The Territory A Novel - By Tricia Fields Page 0,89

those of the people around him. It wasn’t that he found women mysterious or unapproachable; he thought they were a pain in the ass. They worried about handbags and fabric colors. Of late, he had noticed the disease spreading to the male species as well. And then Josie Gray, a kindred spirit, came along and he had let his guard down. She was the daughter he had never wanted; she was his friend. He was terrified for her safety and where she might be at that moment.

These thoughts cluttered up his mind and kept him from focusing on the pain in his knees as he crouched behind a boulder in the dark. The wind had grown fierce, and sand and debris pelted his face and arms, stinging like fire ants. His head was tucked down into his chest, and he felt guilty he wasn’t guarding the car or keeping an eye out for the men who might have been circling around him in the dark while he hunkered down, Josie left unprotected. But the exhaustion that had suddenly overtaken him was like nothing he had ever experienced. He lost track of time, not sure if it had been minutes or hours he had spent crouching in the dark, and eventually his thoughts whittled down to nothing more than the wind roaring through his brain and the endless whine of police sirens in the distance.

The surprise of being pulled to his feet was soon replaced with an intense, stabbing pain in his knees and feet as blood began to flow again to his extremities. His arms were wrenched behind his back, his hands tied roughly with rope. His goggles were covered with a thick layer of dust, so he couldn’t see who had grabbed him, but he could hear at least two men speaking Spanish, hissing instructions at him that he couldn’t understand.

Dell was shoved forward, and walked blindly with a man grasping his arm. He knew they were headed back toward the jeep because he could still sense the headlights from the Mexican car in the arroyo below him. The man holding his arm pulled Dell into his chest as if he might try to run and then stood motionless. Dell was certain they were taking him as a hostage in Josie’s four-wheel-drive police car. He feared she had been killed.

Dell felt as if the air had been released from his lungs like a balloon deflating. His muscles felt limp and unresponsive, his resolve numbed. He had never been a man prone to fear; he prided himself on his ability to power through anything, but he no longer knew where he was. He had lost contact with Josie. He felt as if he was within moments of dying.

The gunshot paralyzed him when it came. Unable to move, he tried to feel where the shot had struck him, tried to feel the pain somewhere on his body. Then he felt movement down his back, felt something slide down his backside, and he realized that the man who had been holding him was slipping to the dirt. Two more shots fired, and Dell ducked to the ground himself, unhurt but trying to avoid the gunfire. He had no idea where the bullets were coming from, or whom they were intended for. As he waited for something to begin making sense again, an unbearable weariness overtook him and he dropped to the sand.

Dell woke to hands on him. He felt them pulling at his shirt, slapping at his cheeks, and then he felt the warmth of a face next to his own. Josie was calling his name. He sensed lights through his eyelids and tried to remember how to open his eyes, but he could not find the strength. He squeezed a hand he hoped was Josie’s and blacked out.

* * *

Josie and four National Guard soldiers leaned across a backboard and held flashlights for the medic. The wind had died down to thirty-mile-an-hour gusts, but it still made viewing the equipment difficult. The medic and the soldiers strapped Dell onto the backboard and loaded him into the back of an EMS Humvee outfitted for desert travel.

Josie had known Dell’s location and had looked in his direction frequently. When she saw the two Mexicans circling toward the car, she had intended to shoot before they ever reached Dell, but they moved too quickly, and she couldn’t get off a shot. As the gunman stood with Dell clutched to his chest, waiting on the