The cabin is still and quiet. Thank God for Sharleen and Candy, thank God the children are at Prestcott’s trashing bedspreads and stealing mini soaps, and I have nothing more taxing to do than hobble upstairs and fall into bed. The leg burns but the shooting pains have stopped. My hair smells of tobacco and wood smoke. I lie drowsily under the covers, trying to arrange my thoughts and feelings into some sort of order, but my head just grows heavier and heavier. I dream I am running along the white beaches of the North Orkneys, in the middle of a pack of wolves. I run at great speed. The sand feels firm under my paws. A cool wind rushes past my face as my skin turns to bristle. I let my tongue hang down to catch the splatters of sea spray. Eventually the rhythmic pounding of feet gives way to a more localized pounding in my left leg and I wake. The hands on the clock read five. It feels good to lie in bed for a while, listening for the creaks as the mining ghosts tread the floorboards, but in the end I get out of bed to join them, hauling my stiff leg down the stairs like a new prosthetic limb I haven’t yet mastered the technique of using. In the kitchen I crunch up coffee beans and shake the leg around, trying to loosen it up while water heats in the saucepan. Taking a blanket off the sofa and carrying the mug of steaming coffee outside to the butterscotch truck, I hoist myself up into the flatbed and lean against its cold metal side, waiting for the sun. The sky is still grey over the mountains, the echoes of night not yet entirely receded. I love these moments just before dawn, when you’re the only person awake and the whole world belongs to you. In the twin beds of Prestcott’s, the children, still in the grip of their night-time blackout, would be throwing their limbs about like double-jointed zombies. In the secret schoolroom, the Mexicans would be shifting and turning on the floor. And Duval? Well, who knows . . . There are other places I go,’ he’d said and I picture him in the dark confines of a woman’s bedroom, watching her silently as she sleeps.

I pinch myself. There can be no romanticizing the situation. Duval – trafficking in people, using the town as a cover. I know perfectly well I should call the Border Patrol and yet... I sip the burning coffee. ‘After you left Temerosa that first time I never thought you’d be back,’ he’d said as he helped me up into Winfred’s truck and I’d looked at him, expecting to see the same mocking smile, but his eyes had been serious. ‘I never dreamed you’d come to live here. Not on your own, not with two small children . . .’