Dead Man's Land

by Jack Patterson

  “They’re great—except for the lizards.”

  Cal cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “The lizards?”

  “Lizards, iguana—a big green animal with scaly skin that crawls.”

  “You don’t like them?”

  “I’d rather have Aroldis Chapman throw at my head than have to be in a room with a lizard.”

  Cal snickered. “Has Chapman thrown at your head before?”

  “More than once when we were in Cuba—and I still hate lizards more.” He paused. “Just today, I was on the couch with my host family’s kids watching a movie and one of the boys thought it would be funny to put their lizard on my shoulder. I just looked at them and said, ‘If you don’t get this lizard off of me in five seconds, I can’t promise it will live after I sling it against the wall.’ They took it off quickly.”

  Cal laughed and shook his head.

  They rode along in silence for a few minutes until Cal re-engaged him in conversation. “Your English is excellent. Most of the Cuban players I’ve met who’ve only been here a short time struggle with English.”

  Prado smiled. “I used to hang out at the docks and talk to tourists when I was a kid. I picked it up right away. But I didn’t really grasp it until one of the foreigners gave me their English-Spanish dictionary. I didn’t let everyone know about it because it’s not something that’s encouraged.”

  Cal’s eyebrows shot upward. “So you got this good at speaking the language just by reading a dictionary?”

  “No, that just helped my vocabulary. But I met a guy about two years ago who really helped me with the language. He said something to me in English one day and I turned around and answered him. I think I caught him off guard. We later started talking and began to meet regularly. He wanted to talk in English with someone and I wanted to learn. It worked out well.”

  “So not many people know about your special talent?”

  He shook his head. “I heard it was best to keep that hidden so you don’t have to talk to newspaper reporters.”

  Cal laughed. “You’re not doing a very good job at it, but if you want me to keep your secret safe, I will.”

  Prado nodded. “Thank you. I’m still afraid I might say something stupid and look like a fool.”

  “I share that same concern over what I write every day. Eventually, someone is going to discover that I really am the fool.”

  “I doubt that. You seem like a kind person.”

  “You haven’t seen me before noon. I can be quite grumpy in the morning.”

  “If I see you acting that way, I’ll call you a malhumorado. It will be your nickname.”

  “Of course! Everyone from Cuba has a nickname. It’s more of a national pastime than baseball.”

  Prado cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “That’s taking it a little too far.”

  “What’s your nickname?”

  “El Roque.”

  “The Rock?”

  Prado smiled and nodded proudly.

  “Did you get it playing baseball?”

  “No—chopping rocks in the quarry.”

  “Well, it’s a great name, but you might want to consider getting a new one.”

  Prado drew back. “Why?”

  “Because there’s a pretty famous actor with the same name. And while you’re a big guy, he’s far bigger.”

  “Do they call him El Roque, too?”

  Cal shook his head. “No, just ‘The Rock.’ ”

  “Unless he suddenly becomes Hispanic, I’m keeping my name.”

  Cal smiled. “Well, I still like it—even if you have to share it.”

  The break in their conversation occurred partially due to the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger was pounding a helpless man’s head into the pavement on the monitors scattered throughout the bus. A fiery explosion in the background didn’t faze him as he forced the evil villain into submission.

  Cal tapped Prado and pointed at the screen. “Does Cuban television show such violence?”

  “We don’t get many American-made movies in Cuba, but there are plenty of violent films. Mostly Spanish-speaking movies about war. Nothing like this, though. I’ve seen too much real violence for this to bother me.”

  Cal wanted to ask him a follow-up question based on his response but decided against it.

  The bus made a sudden shift right and exited I-84 for a gas station. It rolled into the sleepy town of Baker City, Oregon, still over two hours outside of Boise.

  Cal noticed an old windmill fashioned in a Dutch style just beyond the neon glow of the gas station.

  “Pit stop,” the bus driver said on the intercom. Many of the players were asleep, but a few aroused to hustle off the bus and line up to relieve themselves inside. Others took the opportunity to use the cramped bathroom located at the back of the bus.

  Cal didn’t move and neither did Prado.

  Once Cal started to search for music on his iPhone. He swiped upward through several screens until Prado grabbed his wrist.

  “Wait—is that Chichi Peralta?” Prado asked, pointing at Cal’s phone.

  Cal stopped and looked up slowly, eyeing his companion cautiously. “Yes. Do you know Chichi’s music?”

  Prado broke into a salsa rendition of chair dancing. “He’s my favorite.”

  “So, no Schwarzenegger movies, but Chichi Peralta? Maybe Cuba isn’t such a bad place.”

  Prado shook his head. “It’s not perfect, but Cubans know how to dance and celebrate.”

  Cal handed one of his ear buds to Prado and cranked up “Me Enamore.” Prado started to juke and shift in his seat as a big smile spread across his face.

  “My favorite song,” he said.

  The bus jerked forward and pulled back onto the surface street leading to I-84 East.

  Before they reached the Interstate, Cal watched Prado’s face turn from a smile to a frown as the bus swerved back and forth.

  “What’s going on?” Prado asked.

  Cal craned his neck to look onto the road and saw nothing.

  The bus continued to swerve back and forth, drawing plenty of shouts and yelps from the players.

  “Hey! What’s going on up there?”

  “You falling asleep at the wheel?”

  But there was no reply.

  Cal stood up in his seat and peered down the aisle into the darkness. The driver appeared to grasp the wheel firmly with both hands, continually checking his side mirrors. Someone was trying to run him off the road.

  “What is it?” Prado asked.

  “I’m not sure, but it can’t be good.”

  Cal glanced out the window and caught a glimpse of the culprit—a black Hummer H2, weaving back and forth. At first Cal dismissed it as a drunk driver, but as he studied the scene more closely, he noticed this wasn’t an inebriated joy ride—this was intentional.

  Then a gun came out of the passenger-side window, gesturing for the bus to pull over.

  “What the—”

  Prado tugged on Cal’s shirt. “What’s happening?”

  “I think someone is trying to force our bus off the road.”

  Cal barely noticed Prado scrambling to open the window. It wasn’t until he felt Prado’s back against his shoulder that he noticed his new Cuban friend was terrified. Prado leaned back and kicked the window with both his feet, providing a sufficient hatch from which to escape.

  “What are you doing?” Cal asked.

  “They’re coming after me,” Prado said.

  “Who?”

  Prado didn’t answer. Instead, he jumped out of the window and landed on his feet. Cal watched him sprint into a nearby thicket.

  Wasting no time, Cal stood up in his seat and prepared to follow him. He froze when he heard the voice of a man bellowing at the front of the bus. The faint outline of two men appeared in the shadows at the entrance. Cal slowly crouched down.

  “Lights,” said one man, jamming his gun into the driver’s chest.

  The driver flicked on the lights.


  “Where is Vicente Prado?” the other man asked.

  The barrel of his shotgun glistened beneath the cabin lights. Nobody said a word.

  “I said, ‘Where is Vicente Prado?’,” the man repeated.

  Cal waited until the man looked away from his direction before he leapt onto his seat and jumped out of the window. He ran toward the last place he saw Prado before he disappeared.

  “El Roque!” Cal whispered as loudly as he could without drawing the gunmen’s attention.

  Cal noticed a hand waving toward him in the bushes.

  “Over here,” Prado said.

  Without hesitating, Cal broke into a dead sprint and raced toward Prado. He didn’t look back over his shoulder until he reached the shadows. He knelt down and looked back toward the bus in time to see one of the gunmen poke his head through the window opening and hear him let out a string of expletives.

  Cal looked at his new friend. “How did you know they were after you?”

  Prado shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”

  CHAPTER 6

  ANGEL TORRES DIDN’T HEAR the pair of feet hit the pavement in the distance. He was too busy seething while he shoved his gun into the faces of terrified players. He stomped down the aisle near the front of the bus before he grabbed the microphone again.

  “I’m only going to ask this one more time: Where is Vicente Prado?” he said.

  He noticed the large number of Hispanic players on the team and said it again in Spanish.

  “¿Dónde está Vicente Prado?”

  Still nothing.

  He fired a shot, shattering one of the windows. The players gasped and didn’t move.

  “Someone better tell me where he is right now!”

  Hector Suarez, seated the near front, broke the silence. “He didn’t make the trip. He was sick.”

  Torres, flanked by Ortega, reared back and slapped Suarez across the face. “Don’t try to make a fool of me. I know he was on this bus.”

  Mudcat stood up. “He’s right. Prado hurt his shoulder and remained in Yakima for treatment.”

  Torres fired another shot. “I don’t believe you! Where is he?”

  Ortega grabbed a program left on one of the seats near the front of the bus and handed it to Torres. “This might help.”

  Torres looked at it and smiled. “Okay, fine. We’ll do it the slow way. I’ve got a picture of everyone of you bastards and I’m going to match you up until I find Prado. Got it?”

  A few of the players nodded.

  “I said, ‘Got it?’”

  All the players mumbled, “Yes.”

  Torres systematically went down the aisle, inspecting each face and pairing it with the player’s photo. He marked off each one to make sure there was no trickery taking place.

  As Torres completed his checklist without finding Prado, he glanced down at his program again and furrowed his brow. He stopped and looked up before noticing one of the windows was open near a pair of empty seats.

  “Who was sitting here?” he asked as he surveyed the nearby players.

  They shrugged.

  “I’m not going to ask again,” Torres said. He pulled out his gun and shot the window, the shattered glass clinking onto the pavement outside.

  James Goodwin stood up and pointed at the window. “Prado left through the window.”

  Torres got near him and jammed his gun into the bottom of Goodwin’s jaw. “You’re not messin’ with me, are you, kid?”

  Goodwin shook his head.

  “Well, let’s go have a look.” He snatched the back of Goodwin’s shirt and marched him outside. Torres guided his prisoner near the bus window that he’d shot out only moments before.

  He took a deep breath before yelling into the night. “Vicente Prado, if you’re out there, you better come to me now. I don’t want to put a bullet in your friend’s head.”

  Torres peered into the night but heard nothing.

  “I’m not going to say it twice.”

  Still nothing.

  Torres waited another minute before he shoved Goodwin back toward the bus. “Get outta here before I shoot somebody. We’ve got work to do.”

  Once Goodwin climbed back onto the bus, the driver fired up the engine and jammed his foot on the gas. Torres watched the vehicle disappear into the night and turn east onto I-84.

  Ortega slipped up behind him. “Don’t worry. We’ll find him. He couldn’t have gotten far.”

  They rushed back to their Hummer and started to drive slowly along the road.

  “See anything?” Torres asked.

  “Not yet,” Ortega answered. “Just give it a few minutes. He’s not about to spend the night out here. He’s fresh off the boat.”

  “Yeah, well, they told me not to underestimate him.”

  Ortega peered into a cornfield, searching the small area dimly lit by his flashlight. “What do you think he did?”

  “They didn’t tell me. They just told me how much they’d pay me for bringing him back—and that’s far more than any percentage we made off his paltry signing bonus.”

  “You sure they’re going to pay us?” Ortega asked.

  “They better. I’m not handing him over until I’ve got the money in my possession. I won’t be taken.”

  “If you were, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Torres kept his gaze constant on the field on his left but slammed his right fist into Ortega’s chest. “I’ll make this the last mission you’re on with me if you keep up those wisecracks.”

  “Seriously? You’ll make this the last one? Please tell me that you mean it.”

  Torres turned and glared at Ortega. “Enough. Keep looking for Prado.”

  They puttered down the road and appeared to be headed into the city limits when Ortega shouted.

  “Wait! Over there!” he said, pointing into the darkness.

  “What is that?” Torres asked.

  “No. Who is that?” Ortega answered.

  They crept closer toward the silhouettes of two men, who broke out into a dead sprint.

  CHAPTER 7

  CAL FELT AS IF THE LIGHTS were burning a hole through him. Yet he took advantage of the illuminated path in front of him and took off running. Once he noticed a small wooded area ahead, he darted toward it.

  “Come on, El Roque. We need to move,” Cal said over his shoulder.

  He could hear Prado’s footsteps as they headed toward the trees.

  Cal wished this didn’t feel so familiar, but he’d been faced with life-threatening situations so many times that he wondered if it was the tension or sprinting that had raised his heart rate.

  What was I thinking, jumping out of that bus?

  It was far too late for regrets. Besides, he knew exactly what he was thinking: Vicente Prado had fast become his friend. Forget the assignment. This was about helping a guy survive—and hopefully thrive in America. He never even needed to write a single word about it.

  Breathing hard, Cal entered the swath of trees. Limbs slapped him in the face as he ran, undoubtedly doing the same to Prado behind him. Cal wanted to use his phone to light their path, but he didn’t want to alert the men to their position.

  “Where are we going?” Prado asked.

  “Somewhere safe—I hope,” Cal said between heaving breaths. “Keep moving.”

  A pale light shone down on a barn just beyond them through the trees. Cal thought it might be the perfect place to bed down if they evaded the men.

  Cal looked over his shoulder at Prado. “Let’s hide in the barn.”

  He leaped over a log in midstride, though Prado wasn’t so fortunate. He let out a string of Spanish expletives as his shins connected with the tree.

  “Come on,” Cal said. “We’re almost there.”

  He helped Prado up and they continued to stumble toward the barn.

  Once they reached the door, Cal slid the latch upward and slipped inside, holding it open for Prado. Cal pulled out his phone and quickly identified a
ladder leading to a hayloft in the back of the structure.

  “This way,” he said.

  They both scrambled up the ladder. Cal began to shove several stray bales of hay toward the edge of the loft, creating a barrier behind which they could hide.

  Prado seemed to understand the purpose of Cal’s actions and joined him in shoving the bales to the edge of the loft. He stacked the bales on top of each other, forming a larger barrier.

  “Good work,” Cal said.

  They both lay on their backs and tried not to breathe.

  The piercing cry of a hound dog broke the relative silence, followed by the slamming of a screen door.

  “What is it, girl?” bellowed a man’s voice. “What’d you see?”

  Oh, great.

  Cal knew it was challenging enough to try to escape a few crazy guys trying to kidnap Prado. But now he had a howling hound dog, who’d not only revealed their location to his master, but also to their assailants.

  Brilliant.

  The sound of feet, crunching on the dirt in the distance, made them both hold their breaths.

  A few seconds of silence.

  “There’s nothin’ out here. Stop barkin’ at squirrels,” the farmer grumbled.

  The screen door slammed behind him—and both Cal and Prado let out a sigh of relief.

  “Who are those guys after us? And what do they want?” Cal asked.

  Prado took a deep breath. “I think they want to take me back to Cuba.”

  “They can’t do that.”

  “But I think that’s what they want to do.”

  Cal shook his head as he stared into the darkness at the barn’s rafters. “Why? What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You said you saw something.”

  Prado took a deep breath. “I did—right before I left.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw a murder.”

  “And you think they want to risk an international incident and bring you back to Cuba because you witnessed a murder?”

  “I know that voice.”

  Cal wiped the sweat beading on his forehead. “What voice?”

  “The one that called out for me.”

  “Who is he then?”

  “He’s the guy who helped smuggle me out of Cuba.”