“Your double negatives are so enlightening,” Henry said.
The heat was excruciating, and it was all Diego could do to take a full breath. He studied Adriana’s face. She was seated on the ground in the shade of the sign, her back against one of the poles. He could see the exhaustion in her eyes. It was total. The heat and humidity had aged her ten years. Her hair, which usually splashed over her shoulders perfectly, was now knotted and greasy. Her base-of-tongue cancer had aged her another ten years. She looked like a woman pushing sixty. Diego dug through his backpack and fished out a handkerchief. He soaked it with water from his canteen and wrapped it around Adriana’s neck.
“Thanks, sweetie.” She looked at him and tried to smile, but couldn’t.
“What about those Russian anti-personnel mines you talked about?” Henry said, eyeing the forest floor.
“Henry, give your paranoia or neurosis—or whatever in the hell it is—a rest,” Cutbirth said. “You’re driving me nuts.”
“It’s a reasonable question. Are there any mines?”
“There just might be,” Cutbirth said. “That’s why I’m going to put you on point.”
“I don’t think so,” Henry retorted.
“No, Henry,” Cutbirth said, “there are no mines. At least there were none—”
“Last time you were here,” Henry noted in a rude voice. “You’re starting to repeat yourself, Cutbirth.”
They pushed on.
***
“Can’t get it out of my nose. I smell something,” Cutbirth said a second time.
They were standing at the edge of a flat, treeless meadow, one filled with waist-high weeds. The two-acre field was situated not far from the foot of Bear Mountain. The plot of ground was crowded on all sides by the dense Ozark forest.
“What do you smell?” Diego asked.
“I don’t smell anything,” Yong said from where he and Sam stood at the back of the line. “What does it smell like?”
“Can’t put my finger on it,” Cutbirth said, throwing back his head slightly and sniffing the air like some ravenous animal.
“With all due respect, Mr. Cutbirth,” Sam said, “I would question your talent for smelling any better than one of us.”
A dark sneer swept across the beard stubble on Cutbirth’s craggy face. “I can smell cooked cabbage from a dozen miles, the first rose of spring from across the county, a woman’s sweet breath from another room.”
Yong snorted. “What a load of crap.”
“I don’t know what you think you smell, Cutbirth,” Henry said, “but we need to get out of this heat and into the cave where it’s cool. This heat is insufferable…with a capital I.” His comb-over lay in wet strings down the side of his head, and his waxy face shined like aluminum. The chick poked its head out of Henry’s shirt pocket and chirped faintly. “My little friend agrees,” Henry groaned.
“What was that?” Cutbirth said in a low voice, looking right, then left.
“What now?” Diego asked. Cutbirth’s skittishness made Diego nervous.
“I heard someone sneeze,” Cutbirth said.
“Sneeze?” Diego said.
“Yeah.”
“The bounty hunters?” Henry asked in a soft voice, snatching a glance over his shoulder.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Diego said.
Adriana gave Diego a tense glance.
“Me neither,” Yong said.
“Maybe nothing.”
Cutbirth on point, they continued on, hiking single-file through the leafy weeds. They were nearly across the field, within a few yards of the forest, when Cutbirth stopped abruptly. “Aha!” he crowed. “Now I know what I smell! Cannabis!” He made a wide sweeping motion with his arm. “We’ve stumbled upon someone’s marijuana patch!”
“I’ll be damned,” Yong said, fingering one of the lush plants. “You’re right. It’s hemp.” The field was infested with waist-high marijuana plants.
“Yes, pot,” Sissy confirmed, her eyes scanning the lush vegetation. “I had a friend back in Frisco who grew pot in her basement with grow lights. She got life in Chowchilla.”
“My teacher says bad people smoke marijuana,” Emily said uneasily, gazing up at her mother.
Sissy nodded. “Your teacher’s right, Emily.”
Diego had never seen a marijuana plant—indeed, neither he nor Adriana had ever smoked pot—and he examined one of the leafy stalks. He wasn’t that impressed. It appeared to be no more than a garden-variety weed.
Emily snapped a picture.
“Is it growing wild?” Adriana asked.
Before Cutbirth could answer, Diego said, “I’m guessing it was planted inside the DZ to keep it safe from poachers.”
Adriana looked at Diego with an odd smile. “My husband’s street-smart continues to amaze me.” She stripped a leaf from a stalk and smelled it. “I wonder if I chewed a leaf or two if it would help…with the pain?”
“I wouldn’t,” Diego said, shaking his head. “It might have been treated with some sort of toxic insecticide.”
Henry said, “It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference if it’s been—”
A single gunshot ruffled the air and a fistful of dirt exploded at Cutbirth’s feet. Everyone stood stock-still.
Emily uttered a short but sharp scream.
“Don’t nobody move!” The frightful order had come from somewhere in the forest.
Nobody moved.
“What is ya assholes a-doin’ hare?” The man was chillingly close. “You-ins the Po-leece?”
“Easy, partner,” Cutbirth said, scanning the forest before him. “Just take it easy.”
Diego’s gaze swept a quick 180 around him. Only trees and leaves and vines, and patches of blue sky.
“Diego…?” Adriana said softly.
“Stay behind me,” Diego whispered.
“Who am I talking to?” Cutbirth said. For a second time his head rotated slowly to the right, then the left.
Another muted gunshot hissed through the air and a second fistful of dirt erupted mere inches from Cutbirth’s feet.
“I said, is you-ins the po-leece? And don’t be a-sassing me none.”
Diego knew the man was close, but he was well camouflaged, invisible in the thick, climbing vines that flourished amongst the trees. He was a part of the forest, totally concealed.
“No, we’re rabbits,” Cutbirth said. “On our way across the border.”
When Emily choked back a frightened sob, Sissy whispered something in her ear, and Emily turned off the waterworks.
“Them thar whirly-birds yesterday,” the man said from the pools of gray. “Was they a-lookin’ fur you-ins?”
“Yes,” Cutbirth said. “We’re not here to steal your—”
Cutbirth’s explanation was cut short by Yong’s frantic cry, “Sam! No, don’t!”
Diego turned in Yong’s direction. Apparently the stressful encounter had become too much for Sam Holiday, and he had left his place at the back of the line. He darted past Cutbirth toward the safety of the trees, his dreadlocks bouncing wildly with each hurried stride. He entered the dense woodland as a third muffled rifle shot rang out. Sam was quickly swallowed by the forest shadows, the sound of his hurried footfalls on dry leaves becoming fainter and fainter.
“Fool thing…Uncle Tom a-runnin’ like that,” the man said. “Same goes for you, Rice Picker. Ahmagin you was a-wantin’ to foller yur friend. Don’t.”
“Sam was scared,” Yong said.“He was afraid you were—”
“Hadn’t oughta talk no more, Rice Picker.”
Silence.
Cutbirth said, “There’s an entrance to a cave on the other side of Bear Mountain. It will take us beneath the border. We’re rabbits. We’re not here to steal your plants.”
More silence, then the man said: “If ya was to go and git yur fool selves caught up by the po-leece, ya might take a-hankerin’ to tell’em about my pot field.”
“We’re less than two hours from the ca
ve entrance,” Cutbirth argued. “The National Police have no one on the ground, and they’ll never spot us from the air. Once we’re in the cave they’ll never catch us. Besides, we have no reason to tell anyone about your pot field.”
Good spiel, Cutbirth, Diego thought.
When the man behind the gun sneezed—it was really more of a stifled hand-over-the-mouth hiss-sneeze—Diego spotted him. He was no more than 50 feet away, 10 feet above the ground in a tree. He appeared to be seated facing the two-acre marijuana field. Had the man not sneezed, Diego would never have made him. His face was painted leaf-green. He was a piece of lettuce in a tossed salad.
But Cutbirth had also seen the man, and he began to slowly slide his right hand inside his shirt.
Christ! Diego thought.
Diego immediately stepped between Cutbirth and the man in the tree, and said, “My wife is ill and this little girl”—he motioned over his shoulder to where a very frightened Emily stood trembling next to Sissy—“is also sick. We desperately need to get them across the border. Please help us.”
Diego felt Cutbirth’s strong hand on his hip. He was trying to push Diego aside. “Move, Ad Man,” Cutbirth whispered. Diego held his ground.
“You, Ugly!” the man called out.
“What?” Cutbirth growled from behind Diego.
“Don’t be a-tryin’ to go fur yur gun. I’ll shore enough shoot ya first thing.”
Cutbirth dropped his hand to his side, and said, “We’ve got a couple of bounty hunters on our trail. They might come this way. I’m telling you as a courtesy.”
The man threw his head back and sneezed in earnest, and then said, “Courtesy? It don’t make no never mind cause I ain’t got no quarrel with bounty hunters.” There were several seconds of silence. Then the man said, “And I ain’t got no quarrel with you-ins. So git on a-goin’.” When nobody made a move, the man shouted: “Skedaddle!”
Cutbirth waved everyone to follow, and they hurried into the forest. No one looked back.
18
They reached the foot of Bear Mountain five minutes later and found Sam Holiday seated on the ground, his back against a towering oak tree. He appeared to be sleeping. Cutbirth called out to Sam from a distance, but he did not answer, and Yong ran to his friend. Seated in a weedy patch of blood, Sam was dead, struck down by a 5.56mm bullet fired from the hillbilly’s M16 rifle. The bullet had struck Holiday in the right thigh and penetrated his femoral artery. He had bled out seated beneath the oak. The flies and gnats and every other flying insect in the forest had already found the body and settled in for a feast.
Standing beside his partner, Yong looked up at the clear Missouri sky, raised his fists above his head, and uttered a long and mournful shriek. It was such a forceful death-cry that it caused the hairs on the back of Diego’s neck to stand at attention. Tears bubbling down his face, and speaking in what Diego believed must have been Korean—it was more like moaning than speaking—Yong dropped to his knees beside Sam and began rocking, his arms crossed against his chest, his eyes cast skyward.
Her eyes pooling, Adriana clung to Diego.
Sissy and Emily wept quietly in each other’s arms. Cutbirth watched from the shade nearby, his backpack and gym bag at his feet. He seemed unmoved. Henry stood staring at Sam’s body—it was more of a clinical stare than an emotional one—and it made Diego wonder if this might be the first dead body Henry had ever seen.
Yong’s sorrow quickly transitioned into a spiraling black hatred, and after he finished what Diego believed must have been a prayer, he jumped to his feet, marched over to Cutbirth with a snarl and said, “Give me your pistol!”
But Cutbirth would have none of it. Time did not allow for the luxury of revenge, he said.
“Give me your pistol!” Yong screamed.
When Cutbirth refused a second time, Yong came at him. Cutbirth raised his hand as a warning, but Yong continued his advance, and Cutbirth hit him in the solar plexus with the palm of his hand. It was a swift, efficient blow, and stopped Yong’s forward motion with no less force than the jarring impediment of a brick wall. His eyes bulging, Yong uttered a loud gasp, and then fell to the ground like a mail sack.
Sissy and Emily hurried over and knelt beside Yong. Sissy cradled his head as he fought to draw air, and seconds later Emily brought a canteen to his lips.
Looking down at Yong, his eyes hard and cold, Cutbirth said, “Don’t try that again.”
Considering what Cutbirth had done to Rosie, Diego thought, Yong had gotten off easy.
They were now faced with the problem of whether or not to bury Sam. Cutbirth said the Ozark soil was as rocky as the mountains of the same name and gouging out a suitable hole in the rock-strewn dirt would be next to impossible. “We don’t have the proper tools and it will take hours to dig a grave by hand,” Cutbirth said. He then told Yong they didn’t have hours. “We’ve left a trail through these woods even a blind man could follow,” Cutbirth explained, suggesting that Yong consider allowing Mother Nature to dispose of Sam’s body.
Her sobbing at an end, Sissy joined the debate. “It might sound heartless, Yong,” she argued, “but there is something about the process that is almost poetic. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…that sort of thing.”
Yong was seated in a lotus position beside Sam’s body. He looked up at Sissy, but it was impossible to say whether he was receptive to the idea or not. His eyes now showed no emotion.
“Allowing nature to take Sam’s body into her loving care completes the whole cycle of life, Yong,” Sissy said. “Sam came from the ground and now he will return to the ground.”
“What do you mean he came from the ground?” Yong asked, his eyes dull and lifeless.
“Where does food come from?” Sissy asked. “The ground. We eat the food to stay alive. Dust to dust.”
“Whatever we do, let’s do it quick,” Henry said, milking his goatee and looking into the forest.
Since they couldn’t dig a grave, Yong suggested they build an above-ground platform on which to lay Sam. “At least animals can’t get to the body,” he reasoned in a wrung-out voice.
“Time, Yong,” Cutbirth repeated for the third or fourth time. “We don’t have the time.” He snatched a glance over his shoulder. “I’m telling you those bounty hunters—”
Henry interrupted. “If Yong wants an above-ground internment for his friend, so be it. He can stay and build it. Why should we risk our lives—”
“Shut up, Henry,” Diego said.
“Can we at least hide him from the bounty hunters?” Yong said.
“Yes,” Cutbirth said, “but let’s hurry.”
Yong removed Sam’s red scarf from his backpack and stuffed it into his own. Then Diego and Yong each took an arm and Cutbirth took the legs—the blood on his leg had already started to coagulate into a soupy blood pudding—and the three of them carried Sam’s lifeless body into a heavy stand of sumac at the bottom of an adjacent ravine. Sissy brought Sam’s backpack. Adriana, Emily, and Henry remained seated in the shade of the towering oak.
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