by Johnny Shaw
As the remainder of the sun disappeared, Ricky and Frank pulled Harry out of the hole. A one-armed guy and a sick geezer weren’t the optimum pairing, but inch by inch with sweat pouring from their faces, they found a rhythm.
Ricky lifted with his good arm, but couldn’t hold the weight with his bad arm. At first, the rope slid and burned through the weak grip of his withered hand. So Ricky pulled Harry up a foot, and Frank would use what strength he had to hold the rope steady for the second it took Ricky to readjust his good arm. They repeated the process dozens of times. It was slow, hard work, but after fifteen or twenty minutes, Harry crawled toward them, clawing at the dirt and looking back at the hole.
Exhausted, each man found a spot against the crater wall farthest from the two holes. Harry parceled out the food. It wasn’t exactly a feast, but one could do worse than a bag of chips, a box of Hostess CupCakes, and a handful of Fruit Roll-Ups. Water had never tasted so sweet. Frank rolled a joint, lit it, and passed it. Ricky didn’t see the pot as a breach of his sobriety, like taking a doctor’s medicine.
After one hit of the pot, they all broke into simultaneous laughter. No one had said a thing. It was just one of those synchronous moments when the three men were all thinking the same thing, seeing things the same way, seeing the ridiculousness of their situation, the ridiculousness of everything.
The joint got passed until it was almost gone. When it was little more than a quarter inch, Frank popped it into his mouth and swallowed.
They had almost forgotten where they were, sinking into the illusion of a weekend camping trip or overnight hike, but the beating sound of a helicopter returned them to reality. No one bothered moving. There was no place to hide and unless the helicopter shined a light directly on them, they weren’t going to be seen.
The chopper flew straight overhead, its lights streaking the sky and its blades thumping out the silence. The men watched it recede into the distant night sky.
Finding a comfortable position, Frank squirmed on his back and stared at the infinity of stars in the sky. The Army appeared to be taking the night off from its usual barrage—maybe it was a holiday. No bugs or birds or other sounds of nature dampened the silence. It remained desert quiet. Peaceful in a land for war.
While he may have had his doubts at moments, Frank was glad he had gone on this stupid adventure. The gold was a screwy goal, but Harry and Ricky were the only real friends that he’d made since his closest buddies had died.
When his best friend Chocho had died in ’03, he had been the last of the gang to drop dead, leaving only Frank. Frank had felt completely alone. He and Chocho had known each other since grade school. Even in adulthood, they rarely went a week without at least talking on the phone. That relationship was special, but also unrepeatable. So he never tried. He went lone wolf and repelled everyone except his family. And they repelled him.
Sure, they loved him, but Christ, they weren’t his friends. Mercedes was protective, but intolerable. The boys were dutiful, but adolescent and always high. Not exactly the makings of anything more than grandfatherly time, the bond more spit than glue.
And then Ricky and Harry came along. Crazy, stupid, and tragic, but kindred spirits. Three men with nothing to lose. What would he do with the gold? Who cares? Give it away. But he hoped for Ricky and Harry that they found something. They deserved it.
Old age was odd. Frank never felt like he was very good at it. Didn’t want to be. Funny how when an oldster does something a young man would do, it’s either cute or pathetic. Screw them. Quiet hospital beds are for quitters. I’ll do what I do. I’ll take the rocky earth as my bed any day of the week.
A good boxer steps it up in the later rounds. He doesn’t let up. Those are the most difficult, they take the most endurance, but they are the rounds that win or lose the fight. Frank was going to keep swinging until the final bell. Frank was going to shock Death with a Ron Lyle haymaker and then kick him in the sack when he was on the ground. If it’s ever okay to fight dirty, it’s when you’re fighting for your life. So bring it on, you bony son of a bitch. Death don’t confront me none.
FIFTY-TWO
“What is that sound?” Bernardo rose to one elbow in the aisle of the school bus. Tiny spiders scattered like dust motes around him. He shook his hands and arms, more spiders drifting to the bus floor.
“Some kind of machinery?” Ramón sat up on the bench seat. He licked his lips and tried to spit, but nothing came out. His dry mouth tasted like cabbage and broccoli left in the sun.
They got to the window at the same time, rubbing the greasy residue until they could see shapes.
“Is that what I think it is?” Ramón said.
Neither Ramón nor Bernardo had ever seen a tank before, but they had read enough comic books to know that that was what they were looking at. Bernardo thought a tank would be bigger, but it was big enough to be scary.
“What is it?” Mercedes sat against the back door of the bus, her legs splayed in front of her.
“A tank. An awesome tank,” Ramón said.
“Get down. Did they see you?”
Ramón and Bernardo ducked. The grinding clank of the tank grew closer and then stopped. The idling engine grumbled ominously outside. Nobody moved, waiting for some sort of clue as to the best course of action.
Mercedes poked her head up to look out the window. “What’s it doing? It’s sitting there. Don’t they have someplace to be? Something to blow up?”
Ramón lifted his head to the bottom of the window to take a peek. “The cannon part is turning toward us.”
“This is bad,” Bernardo said. “They are target practicing and this bus is the target they are practicing with. We must run. Now.”
Bernardo scrambled to the front door and hit the hardpack at a sprint. He tore around the side of the bus, getting as far away as he could. After a moment, Bernardo looked back. Ramón was right behind him. Mercedes was not. She was nowhere in sight.
The cannon of the tank pointed directly at the bus.
“Where is she? What do we do?” Ramón stopped and watched the tank.
Bernardo stopped as well. “Mother will be fine. She just—”
The cannon fired. The sound was huge. The bus didn’t so much explode as leap off the ground. Not high, but when a bus jumps five feet, it’s still impressive. It looked similar to when Bernardo and Ramón would blow up cans with firecrackers. No fire, just destruction and volume.
“Mother?” Ramón said, looking first at the mangled metal of the bus, and then at the tank. He charged the tank. A twenty-second sprint cleared the distance. He clamored up the side of the hulking machine and banged his fists on the top hatch. He clawed at its edges, trying to pry it open with his fingers.
Bernardo walked in a daze toward the blackened husk of the school bus. There was some smoke, but no fire. Reaching the edge and kicking at a chunk of twisted metal, he turned to the tank. He watched Ramón jump up and down on top of the hatch, until it opened and sent his brother flying backward.
Bernardo approached the tank. A blond man in a strange uniform popped out of the hatch, his gaze darting between Ramón and Bernardo, bewildered.
“You killed my mother,” Bernardo said.
“No one was to be here. Who are you? Does your tribe live in these mountains?” the blond man said through a thick accent. It was less exaggerated than the Swedish Chef on The Muppet Show, but Bernardo was sure it was Swedish.
“You killed my mother,” Ramón echoed.
The Swede turned to Ramón, who had fallen to the ground. He was covered in dirt and rising to a knee. Bernardo rounded the side of the tank as the man jumped down between them, his hand on the holster on his hip.
Bernardo held up his hands. “Going for that gun—even thinking about bringing a firearm into this—would be a mistake, Drago. My mother was in that bus.”
“Our mother,” Ramón yelled.
The Swede said, “You are to put your hands above your heads until I assess this
situation.”
“Are there more of you in the tank?”
The Swede didn’t answer. Bernardo gestured with his chin to the hatch. Ramón nodded and scrambled up the side of the tank. When the Swede went for his sidearm, Bernardo was on him. With nothing but a tight squeeze of the wrist and a turn, he had the poor guy up against his own tank, disarmed and embarrassed.
Ramón leaped before he looked, dropping straight down into the tank. Bernardo held the gun to the Swede’s back.
“Ramón?”
Ramón’s voice echoed from inside the tank. “There is no danger.”
“How many are there?”
“Three. They will be no trouble.”
“How do you know?”
Ramón popped his head out of the hatch and tossed Bernardo a can of beer. “It is just one other Aryan and two ladies. You know, sexy ladies. Ladies of the night for having sex with.”
Bernardo gave the Swede a look.
The Swede shrugged. “Lars and I were in Yuma and we met—I don’t know their names. They said the tank made them, uh, horned. We commandeered one of our vehicles to—for a tour.”
“Our mother is exploded because you were trying to impress a prostitute.”
“They were excited to be in the tank.”
“Prostitutes do not need to be impressed. Prostitutes need money.”
“Was your mother really in the bus?”
“She sure was.” But that wasn’t Bernardo’s voice. Or Ramón’s. They both turned to see Mercedes standing between the tank and the bus, her hair smoking a little and her face blackened on one side. She looked like some kind of crazy demon. Which wasn’t too far from the truth.
“You are alive,” Ramón shouted.
“These the bastards that tried to kill me?”
“I can explain,” the Swede said, fear creeping into his voice.
“How did you...?” Bernardo asked.
“Went out the back door.”
Mercedes walked to the tank and ran her hand along the exterior. “So we’re saved, right? I told you Indians couldn’t get lost. What country are these Nazis from?”
FIFTY-THREE
Frank must have died at some point during the night.
No last words. No ceremony. No nothing. Just an old man going to sleep and staying asleep. Business unfinished. The end at the middle. The world continuing on as if nothing had happened. His final breath had gone completely unheard.
Ricky zipped Frank into the sleeping bag to keep the insects away. Some industrious ants had already staked a claim, but Ricky brushed them off with his hand. Harry drank from his flask and said nothing. It didn’t seem fair to either of them. Frank was supposed to die after they found the gold, not before. Frank’s death didn’t jibe.
Ricky talked to talk, lost in the loss. “How did he look last night? He looked good, yeah? He was tired, sure, but no more than you or me. Maybe he was hurt more than he let on. Acted tough for us. Frank never complained. Never.”
Ricky placed his hand on the sleeping bag and said a silent prayer. Harry dropped his head but didn’t close his eyes. He watched Ricky’s lips move silently. Eventually, Ricky said “Amen” softly and stood.
“Damn” was all Harry had in him. No other words felt right or necessary. This was new to him. Not the death. He knew his share of dead people, but he had never cared enough about a person to care if they had died. He’d known the old man was near the end, but that wasn’t the same as seeing him no longer as a human being, but a limp collection of skin and body. Harry was sad to the bone. Sad for someone other than himself for possibly the first time ever. He wanted to kill God, or someone God loved, show him how it felt.
Harry didn’t know how to deal with those feelings. He wanted to be alone. Harry limped the perimeter of the crater until he was at six o’clock to Frank’s body’s noon. He slid down the wall and put his forehead to his knees. He didn’t know if he was going to cry. He didn’t know if he had it in him. He didn’t know anything anymore.
Ricky watched Harry, letting him experience the death in his own way. Ricky believed in God’s plan. Frank was a good man. God was fair and good, he knew it. It was sad, but Frank was in a better place. Ricky believed it. He had to and he did.
A silent, mournful hour later, Harry rose from his seated position and approached Frank’s body. He ceremoniously took off his Saint Christopher necklace, unzipped the sleeping bag, and placed the necklace inside. He nodded sharply and closed it back up. Ricky walked up behind him.
“We have to carry him back,” Ricky said.
Harry rose, his eyes never leaving the body.
“It’s too far without the donkeys. We have to leave him here. Bury him. Leave a marker. Tell his people. They can come back for him, if they want.”
“It feels wrong.”
“You bet it does, kid. Wrong in every way. But sometimes, wrong is all you get.”
“Like we’re abandoning him, you know?”
Harry nodded.
Ricky said, “Okay. We bury him and head back first thing to tell his family.”
“After we find the gold, you mean,” Harry said, knowing that wasn’t what he meant.
Ricky shook his head. “Frank is dead, Harry. That’s the end of our adventure.”
“No, it isn’t. The gold is here. Frank dying changes things, sucks, but it don’t end them.”
“Yes, it does. We bury Frank and go home. This whole plan got him killed. We have to live with that.”
“Don’t you dare put that on us. We didn’t do jack to get Frank killed. Some cancer or heart thing or whatever disease he caught did. He was a grown-up who understood what risks are. We headed into a missile range. He wouldn’t’ve come if he wasn’t ready to kick.”
“Even if I wanted to stay,” Ricky said, “we can’t get back up and down the mine with two people. It’s a three-person deal. The gold is as far away as when we were in town. It’s time to go home.”
“What if I figure a way?” Harry said.
“That’s not really the thing.”
“What if I figure a way to get in and out of the mine? Will you stay and help me get that gold?”
Ricky looked over at the sleeping bag holding his dead friend.
Harry kept up the pitch. “One. No. Two days. Give me two days. We don’t have the gold in our hands by then, we pack it in and head down the hill.”
Ricky thought about it. He thought about his family, his wife, and his daughter. As much as he wanted to be home, the gold still mattered. He wanted to go back winners.
Ricky gave an almost imperceptible nod. “One day. That’s all. I don’t think we have enough water for two days and the trip back. Even now with two people.”
Harry nodded and clapped his hands together, no idea how he was going to get them in or out of the mine. He needed inspiration. That one-day deadline would pass quickly. He had to figure something out.
Ricky and Harry set Frank down gently in the pit he had been resting in the day before. The same pit that Frank had imagined as his grave had become just that. Some might have found it funny, but the irony would have pissed Frank off. Irony is only amusing when it happens to someone else. Death isn’t funny to the dead. It’s rude.
Ricky pulled Rosie’s manta from his pocket. He gave it a kiss, slid onto his stomach, and slipped it into the sleeping bag with Frank.
“Protection for your journey,” Ricky said softly before standing. “We should say something.”
“You’re the Goddy one. I wouldn’t know where to start,” Harry mumbled. He knew if he talked in his regular voice he would cry. He didn’t want the kid to see that.
“Bow your head.”
Harry decided to believe in God for the next ten minutes, so long as it meant that God would hear whatever prayer Ricky prayed. He would believe for Frank. After that, he’d go back to atheisting. He let the shovel fall to the ground.
Ricky took a breath and exhaled loudly. “Lord. As we lay Frank Pacheco to res
t here in the beauty of the Arizona desert, please watch over him and take care of him. Frank was a good man. A caring man. A father, a grandfather, and a friend. And while I’m not sure whether he believed in you or in a group of Indian gods or animals, I know he was a man of faith. He would not have come out here unless he truly believed that there was more than what he could see. His belief in this trip and his friendship is all you need to know to know Frank as a man. While your rules are strict, your love is endless. I put my faith in you to do right by Frank. Lord, you always know the right thing. This one is easy. That’s all. Amen.”
Harry nodded, stared into the grave, and then picked up the shovel.
Ricky found a spot on the other side and sank his shovel into the soil.
“Wait,” Harry said, running to the bags and stacks of supplies.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Harry said. “Might as well bury two birds under one stone.”
He held up the wrapped head of Abraham Constance.
“I’m not sure you’re supposed to put two people in the same spot. Won’t that be confusing if someone comes back for Frank?”
“It was his mine, too,” Harry said.
Dropping down to his stomach, Harry gently rested Constance’s head in the vicinity of Frank’s chest. It toppled to the side. Harry tried to roll back in place, but it fell to the other side. Harry left it.
He pushed himself to his feet, giving Frank and the head a final look. Both covered and wrapped, it looked more like they were burying old clothes than one and one-fifth of human being. It was disturbing how quickly a person became a thing.
Ricky dropped his first shovelful of dirt onto the body. The pebbles and dirt sounded like hard rain from inside a canvas tent.
“Wait,” Harry said, eyes filled with mischief.
“Second thoughts on burying the head?”