Standing at the edge of the other side of the sand dune, Tanner watched as the men in the safari suits passed by him. He considered attacking them, if for no other reason than to take the canteens that were strapped to their belts. Tanner thought better of it. They could wait, as could his need for water. It was the man in the jeep he wanted, along with his rifle.
Tanner wiped sweat from his eyes and moved his tongue around inside a mouth gone dry. He needed water, and he needed it soon, but understood that he could last without it. He knew his limits better than most men. He had been taken to them years earlier and had pushed beyond them while he was training to become the man he was.
These men who wanted to kill him had no idea who they were up against, but they would learn the hard way. He was a Tanner, and he would deliver death to every last one of them. Pushing his discomfort from his mind, Tanner began circling back to where Phelps sat in the jeep. It was time to go on the offensive.
12
Letter From A Friend
BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO, JULY 1998
By nine in the morning the temperature was already at 106-degrees and Cody felt as if he were afoot inside a blacksmith’s forge. When he came across the latest stash of water that Spenser had left for him, he was ecstatic to find that it was still cool. Better yet, Spenser had left him a gallon jug.
Cody moved behind a narrow band of shade offered by a cactus and sat, to drink in the water. Rather than reviving him, the cool liquid seemed to enhance his fatigue and make him want to lie on the ground.
He’d made little progress since four a.m., covering less than twelve miles. With three hours to go, he still had to traverse sixteen miles.
“I’m not going to make it,” he muttered. When he checked his watch, he was shocked to see that he’d already been stopped for ten minutes. He needed to eat. If he ate something it would give him energy to go on. Reaching inside the backpack, Cody saw Spenser’s letter. Spenser said it was to be read only after the sun rose, which it had hours earlier. Cody read the note as he chewed on a protein bar.
Cody,
If you’re reading this, then I know how tired you must be feeling and what you’ve endured to get to this point. I hope you’re close to the finish line, if not, then know that there is no shame in losing this race. Few men could travel a hundred miles on foot in the desert and it won’t make you less of a man if you don’t finish.
I know what becoming a Tanner would mean to you and that you want it so much because of what happened to your family. I understand that motivation more than you know, but nothing will bring them back, son.
You have to live your life, Cody, whether a Tanner or not, and while your loved ones were taken from you, I want you to know something.
I love you, boy, and I’ll be proud of you forever despite how things work out. If you don’t finish the race you won’t be a Tanner, but you’ll always be my friend.
—Spenser
Cody wiped at his eyes before placing the letter back in its envelope. After placing the backpack on again, he took off at a jog. On his face was a look of determination.
Romeo was doing worse than Cody after wandering off his route in the dark. When the sun rose, he realized that he had drifted off course, and worse yet, he had missed hitting one of the water stops. Consequently, he was suffering from the heat while having walked two extra miles to get back on the right track. He had no idea what time it was, but he guessed that it was around nine in the morning.
When he finally reached the next designated stop, Romeo gulped at the water too quickly and felt his stomach cramp. The pain was harsh, but nothing compared to the agony in his back.
After forcing himself to drink more slowly, Romeo finished the water and checked his pedometer. It told him he had fifteen miles to go. He tacked two miles onto that because of the distance he’d travelled while lost.
“Seventeen more miles,” Romeo muttered, and it seemed like an impossibility to him. Despite that, he placed one foot in front of the other, and was soon running for all he was worth.
13
A Pain In The Neck
DEATH VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, AUGUST 2012
Andrea laughed aloud when she found more of Tanner’s water. She had been feeling the effects of the heat and feared that she might soon pass out. As she was drinking with her head tilted back, she heard the sound of something moving off in the brush. Lowering her head, she saw Cord standing thirty feet away. He was smiling at her.
“You’re gonna die, bitch.”
Andrea was reaching for one of the guns tucked into her waistband when an arm snaked around her neck. It was Rudy, and he was cutting off her air. Even as she gagged, Andrea’s fingers found the trigger of one of the guns. She brought it out, pressed it against Rudy’s stomach and fired.
Rudy screamed in her ear, then collapsed to the ground while dragging Andrea along with him. She rolled away with the gun in her grip and heard the sound of footfalls growing near behind her.
It was Cord, and he was close.
Without bothering to look, Andrea spun onto her back and fired off a shot. The round hit Cord on the right side of his face and opened up his cheek. He stopped four yards away from Andrea and felt his bloody face.
Andrea fired again until the weapon was empty. The shots missed, but they sent Cord running back the other way. After freeing the second gun, Andrea fired three more shots at the fleeing punk, but not one of them hit their mark, and Cord skittered down a hill to disappear from sight.
Phelps sat up straight inside the jeep after hearing the shots and assumed that Tanner and the safari twins had been behind the gunfire. Phelps stood up in the jeep with the rifle raised to his shoulder and gazed through the scope. He could see nothing due to the undulations of the sandy terrain.
He slid back down into the seat, took out his two-way radio, and called the safari twins.
“What was that shooting? Did you come across Tanner?”
“That wasn’t us,” said a voice that Phelps recognized as belonging to the tall safari twin.
Phelps thought that over and assumed that Tanner had traveled farther than he’d thought.
“Tanner must have come across those two boys Smith hired. I’ll have Jones call them and see what’s going on.”
“Okay, but come pick us up. It’s hot as blazes out here.”
Phelps had been holding the unit to his ear with his right hand, which had blocked his peripheral vision on that side. As he lowered the hand-held radio he saw Tanner standing beside the jeep. Tanner reared back a hand that was holding a knife and tossed the blade at Phelps. The knife sank inches into Phelps neck and he began to gag.
When he went to pull the knife free, Tanner gave him some advice while lifting the rifles out of the jeep. His own rifle, and Phelps’ weapon, which were the same model.
“I wouldn’t yank on that knife, you might nick an artery.”
Phelps sat with his head back while breathing heavily through his mouth. Blood had run down his side from the blade in his neck and his beige shirt began turning red. Tanner reached into the jeep and removed the keys, then grabbed a canteen off the seat. The canteen was empty of all but four drops of water, and even that tease of refreshment tasted like heaven. After opening the door on the jeep, Tanner laid the rifles on the rear seat, then sat beside Phelps.
“What’s your name?”
“Carl Phelps.”
“Who wants me dead?”
“Fuck you! You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“I’ll leave you alive if you tell me what I want to know.”
Phelps gave Tanner a disbelieving look, soon after, he realized he had nothing to lose by talking.
“I don’t know his real name, but he’s calling himself Mr. Smith, while his assistant goes by the name of Jones.”
“Describe them,” Tanner said.
Phelps spoke between gasps of pain and gave descriptions of Smith and Jones. While listening, Tanner was also checking out Phelps’ rifle,
which was a Remington 700. The rifle’s range was about a thousand yards in the right hands and appeared to have been cared for.
“Who hired Herb Barker?”
“I don’t know, but Smith found out about it and decided to make an example out of you and Barker, so that no one else would dare accept a contract on him.”
“Where can I find him?”
“He’s around here somewhere in another jeep.”
“What part of the country is he from, and does he have an accent?”
“He’s not from around here, neither is Jones. Jones sounds like a Connecticut yuppie, while Smith is an Englishman.”
“Barker’s daughter, is she still alive?”
Phelps raised his shoulders in an attempt to shrug and the blade in his neck moved, causing him to groan.
“Shit, but that hurt. I think it’s touching a nerve.”
“Tell me about the girl.”
“I don’t know if the girl is still alive, but she escaped and is being hunted down right now. Maybe that’s what that shooting was all about.”
“Besides you and the fools in the safari outfits, how many more men are there?”
“Just two. They’re the teenagers looking for the girl.”
Tanner asked Phelps several more questions, took away his phone and radio, then told him to get out of the jeep. Maybe the knife hadn’t hit an artery, but Phelps was losing blood at a steady rate. There was a small red puddle in the seat; Tanner covered it with a pair of floor mats and climbed behind the wheel.
Phelps, with his head tilted at an odd angle, stared at Tanner.
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“No, but you’ll die out here anyway.”
“Take me with you, Tanner. I’ll help you find… help you find…”
Phelps’ knees gave out and he collapsed to the sand. Tanner started the jeep and drove away from the dying man.
Rudy bled out right before Andrea’s eyes. One moment he was there, staring up at her with those brilliant green eyes of his, and an instant later those eyes turned dull and lifeless.
Andrea hadn’t meant to kill him. She was just defending herself. If anything, she was sorry that she hadn’t killed Cord as well, because as long as he was loose she wouldn’t be safe.
Fearing that Cord would stay near the old road and pounce on her somewhere, Andrea decided to cut across the desert. If she kept going east diagonally she should still meet up with the main road. She had walked among the cactus for only a hundred yards when she heard someone shouting to her.
Andrea spun around and saw two men waving at her. They were smiling and in a shout one of the men asked her if she were lost. She rushed toward them with relief flooding through her, then thought of Cord. Looking around, she saw no sight of him and figured he was back at the motor home seeing to his wound.
Sweating, while covered with dust and with her hair disheveled, Andrea knew she must look affright. She certainly couldn’t say the same for the men walking toward her. They were rather spiffy looking in their matching safari outfits.
Cord made it back to the motor home and discovered that it was like the inside of an oven with the air-conditioning shut-off. He began using the first-aid kit on his wounded cheek. The slug had slit the skin wide open. For some reason, the slight impact of the shot had also given him a brutal headache.
Rudy was dead, he was sure of it, but he’d have to go back and get his brother’s body. If the law found Rudy, they would come looking for him sooner or later.
Cord cursed Andrea’s soul as he worked on his cheek, but he knew she was a lesser worry than the fact that the assassin hired to kill Smith was roaming about. Everyone was armed except him and it made Cord feel vulnerable.
After downing four pain relief tablets that he knew wouldn’t do shit for the agony in his face, Cord went to work trying to hot-wire the motor home. He had seen cars hot-wired, but he had never done it himself.
Either he got lucky or the skill was an easily acquired one, but Cord made the engine roar to life in less than two minutes. Before driving away, he soaked in the air-conditioning blowing through the vents, then looked over at Rudy’s empty seat.
No tears fell from Cord’s eyes, but a fury burned in his soul. He vowed that someday, somehow, he would kill Andrea. After putting the RV in gear, Cord went off to get his brother’s body.
14
Three Little Words
BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO, JULY 1998
Cody Parker reached the limit of his abilities while he was still nine miles from the finish line. First, he had slowed, despite urging his feet to keep moving. That was followed by a wave of dizziness that caused him to crash atop hot sand and vomit what little was in his stomach.
After laying with one side of his face in the sand, he went to rise and found that he couldn’t. His arms seemed unable to support his weight, while his legs felt lifeless. Cody Parker had given it his all and it wasn’t enough.
“Nooo,” he moaned, but he was finished, and he knew it, all that was left was to accept the truth. He wasn’t man enough to be a Tanner.
Cody’s heat-reddened eyes closed on their own, mercifully blocking the blinding rays of a sun that was broiling the sweltering air around him to 113-degrees. As he lay there in despair, the hot ground seared the skin of his cheek, while soaking up his tears.
“A little rest and I’ll be all right,” Cody mumbled, but behind his closed lids he imagined what awaited him when he finally went limping back like a defeated dog. He’d spent the last eight months training to become a man who could best any number of men thrown against him, and he couldn’t even beat himself.
Cody opened his eyes, struggled into a sitting position, then looked toward where the finish line would be.
Nine miles, it’s only nine more miles.
Checking his watch, Cody saw that there was little more than an hour left. Fear gripped him then. It was an emotion he seldom experienced, but it took hold of his mind and told him he would die if he attempted to rise and finish the race.
Cody laughed, the sound guttural, as it came from a dry throat. Wasn’t he already dead? He wasn’t Cody Parker, no, Cody Parker was buried back in Texas next to his family… the family he’d failed to protect.
Fear fled from his mind to be replaced by shame and regret. He had asked Spenser once if he could have saved his family had he been there that night. Spenser had responded that it might not have been possible to save them given the odds Cody had faced, but Cody never believed that.
He couldn’t believe it, and he wouldn’t give in to the belief that superior odds always won.
Spenser had gone down to Mexico and faced over a dozen men just to get a measure of justice for Cody’s family. He’d risked his own life to do that, then he took Cody in and offered to train him.
And for what? Cody thought. So that I could give up and lie down in the sand just miles from the finish line?
Cody made it to his feet and weaved in place on a pair of unsteady legs.
Tanner! I have to become a Tanner.
He thought of Pablo then, of the Mexican boy who prevented Martello from shooting him to death by attacking the brutal man with nothing but his bare hands. It was Pablo who lay in the grave of Cody Parker. Pablo had fought rather than run, although he could have easily hidden in the fields that night.
Anger coursed through Cody, and it was rage at himself. All his talk about becoming a man who couldn’t be defeated by any odds, and a simple test was about to stop him.
“No!” Cody shouted through gritted teeth. After shedding the near empty backpack and hiding it under brush, he took off running.
Cody Parker was a man possessed by a single vision, by a dream of a future self. That man, that Tanner’s heart would explode in his chest from the effort of winning, rather than to fail by admitting defeat.
Cody’s feet hammered the hot sand as he ran in an all-out effort, while in his mind one word repeated over and over.
Tanner!
Tanner! Tanner! Tanner! Tanner! Tanner! Tanner! Tanner! Tanner! Tanner!
Cody would become a Tanner, or he would die trying.
Not far away, Romeo had also reached his limit. He had given it everything he had and made it to within eight miles of the finish line, but he knew he would never make it there in time. His back was a nest of knotted muscles, while his legs felt boneless and weak.
And without the watch, for all he knew he had already lost. And yet, he didn’t think so, the sun had risen hours ago, but it wasn’t yet high enough to be noon.
Romeo was at the final water stop and savoring the last of the gallon of cool refreshment Spenser had left for him. Thinking of Spenser reminded Romeo of the note Spenser had given him.
He took the folded envelope from his pocket and found that it was wet from his perspiration. After carefully freeing the note inside, he read it.
It didn’t take long to do. There were only three words written on the note. They were in the middle of the page in capital letters.
I KNEW IT.
“What?” Romeo said. “He knew it. Knew what?”
Was Spenser telling me that he knew I would fail? No, he’s not like that… or is he? Romeo thought.
No, Spenser and he were tight, friends, and he loved the guy, but then, why did he write those words?
I KNEW IT.
Romeo thought about the eight miles that separated him from victory, then looked at his wrist, only to curse when he saw the bare flesh where his watch should be.
Young Guns 3: Beyond Limits Page 5
