The Influence(54)

“But we didn’t.”

“But we should.”

“Things’ll turn around,” Cameron promised. “It’s ours. We just need to figure out how to make it work for us instead of against us.”

“Meanwhile, our livelihoods are heading down the crapper.” Jack shook his head. “We were doing fine. We don’t need anything working for us.”

“We do now.”

“We just need things to go back the way they were.”

Cameron smiled thinly. “Not going to happen.” Jorge had moved next to him, and he could sense the others close behind.

There were several more minutes of argument, but he wasn’t going to budge, they knew he wasn’t going to budge, and they knew there was nothing they could do about it. Eventually, Jack, Jim, Joe and Cal got back in their trucks and took off, purposely spinning their wheels in the dirt before they left, angrily trying to stir up as much dust as possible. Cameron had won, and he felt good, but when he turned back and saw the disrespectful expression on Jorge’s face, the smokehouse with its padlocked door behind him, that feeling leeched away, and he was left with nothing but a looming dread.

That night, he heard noises coming from the smokehouse. He was asleep and in bed, but a muffled knocking woke him up. Even through the closed windows, he could hear the irregular pounding, and Cameron knew before he pulled aside the curtains and gazed down at the yard, that it was coming from the smokehouse.

It was impossible, but it was not surprising, and though his heart was pounding, Cameron put on his pants and slipped into his boots, trudging downstairs and then outside. The noise was louder here but not appreciably so. It still sounded muffled, but its source was very apparent, and he could not help imagining that oversized corpse rocking back and forth inside the smokehouse, hitting the walls.

Cameron shivered but not from the cold. Surrounding the smokehouse were all of his men and then some—even more than had been here in the afternoon, he thought. A handful were on their knees and facing the small building, like worshippers before a shrine, while several others were crossing themselves and muttering prayers. Even more than the noises from within, it was the sight of all those men in the moonlight that made him uneasy.

Maybe Jack and the others were right. Maybe they should burn it.

Jorge stepped in front of him, and Cameron jumped. He hadn’t even seen him walk up.

Was that a smile on the foreman’s face?

It was too dark to tell.

“I think you should go inside, Senor Holt. I will take care of this.”

It was less a solicitous suggestion than a thinly veiled demand. Cameron wanted to punch Jorge in the gut and order that greasy motherfucker to just do as he was told and not try to use his little pea brain to make decisions on his own. But everything out here made him nervous: it was nearly midnight, noise was still coming from inside the smokehouse, there were far too many ranch hands gathered around. “Make sure you do take care of it,” Cameron said, trying to save face, and he turned on his heels and strode away, back into the house, where he locked the door, got in bed, closed his eyes and tried desperately to fall asleep, hoping against hope that he would not awaken until morning.





EIGHTEEN




Darla was up well before dawn, though she hadn’t fallen asleep until long after midnight. She knew the truth ahead of time, but, as she had the last four mornings, she got out of bed to check anyway, walking down the hall to Dylan’s room—where his bed was empty and his night light was off.

He was still gone.

Behind her, she heard a noise, and she turned quickly, hope overpowering reason for a brief fraction of a second until reality crashed into her.

It was only Tom.

“Go back to sleep,” he told her.

“I’m not tired.”

“You’re always tired.”

She glared at him. “And why do you think that is, hmm? What reason could there possibly be?”

He turned away, heading back into the bedroom. “Get some sleep.”

“How can you sleep when Dylan is gone?”

He swiveled around. “What are you saying? Are you saying I don’t care about Dylan?”

“It’s your fault!” Darla screamed.

Tom stared at her. “How is it my fault?”

“You’re the one who wanted to live out here! I didn’t! I told you: no hospital, no fire department, no police…”

“So you think—”

“There’s not even a full-time police department looking for him! There’s sheriff’s deputies and rangers from…where? Willcox? Benson? Tucson? They don’t know Dylan! They don’t care about him!”