Applewood (Book 3): The Space of Life Between

by Myers, Brendan P.

  Casting his gaze toward the hillside, he saw amid the charred stumps and snapped trees were stacks of scorched wood and scrap piles of metal that revealed where homes had once been. Getting off the trail, sidestepping craters fifteen feet deep, he walked through town and saw what remained of the church still smoldered. The block that had contained the tavern and the market and the pharmacy had been reduced to blackened char. Unrecognizable carbonized lumps protruded from the earth where the livestock had been kept. The school was nothing more than a black hole in the ground.

  The streets and alleys were slick with blood and littered with corpses. Some villagers died alone, others were stacked up where they had apparently huddled together before being mowed down en masse. Stopping to peer into one pile, he saw a small but familiar green and white baseball cap. He stared into the unseeing eyes of the boy who had worn it for a long time before finally turning away.

  Winding his way toward the central plaza, he went past the flagpole and saw just ahead the sagging gateway arch that had been entrance to the town had been reduced to a pile of rubble. While walking toward it, a pair of blue and white balloons that had somehow survived the slaughter bounced lazily in his direction, kept aloft on the soft night breezes. He watched the wind lift them higher and kick them upward before they disappeared somewhere behind him. Going through the place where the arch once stood, he left this now village of the dead with the distant crashing thump of mortar fire still ringing in his ears.

  4

  Rides were hard to come by this far to the north, especially with the nighttime curfew and mountain roads that made travel treacherous even in the daylight. But the ones he did get were from friendly people who saw him walking alone and of their own volition, stopped to pick him up. Nearer the border with Honduras, he was given a lift by a nervous driver in a decrepit pickup whose truck bed overflowed with bananas. Dugan didn’t need enhanced senses to know that beneath those bananas were fifteen or so desperate Salvadorans, all seeking refuge in the north.

  When they arrived at the high mountain border crossing, in a town called El Poy, the sweating driver started to pull behind a long line of trucks and other vehicles waiting for the crossing to reopen in the morning. Dugan instructed him verbally to go to the head of the line. The driver cocked his head uncertainly, however drove past the long column of vehicles and stopped at the crossing.

  At the gate, two nervous young soldiers pointed rifles at them. One of the soldiers began yelling. More armed soldiers appeared out of the darkness to surround the vehicle. One or two began indelicately poking and prodding at the pile of bananas with the barrels of their rifles. Within moments, an officer stormed out of the latrine beside the crossing still tucking in his shirttail. He didn’t look at all happy to be interrupted. As if to punctuate his unhappiness, halfway to the driver’s window, he withdrew his weapon from his holster and cocked it.

  Streams of anxious sweat poured down the driver’s face. The mustached officer bent low and peered curiously inside the vehicle before tapping on the driver’s window with his pistol. Dugan told the driver to lower it. With a trembling hand, the man did as he was told. After a half minute or so, orders were barked, the gate to Honduras was opened, and the truck was passing through. The scene played itself out in much the same manner on the Honduran side.

  About twenty miles from the border, they passed an enormous fenced in parcel of land where inside, smoke from hundreds of campfires bloomed. Along the low hills within, scores of tents and other makeshift dwellings sprouted. Thousands of scarecrow figures milled about. From the signage, Dugan deduced that behind the barbed wire were seas of wretched humanity who had successfully escaped El Salvador, only to find themselves trapped and unwanted in a squalid refugee camp in a foreign country. He suspected there would be others just like it or worse scattered throughout Honduras and neighboring Guatemala.

  Some miles later, Dugan asked the driver to pull over. Surprised, he initially said no, insisting on taking Dugan as far as he wanted to go. Dugan thanked him profusely and said that right here would be perfectly fine. The driver reluctantly pulled to the shoulder. After coming to a stop, he dug beneath his seat and pulled from there the handful of grimy dollars he had hoped would be enough to bribe the officials at the border. Holding them out to Dugan, he tried placing them in his hand.

  While staring at them, Dugan remembered the people beneath the bananas, and for the first time on their journey, he reached into the driver’s mind. He discovered there that the man was just another campesino, though one who had lost dozens of family members to the now six-year-old civil war. He had only recently started working for a Catholic relief agency, to take children and other threatened citizens across the border, where an underground railroad of sorts awaited to spirit them to the north and eventually, America. Dugan smiled to learn that not surprisingly, this was the man’s first run.

  Knowing that at least these few people were safe for now, Dugan took another moment inside the man’s head to offer some advice – for example, the bananas were a dead giveaway – before waving away the money, thanking him sincerely, and wishing him good luck. Lifting his bag from the floor, he exited the vehicle and was only a few dozen yards down the road when, with a friendly wave, the truck carting bananas and at least fifteen wretched, though fortunate souls, passed him by.

  5

  After a cleansing walk and a soaking rain, Dugan hitched another ride which took him to the Pan American Highway. From there, a friendly if too talkative trucker drove him most of the way across Guatemala. Soon growing tired of the man’s incessant chatter, he contemplated instructing silence, yet for a reason he couldn’t quite articulate, chose not to.

  As dawn approached and he exited the truck, he understood why, finding himself grateful to the driver, and not just for the freely offered ride. Looking back on it, he hadn’t needed to say more than a few words or offer a lukewarm nod here and there. The man was more than happy to talk as he listened. It had allowed Dugan to keep what otherwise would surely have been stormier thoughts in check.

  He spent his next day amid bales of rotting hay in the darkness and shade of a collapsed barn behind an abandoned and decrepit farmhouse not far from the highway. After waking the next evening, he wandered into a dusty truck stop and smiled to see in its parking lot that bright and gleaming symbol of a different brand of American imperialism, a Coca Cola truck. It seemed more than appropriate.

  When the driver returned from the bathroom to learn he had an uninvited passenger, his temper flared and fists balled up; however, only moments later, he was surprised to discover he would be more than delighted to take the young lad anywhere he wanted to go, and where Dugan wanted to go was Mexico City, and he wanted to get there fast.

  6

  Knowing that one way or the other, this would be his last day in the cottage, earlier that afternoon, Dan had packed up his belongings. After ruminating over it, he decided to leave the Wouk novel on the bookshelf, hoping the next guest whose native language was English would find it just as enlightening as he had. It might at least provide some needed historical balance to the egregious views of their host.

  Tomorrow would mark two weeks since Scott departed, not to mention met Esquinaldo’s deadline of “three days at the outside.” Dan knew he could not be here in the morning. His plan was to leave sometime after dark, biding his time until the very last moment while still hoping against hope that Scott might walk through the door. And yet, he was also preparing for the worst.

  Odd to think that after all he had experienced, his nephew wouldn’t survive whatever ordeal Richards had put him through. But life was funny that way, Dan knew. It was a downright miracle that Scott had survived for as long as he had. But he supposed humans and vampires had at least that much in common: even a vampire could never know which day would be his last.

  With the sun going down, Dan paced the cottage, going over the plan in his head once more. He would wait until after midnight before sneaking down
the driveway and pushing the button, then jogging to the Paseo and snaring a cab. He worried the gate might be on a timer, and perhaps wouldn’t open after midnight. Or maybe, an alarm would sound in the house, alerting anyone inside that someone was leaving the premises.

  Considering that, for a time he contemplated going over the back wall. It wasn’t very tall, waist high at most, in order not to mar the magnificent views Esquinaldo held so dear. But heaven only knew what was on the other side. No, he would stick with his plan and modify it as needed.

  Around eight-thirty or so, he went to grab a beer from the fridge. While in the kitchenette, from somewhere on the lawn he heard a chortling guffaw. Walking to the front room, he pushed aside the curtain and glanced outside to see lights burning in his host’s office. His insides contracted to see a gaggle of grubby looking men on the patio brandishing what looked like automatic weapons. In one man’s hand, he saw the glowing tip of a lit cigarette, which informed him these were not the well disciplined men of the United States Secret Service.

  Shakily, suppressing his urge to flee, he bent low over the telescope to have a better look. Beyond the unshaven men with guns, inside Esquinaldo’s office, another conference was taking place. He saw the backs of three heads sticking up from the leather couch. Trails of cigarette smoke rose from their vicinity. Three other men were seated at the conference table, though only two could be seen clearly. The first was the now familiar earnest, gap-toothed man, who had made the apparently successful presentation to the vice president a few days ago. As on that night, in this meeting, he was doing most of the talking.

  The man he seemed to be trying to convince sat opposite him. A hard looking man of perhaps late thirties, he was of Mexican heritage, with bushy black hair, flat eyes, and a long scar across his left cheek. Dan’s trembling increased as the tumblers fell into place. Blinking, he looked again, and became certain he had seen this man before. Twice, in fact.

  The first he saw him was staring out from one of the black and white photos Agent Winthrop had shown him at Hotel Prado. And though he hadn’t made the connection at the time, he realized then he had seen the man a second time that same afternoon, staring out from the pages of a newspaper. It was the Mexican drug lord the newspaper fingered for the murder of the reporter, Rodrigo Salazar. Dan was sure of it.

  Letting go the telescope, he jumped back as if brushed by a high voltage wire. His heart began to race. After a bewildering moment, he went to the back room and tried to regain control of himself. Think, Dan. Think. What did it all mean? He took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves and piece things together rationally. What did he know for certain?

  The facts were these:

  The gap-toothed man was known to the vice president. They had a meeting where the vice president appeared to authorize something. Next, the younger man meets with Mexican drug kingpins. So, the meeting with the vice president authorized something having to do with drugs.

  No, Dan, no. Facts!

  Okay. Strike that last bit. Try again.

  Whatever was going on, it had all taken place in the home of an arms merchant. That meant it was more likely than not there was some nexus between the drugs and the arms. The words of Rosa Lopez flashed through his mind:

  Esquinaldo is the key.

  That could mean that arms were key to the deal. Perhaps somehow, drug money was being used to funnel arms to . . . it could be anywhere, Dan realized, blowing out a long and frustrated breath. Then, he remembered Scott. One of his earliest assumptions was that Esquinaldo and Richards were in league together. Richards had said that the business he needed Scott for was in Central America. So, that narrowed it down. He ran through the countries in his mind, starting with the ones in the news. El Salvador was undergoing a nightmare of a civil war, with dead archbishops and raped nuns and wholesale massacres. But as usual, American taxpayers were subsidizing the carnage. Next door to them was Nicaragua, and that was a little different, because congress had cut off aid and . . .

  Nicaragua.

  It had to do with Nicaragua. It was President Reagan’s hobby horse. It was all he talked about. He was afraid Nicaraguan tanks were going to end up on the Texas border, for Christ’s sake. He had said as much in a speech. Thinking back on their discussion, he realized even Esquinaldo had intimated it:

  “. . . with presidents like your Ronald Reagan, and men like Mr. Richards fighting your battles, you are well on the way to destroying both your largest foe and the world’s greatest evil, that Jew conspiracy known as communism.”

  Next, the words of the tired DEA agent came unbidden into his head:

  “. . . more of it is showing up in American cities every day, almost like it’s being funded by someone with very deep pockets.”

  Well, Agent Winthrop. I just might know someone with very deep pockets. Guess who? It’s the American taxpayer!

  It was madness, Dan knew. Sheer madness. But then, though he’d only met Richards once, and briefly, he had thought at the time he saw more than a hint of insanity in his eyes; if not that, then messianic zealotry, to be sure. No, Dan had met people like Richards along the way, and they were the sorts of people who would let nothing stand in their way.

  Christ. He wasn’t sure he believed any of it, not even what he’d seen with his own two eyes. Then again, the men with the guns and what he had seen in the conference room made the rest of his decisions easy. He had to get out of this house, and now. He had told Agent Winthrop if he saw any of the men at the estate, he would let him know. How much of the rest of his crazy assumptions he would share with the agent, he would just play by ear.

  In terms of his careful planning, all that went by the wayside. No way in hell was he walking out on that lawn, not with those men out there. So, it was on to Plan B. He would go over the wall. And there was no time like the present.

  Chapter Thirteen

  1

  The Coke truck made good time through the highlands of Chiapas and the central valleys of Oaxaca, though there was an agonizing half-hour detour around a hurricane damaged section of pavement. Along another stretch, cows had wandered into the roadway bringing traffic to a complete standstill. Aside from that, it was smooth sailing down the mostly empty two-lane blacktop. Dugan estimated that at this rate, he would have an hour or so of darkness in Mexico City, time enough to reunite with his uncle and start the process of putting this ridiculous and heartbreaking episode behind him.

  Throughout the journey, he gazed out the window toward the often spectacular landscapes of mountains and deep valleys and let his mind drift. He wasn’t yet ready to truly reflect on anything he had experienced, or think about the deadly consequences of the mistakes he had made. He certainly wasn’t ready to think about Teresa, or ponder the life they might have made together. When his mind did touch upon that subject, in what he knew was probably a defense mechanism, he rejected the very idea as ludicrous.

  He didn’t love her. They had only just met. He would never have agreed to join them. It wasn’t his fight. He barely understood how it was hers. Besides, look how well she had done with him in only two days time. Imagine what a lifetime might have brought. With a sharp spasm of self-revulsion, he recalled that everything he touches, everything he had ever touched, turned to shit.

  Enough. Stop it. Let it go. Not now.

  A little after midnight, they were just south of the state of Pueblo, he guessed only a few hundred kilometers from Mexico City, when he glimpsed across the desert a glittering mirage of swirling colored lights. As they moved nearer, he saw a slowly spinning circle of red and recognized them as the lights from a Ferris wheel. It was a carnival.

  Smiling, he instructed the driver to take the next exit and get them there. Within fifteen minutes, they were driving through a tiny, single road Mexican village, and stopping in a half-full, dusty parking lot. The hour was late. Through the windows, Dugan watched tired mothers and fathers drag crying children away from the alluring spectacle. But as he knew he would, the rhythms of a c
arnival being second nature to him, Dugan also saw a handful of young men just now walking in.

  Climbing from the cab, with echoes of whirling calliope music and pulse pounding rock and roll as his soundtrack, he told the driver to wait and then crossed the parking lot. As he approached the gates, the smell of grease and fried dough and cotton candy assaulted his senses, carrying him backward in time. Once inside, he passed a rusted Tilt-A-Whirl and a dangerously maintained Scrambler, walked by the kiddie section which had a cheesy Merry Go Round and a tea cup ride and a small train. Glancing into the faces of the rough men who operated the machinery, he glimpsed a once familiar, faraway look in all their eyes, but didn’t recognize a one of them.

  Off the beaten track, while standing at the far end of the midway, he turned to his right and saw what he had come for. At the darkest end of the alley, just beyond a trailer labeled: “Mysteries of Nature!”, its banners festooned with animal oddities and transparent fakes, was the House of the Freaks. Strolling down the dirt pathway, he glanced up at its faded, sun drenched banners and his heart leapt into his throat. Unconsciously, he slowed his pace, stunned, thinking it couldn’t be, before remembering that yes, it could.

  It was already mid-September. Carnival season up north would be winding down. It wasn’t unusual for carnies to work the Mexican circuit in the off months. Indeed, it was while they were returning from a Mexican jaunt that Dugan had first come upon them, and they had saved his life. With a widening smile he strode up to the booth and bought a ticket, then walked up three rickety wooden stairs and into his own past.