The hard men who’d named them long gone as well.

It was also rumored that Javy used to work as a smuggler—cigarettes, alcohol, sugar, drugs—and had once been friends with many of the old-time narcos who’d ruled the region.

Javy Cruz—seventy years old—knew a hell of a lot about a lot of things, old and new, including how to make a great cup of coffee. He’d woken Mel up with a big mug of it, although she hadn’t slept much anyway, and the chicory and maple smell filled the house, thick as cigarette smoke. Though she’d stopped smoking when she realized she was pregnant with Jack, that didn’t mean she didn’t crave one now and then, mainly when she was stressed or tired. Like now.

Now she wanted to work her way through a whole pack before breakfast. She wished she had taken more than a couple from Deputy Reynosa.

It didn’t help that when Javy brought her his wonderful coffee, he’d had a rifle slung over his shoulder.

—

HE WAS IN HIS SMALL KITCHEN, making deer sausage and eggs, cooking the thick, handmade tortillas he got from Presidio on a big frying pan. He’d poured some whiskey into his own mug of coffee, and the rifle was laid out on the counter, within reach.

The walls were covered with old pictures and antler racks and trophy heads, not unlike Earlys. The dark eyes of the dead animals stared down at them, glassy and reflective and deep enough to fall into, and she tried not to stare back.

He had a radio on, playing music from a station over the border.

Before settling in the kitchen with him, Mel had checked on both Jack and Zita, who were still sleeping. The night before, Javy had had several long talks with Zita in Spanish, conversations that had left him serious. Deadly serious.

It was sometime after those talks, and before the sun was ready to come up, that he’d gotten out his hunting rifle.

There was also a shotgun standing upright in the corner, near the front door, and a handgun in a holster on his belt, along with a hunting knife. He also had another knife down in his boot, one he always carried there. The same one he’d flashed at the bar when Jesse Earl had come there, threatening her. Now she regretted not taking one of the guns Chris had laid out on their bed. It felt like everyone was armed but her—all the goddamn guns. The last time she’d held one, she’d stolen it from Sheriff Ross’s collection. She’d been out in her car, with Chris’s blood still drying on the seats all around her, when she’d aimed Ross’s own gun at his heart through the windshield.