Echo Burning

“But you’ve got to do something.”
    “I’m a citizen,” she said. “Think about what that means to a person like me. I’m not going to give it up. I’m not going to pretend to be somebody else.”
    “So what’s your plan?”
    “You’re my plan,” she said.
    Bull riders, roughnecks, a six-foot-five two-hundred-fifty-pound ex-military cop.
    “You want me to be your bodyguard ?” he asked.
    She made no reply.
    “Carmen, I’m sorry about your situation,” he said. “Believe me, I really am.”
    No response.
    “But I can’t be your bodyguard.”
    No reply.
    “I can’t be,” he said again. “It’s ridiculous. What do you think is going to happen? You think I’m going to be with you twenty-four hours a day? Seven days a week? Making sure he doesn’t hit you?”
    No reply. A huge highway interchange sprawled across the empty landscape, miles away in the haze.
    “It’s ridiculous,” he said again. “I could warn him off, I guess. I could scare him. I could smack him around a little, to back up the message. But what happens when I’m gone? Because sooner or later, I’m going to be gone, Carmen. I’m not going to stay around. I don’t like to stay anywhere. And it’s not just me. Face it, nobody is going to stay around. Not long enough. Not ten years. Or twenty, or thirty or however long it is until he ups and dies of old age.”
    No reply. No effect, either. It wasn’t like what he was saying was a big disappointment to her. She just listened and drove, fast and smooth, and silent, like she was biding her time. The highway cloverleaf grew larger and nearer and she swooped onto it and around it and headed due west, following a big green sign that said: Pecos 75 miles.
    “I don’t want a bodyguard,” she said. “I agree, that would be ridiculous.”
    “So what am I supposed to be for?”
    She settled onto the highway, center lane, driving faster than before. He watched her face. It was completely blank.
    “What am I supposed to be for?” he asked again.
    She hesitated. “I can’t say it.”
    “Say what?”
    She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Swallowed hard, and said nothing. He stared at her. Bull riders, roughnecks, an ex-MP. Clay Allison’s grave, the fancy inscription, the obituary in the Kansas City newspaper.
    “You are crazy,” he said.
    “Am I?” The spots of color came back to her face, the size of quarters, burning red high above her cheekbones.
    “Totally crazy,” he said. “And you can forget about it.”
    “I can’t forget about it.”
    He said nothing.
    “I want him dead, Reacher,” she said. “I really do. It’s my only way out, literally. And he deserves it.”
    “Tell me you’re kidding.”
    “I’m not kidding,” she said. “I want him killed.”
    He shook his head. Stared out of the window.
    “Just forget all about it,” he said. “It’s absurd. This isn’t the Wild West anymore.”
    “Isn’t it? Isn’t it still O.K. to kill a man who needs killing?”
    Then she went quiet, just driving, like she was waiting him out. He stared at the speeding landscape in front of him. They were heading for the distant mountains. The blazing afternoon sun made them red and purple. It changed the color of the air. The Trans-Pecos, she had called them.
    “Please, Reacher,” she said. “Please. At least think about it.”
    He said nothing. Please? Think about it? He was beyond reaction. He dropped his eyes from the mountains and watched the highway. It was busy with traffic. A river of cars and trucks, crawling across the vastness. She was passing them all, one after another. Driving way too fast.
    “I’m not crazy,” she said. “Please. I tried to do this right. I really did. Soon as his lawyer told me about the deal, I saw a lawyer of my own, and then three more, and none of them could do anything for me as fast as a month. All they could do was tell me Ellie traps me exactly where I am. So then I looked for protection. I asked private detectives. They wouldn’t do anything for me. I went to a security firm in Austin and they said yes, they could guard me around the clock, but it would be six men and nearly ten thousand dollars a week. Which is the same thing as saying no. So I tried, Reacher. I tried to do it right. But it’s impossible.”
    He said nothing.
    “So I bought a gun,” she said.
    “Wonderful,” he said.
    “And bullets,” she said. “It took all the cash I had.”
    “You picked the wrong guy,” he said.
    “But why?