Chapters (110)
- Cover
- ALSO BY J. TODD SCOTT
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- PROLOGUE
- I
- II
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- PART FOUR
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- EIGHTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Excerpt from LOST RIVER
- LITTLE PARIS
- DILLON
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Baseball shrugged and made a face, showing his rotten teeth again. He looked toward the invisible river. “It is no matter. A few days ago, we killed five just like you, but there are always more. The river brings them to us and takes them away again.” He sounded tired, a man exhausted by all the things he’d done and all the things he would yet do, but Chayo knew it was useless to ask him why he did such things, if they burdened him so much. He probably didn’t know himself anymore. It was just the way things were, and the way they would always be, on the river.
Baseball turned back to Chayo. “I will shoot you and we will take what we want anyway.”
Then Chayo was all the way back on the bus in Ojinaga . . . with Castel and all the others dying in front of him.
That hot darkness, the breaking glass. Sparks on metal.
The screaming and the blood.
Ojos de los muertos.
Like the sunglasses of the two bajadores.
He and Neva had survived too much, had come too far, to die here, in this place.
Like the halcón, they had flown.
Chayo yelled at the top of his lungs, a scream he’d been holding in since that night, and flew again . . .
. . . right at Baseball.
—
THE BAJADORES WERE ABOUT TEN FEET from Chayo and Neva, perhaps more. The broken and empty rifle in Chayo’s hand had bought him some time when they’d first appeared, and even now they didn’t know whether it was loaded.
It also gave Chayo a longer reach, so he didn’t have to close the whole distance.
He caught Baseball off guard by his sudden attack, though he stuck his own gun out in front of him to fend Chayo off, to push him away.
He fired one shot, and Chayo felt the bullet tear the air beside him . . . no . . . through him. His body had been set on the fire, and in the still of the desert, the sound of the booming gun was louder than he ever could have imagined, louder than anything he’d ever heard. But still Chayo kept coming, and he brought the rifle around in a long arc, praying again it held together, and caught Baseball in the face with it. It shattered the man’s mirrored glasses and he screamed in surprise and pain, as Chayo’s rifle flew apart in shards of rotted wood and rusted metal.
A long sliver of that metal remained stuck in Baseball’s left eye and it spouted thick blood, high into the air.
Baseball went down and Chayo was on top of him, kicking and still screaming, and drawing the small knife from his belt . . .
—