Devils and Dust Read Online Free PDF

follow—”
    “No.” Angela said. “I’m going with you.”
    “It doesn’t work that way, Angela,” Keller said. “I work alone.”
    “He’s my husband. I go with you or the deal’s off.”
    “Okay.” Keller slowed the car down and began pulling to the side of the road.
    “What are you doing?” Lucas asked.
    “The deal’s off. You go on home. I’ll get out here and hitch. Maybe Jules’ll give me my old job back.”
    “Damn you, Keller—” Angela said.
    “You knew the way I worked when you dug me up, Angela.” Keller’s voice was hard. “We do this my way, or not at all.” After he pulled the car to the shoulder, he threw it in park, and sat there with the engine running. He looked in the rearview again. “What’s it going to be?” She didn’t answer, just glared at him, her eyes locked on the reflection of his. “Fine,” Keller said. He opened the door and got out.
    He was reaching for his duffel in the back when Angela said in a low, furious voice, “Get back in the car, Jack.” He didn’t answer. He yanked the duffel out and turned away. Angela turned to Lucas. “Would you talk to him?”
    “I think this is one you two are going to have to settle yourselves,” Lucas said.
    “He’s not seriously going to get out here? In the middle of nowhere?”
    Lucas looked out the back window. “Looks like that’s exactly what he’s doing.”
    “And you don’t intend to do anything about it?”
    “Nope.”
    “What the hell good are you, then?”
    “Angela,” Lucas said. “Whatever relationship you two are going to have, you’re going to have to work it out if it’s going to work at all.”
    “Damn it,” she said. She snatched up her cane and slid over to the driver’s side. With some difficulty, she got out the car door. They were on a four-lane highway, divided by a deep median. The empty land stretched out to the edge of sight, where it met the sky that arched overhead like an overturned bowl. The stars were hard, bright, and cold in the utter blackness of the desert night. Keller was walking toward the median, his duffel slung on his shoulder. She called after him.
    “Can we at least talk about this after we talk to the lawyer? When we know if there’s even anywhere to go?”
    He stopped, turned around. His face was unreadable. Finally, he nodded. He started walking back.
    “Okay,” he said as he passed her. He tossed the duffel back in the backseat. He climbed into the back after it. “You drive for a while,” he said. “We need to go straight through.” She stared at him for a moment. He stretched out in the backseat and closed his eyes. She shook her head and got behind the wheel.

T HE MATTRESS beneath Ruben’s back was soft, lumpy, and smelled of mildew. His head pulsed with pain as he opened his eyes. The bottom of another mattress, crisscrossed with rusted wire supports above him, was all he could see. He tried to sit up, thinking the pain couldn’t get worse. He was wrong. He lay back down.
    “Easy, friend,” a voice said in Spanish. Ruben turned his head, slowly. A man was sitting on the lower bunk of the bed next to him. It was Diego. “You took a bad shot to the head. One of those assholes hit you with his gun. From behind.”
    “My brother,” Ruben whispered. His voice felt rusty. “Where’s my brother?”
    “He’s here,” Diego said. He raised his voice. “EDGAR!”
    Ruben winced at the volume and looked around. He was in a long narrow room. There was a row of bunk beds against both walls. A long wooden bench ran down the center of the room, with posts rising to the ceiling every ten feet or so. The walls were wooden, rough, and unpainted. There were no windows, only slits high up in the walls, which let in a little light and less air. A few men lay on the bunks, with others gathered around one end of the bench, talking in low voices. Some were the men he’d been traveling with, but there were others he didn’t recognize. We aren’t the first