I imagined asking her about how she came to be there, about how she was taken, but I didn’t know how to ask and really didn’t want to know. The low, dark clouds were scattered across the scape, and so we moved in and out of downpours. The wiper remained on since I didn’t know where the switch was. When between storms I could hear just how quiet the women were—no laughing, no crying, no talking. There was the occasional cough.

My phone rang and, like everything that day, startled me. I answered it, finding the big bus wheel hard to manage with one hand. It was DeLois.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“Yes. Are you all okay?”

“All well,” she said.

“Thank you. Tell everyone I said thank you.” I hung up before she could say anything else. I didn’t want to say that there was a wounded woman on board. And I needed both hands for the wheel. Just outside the town of Truth or Consequences the clouds disappeared, and the sun came out. I searched the dashboard and finally found the switch, turned off the wiper. The sun, the hot engine, the situation, made the bus hot. I opened the window beside me. After Truth or Consequences, I pulled off the interstate into a rest area. It was fairly deserted but not empty. There was a family of four at a picnic table. They had an old Labrador retriever that reminded me of Basil. Of the five, only the dog seemed interested in us.

I was careful to leave the motor running.

I walked to the back of the bus and looked at Maribel. Her arm was bandaged with clothing. The wound was in her lower right arm and the bleeding appeared to have stopped. She did not look well, but she smiled at me.

“She needs a doctor,” I said.

“After we get home,” Rosalita said. She spoke to Maribel in Spanish. Maribel nodded to me.

I said okay and walked back to the front of the bus. I pulled out my phone to call Lieutenant Deocampo while the women visited the washroom. They moved together, like a quarrel of swallows. I noticed that they all wore the same Adidas sneakers. Jeans, T-shirts of various colors, white sneakers with three red stripes on each side. Maribel walked with Rosalita. None of them looked back at me except Rosalita.

Deocampo answered.

“I have them,” I said.

His silence betrayed his profound surprise.

“Will you be there?” I asked.

“When?”

I had to step away from the running bus to hear him. “This bus is slow, very slow. Three hours, I think. At least that long to get to the bridge. I don’t know how long to cross. There are eleven of them.”

Again, the silence.

“Lieutenant?”

“I am here, Mr. Wells.”

“Will you be there?”

“I will be there.”

Hotter in New Mexico.