Midnight Crossroad

13

Most of the Midnighters were wakeful during the dark hours that night.

Bobo sat in his apartment over the pawnshop, all the lights off, looking north out the rear windows at the moon glowing over the land leading to the Río Roca Fría, where Aubrey had lain decomposing for two months. He hadn’t eaten anything, though Manfred had dropped off some food. He hadn’t had anything to drink, either, though he’d thought about having a traditional drinking bout.

Bobo was alternating between feeling some kind of comfort and a lot of grief. At least Aubrey hadn’t left him voluntarily. That knowledge relieved some ache deep inside him. However, he was sure that Aubrey had met with a fate more lurid than a snakebite or an accidental fall, especially since he’d seen the gun. Whether or not she’d been shot, something terrible had happened to Aubrey, and someone else had had a hand in that terrible something.

When Bobo could think of anything besides his horror that a woman he’d loved had died by violence and lain in the open for weeks, and his grief over her permanent loss, he brooded over the revelation that Aubrey had ties to Men of Liberty. He wondered if Aubrey had truly cared for him. Ever.

After a while, he moved to look out the front window, looking over the crossroads that had established Midnight. He saw lights come off and on all night as the residents of the town got up, sat for a while, returned to their beds.

Bobo felt lonelier than he’d ever been in his life. He hadn’t talked to his parents in a year, maybe longer, but he thought of calling his sister or his brother. In the end, he didn’t pick up his phone.