The Age of Embers

by Ryan Schow

  “Just relax,” Captain Potbelly was saying. “Let it happen. It will be easier and more enjoyable that way.”

  At the right moment, she looked up at String Bean’s throat and curled all the dead space out of her once delicate hand. She then rooted her feet into the ground and drove that fist right into String Bean’s throat, pivoting her hips just before impact for that little extra something.

  She struck her target perfectly.

  The pop/crunch sound the impact made was about the most satisfying noise she’d ever heard. String Bean’s jaw flopped down and his eyes shot wide with surprise. He staggered backwards, taking two steps inside the pants circled around his ankles before getting tangled up in his underwear and falling backwards onto his bare ass.

  She’d already turned and was rushing Captain Potbelly, who looked at her in shock and couldn’t decide if he should pull up his pants or just try to run.

  To him, Eliana had become a genuine threat.

  I am.

  She attacked with deadly speed, kicking the hinge of his knee with the ball of her foot so hard, his leg caved in the wrong way. She knew by the feel of it that ligaments had torn and she’d done massive damage. The potbellied pervert let go of the girl and fell sideways. Growling in pain, he gripped his leg and unleashed a torrent of cursing so venemous his mouth frothed and flung spittle with every violent affront.

  Watching him struggling on the ground, she saw only red. Her face was a locomotive, a smokestack, a bright orange boiler popping all its rivets. Both hands became lethal once more, unconcerned with her nudity, needing only to end this thing. He tried to crawl away from her; she blocked his way, gave him no quarter.

  The cursing continued, becoming worse, more grotesque. She only glared down at him. The man seethed, his eyes bulging, ready to pop clean out of his skull.

  Before she knew what had overtaken her, she was stomping on his head over and over again until he was not just still, but dead still. It took a long moment for her to catch her breath. When she did, it was to tell the girl to get up and get dressed.

  She didn’t move but to rock herself and cry.

  “Did he get inside you?” she asked.

  The girl shook her head, but couldn’t stop sobbing.

  Eliana went for the Federales’ guns, collected them both. Each man had a spare magazine. She checked and collected those as well. She looked up and the girl still hadn’t moved. She was huddled on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, bone thin arms wrapped around her shins. She couldn’t stop crying.

  “Get up and get dressed,” she told the girl while pulling on her clothes.

  The girl refused to move. Eliana stalked over, smacked her open handed on the top of her head and said, “Get up!”

  The girl finally came around.

  When she was fully dressed with both guns in her hands and at her sides, she forced herself to look at the two men. One was beaten to death, the other suffocated from a closed windpipe.

  Her father’s voice filled her mind. She’d been much younger when Arcelio said this, and sadly, the fear behind his words still gripped her: “As a woman, you’re inherently feeble, which means even skilled, if you don’t hit the right targets, your attackers will overpower you. So you hit the groin to get to the throat. If you can’t hit the throat, you get to the eyes, and when you get the eyes, you strike the throat. If you can’t get the throat, you get the groin. Grab it and rip it if you have to. Either way, this attack will draw out the chin, giving you clearance to strike the throat. You need to know the body in order to be able to break it being as you are the weaker gender.”

  “Not weak,” she said to Captain Potbelly, who lay there dead. On the way out the door, she spit on the lanky cretin who had looked at her with such disdain.

  Down the hall she heard yelling coming from the boy’s room. Guns in both hands, Eliana whispered to the girl, “Open the door when I tell you. Don’t push it too hard or it may spring back and ruin the surprise. Just open it wide enough for me to enter.”

  The girl nodded, her face still red, her body still jumping in small, residual hiccupping sobs.

  The girl managed to focus on Eliana. Eliana held her eye, then took a deep breath and gave her the nod. The girl pushed the door open wide, but not too hard, which was exactly what Eliana told her to do.

  Like the other two rodents, the third Federale had his pants down around his ankles and his shirt unbuttoned. He had a grip on the boy’s hair, but the boy had snapped out of the shock of seeing his parents murdered and was now resisting violently.

  Both pistols drawn, both with chambered rounds, Eliana was all business now. “Let go of the boy, get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head.”

  The Federale froze, but failed to comply with her orders.

  “Let go of him, NOW!” Eliana hissed.

  He finally did as she asked. Now what?

  Should she kill him?

  Yes.

  But did she want to?

  I do.

  The dominant part of Eliana was still reeling from her own traumatic ordeal. This was wrong on so many levels, this racket these men were running. But did they deserve to die? I don’t know.

  She did though.

  Yes.

  When he was on his knees, she said, “Lace your fingers.” He did. In that split second, she spun her newly acquired pistol around and smashed the butt of the gun down on the top of his head with brutal force.

  She hit him hard, but it wasn’t hard enough. The deviant fell forward on hands and knees, groaning. Forced to see his ghastly nest of balls and butt crack, Eliana wound up and kicked him right in the eggs with all her might.

  She didn’t miss.

  Howling, he folded and fell sideways, clutching himself. That’s when she realized her father was right about the differences in strength between men and woman. Eliana was accurate in her targeting, but she couldn’t fight like a man.

  This, above all else, angered her the most. She didn’t want her father to be right.

  “Get dressed!” she told the boy. Until that moment, she didn’t know he was shaking so badly he could hardly stand. To the girl, she said, “Help him.”

  The girl needed no more prompting. All Eliana could do was stare down at this whimpering man with a deep and bitter hatred.

  They do this day in and day out, Eliana told herself.

  Men like these ruin lives for their own perverse pleasure. She didn’t know when it happened or the exact minute she snapped, but when she started kicking him, she thought she needed to stop, but her body failed to stop until her mind decided it was time.

  Don’t kill him. But why not? I don’t want to kill any more people today! Or do I?

  She finally stopped kicking him, lowered herself to a knee before him and began clubbing his head with the butt of the gun until he stopped fighting it. She might have killed him, but she didn’t care and she wasn’t sticking around to find out.

  Turning around, seeing the kids ready to go, the girl alert but the boy nearly comatose on his feet, she said, “No more. Not from these three.”

  The kids followed Eliana out of the room, but all three of them came to an abrupt halt at the scary sight of Héctor.

  He seemed startled to see the three of them as well.

  Eliana raised her guns on him about the same time he drew his pistol on her. Who was going to pull the trigger first and get the kill was anyone’s guess.

  “Get back on the train!” Eliana roared, the stolen guns aimed right at Héctor’s chest so as not to miss. The coyote stood his ground. In her most domineering tone, she said, “If I want, I can put both rounds through your belly button at the same time.”

  “How impressive,” he said, not giving up his ground.

  “Do you want me to do it with my eyes open or closed?” she asked, unblinking.

  Grinning, but irate, Héctor finally extended his free hand, palm facing her in a gesture of surrender. Slowly he lifted the barrel of his gun.
When he was clear and Eliana felt he posed no threat (for the moment), she carefully slid one of the guns in the back of her pants. But like Héctor, she held the remaining gun loosely at her side.

  Who has the faster draw? she wondered. She prayed it wouldn’t come to that.

  “Do you and I still have a problem?” he asked, irritated that she forced him to relent.

  “Get me over the border and we’re good.”

  In truth, they weren’t good, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Leave the guns,” he said.

  “Say that again and you’re going to meet your maker.”

  Looking past her, hearing Telemundo in the back room but seeing no signs of life, he asked, “Are any of them alive?”

  “No.”

  “Looks like you didn’t need that birth control after all,” he said, no longer amused by his own statement.

  “Back to the train,” she replied with a frown.

  He lead the way; the three of them followed at a safe distance. Héctor made the “all clear” sign to a man up the rails, then he climbed up on the flat car and navigated through the bodies enough to climb onto the boxcar. Eliana and the kids stayed close behind. The girl went straight to her parents, her mother pulling her into her arms, but the boy just found a place to sit down. Eliana assumed his parents had been thrown off the train because she didn’t see them anywhere.

  She wondered if the kids would recover from this. Perhaps killing those men would give them some peace, or at least some small measure of absolution. She hoped it might do the same for her, but she wasn’t holding her breath.

  Eliana sat down next to her backpack, grabbed her hat that was crumpled beside it and put it on. Then, with as much discretion as she could muster, she slid the stolen weapons inside her backpack.

  Instead of sitting near the edge of the car, as she had done before, she made Héctor sit there with his back to her.

  “Feel free to hang your legs over the edge,” she said. “It’ll take the pressure off your back.”

  “I don’t need your advice,” he muttered.

  “True,” she said.

  “You going to shoot me in the back?” he asked.

  “Not if I don’t have to.”

  “You going to push me off like the last guy?”

  “I might.”

  They could only go so far by train. With the new laws in place, and a few honest Federales enforcing them, they eventually got off the train and trekked for days by foot. At some point, they caught a ride on a diesel rig used to haul cattle. It was uncomfortable, but fast. A few more days of walking and two days on a bus and they were only a day’s walk to Juarez. The journey was hell on her legs and back, and even worse on her mind, but from the generosity of strangers, the UN and various booths reportedly funded by Pueblo Sin Fronteras, they had been provided with water, toiletries and fresh food.

  Outside Juarez, Héctor pulled the group aside and said, “Show me your cargo, the one you’re guarding with your lives. Don’t take it all the way out. I just want to make sure the packaging hasn’t been compromised.”

  “If the wraps are broken?” someone asked.

  He shook his head and said nothing as everyone pulled out their packages of what one of the guys claimed to be pure heroin.

  Eliana had been watching the orphaned boy ever since they left the first checkpoint. He had no where to go and no real guardians, so he’d continued on at the behest of Héctor. The boy never told Eliana his name and she didn’t ask. He slept by her side most nights, not saying a word. That didn’t mean he was quiet. More nights than most he thrashed around in his sleep, crying out before waking himself up. When he could fall asleep, he slept like the dead.

  When Héctor got to the orphaned boy, the one Eliana rescued from the Federales, he showed the coyote his untainted package.

  After the drug check, Eliana went to the boy’s side and they walked the rest of the day together. As they made their way into Ciudad Juarez, Eliana watched him. She had not been like her pint-sized traveling companion on the days he slept well. She’d slumbered lightly, her ears alert to any unusual sounds. Her senses served her well.

  Twice on the journey there she’d been awakened to three men staring down at her. Once she woke to a girl reaching down for her bag. It helped having three guns. She thought of trading out the .22 for a sandwich and a soda for the boy.

  Fortunately they made it into the city before that became necessary.

  Eliana had money stashed inside the backpack, but she did not purchase food until she was on her own for fear of being found out.

  No sense in advertising her limited, stolen wealth.

  They entered the heart of the city late that night. When Héctor showed them where to sleep and where to get some scraps of food, there wasn’t a weary face in the bunch.

  “Before you go,” Héctor said, stopping everyone even though they were famished and relishing the idea of food, “I need your packages.”

  The group began surrendering their heroin to the coyote and looking relieved to be free of it. The boy handed Héctor his brick.

  The coyote ruffled his hair and said, “Muy bien.”

  Eliana handed him hers.

  “Good, good,” he said upon collecting the last of the cargo. “Now go and try to stay out of trouble. Is everyone clear on where and when to meet?”

  The group gave a collective nod, thinking only of eating, and sleeping.

  Before Héctor could leave in search of his own meal, Eliana stopped him. She said, “Are you taking us all the way in?”

  “I am, why?”

  “Don’t leave without me.”

  “You have somewhere to be?” he said, his eyes flat, completely emotionless.

  “I have some questions I need answered here in town.”

  “Maybe I can help,” he said, dispassionate.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you could have killed me and you didn’t. I respect that.”

  From the backpack, Eliana pulled out a picture of her niece and said, “I’m looking for her.”

  “Did she come on her own volition?” he asked.

  She shook her head, no.

  “Are you sure that’s your niece and not someone else’s?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “But she’s pretty, and you’re…”

  “Can you help me or not?” she asked, her patience waning.

  He appraised her shortly, then drew a deep breath and let it out. “You need to find this guy,” he said. He took out a pen, grabbed her hand. She resisted, but he held on. Turning her hand over, he tried to write the name on her palm.

  It didn’t write, or it was out of ink.

  He licked the end, then made a few circles on his own palm until the ink flowed. Quickly, he wrote ‘Manuel Robles’ and the name of a bar on Eliana’s palm. When he was done, Eliana took her hand back. The very idea of him touching her was nauseating.

  “The people I’m with are into migration, but your girl is probably in a different kind of caravan.”

  “I know.”

  “Yeah,” he asked, “how’s that?”

  “I met the source.”

  “The source?” he asked. Then it dawned on him. “Alfredo Valenzuela.”

  “Not him,” she grumbled. “A couple of his lieutenants.”

  He drew another breath through his nostrils, set his jaw and said, “You’re not as ugly or as incapable as you let on, are you?”

  “How long until we leave?”

  “Weren’t you listening?”

  “Not really.”

  “If we can, we’ll leave tomorrow. If not, the day after. It depends. Just be at the meeting point like I told you.”

  “What time is it right now?” she asked.

  He looked at his watch. “It is just after one o’clock.”

  “You think this place is still open?” she asked, pointing to the writing on her palm.

  He shrugged his shoulders. />
  “Thanks, now walk away,” she said without an ounce of kindness in her eyes. Fortunately for them both, he did as he was told.

  Looking around, she didn’t see the boy.

  Tired as she was, as filthy as she was, she managed to find the bar while it was still open. She could hardly keep her head up, she was so tired, but when she walked inside the intimate establishment, she was so self-conscious about her looks and smells that she forgot how weary she’d become. She went straight to the barkeep and asked for Manuel.

  “This town is full of boys and men and old men named Manuel,” he said, disinterested.

  “Manuel Robles. He’s good with kids.”

  “You got a kid missing or are you in need of his…services?”

  “Got a couple of bad kids he might be able to straighten out, for a few bucks of course.”

  “Yeah,” the barkeep said, disinterested again. “Never heard of him.”

  She set a wad of money on the bar and said, “Why don’t you pour me a drink while you refresh your memory.”

  Now he looked interested. He poured her a drink and reached for the cash. She pulled it back, handed him just enough money to cover the cost of the beer.

  “Never touch what isn’t yours until it’s yours,” she said.

  “Are you saying it’s mine?”

  “Why don’t you refresh your memory while I settle in and we’ll see.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a biting tone, “well don’t settle in too hard. We don’t like vermin here, and you smell like vermin.”

  She was taking that first sip when she realized she was next to a man she didn’t remember sitting next to. Eliana pulled the brim of her hat down; she felt him staring.

  “You’re good enough to fool most people,” he said in a voice just an octave or two louder than the noise inside the bar.

  For a long time they said nothing. Finally she turned and said, “But?”

  “But I see you.”

  “What does that mean?” she said, nursing her drink, going back to looking straight ahead with her chin low. For a second her heart stopped beating.