by Steve Curry
That was all something to think about. But another thought pushed those considerations aside. Where was Maureen? Had she been injured trying to help me? I know she looked bad the last time I’d seen her on the other side of the dream veil. Had I stayed too long at her cost?
Struggling to my knees took some effort. Making it to my feet was almost beyond me. I managed though. It took two attempts to open the tent. Outside I saw the old man tending a battered and blackened pot of coffee and a cast-iron skillet on the coals of a campfire. The smell of bacon and fry bread almost brought me to my knees again.
“Sit.” He pointed with an equally battered and blackened coffee cup. I managed to flop heavily down onto the rock he indicated. Even numb and exhausted I felt the jar all the way up my spine.
“This here’s your coffee. Already had mine.” He handed me the cup followed by a tin plate with toasted fry bread and a generous helping of the bacon. “Fried the bread in the bacon grease. Best thing for it. Get wrapped around that and then we’ll talk.”
I didn’t question whether we were sharing dishes or even if they’d been wiped down a little between uses. I just did my best to inhale the food between imprudently large draughts of hot black coffee. Normally I like some sugar or maybe a little cream. Today the caffeine was in high enough demand not to ask for anything else.
“Girl’s gone.” He’d barely waited until I was halfway through the rough campfire sandwich. “Not coming back I reckon.”
When I looked up with a sharp jerk of the head I saw him nodding. “You prolly shoulda mentioned having a wife, son. She heard you say it in your vision. Tired and weak as she was you’d have thought even a redhead couldn’t get any paler. You’d be wrong. She turned about as white as them clouds up there. Muttered something I couldn’t catch a while later and just left.”
He took the empty cup from my hand and refilled it. The coffee replaced the plate of food I was holding. Suddenly the bacon and the bread didn’t seem so delicious. In fact, about all, I could taste was ash and the bile left over from my earlier heaves. “Heard her this morning. Asked for a ride back up to the main road. The boys drove her up a little while back. Took the dog and the bird with her.”
I carefully avoided his gaze. It wasn’t easy. The old man was looking at me like he could see right through me. “That’s only part of it though son. I saw part of your vision. Should have been in control of it but sure wasn’t expecting you to go over that fast or that far. Best I could do was keep an eye on ya and toss you that tether. Surprised hell out of me when you got the lady inside. Don’t think I ever heard of the like. Maybe you was some kind of shaman too before got your magnesia.”
He squinted up at me as he lay back on one elbow. “Here’s the meat though. I saw stuff in there that scared the crap outta this ole injun. Saw some other stuff too. Other stuff was pretty normal. Things we don’t wanna remember. Things we just plain forgot cuz it ain’t important. But your scary stuff puts a whole new color on the spooky meter. For me, it was mostly colors and energy. I could see what kind of effort was put into things and what kind of energy came out when you pushed too hard. To be honest I was just as glad to be out here once I saw what you were finding on that journey. But son, there’s a lot more in there. Lots and lots of secrets locked away. I’d say almost all of em were hid back there by somebody other than you. Less you’re one of them schizoid frantics people talk about. Anyway, I’d give it a little time before I went back in there. But I’d go get some of them memories about ever chance I got if I was you.”
This time he rose and dusted off his pants. I saw him put the plate of food down on a log lying near the fire. “Eat that when you can. I’ll be packing my stuff. Boys will be back this afternoon. We’ll give you a lift back to the border or at least to the road if you’re going the other way.”
Sitting by the fire I considered that very carefully. Did I want to just go back across and make my way home? It sounded like I owed a certain redhead some explanations and very heartfelt apologies. If I was lucky I could get there before she emptied her stuff out of my house. Compared to that, I had a vague and elusive mission from a wolf masquerading as a man.
It wasn’t as if I owed the wolf anything yet. I wasn’t very impressed with his boss or associates at the moment either. Old Ygg and Kara had sent me to do some pretty dirty things in my time. I wasn’t sure what all had happened, but if that last memory at Wounded Knee river was any indication I’d been one of the cruelest and most vile beings even I could remember meeting.
So I didn’t like what they’d made of me. It didn’t necessarily follow that I could do anything about it. Even in the memories that were still intact, Kara could play with my neurons like the light show at a concert. So my best bet was to keep on the job. Get the wolf off my back and avoid an early retirement back to Valhalla and the mind wipes. Right?
For a few minutes, it was hard to make myself agree with that. Then the vision of a suckling child and a dead mother came back. I did that, maybe I didn’t shoot that exact native but I’d pulled the trigger that started the whole thing. Did I even deserve a woman at all much less someone like Maureen? More importantly, did she deserve better than an ancient serial killer?
By the time the kids arrived with transportation I’d made my decision. When they left me off it was far from the border along a dusty and barren stretch of highway.
“Take a couple of bottles of water Gringo.” One of them passed me a pair of one-liter bottles still attached by plastic rings around their necks. “Don’t take the road all the way. Cut around that hill you see just to the right of the road. You’ll miss a border checkpoint. Once you’re around that, cut back in the arroyo there and you’ll find a truck stop a couple of miles down the road. Should be able to get a ride from there to wherever you’re going.”
That, of course, brought me up short. Where exactly was I going? I’d lost my guide back in Sedona. All I knew was that my job was to get Gere, freaking Gere the immortal wolf out of whatever trouble he couldn’t manage himself. It wasn’t exactly like Mexico was small enough to walk around asking people where I could find a wolf disguised as a thug or whatever costume he was using. His brother had been playing a biker of titanic proportions. Nobody had told me anything about what part Gere was playing though.
I had an option. I could try and call the number Freke had used to set me off on this roller coaster ride. I’d been wise enough or lucky enough to write it down and stick it in my shirt pocket. My shirt was gone now, but in the intervening days, I’d snuck a peek at the sticky note enough that I thought I could remember the number. If I called back there maybe he’d give me the info to do the job.
With a plan in place, I made my way past the hill that supposedly screened me from any nosey checkpoint police. As directed, I found a narrow wash or arroyo and followed it for a good mile or more before it emptied out onto the road. The checkpoint was still hidden from view but to the south, I spotted a truckstop beside the dusty blacktop. If I’d been back in Texas I’d have suspected that very little traffic came this way. In the part of the world, I was traveling though, just the presence of asphalt indicated there was probably a decent level of traffic.
Indeed there were close to a dozen vehicles of all shapes and price ranges in the parking lot of the battered and weathered old building. The older cars gave me hope. The trio of nice and fairly new looking Cadillac SUVs was something else entirely. If we were in Vegas I’d assume there were a rockstar and entourage inside. But this close to a checkpoint on a fairly decent route from Central America to the States? I was almost willing to bet there were cartel bigwigs around.
Three carloads seemed a little more than I wanted to confront even on my best day. Just a day or two from the brink of death, with my head twisted inside out, a world-class guilt trip and absolutely no gear or weapons? That just seemed like suicide. Still, nobody down here should recognize me.
That was obviously an erroneous assumption since I didn’t even get in
the door before someone hissed a warning at me through clenched lips. “PSST! Don’t go in there, Gringo! Are you nuts? You go in there now and he’ll kill you before you even know what the deal is.”
I looked over to where my long lost guide Pedro Perro was waving me frantically into the bathroom he had hidden in. Well, I really wanted a talk with the little dog turd anyway. It seemed a reasonable conclusion that he’d been responsible for every misery, mishap, and misunderstanding I’d experienced in several days.
All he had to do was guide me to my objective and tell me what the job was. I’d handle the rest. But instead, the little maggot had lost my weapons and gear, sidetracked halfway across the entire southwest, and gotten my ass royally pummeled by no less than a dozen angry bikers. Toss in my little delirious interlude in the desert and some sketchy introspection that ended my relationship and...well. I guess it probably didn’t help that I was already mad.
I was pissed about Maureen. I was furious about the memories I’d had stolen. And I was torn to emotional or moral tatters by the actions that I now remembered cost hundreds of people their lives. The fact that fully half of those lives belonged to women and children just made it worse.
Good ole Perro barely cleared the door enough to let me in before he realized the mistake. I kicked the door shut with my heel and slapped the deadbolt closed with my left hand while my right locked like a vise around his scrawny throat. “Chickenshit, you’re only breathing because if you weren’t you couldn’t tell me where and what the hell I’m supposed to do down here.”
His heels were skittering on the floor a little which was surprising. He couldn’t have been much shorter than I am. On the other hand, I noticed I was holding him almost overhead as if my hand were the noose at his impromptu toilet-side lynching. When I looked back up his face was turning some interesting shades of gray or blue or maybe purple. There were hints of all three as well as some lovely scarlet tones around the bugged-out eyes.
With a stifled profanity, I dropped him back to his own feet. He staggered and massaged his throat before whispering savagely, “Wot the hell man!?”
My lifted hand in his face and a sharp stare cut him off short. “You probably should have considered this kind of reaction when you lost my gear and got my ass beat raw and bloody by a bunch of friends of your motorcycle escort.”
He probably knew I wouldn’t follow through with a direct threat. At least he figured he was safe until I knew the job. Still, he tried to move a few inches to the safer side of my own personal shit list. “Hey, now Gringo! I had to get rid of her cousin, the Harley guy! The girl didn’t need his kind knowing where to find her or Abuela. Besides if you’d had that duffel bag when we got pulled over the checkpoint guards would have had you. They got dogs can smell drugs, bodies, guns, shit man I think they can smell bad intentions.”
I gave him a little shake to indicate that I wasn’t entirely convinced then stepped back against the door with my not inconsiderable arms crossed across my chest. “And the orgy of leather and denim-clad violence?”
“Whoa, now Mouse.” It was the first time I’d ever heard him pronounce my name correctly so I was inclined to believe he was either serious or trying really hard to make me believe he was being straightforward and trustworthy. “Hey, we probably should have guessed those bikers were gonna be mad. All brotherhood of the road an all ya know? I ain’t a biker though so my bad. Still, they didn’t get off scot-free.”
He shook his shoulders to straighten his coat and then looked at me with an appreciative grin. “Damn man I wasn’t very confident when old Lobo told me he was sending one dude to deal with El Patron. But you’re bad-ass eh bro? One of those guys had to ride back in a car. In the back of the car. You messed him up bad. Three or four others were limping and wearing casts. I saw the police report. Eyewitnesses and everything. You know if you plan to stay all incognito you might not wanna get described in a lot of police reports. Anyway, by the time I got there, all the fireworks had settled down. I managed to search your room. Got your clothes and stuff. Used a little green paper diplomacy to get some info from my cop buddy. Hey, I even cornered one of your victims and persuaded him to tell me what finally happened to the stocky little gringo. Man, he was muy scared of you.”
If nothing else, old Perro knew how to sell a story and pull his audience along. Then again most audiences hadn’t been through everything I had. I reached for his throat again but he sidestepped it nervously and continued. “Anyway, I figured out just about where they’d left you. Called your own biker buddy that I call Mr. Lobo and told him he was gonna need a new Mr. Fixer. He just laughed and asked me if I saw the body.”
“Well Hell man, I hadn’t seen the body but when those guys dump someone they generally don’t last long enough to make an ID. Lobo just laughed some more and told me to find you. Said if there wasn’t a body then you were still around and owed him this one. Also told me you won’t be able to reach him for a while. Said to tell you he’s sticking to his promise. You won’t need to contact him and besides, he’s gonna be outta touch for a while to make good on your deal.” He finished straightening up any damage I might have done to his attire and leaned against the wall of the dingy truck stop restroom like some worn-out version of James Dean.
“So yea, here I am. Been waiting around for some kind of clue about how to find you and poof there you are all lean and mean and ready to eat me whole. But hey! I got you some replacements. We’ll have to get out to the car and get them though. I got us a little beater car near the gas pumps. I’ll go first and you follow a couple minutes later so nobody gets suspicious.” He obviously forgot that I’d been victim to his vanishing act more than once now. Before he got his hand on the doorknob, I had the nape of his neck in my somewhat stern grip.
“Nope. We’ll go together. But I’m gonna eat first.” He started to sputter some sort of protest but by then we were marching out of the john and towards the little diner that inhabited one side of the truck stop.
“Asshole, everyone’s gonna think we were being queer in there!” Apparently the fear of being branded homosexual was more terrifying than my grip or the sheer mayhem I’d almost merrily perform on and about his person. Which somehow seemed far fetched. I mean human smugglers shouldn’t be worried about a little thing like their private tastes being made public right?
Despite his protests, I kept a grip on a certain bundle of nerves near his elbow and helped my “friend” up the curb and into a booth near the back. To be honest I was almost eager for one of the cartel types to start some trouble. I’d had the worst of it for a few days now. Having someone not only willing but deserving of a little retribution seemed like a perfectly grand pursuit for the time being.
Maybe they had better sense than I assumed, or maybe they just saw that I was an unknown variable with either no fear of them or a level of insanity they didn’t want to deal with. The better-dressed group of men at their long table and private section didn’t interrupt us even when we practically brushed against their table.
In fact, they seemed to avoid really noticing us at all until we were seated at our own booth. Perro immediately sat with his back to them and the high back of the bench providing a level of concealment. That didn’t stop one of them from seeming to recognize the little smuggler and making a comment to the middle-aged man seated at the head of the table. I saw the perceptive guard type make a comment and gesture towards us. A few other eyes probed our way after that, including the gaze of what I assumed was the boss of this particular group.
He not only glanced, but he also locked eyes with me for a few very long seconds. Neither of us seemed willing to be the first to look away yet somehow we both managed to do so simultaneously. Maybe we had similar levels of predator floating back behind our eyes. Pedro noticed the exchange and his bronze face paled to a noteworthy degree.
“Sonofabitch! Look jefe, you wanna commit suicide by cartel you go right ahead. But pick a time when I ain’t sitting with you ok? That’s o
ne stone-cold badass boss of badasses sitting over there. Don’t do anything else to get their attention ok?”
That particular phrasing drew my attention more than almost anything else he’d ever said. Was that accurate? Maybe I really was trying to punish myself; take some abuse and get killed to go back and face the worst Kara and One-eye could come up with. I focused inward and was confused to discover I didn’t know for sure that he was wrong. I’d say being distracted is what allowed things to develop as much as they did.
Apparently, the muttered conversation at the far table had reached a conclusion. I saw the first guy who spotted us rise and start stalking towards our table with a demeanor that would pass for glowering at least. He might even be able to sell it as intimidating to most people. Me? I wasn’t in the mood to be intimidated.
I turned to the hesitant looking waitress by our table. A quick look at the menu triggered my appetite. My Spanglish was pretty bad but a guy built like me knows how to order food usually. “Enchiladas with frijoles por favor. No pappas, just a couple of tortillas. Oh and lots more coffee.”
I turned back to the table and saw the thighs of Mr. Doomy McDoomface standing almost against the table. I didn’t initially react. Instead, I got some cream and sugar into my coffee and took a big gulp. It wasn’t the best coffee in the world. But it had the necessary bits to make me fairly content with the world at the moment.
Only after I’d savored the brew for a moment did I look up to squint at the enforcer or guard or whatever he was. I had to squint because the asshole had situated himself so that the lowering sun was right in my face when I looked at him. “Did you need something bud?”