last of Fahey’s dust, thinning before the sky.
“Betadine and Cipro. What do you suppose he’s up to out there on the farm?”
Jack shrugged once more. “Who knows?”
Deek put a line of tobacco juice into the dirt, then stuffed his hands into the hip pockets of his jeans. “No good, most likely.”
5
F AHEY DID as the cowboys had suggested. He parked on the American side then walked across. Tijuana produced Betadine and Cipro. As a prudent measure he added Valium, Vicodin, and Percocet, and these for himself. He walked out of the pharmacy as broke as he’d entered Fish and Game to collect his bounty.
Panic attacks started amid the blue steel piping of the great cattle chute by which pedestrians were funneled back across the border, where apparently even the foot traffic had gotten bad since 9/11, sweating it out for an hour and a half amid the reek of humanity, the exhaust of passing cars. At his back an obese woman had fainted. Two men ahead of him were busted by border police and hauled away. It happened in utter silence, a scene from The Twilight Zone . Imagining intrigue beyond his wit, Fahey inched forward, broke cold sweats, crossed the border trailing water.
For the next forty-eight hours she was sick as a dog. Fahey carried her from the bed to the bathroom and back again. He opened and closed windows. He bathed her cuts in the solution the cowboys had prescribed. He fixed ice chips in a bowl and heated cans of low-fat chicken broth that she would not touch till the evening of the third day, after which she slept through the night. By morning she was feeling well enough to thank him for his troubles.
“You’ve been very kind,” she said. She was sitting up in his bed. Her hair was tousled and fell to her shoulders, black before the pale walls of his old trailer. It occurred to him that she had about her some aspect of a beautiful child wakened from a bad dream. He had given her a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants to wear and the shirt hung from her slight frame, settling about her waist like the folds of a tent. Blankets covered her legs. So wrapped she might have been made of sticks but Fahey had just spent the better part of three days caring for her and though he’d done his best to give her as much privacy as he could he had noted in spite of himself that she was a long way from skin and bones—long-limbed in spite of her height, delicate and yet sinewy beneath a rather startling expanse of copper-colored skin. In truth he found her rather exotic though it might also be noted that he harbored a weakness for things injured, for the bird with the broken wing, for wild things found hurt in the valley. It had always been so. And yet he had not always been successful in saving such things and there had been a time, with this woman, with her face on fire beneath his palm, her long lashes fluttering upon the flushed skin of her cheek, when he had wondered if he had not made a mistake in agreeing to care for her, though now that her fever had broken he was beginning to feel like maybe it had been okay, that he was off the hook, and he told her of his fears. “I was beginningto wonder if I’d made a mistake,” he said, “in not taking you to the hospital.”
“You did the right thing,” she told him. “Believe me. You did.” She turned to the window at her side, its louvered panes thick with dust, patched in duct tape. The window looked out on a small, ragged garden—yellow chrysanthemums, waist-high above a stand of weeds.
“How long?” she asked.
Fahey told her, then watched her hand tighten on a corner of the blanket.
“And I’m behind in my work,” he added.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It must be my fault.”
“I don’t need much of an excuse. But today? The buck stops here . . . as they say,” Fahey’s idea of banter. Christ, he thought. Christ almighty. But then it had been a long time since there had been a woman in his bed and there followed a moment of awkward
“Betadine and Cipro. What do you suppose he’s up to out there on the farm?”
Jack shrugged once more. “Who knows?”
Deek put a line of tobacco juice into the dirt, then stuffed his hands into the hip pockets of his jeans. “No good, most likely.”
5
F AHEY DID as the cowboys had suggested. He parked on the American side then walked across. Tijuana produced Betadine and Cipro. As a prudent measure he added Valium, Vicodin, and Percocet, and these for himself. He walked out of the pharmacy as broke as he’d entered Fish and Game to collect his bounty.
Panic attacks started amid the blue steel piping of the great cattle chute by which pedestrians were funneled back across the border, where apparently even the foot traffic had gotten bad since 9/11, sweating it out for an hour and a half amid the reek of humanity, the exhaust of passing cars. At his back an obese woman had fainted. Two men ahead of him were busted by border police and hauled away. It happened in utter silence, a scene from The Twilight Zone . Imagining intrigue beyond his wit, Fahey inched forward, broke cold sweats, crossed the border trailing water.
For the next forty-eight hours she was sick as a dog. Fahey carried her from the bed to the bathroom and back again. He opened and closed windows. He bathed her cuts in the solution the cowboys had prescribed. He fixed ice chips in a bowl and heated cans of low-fat chicken broth that she would not touch till the evening of the third day, after which she slept through the night. By morning she was feeling well enough to thank him for his troubles.
“You’ve been very kind,” she said. She was sitting up in his bed. Her hair was tousled and fell to her shoulders, black before the pale walls of his old trailer. It occurred to him that she had about her some aspect of a beautiful child wakened from a bad dream. He had given her a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants to wear and the shirt hung from her slight frame, settling about her waist like the folds of a tent. Blankets covered her legs. So wrapped she might have been made of sticks but Fahey had just spent the better part of three days caring for her and though he’d done his best to give her as much privacy as he could he had noted in spite of himself that she was a long way from skin and bones—long-limbed in spite of her height, delicate and yet sinewy beneath a rather startling expanse of copper-colored skin. In truth he found her rather exotic though it might also be noted that he harbored a weakness for things injured, for the bird with the broken wing, for wild things found hurt in the valley. It had always been so. And yet he had not always been successful in saving such things and there had been a time, with this woman, with her face on fire beneath his palm, her long lashes fluttering upon the flushed skin of her cheek, when he had wondered if he had not made a mistake in agreeing to care for her, though now that her fever had broken he was beginning to feel like maybe it had been okay, that he was off the hook, and he told her of his fears. “I was beginningto wonder if I’d made a mistake,” he said, “in not taking you to the hospital.”
“You did the right thing,” she told him. “Believe me. You did.” She turned to the window at her side, its louvered panes thick with dust, patched in duct tape. The window looked out on a small, ragged garden—yellow chrysanthemums, waist-high above a stand of weeds.
“How long?” she asked.
Fahey told her, then watched her hand tighten on a corner of the blanket.
“And I’m behind in my work,” he added.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It must be my fault.”
“I don’t need much of an excuse. But today? The buck stops here . . . as they say,” Fahey’s idea of banter. Christ, he thought. Christ almighty. But then it had been a long time since there had been a woman in his bed and there followed a moment of awkward
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