“Oh shit, Raz! The trucks are moving. One turned right to the end of the camp while the other turned left heading our way.” The men had maybe a minute, two tops, to find Robin and the kids before the soldiers drew closer and discovered their dead comrades.
It was impossible for Raz to drive forward. He would run into the guard truck up ahead. The road was too narrow to turn around on. The only avenue out was to back up to the unmanned sentry shack where the road widened.
“Cody,” Raz began, “we have less than a minute. Find ya family. Now!”
Cody jumped from the vehicle and ran to the first prisoner building. Almost two thousand terrified and excited detainees mobbed the fence gate. Faces of all ages looked at the lone man running toward them, hoping to be saved.
“Robin! Robin Gordon!” her husband screamed.
“Robin, Jeffrey, Jennifer!” he yelled as he grabbed the chain link and searched inside. Time was running out. The shift truck moved closer, dropping off and picking up guards along the way. In seconds the truck would reach the third tower, close enough to see the guard hanging on the fence.
No familiar faces looked back at him. The clamor was growing louder as Cody rushed past the wild horde. He kept calling his wife’s name, but there was no answer.
Raz stuck his head out the window. “Cody! We need ta go. Cody, git back in here. They’re comin’.”
Cody barely heard Raz, but he didn’t care. He was so close to his family. One more minute and he would find them. A few more seconds and his wife and children would be safe and leaving this god-forsaken place. The crowd was growing even louder, the truck inching closer.
Five seconds more, that’s all he needed. Please God.
Raz sped up to Cody. “Get ya ass in here right now ya damn fool or we’re all dead.”
The guard on the next tower saw the agitated crowd two buildings away. An Army vehicle was chasing a man running down the road. Uniformed bodies littered the ground. He threw himself against the mounted 50 caliber Browning and turned it toward the Humvee. He ordered something in Russian and began shooting. The shots ripped holes in the road in front of the vehicle. Bullets ricocheted off the thin armor. Several rounds plugged two inch holes through the windshield. Raz ducked, unharmed.
“Git the fuck in!” he shouted an order to his friend. Cody spread-eagled against the fence trying to avoid the spraying gunshots. He couldn’t find his family. He knew he had to run back.
He dashed back to the Humvee. Raz was already backing it out. The guards in the approaching truck tumbled out the back, hugged close to the vehicle and started shooting toward the invaders. The machine gunner didn’t let up on his shelling. He poured all he had into the impenetrable Humvee.
Zigging back to Raz, Cody was in the open a second too long. He reluctantly glanced back at the mob of captives, still looking for his family. Bad decision. His left shoulder caught a red hot round, tearing away a chunk of flesh and shredded jacket. The impact slammed him into the ground. He fell on his back, blood gushing from his wound. All he could see was gray sky. Above the noise of the blasting gunfire, the yelling from the guards, the racket from the inmates, he heard Raz calling him. His mind went blank and his eyes closed tight, as if to stop the piercing pain.
Cody tried to shake off the dizziness, but he was disoriented. He turned and found the Humvee. It was forty feet away. Could he reach it? He pulled himself up by grabbing the fence. Holding his shoulder he crawled toward Raz. There was no protection, no place to take refuge. Another shot ripped into his side, knocking him down again in twisted agony. He felt the cold earth and tasted dirt. Bullets pelted the ground around him. He heard high pitched screaming. It sounded like his wife Robin crying to him, calling his name.
And then Cody passed out, lying motionless in the middle of the narrow road, a perfect target for the pack of angry, hostile guards quickly moving in.
Raz watched his friend go down. He saw the young man, his new son, dead in a spreading pool of blood. Bullets kept pinging off the vehicle. Raz saw Cody roll slightly to his side. The young man was still alive. He had to get to him. He had to save his dying friend.
The enemy assault was relentless. A shower of bullets kept the Humvee separated from Cody. Raz heard gun fire from the hill tops, but it failed to stop the soldiers’ onslaught. No one left behind, Raz kept thinking, a truth all soldiers carry with them into the battleground.
No one.
Raz opened his door, using it as a shield from the assault. “Cody! Cody!” he shouted. But there was no response. A man his age should not be able to move as quickly as he did, but Raz reached his friend. He struggled to lift his buddy and carried him to the Humvee. He opened the back passenger door, shoved loose cases and duffels to the floor, then lifted Cody’s body onto the seat. The side windows were blasted out from the shooting barrage.
Glass shattered around him. Bullets whizzed past him. One hit his pants without grazing his leg. A second sliced through his sleeve and drew blood, but not nearly enough to stop the man. Raz ignored the cut. He hopped into the driver’s seat and kicked the gas pedal to the floor watching the speeding dirt road through the rearview mirror.
Hundreds of soldiers from the new buses ran in mixed formations toward the war zone. A hundred arrows soared silently through the air from behind the hills, at least half of them hitting their intended targets. Soldiers turned and tried to hide from the invisible wave of death. But there was no place to hide and nothing to shoot back at. Gun shots rang from the rocks above as more guards fell by the dozens. Volleys of rifle fire and streams of arrows ravaged the unprotected troops.
The prisoners scrambled back into the safety of their prisons as the battle raged on, stumbling over each other as they attempted to save themselves. The machine gunner and his fellow tower guards dropped as their hearts exploded from unending flurries of arrow shafts.
Raz raced in reverse through the checkpoint, yanked the steering wheel, and pulled forward. He had to get out of range, but most importantly he had to save Cody.
Chapter 41
From their higher vantage point the remaining tower guards could see Pete’s men pop up over the ridges as they fired into the camp, picking off the uniforms one by one with their rifles or in tight clusters with their simple, but true, bows and arrows. Groups of ten or twenty Indians marked with their thick war paint briefly rose from the rocks at different spots to shoot into the valley of guards.
The enemy machine guns heartlessly tore into the hilly peaks decimating the archers and riflemen. Casualties quickly mounted on both sides, but the machine guns held the advantage and cut the Pascuas to pieces. The momentum of the battle suddenly favored the uniformed troopers.
Pete lowered his rifle. He had watched too many of his people shot dead or wounded. With the arrival of the unexpected soldiers, they were far outnumbered and out-powered. He would fight to the end just as his men would, but now, with too many killed or dying friends surrounding him, he decided to regroup. The Pascuas desperately wanted to defeat the soldiers who had blatantly taken their land, but not at the cost of wiping out every warrior in the tribe.
There had to be a better way to fight.
At his signal, Pete’s men retreated from the hills. They drew back from the camp, helping or carrying their wounded and assembled on the far side of the wash where the road had been dug out. Many of the
standing Pascuas were bleeding, limping from their injuries, shot or cut up from the sharp rocks blasted into them. There was still a burning fight in their eyes and a readiness to attack the camp head on. But the raw truth was in the numbers. Of the two hundred warriors, sixty had been killed, and close to that number wounded.
Pete spoke to his fearless followers. “Men, you have cut into the enemy’s forces. You have fought a brave fight and have shown the evil white men your skills in battle. We have lost many brothers today, but we will avenge those who fire upon us and hold the captive families of our friends. Every one of you should be proud f
or your display of courage against an overwhelming army. Your ancestors are proud of you. And today I am proud to be a Pascua Yaqui by your side.”
His men yelled an Indian chant and held their weapons high in defiance against their foe. They would return into the heat of battle and finish the job they had come here to do. Every warrior waited to hear more from their chief.
“We shall care for our wounded and prepare our weapons once again,” Pete said. “Be ready, my brothers. We shall soon engage our enemies, and this time we shall be triumphant.”
Pete walked to his pickup truck. He needed to come up with a plan, one which would not inflict such damage to his tribe. He refused to accept defeat, but for the moment he could not figure out how to engage their considerable opponent.
Raz emerged from the wash driving the Humvee up the sandy bank like a mad man. He braked short of the Indian gathering. “We need a doctor here!” he shouted to the group.
Halfway en route he had stopped to see how Cody was doing. The young man was alive, moaning from the deep pain, but he had lost much blood. From the aid kit Raz put a compress bandage on Cody’s wounded side. It helped to slow the bleeding, but that would not last very long. He then dressed Cody’s mangled shoulder with yards of gauze and medical tape. He gave his friend a quick shot of pain killer to lessen the throbbing. It would relax the man as well. Cody was alive, but he was in bad shape.
“My family…” Cody had muttered. “Where’s…my family?”
“Ya just stay still. Hear me?” Raz told him. The old man had never been scared in his life. Today was different.
“But….”
“But hell!” Raz said. “Ya can’t help no one if ya dead. I need ta git ya ta a doctor or somethin’.”
Raz had given Cody a few sips of water and covered him with his jacket. From the camp it had taken over fifteen minutes to reach Pete and his men, during which time Cody had slid into a state of unconsciousness.
Several of the Pascuas jumped into action when they saw Cody. They gently moved him from the Humvee and put him into the back of one of the old king cab pickups. Three men, still in their war paint, rode with the wounded white man toward the Indian village.
“Don’t worry,” Pete assured Raz. “We have people who can take care of your friend.”
“He needs a real doctor, not a damn witch doctor!” Raz growled. “I want that boy ta live, ya hear me?”
Pete gave Raz a stern glare. “He’ll be okay. And we don’t have witch doctors. We have healers.”
Raz grumbled without saying a word.
Pete saw the blood on Raz’s sleeve. “You okay, old man?” he asked.
Raz had forgotten about the cut. He touched it and grimaced. “Ain’t nothin’.”
The chief called one of his men over. “Take care of this senior citizen,” he told the man with a smile. “And get him a jacket.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Raz said to Pete as he trailed behind the young Indian. “We have lots ta figure out.”
And they did have lots to figure out.
The element of surprise against the camp’s security was gone. The Indian forces were halved, though surprisingly, their sense of determination seemed even stronger. Cody was out of the picture. The guards were royally pissed off and could turn their anger on the prisoners. If that happened there would be a massacre. Things were going badly. Twice as many soldiers were in the camp than before. Robin and the kids weren’t found. Were they in the last building? And
if so, why didn’t they run to Cody? Why didn’t they call back to him? And where was Nick’s family?
The biggest question for Raz and Pete now was, how were they going to get back into the camp and then get out again?
“God-damn son-of-a-bitchin’ bastards!” Raz shouted to no one in general as a young Indian woman in the village tended to his minor arm injury. She cleaned the laceration and applied a generous handful of some smelly natural cactus ointment directly on the cut. Using a clean piece of white cloth she gently wrapped his wounded arm, tying the ends together to secure the makeshift bandage.
“That crap smells like year old dead fish,” Raz said, as the girl cared for him. He smiled at the pretty nurse.
She smiled back at the old geezer, thinking he smelled worse than the medicine. “Stop complaining. You sound like my baby brother,” she sternly told him. “It’s good for you.”
Raz wasn’t used to a female talking back to him like that, least of all a little Indian girl. “Just sayin’,” he added sullenly.
“Well, you keep that on your arm. You understand me?” the girl admonished him.
Raz stared at the black haired woman. He would have laughed if the whole friggin’ thing wasn’t so serious. He moved his arm in a small circle. It felt better already. “Damn good job, sister.”
The girl stood up, collecting her medical aids. “First, I’m not your sister. Second, you do as I say,” she said like a mother hen hovering over a sick chick.
Raz decided to let it go. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered. These Pascua Indians are tough cookies, he thought to himself. He quickly rose and headed back to Pete, ready to fight the less intimidating camp soldiers.
Pete, his brothers, and Raz sat in the running Humvee with the heat cranked up. They were pooling their brainpower to come up with a strategy to attack the concentration camp. Bottles of water were passed around.
Raz began. “So what ya boys thinkin’?”
“You ever hear the story of Yaqui Creek and the Circle of Fear?” Pete asked the white man.
“Can’t say that I have,” Raz grunted.
“It’s about our brave ancestors hundreds of years before we were born, working together to run invaders off our lands,” Pete began explaining.
“This ain’t no time for ancient history lessons or fairy tales ta scare little kids,” Raz insisted.
Pete paid no attention to Raz’s comments.
“In the 1500s the Spanish army was moving north through Mexico into territories now known as the southwestern regions of America. It was Yaqui land, sacred and protected by our early grandfathers. The Spaniards were in search of legendary deposits of gold as never seen by mankind. The Seven Cities of Cibola. I’m sure a smart guy like you knows about that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I heard that myth,” Raz said, shaking his head.
“It’s not a myth. It’s not what you call a fairy tale either,” Pete continued. “It’s true. The Cities of Cibola did exist and the Spanish wanted to find them. For many years they searched and took land that wasn’t theirs. They burned villages and tortured my people trying to get to the gold. They enslaved and killed the native inhabitants. They sent more soldiers, more guns, and more explorers. They only wanted the gold and nothing else mattered. Nothing or no one could stop their advance.”
Raz grew quickly impatient. “Great. How the hell is that gonna help us?”
“Please listen, my friend,” Pete said calmly. “My Yaqui ancestors were nearly wiped out by the swords and guns and diseases of these greedy white men. Until the battle at Yaqui Creek.”
“Okay,” Raz said, trying to keep peace. “Tell me.”
Pete told the story. “After years of fighting, most of the Yaqui warriors had been killed or captured by the Spaniards. The soldiers kept searching for the treasures of gold, vast cities with walls made of pure gold, so they believed. One spring they made camp in a small valley fed by a mountain creek. Yaqui Creek. Eight hundred soldiers stayed there and used the camp as a jumping off point to search other nearby regions. It was surrounded by small hills to the south and taller mountains to the north. A safe place to hold up in. Or so they thought.”
Pete’s brothers in the back seat remained quiet, listening to the tale as if it was the first time they heard it.
“The soldiers’ guns outmatched our peoples’ primitive weapons and our smaller force. Not much different than what happened to us today,” Pete recalled.
“So what the hell happened back then
?” Raz asked. They were wasting time.
“If the Yaquis attacked head on they would be slaughtered. If they stood ground on the hills they would be picked off by the soldiers. There was no way to fight without losing, no possible way to win
against such a large army. But,” Pete stopped for a second, “a young warrior came up with a plan to defeat the Spaniards.”
“Now ya got my attention,” Raz commented.
“The handful of Yaqui men with their spears and bows ‘surrounded’ the camp on the hill tops. A scout had been sent back to their village with an urgent message. Every member of the tribe was to go to the hills above the camp. It took a full day for over two thousand Yaqui Indians, made up of old men, the sickly, women, and even youngsters, to travel to be with their men on the ridges of those hills and mountains,” Pete said.
“How could they possibly help?” Raz wanted to know.
Pete smile. He liked this part of the story.
“The soldiers were ready to finish off the remaining warriors once they showed themselves. But, the young warrior, the one with a plan, had his people spread around the hillsides just out of sight from the camp below. When it was time, every Yaqui tribe member lifted a spear or a bow just enough so the soldiers below could see the weapons without seeing the old men, women, and children holding them. It became a huge circle of Yaqui weapons on the peaks ready to fire down upon the soldiers followed with loud chants of war. It must have been quite a sight for the Spaniards.
“Seeing so many weapons the soldiers believed they were vastly outnumbered. From around the high circle our armed warriors kept shooting and killing the frightened Spanish invaders. Large numbers of Spaniards were killed. Some Yaquis too. After a long, fearsome night of waiting, the soldiers packed up most of their gear and left the camp the next morning. Eight hundred armed troops against a few Indian fighters and a village of people. The Circle of Fear,” Pete ended.
“Pretty damn impressive, if ya ask me,” Raz said.
Treasonous Behavior- in the Beginning Page 27