Lester cleared his throat, sitting up a little straighter in his seat, trying to regain some of the dignity stolen by riding in a school bus.
“What happens if one of them doesn’t come back?” he asked. “If I send my boy in there and they shoot him full of holes—”
“I told you, he’ll heal. Whatever damage they do—”
“—heals eventually,” Lester interrupted. “But what about tonight? If he’s too damaged to come back to where we’re waiting?”
Enoch stared at him, the glow in his eyes seeming to brighten. Zeke knew that there must have been others on the bus who had questions, but Lester was the only one who had dared to ask. This close to satiating his thirst for revenge, Enoch did not want to deal with their trifling doubts and fears, that much was clear.
“Then you go in and get him,” the little man said. “The cartel members inside the compound will already be dead.”
Lester started to speak again, but Enoch ignored him, turning to Vickers. “Drive.”
As they started moving again, bumping across hard terrain, Zeke turned to check on Savannah, whose condition seemed unchanged. He decided that was for the best. If she started to get her mind back now . . . he didn’t even want to think about it.
Glancing back toward the front of the bus, the desert moon casting the interior of the bus in a pale, ghostly light, he saw Aaron Monteforte shifting uncomfortably in his seat and caught a glimpse of the reason—a pistol jutting from Aaron’s rear waistband. Zeke frowned, wondering what the hell Aaron was thinking. Bringing his own weapon could have blown the whole operation if the border guards had been more vigilant.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Aaron beat him to it.
“Turn the bus around, Mr. Vickers,” he called, head bowed so that his voice was slightly muffled.
“Oh God, Aaron, don’t,” Linda Trevino said.
Enoch turned to glare at the young man.
“Fuck you and your spooky eyes, man,” Aaron said, growing more agitated. He shook his head and turned to look at his resurrected sister, reached out to touch her cheek, and then shot a hard look at Enoch. “We can’t do this. You’ve got to turn this fucking thing around.”
“Shut your mouth, son,” Lester growled.
Enoch stood but made no move toward the back of the bus. He seemed to ride the juddering rumble of the bus without needing to steady himself. In the moonlight, his eyes began to turn oil-black, gleaming with a terrible, deep malignance, as if the night itself began to glow from within him.
“You agreed to this,” Enoch said. “You bled for this. The bond has been forged. You can’t break it now.”
“Bullshit!” Aaron barked, jumping to his feet, one hand clamped on the back of the seat in front of him. “There’s no way a bunch of half-dead zombies are going to kill this fucking Carlos Aguilar. He’ll have a couple of dozen guys with guns around him. My sister can’t even speak! She can barely make eye contact, and she’s supposed to—”
“Sit down, boy,” Enoch said. Three words, but they reverberated through the bus as if the metal itself had spoken, the windows rattling with the power of his voice.
In that moment he did not seem like a little man at all.
“Sit down, or I will cut your sister into pieces the way they did my daughter.”
Aaron sat.
No one spoke.
Enoch’s chest rose and fell with barely contained fury, but at last he sat as well, turning to stare straight out the windshield. In the driver’s seat, Vickers’s hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. The bus’s headlights showed nothing ahead but scrub brush and desert but Vickers kept driving, with Enoch quietly urging him onward.
* * *
The bus shook mercilessly, and once Savannah struck her head on the window. Zeke saw her wince and his chest ached with cruel hope. If she had felt that—if it bothered her—then surely she must have been getting better. Such thoughts were the only things that kept him from screaming.
Vickers had driven through a rough no-man’s-land for nearly half an hour when, at last, Enoch commanded him to bring the bus to a creaking stop. When he killed the engine and turned off the headlights, their eyes quickly adjusted to the moonlight. Zeke blinked and rubbed at the bridge of his nose and when he looked up, Enoch had stood again.
“The compound is three miles due south, on foot. If we get any closer, they’ll see the headlights,” he said. “So we walk from here.”
Again, this was nothing they hadn’t been warned about, but even if any of the proxies wanted to complain, none of them would have dared. Not now. One by one, they took out their pipes and began to play, breaking off only to issue instructions to their broken loved ones, who staggered to their feet and shuffled off the bus, trapped halfway between the living world and the land of the dead. Vickers had gotten Martha off first and Enoch had put the gun crates on their seat, so that the proxies could each take a weapon as they climbed out into the cool night.
Zeke took one of the Mata Policias and stuck it into his waistband. He took a second gun, intending to keep the first for himself, and then blew a few extra notes on the pipe, just to make sure that he had Savannah’s attention and that she wouldn’t fall on the steps. For a moment, his mind went back to the hour of their departure, when he’d seen Skyler standing by the roadside with her hopeful, handmade sign. COME BACK, she’d written. But out there in the Mexican desert, home had never felt so far away. The future he hoped for, days of peace and laughter for himself and Savannah, seemed little more than a dream.
Out in the middle of nowhere, the day’s heat quickly vanished. Zeke saw many people shivering with the chill and it took him a moment to realize Martha Vickers was one of them. He exhaled a quiet thank-you to whatever powers might have been watching over them—if she could feel cold, maybe she really was creeping nearer to being fully alive again.
Savannah’s hand brushed his. Zeke turned toward her, heart pounding. She had been standing next to him, but had she touched him on purpose? He stared at her for several seconds as more people climbed off of the bus, guns stuck in pockets or carried in hand, aimed at the ground. It struck him that he had left her sweatshirt on the bus and he started back toward it, frustrated that he had to wait for the rest to get off and not wanting to leave Savannah alone for too long. Again, he thought of Skyler and her sign. COME BACK. Zeke stood at the bus door as Arturo Sanchez climbed off. The man stroked his graying mustache and played several notes on his blood-smeared pipe, and then Zeke found himself face-to-face with the resurrected corpse of Arturo’s mother. Her glazed eyes blinked and then narrowed, focusing on him, and Zeke found himself smiling at the dead woman. She’d seen him. Was aware of him. Another hopeful sign.
He had turned to say that to Arturo when the night erupted with the roar of multiple engines. Bright lights bathed the pitiful school bus from all sides.
“Mother of God,” Arturo whispered, turning and trying to push his mother back onto the bus.
Zeke tightened his grip on his second gun—the one intended for Savannah. He spun and ran toward her, instinct kicking in, knowing the thunder of those engines could only mean danger, and he would not allow her to die a second time. People were screaming around him, some picking up the barely alive and struggling to carry or drag them back toward the bus while others drew guns and aimed at the oncoming headlights.
“What the hell is this?!” Lester shouted at Vickers.
But Vickers’s eyes had gone wide like an animal’s and he drew Martha to him and began to cry, surrender etched deeply into his face.
Zeke reached Savannah. He stared into her eyes for a second. He knew she was in there, fanning the spark of life back into a flame, if only he could give her the time. He kissed her forehead, put one arm around her, and waited, gun ready.
“Enoch!” Lester shouted, rushing at the little man, whose eyes were once again alight with a golden glow. “What’s going on?!”
“Are you blind, Mr. Keegan?” Enoch said,
his words dripping with venom. “It’s an ambush.”
“No,” Lester said, shaking his head as he backed away, running to his son but twisting around as the five raised pickup trucks charged toward them. “This ain’t happening!”
“Lester!” Zeke shouted. “Get your shit together!”
He saw Lester freeze, nod, and then raise his pistol.
“All of you!” Lester shouted. “Guns up. Shoot the first son of a bitch who—”
A bullet blew out his left temple, spraying brain and bone shards onto his dead son. The gunshot echoed across the desert as Zeke screamed his friend’s name and turned to see that Aaron Monteforte had fired the shot, using the gun that had been tucked into his waistband. Sweating, eyes frantic, Aaron took aim at Zeke.
“Guns down, Mr. Prater,” Aaron said. “I don’t want to have to kill you.”
“Aaron,” Zeke said. “What—”
One by one, the pickups skidded to a halt, caging them all in a lattice of headlight beams. The men who jumped out of the backs of the trucks and climbed from the cabs carried assault rifles instead of pistols.
Zeke had watched his daughter die once, and he’d die himself before he would witness her murder again.
He raised his gun and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Around him, others had done the same. Arturo Sanchez ejected the magazine, trying to figure out what the hell went wrong, but it was too late. If there had been a moment when Zeke could have punished Aaron Monteforte for his betrayal, it had already passed.
The cartel gunmen surrounded them, gun barrels taking aim, promising death.
Zeke moved himself in front of Savannah. He could feel her reedy breath against the back of his neck and prepared to die for her.
8
Don’t be a hero, Zeke told himself, thinking only of Savannah. But as they were all herded together at gunpoint, their weapons torn violently from their hands, he realized that there would be no heroes that night.
The cartel gunmen stared at the resurrected dead amongst them and he caught several of the hardened killers crossing themselves and muttering quiet prayers. A few others laughed in amazement. One poked a finger through the bullet hole in Big Tim Hawkins’s neck and Alma shoved him away, leading to amazed chatter among the gunmen.
“Hold up, amigo,” Aaron Monteforte said, trying to extricate himself from the other pipers, all muscle and scruff and just enough bravado to veil his terror.
Aaron held his gun with the barrel aimed at Linda Trevino, who hugged her undead son, Ben—Ben, whom Savannah had once had such a crush on—and shielded him with her body. Tears streamed down Linda’s face, but she did not beg to be left alone. She was smart enough to know there was little chance of that at this point.
“Put it down, asshole,” one of the gunmen said to Aaron, the moonlight making the jagged scar on his left cheek look like mother-of-pearl.
“Whoa,” Aaron said. “I’m with you guys.”
Zeke felt bile burning up the back of his throat and his fingers flexed, either wishing for another weapon or wanting to be wrapped around Aaron Monteforte’s throat, or both.
The man with the gleaming scar raised his assault rifle, braced it against his shoulder, and took aim. “Gun on the ground, chingado. Now.”
Aaron held up his left hand and gently lowered his weapon to the dirt. “Okay, all right. But take a breath, man. I’m with you, I said. All this shit wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for me. Ask Carlos—”
A cluster of cartel thugs scattered, parting like the Red Sea as a tall man strode amongst them.
Unlike the rest, the newcomer carried no gun, only a hunting knife sheathed at his hip. His white cotton shirt and brown dress pants had clearly been tailored to fit his slim, powerful physique and seemed out of place amongst the denim and leather of the others. The shoes on his feet were of a soft leather that must have cost a fortune. With his thick mane of hair slicked back, curling at the ends, and his beard trimmed to a stylish severity, he looked as if he had just walked out of a business meeting and into a nightclub.
“Ask Carlos what?” the man inquired.
Aaron exhaled. “Carlos . . . Mr. Aguilar . . . tell ’em, please. Tell ’em I helped you.”
Aguilar nodded emphatically, spreading his arms wide as if in a spirit of generosity.
“Did he help me?” Aguilar said, turning a radiant smile on his prisoners, both living and not quite. “Absolutely, he helped me. You should all know that. Your friend, here . . . he’s been working for me for more than a year.”
“You son of a bitch!” Alma Hawkins cried, pushing forward to loose a wad of spittle that did not reach its target. She had one hand on her roundly pregnant belly as if she could protect the baby inside . . . just as Linda Trevino held Ben and Zeke stood in front of Savannah. Behind her, Big Tim Hawkins stood numbly, his gaze following her the way it might a hypnotist’s pocket watch.
Aguilar gestured the scarred man away from Aaron, walked over and picked up Aaron’s gun from the ground.
“I agree with you, lady,” Aguilar said, nodding again. “He is indeed a son of a bitch. Running drugs through your town. Selling to kids. Giving up the names of the motherfuckers on the Texas Border Volunteers, the guys putting my business on video for the border patrol . . . it’s just un-American.”
The cartel enforcer tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t manage it, and his men all laughed along with him. Looks of hatred and despair appeared on the faces of the herded pipers who were clustered together with the resurrected.
“Look at that, hermanos. It’s true.” Aguilar turned to grin at his men. “I see dead people.”
More laughter raced around the circle of killers. Aguilar’s eyes lit up with dark intelligence and unsettling hunger.
“I mean, I’ve heard of this kind of shit but never thought I’d see it,” he said.
Zeke felt the others closing in around him and Savannah, everyone wanting to move as far away from the guns as they could, and he pushed back, trying to keep her safe. He glanced up and caught Tommy Jessup gazing at him with desperate eyes, silently imploring him to do something. Zeke turned away; there was nothing to be done except ride it out.
“Mr. Vickers, please,” he heard someone say, but when Zeke glanced at Vickers, he saw that the man still hugged Martha close, his eyes as dead as his wife’s.
Zeke glanced around and saw redheaded Harry Boyd holding the hand of his grown son, Charlie, the way he must have done when Charlie was a boy. His expression was stern, his eyes steel, just waiting. Zeke pushed past the Jessup kid and guided Savannah toward Boyd.
“Look after her, Harry,” he said, giving her a last shove. Savannah shuffled enough to get to Boyd and Zeke kissed her temple without looking at her face. If he had, he knew he wouldn’t have had the courage to turn away.
“We’ll make a deal!” Zeke called out, pushing his way through the herd.
Half a dozen weapons swung toward him, the dark holes of their barrels almost seeming to dare him to take another step.
“What are you doing?” Arturo Sanchez hissed.
But standing out there, outside the circle of his friends and neighbors and the risen dead who comprised all the hope they had ever mustered, he could see the corpse of Lester Keegan lying in the dirt. Lester had been his best friend—he had come out here to save his son and been murdered for his trouble.
But we can bring him back, Zeke thought, feeling the pipe in his pocket digging into his hip. If we’re still alive to do it.
Aguilar stroked his narrow beard, smiling beatifically. “Well, well. Which one are you?”
“Ezekiel Prater.” He kept his chin up and his eyes locked on Aguilar’s when he said it.
The devil arched an eyebrow. “One of the ranchers.”
“That’s me. One of the Border Volunteers, too. Aaron just killed Lester Keegan. Vickers and Boyd are here, too. Cassaday didn’t lose anyone back in October, but we can speak for him.�
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Aguilar glanced at his men and then at Aaron before turning back to Zeke.
“All right, Ezekiel. Speak.”
“We never wanted to come here,” Zeke said, heart pounding, trying to hide his hatred of this man and his comrades. “We knew it was crazy—suicide—but we had no choice.”
“Your friend Aaron told us all about it,” Aguilar said, waving Aaron’s gun around. “We knew you were coming, ese. Knew about the guns you were buying.”
“Which is why the first couple of bullets in every magazine are dummies,” the scarred gunman said, grinning. “Click click. Nada.”
Aguilar laughed softly. “Yeah, that was Guillermo’s idea. Pretty funny, actually. And it helped get you all the way out here.”
Zeke felt like throwing up.
“The school bus was a nice touch, though,” Aguilar said appreciatively.
“Please, just let us go,” Linda Trevino begged.
Aguilar shot her a hard look, so Zeke shifted to block his view of the woman.
“Hold on, here’s my offer,” Zeke said. “Full access to all four ranches. We’ll cover for you with the Border Patrol, make it a hell of a lot easier for you to get whatever you want across the river. Guns. Drugs. People. Anything.”
“Really . . . ?” Aguilar said, eyes widening, impressed. “And what about the rest of your people? They’re all going to go along with this?”
Zeke glanced around at the others, waiting for an argument, but nobody dared to say a word.
“They are,” he said firmly.
“Well. This I’ve gotta think about,” Aguilar replied, a jaunty sort of amusement coming into his eyes.
He turned and shot Aaron Monteforte in the head with his own gun.
Screams burst from the herded pipers as Aaron crumpled to the ground. Zeke flinched, but somehow he found it within himself not to cry out or run back into the cluster of familiar faces. Unlike his father and grandfather, he’d never been to war, but those men had taught him a thing or two about fear and cowardice. Fear was the real enemy, the one foe that had to be defeated. For himself—for his own safety—Zeke could do that.
Four Summoner’s Tales Page 14