Jumper: Griffin's Story Read Online Free PDF

He shouldered past me into the bathroom without acknowledging my faint, embarrassed "Sorry."
    The ambulance and the police were outside. The medical chaps were just easing Pablo off the canvas stretcher and onto the fancy ambulance gurney. Consuelo was watching the paramedics while Sam was just outside, by the store door, talking with a uniformed deputy.
    I went back to the refrigerated cabinets and picked out a large bottle of Gatorade, then got some potato crisps. American chips. That's what I miss from
England
–all the different flavors of crisps. Roast beef and horseradish was my fave.
    I paid, using my money, and went out front, away from Sam and the deputy where there was a bench in the shade of the overhang. The Gatorade was good but the crisps were incredible, like my body was craving the salt. I almost went in and bought another bag, but though my mouth said yes my stomach said no. I settled back and sipped from the bottle.
    The deputy went back to his vehicle and brought back a map. Sam and he moved up the porch to spread it across the top of a rubbish can. Sam pointed out some specific location for him and I heard him say, ". . . said there were three men. They spoke Spanish to him and each other. Could be a rival coyote gang–I've seen that happen."
    "You see any vehicles?"
    Sam shook his head. "Only dust. You know, kicked up, but miles away.
Normal
. Nothing close enough to ID. And I was lookin', too. Didn't want to run into the assholes who did for Pablo."
    "Hmm." The deputy tilted back his hat and asked, "You run into anybody out there who wasn't in a vehicle? Someone who just needed a little more water but kept walkin'?"
    Sam laughed. "Not today, Ken. The ones who do it right cross at night and hole up during the heat of the day. They may have seen me and Consuelo. I usually don't see 'em at all unless they're in a bad way." He jerked his chin toward the ambulance.
    "Okay, then. You going back there?"
    "Not today. Goin' home."
    "Hmmm. Okay. I'll put the word out to the state police and the border patrol. You run across anything suspicious, let us know, right?"
    "Right."
    They shook hands and the deputy went back to his car and began talking on the radio.
    Sam glanced at me and started to go into the store then stopped. "Huh. There you are. Where'd you get those clothes?"
    I opened my mouth to tell him, but what could I say? Really?
    "I didn't nick 'em." I stood up and handed him the flip–flops and the two dollars he'd given me earlier. As he took them I dropped back onto the bench, hard, surprised. My knees had given out and it seemed the gas pumps were swaying in the wind. "Whoa."
    "Dizzy, eh?" He looked at me a moment longer. "Gonna gas up. Don't really need it but it'll give the deputy time to move off. You just sit here, right? Wish I–oh, well. Just sit. Rest. You feel faint, put your head between your knees."
    I nodded.
    He went back to the truck. They'd just finished putting Pablo in the back of the ambulance and Sam exchanged a few words with the paramedic before they closed up and drove off down the highway, lights flashing but no siren. I closed my eyes for a few seconds–I thought–then the truck was there, right in front of me.
    "Why don't you lie down in back, Griff?"
    I wondered if I should go with them at all, but I didn't know what else to do. The thought of lying down was good, really good. I nodded and he helped me climb over the tailgate and drop onto the canvas stretcher. He gave me a folded blanket to use as a pillow. "We're headed west–cab should shade you, takes about forty–five minutes, all right?"
    "All right," I said.
    He tucked the Gatorade between my arm and my side. I thought about drinking again, but it was too much effort.
    I don't even remember him pulling out of the petrol station.

Chapter Three Burning Bridges
    Consuelo lived with Sam, but it was a strange relationship, almost as if she was his girl–of–all–work and he was her little boy. I mean, she cleaned