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?
They’d stared at each other a long time before he’d gone his way, and she’d gone hers. Ross had died a few hours later anyway, but sometimes she couldn’t help wondering how things would have been different if Chris had killed him that night, or she had.
She sipped her coffee and watched Javy cook. He had thick hands and wrists, but the practiced ease of a man who’d cooked for himself for a long time. There had been a Señora Cruz once, but Mel didn’t know what had happened to her. Javy had a grown son who lived in Albuquerque who came to visit now and then, but no other family she knew of.
He lived out here alone, except for the hunters he guided. He’d started coming into Earlys to drink beer and read the paper after Chris got elected; sometimes he read the Hap and Leonard novels by Joe K. Lansdale, and other books by Michael McGarrity and Craig Johnson. When he was done with them he used to give them to her, and she kept them behind the bar to read in the slow times. They were still there, stacked up in neat rows like the whiskey tumblers, waiting for her.
She wondered if Javy would drink at the bar anymore if Chris lost the election.
She wondered if she would ever work at Earlys again.
—
JAVY BROUGHT OVER A PLATE for her and refilled her coffee, and then sat down to join her. He didn’t have a plate of his own.
“You’re not eating?” she asked, embarrassed by all the food in front of her. It was enough for a football team.
“No, I ate earlier.”
She looked down at her plate . . . earlier would have been hours ago, not long after midnight. It was still dark outside now.
He must have sat up most of the night, watching over them with his rifle.
“What did you and Zita talk about last night?”
Javy spun his mug in his hands, considered. “She is a bright girl. She told me stories. I listened.”
She remembered Zita chattering away, still wearing Danny’s hat. If the girl understood what was happening all around her, she didn’t show it, but Mel wasn’t so sure.
“That’s not really an answer.”
He smiled, weary, and then hid the remains of that smile behind his mug. “I know.”
Mel wasn’t hungry anymore, but she took a bite of the eggs and sausage anyway. She pulled apart one of the three tortillas he’d buttered and folded for her, still warm, and chewed that.
“So did you believe her, all her stories?”