Two from the Heart(31)

Start writing. Okay. So, I’ve got till 5:00 a.m. to give a guy I just met a fresh start on a life he never had. No problem.

Daisy starts to pull away. I wave my arms to stop her.

“Hold it! Wait! What climate should I pack for?”

Seems like a reasonable question. But Daisy shakes her head like I’m the puppy who keeps peeing on her rug.

“You’re still not getting this, are you?”

“Getting what?”

“It’s your choice, Mr. Crane. It’s all on you. Whatever you write, that’s where we’re going.”





Chapter 4


Unknown, 6:00 a.m.


Dawn in the desert. A two-lane blacktop cuts through nothing but sand, rocks, and scrubby brush. A black Suburban comes over a rise and pulls onto the shoulder. The left rear passenger door opens. A man steps out. The Suburban takes off and disappears into the distance.

Tyler Bron blinks against the morning sun and turns in a slow circle. No idea where he is. He reaches for his iPhone. Google Maps will clear this up. Uh-oh. No phone. He does a quick pat-down of all his pockets. His heart starts pounding. Not only no phone… no wallet. No cards. No keys. No cash. Nothing. Crane, he thinks, you’ve really done it.

Wait… in his right rear pants pocket, he finds something. A folded piece of paper. He pulls it out and opens it. It has five words on it, in a typewriter font:

Welcome to your new life.





Chapter 5


DAMN IT’S hot! Still early morning, But Bron is already sweating through the back of his shirt. He scans the horizon in every direction. Nothing. Okay, Tyler, make a decision. The sun is there. That’s east. So the road runs north–south. Pick a direction. Flip a coin. Oh… right. No coins. Then north it is. He starts walking.

Bron feels like his brain is frying. He’s wondering how Crane knew there’s nothing he hates worse than sun and heat—or was it just a lucky guess? “Well,” Bron says to himself, “I asked for a new life. Let’s hope it gets better than this.”


Grandpa Alvarez is singing along to a Hispanic pop station in his 1998 F-150. His grandson, Gonzalo, is on the bench seat beside him. Since Gonzalo’s parents died, this ten-year-old has been the light of his grandfather’s life. It’s just the two of them against the world. Three—if you count Gonzalo’s pet rooster, sitting calmly on the skinny boy’s lap.

Gonzalo is the first to spot the speck in the road ahead.

“?Mira! ?Qué es esso?”

Grandpa stops mid-verse and squints. Unbelievable. What kind of idiota would be alone on the road out here? He looks for an abandoned vehicle. Nothing. They get closer. A hiker? No way. Not dressed like that.

Bron hears the hum of the pickup before he sees it. And now that it’s approaching, he does something he’s seen only in pictures: he sticks out his thumb.

The truck pulls off onto the shoulder. The passenger door creaks open. Bron slides onto the bench seat, squeezing Gonzalo into the middle, closer to his abuelo. Bron exhales a breath of relief.

“Thanks,” he says, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Thanks very much.”

“De nada,” says the boy. “I’m Gonzalo. That’s my grandpa.”

“I’m Tyler. Nice to meet you both.”

The bird offers a guttural cluck.

Grandpa looks down at Bron’s black Ferragamo loafers, now coated with a fine film of dust. He starts laughing.

“?Loco!” says grandpa. “?Una serpiente de cascabel picaría a través de sus zapatillas!”

Bron is fluent in Mandarin, but that won’t help him here. Gonzalo translates:

“Grandpa says a rattlesnake would bite right through your slippers.”

Terrific. Bron knows the great outdoors was never his strong suit. For the past twenty years, his climate has been hermetically controlled, along with everything else in his life. He feels like all his senses are blasting on full alert for the first time in a long time. Maybe ever.

The blazing white sand. The smell of gasoline and stale sweat. The throbbing heat in the cab of the truck. The rush of hot air from the open windows.

And then there’s that bird. Big. Ugly. Menacing. It looks Bron up and down with black, beady eyes.

“Nice chicken,” Bron says to Gonzalo.

“Cock,” says Gonzalo. “His name is Zapata. Go ahead. You can pet him.”

On the list of things Bron wants to do right now, this is dead last. He extends his hand slowly. Zapata’s head swivels like a dashboard ornament.

Suddenly the bird lets out an unearthly squawk and drives his beak toward Bron’s extended fingers. Bron pulls away sharply, a nanosecond from getting seriously pecked. Damn it! An attack rooster!

Gonzalo tugs the surly bird back into his lap. “No! ?Malo Zapata! That’s no way to treat a guest!”

Grandpa turns the radio back up and begins to hum along to a Spanish pop song. Bron tries to ask Grandpa a question above the music.

“Excuse me? Hey! Se?or! Where am I?”

This much English, Grandpa understands.

“En el medio de la nada,” he says, chuckling. Bron looks to Gonzalo for the translation.

Two words:

“You’re nowhere.”