name was George I think, acted like he was a real nice guy who was dressed all fancy, told me he could get me a job without me needing to be sixteen or having my parents' permission so I believed him and went with him. He took me to some nasty little motel and he made me drink some stuff and then he beat the shit out of me and raped me over and over again and made me do all kinds of stuff and then let some other guys do it too.  He handcuffed me to the bed and only let me up every now and then to go to the bathroom but sometimes I just had to piss or shit in the bed and then he'd beat me for doing it.  I don't know how long I was in that place because he kept me drugged up a lot of the time."

Lyle felt lost in the darkness of Amanda's story, knowing that she was telling the truth but still having trouble believing the level of evil she'd experienced.

"Eventually," Amanda said, "he sold me for $300 to a trucker he called Jabba who must have weighed 450 pounds."

"Sold you?  Like a slave?" Lyle asked in shock.

"Not like a slave, Lyle; I was a slave.  He kept me tied up in the sleeper cab of his truck and rented me out to sometimes ten guys a night at truck stops all over the country. There were some real nasty guys, old guys, mean guys, even a few cops.  Then he ended up trading me for a case of beer, a couple country music tapes, and a portable toilet for his truck.  He traded me to a real vicious asshole whose CB handle was Double Barrel.  People called him DB most of the time.  I can't even tell you what all he's done to me.  I don't even think I know what all he did to me.  I think I blocked a lot of it out."

Tears began to roll silently down Amanda's cheeks and her voice took on the muffled tone of a child with a cold.  "There was this one time, maybe a year ago, when I ended up pregnant and he found a piece of paper I'd been writing on, coming up with names if it was a boy or a girl.  I liked Malcolm if it was a boy, and Emily if it was a girl.  That night he kicked me so hard in the stomach that I passed out from the pain.  I bled out that night.  Lost it, you know.  He had me back to work two days later."

"Holy shit, Amanda," Lyle groaned, his heart feeling like it was being crushed.  "I don't even know what to say to this."

She wiped her dripping nose on her sleeve and continued her story, "When we were in Pueblo last night--that's the name of that town, right?--DB was throwing a fit because the roads were closing and he wasn't going to be able to deliver his cargo to Houston on time.  After it started snowing, he went in to a diner to eat but he forgot to tie me up or maybe he thought I wouldn't make a run for it in a blizzard.  I watched through the truck window and when I saw him get up from the table and go to the bathroom, I jumped out of the truck and took off running until I saw the hotel and came up with the idea to wait in the bushes.  I stayed there until old Albert Singleton pulled up.  I know DB is going to come looking for me, and if he finds me he's either going to kill me or he's going to beat me within an inch of my life.  I'll be looking over my shoulder the rest of my life, but anything's better than being DB's "cooze" anymore.  That's what he called me, his "cooze."  I guess now I'm going to be going to jail for stealing the car.  I'm not a damn bit scared of that though.  Once you've been to the pit of hell, the edges of hell don't look so scary.  I thought real seriously about putting a bullet in my head when I found the gun in the car. I was about to do it when you knocked on the window and scared the hell out of me out in the middle of nowhere."

Lyle rested his head in his hands, unable to speak, having no idea what possible words in the English language might be appropriate in response to what he'd just heard. Amanda had stopped talking and all Lyle could hear was the crackling of the wood in the fire and the ancient roof creaking beneath the weight of more than a foot of snow.  Lyle looked up and turned his head toward Amanda, whose gaze was lost in the flames.  He started to speak, just because it felt like he should say something, but the words caught in his throat like they were afraid to venture out into the air.  After clearing his throat, his voice cracked, "You'd have been missed."

"By who?" Amanda asked, skeptically.

"By me," Lyle answered.  "I'd never have met you."

Amanda sniffled and her eyes welled again.  Lyle was pretty sure Amanda had never heard from anyone that she'd be missed if she was gone.  He thought about reaching out to hold her hand but was afraid to frighten her after all she'd been through.  She must have known what he was thinking because she scooted just a little closer to put her hand on top of his.

"I'm tired of talking," Amanda said, pulling her hand back slowly.  "Will you tell me about your little girl?  I want to hear all about her."

Lyle rubbed the gathering sleep from his eyes and answered, "Well I wish I could, but I'm ashamed to say that I don't really know her."

"What's she look like?" Amanda asked curiously.  "Savannah's her name, right?"

"Yeah.  Savannah.  She's beautiful... with a big bright smile."  Lyle pictured her in his memory sitting where she had been the one time he met her at the diner in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.  "She has  long curly blond hair and the kind of chubby cheeks that grandmas are always pinching.  She had the greatest laugh, like a little chipmunk."

"Why hadn't you met her before then?"

"I didn't even know about her until I got a letter from Osage County.  I used to run around with this girl named Clarissa back during my rodeo days.  Damn, she was something else.  Well, we ended up having a big falling out over my drinking and about how she wanted me to get a job around there and settle down.  I got pissed off at her because she'd always said we were just having fun together and then all of a sudden she was dropping hints about getting married.  We had a big fight out in front of her house and I sped off in my truck, heading out west and getting some work outside Amarillo.  I never looked back."

"Why didn't Clarissa tell you she was pregnant?"

"She didn't know yet and then when she found out she decided she'd rather go it alone than raising a kid with an asshole drunk like me.  I can't say I blame her.  But eventually she lost her job and she didn't have anybody to help her out so she talked to a lawyer who told her what to do to get child support.  They tracked me down and sent me a letter."

"I bet that was a shock!"

"I didn't know what to do.  I talked to my AA sponsor, Rick, and he got all emotional about it for some reason and told me I had to go back to Oklahoma and do what was right, that it was part of making amends and that every kid deserves a dad.  I told Maricruz about it and she was a little taken aback but then she said the same thing Rick had and then volunteered to go with me but I told her I needed to do it alone."

"A cowboy thing, huh?"

Lyle smiled, "Yeah, I guess you could say that.  When I got back to Pawhuska they did some tests on me and it turned out that I was the father, which wasn't a surprise to me because Clarissa was never the kind of girl to sleep around.  I signed the papers saying I would send a check each month and then I met Clarissa and Savannah at the diner downtown.  Savannah didn't really understand what all was going on.  She was way more interested in coloring on the place mat, but I couldn't quit looking at her." Lyle got lost in the memory of his daughter's face for a moment.  "It was like I started breathing right then, like I started believing in God all of a sudden when I saw her." He was surprised that he had to choke back the tears trying to escape.  "Clarissa told me how sorry she was for never contacting me before.  I told her I didn't blame her. I told her I was sorry for the way I'd treated her at the end of it all.  She said she was happy for me being sober and having Maricruz in my life, and I promised Savannah that I'd come to see her this summer, that I'd take her to the zoo in Tulsa to see the elephants.  She had a pink stuffed elephant with her at the diner."

"So you're actually going to do that, right?  Go there and see her again?"

"Yeah.  I'd go right now if I could.  Maricruz, Benny, and I are going to spend a week out there or so in June."

"That sounds great," Amanda said, nodding her head slowly, biting her bottom lip.  "Really great."

The sun had begun to pour in through the vacant window frames, so Lyle stood up slowly, stretching himself, and saw through the window that not only had the sun risen but the snow had stopped, and all was still. Originally he had thought about holing up in the old house until help arrived but as he looked back at the fire and at Amanda who had also stood and was looking out a window about five feet away, Lyle decided that too much had been said in that house for him to be able to stay there any longer.  It was almost like it had become haunted by both Amanda's and his memories of pasts they wished they could erase, hers filled with what had been done to her and his with what he had done to others.  Lyle turned to Amanda and said, "There's no use sitting around in this old dump.  Let's get the hell out of here and cover some ground.  What do you say?"

Amanda looked relieved.  "How far are we from Rocky Ford?"

"I'm not quite sure," Lyle answered.  "But if help's coming, it will be coming from the Rocky Ford direction.  So the closer we get to town, the sooner help will find us."

Amanda's expression turned from relief to concern.  "What's going to happen to me, Lyle?  When they find us I mean."

"Don't you worry about that, Amanda.  If anybody wants to get to you, they're going to have to go through me first," he said, surprising himself by how fatherly he'd just sounded.

She smiled and the two of them put on all their layers again and Lyle gathered up the pistol and the flashlight. Because the wind and snow had stopped, Amanda didn't wrap her head in the T-shirt again but Lyle forced her to wear his stocking cap.  Lyle avoided the three-quarters full bottle of whiskey until Amanda asked, "Do you want me to leave it here?"

Lyle thought for a moment and then responded, "Nah.  Grab it.  I've got an idea."

The two of them walked out into the snow-buried front yard of the house and turned to look back at the sad, sagging structure.  Lyle pulled the bandanna he'd worn earlier over his face from his pocket and stuffed it into the neck of the bottle Amanda was holding.  "I say we burn this son-of-a-bitch down," Lyle said.  "Let all that shit we talked about in there go up in flames."

Amanda looked at the bottle and then looked at the house and said, "It's not that easy, you know."

"I understand that," he said, knowing full well that a person's past is always tethered to them, like a pack horse following behind, but that the tether can be let out more and more, letting the horse walk farther and farther behind.  "But it's a start, Amanda. How's your throwing arm?"

"I'll let you do it," she said, handing him the bottle.

Lyle lit the bandanna and as the flame took hold of the cloth he ran up a few steps and threw the bottle through the empty door frame, hearing the shattering glass and watching as the fire spread as the whiskey ran through the floor boards.  Lyle and Amanda took several steps back and Lyle was surprised when Amanda rested her head on Lyle's arm for a moment and said softly, "Thank you, Lyle," as the two of them watched the house go up in flames as though it had been built with kindling.  After a few moments spent in silence, Lyle and Amanda turned away from the house and began making tracks in the direction of Rocky Ford, the plume of dark grey smoke rising behind them into the clear and cold Colorado morning sky.

Chapter Fifteen

Maricruz guided herself back down the dark hallway of her parents' house and into her Abuelita's room, where Benny lay on their pallet of blankets, already back in deep sleep.  The combination of Abuelita's snoring and Benny's heavy breathing would have kept Maricruz from falling asleep had that been what she planned to do.  She should have been tired, exhausted really; she'd been up for more than twenty hours except for a brief cat nap on the couch in the afternoon while Benny was sitting on the floor watching Ninja Turtles on TV.  But lying there she couldn't sleep because she knew what she had to do.  Lyle was all alone out there.  She knew it wasn't her fault--at least she knew that some of the time--but that didn't matter. Before she had been helpless, with no way to get to him.  But now there was a way, as insane as it sounded in her head, and she decided that saving Lyle was worth the risk. So as soon as she knew everyone was asleep she would take advantage of it.  Excitement and fear swirled together in her gut as she lay there waiting.

After about forty-five minutes lying on the floor in the dark, Maricruz kissed Benny on the forehead, and crept slowly up the hallway, leaning in close to her parents' door. Hearing nothing, she tiptoed up the hallway to the foyer and started to pull on all of her cold weather gear: her ski bib and boots, her shawl neck sweater, coat, and stocking cap.  She put her ski goggles around her neck and crept into the kitchen and stared at the hooks holding her parents' keys: her mother's house and Honda Civic keys held together by a hand-crocheted royal blue and orange key chain and her father's Chevy Blazer keys on the ring of a pewter soccer ball Benny had bought him for Christmas a couple years earlier.  Next to them was the key she had come looking for.  Maricruz reached up and held the snowmobile's keys in her hand without pulling them from the hook yet.  She closed her eyes for a moment. Was she really going to do this? She'd never even driven a snowmobile and now she was going to drive one out into the country in the middle of a blizzard? But what if Lyle was out there hurt or freezing to death?  He could be dying in a ditch somewhere all because he couldn't wait to see her and Benny.  She might be his only chance.  She pulled the key from the hook, stuffed them in her pocket, pulled on her gloves, grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen counter, and then slowly opened the front door.

The snow was still blowing in the early morning darkness, but when she'd first arrived at her parents' house her mother had told her that the radio had said the snow would be stopping a little earlier than expected, around dawn.  Maricruz stared at the snowmobile and made sure she could recall each thing her father had done to start the machine. First she inserted the key in the ignition and then pushed the red kill switch to "on." She reached down to pull the start cord, knowing that if it didn't start on one of the first couple pulls that someone in the house would surely wake up and come out to stop her, mistaking her for a thief.  As the snow blasted her face, she breathed in and out deeply, whispering a quick prayer that it would start on the first pull.  She yanked on the cord and the engine tried to turn over but it didn't start.  She had two more tries max.  She looked back toward the door, and seeing no one coming she pulled the cord again.  Still no luck. Her heart began to race with panic.  She leaned over to give it one more pull, but then she heard the front door of the house open, and turned to see her younger brother Umberto standing on the porch with a flashlight, wearing just his flannel pajama pants and a white tank-top undershirt.  Maricruz wasn't sure whether she should even acknowledge him or not so she went ahead and pulled the cord again but the engine still wouldn't turn over. It appeared that she needed his help.

The look on Umberto's chiseled face was one of confusion as Maricruz approached him, pulling off her goggles and ski mask.  He held himself, shivering.  "What the hell are you doing Mari?  It's the middle of the damn night and it's freaking freezing out here."  He blew on his hands to warm them.  Seeing her twenty two year old brother's exposed arms, sculpted and viscous like an Aztec warrior's, it was hard for her to believe that Umberto was the same scrawny little boy who had worn children's size clothes after his friends had graduated to adult sizes.  When he was in eighth grade he finally got tired of the redneck white kids calling him a beaner and a wetback even though his family had been in Colorado longer than most of theirs.  So he found a new hobby: lifting weights.  After a couple years of curls and squats and a truck-load of whey protein powder, the name calling stopped.

"I'm going out to see if I can find Lyle," Maricruz said.  "He's out there somewhere." She pointed out toward the west.  "I don't have time to explain everything.  I just need your help to get the snowmobile started."

"You're crazy, Mari," Umberto argued.  "You'll die out there."

"The storm's supposed to end soon," Maricruz tried to convince him.  "And I know he's somewhere on the county road.  I can find him.  I know I can."

Umberto rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the palms of his hands.  "I'll help you start it," he told her.  "On one condition."

Maricruz wondered how much this was going to cost her.  "Okay, what?"

"I'm coming with you."  Umberto smiled like the little boy Maricruz remembered.

Maricruz didn't even have to think about.  "Deal!" she said.  She gave him a big hug and sent him back in the house to put on his snow gear, telling him to leave a note on the kitchen counter but to hurry up about it.  As she waited for Umberto, she walked back over to the driveway and wiped the snow from the other snowmobile and then sat on it.  What if they couldn't find Lyle? she wondered.  What if they found his frozen body?  He wouldn't be out there if she hadn't given him the ultimatum? Maybe she should have just let him in that night and he wouldn't have fallen down the stairs.  No, no.  This was Lyle's fault, and his fault only.  But he'd done everything she'd asked.  She had to go find him.

Maricruz's train of thought was broken by hearing the front door open and close, then seeing Umberto, covered from head to toe in cold weather gear.  "Let's get the hell out of here," he said.  "Before anybody wakes up.  Dad'll flip if he catches us.  We'll just deal with him when we get back."  He handed her a backpack.  "I put a couple drinks and some food in there.  He'll be hungry and thirsty when we find him." Maricruz liked the sound of Umberto's confidence, "when we find him."

Umberto adjusted the choke on both snowmobiles and told Maricruz, "As soon as these start we have to haul ass because the whole house could wake up.  Don't look back.  Just keep going.  I'll be right behind you.  This is going to be great!"  

Maricruz had been a little surprised at first by Umberto's willingness to help.  He'd always been a good brother, of course, but much of the time he seemed more interested in working out at the gym or going to one of the clubs over in Pueblo with his friends.  He had worked at the restaurant off and on as a prep-cook and waiter while trying to talk their father into loaning him the money to start up his own gym in Rocky Ford, but so far their father had refused, repeatedly telling Umberto that there just wasn't enough of a market for it in their little town.  "Umberto's House of Flexing just won't work, son."  Maricruz had always hoped that was just a made up name that their father used and not what Umberto really wanted to call it. For the time being, Umberto had settled for living with their parents and working at the nutritional supplement store in Pueblo a few days a week, all the while working on his "business plan."  He'd even talked a few times about enlisting in the Army but had never followed through.  Umberto wanted some adventure, she thought.  Well if that's what he wanted then that's what he was going to get!

"Turn the key," he instructed her.  "I'm going to pull the cord and then you better haul ass."

Maricruz placed her gloved hand on top of his.  "Thank you, Umby."  She looked up at him.  "I mean it. Thank you."

"Just go," he said and then pulled the cord, firing up the engine.  The machine jerked a bit as Maricruz got the feel of the throttle but it didn't take her long.  She gunned it and headed out towards the exit of the neighborhood, looking back each block to see if her brother was behind her yet.  The snow and cold pounded her as she made her way past the Northside Bakery, one of the Baptist churches, and the Here & Gone gas station.  She stopped for a moment by the high school football field and looked back to the lightening horizon in the east, her heart lifting when she saw Umberto sliding around the corner much faster than he should have.  When he caught up with her, he didn't even bother stopping.  He just sped by and gestured with his hand for her to follow him.

Maricruz felt a tinge of guilt for leaving Benny behind and for actually feeling like she was having a bit of fun. She almost forgot for a moment the errand she was on.  The ice cold air blowing in her face and the speed and power of the snowmobile was exhilarating.  She followed Umberto through the snow packed streets lined with dark houses, smoke rising from their chimneys.  They would get to Lyle and have him back in town eating steaming soup by a fire in no time.  But then Maricruz noticed that Umberto had stopped about a half a block short of the county road.  He must be waiting for her so they could ride side by side.  As she eased off the throttle and skidded up beside her brother she saw what he was looking at: a police car parked across the county road so that no one could pass.

"Damn it!" Maricruz yelled as she slammed her hands down on the handle bars.

Umberto pulled his goggles up away from his eyes and his ski mask down from his face and smiled at his sister.  "Maricruz," he said with excitement.  "This is about to get awesome!"

Chapter Fourteen

Having rolled down onto the floorboard, Lyle winced as his ears rang from both gunshots.  The shattered glass from the windshield and rear passenger side window showered into the car followed by the frigid wind and snow.

"I told you I'd kill you, you sick bastard!" Amanda screamed over the wind as she recoiled as far away from Lyle as she could into the corner of the back seat.  She aimed the gun at Lyle, who was covering his head. "I knew I shouldn't have trusted you.  You're all the same.  All of you!"

Lyle peaked up at Amanda through his fingers and wondered for a split second if he should try again to rip the gun away from her.  He decided, however, that his only option was to try to convince her that it was an accident, that he had been trying to help her.  "Calm down, Amanda!  Just, just calm down!  You don't understand what I was doing."

"Oh I understand!  Believe me, I understand exactly what you were doing!"  Her tears were leaving black trails down her cheeks and she shivered in the cold.

"Just listen to me, damn it!"  The temperature in the car must have dropped thirty degrees already.  "You were dreaming.  You were screaming and that woke me up.  You were acting like you were pushing somebody off you, like they were trying hurt you.  You were going apeshit, Amanda, and swinging the gun all over the damn place.  I was afraid you were going to shoot me or shoot yourself." 

"So that's why you were laying on top of me?"  She asked sarcastically.  "You must think I'm a freaking idiot, Cowboy!  You have about ten seconds to get the hell out of this car." 

"I'm telling you the truth.  I tried to grab the gun and I fell.  If I was trying something on you would I have had my face pressed onto your belly?  Plus, think about it; even if I was a pervert--and I'm not--why would I try something on you while you had a gun in your hand.  Just how stupid do you think I am?"  He noticed that her expression was thawing a bit, her senses coming back to her.

"Just get out of the car, Lyle.  Please."

Lyle slowly pulled himself up onto the back seat, sure to sit so far away from Amanda that he was leaning against the opposite door.  She kept the gun pointed at him.  Lyle asked, "But what're you going to do, Amanda?  You can't stay in here now.  The windshield's gone, one of the windows too. There's shards of glass all over.  The front seat's already filling up with snow.  The wind's swirling in here like a tornado. What's your plan?  You'll freeze to death in here."

Amanda turned her head to take in the damage caused by the two rounds she'd spent as she'd woken up, as though at that moment she was just realizing that Lyle was right.  With her head facing away, Lyle took his chance and grabbed onto the revolver's cold steel barrel and ripped it from her hand.  Instinctively, she cowered into a ball, mumbling her pleas for mercy.

"I'm not going to shoot you, Amanda," Lyle assured her.  "See, look," he said, just before flinging the gun out through the wind tunnel that used to be a windshield.  "I don't need no gun."

Amanda unwound herself, and brushing the strands of her bleached hair out of her face, asked him, "What am I going to do, Lyle?  I hardly have any clothes on."  She looked down at her stained tube top and miniskirt.  "I'll freeze to death out there too. Maybe my chances are better just curling up in here.  You don't have to stay here with me.  Just go on to your girlfriend and her little boy.  I'll be okay."

Lyle ran through their options in his head.  The car was trapping the wind, making it just as cold or colder than outside and the snow blowing in would soak the upholstery before too long.  If she insisted on staying in the car he could leave his coveralls with her, but that would leave him with just a coat and jeans.  If she went with him he'd have to give her his coveralls anyway, and what would she do for shoes?  She couldn't wear high heels out there.  She'd have frostbite in a matter of minutes.  Then he remembered that there had to be a suitcase in the trunk.

"Here's what's going to happen," he said confidently.  "I'm going to get into the trunk. We've already shot out the guy's windows, so we might as well borrow his clothes." He thought he might have even seen her smile for just a second when he said it, probably because she realized that he wasn't going to leave her behind. "Hopefully he'll have something you can cover up with."

Lyle leaned over into the front seat and shook the shards of glass from his clothes, putting on everything except his coveralls, which he tossed back to Amanda for her to cover up with until he could figure out what was in the trunk.  He pulled the keys from the ignition and walked out into the snow and wind, before opening the trunk.  Yes!  Along with the jumper cables, spare tire, and lug wrench sat a nondescript black suitcase with a laminated identification tag dangling from the handle that read: "Albert Singleton, 281 East Main Street, Laramie, Wyoming."

"You're a real lifesaver, Al," Lyle said under his breath as he opened the suitcase, which contained nothing out of the ordinary but plenty that would help Amanda.  He pulled out three pairs of socks in various colors, a pair of red and black plaid flannel pajama pants, a pair of khacki chinos, a belt, two white undershirts, a brown sweatshirt that said, "PROPERTY OF WYOMING COWBOYS," in yellow collegiate blocked letters, and a pair of white sneakers that would be far too big for her but would have to work.  Thankfully it looked like Al must have been a fairly small guy.

Gathering up the clothes like he was carrying his dirty laundry to the washer, he carried them around to the passenger side rear door, opened it and set them down.  He leaned down into the back seat and looked across at Amanda, who was shivering under the coveralls.  "Hand my coveralls out to me and put this stuff on.  I'll stay out here, back around by the trunk while you're getting dressed.  You'll want to use two pairs of socks on your feet and the others on your hands.  Tie the shoes as tight as you can and cinch that belt up to the last hole.  Use one of the T-shirts to wrap around your head and face somehow.  When you're done I'll give you my coat.  Then we've got to hit the road.  We're better off moving.  We'll freeze to death in this car."

"Thank you," Amanda said softly as she handed him his coveralls, sounding as though she was embarrassed to say it.  "And I'm sorry.  I just thought--"

"Nobody got killed," Lyle interrupted her before she had to explain herself.  "That's what matters."  He stood to close the door, but leaned back down to add, "And don't thank me.  Thank Albert Singleton. Without even knowing it, he's saved your ass twice tonight.  Don't take too long, okay?"  He closed the door and trudged through the ever deepening snow back around to the trunk, which had blown shut.  As he pulled his coveralls back on he wondered where the hell they were going to go. Damn that girl's dream and damn that gun. They could have been just fine until morning if that car still had all its glass.  But it didn't, so that meant more walking. All he could figure to do was keep following the road to the east in hopes that they might happen upon a house, that someone might come looking for them, or better yet that somehow they might make it all the way to Rocky Ford alive.

Amanda seemed to take forever getting dressed but it couldn't have been easy or fun stripping completely down in the arctic wind that had found a home now in the car, and trying to figure out how to make an old man's clothes fit a sixteen-year-old girl, and a fairly petite one at that.  Finally, when Lyle was about to knock on the window to make sure she was still coming, she stepped out of the car and although he couldn't make out all the details with just the light from the dome light in the car to illuminate her, he couldn't help but break out laughing.

"Shut up," she said, almost slipping up and letting her lips form a partial smile.

Trying to catch his breath, Lyle laughed out, "You look like that M.C. Hammer guy I saw on TV the other day dancing around in his baggy pants!"  The belt held the pants around her waist, but then the pants flared out and she had to cuff them a couple of times to keep them from swallowing her feet.  Lyle looked at the gleaming white walking shoes and said, "You'd make one hell of a rodeo clown, Amanda."

Amanda looked down at herself.  Finally, she couldn't hold it in anymore and let go of her laughter like she was exhaling after holding her breath for too long.  The two of them leaned against the car and Lyle couldn't even feel the cold for a few minutes as they howled and snorted, cracking up until Amanda sighed and said, "I can't tell you the last time I laughed."  She looked off into the distance, or maybe it was into the past. "Years maybe," she said.  "I haven't laughed in years."

"I'd imagine you haven't had much to laugh about," Lyle said, still wondering what her story might be while wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes before they could freeze.  "Maybe things are looking up for you, kid."  He wanted to pat her on the shoulder or maybe even give her a hug in that moment but he knew better. Instead he handed her his coat.  "Put this on and let's cover some ground before we turn into popsicles."

After Amanda zipped the coat up and pulled socks over her hands she leaned back into the car, coming back out with the nearly full bottle of whiskey.

"We don't need that," Lyle said firmly.  "Leave that shit here.  We don't have any use for it."

Amanda looked taken aback by the tone of Lyle's voice.  "Earlier you said it might be useful out here. Maybe you were right."

"Suit yourself, but I'm sure as hell not carrying it."  Lyle was about to start walking when he said, "But that does remind me," and walked out to where he'd thrown the gun.  After a few moments he found it with his boot in the snow and picking it up, turned to Amanda who had followed him the ten or so feet in front of the car and said, "It can't hurt to have this either.  We never know what we'll run into out here. But I'm carrying it this time.  Next time this goes off we might not be so lucky."  He gestured toward the shattered windshield and window.

He helped her wrap the T-shirt around her head and face the best she could and the two of them took their first steps in the same direction Lyle had been heading when he'd found the car, thinking he'd found his salvation.  The wind and snow pushed them from the back, with each step a few feet closer to Rocky Ford.

After a while, Lyle's skin hurt and his feet and hands were growing numb again but he didn't want to complain because Amanda never opened her mouth to say anything other than, "Can we take a quick rest," and "I've got to tie this shoe again or it's going to fall off."  The going was tough, but after they'd covered about a mile and a half, Amanda stopped and pointed ahead and off to the right.

"Oh, thank God," she said.  "Do you see that, Lyle?  It looks like... a house!"

.  

Chapter Thirteen

Maricruz threw open the door and flinched as the chilled air from the stairwell rushed through her and into the apartment.  A figure stood on the landing outside wearing a full snowsuit, a ski mask, and skiing goggles. Even in the dim light she could tell that the figure was too short to be Lyle, but she asked anyway, "Lyle, is that you?"

The person took off the goggles and ski mask, and said, "No, Maricruz.  It's me."

"Daddy?" she said to the man in front of her, then turned toward Benny.  "It's your Grandpa, sweetie."

Her father, Fernando, a man in his early sixties with a full face, salt-and-pepper hair, and a silver goatee, walked into the apartment, closing the door behind him and scanning the room filled with candles. He smiled.  "I can see you've been visiting Abuelita."

"What're you doing here, Dad?" Maricruz asked, completely confused.  "It's the middle of the night.  How'd you even get here?  There must be more than a foot of snow out there."

Fernando pulled the gloves from his small hands one plump finger at a time.  "I came to check on the restaurant and to take you and Benny back with me to the house.  Your mother insists, and as always your mother is right." Benny had walked over and given his grandfather a hug then sat down at the kitchen table with Maricruz and Fernando following him in doing so.  "I got here on a snowmobile.  Pretty impressive, huh? When I saw the forecast, I called up the rental place in Pueblo and sent your brothers to pick it up with a truck and trailer they borrowed from a friend of theirs. They ended up coming back with two of them so they can go out and have fun over the next couple days.  I didn't gripe at them too bad because they paid for the other one themselves and gave me some money to help with mine.  Plus, I plan to take Father Carl around on one of them tomorrow afternoon to visit his shut-ins as a donation to the church."

"Tax deduction, right?  You're a real saint, Dad," Maricruz said sarcastically, but lovingly.

He stood and then put his arm around her.  "Your mother thought it was tacky, but I knew my accountant would understand."  He winked at his daughter.  "I'm going to go check on things downstairs.  You and Benny put on your snow gear.  I'll be back in about fifteen minutes to get you."

Maricruz protested.  "We're not going, Dad."

"But, Mom, a snowmobile," Benny begged.  "In the middle of the night!  How cool is that!  Please?"

"No, Abenicio.  We're waiting for Lyle."  Fernando looked puzzled as to why Lyle would be coming on a night like this, so Maricruz explained to him that this was the ninetieth day and that Lyle had gone to Pueblo even with the storm coming.  She told him all the sheriff's department had told Rick.  Her father had not been very supportive at first of her giving Lyle a second chance, but as he always did, he had finally decided to support her, even if reluctantly, until he could see whether or not Lyle really came through.  "So, you see, Daddy, we need to be here.  If--I mean, when--he makes it here, I need to be here."

Fernando put his gloves back on but put the ski mask and goggles under his arm. "Nonsense, Mari.  We live less than a mile away.  Leave him a note on the door and come be with your family."  He opened the door and looked back.  "Fifteen minutes. Okay?"

Maricruz closed the door behind her father and had Benny hold a candle in each hand to give her light as she searched for all of their cold weather gear in the hall closet. She didn't want to go to her parents' house but she knew her father wouldn't take "no" for an answer, and Benny was too excited about the late night snowmobile ride in the middle of the night.  If Lyle could make it all the way back to Rocky Ford he could surely make it another ten blocks to her parents' house.  It might be nice to have some company as she waited anyway.  After changing clothes and throwing together a small overnight backpack, they pulled on their snow overalls, parkas, boots, and hats. Maricruz tore a piece of paper from a spiral notebook and wrote a note that said, "Lyle, We're waiting out the storm at my parents' house.  We love you so much. Please come see us," then taped it to the door.  When her father came back up to the apartment, she left the faucets dripping, and then the three of them blew out all the candles before pulling on their gloves and hats and walking out the door.

The wind and snow assaulted the three of them the moment they stepped out the downstairs door.  Her father had parked the snowmobile on the sidewalk that was buried beneath snow that reached up almost to Maricruz's knees.  "It's only made to fit two," her father informed her, "But we can put Benny in between us and you can wear the backpack, Maricruz.  It's not hard to drive at all, so we should fine.  Benny will be a little smooshed for a few minutes, but at least you'll be warm, huh, kiddo?"  Fernando patted Benny on the back.  "It's only ten blocks."  Maricruz and Benny put on their secondhand ski goggles from a year earlier when Fernando had splurged and taken the entire staff of Los Tres Hermanos on a ski weekend to celebrate a record year of sales.  Maricruz watched as Fernando fired up the snowmobile, then wiped the snow from the seat and gauges.  The three of them then squeezed themselves onto it, Maricruz holding tightly onto Benny who was mashed in between the two while holding tightly onto his grandfather.

As they weaved through the streets, Maricruz took in the dark and surreal scene.  Cars were almost completely covered by the snow and the drifts against the houses looked like ski slopes.  The stop sign had been knocked to the ground by the wind and the only light along the way was the occasional candle in a window.  The ride was brutally cold but it only lasted five minutes or so.  During those few minutes, she really began to doubt for the first time if Lyle would be able to survive the night.  She had seen a few blizzards in her life but she had never seen anything like this.  Lyle would have to be the luckiest man in the universe, carried by angels, or the toughest damn cowboy in Colorado to make it back to Rocky Ford alive. Her heart took on a weight as she thought about losing Lyle.  There had to be something she could do. She'd never felt so helpless.

When they pulled into what must have been her parents' driveway beneath the blanket of snow, Maricruz's father parked the snowmobile next to the other identical machine rented by her brothers.  As they climbed off, her dad said, "Not too bad, huh? It's pretty fun actually, a lot like driving a four wheeler.  Maybe you could go out with us tomorrow and give it a try.  You'll love it."  He looked at Benny.  "You too, kiddo."

"Yes!" Benny said as he pumped his fist.

They peeled off their snow gear on the tile floor in the foyer and then crept in slowly and quietly into the house.  With the house's open floor plan, Maricruz could make out more than a dozen sleeping family members on the couch, in the chair, and all over the floor.  Maricruz's mother stood from the table in the breakfast nook and came to hug and kiss her daughter and grandson.  "I've made you two a pallet on the floor in Abuelita's room."  She kissed Maricruz on the cheek.  "Finally I can go to bed now that I see your faces and know you are safe.  Tonight's no night to be off by yourselves."  Carrying a candle, she showed them to Abuelita's room, where Maricruz's tiny grandmother snored softly in the darkness of her twin-sized bed.

Benny lay down on the pallet made of afghans and quilts and immediately closed his eyes, having only been awake this late maybe once in his life.  "I'm going to the bathroom real quick," Maricruz told him before leaving the room.  She knew he'd be asleep before she made it back.  As she walked down the hall, she could hear her parents' muffled voices through their bedroom door.  She leaned in close to the door and was pretty sure she could hear her father telling her mother about Lyle.  Then she tiptoed down the hallway, stepped over her nieces and nephews sleeping on the living room floor, and walked into the kitchen, barely illuminated by the dim light of a candle on the stove top.  Then she saw what she had come looking for. There it was on one of the key hooks just above the light switch and below the calendar--the key to the snowmobile.  With her heart already beginning to beat like a drum within her chest, she crept back to the bedroom to wait until everyone was asleep.