“You will take me to him yourself.” She finished her orange soda in two long gulps.
“I don’t know how I’m getting across.”
“I know, but it should be fun watching you try.”
“You know I’m a man, right?”
“Yes, and the first I haven’t wanted to kill in a long time, so don’t press your luck. Now finish eating, we have a long night ahead of us.” If she knew what I had done to Nika, she would have slit my throat and left my body to rot.
The blat of unbaffled mufflers sounded as we crossed the plaza. Four dust covered teenage gringos rounded the corner on dirt bikes. I picked up the pace, following their sound after they turned down a side street. A block from the plaza we found them, parked in front of The Drunken Coyote. It was a tourist bar that, judging from the parking lot, catered to the off-road crowd.
Keeping to the shadows, we moved through the parking lot. “If you see anyone coming, whistle,” I told Mikayla, as I slipped into a topless jeep.
“What are you looking for?”
“A map.” She nodded, needing no more explanation. It took three more tries before I found what I was looking for, in the pouch behind the driver’s seat of a Baja bug was a topographic map with dirt trails highlighted in yellow. I stole the map, a small flashlight and a compass that had been glued to the dash.
It was just past nine, with any luck the boys on the dirt bikes would be drinking until two or three. By then we could be deeply lost in the Tecate Mountains. The fork locks broke with one mighty twist of the handlebars. We wheeled the bikes out the back of the parking lot and down a quiet street; a Mexican man watched us roll past his front porch, he said nothing.
Borrowing a blade from my favorite assassin, I stripped two wires and in less than ten seconds, the engines were rattling to life. When I asked Mikayla if she knew how to ride, she sneered at me, apparently motorcycles were the main mode of transport in the Ukraine.
At a Pemex station we filled the tanks, Mikayla bought a pack of smokes and after studying the map, we chose what looked like the best route. Thirty-six hard miles and we would be in San Diego.
“Bandits patrol the wasteland,” Mikayla said flatly. “And Mexican soldiers, DEA choppers, the Border Patrol.”
“Anyone else?”
“American vigilantes, angry ranchers.”
“That it?”
“Yes, I think that’s it.”
“Piece of chocolate cake.” I shot her a grin and pulled out onto the road. The bike felt good between my legs, I hadn’t ridden since selling my Norton, I forgot how free and safe I felt on two wheels. Five miles west of town, we found the first dirt road. We bounced our way up a steep path, dodging the small pines and rock outcroppings.
Holding the front wheel straight on the bumping trail brought fresh pain to my shoulder. I could feel the dried poultice cracking under the movement. Stopping to check the map, I let my arm hang down, hoping to relax the bruised muscles.
We missed the cutoff on the first pass and had to back track half a mile. It was a thin walking trail, swinging down into a small dry valley and then up into the mountains again. We killed the bikes, looking down. This was the frontier, once past the mountains, on the other side we would be on US soil, not that it meant much No one painted a dotted line on the ground, in the wilderness the border was much mushier than in the city where they used ten-foot chain link and razor wire as demarcation. Out here, Mexico and the US bled into one another for a couple of miles in either direction, not legally, but in reality. The rule of the gun reigned. Attorneys, courts and politicians began their rule once past the jagged mountains.
In the west, we spotted a chopper flying low, spotlighting the ground below it. If they were going to nail us, it would be in the valley. Taking off my shirt, I wrapped it around the headlight. Out of her rucksack, Mikayla took a tee shirt and followed my lead. We waited, watching the chopper, scanning the dark mountains for any movement. Without the sun, the air temperature plummeted. I wrapped Adolpho’s poncho around myself and rubbed the muscles around the dog bite.
Mikayla lit a butt, cupping it in her hand to hide the cherry. Hunched down she looked at peace, eyes alert but not nervous. She was comfortable waiting. I used to be like that, now whenever I stopped moving, my head filled with voices. Voices of the dead or walking wounded. Whisky had always shut the damn voices up. Now court was in session 24/7 and only forward movement would hush their harsh judgment.
The chopper rose and floated off towards the dim city lights in the west.
“Let’s ride,” I said.
“No, wait.” She lit a second coffin nail. After a bit, we saw it — down in the valley, a small group of shadows distinguished themselves from a grove of cypress. They moved across the floor of the valley. We waited another minute until we were sure that our fellow travelers hadn’t brought the Border Patrol swooping down out of the hills.
Kicking over the small engines, they sounded like machine gun fire against the night’s silence. The trail switched back and forth across the steep incline. A half hour later, we finally reached flat ground. The trail rambled through the chaparral, dodging scrub oaks, cypress and boulders. Our covered headlights lit enough of the path to keep us from collision if we kept the speed down.
Without warning, Mikayla powered up beside me, twisting her handlebar to the left, she forced me off the path. Brush tore at my legs as I bounced down a shallow gully. She was close beside me when I pulled the bike to a stop. I was about to yell at her when she leaned in and shut my motor off. Jumping off her bike, she caught me mid shoulders. I tumbled back, landing on the hard dry earth. Her hand was over my mouth and she was on top of me. I had enough time to wonder if a razor was coming next before I heard the roar of an engine.
Headlights bounced on the branches above us. Through the brush I could see a pickup speeding down the path. A light bar on the roof illuminated a wide circle around them. Over the cab, between the lights, two men stood. I could clearly see the outline of a rifle held by one of them.
Reaching in my pocket, I took hold of the pistol. My muscles tensed, readying to leap up. Mikayla’s breath was warm and shallow on my face, I could feel her heart beating against my chest. Her pale blue eyes glowed with intensity. How had I ever mistaken her for a boy? The scar running from ear to lip stood in defiance of her fine features. Strong cheek bones, an elegant nose and thin but perfectly shaped lips. Women, even with the possibility of death rolling toward me, I still marveled at the draw they had on my attention.
The pickup passed close enough for me to read the tread on monster mud tires. The man with the rifle had a bandanna over his nose and mouth, a defense against the dust storm they were stirring up. Glare reflected from the light bar on his goggles, making him appear inhuman.
“Bandits,” Mikayla said when they had passed, “people crossing bring every cent they have, to start their new lives. These vultures pick them clean.” Noticing her hand was still covering my mouth, she removed it. She seemed uncomfortable with our closeness. Climbing quickly off my chest, she turned her back to me. Staying low, she watched the receding taillights.
The report of a rifle echoed against the mountain walls. Mikayla was up, kicking over her bike before the last reverberation died away. Ripping the cover off the headlight she was bounding up onto the trail while I stumbled to get my bike started.
Half way across the valley, the truck stood, a glowing beacon. Mikayla sped towards them. Cranking back the throttle, I felt the front tire fighting to come up off the ground. Pushing up from the pegs, I leaned forward, keeping my weight over the front fork. Swerving around the spikes of saguaros, I skidded my foot on the ground for balance. Banging my boot off the rocks I was glad my Docs had steel toes. The path rose enough to see that in the light surrounding the truck, a group of tattered Mexicans were on their knees, four armed men stood over them. I had time to register a woman clutching what looked like a child to her chest before I dipped down and they disappeare
d from view.
I was a hundred feet behind Mikayla when she reached the truck. The men turned, shock caught on their faces as her headlight struck them. They were swinging guns up when she blurred through them with one of her arms stretched out from her body. Something glinted in her hand, then she was past them. The man in the bandanna fell to his knees, clutching his neck, fighting to staunch the blood cascading down his chest. The other three spun and opened fire at her. Muzzle flashes lit the scene, flickering like some demonic strobe light.
Twisting the throttle fully open, I aimed at the back of the biggest of the men. Pulling the front wheel into the air, I watched in slow motion, his body came closer, shells popped from his M16.
The people on the ground huddled down seeking safety in the dirt.
The crunch of bone sounded when my tire collided with his flesh. He fell forward. The handlebars ripped from my hands. The bike flipped away from me. I hit the ground rolling. Bullets pocked the earth around me as I tumbled.
Mikayla’s headlights flashed back on the remaining men. Drawing their fire, she raced toward them. They arced their barrels at her.
I slid to a stop. Digging in my pocket, I found the pistol.
Bullets sparked off Mikayla’s bike. She tumbled back, hitting the ground.
Holding the small pistol in both hands to steady my aim, I pulled the trigger. It sounded like a firecracker, with almost no recoil. Two slugs ripped into one man’s face. I turned on the other and dumped three shots into his chest before the automatic’s breach locked open.
I could hear a bike’s engine and its tire spinning uselessly in the air, a man’s moan, a woman’s prayers muttered in Spanish.
Running to the fallen bandits, I kicked a rifle away from the only one still breathing. He was hugging himself, letting out short guttural gasps. A woman holding a baby wrapped in a serape watched me without moving. I ran out into the chaparral, toward where Mikayla had fallen.
She was laying in a sandy patch of ground on her back. As I neared, I saw the shallow movement of her chest. Kneeling over her, she looked up at me. She was breathing slowly through her nostrils. Pulling open her jacket, I looked for signs of blood, but found none.
“Are they dead?” she whispered.
“All but one and I doubt he’ll last long.”
“Good.”
I sat in the sand and watched her as her breaths grew in depth. It wasn’t long before she could sit up. I was glad to see she hadn’t broken her back or any other bones. It would hurt like hell in the morning but she would live, if I didn’t come to my senses and kill her first. “Next time,” I said quietly, “you mind asking me before committing my ass to a suicide run?”
“They needed us.” Her voice was coming back.
“I have people back in LA, my people, who count on me making it back alive.”
“They’re all my people.” Her blue eyes flashed ice.
“You a saint? Or a lunatic? Some kind of Mother Teresa with a razor?”
“No, I am whatever I am, this is what I do. If you can’t handle it, we split up now.”
“And miss the fun of seeing what you do next? Fuck, no.”
The last of the bandits had choked on his own blood while I was with Mikayla. The travelers were still huddled on the ground; they watched us with frightened eyes. How could they know if we had come to help or rob or kill them? In this unforgiving wasteland, good Samaritans were few and far between.
Mikayla picked over the corpses while I searched the truck. I found a bottle of tequila, a rat-eared porn magazine and not much more. Mikayla had better luck, their pockets had produced a small wad of pesos and their hands had given up two gold rings and a watch.
After depositing her booty into her rucksack, Mikayla spoke to the travelers. Rising, they solemnly shook her hand and moved to the truck. Piling in, they started out across the valley, heading toward America. None had even looked at me, I think they were afraid I might go crazy and kill them. They had mistaken my size for danger and Mikayla’s gender for kindness. Or maybe they had seen the truth in us.
Cleaning my prints off the pistol, I tossed it out into the dark landscape. The bandits hadn’t offered up any arms smaller than a rifle, and I didn’t think the highway patrol would look too kindly on my strapping one of them on my back. I hated the idea of traveling without firepower, but I had no choice. Mikayla was placing her tarot cards on the bodies when I discovered that bullets had punctured her bike’s gas tank and shattered the carburetor. “Maybe we should have taken the truck,” I said.
“They needed it more than us.”
“Whatever you say, Mother Mikayla.” Against her will, she smiled slightly at my nickname. She arched an eyebrow at me when I slipped the tequila into her rucksack, but she didn’t say anything.
Climbing on behind me, she wrapped her arms around my waist. I didn’t bother cloaking the light, speed was what was needed now. I wanted to put as many miles between us and the dead men as quickly as possible. I wasn’t really worried about the cops, these hills were scattered with the bones of dead travelers. Reporting a body meant paperwork and one more unsolved case on the books. Most of the fallen lay where they died. Coyotes and vultures would feed off the carrion and the circle of life would continue to spin.
Mikayla was the perfect passenger, she crushed her body into my back, bending when I did, shifting her weight along with mine. The warmth of her breath moved across the back of my neck where her face was pressed. It was nice to feel her there, not that I had much time to think on it, all my concentration was used to keep us on the track while I blasted us across the valley floor.
A half mile up the mountain, we passed the pickup. In the back, the young mother watched me. Her flat Indian face was solid and strong, her eyes held neither gratitude nor fear for me. I was simply one more event in her short, long life. Something in her strength and way she held the child to her made me glad she was coming to my home country. We needed more like her, people with the will to survive the hard strange days our country seemed destined for. Greed and dishonor were tearing at the bones of America and if we had any hope, it would come from women like this solid mother who would risk so much for so little. In my head, I could hear Bono singing about climbing mountains and searching for that unfound dream. I hoped these travelers would find what they were looking for.
An hour later, we were down in the far southern corner of Anza-Borrego National Park land. We had made it to US soil and although the Border Patrol worked the area, two Anglos on a dirt bike wouldn’t raise their suspicions, even looking like we did. The desert was used to freaks, hell it collected them. The temperature had dropped below freezing when I rolled to a stop and leaned against a Joshua tree’s rough bark.
“Give me that tequila,” I said to Mikayla.
“You sure this is the time? We aren’t home yet.”
“We’re never home, you and me.” I twisted the cap off, the smell screamed drink me. Peeling my shirt off my shoulder, it took a good hunk of scab and flesh with it. I clenched my jaw to keep from yelling. Pouring the tequila onto the wound set it on fire.
“Here.” Mikayla handed me a clean pair of cotton underpants, granny panties as the strippers called them. “If you don’t scrub it, it will fester.” She didn’t offer to help me. If I had asked her to, I’m sure she would have, but to offer would have said she didn’t think I could handle my own problems. It was a sign of respect, not a dismissal of my pain.
I don’t know which was worse, cleaning the wound or not drinking the tequila. Mikayla handed me her last clean shirt to tear into a makeshift bandage. Laying down with her ruck sack as a pillow, she smoked, looking up into the sky. It was late, the thought of any more jostling miles that night seemed impossible. We agreed to sleep until sun up and then head for Joshua Tree, take the desert and avoid the San Diego border patrol check points.
Sitting against the tree trunk, I looked up at the star glutted sky. It was a carpet of pinpoints, those stars felt so c
lose I thought I could reach out and touch them. The cold was biting, but at least I wasn’t on that damn bike.
“Come here,” Mikayla’s voice was soft, almost gentle. “Lay down beside me, body warmth will keep us from freezing.” I knew she was letting me closer than any man in many years. I was honored and also thankful for the warmth as she pulled close to me. I draped the poncho over us and we shared her rucksack pillow. Tilting my face so that we were nose to nose I ran my finger over her scar. I don’t know where I got the courage to touch her in such a personal way. Maybe it was exhaustion, or maybe it was the softening in her eyes. I felt her body tense when I touched her, but she didn’t pull away.
“Who did this to you?” I whispered.
“I did.” Her voice was so soft that even in the silent desert night I had to strain to hear her. “In one summer, fourteen girls were taken from my village, taken to be sold as prostitutes. The men came with guns and KGB badges. Anyone who stood in their way was killed. They took my only sister, my father tried to stop them. He died that night. They only wanted pretty girls, so I made myself ugly.” Lifting her shirt, she showed me her bare chest. She closed her eyes, unable to watch me seeing her shame. A long jagged scar ran from her collarbone down to where her left breast had been. The scar spider webbed where her nipple should have been. “I nearly bled to death before the doctor could repair what I had done.” She shivered from more than cold as I traced the scar tissue. Her right breast was small and perfect, I wanted to kiss it, lick her pink erect nipple. I pulled her shirt down and pulled her closer.
Rolling onto her side, she spooned into me, pulling my arm around her. We drifted off to sleep like that. It was the first time in many moons that I wasn’t wracked by my bad dreams. Somehow she made me feel both safe and protective at the same time. With my arms around this strange damaged killer, I felt as if I wasn’t a bad man or a good man, I just was.
In the gray predawn, I awoke. Mikayla was sleeping in my arms. The desert stretched out around us, empty and peaceful. The pain in my shoulder had subsided into a dull ache. When I moved my arm, Mikayla snapped into consciousness. She popped her elbow back, catching me in the bridge of my nose. Rolling away, she leapt up ready to fight me.
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