Delia's Gift (Delia 3)

I nodded, and then I smiled and shook my head. “Maybe not, Edward.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Look,” I said.

He turned.

About twenty yards ahead of us, saddled and waiting, Amigo pawed the ground and nodded. Edward looked at me, astounded.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“That’s Amigo. He was Adan’s horse. Gerry Sommer obviously saddled him for me.”

“Seriously?”

“Sí, Edward, seriously,” I said, and walked to Amigo. Edward held Adan Jr. until I mounted, and then he handed him back to me and took the reins.

Without saying another word, he started for the canyon. Amigo walked behind him quietly, smoothly. As we passed the trailer, Gerry Sommer stepped out and looked our way.

“He knows his way back,” he said.

“Gracias, Gerry.”

“Vaya con dios,” he called as we entered the deeper shadows and started into the canyon. Adan Jr., rocked by the movement of Amigo, soon fell asleep in my arms. The three of us moved gracefully through the darkness, silhouetted against the blazing stars. Lizards scampered in every direction. Bats circled, but nothing bothered us or interfered. It was as if the desert had always been our home.

Without my slower gait holding him back, Edward was able to make better time. In a little less than an hour, we reached the end of the canyon where we had parked my car. He took Adan Jr. in his arms so I could dismount and held him a few moments longer while I said good-bye to Amigo. The horse stood there looking at us as if he knew everything we were doing.

“He has human eyes,” Edward said.

“Sí. Maybe Adan is looking at us through him.”

“Maybe. I won’t deny anything anymore,” Edward said.

I took Adan Jr. back into my arms, and Edward opened the rear door for me. Then he hurried around and got into the driver’s seat. When he started the engine, Amigo turned and began his trek back to the stable.

“Uncanny,” Edward said, watching him go off.

“Sí,” I said. I couldn’t stop the tears of joy from streaking down my cheeks.

He handed me the washcloth for my face and cleaned his own of the shoe polish. Then he pulled onto the road, and we made our way slowly back to the small city and onto the freeway for our journey into Mexico.

Once again, I was going home, crossing over, but this time, Mexico was the promised land and not America. We stopped on the way out of the desert communities at a twenty-four-hour supermarket, where Edward went in to buy what I needed for Adan Jr. We decided that we could cross the border before we stopped to take a much-needed sleep.

We were both afraid that Edward’s name and description would be with the border authorities, but no one appeared to pay much attention to us, and we had no trouble crossing into Mexico. Edward had the maps we needed, so once we entered the city of Mexicali, we continued for an hour more and then pulled into a roadside motel. It was already dawn. Adan Jr. had slept through most of the trip. I changed his diaper in the motel room and placed him beside me on the bed. Despite my own deep fatigue, I couldn’t close my eyes. The wonder of him was too great. Edward, on the other hand, practically passed out. Finally, I dozed off when Adan Jr. did, and we all slept well into the mid-afternoon.

The moment Edward turned on his cell phone, it rang to indicate he had a voice message. I watched him listen to it and turn off his phone again.

“It was your aunt,” he said, instead of saying “my mother.”

“What?”

“She said Ray called her first thing, enraged, hysterical, but she also said she told him she doesn’t know anything. She said we should just return from wherever we are hiding. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. Let’s just move along.”

Our plan was to drive to Guadalajara, where we felt we could be less likely to be discovered. It was a little more than two more hours of driving. Edward thought we should lie low for a while before going deeper into Mexico. He said Señor Bovio would assume I’d return to my village, so it would be better to find somewhere to go where we would not stand out. He thought eventually we could settle into one of the tourist locations, perhaps Puerto Vallarta.

Most of the time, I was too occupied with Adan Jr. to think too much about all this. Holding him in my arms, seeing the Mexican landscape, reading the signs, and speaking to the people filled me with a sense of invulnerability. Nothing could interfere. This was meant to be. I was truly home with my child.

Of course, I worried about Edward. He promised that in time he would return to the United States and revive his career pursuit. He bragged that they could torture him, lock him in a dark hole, whatever, and he would never reveal where I was or that he even had anything to do with me. He believed that after a period of time, Señor Bovio would give up. Mexico, after all, was famous for swallowing up fugitives from America.