“Thou art well?” he said.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I’m sorry we woke you up.”

He squatted and picked up Yvain. After wiping the dust off on his T-shirt, he held the book out to me in both hands, like an offering.

CHAPTER 35

Alva

   That damn girl looked just like my daddy, with that same wide mouth and wild copper hair. Built like she could hunt bear with a stick, she was like the ghost of my daddy in more ways than one. Come to call me to answer for my misdeeds, remind me of the obligations I needed to put to paid before I died.

With the land paid off and the boys grown, I wasn’t particular broke up at the idea of dying. I was ready to meet my maker and, knowing what Tess had went through, I wasn’t of a mind to put myself through that, no matter how bad the coughing got. All the same, I figured it was best to know how much time I had left to put things in order, so I gone to see my doctor.

After my appointment was done, I had Dirk drive me to the convenience store up the other side of the valley.

“Why you wanna go there?” he said.

“Because they don’t know me.”

“Why you need to go somewhere they don’t know you?”

“Just drive, boy.”

I swear, he was dumb as a box of hammers. I made him wait while I went into the store and bought a prepaid phone. Clerk was one of them Paki fellas. Wasn’t even sure if he spoke English, seeing as how he didn’t say a word to me. Took my money, gave me my change. When I come out, Dirk looked over at the phone package like he figured to ask me another stupid question, but he musta thought better of it.

The first call was the easiest. To a man I did six years with. Like me, he’d moved on after he served his time, but he hadn’t got himself as far away from Van Eck as I had. We spent a few minutes shooting the breeze til I worked my way around to telling him why I’d called.

“Maybe you heard what happened to my niece, who was took hostage over at El Dorado while she was volunteering,” I said. “I’m real worried about that, you can imagine.”

“I can. I can. Tell you what, I’m a mite busy right this minute, but I’ll call you back,” was his answer.

“I’ll count on that.” There wasn’t no good to come of talking on a landline, so I give him the prepaid number and we said our goodbyes. An hour later, the prepaid rang, and, like I figured, he had some idea of who I ought to call next.

Wasn’t a fella we served with, but one whose son I looked out for. Lost four teeth and took seventeen stitches from a guard to protect that boy, because Van Eck told me he was like a nephew to him. The boy’s father was somebody important in one of the big Arkansas conclaves. Nobody to mess with, but my lungs right on schedule fired up to remind me that being alive was mayhap a temporary condition. If somebody wanted to come around some night and shut me up from asking the wrong questions, they might be doing me a favor.

This fella, Janzen, he acted like he didn’t have no truck with me, til I was forced to remind him how I helped his son.

“I appreciate that but,” he said.

“But what? This my family I’m talking about. Just like your boy. I’m trying to make sure my niece is all right. See if I can’t negotiate to get her back without involving no police.”

“Negotiate?” Janzen said, and he seemed a mite more interested in talking to me.

“I don’t aim to get something for nothing, and neither do I aim to cause no trouble. I just wanna find my niece. That’s my late brother’s daughter.”

It gone on that way into the afternoon, til I was down to the last prepaid card I had.

“I’m gonna have to call you back,” said a man who wouldn’t tell me his name. He’d called me, got my number from someone else. Somewhere in there I’d spoke to someone who’d told me this man with no name was a Fury with a secret grudge against his Titan, who was married to the no-name man’s sister.

“Whatever help you can give it’d go a long way toward easing my mind,” I said. After I hung up from the Fury, I laid down to rest, but Dane come stomping through the house and pounding on my door.

“What the fuck are you up to?” he said, and walked into my room without an invitation. I knew he’d been cooking that crap and likely smoking it, as he had the stink of it on him. “Dirk said when he took you into town you bought a burner phone, and all afternoon you been shut up in here making phone calls. Who are you calling?”

“What the hell business is it of yours?”

“It’s my business same as always, if you’re bringing trouble around here. Jimmy T. was real pissed last night, finding out we had company. He don’t like that our guest is somebody the cops might be interested in talking to.”

“Why the hell’d you go and tell Jimmy T. that? It ain’t like he’s watching the news.”

“I agree with him,” Dane said. “The cops could come around anytime, wanting to talk to her. That’s what Jimmy T. don’t like about it.”

Ever since he’d gone into business with that man, it was Jimmy T. wants this and Jimmy T. don’t like this. Worse than listening to a man bellyache about his wife. Made me ashamed I’d raised a son who was so far up some meth head’s ass.

“Seeing as how it’s my home, I reckon I’ll bring trouble here if I like,” I said.

“What I don’t get”—Dane gone to running his hands through his hair like it was on fire—“is why you’re putting your ass on the line for her. You’re acting like you owe her something.”

“I don’t know exactly where I went wrong, son, but apparently I failed to teach you one real important lesson.”

“Oh, goddamn. You and your lessons.” He turned around like he meant to walk out, but he didn’t.

“Family comes first,” I said. “If our family is a problem for your business partner, you need to get you a new business partner. Because I ain’t gonna take Jimmy T.’s feelings into account ahead of my family.”

“That sounds real high and mighty, but what good does it do us to put her first? What’s she ever done for us?”

“Son, that girl—those two girls—sacrificed their daddy for us, that’s what. They grown up with no daddy at all, because Leroy took the blame for all of that.”

“You gonna act like I didn’t grow up without a daddy? You was gone for six fucking years.”

“Yep, I served six years, but you know what I didn’t serve? I didn’t serve no goddamn life sentence, which your uncle Leroy did. Maybe you think I shoulda been here wiping your ass them six years, but I did come back. And I done my best for you and your brother. Them girls never did get their daddy back. That girl never got to see her daddy again except on the other side of a prison visitation room. So that’s what she done for us.”