He wasn’t. Sometime during the last thirty seconds he had turned and made for the glider instead—hauling himself onto the trailer and starting to pry open the cockpit.
“Wait!” I screamed, attracting his attention again. I started moving my hand over the button, but Agustin reached into a holster, drew out what I can only assume was a weapon, and fired it at me. The whole motion played out in less time than it took me to draw a breath. Pain exploded under my ribs, cold like lake water. I looked down to see a long-nosed dart protruding from where I imagined my spleen might be under my thermals, and the next thing I knew all I could see was sky, endless sky. The woody grind of the winch churned in my ears like trapped water and the red-hued clouds far above me seemed to blow by at the same rate. The glow of the sky was almost unbearable, like someone had ignited all the neon in the atmosphere.
Something hit my legs, a solid nudge just before the winch ran out of rope to reel in. The glider passed over my head so close I could have touched it, if I could move my arms. I willed myself to roll over, to move. The red sky eventually rolled for me, and I knew only from the snow in my nose that I’d managed to move. I pressed into the ground and looked up after the glider.
He had launched. He was getting good altitude, too. The glider banked pretty steeply, reaching 1000, 2000 feet before turning. The craft came around then, swooping in a wide arc back towards the elevator to the flight dock some ten miles from town. I could see the slice across the sky on a clear day. He banked harder as he circled upward, soon little more than a twinkling red bird over my head. Come on.
Then came the fold.
I didn’t see it, but I heard it. The bang of two aluminum sheets snapping together at high pressure. My shining red ship continued sailing across the sky, but it was losing altitude. As the shape grew bigger and bigger, I could see it was now more of a square than a triangle. I breathed a sigh of relief. I struggled to sit up and squirm past my trailer just in time to see what was left of my glider plummet into Lake Xiaoxiong. The structure had entirely collapsed, now little more than four thick layers of metal folded flat along straight lines. Just like it had been designed to be.
It was a long time before I could stand up and walk around, but it took my glider a long time to sink into the lake, too. There was nothing left alive inside; no monster climbed out. The higher pressure air in the cockpit had evacuated at high altitude, blowing out lode-bearing angles. Agustin might have been crushed, or he might have been sucked out the tiny evacuation holes, but he was certainly dead. Put down. Like the Warden had promised.
I went to get Ruby and my neighbours, to tell them we were safe. That it had worked.
I’d caught Agustin in my last trap.
Charlotte Ashley
Charlotte Ashley collects the works of Alexandre Dumas, and owns 19 editions of The Three Musketeers, one of which is a purse. Her family tolerates her book obsessions because they pay the bills: she is also a writer, editor and independent bookseller in Toronto, Canada. Her story ‘Aisthesis’ will appear in Crossed Genres’ upcoming anthology, Fierce Family. She chronicles her literary musings at charlotteashley.wordpress.com.
6. The Devil’s Knocking
A. Lynn
Plik…plik. The white poker chip rapped along the desk. With each tap, an equally white reflection flashed briefly along the sleek, black surface of a nearby carved obsidian figurine. Then the poker chip fell down completely with a twisted plop, followed by a balled fist on top of it.
“Not a damn thing?” their boss snarled. “Neither one of you saw what happened? Where the hell were you two?”
The two bodyguards-for-hire looked to each other; then back away before barking in near unison:
“We were just unlucky!” Loki said.
“We were just lucky!” Yojimbo said.
Each shot a sideways glance to one another.
“Lucky?” one said.
“Unlucky?” the other countered.
Then in together, they said:
“What the hell do you call being lucky or unlucky?”
The Big Boss of Precision Security Group of El Paso, Texas then growled and bellowed, “Yo! You two! This is not marriage counseling time! This is the ‘debrief-me-on-every-god-damn-thing-time.’ I don’t want to hear no horseshit about luck because it doesn’t exist. Now start over again; and this shit had better be good.”
It had been three weeks since Jimbo and I were dropped off in the middle of Mexico and told to find the “Saloon Slaughterer”—that psychopath shooting up every saloon on the border since 2009. Today is no damn different; we’re in the thirteenth shitty parlor in a row, watching yet another illicit gambling ring which is also coincidentally about 13 klicks outside of either El Paso or Juárez. But really, we’re just in the middle of nowhere. I don’t even think the cartels came to extort from this place, because Jimbo and I had to take horses to get there.
We were at a knicked, dirty, grimy wooden bar that looked like someone had just left there one day, forgotten on one side of the rectangle that formed this place (it wasn’t even attached to the floor, I could feel it rocking when I leaned on it). The cigar smoke here is so thick that I’m beginning to wonder how the thirteen some-odd people can even see the cards as they huddle around the handful of blackjack and poker tables.
Yes indeed, worthy of the description piece-of-shit, and yet somehow people flock to these places. I peek at a picture I have of the last Saloon Slaughter crime scene. I nod, because this place looks almost identical to the last. Except this one has Arlo Maldonado in it; the only so-called suspect we have, and that’s only because the lowly son-of-a-bitch is a drug mule with a temper when he loses card games (and has some real shitty luck). But, Christ, I take one look at the spindly bastard, and realize that he’s dressed like an angry Blues Traveler-guy.
“I think the donkey outside could take down that scrawny bastard. If it’s him, then we just never seem to be in the right place or time to catch him,” I mumble.
“You’re just trigger happy because no one’s shot at you in three weeks. We’ll catch him,” Jim says.
“Yeah, well it’s easy for you! You’ve got all the menudo you can eat. God, how do you even stomach it?”
I hold my nose while he eats. Jimbo grins with chili-stained lips.
“Hey, at least it’s not those El Paso flautas you can’t stand.”
“No—I think ‘cow stomach stew’ is much worse than the little flautas. Congratulations.”
“And you’re from El Paso? Seriously, if you’re so stir-crazy then go play blackjack. I’ll be here.”
“No, I see how Dona Lupe’s men play. I’ll pass.”
“Nothing gets past those legendary eyes of yours, does it?”
“That’s why they pay me, ain’t it?” I mutter, reaching for a bowl of chips.
CLANK!
“Crap! I spilled the damn salt shaker!” In fact, I spilled it straight into Jim’s garbage juice.
“Holy shit, what’s wrong with you?” Jim asks.
“Sorry, man, I’ll buy you more menudo. How many pesos is it?”
“It’s not that, you jackass, it’s the bad luck!”
“Luck? You—you’re serious? You’re superstitious? A science and health guy like you?”
I watched my partner beneath a blasé stare—yet felt wide-eyed and amazed inside watching Jim throwing salt over his shoulder.
“It’s not just that! Judas Iscariot spilled the salt at the Last Supper, too. It’s a bad omen.”
“Oh God, it’s worse than superstition.”
“Huh?”
“You’re Catholic, too. Now you’re going to tell me you’re a Chicago Cubs fan next.”
Evidently, he didn’t find that funny. I could tell he was about to go into a rant but the jukebox crackled into a sudden silence and there was a knocking at the door—and it’s a very poignant, hearty knock that nearly rattles the hinges off.
“Who is it?” The patron Dona Lupe is asking the lone
shotgun-wielding bouncer. The rest of the bar is on edge, and staring.
Carefully, the bouncer stares outside a peephole, which is actually just a space between the wooden planks that made up the door. “It’s not the Federali, but I don’t think he’s no cartel either,” the bouncer answers, and Lupe bites her lip before finally motioning the go ahead.
They let the stranger in; a man dressed head to toe in an all-leather duster scored different shades of brown from long days in the desert. His dusty, oversized hat seems equally weary with time, and it hovers above his eyes; neither of which I really can see. He’s carrying an antique doctor’s bag and an ol’ cane, as if this guy had just escaped the Wild West yesterday. The saloon is whispering, even Arlo Maldonado.
Lupe’s voice screeches.,“Alrighty, settle down all of you, so I can ask our new guest what he’ll have.”
The stranger stays silent for an all-too-long second, before finally tipping his hat.
“I don’t come to take the gifts, miss, I only come to offer them.”
His voice is raspy. It’s deep; full of soul and vice, and yet somehow I could sense he’s smiling through it, but I can’t see his grin either.
“Pendejo! We don’t take solicitors here. Now get out!” Dona Lupe says.
She points to the door, yet the stranger just ignores her, and instead addresses the entire saloon.
“Now, I’m not just peddling any wares. My gifts are not common, nor even fair. That’s because I only sell to gambling souls; very specifically the kind who have fallen in the hole. Ladies and gentlemen; I can sell to you a change in luck itself!”
Half the saloon splits into laughter as the guy opens his doctor’s bag and takes out all this kind of crap. Stick bundles, painted rocks, severed rabbit feet, batter coins, and bags of cornflower. Hell, I’m sure I could ask the fucker for moon cheese. But I gotta’ tell you—the other half of the place starts holding up cash. In fact, all of the house losers line up, including Arlo!
“Hey, Jimbo, I didn’t know loons gathered in groups!”
“Yeah, laugh,” he answers, but his voice is shaky.
“You sound scared, Jimbo, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“I don’t like this shit, Loki. What are the odds that we spill that salt, and this guy shows up?”
“People sell shit along the border all the time, Jimbo. He might as well be selling chiclets, if you ask me.”
“Bullshit, Loki! You don’t believe in any of it, but I know this shit is real.”
“Which part? Luck, or religion?”
“Both. The Devil and God.”
The saloon is still going ape-shit as we bicker.
“Dude, he’s a Snake Oil Salesman.”
“Or you’re just saying that because he scares you, too.”
“Scared? Really?” My tone is now flat, and I stand up.
“Wait! Loki, what are you doing?”
“You’ll see.”
I stomp straight towards the crowd where I wade through every single person in the bar (including Arlo) and when I get to stranger I point at his bag before beaming.
“Let me have the most unluckiest, unholiest, piece of…of…uh—crap that you have in that bag.”
Now the saloon is dead quiet again, save for him.
“You’re a special kind of fatalist aren’t you? One who’s tempted fate and knocked at the Devil’s door plenty times before, and you still ain’t gonna quit.”
Then he’s suddenly quiet again, and he’s not even breathing. It’s like staring at a statue. Now, I’m not a big fan of silence so I try to derail everything with my favorite thing; sarcasm a la threats.
“Yeah, some would call me a smartass, even in the face of death. Speaking of which—YO! ‘Blue’s Traveler!’ Yeah, you!”
God help me, I start yelling at Arlo, my murder suspect, who’s being squeezed into me from the side by all the people trying to see what’s going on.
“Do you mind standing downwind? You smell like the damn donkey outside—got me?”
I wasn’t lying.
Jimbo has also called me a “meathead”, too. I think I know why. But hey, it works for me.
“I think I have just the thing for you, a man of your inheritance,” the stranger says.
“Uh…que? My inheritance? What?”
“Behold, the Blood Stone!”
So he sets this black, carved stone figurine (maybe obsidian) with a rope tied around it on the blackjack table, and I recoil.
“Jesus Christ, did I ask for the ugliest thing by mistake?”
“An ugly thing for an ugly age—carved in a time of rage by Isleta Pueblo magic—it was this mystic trinket that gave victory to the Natives in their revolt against the Spanish. But Lady Luck, no matter what, is a fickle mistress indeed, for the figurine betrayed the Pueblo; brought them to their knees when the Spanish returned. It is the most capricious thing I hold, bringing upon others either great terror, or fortunes gold. Either way, it remakes lives anew. But you, fatalist stranger, will just have to be the first man to touch the Blood Stone and cast your bet. Are you lucky, or unlucky? We’ll see yet.”
My mouth is twisted in half laughter, half contempt. Everyone is breathing down my neck.
“Yeah, I’m game.” I say, because again, I don’t believe in this crap and I can’t wait to prove Jimbo wrong.
I reach for the ugly figurine, and no sooner does my index finger nick it then does Arlo Maldonado himself grab for it.
“No! I need it more. Ain’t nobody deserve this thing more than me. I’ve earned it!” he growls in a guttural, desperate tone as he grasps the figurine.
He’s not the only one going crazy either. Guns go into the air, of course (hey, it’s Juarez), only to be kept at bay by the lone bouncer’s very impressive shotgun as he tells them to calm down. This isn’t the first time Jim and I see a standoff. Ten minutes later, people are still just talking; threatening idly.
The losers were all begging for the Blood Stone. But the “rational, non-superstitious” winners didn’t want them to have it—just in case. It’s all too damn stupid for me, so I slip away back to Jim at our spot at the bar.
“You know what, Jimbo? I touched it, okay? Satisfied?”
“Are you sure?”
“Damn sure ain’t. Maybe. Hell. I don’t know. All I know is that if Arlo was going to start shooting, now would have been it. Let’s get outta’ here, we’re in the wrong place, at the wrong time—again.”
“Yeah, sure,” Jimbo agrees. I stuff my face full of bad tortilla chips for the road while the mob keeps yelling for a chance to touch the thing Maldonado has clutched in his hands.
But then I see ol’ Arlo hobble into the bathroom, hunched over.
“Oh crap,” I say. “I hope that’s just a menudo stain on his shirt…”
Jim chases after him.
“Damn medics and their oaths,” I mumble, throwing my thumb and forefinger onto my piece but I’m careful not to draw it quite yet. First, I follow them both, only to see Arlo fall and bleeding out on the bathroom floor.
“What the fuck happened? I didn’t hear any gunshots!”
“I fell,” Arlo sputters on his own blood, while Jim removes glass from his stomach. My shoulders slump.
“You’re kidding,” I say.
The cracked bottle is still in Arlo’s hand; it looked like he broke it himself intending it for protection, but…
“You really are the unluckiest son-of-a—”
“He’s a dead son-of-a-bitch, Loki,” Jim interjects. “Fuck! We were supposed to take him alive.”
I let go of my piece and scowl. “That’s only if he was the Saloon Slaughterer, Jim. But I guess that’s that.”
POW! POW! POW!!!
It came all at once; a cascade of bullets.
No words were spoken. Only the sound of us cocking our gun safeties as we both drew. Our steps echoed in the bathroom before I peeked out. I was the first out of the bathroom—always first. If they were going to get to
Jimbo, then they had to get through me. That was my rule.
Only it was a rule for a different time, and a different place, because there was nobody left alive in the bar. Not even Dona Lupe was moving, though her single-shot pistol was still smoking in her hands. The rest of the thirteen-odd residents were in a similar predicament—each with bullet holes littering their chests.
“What happened?” Jim says, scurrying about, checking for survivors. There are so many dead bodies that I could have sworn Jimbo had wandered into my crime scene photograph, only he didn’t know it. I even compare this scene to my photo, but decide to keep quiet.
“I’ll be God damned if that stranger isn’t gone…” I mutter as I look around. It’s almost as if he never was here. Yet, I’m calm. Hell, I’m even cold about the whole thing because I just don’t feel surprised.
“They’re ALL dead! I can’t believe it,” Jimbo says.
“I don’t believe it either.”
I’m saying this to the Blood Stone, which is sitting (quite satisfied looking) next to a card machine, which must have had a stray bullet take its top off somehow because it’s spitting cards out across the blackjack table. I switch the damn thing off just as it looses the last four (three black fours, and a black ace).
I glare at the figurine and nod.
“You missed.”
The Big Boss glowered at us for quite some time after I finished. But since I hate silence and perhaps my job (I’m not sure yet), I mumbled, “Soooo…”
That’s the best I could do before Jimbo elbowed me straight in the ribs to shut up. Then the Big Boss began ranting again.
“So, what you damn fairies are telling me is that this thing killed them all?” He pointed at the Blood Stone, which is sitting square in front of him on his desk.
“Exactly!” Yojimbo blurted out, and I find myself elbowing him this time, the damn idiot.
Lucky or Unlucky? 13 Stories of Fate Page 13