The Rebel of Goza
Steven F. Freeman
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by May Dawney Designs
Copyright © 2018 Steven F. Freeman
All rights reserved.
DEDICATION
To those whose love of a good story is equaled only by their love of a great tequila
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to editors Ruth Gresh, Sharron Grodzinsky, Elaine Rivers, Priscilla Gould, Scott L. McCarroll, Willow Humphrey, and Chris Daniel for their invaluable feedback and assistance.
The author would also like to extend his thanks to Jacob Gluck and the rest of the Goza Tequila enterprise for providing the information needed to craft this story.
CHECK OUT OTHER BOOKS IN the author’s “BLACKWELL FILES” THRILLER/MYSTERY SERIES!
(Books 1 – 3 combined: Nefarious, Ruthless, and T Wave Boxed Set)
Book 1: Nefarious
Book 2: Ruthless
Book 3: T Wave
Book 4: Havoc
Book 5: The Devil’s Due
Book 6: The Evolution of Evil
Book 7: Tears of God
Book 8: When the Killing Starts
Book 9: The Dig
Book 10: Thirty Seconds to Live
Book 11: The Network (coming in 2019). See below for notification when available.
OTHER BOOKS BY STEVEN F. FREEMAN
The Extraction
The Rebel of Goza
Blood Passage (published under “Malcolm Pierce” pen name)
Erased (published under “Malcolm Pierce” pen name)
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Author website: www.SteveFreemanWriter.com
CHAPTER 1
I don’t want to die like this…
…murdered by a bunch of narcos with scarcely more intelligence than the agave plants I’m hiding behind. But even these goons would have found me already if clouds hadn’t obscured the night’s full moon.
If these pendejos catch me, death might not be the only consequence. They’re not known for their gallantry. A woman fleeing this gang has more than her life to worry about. Any group of thugs willing to burn their enemies alive won’t hesitate to rape me before devising some sadistic method of execution.
I lie face down on the volcanic soil, breathing in its fecund aroma as the shouts of my pursuers echo through the fields around me.
Taking a moment to catch my breath, I scan the farmland. The goons have fanned out across rows of plants. The moon’s pale glow lends the scene a surreal quality. How did I get in this mess?
One of the gang’s flunkies races by, oblivious to my presence. I could take down any one of them, but not the entire pack. Stealth is my only hope of escape.
Once a dozen or so thugs move past my position, I sprint through the agave fields in the opposite direction.
Are the narcos following? I can’t spare the time to glance over my shoulder to find out. I focus on running like my life depends on it—because it does.
CHAPTER 2
One week earlier
The unblinking sun beats down on us like the blast from a blacksmith’s forge, stifling…scorching…unyielding.
I pause for a moment, stretching upwards to work a kink out of my back. I’m one of a hundred laborers working the agave fields of El Caballo Negro, The Black Horse. It’s one of the largest tequila distilleries in the central Mexican state of Jalisco, home of the city of Tequila and the location where most of the product bearing its namesake is crafted.
The midday sun glares relentlessly. A gust kicks up arid soil and carries it along the desert landscape, swirling it through a grid of agaves—looking for all the world like oversized pineapple plants—lined up in precise rows and columns in fields as far as the eye can see. The breeze runs across my neck, providing a moment of relief.
Oscar, my scrawny younger brother, fits his machete into the sheath on his belt and uses the back of his arm to wipe sweat from his forehead. “Gaby, have any more water?”
“Sí. It’s in my backpack. But why don’t you get more out of the cooler?”
He grins. “Your backpack is closer.”
I smile, then resume my work, hacking the leaves from the agave plant until only its dense core—the “pineapple”—is left. I’ve perfected the technique, but it’s still backbreaking work, especially when you’re at it ten hours a day.
That evening, Oscar and I return to our family’s house in Capilla de Guadalupe, a pueblo about a hundred kilometers east of the six-million strong metropolis of Guadalajara.
Oscar might steal my water in the fields, but he always gives me first dibs to the shower after work. I suppose even annoying little brothers can have a sweet side.
Tonight, I’m especially glad to walk straight into the bathroom and crank up the water. I wash off the dust from the fields, revealing the natural cinnamon color of my skin beneath. Do I linger in the shower a bit longer than necessary, enjoying the flow of cool water down my body? Perhaps.
At last, I step out of the shower and towel off. Then I begin to blow dry my waist-length hair. Papi says it’s beautiful, as black as a full eclipse of the hot desert sun. Of course, what father is going to tell his daughter her hair is ugly?
After a day in the fields, even the work of drying my hair makes my arms ache. But there is a benefit to my line of work: my days as a high-school soccer player may have ended four years ago, but my job’s manual labor has maintained the lithe, athletic figure I developed during those times. The local chicos still tell me I’m beautiful. Of course, they’d tell a cactus it’s beautiful if they thought it’d jump in bed with them. But I do seem to endure more than my share of cat-calls. In this pueblo—where the macho culture is alive and well—maintaining your physique is a mixed blessing.
Not to lend the impression that my life is all about work. It isn’t. A few times each week, I help teach Taekwondo classes in the middle-school gymnasium. For over ten years, the lessons have been free to local kids. It’s a good way to keep them off the streets and out of trouble, according to Carlos, owner of the Pemex gas station at the end of town and the class’s lead instructor. Over the years, I’ve worked my way up through the classes and have become an instructor myself—a useful skill for a girl traveling the streets of Capilla de Guadalupe.
I wish I could do more to help Carlos with his classes, but sweat equity is all I have to offer. My family barely makes ends meet as it is—three of us and Sula, our Golden Retriever mix, all crowded into a tiny house. Not that the classes require much equipment. Carlos decided to teach the discipline of Taekwondo because it uses the kinds of tools readily on hand in a city that specializes in farming agave, tequila’s main ingredient: machetes and coas, long poles tipped by razor-sharp, rounded blades that the jimadores—harvesters—use to strip an agave plant down to its core in seconds. In the right hands, these instruments are as lethal as any knife or club.
I’ve never had to put these skills to actual use. But as aggressive or even dangerous as this town’s ladies’ men and panhandlers can get at times, it’s not a bad thing for a woman to
be able to defend herself. I guess the proverb is true: luck favors the prepared.
CHAPTER 3
After my shower, I set off towards the gym, following a route I’ve walked hundreds of times. I travel down the back lane on which my family’s house is located. It’s a long walk from my house to the main road, then another twenty minutes on foot to the gym. But it’s not like I have a choice. We don’t own a car.
The journey gives me time to think. Lately, my mind has slipped deeper into a state of unease, of discontent, that’s been growing for years. Is harvesting agave fields the rest of my life the best I can do? Surely I’m destined for something more…something bigger. But what?
Whistles from the crowd of loiterers outside the pharmacy break my reverie. As usual, I ignore those losers and maintain my deliberate pace along the dusty street. Maybe there’s some corner of the earth where that kind of Neanderthal behavior attracts women, but it isn’t here. Even if those local boys had something intelligent to say, there isn’t a single one of them who could tempt me to go out with them—not only because they’re all ugly as sin but also due to their total lack of ambition. Yes, we live in an out-of-the-way village with limited opportunities, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dream big. I’d love to manage a retail store, or better yet, own it. Either option would be better than harvesting agaves. Am I the only person in this backwater town who thinks this way?
I reach the gym and get to work unpacking duffle bags of replica coas and machetes, practice tools made with soft edges to avoid serious injury. Rambunctious elementary-age children shout and chase each other across the basketball court’s ancient wooden floor.
Miguel, a local guy my age, helps me set up.
“Hey, Gaby,” he says, using the nickname I’ve had since kindergarten.
“Hola, amigo,” I reply, careful to avoid the eyes he trains on me a moment longer than necessary.
Miguel has been crushing on me longer than I can remember. Yes, he’s hot. Years of martial arts training have built muscle on his tall frame. And he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. But the man has no vision for the future…for what he wants to become.
Unlike Alex, the guy I’ve been dating nearly two years now. Alex is hot, too: tall…dark hair and complexion…and eyes that burn a hole in you! But it’s more than his looks or the mind-blowing sex. Alex’s father owns half the buildings in town. And to hear Alex talk, those holdings will be small potatoes compared to the empire he’ll eventually build. He holds the details of these empire-building plans close to the chest—doesn’t share them with anyone, not even me. My guess is he plans to expand his family’s real-estate holdings out of this city and into Guadalajara. That would be an epic score. Whatever his plans are, his confidence in them overflows. Come to think of it, I guess I’m not the only person in this town with big dreams.
“What you thinking about?” asks Miguel.
I sigh. “The future. Or should I say the lack of it?”
A corner of Miguel’s mouth turns up. “I think you’ll take care of yourself.”
“How? No one in this pueblo has any money except Alex’s family.”
Miguel’s smile disappears. “You still with him?”
This topic always makes Miguel unhappy, so I generally avoid discussing it with him. But there’s no evading it now. “Yeah, I am. Speaking of planning for the future, he’s got it figured out. You could take a lesson from him, amigo.”
Miguel snorts. “I’ll pass.”
“What do you have against him, anyway?”
Miguel pauses his preparations to look me in the face. “Nothing, I guess. It’s just…some people are so busy planning for the future, they forget what made them who they are…their roots, where they come from.”
“A lot of people leave Capilla,” I say. “That’s not unique to Alex.”
Miguel purses his lips. “It’s more than that. There’s a feeling I get from him.” He shrugs and resumes his work in silence.
I shake my head. Jealousy doesn’t become Miguel.
The kids here can’t afford the traditional white garments of a Taekwondo student. But what they lack in attire, they make up for in heart and determination. Sometimes perseverance shows up in unexpected places. Who would have thought a gym in the middle of a Mexican desert would harbor a rag-tag collection of future martial-arts masters? But Capilla de Guadalupe certainly isn’t alone in this respect. Over the last few decades, the sport has exploded here in Mexico. With 3,500 Taekwondo schools, the sport is second only to soccer in popularity.
Carlos arrives, and the lessons begin.
I lead the novice white and yellow belts, younger kids who use only practice pads, while Miguel leads the more advanced green and blue belts, older students who use the replica machetes and coas. After warmups and stretching, the true instruction begins.
Thirty minutes into the lesson, I give my winded students a break. Myself, I could keep going. That’s an advantage of my job: the physical labor has conferred strength and endurance I never would have achieved otherwise.
Across the gym, Miguel and his students are hard at work. Machetes slash downwards, and coa poles thrust their rounded blades forward. My childhood friend might not have Alex’s aspirations, but he’s an accomplished expert in the Taekwondo disciplines. He should be. He’s been at this a year longer than I have, and I started the month after my quinceañera, just after my fifteenth birthday. His eight years of experience have earned him the role of second instructor, behind only Carlos himself. He says I’m not bad myself, but any judgment of him concerning me is sure to be clouded through the usual rose-colored glasses.
Miguel leads his students in a mock attack using the training coas. Thrust…parry…sweep. His lithe form moves with a fluidity few can match. I wouldn’t want to face him in actual combat. Fortunately, this pueblo’s only battles take place on the soccer fields.
At the end of the hour, we break for the day. The students, considerably less energetic than when they arrived, file through the gym’s main door and scatter, making their way back home.
Miguel wipes sweat from his forehead with the same threadbare towel he’s brought to the lessons for the past four years. He grins in my direction. “Good lesson?”
I smile back. “Yeah, a good one.”
I exit the building and start the journey back to my house.
Martial arts and agave harvesting…is this all my life holds in store?
CHAPTER 4
The next morning, a Saturday, I go to visit my grandfather, Armando Goza, in his usual spot: a bench in the square plaza fronting the basilica. Like everything else in this town, the attire of Abuelo—Grandfather—never varies. He’s wearing his usual cowboy hat, plaid shirt, and blue jeans. Lines crisscrossing his dark, weathered face bear evidence of decades spent as a jimador in the agave fields.
Cars motor down roads bordering the remaining three sides of the plaza. The brick-paved space offers an assortment of benches and patches of gentle landscaping, all falling in the shadow of the basilica most afternoons. At the corner, Alfonzo, a giant of a man with a mustache like a walrus, sells his usual assortment of breakfast tacos from a cart. I ignore the food’s enticing aroma and approach Abuelo.
He looks up and smiles, sending a spider web of cracks shooting out from the corners of his eyes across his face. “Hola, Gaby. Come to sit with me again?”
“Yes, Abuelo.” I lower myself onto the bench. Its wooden planks have already grown uncomfortably hot, so I’m careful to avoid placing the bare skin of my legs on them.
We sit in silence, the two of us. We often do this. When you’ve known someone your entire life, words can be unnecessary. We share the current of our thoughts without speaking.
“What’s troubling you, Little One?” says Abuelo at last.
With a rueful laugh, I shake my head. Of course he would sense my unease. “Abuelo, have you ever thought of leaving this place? Leaving Capilla de Guadalupe?”
“Why would I w
ant to?”
“I don’t know. To do something…different…exciting. Something that doesn’t involve harvesting agave until you die.”
He pauses for a full quarter minute. “I did something different, long ago.”
I can’t help but start in surprise. Abuelo never talks about his past. Rather than probe, I opt to remain silent, allowing him time to gather his thoughts.
He takes a deep breath and exhales. “We are a family of jimadores. We’ve been harvesting agave since the early nineteen hundreds.” His eyes twinkle. “But when I was young, I was like you. Being a farmer wasn’t enough for me. But I had a problem.”
My raised eyebrows ask the question. What problem?
“What could I do? All I knew was harvesting agave. So I tried a few things that didn’t work out. Then I realized: I don’t need to do something brand new. I knew more about agave than just harvesting it. I’d already worked in the distillery by then. I knew the whole process of making tequila. Why not make it myself?”
“Why didn’t you, Abuelo?”
His eyes sparkle again. “Who says I didn’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you ever wondered what those old buildings are on the far edge of our fields?”
“I thought those were from a hundred years ago,” I reply. “And anyway they were always locked when Oscar and I played down there when we were younger.”
Abuelo chuckles. “They’re not that old. I built them myself—me and my brother Hernando. And we started our own business: Goza Tequila.”
I’m dumbstruck. Why is this the first time I’m hearing this story?
“You did?” I manage to squeak in reply.
“Oh, yes,” he says, his eyes taking on the faraway look of reminiscing. “It was the best time of my life—hard, but good. After a while, my tequila had quite a reputation.” He leans towards me and speaks in a conspiratorial whisper. “I took what I’d learned from the big distilleries and made it better. By the sixth year, I’d perfected the recipes of three special blends. And I never gave the recipes to anyone outside the family.”
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