Rain Gods (Hackberry Holland 2)

?Thank you for stopping,? Vikki said.

Pete climbed inside and shut the door. He started to offer his hand, but Danny Boy was concentrating on the wide-angle mirror.

?You know the cops are looking for you? Federal agents and state people and Sheriff Holland, too. A federal agent got killed.?

?I reckon they found us,? Pete said.

Danny Boy pulled back onto the road, his shirt open on his leathery chest, his neck beaded with dirt rings. ?Maybe this ain?t the best place for y?all.?

?We don?t have any other place to go,? Pete said.

?If it was me, I?d get on a freight and go to Canada and follow the harvest, maybe. A cook on them crews can make good money. I?d find a place that ain?t been ruined and settle down.?

Pete stuck his arm out the window, turning his palm into the airflow so it would vane up his arm and inside his shirt. ?We?re working on it,? he said.

?Them people you got mixed up with? They?re out there.?

?Which people? Out where?? Vikki asked.

?They?re out there at night. They come up the arroyos. They ain?t wets, either. They go past my place. I see them in the field.?

?Those are harmless farmworkers,? Pete said.

?No, they ain?t. See the sky. We had one night of hard rain, the way it used to be. But we didn?t get no more. Them rain gods were giving us a chance. But they ain?t coming back while all these drug dealers and killers are here. There?s a hole in the earth, and down inside it is the place where all the corn came from. That?s where all power comes from. Don?t nobody know where the hole is anymore.?

Vikki looked sideways at Pete.

?Tell her,? Danny Boy said.

?Tell her what??

?That I ain?t drunk.?

?She knows that. Danny Boy i

s okay, Vikki.? Pete gazed out the window, the wind climbing up his bare arm, puffing inside his shirt. ?That?s Ouzel Flagler?s place. I wish I hadn?t been there when some bad hombres came in.?

?That?s where you met them guys??

?Probably. I?m not sure. I was in a blackout most of the day. I know I bought mescal from Ouzel that day. Ouzel?s mescal always leaves its mark, like an earth grader has rolled over your head.?

Ouzel Flagler?s brick bungalow, cracked down the middle, with a plank bar built on one side of the house, was veiled briefly by a cloud of dust blowing off the hardpan, balls of tumbleweed skipping across its roof. Under a white sun, amid the tangled wire and all the rusted construction equipment Ouzel had hauled onto his property, a cluster of rheumy-eyed longhorns was standing by a recessed pool of rainwater, the sides of the depression strung with green feces.

?Don?t look at it,? Vikki said.

?At what??

?That place. It?s not part of your life anymore.?

?What I did that night is on me, not on Ouzel.?

?Will you stop talking about it, Pete? Will you just stop talking about it??

?I got to get gas up yonder,? Danny Boy said.

?No, not here,? Vikki said.

Danny Boy looked at her, his eyes sleepy, the muscles in his face flaccid. ?The needle is below the E. It?s three miles to the next station.?