His response is drowned out by the noise of the crowd. I lean closer to him. Spontaneously, he turns his face up for a kiss but suddenly his new, too-big-for-him cowboy hat slides over his face and he finds himself with a mouthful of brim instead. Surprised, I look up and there right in front of me stands Duval, his hand holding Jack’s hat down on his head.

‘Mu-uum,’ Jack is protesting in a muffled voice.

I say something but my voice also sounds muffled and far away.

Duval wrenches up the sleeve of my shirt. ‘So Sanchez was right.’ He stares at the cholla punctures on my arm. ‘You crossed the line and now there’s no turning back for either of us.’

And I feel the warmth of his hand on my wrist and know it’s true.

‘Goddammit, Alice.’ He raises angry eyes to mine.

‘Goddammit, Mum!’ comes the stifled echo. Jack is still struggling. Duval releases him. Poor Jack finally gets to grips with his hat. He lifts it off his forehead and rakes his sweaty hair up into a peak. I look back to Duval but he’s ducking under the wooden stalls and vanishes into the blinding sunlight. Jack screws the hat back on his head, then notices I’m laughing. He fixes me with a suspicious look and demands crossly, ‘What’s so funny, girl? I’m still bursting to pee.’

25

‘Hungry?’

‘Starving!’

Duval catches my eye and smiles.

Behind us the sun is dipping. Filaments of orange and pink shoot across the sky then gradually dissolve like streamers of smoke. Back in the cabin the children would be still high on the day’s quota of lemonade and even now chewing their way through a packet of strawberry twizzles under the benevolent eye of Benjamín. I lean out of the open window feeling almost giddy with freedom.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Oh, little place I know.’

‘Round here?’ I look at him with suspicion. ‘A restaurant?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far.’ He continues whistling tunelessly until we eventually draw up to a ranch heralded by two soaring vertical logs carved into a wishbone shape with a horizontal log jammed across the middle. Landowners round here seem to favour these OK Corral gateways even when the property behind them consists of no more than a single acre. This one is more pretentious than most. The logs are stained a lurid orange colour and an intricately carved name sign has been suspended from its centre. It’s also curiously familiar. ‘Wait a minute.’ I scrutinize the writing. ‘This is Hogan’s Ranch!’

‘Good Lord,’ Duval affects surprise, ‘so it is.’ He noses the truck down the drive.

‘Duval, what are you doing? He’ll be back any minute.’

‘He’ll be drinking his own health at the rodeo shindig until long after we’re gone.’

‘But he’s got people watching the property. He told me.’