Beyond This Point Are Monsters Read Free

she’d been saying throughout the year, not even bothering any more to make it seem new by altering a word here, a phrase there.
    Two clocks at opposite ends of the house began sound­ing the hour: the grandfather clock in the living room, and in the kitchen the cuckoo clock Dulzura kept on the wall above the stove. Dulzura claimed it was a present from her husband, but nobody believed she ever had a husband, let alone one that gave her presents. The grandfather clock belonged to Mrs. Osborne. Carved at the base were the words meant to accompany its chimes:
    God Is With You,
    Doubt Him Never,
    While the Hours
    Leave Forever.
    When Mrs. Osborne moved out of the ranch house to let Devon and Robert occupy it alone, she’d taken along her antique cherrywood desk and mahogany piano, her silver tea service and collection of English bone china, but she left the clock behind. She no longer believed that God was with her and she didn’t want to be reminded that the hours left forever.
    Seven o’clock.
    The Mexican workers were coming out of the bunkhouse and out of the old wooden building, formerly a barn, that was now equipped as a mess hall. Quickly and quietly they piled into the back of the big truck that would drop them off in whatever fields were ready for harvesting. There was little in their lives except hard work, and the food that made work possible.
    At noon they would sit in the bleachers built by Es­tivar’s sons beside the reservoir and eat their lunch in the shade of the tamarisks. At five they would have tortillas and beans in the mess hall and by nine-thirty all the bunkhouse lights would be out. The hours that left forever were good riddance.
    Agnes Osborne was still talking. Between the time Devon had stopped listening and the time she started again, Mrs. Osborne had somehow reconciled herself to the fact that the hearing would be held as scheduled, beginning at ten o’clock. “It will probably be better if we met right in the courtroom so we won’t miss each other. Do you remember the number?”
    â€œFive.”
    â€œWill you be bringing your own car into town?”
    â€œLeo Bishop asked me to ride with him.”
    â€œAnd you accepted?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou’d better call and tell him you’ve changed your mind. Today of all days you don’t want to start people gossiping about you and Leo.”
    â€œThere’s nothing to gossip about.”
    â€œIf you’re too nervous to drive yourself, come with Estivar in the station wagon. Oh, and make sure Dulzura wears hose, will you?”
    â€œWhy? Dulzura’s not on trial. We’re not on trial.”
    â€œDon’t be naive,” Mrs. Osborne said harshly. “Of course we’re on trial, all of us. Ford tried to keep every­thing as quiet as possible, naturally, but witnesses had to be subpoenaed and many people had to be given legal notice of the time and place of the hearing, so it’s not exactly a secret. It won’t be exactly a picnic, either. Sign­ing a piece of paper is one thing, it’s quite another to get up in a courtroom and relive those terrible days in public. But it’s your decision, you’re Robert’s wife.”
    â€œI’m not his wife,” Devon said. “I’m his widow.”

CHAPTER TWO
    the two cars moved slowly along the dirt road, the dust rising in the air behind them like smoke signals.
    In the lead was the station wagon driven by Estivar. He was nearly fifty now, but his hair was still dark and thick, and from a distance his quick wiry body looked like a boy’s. He had dressed for the occasion in the only suit he pos­sessed, a dark blue gabardine which he kept for the yearly banquets of the Agricultural Association and for his ap­pearances before the immigration authorities when some of his men were picked up by the border patrol for having entered the country illegally.
    The blue suit, which was