‘¿Cómo está su mano?’ I ask when he gets closer, and touch him gently on the shoulder. His head snaps round as though my fingers have burnt a hole in his T-shirt and I see with a shock that he is a different boy, equally young, equally mortified to find himself accosted by the English gringa, but a different boy nonetheless. At that moment Duval notices us. He shouts something and the boy hunches his shoulders around his ears and disappears back into the cabin.

‘What happened to the other boy?’ I ask Duval. ‘Where is he?’

‘Other boy?’

‘The one who cut his hand?’

Duval looks blank.

‘The one who normally wears that red hat?’ I persist, despite realizing how silly the question sounds. There is surely no dearth of red baseball caps in this part of the world.

‘I’m sorry,’ Duval says, ‘I’ve told the workers not to bother you.’

‘He wasn’t bothering me. I was talking to him,’ I say levelly.

‘If you have any complaints, ma’am, you should really talk to me.’

‘I don’t have any complaints,’ I say, frustrated. ‘I was just trying to—’

‘Then if you have no complaints,’ he cuts in with maddening composure, ‘I’d appreciate it if you could let the men get on with their work.’

11

The confrontation leaves me oddly uneasy for the next few days and I’m still puzzling as to why exactly when I notice Jack wandering around the cabin clutching his homework, looking like he’s carrying the weight of the entire US national debt on his shoulders. In truth it’s taken a little longer for Jack to turn native. The Devil’s Slide boys are a tough bunch. Most learned to ride at the age of two and by eight were sitting on a horse fully armed and running cattle. Stetson, the snivelly albino-esque boy who’d rattled Jack’s nerve that first morning at school, has become his main enemy. One of four sons of the local jail guard, he’s an accomplished bully. ‘Maybe he pushes me round a bit,’ Jack finally admitted, ‘after school, in the playground, but I can handle it.’

‘Did you tell the teacher?’

He nodded.

‘And?’

‘She told me not to give away my power. She’s an idiot.’

I had every sympathy with this. Sue’s head is a bottomless well of new-age mysticism. When I told her I knew no one in Arizona, she replied, ‘There are no strangers out here, Alice, only friends you haven’t met yet.’

‘Do you want me to talk to her, Jack?’ I’d asked.

‘No,’ he’d said furiously. ‘I’m dealing with it, okay? I’m not scared. I’m not scared of nuthin’.’

‘So what’s up now Jack?’ I ask him.

No response.