Voices cut through my panic. I held my breath. A quiet conversation—Señor Rodriguez and a woman inside the house. The voices grew louder as the conversation turned into an argument, then all hell broke loose as the door banged and feet clambered down wooden steps. Ah crud. I lifted the gun, but no one came around the house. Flannels streamed into the woods, pursued by bounding black Stetsons whooping Latin war cries, firing their guns into trees, bullets whizzing and cracking branches.
Like our old game of Search & Destroy, it seemed the drug thugs frequently ran from the townies into the woods, only to creep back to their club house. Unlike our old game of Search & Destroy, these people had grown-up with realities on their shoulders, realities where their young men and women vanished.
Where was Samuel?
I searched for my husband’s tall, slender frame in the villagers who remerged from the woods and stomped down the hill toward town, but he wasn’t among them.
The night fell quiet. The air was thick with heady earth and shadow, crisp breeze ruffling the canopy of trees. The moon was huge and low and orange, the same harvest moon that had hovered over Lyons just days ago. If I closed my eyes, I could be home, crouching in a log, braced for an animal’s growl.
Now what was I supposed to do? Go back to town? Wait here? As I waffled, a twig snapped to my right. I swung the shotgun toward the noise and, as I did, something sharp stung my neck. A mosquito this was not. Just before I dropped like a sandbag, gun and all, I swear I heard someone say “tag!”—a punchline so ridiculous and poetic, I would have laughed if I hadn’t been out cold.
The first thing that cut through the fog was pain. Fire licked up my freshly reinjured wrist. My head throbbed, so I put my good hand to my cheek and it came away warm, sticky. Had I hit it when I fell? I gingerly probed the gash. If I made it to seventy, I’d have more scar tissue than skin. I buried my face into...what was I lying upon? Tree rot? I shifted and it rustled. Straw mattress. Was I in the building with the moat of light, or had they moved me?
Samuel.
I sat up and groaned when my brain tried to beat its way out of my skull. Concussion, perhaps? No, I’d had concussions, and this nerve-numbing blanket wrapping my body felt more like the haze of strong meds.
“Sam?” I whispered into the dark. A light flared in the corner, and pain shot through my head. Was I hung over?
“What did you do to me?” I slurred.
“Toloache. You should still be asleep; my dosing was off. I don’t understand…” A woman, distinct Spanish dialect like the other villagers. She clapped her hands and I flinched. “Of course, the altitude. Your blood runs thin because you come from Colorado. Mountain people have higher tolerances.”
Toloache. I’d heard of it before…Alonso’s story…
‘We would travel through the villages…once, they gave my brother toloache for a sprained ankle and he hallucinated he was trapped inside its thorny fruit…It is what the Aztecs used to subdue their human sacrifices…’
“You gave me that crazy Aztec plant?”
She straightened her back. “Consider it a small mercy. The Zacatón wants me to bash your head so he can transport you to Nuevo Laredo, but I won’t let him do that.”
“How generous.”
I struggled to make sense of her words, but it was like listening to a weak static signal on a radio station. The woman sat in front of an oil lamp, darkly silhouetted like a Madonna profile edged with gold in a medieval icon. She rose from the table and I saw her more clearly. Smooth, sumptuous skin and eyes of glittering flint, oval face, piled hair. She looked much younger than the heavy cares that streaked her hair with gray. An herbal scent filled my nostrils.
“I’ve seen your photo. You’re Javier Sanchez’s wife, Camila Flores.”
She smiled thinly. “Something like that.”
“Where’s my husband?”
“Same place as mine.” I watched balefully as she poured something into a cup. “Drink. It will ease the pain.”
I gave a harsh laugh. “There’s no way I’m going to drink that.”
“Toloache won’t kill you, only give you strange dreams.”
“Oh lady, I don’t need another flipping strange dream. I’ve had my quota, thanks.”
Camila frowned. “It’s difficult for you to believe, but I’m not a bad person. You weren’t supposed to be with the writer. If that cholo takes you to the Nuevo Laredo Treiños, you’ll never see home again. But they don’t have to know we have you. Once your husband makes the bank account transfer, Javier and I will return you to him. I’m trying to save your life.”
“Or you could let me go now. That seems easier.”
“Drink.” Exasperated, she held out the mug. Not a chance, sister. I stubbornly clamped my mouth shut, terrified if I drank, I’d be dead like those long ago Aztec prisoners.
Two bottles were on the table. One was a brown liquid—the toloache. The other was clear liquor. Camila rolled the clear bottle between her palms—homemade raicilla?—and the liquor sloshed against the sides. “It won’t kill you,” she repeated. “I’m a medicine woman. I’ve gathered plants, dried them, and worked the markets since I was a niñita.”
Boots clomped up the stairs. The door she’d been eyeing swung open and in stomped the watchman. So he’d given the villagers the slip. For one so young, his face was red and splotchy with exertion.
“Car is gone, the others have it,” he wheezed, and grabbed the bottle the woman held.
“Please, help yourself.” Camila glared at the arrogant youth.
Forgoing a glass, he splashed a generous amount down his throat and gave a satisfied smack. “Still the best in Tamaulipas, better than your grandmother’s, even. She wasn’t good for much else.” He spotted me. “Ay Dios mío, this one isn’t dead after all. You are a hell of a lot of trouble.”
What had I done except get myself drugged?
“Your husband just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Had to drag the Federales, border agents, the damned P.I. into our business. Thinks he’s so smart, that he can pay his way out.” The man faced me now, wavering oddly, as if I viewed him through the sloshing liquid of the woman’s raicilla bottle. Drops of his spittle landed on my cheeks and I wiped it in disgust.
“I don’t suppose if I apologized, you’d let me go.” I shifted against the straw mattress as another wave of nausea hit me. The man’s eyes grew dark and hungry, a predator, and I belatedly realized that small movement caused what little cleavage I had to jut out. I hurriedly zipped up my hoodie to my neck.
The man chuckled and grabbed his crotch. “¿Hoy cena Pancho, eh?”
I tucked my knees further into my body. Even I knew the implications of that crude phrase.
The woman huffed. “If your mother could see you now, she’d whip your backside. Besides, if we kill the writer’s wife, we have no chance of accessing Samuel Cabral’s bank accounts.”
“I’ve not killed a woman yet with this.” Good lord, the man was obsessed with his crotch. “Anyway, she’s of no use to us. Send her to the Treiños.”
“Such big words for such a small, stupid boy! It doesn’t matter which one of the Cabrals we’re holding, as long as the other is free to pay their ransom.”
The man ran a hand over his holstered gun. “Be careful, old woman. The Zacatóns are calling in retribution on you and Sanchez for ‘losing’ their goods. If we don’t get the account information, you are as good as dead…”
My eyes darted back and forth as I tried to follow their volley. “Lemme get this straight,” I slurred. Why wouldn’t my mouth stop flapping? “You and Javier lost the cartel’s goods—how do you lose something that belongs to a drug cartel? Did it fall out of your pocket?—and you want to use our money to pay this debt. So you lured Sam down here to hold him for ransom, but that plan now blows because I’m not in Colorado to authorize…the…bank...” My vision blurred.
How did four bottles appear on the table? I tried to meet Camila’s icy stare with one
that was equally threatening.
The thug snorted. “Bitch is loco. No one’s going to pay money for her.” He waved his gun in my direction. “Just hit her with your bottle and be done with it.”
Yep, I needed to get out of there, stat. I grabbed for the nearest diversion. “Okay, no need for blunt force trauma. Just give me the cup.” The wife tentatively held out the mug and I snatched it, sniffed. It was some herbal, nasty smelling thing and I crinkled my nose.
“Do it.” The lackey impatiently waved his gun above his head.
“Really, wey? You want me to drink this? Maybe you should just knock me out.”
“Pinche perra, just drink the damned thing!” His fingers were loose on the handle, lax at the trigger. He swayed on his feet, stumbled into the table. The homemade raicilla bottle clattered to the floor—it must have been powerful stuff, because the guy was as drunk as a skunk. This was my chance.
I hurled the foul mug at his face and it chased the raicilla bottle across the floor. Just as I gripped the door handle, a shot ripped through the room and lodged in the wall, followed by a second that whizzed by and hit the door behind me. My arms flew up.
“Mother of Tom!” Wey may have been as wobbly as a landed trout, but he meant business. “I give up! I’ll drink.”
Camila’s scowl was full-on ugly. She marched across the room, refill in hand. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find these plants? Don’t spill. In fact, here.” She yanked the man-boy by his white tee and instructed him to force my mouth open as she put the mug to my lips. The foul liquid sloshed down my throat, and before I could spit, she forced my jaw shut.
Helpless, I gagged and swallowed.
“Did she drink enough?”
“Enough for flying unicorns.” Camila hunched over me as if to check my vitals and whispered. “For God’s sake, be quiet and don’t fight.”
“Unicorns don’t fly,” I grumbled.
Minutes passed as I sat on the straw mattress and plotted. The cholo bit his fingernails and spit them on the dirt floor. The woman opened one of Samuel’s Nixie books and flipped to an oft-read passage, judging by the crease in the binding—probably that sex scene I’d been chaffed about when it was first published. A Nixie was a Nixie, regardless of nationality, age, and criminal intent.
Everyone jumped as the door banged open and Javier strode through. His Aloha shirt was so bright, my poor drugged eyes watered. My heart pounded out of my chest.
“What have you done with Samuel?” I garbled. Ugh, my tongue was a thick clump of oatmeal clogging my mouth.
Javier assessed my extremely stoned state. “Is the writer here, too?”
“No. I thought you were going to get him,” said Camila.
“They took him before I could intercept them. If he’s not here, he’s at the old market.”
The old market…that was what Samuel had called the boarded up building at the base of the hill.
“What are they going to do to him?”
Javier turned to me. “He’s on his way to a ‘financial meeting’ with Treiño’s ‘chauffeur,’ down from Nuevo Laredo.” He even used air-quotes, the idiot, as if I didn’t know what he was talking about. “They’ll want to sell the girl,” he said to the Zacatón.
“It shouldn’t be a problem.”
My head roared at Camila’s false promises. They had no intention of releasing me, and I wished I’d spent more time learning about the horror of human trafficking rather than stressing over new homes and babies and marital problems.
“And Samuel Cabral?” Javier asked.
“The usual. He pays, we ask for more. He will keep paying, as long as there is hope of her return.”
Sickness roiled in my stomach. I truly was going to end up on an episode of Forensic Crimes, a twenty-minute blip of morbid curiosity for other people safe on their couches, people who had enough sense not to mix with evil cartels. Not going to happen. Grim determination blossomed; I’d get out or die trying.
The room grew fuzzy. I gripped my head.
At that moment, the thug mirrored my actions. He shook his head and slumped against the wall. His eyes flew to Camila.
“Wha…what did you give me, witch?”
“Only raicilla, child, better than my abuela’s.”
Mother cliffhucker. They’d played him.
The Zacatón henchman slid to the floor. Javier towered over the man and leered, then reared back and delivered a blow. He cried out, but Javier was merciless.
“It wasn’t enough for the cartel to have me, Marieta and Daniel. Now you devils want the children, and I will not allow it.”
“Please,” said the Zacatón but determination was in Javier’s beefy fists. I pressed my body as tightly against the wall as I could, unable to watch as he brought his judgement.
“Javier! He’s only a stupid little boy from La Vereda. If the cartel doesn’t kill him, the police will.”
Javier ignored her. “Greed. Revenge. Power. You bathe in blood, yet you are never cleansed. And now I’m just like you. I have my niece’s blood on my hands. Oh, Marieta.”
“Enough,” Camila said quietly.
I winced at the lifeless heap on the floor…I didn’t want to look but I had to know. Sure enough, his chest still rose and fell. My head swam again, and as I watched Javier dig through a bag and tuck an envelope in his shirt pocket, his arms blurred and split in two, like zippers. My eyes bugged out as he fragmented further, and soon he had bones for arms, waving and rattling like those Dios de los Muertos skeletons propped in windows and hung from doorways. I would have preferred unicorns.
Keep your focus, Kaye, get yourself out of here. I looked again. Brightly colored bones and animals danced upon the walls, jaguar fur billowed down from the ceiling. Wow, it was pretty. So soft, like the mountain leoncillo. I touched the delicate bristles.
“It’s beautiful...” I murmured.
“Now I have the correct dose,” the medicine woman sighed. At least, it sounded like her. A second skeleton sat in the chair, her head wreathed in bright red roses, and I was fairly sure I had toppled into Alonso’s folktales.
Perhaps it was the toloache coursing through my bloodstream and causing a trip worthy of The Beatles post Strawberry Fields. More likely it was an absolute lack of inhibition combined with the knowledge that Samuel was nabbed by inhuman butchers. Either way, it was time to leave. Legs as wobbly as a fawn’s, I pushed myself up from the straw bed and stumbled for the door, or where I thought the door had been, because the walls swirled and wafted like a brightly painted ship sail. If I had to somersault my way back to the village, I would find him.
“We can’t just turn her loose, you don’t have the money yet. Besides, she’ll never make it back to the village.” The skeleton woman’s voice was hollow as black crept into the corners of my vision.
“You must take her. Return her to Rodriguez, they’ll keep her safe until the toloache leaves her body.”
“And Samuel Cabral?”
“Samuel,” I lamented. I had to find him.
A pause, then a calm voice. “I will help your husband, Mrs. Cabral.”
Somewhere behind me, the woman skeleton cried, pleaded with the man. As they clung to each other, I lurched and swam through a swirl of colors, deep in this Aztec ocean. Then bone fingers clutched my arms and the man was inches before me, scintillating eyes holding mine. “Señora, I don’t know if you can understand me, but I pray you remember when you are again yourself.”
I started to scream for Samuel, but the man covered my mouth.
“Go to the cave, up the mountain. You’ll find the children there.”
“What children?”
“The children Marieta took from the cartel. That is what we do. We help them to escape.”
“They are the ‘lost goods’ the cartel boy spoke of,” Camila explained.
“You must return them to their families. Please Señora.”
My head lolled and I tried to hold his gaze. His words were a
jigsaw puzzle, thousands of scattered pieces. “I don’t understand. Why are you letting me go?”
“Because mì sobrinita is dead, my sister’s beautiful girl. Ay, Marieta. She was good to me. You cannot let her boy fall into the hands of those monsters, or she will have died for nothing. Go. I will help your writer escape.”
Pieces fit together in a moment of clarity. Poor Marieta. Samuel would be devastated.
“They’ll hurt you,” I said, my voice strange and childlike.
“Do not worry what they will or won’t do. I carved my coffin long ago.” With that, he shoved me out the door and into a foreign night.
I tripped through the muck of the forest, vaguely aware of boney fingers clutching my sleeves, pushing me, guiding me as I ran. Cool air filled my nostrils and the moon swam into view above a body of glowing water.
“I cannot go any further or they will find me,” the woman with the skeleton hands said in a low voice. “The village is up the hill on the other side of the lake. Stick to the road and for God’s sake, don’t fall in. Tell Señor Rodriguez to take you to Marieta’s cave. He will know.”
She gave my back a small shove. “Go! Run!”
I began to scramble up the hill but froze. What about Samuel? He wasn’t up the hill, he was down the hill, at the old market. I dropped to my hands and knees, dug my fingers into dirt and gravel to ground my panic. If I went for the children, could I trust Javier to save Samuel?
But the children… the Zacatóns had scattered into the forests. How long before some cartel goon found them in this cave? Or, what if I tried to save Samuel and they killed me? Who would tell the village how to find them?
I cried in agony, because there was never a choice. Up the hill, in a cave, there were scared children who’d been wrenched from homes, parents, lives, trafficked like chattel and saved by my fearless sister-in-law, a woman I would never know. Up the hill, in a cave, was her boy.
I bowed my head. I knew what Samuel would want me to do. Heartsick, I forced my eyes up the hill into the darkness…up the road…up…around the lake…up…up.
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