Echo Burning

who are you?” he asked.
    Reacher said nothing.
    “Who are you?” the guy said again.
    “I’ll tell the folks inside,” Reacher replied. “Too damn hot for me to be repeating everything twice.”
    The guy gave him a long calm look, and finished with a slow nod of his head, like he’d seen it all before. He dumped himself inside his secondhand cruiser and fired it up and backed out to the road. Reacher let its dust settle on his shoes and watched Carmen drive the Cadillac down the track to the motor barn. It was a long low farm shed with no front wall, and it was painted red, like everything else. There were two pick-ups and a Jeep Cherokee in it. One of the pick-ups was recent and the other was sitting on flat tires and looked like it hadn’t been moved in a decade. Beyond the building a narrow dirt track looped off into the infinite desert distance. Carmen eased the Cadillac in next to the Jeep and walked back out into the sun. She looked small and out of place in the yard, like an orchid in a trash pile.
    “So where’s the bunkhouse?” he asked.
    “Stay with me,” she said. “You need to meet them anyway. You need to get hired. You can’t just show up in the bunkhouse.”
    “O.K.,” he said.
    She led him slowly to the bottom of the porch steps. She took them cautiously, one at a time. She arrived in front of the door and knocked.
    “You have to knock?” Reacher asked.
    She nodded.
    “They never gave me a key,” she said.
    They waited, with Reacher a step behind her, appropriate for the hired help. He could hear footsteps inside. Then the door swung open. A guy was standing there, holding the inside handle. He looked to be in his middle twenties. He had a big square face, with the skin blotched red and white. He was bulky with frat-boy muscle turning to fat. He was wearing denim jeans and a dirty white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled tight over what was left of his biceps. He smelled of sweat and beer. He was wearing a red baseball cap backward on his head. A semicircle of forehead showed above the plastic strap. At the back, a shock of hair spilled out under the peak, exactly the same color and texture as Ellie’s.
    “It’s you,” he said, glancing at Carmen, glancing away.
    “Bobby,” she said.
    Then his glance settled on Reacher.
    “Who’s your friend?”
    “His name is Reacher. He’s looking for work.”
    The guy paused.
    “Well, come on in, I guess,” he said. “Both of you. And close the door. It’s hot.”
    He turned back into the gloom and Reacher saw the letter T on the ball cap. Texas Rangers, he thought. Good ball club, but not good enough . Carmen followed the guy three steps behind, entering her home of nearly seven years like an invited guest. Reacher stayed close to her shoulder.
    “Sloop’s brother,” she whispered to him.
    He nodded. The hallway was dark inside. He could see the red paint continued everywhere, over the wooden walls, thefloors, the ceilings. Most places it was worn thin or worn away completely, just leaving traces of pigment behind like a stain. There was an ancient air conditioner running somewhere in the house, forcing the temperature down maybe a couple of degrees. It ran slowly, with a patient drone and rattle. It sounded peaceful, like the slow tick of a clock. The hallway was the size of a motel suite, filled with expensive stuff, but it was all old, like they’d run out of money decades ago. Or else they’d always had so much that the thrill of spending it had worn off a generation ago. There was a huge mirror on one wall, with the ornate frame painted red. Opposite to it was a rack filled with six bolt-action hunting rifles. The mirror reflected the rack and made the hallway seem full of guns.
    “What did the sheriff want?” Carmen called.
    “Come inside,” Bobby called back.
    We are inside, Reacher thought. But then he saw he meant “Come into the parlor.” It was a big red room at the back of the house. It had been remodeled. It must have been a kitchen once. It opened out through the original wall of the house to a replacement kitchen easily fifty years old. The parlor had the same worn paint everywhere, including all over the furniture. There was a big farmhouse table and eight wheelback chairs, all made out of pine, all painted red, all worn back to shiny wood where human contact had been made.
    One of the chairs was occupied by a woman. She looked to be somewhere in her middle fifties. She was the sort of person who still