by Greg Lyons
‘So that’s about it,’ I said.
‘That it is quite a story,’ replied Gómez. ‘I am sure that your parents will be proud of you.’
When he said that, Billy and Todd and I looked at each other, and then I looked back at Gómez.
‘We don’t think that they should know what happened,’ I said. ‘You promised us that you wouldn’t tell them unless you really had to.’
‘That is true, Avery,’ he replied, ‘but I have no proof of the smuggling operation and we still do not know who killed Gustavo Muñoz. I will need you to testify at least about the diamond business and Guillermo Santos’s part in the operation.’
Well, I guess that I hadn’t told the whole story.
‘Hold on a second,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right back.’
I walked over to my hiding place across the dirt road from the jeep, picked up my backpack and machete and brought them to the jeep. I threw the machete in the back and placed the backpack on the passenger seat. I rummaged around in the pack, pulled out my camera and handed it to Capitán Gómez.
‘I took a bunch of photos of the inside of the barn,’ I said. ‘I’m hoping they might be proof enough about the whole operation.’
Capitán Gómez took the camera and then looked at me, still smiling. He looked at the photos on the camera’s screen.
‘These should do the trick,’ said the police chief.
I suddenly remembered the diamonds in my pocket. I handed him the small pouch and he poured a few of the sparkling gems on to his palm. He looked up at me.
‘Quite the detective, aren’t you,’ he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
‘So you won’t need to tell our parents about all this, right?’ I said. ‘I mean, now that you have all of this evidence.’
The Capitán laughed and then winced from it. The pain made his smile go away for a moment and then it came back.
‘I will do my best, but I cannot promise you,’ he said. ‘I may still need your testimony once we find out who killed the young man you boys saw at the clinic.’
‘My money’s on Sánchez,’ said Billy. ‘Pablo Malo would have used his shotgun, and Sánchez had those pistols. The dead guy had bullet holes in him.’
‘Let’s get you boys back home,’ said the Capitán, reaching for the keys in the ignition.
‘Umm, are you OK to drive? My dad’s let me take the wheel a couple of times,’ said Todd hopefully.
Capitán Gómez managed another smile.
‘I think I can make it to the clinic,’ he said. ‘I will have the doctor there call the Policía Nacional in Anaco and have them send some officers to the farmhouse.’
I didn’t say anything, but it worried me. It would take those officers several hours to make the trip from Anaco to Campo Mata. My dad and I had taken the same trip lots of times to play in golf tournaments there. By the time the police got there, Sánchez and Guillermo might be long gone – and they knew where each one of us lived.
‘They could be long gone by the time the officers get there,’ I said.
‘I know,’ sighed Gómez, ‘but I am in no shape to handle them, and you three have already been through enough. It’s the best I can do under the circumstances.’
He was right about one thing. He needed to get to the clinic. I wasn’t so sure about the other. We’d been through hell and back, but there were still some loose ends and I didn’t want any of them to come after us. I made up my mind right then and there, but I didn’t want the Capitán to know what I was thinking. I didn’t even want Billy and Todd to know.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’d better get going.’
Capitán Gómez turned the key and the old jeep engine coughed and sputtered its way back to life. I leaped into the passenger seat and Mati jumped on to my lap. Billy and Todd hopped into the back with the backpacks and machetes. Gómez put it in gear and we started bouncing and splashing our way down the muddy dirt road.
When we had gone about a mile down the road I turned to Gómez.
‘Do you think that you can make it to the police station on your own?’ I yelled over the noise of the engine.
The man’s face was pale and his jaw tensed with every pothole the jeep hit.
‘It is painful,’ he said, ‘but yes, I can make it.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘You think you could drop us off at the path to the mango tree? We sure don’t want anyone to see us in this jeep. We’ll go to the tree house, wait a little while, then head on home and act like nothing ever happened.’
The police chief kept on driving while he thought about it.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I will drop you off there, but go straight home. Do not linger at the tree house.’
‘It’s a deal,’ I said, but he didn’t see that I had crossed my fingers.
Smoke was still rising from Pablo Malo’s place when we passed by the plantation, but we couldn’t see what was left of the building through the banana trees. Capitán Gómez brought the jeep to a stop a hundred metres further down the road, in front of the path that I was pointing at. Mati jumped out on to the dirt road, followed by the rest of us Machacas.
‘Now remember,’ said Capitán Gómez, ‘straight home, OK?’
‘OK,’ I said.
Billy and Todd nodded in agreement.
‘You must promise,’ he insisted.
‘I promise,’ I said, with my fingers firmly crossed behind my back.
‘Good,’ said the officer. ‘I must be going, but I will need to talk to you boys later.’
‘We’ll drop by the clinic later today to check in on you,’ I said.
Capitán Gómez put the car into gear and was about to pull away when he turned once more to face us.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For saving my life.’
And then he drove away.
I turned to see Billy and Todd with their hands on their hips and scowls on their faces.
‘What?’ I said.
‘You had your fingers crossed when you promised him we’d be going home,’ said Billy. ‘I saw it.’
‘You’re not going straight home, are you?’ said Todd. ‘You’re thinking of going back to the farm, right?’
It was true. I just couldn’t stand the thought that Sánchez and Santos might get away, after all they’d done. I didn’t want to think that they might be hiding in El Monte, waiting to get back at us.
‘You two don’t have to go,’ I said.
‘You’re nuts,’ whined Billy. ‘We finally get away and you want to go back?’
‘That’s Capitán Gómez’s problem now,’ said Todd. ‘Let the police handle it.’
‘You guys get going,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you at the clinic, say just after lunch?’
All I had was my machete and Mati, which wasn’t much compared to Lieutenant Sánchez’s pistols, but it was going to have to do. I was scared, for sure, but I figured I didn’t want to live my life always looking over my shoulder to see if they were about to jump me.
‘Oh, and I’ll need that rope,’ I said to Todd, pointing at his backpack.
He reached into his pack and handed me the coil of rope.
‘What’re you going to do with this?’ he said.
‘Tie Sánchez up,’ I replied. ‘If he’s still under the barn door . . . if he’s still alive.’
‘If he’s alive,’ said Billy, ‘he’ll probably use it to hang you by the neck from the nearest tree.’
I ignored him.
‘Come on, Mati,’ I said. ‘One last thing to do.’
I was almost at the cattle guard at the entrance when I heard them running up behind me. It made me smile. I turned around and waited for them to catch up. We were Machacas and we were all in this together. I knew they’d come. They stopped in front of me, breathing hard from the short run in the hot sun.
‘All right,’ panted Billy, ‘let’s get this over with.’
‘Yeah,’ said Todd, ‘but I think we oughta sneak up on the place instead of just walking right up the road.’
‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘Let’s do that and see what’s going on.’
We were sneaking up through the rows of banana trees along the edge of the narrow gravel road, when I saw a nice ripe bunch of bananas. Billy and Todd saw it too, but none of us mentioned it. What was there to say? We knew that if we had seen that yellow bunch of bananas that day when we first came sneaking in, we’d have grabbed it and run out of there. None of what happened after would have taken place.
The farmhouse came into view and we could also see the barn, or what was left of it. The roof was completely gone and the only things standing were three blackened walls. They looked like the crumbling walls of an old abandoned Spanish mission. The metal skeleton of Lieutenant Sánchez’s burned-out cop car was still giving off a little bit of oily smoke, but not nearly as much smoke as the barn. I saw that some of the wooden beams from the rafters had fallen down inside and still had flames coming off them.
As we came around the side of the house I saw the big, thick barn door that had blown off its hinges lying flat on the ground about halfway between the house and the burning barn. It wasn’t completely flat though and that was because Sánchez was still under it. I saw his feet sticking out from under it, like the Wicked Witch’s in The Wizard of Oz after Dorothy’s house fell on her. Only these weren’t ruby slippers. These were black boots.
‘Looks like Sánchez is still out for the count,’ I whispered.
‘Or dead,’ whispered Todd.
‘Or playing possum, just waiting for us to get close enough to shoot us to smithereens,’ whispered Billy.
I had my machete tight in my right hand, and Billy and Todd each had their slingshots loaded. They followed me around to the front of the house and up the porch steps to the open door. The two mutts were still there on the porch all curled up, and I was afraid that we’d overdosed them with too much sleeping powder.
‘They’re still breathing,’ whispered Billy, who was reading my mind, I guess.
I peered into the room. Nothing had changed. The unused furniture piled up on one side, the radio equipment and the silver spurs – everything was just as when we had first seen it. I crept into the room and over to the hallway leading to the kitchen. We hadn’t heard anything yet, but we did when we started to get closer to the kitchen. Someone was snoring loudly, like a rumbling volcano about to erupt. I poked my head around the doorway and saw Guillermo Santos lying face down on the pink linoleum floor. There were even more empty beer bottles around than I remembered seeing the last time I was there, and most of them were scattered around the fat man. He was totally passed out.
‘Guess he figured he’d be going to jail,’ said Todd. ‘Wanted to get drunk for the last time.’
‘That,’ said Billy, ‘or Pablo Malo told him to stay until he got back from killing us.’
We tied his hands and legs just in case he woke up, and went out through the squeaky screen door. Not even the rusty screech it made when we opened it or the loud slam when it closed behind us was going to wake up Guillermo. I walked across the lawn to where Sánchez’s feet stuck out from beneath the heavy wooden door. I pulled out the rope, cut off a long section with my pocket knife and started to tie the man’s feet together.
‘Hurry up,’ hissed Billy.
When I was done, I stood up and kicked one of the black boots, but nothing happened. I kicked it again, this time a lot harder. If he was awake he’d have groaned for sure. Of course, if he had been sleeping it would probably have woken him up. But there was no movement, no painful groans.
‘OK, guys,’ I said, ‘let’s lift this thing off him and see what we’ve got.’
Billy and I got on one side, and Todd handled the other all by himself.
‘One, two, three, go,’ I counted.
‘Use your legs, not your backs,’ grunted Billy.
With a whole lot of straining and complaining we managed to get the door a little way off the ground, walk it away from the body and drop it. We looked over at the face-up, squished body of Lieutenant Sánchez. I could tell that one of his legs was broken just below the knee because shins don’t normally bend like his was. His right arm was probably broken too. It was all twisted up underneath him at a totally wrong angle. His face was the worst part of it though. The Venezuelan maids back at camp weren’t going to think he was so good-looking any more. That’s ’cos his nose was practically ripped off and hanging by a thin piece of skin, and one of his ears was missing.
‘He’s still breathing,’ said Billy, pointing at his chest. Seems Billy had become an expert on telling if someone was still breathing.
That got me a little worried, so I moved over next to the body, knelt down, quickly took the one gun he still had out of his holster and handed it to Billy.
‘Keep that thing pointed at his chest,’ I said. ‘He moves, shoot him.’
With the pistol in his hand, Billy was once more the brave western gunfighter.
‘You got it,’ he said. ‘Let’s just see him try something.’
I looked at the gun in his hand. It was shaking. He was being brave, but he was terrified of course. I was too.
‘You might want to click off the safety first,’ I said as I knelt down next to Sánchez.
When I heard the click, I rolled Sánchez on to his stomach and tied his hands behind his back as tightly and as quickly as I could with the rest of the rope. It was kind of gross when I heard his broken arm crack again, but I got it done. I was scared to death while I was doing it that he’d all of a sudden come around and try to strangle me. I finished the job and breathed a big sigh of relief.
Todd had seen the other pistol across the yard near the screen door and was walking over to pick it up from where it must have landed after being blown out of Sánchez’s hand. Billy stood over me, watching Todd hold the other pistol in the palms of his hands like it was going to bite him. And then, just as I was about to stand up, Sánchez suddenly opened his eyes and looked right at me. I froze. I wanted to run away, but couldn’t.
‘Avery McShane,’ he whispered, so low that I was the only one who could hear him. It was a whisper that came half from his mouth and half through where his nose used to be. ‘I will find you. Some day, when you think it is safe, I will find you and when I do, I will kill you . . .’
Chapter 15
The Legend of Loca
It was the tenth of July, my birthday. My parents had set up the tiki torches and picnic tables in the grassy field behind our house, like they did for the Fourth of July party, only there were a lot fewer of them. Almost all of the kids in Campo Mata had been invited, except for Scott and Chris. Everyone would be showing up when the sun started turning orange again on the horizon, but Billy and Todd had asked me to meet them at the hideout a couple of hours before the party started and I was on my way there.
I followed Mati through the gap in the barbed wire fence and walked the short distance to the edge of El Monte. As usual, we both got that feeling that something was going to happen, because something always did when we went into the jungle. Like most days in that part of the world it was steamy and the sky was light blue without a single cloud. We stepped into the cooler, wetter, still air hiding in the shadows of the tropical forest. The sky reminded us it was up there by shooting sharp beams of light through a few gaps in the leaves above us.
We had only taken a few steps down the hard-packed dirt path to the tree house when Stupid Monkey saw us and started fussing again. He was really going at it this time. I figured he was in a bad mood because he still hadn’t recovered from staying up all night listening to the ruckus we had caused at Pablo Malo’s farm. Seemed to me that he had gotten up on the wrong side of his tree branch every morning since. We took a short cut away from the path through the ferns and toadstools that grew up through the mat of rotting leaves carpeting the damp ground. Stupid Monkey saw what we were doing to get around him and he was having none of it. He started screaming and jumping from branch to branch, chasing after us, so we had t
o run for a little while to get out of his poop-tossing range.
We made it to the hideout before the rest of the Machacas. I checked on the threat threads, happy to find them all strung out across the six paths leading to the mango tree. Mati curled up in a tight comfortable ball at the base of the tree and I climbed up the trunk into the room of our tree house.
Everything was back to normal. The stacks of comic books were in the far corner, but the piles were a little taller than before due to all the tape we had used to repair the torn pages. The holsters were back hanging on the nails in the wall just above the comic books. We had dug them up from their graves in the dirt because we knew that the hideout wouldn’t be the same without them. We spent a lot of time stitching the belts back together with twine. We cleaned the mud off the pistols and hammered the barrels back as best we could, but we knew that they’d never shoot straight again. We had even filled some new jars and shoeboxes with critters we found nearby, but we hadn’t found another monster worm yet. I was going to miss that guy.
All of a sudden Mati let out a single sharp bark to warn me that someone was out there and, since I was still jumpy after everything that had happened over the last week, I peeked out of the window sort of cautious-like. In my imagination I could picture the headless body of Pablo Malo shuffling out of the bamboo stand, dripping blood from his stump of a neck with his arms straight out feeling around for my neck to throttle, or maybe the noseless and earless face of Sánchez looking up at me in triumph, all ready to follow through with his promise to kill me. But it wasn’t either one of them. Instead Billy and Todd came through the bamboo thicket, and they weren’t running from someone with a shotgun or a rabid, frothing, banshee dog. They were laughing about some private joke that I wasn’t a part of, though I suspected I might have been the butt of it.
