Saving an Innocent Man

by Robert E B Wright

  The Captain walked to the side of the men with the AK-47s. They cocked their weapons. The bullets entered their chambers with awful, harsh, metallic sounds.

  "I'm not gonna die alone. You're gonna die, too! Every one of you stinking, slimy bastards!"

  Malcolm hung like a side of beef from the tree. He had not noticed that a second rope had also been tied to his ankles when the first rope was tied. The first rope pulled Malcolm higher and higher, the second rope remained slack and looped down behind Malcolm's body and up again.

  "What are you fuckers? Cubans?"

  The rope pulled him higher.

  "Colombians?"

  The rope pulled him higher, to about twenty feet.

  "Get ready!" El Capitan commanded. The soldiers locked the butts of their weapons into their armpits.

  "Aim!" The soldiers held their breath.

  "No!" The plea came from every pore of Malcolm's screaming, writhing body.

  "Tell us what we want to know, Malcolm," the Captain said softly as if speaking to a child. Malcolm had a flashback. He remembered when he was a kid and the bullies would push him over the back of another kid. He was there again.

  There was a long pause.

  "Fire!"

  The six shots rang out in sharp report from the smoking weapons.

  Malcolm had squeezed his eyes closed and hunched his body as best he could. But it wasn't Malcolm they were shooting at. It was the taut rope holding Malcolm up. Five bullets missed their target. One cut through a few strands about a quarter of the rope's thickness and unraveled with a twang. Malcolm dropped about two inches and hung there, eyes bulging, his face a red balloon. The riflemen stood at ease with their weapons.

  "Malcolm, you got one more chance before you get a very bad headache and you make a very large hole in the ground."

  A long silence followed.

  "Malcolm?" The Captain said in a mock plea. Malcolm opened his mouth, but nothing came out but air. He seemed unable to speak.

  Another long pause.

  "Get ready!"

  "Aim!"

  Yet another long pause.

  "Fire!"

  Six index fingers pulled with increasing pressure against six triggers. The fourteen millimeters of travel from each trigger's start point to its end point seemed interminable. In the split second of time that existed, just before the six triggers released the series of levers that in turn released the firing pins, Malcolm screamed, "I'll tell you! I'll tell you!"

  But it was too late.

  The projectiles ripped out of their barrels on converging trajectories and rocketed toward the rope, each one leaving a telltale trail of smoke and vapor through the humid air. Malcolm dropped as if a trap door had opened under him. He dropped toward the ground with bone crushing velocity. Head first. Hands tied behind his back. He seemed certain to leave his mark on planet Earth. But when Malcolm's head was a mere six inches from the ground, the second rope pulled taut around his ankles. It stretched a couple of inches under the sudden strain. The large tree limb the rope was tied to even gave a little. And Malcolm's skeletal structure stretched out, joint-by-joint, held together only by the mass of tendons, ligaments, muscles and fat that helped hold his body together all those years. The top of Malcolm's cranium was only a fraction of an inch from looking like a smashed watermelon on the highway when his entire body jerked up away from the ground. His body came down hard again and bobbed and swayed and swung like a pendulum gone crazy.

  Malcolm hung there as if dead.

  "Let him down. If we're lucky, he'll be alive. If he's lucky, he'll be dead."

  • • •

  Malcolm's still profile was black against a darkening sky. His eyes were closed. His mouth was slightly open. A black fly paced on his lower lip.

  The sun was setting and to the west the sky was pink and gold through the trees. A camp fire was already well established in the center of the open area about fifty feet away from Malcolm. He sat awkwardly where the men had thrown him, on the floor of a makeshift jail cell, a cage made from tree limbs. It was lashed together with rope and looked sturdy enough to withstand the thrashing of a captive gorilla.

  Malcolm moved his head to the side and groaned. His eyes flickered open. His body moved and he moaned in pain, his hands kneading his aching bones and muscles. He tested the tendons in his ankles and wrists. He felt the top of his head to make sure it was still there.

  A small meeting was taking place by the campfire. A half-dozen men were chattering away, laughing and carrying on. The Captain walked over to the informal group.

  Malcolm listened and understood about twenty-five percent of the words that were spoken. But one hundred percent of the meaning.

  "The swine is awake, Captain."

  "Good. Maybe we'll have some answers before dark. We can make an early start in the morning and he can lead us to the money."

  "Then, you have no doubts, Captain?"

  "Doubts?”

  "Doubts about him hiding drug money."

  "Does he look like a hunter to you, Manuel? Does he look like an Indian? Does he look like he is an agent for the CIA? He says he crashed in a small plane. Maybe he did. He said they were going to pick up drugs. You only pick up drugs when you have money. Lots of money. Money that we can use for our fight, to take back our homeland. The drugs probably came out of our country. We can make sure the money goes to the right people. The side that will win. The side that will rule."

  "What if we can't make him talk, Captain?"

  "Oh, we won't make him talk, Juanito. The fire will make him talk. When hot embers blister a man's toes it loosens their tongues. When burning sticks touch their pricks they sing like birds. When you light fire to their hair they talk so fast you can't understand them."

  The men around him chortled with each fiery remedy the Captain suggested. "And if he doesn't talk and we don't get our money, at least we can toast marshmallows." They all guffawed with the Captain as the red-hot cinders rode currents of air toward the sky.

  The bottoms of Malcolm's eyes became watery. He knew that they would kill him whether he told them where to find the money or not. And the only good thing that had ever happened to him was finding that suitcase full of money. Now it was going to kill him. With the exception of his parents, everything he touched turned against him.

  Malcolm's head hung low. Then something caught his eye toward the corner of his cage. Something moving. Something slithering. A diamondback rattler was snaking its way toward his foot, guided by the information it was receiving from the heat sensitive pits below its eyes.

  "Now," the Captain said, "get the, ah, John of Arc out here before I change my mind and just shoot him."

  Malcolm didn't take his eyes off the reptile for an instant. Then, as fast as a snake strike itself, in a blur, Malcolm snatched it behind its head and pulled the rest of its thick body through the wooden bars. With his left hand Malcolm quickly grabbed the snakes rattle to silence it. Through the fading light of dusk, Malcolm could hear the boots of the soldier coming to get him.

  Malcolm sat motionless with his feet suppressing the writhing of the angry serpent. In the hard-to-see light, Malcolm's right hand held the snake tightly behind the puffy poisonous glands at each side of its triangular head. Its mouth was fully open, its inch-and-a-half curved fangs locked into their downward, extended biting position.

  The soldier, now at the chain and padlock of the cage, cradled his AK-47 across his arms and inserted a small key into the lock. Malcolm's back was turned slightly toward the young man who was now clinking the chain through the eye of the hasp.

  As the slatted door swung open Malcolm lunged up and forward, sinking the fangs of the rattler deep into the forearm of his captor. The snake held on, pumping death into the man's blood. A terrifying scream came from the man as he went into immediate shock. His AK-47 fell to the ground. Malcolm snatched it up as quickly as he had snatched up the snake. The soldier did the first thing most people do when bitten by a snake.
He ran like hell. With the snake still holding onto him.

  The men standing around the campfire bolted to attention. They raised their rifles to their shoulders, but they didn't know what to shoot at.

  Malcolm knew exactly what to do. He put the weapon to his right hip and pulled the trigger. Fiery blasts shot out of the end of the black barrel and illuminated Malcolm's hulking figure. His teeth were bared, his eyes insane. A spray of bullets sent the two dozen men to the ground. Malcolm didn't know if he had hit anyone. He didn't really care. He was only glad the gun worked and the bad guys ate dirt. Before any of them even looked up, Malcolm was gone.

  Heads raised in the glow of the campfire, they listened for an instant. They could hear Malcolm crashing through the brush not far away. The Captain barked a few commands and they all leaped to their feet, fanned out and ran after the sounds in the darkening jungle.

  They fired, they took cover, they waited, they advanced. Again, and again. In the enveloping blackness the fire from the weapons, even with flash suppressors, created a strange energy-storm of light. From a distance it probably looked something like twinkling Christmas tree lights. And it sounded like a Chinese New Year.

  Malcolm was no military guerilla. No soldier of fortune. But he knew enough not to fire back in the darkness. He slipped into a place they'd never find him. Beneath the black water.

  • • •

  In the dim, blue half-light of early sunrise, the surface of the water was thick and black. The thin black tube rose slowly from the water.

  Then the lower half of the AK-47 rifle periscoped out of the ink. Malcolm's hand was attached to it. And his head wasn't far behind.

  Malcolm's eyes, just above the surface, were the only things that moved. With his telescopic vision, his eyes pierced through the thick, entangled brush along the sides of the river. The tricks his mind played on him, his eyes corrected. The silhouette form of a soldier with a rifle changed into the leaf formation of a wild philodendron. The man with the coiled rope turned into a dead tree trunk and vines.

  Without raising his head any higher, Malcolm turned in the opposite direction. With eyes just breaking the surface, head tilted back and weapon submerged, he headed up-river, alligator fashion. Causing the slightest ripple, he disappeared into the wispy early morning river fog.

  • • •

  The light was growing stronger now and it forced its way through the sturdy, tall cypress trees and pines. The barrel of the black rifle tilted to the horizontal and water urinated to the ground. Malcolm stood there examining the weapon in his hands. He played with the safety latch, clicking it on and off. He peered through the sights. He fingered the cocking lever.

  Then seconds of shock and hours of exhausting fear began. Malcolm heard a distant sound like the cracking of a whip. In an instant the three-inch trunk of a young pine tree right next to him shattered at eye level, sending splinters of wood everywhere! The top of the tree cracked to the ground as if hit by lightning! Malcolm snapped his head away from it and put his arm up to protect his face!

  The next instant, three more crack-of-the-whip sounds pierced the stillness and bullets hit the dry dirt inches in front of Malcolm's feet. He stepped back quickly, but awkwardly. He was stunned, almost paralyzed it seemed, as if he just couldn't believe the military maniacs could actually have tracked him.

  Then all hell broke loose!

  The trees, the leaves, the ground, all seemed to be alive! The cracking of the shots were coming machine gun fast and furious! A shower of bullets rained on the green underbrush and through the trees! Whizzes, pings, thumps and thuds were heard everywhere! Small leaves seemed to vaporize when hit! Large ones turned into pinwheels! Birds screamed and flitted like colorful projectiles themselves!

  Malcolm was blasted out of his stupor. Slamming the rifle to his hip, like an insane hero from a war movie, he squeezed the trigger in a vise grip. The rapid-fire hammering of the piston-like bolt inside the weapon made his fat wriggle and jiggle. Sweat poured off his body. His teeth were like those of a rabid dog. He fired in the direction of the sounds. But the hail of bullets kept coming, somehow missing him, if ever so minutely.

  Suddenly, his rifle stopped firing. In a rage, he shook it violently in front of his chest and tried again. Nothing. From nowhere a bloody streak cut through his left upper arm. His eyes and head snapped to the superficial wound.

  Then a bullet, perhaps a stray, slammed into his rifle sending it spinning out of his right hand. Malcolm looked at the dead rifle on the ground.

  The cracking gunfire was getting louder. He turned and fled, quickly disappearing into the brush. No one could see him. But each and every bullet that whistled through the trees and bushes tried to find him.

  • • •

  The fog was thick. Even the trees a few feet away seemed to stand behind wax paper. Everything else was a bright silver gray. Somewhere in the middle of the non-color, the faintest image slowly darkened as it grew larger. Malcolm moved silently and swiftly, carefully eyeing each step through the braille forest. He stopped at a tree, lightly panting. He turned his attention upwards when he heard the soft, deep, rolling thunder. It started to rain on his face.

  From this limbo, he moved on into the diffusion ahead of him and faded away.

  • • •

  Hours later, the sun was hiding behind the blanket of dirty cotton in the sky. Rain was still falling at a moderate, consistent, long-term rate, cleansing the air of the fog it fell through.

  Pond cypress, your average, everyday size versions of the giant bald cypress Malcolm had seen earlier, were scattered on the honey colored prairie of low-growing sparse sawgrass.

  Malcolm’s bare and calloused feet shuffled through puddles. He was without the necklace of colorful tree snails and rattlesnake tail. Gone were the six turtle shell bowls that were his prize possessions and the rusty kitchen knife he had cherished since the hunter’s cabin. He carried nothing now but his loose-fitting work pants, shredded to peddle pusher height. And he carried the scars. Scars on his memory from the sheer horror of being snared like an animal and being terrorized and interrogated in the Captain's tent. Scars on his ankles from the thick rope that snatched him from his death-drop to the ground. Scars from the hot bullet that grazed his left arm. Scars from seeing a firing squad aim and fire, from becoming a human yo-yo, from giving his jailer an intravenous injection of venom direct from the source. From escaping, machine guns blazing, from the military campground. And from being hunted like trophy-sized game.

  He also bore wounds deep inside that would add to his collection of lifelong emotional scars. Fresh open cuts of anger, intimidation, fear and weakness bled freely, drowning whatever seedlings of inner-strength, self-reliance, courage and self-esteem had germinated since the plane crash.

  Malcolm trudged on through the rain and puddles. Through the soggy grayness of his spirit.

  Twenty-Five

  The glass and aluminum framed door with the word NARCOTICS painted on it burst open with a force that would have broken it if it hadn't been made with safety glass. Craig Mulholland looked like he was going to go right through it. He stormed into the Narcotics Department, his tank top turquoise, his face red and his temper white-hot.

  The office was already jumping with action as he blurred past eight desks on his way to McGuire's corner office. Armando Diaz was typing at one of the desks. He popped up, worrying the words, "Oh, oh!" when Mulholland streaked by. Of course, he followed as if on a tether.

  Mulholland, with Diaz in his slipstream, burst into Lieutenant Tom McGuire's office without knocking. Mulholland looked around but McGuire was nowhere in sight. "Where's the son of a bitch when you want him?" Mulholland exploded.

  "I'm right here, you dumb shit!" The voice came from under the desk. A hand appeared, slapping a cigarette lighter on the glass top of the desk.

  "What, expecting an earthquake, Lieutenant? This is Florida, not California."

  "Flipped my lighter right onto the floor, is t
hat alright with you?" McGuire ran his hand across the top of his balding head.

  "Shouldn't smoke, Tom. Tests prove smoking causes baldness in laboratory rats." With Lieutenant McGuire, Mulholland usually got away with murder. Except this time.

  "Get the fuck outta here, Mulholland!"

  Diaz held his temples with his fingertips as he moaned, "Oh, Jesus."

  "I can’t. I got something I just can't wait to tell you!"

  "Unless it's ‘I quit,’ I'm not interested."

  "Oh, Jesus," Diaz moaned again.

  "It's better than I quit," Mulholland said.

  "It's I died?" McGuire said, sarcastically hoping.

  "It's about your paisan, DiSantis."

  "Come on, cut the crap. You got somethin' to say, say it! If not, go peddle your papers someplace else!"

  "Yesterday, on my own time, Tom, while other people spent a nice Sunday afternoon with their families..." he looked at Diaz for an instant, "I was out on the Tamiami Trail humpin'..."

  Diaz jumped in, "Yeah, and I know what you were humpin', good buddy!"

  "...humpin' for this department, Tom, getting a handle on what DiSantis was doing out there for three days!"

  McGuire, standing behind his desk, lit a cigar and said, "Go on." He didn’t care what the rules were about smoking in the building. In his private office, he made the rules.

  "He's out there getting a militia together to get this guy, Tom!" Tom's eyes looked at him through the thick smoke. Diaz's head bobbed back.

  "He's telling anybody who will listen to look for a big, fat man and get ‘em. You know those rednecks, they’ll shoot first and drag the body to the police station later. It’ll be one big lynch mob."