She shoved aside more debris and finally saw him clearly. A tall man lay face down in a dark suit that had once been expensive but was now torn and filthy. His face was bruised, and there was a split at his temple crusted with dried blood.
He looked like a fallen king somebody had beaten and tossed into a ditch. Anna’s first instinct was to run. A man like this could mean trouble, and trouble was the last thing a woman alone with a small child needed.
She had just turned away when Polly pointed at him with one small finger. Through the cloth over her face, the girl said quietly that the man was hurt. Anna stopped. She knew she wouldn’t sleep right if she walked away.
Looking into her daughter’s eyes, she dropped to her knees in the dirt. She pressed two fingers to the man’s neck and found a pulse—weak, but there. Her eyes swept the dump, searching the horizon for the rough scavengers who sometimes worked the area.
If the local thugs spotted that gold watch, they wouldn’t just take it. They’d finish him off to avoid witnesses. People around here had done worse, and everyone knew better than to talk about it.
The noon sun kept pounding down. Polly watched her mother, waiting. Anna made a decision that would change everything.
She slid her arms under the man’s shoulders and dragged him free of the scrap heap. Then she hauled him toward the stroller, muttering under her breath at how heavy he was. Every step hurt, but she was used to doing hard things.
Nearby she found a piece of old tarp under a stack of rotting pallets. She rolled the man onto it, gripped the edges, and started pulling. Carrying a full-grown man all the way back to the trailer was out of the question.
Polly trotted beside her in cheap sandals, stopping now and then for a pretty rock or a bright plastic bottle cap. Then she’d hurry to catch up, treating the whole strange trip as if it were just another day.
Anna avoided the main road on purpose. Too many dangerous men lingered near the exit. If they saw an unconscious man with a gold watch, it would end badly for all three of them.
Instead she took a narrow route behind a row of abandoned shipping containers. She slipped through a hole she’d cut long ago in a rusted chain-link fence and dragged the tarp over sharp stones and through puddles of murky runoff…
