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?
He’d lost the thread of the story—the one he’d been working on in the months leading up to the debate. Words he’d already written were strange to him now, unfamiliar, as if they were put down by someone else’s hand. He didn’t know these characters anymore, had no idea what they’d say or what they’d do. He couldn’t remember the original ending he’d been working toward, or how to find his way there again.
It happened sometimes. Writing was trying to catch sunlight and shadows in your hands, grabbing hold of fleeting thoughts and impressions. If you were successful, each story became a time capsule, a snapshot of your life right as you put down the words. The problem was, Chris didn’t want any kind of photo of these last few days.
He hoped he wasn’t going to have to spend the rest of his life reliving them.
—
HE’D PLACED SILENT LOOKOUTS at the Presidio–Ojinaga bridge and the other Customs and Border Patrol checkpoints throughout the Big Bend. He’d made a call to Elgin Bartlett, the old CBP dog handler friend of Ben Harper’s, who’d since been promoted. He didn’t know exactly what Elgin might look for, but at least he gave him the identifiers for America’s parents, so if they legally came through one of the points of entry, he’d be alerted.
And as much as he didn’t want to expose anyone else in the department to what they were doing out here, he’d had Till Greer and Dale Holt doing regular drive-bys of Amé’s garage apartment since last night. They were working from Marco Lucero’s rough description of the leather-jacketed man who’d been asking questions about Amé at Earlys, and Marco himself was parked in the shadows of the tiny bridge over the wash at Ranch Road 19, giving him a long eye on the gravel turnoff that eventually led back to the Far Six. Nothing could come down that stretch without Marco seeing it.
Chris had done everything he could think of.
But all his efforts hadn’t yielded much. Only Marco texting him to say he’d seen a pack of coyotes—the four-legged kind—crossing 19, skulking over the road and into the scrub on the other side. The young deputy had been surprised, amazed, how the animals had suddenly appeared, and then slid fearlessly past his truck into the dry creek run.
Close enough to touch, and he’d never even heard them.
Marco had grown up in Murfee, but had probably never spent much time way out here. Few people did.
All this beauty, all this raw wildness, sometimes came with a steep price all its own.