by Billy Kring
“You have loyal drivers, and enough vehicles?”
Ellis said, “And enough guards, plus RL and me. Whatever you need transported, we will guarantee it to get there.”
RL looked out of the corner of his eye at Ellis. That was a rash statement to make, and it sounded like he expected RL to go into Texas, even though every law department in West Texas was looking for him. Oh, he didn’t like Ellis saying that at all.
Flavio rubbed his hands together, “We’re going to make some major coin with this one.”
Ellis clapped RL on the shoulder as he said, “What I’m planning on.”
RL flinched, but no one seemed to notice. He wondered if there was a way he could skip town, go somewhere far away, maybe Alaska, or down south to Cancun, some place like that. He thought about that one boy still loose and out there somewhere, the boy who had seen all the terrible things as they happened.
**
Adan covered a lot of desert on his first day walking. He stayed far enough away from the highway that he couldn’t see it from the rises, but close enough that he heard vehicles travelling up and down it.
Odd things he noticed while walking kept him busy, even though most of them were discarded items tossed from passing vehicles and the wind had carried them far into the desert on vague paths. Some caught on thorns, some against large rocks, and others lying in the open, deflated as a flattened birthday balloon. For some reason, Adan thought of a red balloon like the one in the Stephen King novel, It. The book was one of those his mother bought at the store for him, bringing it and the other home in a sack. He liked the King books, all of them.
Adan picked up several plastic bags that weren’t torn on thorns and snags and put them in his pocket for later use in food gathering. A mile further on, he found an empty water bottle, complete with the screw-on lid. Opening it to sniff told him it had only contained water. He carried it in his hand at first, and later put in in one of the plastic sacks and tied the sack on a belt loop. A pitaya the size of a truck tire grew in the shade of a huge gray boulder and Adan inspected it to find the fruits plentiful among the thousands of thorns, which told him the birds and javelinas hadn’t found it. He found two pieces of a dry lechugilla stalk and used them like tongs to pick out the fruit. He wound up with a double handful of the red, juicy morsels and ate half of them. The flavor burst in his mouth and he let the juice trickle down his parched throat before chewing and swallowing. The remaining half went into his plastic sack.
Feeling recharged after eating the fruit, Adan continued on toward Terlingua. One of the animal watering places caught his eye and he walked to it, even though it was close to the highway.
One vehicle went by, but he didn’t think they saw him, and he continued to the guzzler.
**
Anselmo spotted the kid’s head bobbing through the pasture, but continued driving so the kid, Adan, wouldn’t run. He said to Ben, “You see him?”
“Who?”
“That kid.”
“Adan?”
“Yeah, that one. He’s out there in the pasture, walking like he’s out for a stroll.”
“Where is he goin’?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Probably Terlingua. That’s the direction he’s headed.”
Anselmo said, “Make a call.”
Ben pulled out his phone and punched in the number.
Ellis answered, “What’s up?”
“We found that kid, Adan. He’s walking through the desert and paralleling highway 118.”
“You got your partner with you?”
“Yep.”
“Take care of it.” He paused, “I thought that kid died in the desert somewhere.”
“Tougher than he looks.”
“Evidently. Finish it this time.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Got you, jefe.”
He hung up. “So, what’s the game plan?”
Ben said, “Get ahead of him and set up an ambush.”
“Are we gonna shoot him?”
“That’s a last resort. This is a kid. I think we can handle him, don’t you?”
“Okay. We might have to chase him some on foot.”
“We’re both in shape, we walk all over this desert, I think we can catch him if we need to.”
“Let’s go get the little bastard.”
They turned around and drove towards Terlingua, with Santiago Peak seven miles off their left window. Ben said, “There’s a ranch gate up there in the next set of low hills, I have a key and we can go in there, be right in his path.”
Anselmo nodded, and they drove until Ben pointed ahead, “There, that red gate.” He used the key and they were on the ranch in seconds, soon finding a good ambush point where the hills closed and there was a narrow pass through them no wider than two people abreast could walk. “We get down there, we have him.”
“Not down there. Did you look close?”
“What?”
“All that brown down there, that’s dog pear, and it is thick as hell.”
Ben knew what dog pear was, some of the worst cactus anyone could encounter in the desert. It grew short, not higher than six inches, and clumped together in patches that could cover an acre or more. The cactus limbs were shaped like the fruit on prickly pears, but earth-colored and covered with tough spines three inches long. Those pod-like pieces broke off easily, and because of the stiff thorns would be sprung from the ground and often into the stomachs and legs of horses, and the buttocks and thighs of careless men and women.
Last year, Ben found one deer standing in the center of a patch, with so many nodes of cactus stuck on its legs and stomach that it wouldn’t move rather than feel more pain. Coyotes had chased it there, but hadn’t gone in the thorns themselves. Ben knew from painful experience how severe the sticks could be. The thorns also had a rough surface that, when stuck in, would resist pulling out. Like a porcupine quill, one old man told him. Pliers were handy in a ranch vehicle, and the dog pear thorns were where they had good use.
He looked into the other draws around them, and each was heavy with the pear, and some were choked with it. The small hill tops were clear, but in almost every draw around them, there was the cactus.
Anselmo looked around from their high vantage point and saw two people moving in the desert. One was Adan, and the other, a slender woman wearing a faded orange baseball cap and coming at an angle to intercept the boy.
**
Hunter Kincaid spotted Adan in the pasture as she drove toward Terlingua to meet with Carlo Diaz. The boy was three hundred yards from the highway, moving steady and sure. When she slowed, he disappeared, and Hunter knew it was because Adan didn’t recognize her. She thought about yelling, but she wasn’t sure if he could hear her or not. Nope, she’d go far enough ahead to park and walk into the desert and wait for him that way.
She parked not far from the many low hills that dotted the landscape, and walked out to a point where she had a good field of vision. She waited there, sitting on a round boulder. She thought as she sat in the shade of a small hill, Raymond was coming to Terlingua just to hang out with her and get out of his house because his wife, Connie, was complaining about him getting three days off without pay. His wife was like that.
A movement out on the desert flat caused her to focus on it. She spotted movement again. It was Adan, about a quarter-mile away, and coming her direction. Good. She would wait on him to reach her.
Seventy yards behind and above her on the hill, Ben and Anselmo crouched behind rocks and looked at one another with wide eyes. Ben said in a quiet voice, “What the hell do we do now?”
Anselmo’s tongue touched his lower lip, “We have to catch both of them.”
“She’s not in uniform, but she always carries. She’s dangerous.”
“Her focus is on the kid. We can use it to trap them both.”
“How?”
Anselmo told him.
Hunter sat on the boulder and waited until
Adan was fifty yards from her before she stood and waved at him. The twelve-year-old stopped and froze, like a deer when it sees movement. “Adan, it’s me, Hunter.”
A smile broke on his face, and he started toward her, slowly at first, then at a trot and finally a full out run. She saw he was crying as he ran, and when he reached her, he clutched her waist hard and buried his face on her chest. Big sobs issued, and she held him, smoothing his hair and murmuring comforting words.
After a couple of minutes, he sighed deep and looked up at her. His face showed his grief. “Dario is dead, they shot him, they killed my friend.”
“There was nothing you could do.”
He held her and drew strength from the contact. “I am glad you found me.”
“You’re a tough one to find.”
The metallic sound of two pump shotguns being racked jerked Hunter’s head to the side, where Ben and Anselmo stood with the weapons at their shoulders.
Anselmo said, “Niño, get the woman’s pistol and bring it here. Hold it by the barrel, two fingers.”
Adan looked at Hunter, who said, “It’s under my shirt on the belt, left side. Go ahead, Adan.”
“You try anything, kid, and I shoot her first, then you.”
Ben was sweaty, even in the dry heat. His palms felt slick, and he lowered the shotgun to wipe them on his pants. Anselmo’s loud voice cracked like a whip, “Ben!”
Ben jerked, and his partner growled, “The hell you doing? Keep your shotgun on that bitch.”
Ben raised his weapon and looked down the barrel at Hunter, who showed no fear, only anger. Her glare made Ben squirm. He thought, if this woman had a gun, she would kill him and not even blink.
Anselmo motioned Adan to bring the pistol. Adan thought about trying to use it, but he had never fired one before, so he did as the man asked.
The man snatched it from the boy’s fingers and turned it in his hands. “A Glock 21, huh? A girl like you carries a .45?” He took out the magazine and counted the rounds. “Thirteen, plus one in the pipe. You expecting a war?” He held it out as if he was aiming. “How does it shoot?”
Hunter held out her hand, “I’ll show you.”
Anselmo laughed, “I bet you would.”
Ben said, “We gonna load them up in the truck, or what?”
“Be patient. Let me think.”
Hunter edged toward Ben’s shotgun that he held so loose in his hand.
Anselmo said, “Use your flexcuffs on ‘em.”
“In front?”
“No, cuff them with their hands behind them.”
Adan slipped his hand in his pocket and palmed the small arrowhead, holding it loose, then suddenly coughing and covering his mouth with the same hand. He slid the stone point into his mouth like a surreptitious chicklet, and placed it between his cheek and teeth, where it rested in the gutter. He didn’t know what he could do with it, but if they checked his pockets they would find nothing.
Ben pulled out two black, plastic restraints and cuffed Hunter first, then Adan.
Anselmo asked, “You get them snug?”
“Yeah. I don’t want them getting loose.”
Hunter said, “We’ll behave. You don’t need to do this.”
“How about because I don’t trust you, that’s why I need to do that. Tie their hands, Ben. Quit fooling around.”
He did, and when they were restricted, Ben checked their pockets. He put Hunter’s wallet and vehicle keys in one of Adan’s plastic bags, along with the pitaya fruit the boy still carried.
“Okay, they’re good to go.”
Anselmo led them off, going up the first hill at an angle.
As they walked, Hunter noticed the men stayed on the top or on the slopes of the hills. When she looked down in one of the shallow gullies, she knew why.
“How far to your vehicle?” Hunter asked.
Ben said, “A mile, maybe a little more.” Anselmo glared at him for talking.
They continued, with Adan and Hunter struggling on the slopes because of their hands behind them. After twenty minutes of walking and sliding and stumbling, Hunter stopped walking on the top of the next small hill. “You boys have any water? The kid and I are real thirsty.”
Anselmo leaned close to her, “Nope.”
“How about something to eat.”
The four people were close together on the edge of the hill, with Anselmo closest to Hunter. He turned to lead off, and Hunter whispered to Adan, “Get ready.”
Chapter 12
Adan didn’t know what was going to happen, but at Hunter’s words, he felt a flutter of adrenaline course through his system. He watched for any thing to happen, and yet, when it happened it was so fast he stood frozen.
Anselmo took a path that curved along the lip of the flat-topped hill. Ben walked behind Adan, so close he was only eight feet from his partner.
Hunter let a half-step add to the distance between herself and Anselmo, the lead man. She swung an incredibly fast roundhouse kick to the side of Anselmo’s head. The sound when her foot hit was like a fence post swung into an adobe wall. It was solid and deep, and seemed to vibrate the earth beneath Adan’s feet.
Anselmo went off the hill in a small arc, losing his shotgun and clawing the air as he fell into the rocky hill slope and then face first into the dark brown mass of dog pear at the hill’s base. His hands stretched forward toward the ground to break his fall, and they disappeared into the three-inch thorns, snapping off a dozen of the nodes and flipping them into the air and onto the man’s face and neck where the spines went deep and the cactus hung from his skin. His chest and stomach hit, then his legs. He lay in the thorns,
Ben seemed stunned, and Hunter charged him before he got his wits, ramming her head into his chest and then up into the bottom of his chin so hard his teeth clacked together to send small white chips of enamel into his mouth.
He staggered backward, tossing his shotgun off the hill as he waved his hands for balance. Hunter pushed again, then stepped quickly back as the man rolled off the slope toward the nightmare bed of thorns at the bottom. Sliding and bouncing, he clawed at the slope to stop his descent toward the dog pear. He slowed his fall enough so that he only slid into the edge of the thorns, with each one sending a terrible, burning combination of fire and pain as the rough spines pushed into his skin.
Someone poured gasoline on him and lit it while ramming in acid-dipped needles, that was the sensation on his forearm and leg from the hip down to his knee. It was intense, so much so that Ben could only make hissing noises, not words. It hurt if he even moved a finger.
The two men lay almost stupefied from the intense pain, and both panting in short, fast breaths like scared cottontails. Hunter looked down at them without pity. “Don’t move. I’ll send somebody for you when we get to town.”
Ben moved and immediately felt a long, rough thorn penetrate deep in his hip. It felt like someone poured burning acid in there. “Haahh!”
“Stop moving. Help is coming in a bit.” The men became like statues, trusting that Hunter meant it.
She led them away from the edge and said to Adan, “Let’s get these flexcuffs off us.”
“How?”
She sat on the ground and proceeded to move her hands under her rear and up behind her legs, then behind her calves and over her feet to leave her hands in front of her body. “Like that.”
She waited until he did the same, then she said, “Do this.”
She raised her bound wrists high, then brought them down with force at the same time she shot her knee up fast and hard between her wrists. The plastic cuffs snapped. “Now you.”
Adan had Hunter take the arrowhead out of his mouth, and he had to try three times before he got it. On the last try they broke with ease.
When they were both free, Hunter attempted to hand him the arrowhead, but he told her to keep it. She pocketed the point and said, “We’ll go to my pickup now, I have a spare key under the fender.”
Adan nodded. He sti
ll had the effects of the adrenaline he’d felt when Hunter took the two men out while cuffed behind her back. How did she do that? Adan was amazed, and feeling a bit of hero worship for her. He asked, “What about them?” He pointed behind him with his thumb.
“When we’re safe, we can call somebody. But not until we are safe.”
They moved at a fast walk, with Hunter checking Adan from the corner of her eye to make sure he was okay. The boy was like this country, she thought. Not lush, like a jungle, but peeled down to the essentials, and made of a rugged vitality many others did not have. He reminded her of the Apaches she read about, the ones from the nineteenth century, who their own legendary leader, Cochise, said of them, “The Apaches hang on to life by their fingernails.”
Adan asked, “Will you send me back to Mexico again?”
“I need to talk to the Deputy Sheriff, and some of my bosses because we might be able to keep you here for a while. No promises, but I will try.”
“Thank you, even if they say you can’t do that.”
She ruffled his dark hair. “First things first, we’ll get something to drink and eat. Then we’ll do the other stuff. Raymond’s coming down today, so he’ll be with us, too.”
“He is a nice man.”
Hunter felt herself smile, “Yes, he is. The best.”
They continued walking, covering ground in quick strides and on a direct path where Hunter left her pickup, even though they couldn’t see it from their place in the many small hills.
Adan said, “Is this the best way?”
“It’s the straightest way.”
“Okay.”
“Why, do you feel like we’re going in the wrong direction?”
“I have a feeling, that’s all.”
“Like what?”
He thought a moment, “Like someone’s watching us.”
She looked around, aware of the many hiding places near their position. “Did you see anybody?”
“Just a feeling.”
Hunter patted his shoulder, “I think we’ll trust your feelings. Which way should we go?”
Adan pointed, “That way. It will be a little farther and off to the side, then we can turn and come in to the truck from a different direction.”