No Shelter (Holly Lin, No. 1)

by Robert Swartwood

  I watch the man smoke and piss, then watch as he zips back up, turns away, takes one last drag before dropping the spent butt to the ground, smashing it with the heel of his boot. The man walks back to the building, turns to glance once more at the dark, his eyes roaming like he’s searching for something, and then he turns and walks back inside.

  Putting away the scope, taking the AK-47 from where it hangs off my shoulder, I grip the rifle in both hands and then slowly start down the hill. I take my time. The light here isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either, and I put one foot in front of the other, make sure it’s solid ground before I place all my weight onto it and continue on. It takes awhile, but then I’m less than one hundred yards away from the ranch house. Close now, I can hear voices and music inside the guards’ building. Someone laughs, someone else coughs. I listen another minute, determine there is at least four guards inside.

  I start toward the ranch house. I keep the AK-47 aimed at the guards’ building as I move forward. Rosalina said that most times the men lock the ranch house. Sometimes they don’t lock it on purpose, to give the girls a false sense of freedom, and any girl stupid enough to try to escape gets raped and beaten.

  Tonight the guards haven’t played one of their mind games. The door is locked. Maybe it has to do with the trouble earlier tonight. Surely the men know what has happened, since at least one of their girls was involved.

  The rusty hinges of the door scream out into the night. Another man exits the guards’ house, a different man than before but a man who still wears a holstered gun. I expect him to pull a pack of smokes out of his pocket, but instead he starts walking off toward the same patch of sagebrush, what seems to be the favored pissing ground.

  I think about my options. I don’t have many. Hell, I don’t have any.

  The guy stops at the edge of the sagebrush, unzips his pants. He stands there a moment, murmuring something in Spanish, and then I hear the steady stream of his piss splash the dry ground.

  I don’t have time to think. He’s fifty yards away, maybe forty. His back is exposed. He has a gun but I have three, and before another moment of hesitation I start toward him, quickly, doing my best to keep my sneakers from making any sound on the hard sand. Past the guards’ house where I hear voices and laughter and music—someone inside now saying, “Anyone else want a beer?”—closer and closer to the man who keeps pissing, now whistling something, a tune I don’t recognize.

  Twenty yards away ... fifteen yards ... ten yards ...

  He hears me when I’m five yards away. He starts to turn, starts to reach for his holstered gun. I come up right behind him, the AK-47 now strapped back over my shoulder. I jab him in the kidneys once, then take his head in my hands, twist it to break his neck. This isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. The guy’s at a bad angle and my twist does nothing more than help him turn around. He’s still reaching for his gun, his hand on the handle, trying to pull it out. He wasn’t done pissing and his dick is exposed, dripping.

  I punch him in the gut, step around him, elbow him in the back of the neck. He goes down. I come up behind him, ready to give this one last try.

  I put one arm around the front of his face, another arm around the back of his head. He tries to bite me, cry out, but then I twist and this time hear the satisfying snap of his neck. He’s not dead though. Just paralyzed. On the ground, his eyes dart around, his mouth is open and he tries to scream but can only just wheeze. I search his pockets. I don’t find the keys I’m looking for but I find a switchblade. I flick the knife open, bend down, and ram the tip right into his throat.

  He doesn’t die quickly. His body convulses first. He makes a sound like he’s choking. Then, after a minute, he goes still.

  I stand back up, pull the AK-47 off my shoulder. I flick it to semi-automatic and start toward the guards’ house. I can still hear them inside. They haven’t heard a thing. None are wondering where their friend has gone.

  The main door is open, only a screen door protecting them from me. Light spills out onto the dirt. I place my hand on the door, wait a moment to breathe, then open it.

  Inside three men sit around a card table. Bottles of beer litter the table, along with bags of chips and pretzels. First someone says, “Rico, what took you so long?” and then that man looks up, sees me, throws his cards down and pushes back in his chair. The other men follow suit.

  I raise the AK-47 and shoot each man three times in the chest. Two of them go down without any trouble. The last man moves too fast and my bullets hit him in the shoulder. He goes down, but he’s alive, and he reaches for his weapon, tries to come back up with it aimed.

  I move closer, swinging the rifle back over my shoulder, reaching for my nine-millimeter, bringing it up just as he brings his up. He’s fast but I’m faster and I shoot him right between the eyes.

  For a moment I don’t do anything but just stand there. My heart is racing. I can smell their sweat and cheap beer as well as the bile that has been released by my killing them. I start with the man whom I killed last. He doesn’t have any keys on him. The next man does. He has a ring of jangling keys and I take them back outside and hurry over to the ranch house.

  I try a number of keys, come up with the right one, open the door and step inside. I reach out, fumble for the light switch, flick it on.

  The place is lined with cots. There are at least twenty of them. More than half are filled. In those that are filled battered-looking woman peek out from beneath their sheets. They’re expecting one of the guards, not a woman with a rifle strapped over her shoulder. Rosalina said that most of the girls there were Mexican, so first I speak Spanish.

  “It’s time for all of you to leave. Hurry and get your things.”

  None of the girls move. They must think this is some kind of dream.

  “Now!” I shout, and like that they blink and realize this is no dream. They scramble out of their cots. They start running around. Many are smiling. I just stand there, watching them, while one girl with a black eye walks up to me.

  “Who are you?” she asks.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m here to save you.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Rosalina is fine.”

  I expect her to smile in relief, but she still gives me that look of worry. She says again, “What about the others?”

  “What others?”

  The girl’s eyes go wide, quickly filling with fear. The other girls stop in what they are doing. In the sudden silence I can hear what the girls can, what they are no doubt used to hearing every night: vehicles, what sounds like two of them, approaching quickly.

  12

  On the drive up here, Rosalina had mentioned something about how the girls are transported. Every night they are taken by one or more of the men in SUVs to specific areas around the city. Usually a guard is posted somewhere to ensure the girls don’t try to escape. Rosalina admitted she tried this once and they broke her pinkie fingers for the trouble of tracking her back down.

  So that’s what these vehicles are now, the two SUVs filled with armed men and the girls who had been requested tonight. They’ve returned, and very soon the armed men will enter the guards’ house and see what has become of their friends. They will be angry. They will be fucking pissed. And here I am, trapped in a building with over a dozen women who have no weapons.

  I flick the lights back out, shut the door. I tell the girls to get back in their beds. Some are murmuring, some are crying. I raise my voice, speak in Spanish and English forcefully, telling them to move it. Act like nothing’s wrong.

  Outside, the vehicles stop, their engines shut off. There is the sound of SUV doors opening, the voices of men.

  My eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark yet but I hurry forward, trying to find a vacant bed. I pick the first one and lay down in it, pull the covers up to hide the AK-47. At once the reek of body odor hits me, and I wonder just how many nights pass before these girls sleep on clean sheets instead of lying in their own
filth.

  In the dark one of the girls speaks in Spanish. “What are you doing?”

  “Quiet,” I say.

  Outside, the crunch of feet on the ground.

  “They will kill you,” another girl says.

  “Shut up,” I whisper.

  A key slides into the lock. There is a pause, and then it slides back out. A voice murmurs something, another voice answers.

  I close my eyes, take a breath.

  The doorknob turns.

  I take another breath, tighten my grip around the AK-47.

  The door pushes open.

  One of the girls is still sobbing. My grip tightens even more.

  Someone flicks on the lights. I have to squint, turn my head slightly like all the rest of the girls. Here they come, stumbling on their stilettos, all dressed in the trademark skimpy outfit. One of the girls is chewing gum, making me think of Scooter for an instant, and it’s in that instant the girl’s gaze and my gaze lock and she stops walking altogether.

  Two men have entered with the girls. Though neither of them carry a gun, it’s clear they’re packing. One of the men grumbles, “Gloria, get in your fucking bed.”

  Gloria stares at me another moment, then starts walking, chewing the gum again. But it’s already too late. The half dozen or so other girls have noticed me too, and they pause, uncertain who this new face is, why I’m here, what’s wrong.

  But nothing comes of it.

  Because it’s right then the other men from the SUVs find what’s waiting for them in the guards’ house. Shouting starts, two or three men outside yelling that there’s been an attack, and then the two men in this ranch house reach for their weapons.

  Fuck it. Time to work.

  I throw the sheet off, jump to my feet as I raise the AK-47. I aim for the guy on the left, who is already pulling his gun out, but my bullet just misses him. He ducks, moves to the side. He raises his gun but thinks better of it and bolts back out through the door, leaving his friend who in his panic can’t seem to unholster his gun.

  Moving forward, snaking through the girls who have started running around screaming, I keep the AK-47 raised as I near him. My hope is to use him as a shield, but when I’m ten feet away he manages to free his gun and starts to raise it and I have no choice but to fire five rounds into his chest, making his body do one of those crazy dances before he falls to the ground dead.

  I jump over him and continue on, slide against the door to peek outside.

  At once the men fire, bullets chipping away at the brick. A shard hits me in the face, cuts me on the cheek. I have to turn away for a moment before looking back out, and in the dark I can see the men spread out around the door.

  In Spanish one of the men yells, like he’s a fucking cop, “Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up!”

  I’ve flattened myself against the wall beside the door. I glance over at the girls, many of whom have gotten on the floor to hide behind their beds.

  There is a silence outside. Then I hear the men begin murmuring. I can’t tell exactly what they’re saying, but the meaning is clear—they know I’m not going to come out willingly. So the same guy who spoke before, the guy who sounds like a cop and maybe that’s because he is a cop, this guy decides to up the ante.

  “You girls in there,” he shouts, “whoever brings this bitch out is free to leave immediately!”

  I glance back at the girls. I see the same thing enter into their eyes at the same time. That promise of freedom none of them ever thought they’d receive.

  It enters their heads, sure, but I know none of them are actually stupid enough to believe it let alone consider it.

  But one of the girls—she was working tonight, still in her dress and heels—stands up.

  “Julio,” she shouts, “do you promise?”

  I start shaking my head.

  Julio says, “Yes, you have my word. Get the fucking cunt out here and you’re free to leave. Anybody who helps is free to leave.”

  The girl is moving before Julio’s done speaking. Two other girls decide to follow.

  “Stop,” I say and aim the AK-47 at them.

  The two followers stop. The first girl keeps coming. She’s lived as a slave for years and now sees a chance at freedom, and no matter how fucked up it is, she’s going to take it.

  Her face is red and her eyes are dark, like she’s hopped up on something, and she’s ten feet away from me, then five feet, and of course I’m not going to shoot her, she must know this, but I’m still not going to let her throw me to the wolves.

  When she’s less than two feet away I lower the rifle, pivot it and smash the butt into her stomach. The wind is knocked out of her. She falls to the floor, wheezing, and the two followers rush me, screaming bloody murder.

  I don’t have a chance.

  Before I know it they’re on me, pulling at the rifle, at my gun. The men have sensed what’s happening and have hurried inside. They push the girls away, bend down and grab me, and even though I try to kick and punch and spit, they drag me outside.

  They throw me down on the dirt.

  Someone kicks me in the ribs, another kicks me in the butt.

  Then they stand back and form a circle, their weapons aimed at me, each with a finger on a trigger.

  13

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  I presume this guy is Julio. He wears chinos and a brown shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A gold chain hangs around his neck.

  I don’t answer him.

  He looks at his friends, shakes his head and grins. “Shame, we really could use a tough girl like you. I wouldn’t mind testing you out myself.”

  I slowly start to push myself up from the ground. I put my weight on one knee, my hands raised in defeat.

  “The problem is,” Julio says, “you seem to be a fucking cunt. And we hate fucking cunts.”

  There are five men but the guy I’m concerned about right now is this Julio. He seems to be the leader of the group. He has a chip in one of his front teeth and this is what I concentrate on as he speaks, no longer hearing his words, just slowly trying to stand back up, acting like I’m hurt. I balance myself on my knee and reach down, as if I’m going to push off the ground with both hands. But while my right hand is down there I reach for my two-shot strapped to my ankle, bring it up and use both bullets to make Julio’s chipped tooth disappear.

  His head snaps back, but most importantly, he shuts the fuck up. Still, I’ve wasted my bullets, have no more left, understand now in this instant that my time is up here on this earth as the four men all take aim at my head.

  First there’s a crack, then another crack, then another, and at first I don’t understand because it’s not coming from any of these men’s guns. No, it’s coming from somewhere else, somewhere in the dark, and then one of the men jerks, goes down, followed by another man, and the two remaining men turn, raise their weapons, start returning fire into the darkness of the desert.

  An engine growls in the night. Headlights are flicked on, showing a vehicle already coming up the drive to the ranch house. Even from here I can see it’s the Escalade, having crawled this far without lights, now speeding forward.

  At once I understand who’s in the dark shooting, and I figure Nova must be set up on one of the hills with a sniper rifle. The two men continue to return fire, forgetting me momentarily, and I scramble to my feet, jump for the closest weapon, grab it and turn and shoot the first man, then the second.

  The gun in hand, I do a quick three-sixty spin, making sure there’s no more surprises. The only movement that catches my eye is the girls now huddled in the doorway of the ranch house, the girl I’d popped in the gut glaring at me.

  Ignoring her, I hurry over to the guards’ house. It’s empty, the same men still lying dead in the same positions I left them in. I come back out just as Scooter pulls up the Escalade. Nova hurries down from the hill, his rifle in hand. I sprint forward, more glad than ever to see them.

&nb
sp; Nova reaches the Escalade first. He opens the back door, throws in his rifle, shakes his head at me as he closes the door.

  “I thought Berlin was the last time,” I say to him, grinning.

  Scooter shuts off the engine, opens the door and steps out. He too is shaking his head, but he’s smiling as he chews his gum. “You, Holly, are one crazy bitch.”

  “Yeah, but I’m one hot crazy bitch.”

  He laughs, shakes his head again, steps forward to take me into an embrace. It’s a rare thing but I allow it, my heart still pounding, knowing how close to biting it I had come. I’ve been there before, right near the threshold of death’s doorway, but always managed to jump back. This time I was certain it wasn’t going to happen.

  Nova must see it first. My back is to the ranch house, the girls momentarily forgotten. Scooter is hugging me, holding me tight, and Nova is standing behind him, still smiling. Then the smile fades. His eyes go wide. He starts to open his mouth but it’s Scooter I hear shouting. Next thing I know I’m being squeezed even tighter, Scooter grabbing me and turning to the side, letting go as he turns back and faces whatever’s coming at him.

  It’s the girl I’d popped, the one who had first moved at Julio’s demand. She has come out of the ranch house, picked up one of the guns, and God help me, I realize it’s my gun she has, the nine-millimeter, the one now raised as she hurries forward, screaming and firing.

  Scooter takes the bullets. He stays in front of me and he takes each bullet and for an instant I just stand there, paralyzed, not sure what to do.

  Then I move. Even before Nova can, I step past Scooter and run at the girl who’s running at me. She’s still shooting but I don’t care. I intercept her, slap the gun out of her hand, punch her in the face, kick her in the knee, send her to the ground. Then I’m reaching down, grabbing the gun—my own goddamned gun—and standing back up, aiming the gun and firing at her face until she no longer has a face, until there are no more bullets, and I’m left just pulling the trigger and hearing the dry clicks.