The man on horseback was getting closer, could see him in the distance.
Grady struggled over to where the ATV landed, upside down. He was too weak to flip it upright. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway, it was busted.
He managed to pull the saddlebag from underneath, then he struck out on foot. For where, he had no idea.
63
HOWDY AND ROY WERE SURPRISED TO SEE THREE RIDERS approaching instead of two. When he pulled his binoculars and saw the big gauze bandage, he chuckled and muttered, “I’ll be damned.”
As they rode up, Slim broke into a grin and said, “Howdy, you remember Jodie’s first husband, don’t you?”
Howdy pointed at him. “The one she never told us about?”
“That’s him.”
“Sure,” Howdy said. “Hey, Jake.”
Roy aimed his thumb at the reptile retailer. “I told you somebody was following us.”
Howdy said, “So how’s that finger doin’?”
Jake uncorked his canister and took a whiff. “What finger?” He gave a loopy smile and saluted with his gauzy hand.
“Ohhh.” Howdy sort of tipped his head sideways in thoughtful fashion, said, “Well, it was probably the right thing to do.”
“Hell yes,” Jake said. “Like havin’ an extra ten grand in the pocket.”
Howdy turned to look at Jodie. “And just think, half of that could’ve been yours.”
Jodie twisted up an acrid smile and said, “When you boys are done, maybe we could get back on the trail of the nice man who kidnapped me.”
“Plenty of time for that,” Howdy said. “He flipped his ATV right over there. Set out on foot. Took off that way.” He pointed toward a large rock outcropping.
“That’s Lujan’s Hill,” Jake said. “He’s probably up in that big cave.”
“It’s got a name?”
“Does if you’re a local.” Jake sniffed the canister again. “Famous old smuggler named Eliodoro Lujan used it for drops, pickups, storage, whatever. Smugglers probably still usin’ it,” Jake said. “It’s at the end of a shallow box canyon, about ten feet up a steep path. Real easy to defend, but you’re trapped.”
Slim said, “Howdy, did you get a look at the guy?”
“Only from a distance, from behind,” Howdy said. “But he’s got to be in pretty bad shape. He was already shot and bleeding before he flipped his ATV.”
“We better hurry then,” Roy said darkly, cigarette dangling from his lips. “Don’t want him to die before I get a chance to kill him.”
They rode to the mouth of the canyon and made plans. It was suicide to charge straight up the trail if the cave had a strategic advantage, so they opted for diplomacy. They figured the first thing to do was try to talk him into surrendering in exchange for getting to a doctor. If he refused, they knew they could just wait him out.
“It’ll take one tough hombre to choose to die like that,” Roy said.
They elected Howdy ambassador. The canyon was narrow, wide enough for a man or a horse but too narrow for much else. As Howdy worked his way in, he could see the kidnapper’s tracks leading straight for the cave. Howdy got close enough to be heard. He yelled, “You’re bleeding pretty bad, friend! Your best bet’s to come on out and let us get you to a doctor!”
In response, Grady fired a couple of shots and yelled back in a loony south-of-the-border accent. “¡Vaya al infierno! We are Los Zetas! My associates are coming. Leave now or die!”
Howdy thought the man sounded a lot more Cuban than Mexican, in fact more like Al Pacino playing Tony Montana than anything else.
The reason for this was twofold: One, Grady was a big fan of Scarface and, two, at the moment, he was high as a weather balloon. The reason for this was simple. It turned out that smugglers were still using the cave, as Jake suggested. The place was stacked to the roof with bales of seedy Mexican pot, cartons of Ecstasy, and bricks of methamphetamine and cocaine just waiting to be picked up and carried across the border.
By the time Slim, Howdy, and their posse showed up, Grady had been in the cave for nearly an hour, self-medicating. He started with the cocaine, using it as a topical where he’d been shot and on all the strawberries he got wrecking the ATV, and some on the gums. Then he popped some X and snorted just enough meth to help keep him awake and thinking clearly. He was feeling much better now. Much bolder too. In fact, he dared anybody to come in after him. He fired a few more shots out toward the desert and yelled, “¡Metete el pito por los oidos!”
Instead of that, Howdy stuck his finger in his ear, scratched it, and said, “Hold that thought.” He went back to where the others were waiting. “He ain’t interested in surrender,” Howdy said. “Should we just wait him out?”
“Let him bleed to death?”
“That’s up to him.” Howdy shrugged.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Slim said, his impatience showing. He went to his saddlebag and pulled out the ether. He stuffed the rag in the mouth of the bottle like a Molotov cocktail.
Jake leaned in for a look. “Whatcha got there?”
“Ether,” Slim said.
“Are you crazy?” Jake backed up. “That shit’s explosive!”
“That’s the point,” Slim said. “What if we throw this over there? When the dust settles, we’ll tell him the next one goes in the cave if he doesn’t surrender.”
“But we don’t have a next one,” Jodie said.
“Yeah,” Slim said. “But he doesn’t know that.”
Nobody could think of a good reason not to give it a try, so Slim turned to Roy with his hand outstretched and said, “Borrow your lighter?” Roy tossed it to him.
Slim was about to put the flame to the rag when Jake’s good hand stopped him. “Hang on,” he said, pointing toward something on the horizon. They all looked. Two black Hummers driving hard in their direction. “Looks like we got company.”
“The guy said his partners were coming.” Howdy seemed surprised. “I figured it was a bluff.”
“Looks real to me,” Jake said. “We better take cover.”
Roy told everybody to spread out and hide while he got the horses out of sight. Slim, Jodie, and Jake hid in the rocks to the left of the canyon, Howdy and Roy to the right.
A couple of minutes later the two Hummers pulled to a stop, one behind the other. Eight armed men got out, stretching and casually milling around the vehicles. One guy stepped aside to take a piss.
Based on how casually the smugglers were acting, Roy figured the men hadn’t seen them as they approached. He further assumed they had come to pick up or deliver contraband. Either way, Roy thought, if they went in the cave he could kiss his $150,000 good-bye, not to mention the satisfaction of killing the kidnapper. And he couldn’t let that happen.
So he took careful aim and shot the man just as he zipped his fly.
And then all hell broke loose.
The other smugglers dove behind the Hummers, yelling in Spanish, racking their weapons. One of them shouted where he’d seen the shot come from and all seven men stood and opened fire on Roy’s position.
Roy pressed himself so hard to the ground he was getting dirt in his ear. The shrapnel of rock and lead was flying like a hailstorm coming from all directions.
Slim and the others knew they had to do something fast or Roy’s goose was cooked. They reacted instinctively. Slim and Howdy opened fire on the Hummers, Jake and Jodie joined a second later. Howdy got one smuggler. Slim wounded another. Air hissed out of the big tires and the windows exploded.
The smugglers didn’t know whether to shit or go fishing. All they knew was that a lot of people were shooting at them from five or six hidden positions while they were stuck behind their Hummers. There was no way to sneak up on or flank their enemy without crossing a hundred yards of open space like a target in a shooting gallery. So they stayed put, taking whatever shots they could get.
Roy didn’t like his angle, couldn’t get a good shot, decided he needed a better position. He figur
ed if this was his last great day, he couldn’t be timid about it. He was going for higher ground. He’d gone ten feet when he took one in the shoulder, knocking him off balance. He slipped on some loose rocks, slid down the incline, wrenching a knee before landing in the open, exposed to the smugglers’ fire and unable to move.
Jodie jumped and yelled, “Uncle Roy!”
They all knew he’d be dead soon if somebody didn’t get there quick. “I got him,” Howdy said. “Cover me!”
Slim and Jake laid a blanket of fire as Howdy made a mad dash for Roy’s position, scrambling over rocks, ducking and dodging as he went. He hit the desert floor, running like hell as the smugglers emerged when they could to spray the air with automatic lead. Then he saw Jodie, ahead of him. She was hell-bent for leather as she hurtled through the scrub, solely focused on saving her uncle.
Howdy saw one of the smugglers step out from behind the Hummer to pick her off. Shooting across his body on a dead run, Howdy got the guy’s attention long enough for Slim to draw a bead and finish the job.
Jake, meanwhile, was using his rifle to keep the smugglers jumpy. He wasn’t aiming to kill, just to let them know he could if he wanted.
Jodie reached Uncle Roy and tried to drag him to safety but it was too much for her to do alone. “Get to cover!” Roy said. But she wasn’t leaving him. She got between him and the smugglers and used her last three bullets. Like she was his godfather.
Howdy was almost there. He could feel the lead rocketing past him and he said a little prayer, though he used some words that weren’t usually heard in church. He dove, like sliding headfirst into second, all the while shouting, “Get him! Go! Go! Go!” He never stopped moving, rolled up to his feet, grabbed Roy’s arms, and muled him over to a spot behind a boulder, lucky to be alive, and they all knew it.
Everything was adrenaline and chaos. They were huffing like race horses as they checked Roy’s wound. It wasn’t good. Jodie said he’d be all right, not because she knew he would but because that seemed like the best thing to say. She wiped his forehead with her sleeve and wondered what was going to happen next.
There was a momentary lull as everyone reloaded, a brief season of quiet, except for the hungry breathing and the slide of cartridges and magazines into metal slots.
After a minute, Howdy raised Slim on the radio. “We’re holed up behind a rock,” he said. “Roy’s bleeding some, but Jodie says he’ll make it. How ’bout y’all?”
“We’re good up here,” Slim said. “Looks like four of these guys are still in the game, maybe five.” He paused. “Hang on a second.” Paused again. “I hear something.”
It was the unexpected roar of a V8 engine, suddenly amplified when a large rock peeled off the muffler and the rest of the pipes from the undercarriage of the El Camino.
The smugglers spun around just as it roared over a dune and came crashing onto the desert floor. It fishtailed a few times before straightening out, plowing straight toward them.
The Big Goon was at the wheel, one bloody hand out the window, gripping a gun, taking potshots because that was all he had left.
There was nothing between the smugglers and the El Camino. All they could do was shoot back as the thing bore down on them, hope to kill the driver or the engine or something.
Slim saw his opportunity. It was now or never, and he had to be fast. He grabbed the jar of ether and Roy’s lighter. The Hummers were too far to hit from where he was. Had to get closer. The smugglers turned their backs to deal with the oncoming El Camino and Slim made a break for it, racing into wide-open space, nothing to protect him. He got as close as he needed, stopped, and pulled out the lighter. Flick.
But the desert wind blew it out.
The El Camino bore down on the Hummers as the smugglers unloaded on it.
Slim flicked the lighter again. Wind blew it out. And again. No luck. Flick, flick. “C’mon!”
The smugglers were between a rock and a hard place. If they stayed, they’d get crushed in the collision. If they ran, the snipers in the rocks could pick them off.
Slim had his thumb going like a piston now. Flick, flick, flick, flick, flick. “C’mon!” The wind kept blowing it out. Flick, flick, flick, flick, flick. He hunched over to shield the wind. Finally, it caught.
One of the smugglers turned back around, considering his options. When he did this, he saw a tall man in dark glasses standing just twenty yards away, something flaming in his hands.
The smuggler figured whatever it was couldn’t be good. He squeezed off a few shots but Slim held his ground, didn’t flinch, couldn’t afford to. He made the heave, the flaming cloth trailing from the bottle as it arched gracefully toward the Hummers.
The El Camino got there first, doing about seventy. It was a stunning collision. An enormous sum of energy, noise, and destruction. Tons of steel and gasoline, mass and velocity, meeting in a single violent moment, splitting gas tanks and launching the Big Goon through the windshield like a three-hundred-pound rag doll.
The ether explosion a moment later was an astonishing second act. The bottle shattered in the midst of all the fumes and gasoline, triggering a hellish, roiling fireball.
Jake, who happened to be taking a whiff off his canister at the moment, looked at the expanding orange-and-black bubble rising toward the blue desert sky and said, “Whooaaa.”
When the dust finally settled and there was nothing left but the smoldering carcasses of the vehicles, they could see the three surviving smugglers retreating into the desert on foot.
Jake came down from the rocks to retrieve the horses and the first-aid kit. Roy let Jodie patch his shoulder, but not without manly complaint. “Oh, hell, I’m all right,” he said. “No need to treat me like I’m a little baby. Ow!” He jerked away when she hit it with the alcohol.
Jodie smirked, said, “You’re a tough old bird, all right.” She gave him a kiss on the head, which also required him to feign objection.
Slim, Howdy, and Jake just kind of stood there, quietly watching Jodie tend to her uncle. As she reached for some tape, she noticed something and gestured at Howdy’s left leg. “What happened to you?”
Howdy looked down and saw the bloody hole in his jeans. Didn’t even realize he’d been hit during his mad dash to Roy’s side. He ripped the hole a little wider to take a look. “Yeah, you know, now that I see it, it hurts a little.” He cleaned it out and slapped a bandage on it. Wasn’t terrible, he said. He’d live. As he was doing this, he thought, Bullets, like love, always leave a scar. Or should it be, Love, like a bullet, always leaves a scar? Seemed like that might be worth exploring. He wished he had his notepad.
As Jodie finished taping the patch of gauze over Roy’s wound, he looked up at Jake and said, “You did some good shooting back there, son. I may have underestimated you by a bit.” He gave a respectful nod. “I’d say you’re all right.”
Jake tipped his hat to the old man, whom he’d always liked, despite everything. “Glad I could be of help, Mr. Hobbs.”
“And you two,” Roy said, wagging a finger at Slim and Howdy. “Thank you.”
Slim accepted it with a gracious nod. Howdy touched a finger to the brim of his hat and said, “Still one thing left to do.”
“Yep.” Roy buttoned his shirt and got to his feet. “Let’s go do it.”
They talked strategy and reloaded before returning to the canyon. Once again, Howdy approached the cave and called out to the kidnapper, suggesting that surrender and medical treatment was still his best bet.
But there was no response.
“Maybe he’s dead,” Jake said as he bent down to see if there were any tarantulas under a rock.
“Or maybe he’s playing possum,” Roy countered. “Trying to lure us in.”
After a moment of hesitation that might also be viewed as time to think, Howdy moved a little closer to the cave, cutting across the path, purposely leaving himself exposed to the gunman to see if he was paying attention.
But no shots were fired.
>
Slim moved closer, same as Howdy, pausing to tempt the kidnapper into taking a shot.
But nothing happened.
A moment later, Jake and Jodie moved up behind Slim and Howdy and they all started to think the kidnapper had bled to death. Howdy yelled again but there was still no reply. Slim threw a rock into the cave. Nothing.
So they started up the steep path to the entrance, quiet as they could. Slim and Howdy in front, Roy bringing up the rear, a bit behind the rest of them, thanks to his bum knee. Jake and Jodie were in between. As they got closer they heard something coming from inside. They all crouched, knowing it would do them little good if the kidnapper came out shooting now. But no such thing happened.
They listened for a moment before Slim said, “Is that . . . singing?”
They looked at one another with curious, squinting expressions before Howdy said, “Sounds like that Youngbloods song, ‘Get Together.’ ”
“I love that song,” Jake said. And he started to sing, “C’monnnn people now . . .”
Jodie gave him a cross look and held up a finger. “Shhhhhh.”
Jake dropped to a whisper. “Smile on your brother . . .”
Slim and Howdy crept into the cave, saw the bales of pot stacked to form a short wall ahead of them. The kidnapper was apparently on the other side, sitting on the ground, leaning against the bales.
They could hear him singing quietly to himself, “Try to lovvvve one anotherrrr . . .”
Slim and Howdy, guns drawn, came around the bales of dope and saw him sitting there, with the saddlebag in his lap, rocking gently back and forth as he sang. They looked closer as if hoping there was some chance it was just a guy who looked like Grady, but they knew better.
It was him.
He was bruised and bleeding. Not that he seemed to mind. His pupils were dilated, his mouth was dry, and he was clenching his jaw from all the Ecstasy he’d taken, which explained why he didn’t mind the bruises and bleeding.
The Adventures of Slim & Howdy Page 24