by Chris Pike
“I don’t understand.”
Kate opened her mouth to explain the situation when Reload barked loud and commanding. His tail thumped back and forth, and he loped to the door where he huffed a big breath.
The door opened.
Nico stumbled in, took one look at Kate, and collapsed on the floor near a sofa. His face was sunburned and whipped dry by the wind. The wound on his head had opened and blood oozed down the side of his face. His lips were swollen.
Kate ran to him. Bending down, she cradled his head in her arms. “Dan, go get water and some bandages. And antibiotic ointment if you have it. Quickly!”
“Nico, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Kate asked. She gave him a quick once over looking for more injuries other than the apparent ones.
With great difficulty, Nico said through parched lips, his voice gravelly and raspy, “I tried to get back sooner, but I ran into trouble.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m exhausted and thirsty.” Dan came running over with two bottles of water.
“That’s all?” Kate gave Dan a look of exasperation. “I need twice as much.”
“We’re getting low, Kate. We need to conserve water.” Dan opened a water bottle and handed it to Nico. “Drink this. Not too fast, though.”
While Nico sipped the water, Kate used a little to wash her hands then poured the remaining water on his head wound to wash away dirt matted into the blood.
“Go easy on the water,” Dan cautioned. “We need to be careful with our remaining supply.”
She patted the wound dry with one of the sterile bandages then gently covered it with the antibiotic ointment. “You’ve got a nasty gash. How’d it happen?”
Nico didn’t answer.
“Nico?” Kate asked.
“I think he’s fallen asleep,” Dan said. “He must be exhausted, and from the looks of it, he’s had a difficult time. Something bad must have happened to him. Where’s he been?”
“He said something about going to the border to get tile for a client.”
“I doubt that was why he went there. I’m not sure what his profession is, but I doubt a tile guy would be carrying the kind of weapons he has.” Dan noted the rifle and pistol Nico had carried in. “You think he walked all the way here?”
“I don’t know. Check the sidewalk if he has a bike or motorcycle.”
Dan did as Kate asked, came back inside, shaking his head. “There’s nothing. If he had a bike, he’s lost it.”
Nico jerked awake. “What, what did you say?” He sat up and leaned his back against the sofa. He rubbed his eyes. “How long have I been out?”
“Only a few minutes,” Kate said. “You need to rest.”
“I can’t. I’ve got to deliver a package.” Using the sofa for leverage, Nico pushed up into a kneeling position. He breathed hard then stood, unprepared when stars appeared in his vision. He put a hand to his forehead. “I’m so lightheaded.”
Dan acted on instinct and looped an arm around Nico, holding him up. Kate did the same. “Sit on the sofa,” Dan instructed.
Kate and Dan coaxed Nico to sit. Kate retrieved a decorative pillow from one of the chairs and told Nico to lie down. She put the pillow under his head then lifted his feet and put them on the sofa. “You need to rest.”
He nodded. “Don’t let anyone walk off with my backpack.”
“I won’t. I’m going to stay here with you. I don’t think anyone will steal it.”
Dan added, “Only the Tombstone guys are left.”
Kate studied Nico’s face and wondered what had happened to him. Whatever it was, it must have been some kind of horrific battle for his life. She leaned closer to Nico. He had already fallen asleep.
“Kate,” Dan said, “you need to rest too.”
She waved him off. “I’m not sleepy. I’ll stay here with him until he wakes up. From the way he looks, he might sleep for long while.”
* * *
While Nico slept on the sofa in the lobby, Kate didn’t leave his side. She sat on the sofa and cradled his head in her lap.
Reload sat quietly at Kate’s feet and when one of Nico’s arms dangled to the side of the sofa, Reload licked his hand, gaining valuable information about him. He tasted the struggle Nico had been through, some type of herculean effort of a life and death fight, exhausting the man into a state of deep sleep Reload had not known was possible. Reload licked Nico’s hands again and waited for a response. When there was none, he looked to Kate, who had calmed down while in the presence of Nico. It strengthened her resolve, a characteristic Reload hadn’t sensed before.
Occasionally, Nico mumbled in his sleep and when he did, Reload perked up his ears, trying to discern the meaning of the garbled words. Finding none, he put his muzzle back onto his paws.
During the week that Nico had been gone, Reload had become accustomed to the Tombstone Gang, and while he did not know the names they answered to, Reload recognized each from their own unique scent.
They had qualities similar to Nico in the sense the men worked together for a common goal. There had been no quarreling or posturing for dominance, only a respect for each other, the same respect Nico and Kate showed each other. During the time Nico slept, the Tombstone men filed past Kate and Nico, greeting her with a dip of a chin or speaking in quiet tones. Kate indicated no adverse reaction to their presence, so Reload acted accordingly, letting them pass without interference.
* * *
Later, Dan came up to them, stopped, and asked Kate how things were going.
“Okay, I suppose. I think Nico is starting to wake up.”
“I’m awake. How long have I been out?” Nico yawned long and wide.
“A while,” Kate replied.
“Do you need anything?” Dan asked.
“Another bottle of water would be great,” Nico said.
“Fresh water is becoming a real problem. We’ve gone through it faster than I thought we would.”
Sitting up, Nico rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. “I can make a filter system.”
“You can?” Dan asked incredulously.
“Yes.” Nico yawned again and rubbed his eyes. “I need as many five gallon plastic buckets you can find. Several dozen would do. I’ll also need door screen, gravel, fine fabric, sand, charcoal, and unscented bleach. I’ll stage it so it’ll be ready for boiling.”
“That sounds labor intensive.”
“It will be,” Nico said. “First you filter out the big impurities with the screen wire mesh. Then you drill a hole in the bottom of several buckets, place the fine fabric over the hole, and make a multi-stage filter by adding alternating layers of charcoal, fine sand, coarse sand, and gravel. Each layer will catch impurities so that the water that flows out of the filter is ready for boiling. If you want to store it for an extended period, just add eight drops of bleach to each gallon.”
Dan mulled over Nico’s suggestion. “I feel like I just got a doctorate in hydrology, but we still need to find another source for water.”
Nico thought a while and suggested it might be possible to use some of the Riverwalk water.
It was river water, channeled in from the San Antonio River into a three foot deep, twenty foot wide concreted channel which snaked through the tangle of restaurants and hotels lining the Riverwalk. It created a tropical atmosphere suitable for magnolia trees and vines, and provided a perfect tourist attraction.
Dan nixed the idea. “Too much runoff from oil and transmission fluid from cars. Every time it rains, the runoff contaminates the water. Plus I’ve seen dead bats floating in it.”
“Dead bats!” Kate exclaimed. She had a look of disgust on her face.
“Yeah,” Dan said, “they roost under the bridges at night and when they die, they fall into the water. Mostly the fish eat them.”
“That’s so disgusting.” Kate wrinkled her nose at the thought. “Come to think of it, I’ve seen a drowned rat a time or two.”
&
nbsp; “Me too,” Dan added. “No Riverwalk water for us. If you have any ideas about where to get water, I’m all ears.”
“What about the water channeled down from one side of the Hyatt then to the other? It’s the area on the other side of the plaza. I think it’s self-contained and doesn’t flow into the Riverwalk.”
Dan ran a hand over his chin, thinking. “The water does have a green tint probably due to chlorine. The other day I noticed the ferns and larger plants had been torn out along the walkways. Someone planted vegetables there.”
“So unless there is a no trespassing sign, I don’t know why we can’t use some of the water. Chlorine will eventually evaporate.”
During a lull in the conversation, the man who went by the name Virgil Earp stopped to inquire what everyone was talking about.
“I couldn’t help but to hear y’all talking about water,” Virgil said. “Maybe we can trade with the Hyatts and Crocketts. I think the water you’re talking about now is under the turfdom of the Hyatts.”
“Who are the Hyatts and Crocketts?” Nico asked.
“Possibly gangs from what we’ve been able to scout. We believe it’s the name they are calling themselves. Both hotels have been taken over, and all the management has left.”
“Really?” Nico was all ears hearing about the offer to trade.
“They have signs posted saying trade/barter is available at the Hyatt mall level, but to leave long guns at home.”
“What do we have to trade?” Nico asked.
Virgil explained after hotel guests had left, they went through each room looking for items of use. In one of the rooms, a guest had left a shipment of Photon keychain lights used for marketing purposes. He estimated a thousand lights were not yet activated, explaining that, in order to activate the lights, the only requirement was to remove a plastic tab, which activated a light powered by a lithium coin cell. “Considering most of the flashlights aren’t working, I think we can use the Photon lights to trade.”
After some discussion, they decided to trade several hundred Photon lights. Virgil told everyone to stay where they were while he retrieved the lights.
While Virgil was gone, Nico snacked on food he still had left in his backpack. He also noted the package he had been sent to collect at the border was still in his backpack.
Although he had promised to deliver the package to Marisa the moment he returned, he decided it could wait.
Chapter 21
Marisa Sanchez was sitting on a vanity stool in the master bathroom of her house, located in a trendy gated community in San Antonio. The shower had been running a while, filling the bathroom with hot mist. Marisa didn’t like cold baths, so she had elaborately prepared for any type of contingency that might force her to take a cold bath. Money was no problem for her so she had bought an industrial sized generator, had it trucked in, and placed in the backyard. She also had a private well dug on her property, much to the dismay of local officials.
One side of her lips tilted up into a wicked grin. Everyone could be bought, and city officials were some of the easiest, especially when dangling thousands of dollars in front of them.
By the time the well would be shuttered, Marisa would be long gone to another bigger and fancier house.
They had lived in a two room shack in a barrio slum where Marisa shared a mattress with her mother and brother, younger by a decade. The father had never been in the picture. Money was scarce and Marisa and her brother never had enough to eat. School lunches were her favorite part of the day, the part where she would finally get enough to fill her.
Her mother toiled long hours as a maid at a seedy hotel. Tips were left in nickels or dimes, when they were left at all. To supplement their income, Marisa’s mother had taught her children how to look for loose change under vending machines and under cars, and on Saturdays the three would take a bus to a big mall where they scoured the parking lot looking for dollar bills a careless shopper had dropped. A twenty dollar bill would feed the family for a week, and once when Marisa had found money but had not turned it over to her mother, Marisa had been beaten.
Marisa had grown up looking at the ground. Although she now had millions in the bank, she couldn’t force herself to stop looking at the ground for a coveted twenty. Old habits died hard.
A bath back then consisted of a tub of cold water and a flimsy bar of used hotel soap her mother pocketed when cleaning rooms at the hotel where she worked. She collected slivers of soap, then melted them together to form a useable bar.
Marisa now only used expensive soap she bought from an upscale department store.
After a particularly harsh winter when her childhood home had stayed damp and cold, Marisa vowed right then and there she would do whatever was necessary to escape her pitiful existence. Since drugs were rampant, Marisa learned how to grow marijuana and to run drugs in her neighborhood. She quickly earned a reputation as being ruthless with anyone who tried to infringe on her territory.
There were rumors if anyone got in her way, they disappeared.
The operation from a backyard marijuana farm turned into buying a remote property where she farmed the illegal crop. Then she moved on to deal harder drugs and even harder people. Her territory grew.
Nobody messed with Marisa.
She looked fretfully at her hairbrush and the amount of hair in it. A long ago memory flashed in her mind of her mother brushing her hair, telling her it was part of her beauty. “Don’t ever cut it short, Marisa,” she had said in a thick Spanish accent, “because if you do, it will never grow back to the way it was. A woman needs her beauty regardless if she is eight or eighty.”
Maybe the amount of lost hair was a sign she was getting a little older. Or was it a sign of something else? She wouldn’t consider the “something else”, she couldn’t or wouldn’t. She was only in her mid-forties. There was work left to do, especially with the hotels near the Alamo.
Removing her plush bathrobe, Marisa stepped into the shower where she could forget about the past and plan for the future.
Her spies at the Alamo had told her Nico had made it back safely to the Minor Hotel, somewhat worse the wear, but still carrying a backpack. The spies had been given strict instructions not to intervene or harm him in any way.
He had something she needed, and was the type of man who could help her accomplish her plans.
Her empire was still growing, she had work to do, and Nico was shaping up to be the man she needed.
She was tired of being alone, having to run the operation all by herself. She trusted no one except her brother, who she had taken care of after her mother passed away. Marisa was like a second mother to her brother, but regardless of how much she pleaded with him, he always got into trouble. And the scar on his face made him too recognizable. How foolish it was of him to rob tourists in broad daylight. If he didn’t straighten up, he might disappear too.
Family or not, Marisa had an empire to protect.
Loyalty only went so far.
Chapter 22
Virgil returned with a couple hundred Photon lights. “I think this’ll do it,” he said holding up two bags of the lights.
“You ready, Virgil?” Nico asked.
“As ready as I’m gonna be.”
“I’ll come too,” Kate said.
“No, absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.” Nico looked to Virgil for reinforcement.
“Kate, listen to Nico.” Virgil put a hand on Kate’s shoulder. “We can’t afford to have anything happen to you. Besides, I think there will be plenty of action later. If something happens to us, you can come rescue us.”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not. You’d be the best person to organize a rescue.” Virgil gave Kate a reassuring smile.
“Alright. I’ll stay here. Dan and I will keep an eye out for you.”
Nico cast a serious glance at Virgil. “We are going into the unknown and we don’t know what to expect. I need you to watch me like a hawk. If I draw my
gun, you do the same. If I start shooting that’s your signal to start shooting. We’re not looking for trouble, but we should be prepared.”
“I’ll follow your lead, but don’t underestimate me.”
Nico wasn’t sure what to think about the statement, but decided to keep his thoughts to himself. Virgil appeared to be a competent man.
Virgil said, “Let’s step over to the check-in desk. I’ve got something to show you.” Walking in step, Virgil had noticed Nico’s belt was heavy with loaded magazines.
“What are you packing?” Nico inquired.
“SIG P220 in .45 ACP loaded with Federal HST rounds.”
“Good choice. The SIG is eight plus one isn’t it?” Nico already knew the answer to the question, he was only making small talk. Nico’s Glock held seventeen plus one of law enforcement grade ammo.
“Yes,” Virgil confirmed. “That’s why I carry two of them.” Virgil didn’t know if Nico was trying to be sarcastic with the eight round magazine remark, but he knew he had won the exchange. Virgil was carrying two large caliber guns to Nico’s single high capacity gun. “By the way, you look a bit light. How about some extra magazines for your Glock plus an extra Glock for those magazines?”
“Sure. I can always use extra ammo.”
“Be back in a moment.”
While Virgil was gone, Kate and Nico talked for a while about nothing of any real consequence. It was small talk normally saved for cocktail parties. Pleasantries and other meaningless chatter meant to put the other person at ease or to elicit a laugh. It worked because by the time Virgil reappeared, Kate was laughing.
“What do you have there?” Nico asked.
“Eight loaded Glock magazines in Kydex pouches.” Virgil handed them to Nico.
“Man! I had no idea you were so well supplied. Did you raid a gun shop before I got here?”
“No. I’m a Federal Firearms License holder,” Virgil explained. “FFL for short. San Antonio is a great place to shoot with its world class ranges. I bring my best inventory here and usually sell out by the end of our club’s annual rally. A lot of the members are accomplished shooters.”