cabins with caved-in roofs rose out of the tall grass and young aspens that had grown up around them. Above the town she could see the dark opening of the Silver Jacks mine.
Devon parked the Blazer off to one side of the track, reached behind her and pulled a small collapsible cooler from the back seat. She lifted the hatch and dug a flashlight out of her midwife’s kit. She would need it if she wanted to look inside the mine entrance. She walked over to the porch of one of the derelict false-fronted buildings and sat in the shade. The sun was warm on her jean-clad legs, and she could smell the scents of dry grass and pine resin in the cool, thin air. She leaned gingerly back against the weather-beaten porch post, testing its strength.
She listened to the water dance over the stones in the creek bed, watched the sunlight filter through the branches of the cottonwoods that lined its banks and felt a measure of peace. She remembered coming here the summer she was eighteen, trying desperately to understand the dark changes that had come over Miguel when he returned from duty in Somalia. Now, more than ten years later, she understood those changes, what war and death could do to a man. But then she hadn’t been wise, only desperately in love, and his withdrawal had broken her heart.
She slipped the cooler strap off her shoulder, deciding she’d eat after she explored a little, picked up the flashlight and started walking along the faint path that led to the mine entrance. She wouldn’t go inside, of course—it wasn’t safe—but with the beam of the flashlight she could see well into the interior. She wondered if it was still the same as it had been a dozen years ago, a mine entrance straight out of a Wild West movie, wooden supports framing a narrow, gaping hole in the ground that somewhere not too far inside, ended in a deep drop-off where Teague Ellis had died.
Devon stopped walking. A cloud had passed over the sun, darkening the little valley, reminding her that daylight ended early here even in the summer and that dangerous strangers might be close by. The sun came out again, colors regained their brightness and the birds their songs. She turned away from the creek toward the mine, letting her curiosity override her caution. The ground before the entrance was devoid of vegetation. Odd bits and pieces of rusted metal lay half buried in the stony ground. A few old barrel staves stuck up out of the dirt like the rib cages of dead animals. Anything of value, including the silver, was long gone.
Someone had put up a barrier to deter the curious from entering the mine since the last time she was here. A screen of metal mesh, the sort used for a dog run or a schoolyard fence, had been stretched across the opening and secured with heavy wooden two-by-fours nailed to the mine’s supporting posts. But one of the two-by-fours had been pulled away at the bottom corner, and the wire mesh bulged out, leaving an opening big enough for a small person or a large animal to crawl through.
Had a coyote made the old mine its den?
Or perhaps a Coyote of the human kind?
Devon looked down and saw footprints leading into the mine. She stopped moving, stopped breathing. This would probably be a good time to turn around, get back in her car and drive away. Then she heard it. A sound like a dry, racking cough followed by faint sobbing, as though a child were crying, weak and fearful. She looked down at the footprints once more. They were very small.
Devon refused to listen to the voice of reason that was telling her only a fool would step foot inside that mine with simply a flashlight to defend herself. But she couldn’t ignore a child crying. She jerked on the wire mesh and it moved grudgingly outward, enlarging the opening enough for her to get through without crawling on her hands and knees. She stood for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness beyond the oblong area of sunlight just within the opening. A small flurry of movement ahead and a little to the left attracted her attention. “Hello? Who’s there?” The crying stopped, but another bout of coughing broke the quiet. “I won’t hurt you. It’s all right. I’m here to help.”
She switched on the flashlight and took several steps, almost tripping on a bundle of thin blankets spread over what appeared to be an old mattress. She looked around. The flashlight beam picked out a lawn chair by the mattress, one of the aluminum ones with plastic webbing that folded flat, in the same green-and-white pattern as the one she’d been sitting on at Daniel’s place. Beside it sat a rusty camping lantern and a couple of plastic plates and foam cups. Next to those were two plastic, gallon milk jugs filled with water. A fire pit had been made in a natural depression in the mine floor.
The sniffling sound came again, followed by a hushed whisper. Devon couldn’t make out the words. She thought they might be Spanish, though. “Please come out,” she said in that language. “I won’t hurt you.” More rustling, as though someone was trying to crawl away. She narrowed her eyes. An area of darker shadows loomed on the mine wall. She moved a little more to her right and realized it was an opening to a smaller tunnel branching off the one she was in. Cool air brushed across her face and breasts. Perhaps it wasn’t a tunnel, but an air shaft, maybe even the one Teague Ellis had fallen to his death in. Devon dropped to her knees and trained the flashlight on the hole.
Two sets of dark eyes stared back at her from frightened faces. They were indeed children. Girls. Sisters, probably, from the similarity of their facial features. The elder held the younger cradled in her arms. “Go away,” she said in Spanish. “Leave us alone.”
One look at the little girl told Devon she was the source of the coughing. She was wearing jeans and a dirty Scooby Doo T-shirt. Her face was flushed with fever, her eyes glittering with tears. Her hair, black as night, was a filthy tangle around her face. The older girl’s hair was not quite as tangled, but just as dirty. She was wearing a thin, shapeless cotton dress and cheap sneakers.
And she was pregnant. Very pregnant. Even holding the smaller child close to her body couldn’t hide that.
Were the children illegal aliens hiding out from the authorities as they made their way north? Were the men that had brought them here still around? She hoped not. The child coughed again and she banished thoughts of Coyotes. “Soy una enfermera.” Devon’s Spanish was not as good as she needed it to be. She switched to English. “I’m a nurse. Let me help you.”
No response. Devon balanced the flashlight on a ridge of rock beside her, then hunkered down and held out her arms for the younger child. Suddenly she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and froze. Had she guessed wrong? Was the girls’ Coyote still here, after all?
“Jesse,” the little girl whispered.
Devon turned her head. A boy, as ragged and dirty as the girls, stood over her. He looked to be about fifteen, not yet a man, but almost. He was thin to the point of emaciation. He wore jeans and a faded red windbreaker over a ragged Dallas Cowboys T-shirt. Her little cooler was slung over his left shoulder, as were the two fleece blankets she’d left folded in the back of her truck.
“Get up,” he said in English.
Devon stood, her heart beating hard. He held a length of two-by-four like a baseball bat. He could kill her with a single blow and they both knew it.
“I’m a nurse. I—”
“Get away from my sisters,” he shouted. “I’ll take care of them. Just leave the flashlight and go. Get out and don’t come back!”
CHAPTER FOUR
DEVON HAD NOTHING to defend herself with but the flashlight, and it would be no protection against the two-by-four.
“Get out of here,” the boy repeated.
“Your sister needs help. She’s ill.”
“I’ll take care of her.” He swayed on his feet.
Devon spoke with all the authority she could muster. “Sit down before you fall down.” She reached out and grabbed the two-by-four from his hands. The unexpected movement and the strength of her grip surprised the boy enough that he let go, stumbling backward over the thin mattress and sitting down hard.
Devon rocked backward, too, but didn’t fall. She trained her flashlight on the two girls, still huddled in the darkness of the smaller opening. “It’s okay. You can come