The coyote’s hand now held a switch blade that had come from a lanyard hanging down his back. He swept the knife with lightening speed across Sheep Dog’s belly from the victim’s left to right. Sheep Dog’s muscle and brainstem reflexes were one fraction of lightening faster. The cruel tip of the razor-like blade nicked a line through his Mexican shirt and drew blood in a fifteen inch line. Sheep Dog turned sideways, and when the coyote swept the switch blade back across, Sheep Dog met the man’s forearm with his own and whipped it backwards around the knife wielding arm and bent the arm over backwards. The coyote let out a pained cry; the three pirates ceased their unwanted dalliance with the young mother; and they advanced at Sheep Dog in leaps.
He shoved the coyote and his broken arm into the oncoming attackers. They tumbled against each other giving Sheep Dog a precious few seconds. He used them well. He brought out his own knife, a weapon three times the size of the coyote’s and cut the man’s throat. He stepped quickly to the side and planted a well-practiced foot in one pirate’s face bringing him down. He knifed the second pirate directly between his carotid artery and trachea transecting both. The third pirate made a pirouette and forced his legs to take two running steps towards the industrial area of Mexican Tecate. Sheep Dog leaped across the bodies at his feet and in three steps was on the pirate’s back and had his arms locked on the man’s neck in a mata leão choke. He was unconscious in a matter of seconds. As the pirate slumped, Sheep Dog broke his neck. He had not broken a sweat.
The young woman was crying hysterically. Her husband and children were sobbing in sheer terror. Each of them expected the devil himself to return, and they waited in misery to die. Sheep Dog walked up the girl and put his arms gently around her.
“Estas segura, señora. No tengas miedo.”
She had no choice but to believe him. He had not hurt her or tried to force her. She began to feel safe, and she was able to obey his command not to be afraid after a minute. Sheep Dog wiped away her tears, pulled a shirt from his bag, and covered her nakedness. He took her by the hand and helped her negotiate the slope into the well-lit tunnel. The teenagers walked behind the woman who was effectively their mother. Her husband and children embraced her as fervently as if she had come back from the dead. Their tears were now silent ones of joy.
Sheep Dog pulled the four corpses in behind him, brought the trap door down behind them and followed the mother down into the transverse portion of the tunnel. The Mexicans made a point of not looking back. There was not enough room to stand erect even for the smaller adults, but the walking would be nothing but a little uncomfortable.
“Hablan Ingles, amigos?” he asked.
To his surprise, the old man responded in very clear, scarcely accented English, “I do. I can be of service because I have been this way before. Those bandidos always stole my money before. You are a man of respect.”
He gave a little bow to show his respect. The members of the little family all kissed Sheep Dog’s hand as if he were a cardinal. He waved them off, giving each a warm smile. Everyone relaxed.
The eight emigrants walked briskly through the tunnel following the campesino. It was almost 200 yards to the far end. They cautiously opened the tunnel trap door and peered out long enough to ascertain that there were no migrans lurking.
The campesino beamed at each of his new friends and said, “Welcome to the Estados Unidos.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Los Estados Unidos! America!, Tecate, San Diego County, California, the United States of America! Sheep Dog looked like Rodrigo Pancho Vila Dominguez, but he felt like Hunter Caulfield, American, and it felt good. He knew that he and the rest of his now rather dependent friends had very little time to savor the moment. The grandeur of the feeling was equally intense for each individual, but for different reasons. The task now was to find a way to get north without the border patrol catching up with them.
The coyote had spoken of a truck; so, they spread out for a hundred yards each and began to search, a search greatly hampered by the starless darkness. Smoke from the city had so polluted the air that the moon and stars could not be seen. They could hear but not see a helicopter passing overhead. The young father found the vehicle first and hastened to round up the conspiratorial immigrants.
The teenage niece, Maria Innocenta del Coronado, said carefully to her aunt as they climbed into the covered bed of the truck, “Él hombre es viejo, pero él es un hombre muy peligroso.”
“Si, Maria, pero nosotros continuamos a vivirpor que él es nuestro hombre peligroso.” The campesino said quietly enough that all of his compatriots would listen, “It is a mistake to pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he will just kill you.”
Sheep Dog hurried the Mexicans into the truck. He and the campesino jumped into the cab, and Sheep Dog hot-wired the ignition. The old engine sputtered a couple of times then started. He had to gun the old engine continually to keep it running. The gears ground, and Sheep Dog had to double-clutch to get into gear. Finally—frustrated and nervous—he got the cumbersome old vehicle in motion. They entered U.S. Highway 188, less than 100 yards north of the border station, which was located about 100 yards inside U.S. territory. Sheep Dog left the lights off until they were a mile from the station. It was so dark that he had to drive with extreme caution and very slowly. When he thought the risk/benefit ratio favored turning on the lights and gaining momentum, he took a deep breath and switched the headlights on, first using the parking lights; after a mile, he turned the headlights on at the dim setting. He still could only see about 50 yards ahead of him, and progress was too slow. Five miles out of Tecate, he turned the light switch to bright.
As soon as he did, a black border patrol helicopter swept down on the highway in front of the truck, and a black SUV pulled up behind the truck. Sheep Dog and the campesino were startled, and the Mexicans in the truck bed were terrified. He had no choice but to stop.
A bull-horn on the SUV blared the message: “Get out of the truck,” in both English and Spanish.
With great reluctance, all eight illegal immigrants climbed out and stood, heads down, avoiding the brilliant lights from the car and helicopter.
“Kneel on the ground.”
They did. Sheep Dog carefully fingered his 9 mm automatic. He hated his position; but he could not be arrested, armed to the teeth as he was. He would have to kill a U.S. officer and that went against everything he cared about. Two border patrol officers—one male and one female—walked up to the huddled group of Mexicans, guns drawn.
“Hands behind your backs.”
All of the illegals complied. Sheep Dog’s gun was in the back of his waistband, and he kept his right hand on the handle under his overhanging shirt. He was at full battle-level alert status.
The officers split up, segregated the illegals by gender, and began putting plastic wrist restraints on them. They had the family’s wrists all secured in five minutes. One of the officers signaled to the helicopter, and the pilot acknowledged and flew off. Both officers approached Sheep Dog and the campesino.
“Turn around,” the male officer ordered.
The campesino appeared to be complying when suddenly and with agility and speed that Sheep Dog would never have imagined possible leaped to his feet and ran east into the pitch blackness of the desert. The female officer shouted for him to stop. When he failed to comply, she fired her .45 into the air and took off after the elderly Mexican at full speed. Sheep Dog took advantage of the momentary distraction and threw himself at the burly male officer. The officer was startled, but had presence of mind enough to get off a shot at Sheep Dog.
A searing pain exploded in Sheep Dog’s left deltoid. His adrenalin was at maximum input, and the injury only spurred him to move even faster. The officer’s second round went awry as Sheep Dog zig-zagged towards him. Before he could get off a third shot, Sheep Dog’s hammer fist connected with the point of the border patrolman’s jaw lifting the man off his feet. He crumpled in a heap at Sheep
Dog’s feet unconscious.
The rest of the Mexicansthe young familyscattered into the darkness to the west of the highway as soon as Sheep Dog attacked the officer. They did not make a sound, and nothing could be seen of them. It would take hours—if not days—to round them up, even hampered as they were by their wrist restraints.
Sheep Dog ignored the pain and growing stiffness in his left shoulder. He hurriedly removed the officer’s gun and radio, put plastic restraints on the man’s wrists and ankles, and forced his mind to decide whether to go after the border patrolwoman to buy himself more time or to take the SUV and make a mad dash north up 188. His adrenalin had begun to subside; so, he could think more clearly. He decided that he would get nowhere by running; it would only be a matter of time until he was caught, no matter how fast he drove. The border patrol officer’s radio could move faster than anything he could do.
The woman settled the question for him. She came running back towards the two parked vehicles as soon as she heard the two shots fired. She was in such a hurry to protect her fellow officer that she was heedless of the noise she made as she tore through the brush and kicked over rocks. Sheep Dog rolled into the shadows at the side of the SUV and lay in wait for her. She foolishly burst into the glare of the SUV’s headlights and was momentarily blinded. Sheep Dog hurled himself at her knocking her down like a football blocker. She fired one shot harmlessly before Sheep Dog’s right fist connected with her left temple. She was stunned, but not unconscious.
Sheep Dog wrested away her weapon. She struggled feebly; but Sheep Dog was considerably stronger, even using his only good upper limb.
He pointed the gun at her face and said, “Stop struggling. I won’t hurt you unless you force me to. Your partner is unconscious, but he’s alive and will be all right. Put your hands behind you. You know the drill.”
She considered her options. The probability of escape or of overpowering this criminal were between slim and none. Maybe he wouldn’t kill her. She gave him a poisonous look but slowly put her hands behind her back. Sheep Dog secured her ankles and wrists with her own map black handcuffs he removed from her belt and divested her of her weapon and radio. He took a hurried look in the patrol SUV and found a box of tools that included in its contents a roll of duct tape. He covered the mouths and eyes of both officers and dragged them off into the dark desert about twenty yards, one to the east and one to the west of the highway. He then got in the old truck and drove it off through the rough desert terrain 50 yards to the east and abandoned it about fifty yards further down the highway in a clump of Joshua trees. He was feeling nauseated from the pain and the absence of the protective adrenalin and cortisone rush he had developed during the fight and flight portion of the last five minutes. He dragged his bags out of the truck and painfully lugged them back to the border patrol SUV.
The vehicle’s engine was still running, and the headlights were on. He struggled to throw the bags into the rear compartment. Even opening the hatch back caused a jarring pain in his throbbing shoulder. He ran to the driver’s side, got in and drove away at 120 miles per hour, burning away the miles between himself and the crime scene. He knew that it would be only a matter of an hour or so before a state wide man hunt would be launched in earnest for him. He was able to roar past Potrero and Dulzura without seeing any evidence of police activity. Outside Dulzura, he drove into the rear parking area of an all-hours Exxon truck stop and got out of the car. He was dizzy and felt as if he might faint as he stood on the asphalt trying to regain his equilibrium.
He found what he was looking for. There was a Toyota Prius Hybrid parked next to the rear entrance into the truck stop. He moved the SUV and parked next to the Prius. He looked around, and seeing no signs of lifeopened the front door of the car. The keys were in the ignition. That was the first piece of luck he had had since the border patrol had stopped him. He knew that he would not get far looking like he did. He had to get the bleeding stopped or at least hidden; he had to become an obvious American; and he had to do it in a hurry. He made his decision. He took out his hand gun and opened the door of the truck stop. There was no one in the hallway. To his left was a neat storeroom, and to his right were the rest rooms. He went back to the SUV and transferred one of his bags to the rear seat of the Prius. He was sweating profusely.
He carried the second bag into the truck stop’s men’s room and as quickly as he could, tore off his bloody clothes. He stripped all the way down and surveyed the damage. He was covered with blood, but the bullet had passed through and through without hitting bone or nerves. Blood was slowly seeping without pulsatile spurting; so, he was pretty sure that no major artery had been hit. He would live; he probably would not get infected; and the blood would probably stop on its own fairly soon. He ran water in the sink and used up all the paper towels in the room to clean himself up and to pack over the holes in his shoulder. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle and; as he stood there, did not seep through the makeshift paper bandage. He tore apart his Mexican shirt and painfully knotted a clumsy bandage around the wad of paper. He scrubbed the makeup off his face and thoroughly rinsed his hair and slicked it back with a comb. He donned a Polo shirt, a clean, starched pair of khaki cargo pants, and a pair of slip-on deck shoes. Again, he surveyed himself and made sure that he was no longer Rodrigo Pancho Vila Dominguez and pronounced what he saw as acceptably yuppie—not great, but acceptable. He took two plastic garbage bags and stuffed his bloody disguise clothes and the paper trash inside them.
He opened the men’s room door and peered out into the hallway. No one was in the hallway, and the sleepy all-night attendant was helping a customer lug a couple of cases of Coors Lite to the check-out counter. Neither man paid any attention to the area where Sheep Dog was located. He quietly gathered up his belongings and slipped out into the dimly lit rear parking area. He loaded the trash bags and duffel bag into the rear seat. He had the presence of mind—in fact, having cleaned himself up, was feeling better—to move the old truck across the parking area, beyond the rear gasoline and diesel pumps, and left it behind the long rows of Dempsey Dumpsters and fuel drums. He raced back to the attendant’s Prius and drove away, leaving the headlights off until he was two miles north and on his way to La Mesa.
It was still extremely dark out although he was now passing lighted buildings and businesses. He held his speed at 100 miles an hour as long as he dared. He passed through Jamul and Rancho San Diego, then decided that he could not risk attracting a traffic patrolman and slowed down to the speed limit which made him feel like he could get out of the Prius and run along the side. He stopped at an all night diner and switched cars. This time he had to settle for an old Ford which he could hot-wire. The newer computerized cars were the bane of the existence of car thieves since they could not be hot-wired with any chance of success. He dumped the border patrol officers’ guns and radios in the restaurant’s garbage cans.
He did not stop again until he was in the heart of San Diego and felt a modicum of safety. He was sick, tired—dead tired—too nauseated to eat although he knew he had to; and his mouth was parched dry. He had to get something to eat and had to have sleep. He was well aware of his age and his limitations. Hollywood action heroes can fight dozens of villains for days on end without food, rest, or taking a leak; but Sheep Dog was all too aware that he was not a Hollywood or any other kind of hero. He had to get out of the car and get horizontal.
He found a run down small motel—the Love Nest—which catered to patrons and their companions seeking a place to stay. The Love Nest offered rooms by the hour, and Sheep Dog paid for three of them, cash in advance. His signing in as John Smith did not cause a reaction from the bored wino who worked the night shift. Half of his guests were named John Smith.
Once in the dingy room, Sheep Dog took stock. There was a little blood on his shirt, but not enough to draw immediate attention. He looked haggard, but like a haggard American WASP. He drank a large draught of water from the bathroom faucet and almost immediat
ely perked up. He set the bedside alarm for two and a half hours later and laid down to sleep the sleep of the just.
It was light out—early morning—when he heard the alarm; at first its significance did not register. He was able to wake up in a few minutes, enough to wash out his mouth and to down another good slug of water. He watered down his hair and slicked it back again and moved out of the room’s door. The door and the motel itself badly needed a paint job, and the parking lot was strewn with potholes. The clientele did not relish recognition of their existence much less conversation. It had been the perfect choice. He asked the new attendant where the Greyhound station was located and with pointing, gesturing, map drawing, and some contradictory verbal descriptions, Sheep Dog was confident he could find it. He was feeling much better now; the sick feeling was gone, but the shoulder pain had increased exponentially.
He bought a one way bus ticket to Salt Lake City and helped the driver load his bags into the belly-bin bus cargo area. He left the Ford where he parked it and got aboard. He fell asleep as soon as the monotonous rhythm of the 55 mph bus sounds provided the white-noise so conducive to sleep by babies and wounded killers.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
December
The morning was beautiful. Outside the warmth and inviting ambience of the world-class lodge, the sky was a cloudless azure; the mountainsides, trees, and vehicles were covered with a heavy raiment of white velvet. It was freezing, and the brave souls who had to go out for one reason or another watched their exhalations create small, short-lived jet streams. Guests entering the lobby of Deer Valley Resort Snow Park Lodge stamped their feet and clapped their hands to get the blood flowing again. An air of conviviality and the expectation of being ostentatiously pampered was the order of the day, as it was for all days in the splendor of the resort. It was the place where the rich, the famous, and the aficionado met for the sheer joy of skiing down manicured hillsides on the world’s best snow.
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