Chapter 6: The Cooler

Ximena's POV

By the night before Water Rent Day, Colt Kimbrough had eaten fifty-one suppers in the dark with the dogs.

I knew the number because my cousin, who drove the barrio's water truck, kept a tally on his dashboard.

He added a line each time he heard.

I had not planned for Colt to become a hero of the story.

Half the tenants now called him the Dog Heir and meant it kindly.

Ramiro called me at eleven from the gravel lot behind the Payson feed store.

"She brought it up from Globe this afternoon," he said.

"It is in the lodge pantry freezer, in a white cooler, under a tarp."

"Where do you want me?"

"At the back door of the hall, at midnight," he said.

"Bring your cousin and the truck."

My cousin was a heavy, cheerful man of thirty who had agreed to everything without asking why, which I had learned was his way.

He parked the water truck beside the lodge hall with its lights off.

The tank was full of Salcido well water, which on Rent Day he would deliver to the line.

"I am here to deliver water," he whispered.

"Nobody asks a water truck what it is doing at midnight."

"That is the entire plan," I said.

"I like it more now."

Ramiro stood at the back door of the hall in a dark jacket.

He had the Warden's key in his bandaged hand, and I saw the purple wrap I had put there in April, replaced with plain tape.

He nodded to me, and to my cousin, and said nothing.

The key turned.

The lodge hall at midnight was one big room with long tables folded against the wall and the smell of floor wax and old coffee.

The pantry was behind the kitchen, a narrow room with a chest freezer humming in the corner.

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