Conquistadors

by Jeff Kirkham

  Without looking at Tavo, the army officer handed him back the radio. The major’s hand dropped to his side and his back straightened. Based on his body language, the officer knew that his next words could end his life. The man stood, looking to the hills, the morning sun now angling down into the canyon.

  The major’s shoulders slumped, and he turned to Tavo. He didn’t seem surprised to find the business end of Tavo’s suppressor pointed at his feet.

  “Commander?” Tavo asked with an expression of extreme confidence.

  “What would you like me to do? Will you render aid to my men, at least?”

  “Of course, commander. They’re both of our soldiers now.” Tavo reached out his hand. The major was smart enough to hesitate only for a second.

  Chapter 16

  Noah Miller

  Hermosillo-Guaymas Highway, Km 247, Sonora, Mexico

  “I see all those lost souls,

  Burning up their time.

  Making all their big plans,

  To have a life divine.”

  The Crusader

  “What the hell…”

  Noah had been shadowing the Mexican army convoy since they left their base that morning. With hundreds of narco ranches surrounding Hermosillo, he could search for a year and never find the drug soldiers who’d killed Bill.

  So, instead, he posted across the boulevard from the army base on the outskirts of Hermosillo and waited for them to come out. It was fifty-fifty odds that the army would either go challenge the narcos or link up with them. Fifty-fifty odds seemed better than wandering around the desert looking for trouble.

  Early that morning, the army hauled ass out of their base looking for all the world like they meant to kick some ass. Instead, forty miles down the road, they’d been taken down in an ambush. Then, the same enemy that’d blown them up, came in with medics and went to work on the wounded. The convoy packed up and everyone drove back north toward Hermosillo.

  It was the damnedest thing he’d ever seen.

  Noah had stashed the Land Cruiser around the bend on a dirt road, so the army convoy limped past on the highway without noticing him. But not everybody went north. A few trucks headed south.

  Noah leaned against a huge boulder, smeared a rivulet of sweat across his forehead and ran through his options. His job was simple: don’t lose them. But he didn’t actually know who they were. Nothing he’d just seen proved that any of them were connected to the cartel soldiers who hit Bill’s ranch. Even so, Noah had a feeling in his gut that they were. How many narco gangs could operate in one region without either joining up or exterminating one another?

  His father, Bill, hadn’t been a big fan of “following your gut” when tracking. He’d apparently seen a lot of pet theories turn into boondoggles on the trail of soldiers, murderers and illegal aliens. Evidence and reason were Bill’s favorite tools, and they’d served him well as a tracker.

  Bill would not have been a big fan of Noah’s roadside revival the day before. Big emotions were like curdled milk to Bill and making decisions from big emotions was Bill’s definition of foolishness.

  “The Libtards got themselves in another crying jag!” Bill had shouted two weeks before at the ranch. “They’ve gone all weepy-eyed about keeping the illegal immigrants in tents and cages. Those tents are twenty times better than the shanties they’re living in down in Honduras! Them Liberals need to wipe away their tears and get an eyeball full of what life’s really like.” It was Bill’s typical rant.

  Every time the liberals did something Bill considered stupid, he’d blame it on their pot-smoking drum circles or New Age feelie-fests. Noah had sometimes wondered if Bill lived up against the Mexican border because that put his ranch as far from Seattle as possible without crossing the Mississippi. He waved a curse every time he went into the “big city” and passed a Starbucks.

  Bill McCallister ran a one-man, up-at-dawn war against the feel-good proclivities of the human race. He would not have approved of his son snotting up his Carhartt T-shirt alongside the highway because of a love song, or grunge song or even Christian rock song. Bill probably would’ve called it “defiling the cockpit of the supremely functional FJ40 with snowflake antics.”

  Noah hid behind the boulder as the army convoy trundled by on the blacktop. He missed his dad, the old fool.

  In about thirty seconds, Noah would need to make a decision: either head south after the six trucks that had turned right on the Hermosillo-Guaymas highway, or hang a left and follow the army convoy back toward Hermosillo. Nothing he’d observed provided a clear direction. His best guess was that the cartel soldiers had jacked the column of Mexican army, and they were heading back to the base to consolidate gains. That’d mean the other six vehicles were returning to a cartel base—and probably to wherever Bill’s murderers called home.

  Following the killers in the rice burners—that’d just been something to do while Noah got squared away. He’d never really set his heart on revenge-killing those assholes, and the idea hadn’t grown any muscle overnight, either. If they popped up in his gunsights, he might take the shot, but chasing men around Indian Country just to kill a few former drug dealers sounded like succumbing to what his dad would’ve called “emotional nonsense.” So then, what was he doing in Mexico, anyway?

  His mission was a work-in-progress and Noah had to admit that he’d turned himself over to some inner oracle—half John McClane in Die Hard and half Morpheus in The Matrix. He didn’t know what he was going to do next.

  Surprisingly, the thought didn’t bother him much.

  So, Noah followed his feet to the Land Cruiser, climbed in, and drove down the dirt road. He turned left toward Hermosillo and back to the army base.

  Chapter 17

  Tavo Castillo

  Rancho Santiaguito, 65 Miles outside of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico

  “Good morning, Papi.” Sofía kissed her father on the head as he ate a breakfast of refried beans, eggs and jalapeño at the kitchen bar, but the kiss carried a perfunctory air.

  Tavo’s wife, Isabel, worked silently at the sink, sorting and washing beans for the evening meal. “Buenas dias, Mama.” Sofía graced her mother with a deep hug from behind. Her mother patted her arm, still looking out the window at the courtyard.

  Tavo had been wondering why his wife washed, sorted and cooked her own beans. She had all the house help she could ever want, especially here at the ranch. Then again, Tavo didn’t know what else she’d do with her time if not sort beans.

  One thing he was sure of: asking her would be a bad idea. These days, when it came to his wife, he had a hard-and-fast rule. Don’t ask unless you already know the answer.

  Sofía poured herself an agua de papaya, stepped around the bar and sat down beside her father. “So, how many did we kill yesterday?” She asked like she was asking him to pass the jalapeños.

  “Don’t speak to me like you’re an American princess. It cheapens you,” Tavo shamed her. He’d woken up in a foul mood, and the bile in his stomach turned him, once again, toward suspicion.

  “I’m not for sale, Papi. So don’t play me. Please answer my question. I saw the men get ready yesterday. I know you acted on my information from General Bautista. If I’m going to be part of the killing, then I should know how many died.” Sofía drilled her father with angry eyes. “I’ve seen the killing myself and I think I deserve to know the truth.”

  The fact that she had brought this up with her mother in the room represented a tectonic disrespect in their family—a naked aggression. This was shaping up to be their first serious argument, ever.

  Isabel didn’t even turn around at the mention of killing. She sorted the beans like an act of penance, picking through them like rosary beads.

  Tavo’s counter-strike, an outright lie, returned the moment to his control. “The archbishop has asked to meet with us today about the protection of Hermosillo and the archdiocese. I take it that you’re not interested in being part of that conversation?”


  He saw the wheels turning in Sofía’s head as she stalled, sipping her licuado.

  A liar will always assume a lie.

  He had lied, more than anything, to see if she would call him on it. Even unprepared, he played two gambits at once, the one nested inside the other. This lie about the archdiocese would either bring his daughter along or reveal her as a player in the big game.

  Had she ordered the Kaibil strike on him or not? Was she a sociopath or not?

  Sofía looked up at her mother’s back, as if seeking her approval. “Okay. I’ll go to your meeting with the archbishop. What time?”

  Tavo punted, “I’ll let you know. Phones are dead. Where will you be today?”

  “I’ll be here waiting for word, sorting frijoles with mama.”

  Tavo walked toward the archbishop painted in his most-dazzling smile and an outstretched hand.

  “Good afternoon, Your Excellency.” Tavo blocked his daughter’s view of the archbishop’s confused face, his eyes darting between the four strange people who had ambushed him in the anteroom to his office. “My name’s Gustavo Castillo from the diocese of Culiacán. I was with the group of paramilitaries who rescued you and the other fathers from Los Negros.”

  They stood in the antechamber to the archbishop’s office in a three-story wing off of the cathedral. Seemingly without a secretary—likely due to the domino collapse that had finally hit Hermosillo—the archbishop appeared adrift. Their unannounced visit did nothing to reduce the elderly man’s befuddlement.

  “Really?” A light dawned in the priest’s eyes. “I thought the soldiers were American.”

  “No, Your Excellency. They were faithful Catholics.” Tavo laughed and gently steered the man toward his office.

  Tavo’s party filed behind the archbishop and arranged themselves in the heavy wood chairs arrayed around the desk. The cleric took the seat with a cushion nearest the desk and folded his hands, glancing from one guest to the other. After a moment of silence, he spoke. “I already know our two commanders from the army and air force.” The archbishop smiled at Commander Prieto and Commander Salinas. "But I don’t believe we’ve met.” He gestured toward Tavo and Sofía.

  “I’m a patrón from the Los Mochis diocese. We organized a paramilitary group to help protect the farms from criminals. We came north when we heard of your troubles here in Hermosillo. The gentlemen from the army and air force offered to help us maintain order in the region until a new government, outside the influence of the Zeta cartel, can be formed.”

  The archbishop had seemed dubious at the mention of a paramilitary group, but his expression hardened with mention of the Zetas.

  “So you are against the cartels?” He asked, clarifying.

  “Yes, Your Excellency. We would like to form a peacekeeping force under the church to maintain order until the trouble passes.”

  The archbishop must’ve been remembering his captivity, high-centered in his own trauma. “The cartels behave like demons. The mayor and the police do nothing to stop them. Money is more powerful than faith here.” The archbishop stared at Tavo intently.

  Tavo began to wonder if the archbishop didn’t know precisely who he was. “We can handle the Zetas.” Tavo moved to a more practical line of reasoning. “But the Zetas are the least of our concerns today. Have you seen the supermarkets? They’re ransacked. Regular people are hoarding anything they can. Some Catholics are looting and stealing and leaving the rest with nothing. They know that this power and water problem isn’t like the normal stoppages. This one may last months, if not years.”

  The priest blanched. “Because of the terrorist attacks and problems in America?”

  “Yes, Your Excellency. I’m afraid we may have turned back the clock two hundred years. Northern Sonora is without electricity and transportation for the foreseeable future, and we have to find food and water for hundreds of thousands of people. Together with my esteemed army commanders, we’ve posted guards on all the storehouses, box stores, the hospital and the gas stations, but the small stores have been looted out. As soon as the roof cisterns empty, the entire city will be forced to relocate to the reservoir just to have water.”

  “But why are you talking to an old priest about it? These are municipal issues.”

  “The municipal government has vanished,” Tavo lied, holding out his hands. If it weren’t true, Tavo would make sure that it was within the hour.

  “You want the church to take over civil affairs,” the archbishop concluded. “I’m afraid you’re wasting your time, gentlemen. We are prohibited by the constitution of Mexico from involving ourselves in government. We are not allowed, nor are we prepared for those responsibilities.”

  Tavo didn’t have time to convince an old man of plain facts. The opportunity to preserve the assets of northern Sonora would evaporate in the next forty-eight hours, long before this old priest caught up to reality.

  “Of course you can’t, Your Excellency. We’re only asking that you provide a liaison with the archdiocese to help us maintain calm among the people. The military can enforce order, as is our job.” Tavo blended his “paramilitary” command with the commanders sitting beside him in the archbishop’s office. “We need a priest to speak to the people—let them know that the government may be gone for a time, but God hasn’t forgotten them.”

  Tavo wondered if he had overshot his appeal to faith. The archbishop said nothing, slumped in his chair, either contemplating the situation or drifting into a stupor. Tavo couldn’t tell.

  “I’ll assign my abbot to help you. He’s still young enough to understand these issues.”

  Tavo decided to remove the archbishop at his earliest opportunity—make him vanish into another archdiocese. The abbot would do nicely. If Tavo recalled correctly, the man was in his forties and probably much more ambitious—and subject to influence—than this ancient creature. “Thank you, Your Excellency. If you would please allow us a meeting with the abbot, we will serve the church however we can.”

  “The archbishop didn’t ask for that meeting,” Sofía accused her father as soon as they cleared the steps of the cathedral.

  Tavo felt himself running out of patience. “Do you want these people to live?” he waved at Hermosillo from the steps. “Whether you approve or not, I’m their best hope. That dirty water in the reservoir will kill a third of the children within two weeks and many of the adults. Even if I hadn’t eradicated Los Negros, these people were going to tear each other apart over scraps of food in the next two weeks. Men with guns are the solution, Sofía. If you want to help, pick up a gun and point it at someone looting a store. Otherwise, you’re another useless mouth to feed. With all that expensive education, are you still blind to what’s happening here?”

  Sofía stomped her foot but held back argument. She fired back with a question instead. “How will you get food to them?”

  “What do you mean?” Tavo asked.

  “How are you going to transport food from the fields in Sinaloa to these people in Hermosillo?”

  “Trucks.” He hadn’t spared much thought for anything beyond military matters.

  “Trucks require gasoline… I will arrange for gasoline. I’m no ‘useless mouth.’ Do you have a satellite phone?” Sofía reached out her hand.

  “Who do you want to call?” Tavo’s suspicion stepped into high gear.

  “General Bautista and my people in Monterrey,” Sofía answered. “If it’s bad here, it’s worse there. We need to secure those refineries today. I’m not going to point a gun at anyone, Father, but I can get the gas and the trucks to transport food, and maybe distribute clean water. Can I borrow your phone? Now, if you please.”

  Tavo handed her his satellite phone.

  Chapter 18

  Noah Miller

  Highway 15, Km 144, Sonora, Mexico

  “Well, I've been fleeing, just like an outlaw,

  But I am willing and I am able

  To stop and stand, on the rock.

  It's been a long
time comin’.”

  The Crusader

  Noah watched up close as a fly walked across a dead man’s pupil. God only knew what nourishment the fly was gathering from a dried-up, human eyeball.

  The bodies of four men were arranged in a circle, heads toward the center, feet pointing out. Little gusts of wind blew sand across the altar and into the dead mens’ eyes.

  So this is what death looks like without makeup.

  Noah had never seen a dead human body outside a mortuary, except for Leah and Katya. Within minutes, his wife and daughter had been rushed away in an ambulance. It was as though modern society needed to protect him from the sight of his own dead. The next time Noah saw them, all the holes had been filled and color restored by the morticians.

  Apparently, in this new world, nobody protected anybody from the sight of the dead. On the contrary, death had become the new entertainment.

  Dried candle wax mingled with dust and blood to form clumps in the colorless sand. The candles had burned down to nothing, but the arrangement implied a cross. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was a Catholic death ritual—but that kind of thing hadn’t been done since the Crusades.

  Noah regarded the stone altar in the center of the heads, not much more than a pile of rocks, drenched in the blood of the victims. By the look of the trampled ground, at least twenty people had watched as they’d been carved up and sacrificed. Based on the blood trails and disturbances in the sand, the killers had held each man over the stone altar while someone carved a cross in their torso, piercing the heart and jetting blood over the stone. Then, as the bodies quieted, they’d arranged them in a circle, heads in and feet out.