Degüello

by Billy Kring

  Nadine looked up, shook her head in disbelief, and said, “Damn, girl, you are a pest!”

  “Could we please sit out here where there’s wind? Please?”

  “Too many of you. No.”

  Kelly looked at the girls in the furnace-like shed. “Could we come out in bunches, then trade places like that?”

  Nadine showed a hint of a smile at Kelly’s persistence. “Two at a time, no more.”

  “Thank you.” Kelly hurried into the barn and waved the other girls to her, even the tall one. She came with balled fists and a frown.

  Kelly told her, “Pick one of your friends and you can go out to sit under the trees where there’s a breeze. We’ll take turns like that.”

  The tall girl’s face showed distrust, “Why me, why us?”

  “I thought you’d like to go first.”

  She looked at Kelly, “No tricks?”

  “No. I asked Nadine and she said yes, two at a time.”

  The tall girl nodded and called over one of her friends. “Let’s go.”

  The others watched them go out and find the deepest shade they could under the mesquites, then sit down and let the breeze flow over them.

  It was evident to the other girls that it was far cooler out there than inside the barn.

  Consuela said, “how long you gonna let them stay before we trade?”

  “Half hour.”

  “You have a watch?”

  Kelly pulled out a small watch with a broken wristband, “It’s my mom’s. She gave it to me the other day. She thought maybe I could fix the band.”

  Thirty minutes seemed to take forever. The other girls began whining and grumbling, except for Consuela. When thirty minutes passed, Kelly walked out of the barn door and waved to the tall girl and hoped she would come without any trouble.

  The tall girl and her friend rose and walked to the barn. The tall girl stopped by Kelly, “I’m Bobbi.” She put out her hand.

  Kelly shook it, feeling relieved, “I’m Kelly.”

  Two more girls went into the breeze, then two more, until Kelly and Consuela were the last two. As they walked out, Kelly made it a point to go slow and look beyond the barn in all directions. She was surprised to see a large, open fronted pole barn attached to the barn’s west side.

  The entire barn rested in a shallow, slope-walled canyon, with hills on two sides, with the barn door facing out of the canyon’s mouth. From inside, Kelly couldn’t see the hills, so this is good to know, she thought, in case she decided to escape. And that was on her mind.

  Consuela said, “I don’t know this place.”

  “We’re near a town called San Angelo, but I’m not sure how far it is from here.”

  The black-haired woman, Kit, heard them as she approached, “You’ll go to a place where you are princesses, like in the movies.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere, except to my mom,” Consuela said.

  Kit’s eyes had a cruel glint, “You don’t get a choice, girl. You’re going, all of you are going.”

  “When?” Kelly asked.

  “Couple days at the most.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kit nodded, “That’s what I like, manners.”

  She went to Nadine and they began to talk.

  Consuela cried, not a lot, but enough to get a mean glare from Kit. She rose and walked head-down into the barn, leaving Kelly alone outside, with the two women twenty yards away, still talking.

  Kelly knew she didn’t have much time after the woman’s statement of a couple of days. She’d better count on it being soon. She studied the hills and the valley as hard as she ever studied for a test. Two large pecan trees grew at the back corner of the barn, but not anything that could help, at least so far. Still, she hoped the police would come and rescue them so she wouldn’t have to try something she wasn’t sure she could do. The thought made her stomach queasy.

  Kelly returned to the barn and watched Kit and Nadine talking again, this time with the big man there, too, Carl. She went to the corner of the open door and stood where they couldn’t see her, listening, but Kelly could only catch certain words.

  The three adults gathered wood from dead branches and twigs dropped from the mesquites, and started a small fire. The sun balanced on the horizon under a layer of low grey clouds that reached across the sky, bringing wind and fast cooling temperature as they advanced from the North. Kelly strained to hear what the adults said.

  Kit picked up several branches as she said, “Some trouble with…load.”

  Nadine said, “Border Patrol?”

  “Once, and the Juarez Cartel another. They’re tr-…take over.”

  The man dropped a large limb on the flames and said in his high-pitched voice, “…faster. We need to mo-…ahead of schedule.”

  They turned their backs toward the barn and their hands toward the fire. Kelly couldn’t hear them after that, but she heard enough to learn they would be taken from here sooner than expected.

  She motioned to the other girls, and they came to her, some faster and some slower. She said, “I just heard them say they’re going to move us very soon.”

  “Where to?” The girl with freckles said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It may be better than here.”

  Consuela said, “It will be worse, not better. They are not good people.”

  Bobbi, the tall girl, said, “I believe Consuela.”

  The freckle-faced girl said, “What do we do?”

  Kelly looked at each girl before saying, “We need to escape.”

  “To where?”

  “San Angelo is close.”

  “Do you know the way?”

  Kelly told a half-truth, “Not exactly, but the main thing is, we can’t stay here and be taken someplace else. We may never see our family again.”

  “What do they want?”

  Bobbi said, “They want to sell us, I heard one of them talking when I woke up after they first took me. They thought I was still out.”

  “Did they say where?”

  “I heard something about overseas, like Pakistan or someplace like that.”

  All the girls made large eyes when Bobbi said Pakistan.

  Kelly said, “I don’t want to go to Pakistan or anyplace else. I want to go home.”

  The other girls nodded. Consuela said, “When do we leave?”

  Kelly glanced out the door and saw the three adults still standing by the fire, their backs toward the barn. “We go now.”

  Bobbi said, “Do we go all at once, or one at a time, and what direction?”

  Kelly said, “I think we need to go one at a time so we can be quiet. Go out the door and stay by the barn to reach the corner, then go around it and run to the back of the barn so it is between us and the people at the fire.”

  As they clustered together like frightened quail and shuffled to the edge of the open door, Kelly said again, “Be quiet, don’t go fast, but not slow, either.”

  “Who goes first?” Consuela asked.

  Bobbi said, “Kelly picks the order, and that’s how we’ll go.”

  The others nodded in agreement. Kelly named the order, leaving Bobbi for next to last, and herself for last. “Okay, be quiet now.” The first one peeked around the door’s edge, then scurried out, disappearing into flickering shadows from the fire. The others did well, and no one made noise.

  When Bobbi and Kelly were left, they shook hands again as Bobbi stepped to the door, then stopped. The people facing the fire turned so their backs were to it and their faces were toward the barn door.

  Bobbi looked at the adults, then at Kelly. “We need to go, but both at the same time, and in opposite directions. One of us might make it and can call the police.”

  Kelly saw the women and man moving around, shuffling their feet and standing on one foot, then the other, showing they wouldn’t stay much longer by the fire. “We don’t have a choice, do we?”

  Bobbi said, “Nope. I’ll go right, you go left. Ma
ybe luck will help one of us.”

  “Maybe both, we’re young and fast, they’re old.”

  Bobbi grinned at that. “You ready?”

  “Ready.”

  The two girls shot out of the open barn door like the start of a sprint race. Bobbi cut left, and a second later, Kelly went right.

  Both ran as hard as they could as the yells of alarm came from the two women and the man.

  Kelly ran faster, and approached the corner of the barn. She chanced a backward look and saw the black-haired woman, Kit pull something shiny from her waist and throw it like a pitcher throwing a fastball, even making a “Pah!” sound when she released it.

  The knife flashed in the firelight and hit Bobbi high under her arm, making a sound like striking meat with a stick.

  Bobbi staggered and reached for the shining handle where the blade sunk to the hilt, but her fingers couldn’t grasp it. Kelly stopped, but Bobbi saw her and yelled, “Go!” as she fell to her knees, coughing blood.

  Nadine ran like a sprinter and closed the distance to Kelly by half. The eleven-year old looked once more at Bobbi before racing into the darkness toward the hills.

  Kelly sprinted until reaching the first hill, then she ran steady, but not full out. She curved around the first small hill, then drove with her legs like pistons to go up the second, larger one, making sure to dodge behind every plant or bush that might offer a hiding place.

  Kelly breathed hard, but not to the point of exhaustion. She heard Nadine coming, cursing and slipping on loose rocks. Once, Nadine ran into a cactus, and she howled at that, calling Kelly, “You little bitch!”

  Darkness grew deeper, and Kelly slowed, not wanting to break an ankle. She ran down the far side of the hill, down the small, dry streambed, and into a stand of cedar. It offered good concealment, and she slowed to a trot. Five minutes later, she couldn’t hear Nadine, and felt she was free of them.

  Stopping to rest on a cedar stump, Kelly wept in silence for her friend, Bobbi. She had been tough, but brave, and a good person when they finally connected. She felt bad, too, because she never learned Bobbi’s last name, and wouldn’t be able to tell her mother or father what happened.

  It was so dark, with the clouds covering the stars. Kelly walked between the next two hills, coming out on a small valley floor a hundred yards across. Not many trees, but some cactus and yuccas, and a few cedars. The short, springy turf of buffalo grass made walking easier, at least until the grass ran out and fist-sized rocks covered the ground.

  Kelly’s legs stung in several places where she’d run into cactus and the spines broke off in her shins. She had not been aware of it at the time. Keeping up a steady pace took her to an area where cedar bushes had been killed and lay like grey broken bones on the ground. It meant someone had been here and that meant she might get some help. Her hopes lifted and she continued, still not able to tell which direction she walked because the clouds obscured the stars. Kelly knew she wanted to go south, and if the stars ever broke through, she could find the big dipper and from there, the north star.

  She stopped again and sat on a boulder to take off her jeans to remove the small spines. Kelly used the edge of a broken piece of flint to scrape across her skin, like putting butter on bread. Ten minutes later she had most of them out, with a few in too deep to remove. Kelly pulled up her pants and stood on wobbly legs. She felt weak and tired.

  The eleven-year-old began to weep. A voice said, “Kelly?” and she almost jumped out of her skin. Consuela appeared out of the darkness, and Kelly hugged her so tight that neither could breath.

  Consuela said, “I didn’t even see you. I was still lost and then I heard you cry and recognized you.”

  Kelly felt hope again. “Is anybody else with you?”

  “No, I watched from a hill and saw them get captured again. They wouldn’t run far enough.” She looked around, “Didn’t you get away with Bobbi?”

  “They killed her. Kit killed her with a knife.” Even in the dark, Kelly saw Consuela’s shock at the news.

  “Oh my gosh.”

  They sat together in silence for several minutes, each deep in their own thoughts. Kelly felt the wind change, and some of the overhead clouds parted. She looked up to see the big and little dippers revealed, and she smiled. Now she knew. She stood and said, “Come on, we go this way.”

  They followed small game trails and other, larger ones left by livestock, but the two girls always pushed south, even though they felt ready to drop. An hour later, Kelly noticed a deep overhang at the edge of several cedar bushes.

  She inspected it, although there was no light, and felt it was safe and a good place to hide for the night. “Let’s bring some grass and stuff in here and make beds for the night. We can put cedar branches down and they’ll smell good, too.”

  Consuela said, “Where did you learn all that?”

  “From my mom and dad. We used to go camping a lot.”

  The two girls worked for half an hour and soon had beds side by side under the shelter of the rock above them. Consuela lay down and fell asleep in moments.

  Kelly, exhausted as she was, couldn’t stop her mind from racing. She tried to control her emotions and not weep for her mother or for Bobbi, but was only slightly successful.

  The other thoughts that filled her mind were imaginary images of strong men wearing badges, finding her and protecting her. She said a little prayer that it might happen soon, before they were found by the kidnappers. When she finally slept, she dreamed of a hazy figure coming at a run through fire and smoke to rescue her.

  Chapter 6

  Hunter drank coffee and ate three chorizo and egg breakfast tacos at the kitchen table as Norma said, “We have four now, two teams that’ll work your info.”

  Hunter said, “That ought to be enough, especially if the kids are drugged like Anita was. Remind the guys that Paco is packing.”

  “I will. I expect he’ll bring some help over to load the kids into that white van we spotted in the cane this morning.”

  “That would be smart on his part.”

  Norma reached in her small canvas bag, the one the Agents called a trique bag. It was an inside joke because the Spanish word triques meant “tricks”, and so the bag was a bag of tricks. It carried everything from lunches, to spare handcuffs and flexcuffs to extra ammo, batteries, flashlights, and other things.

  Norma pulled a small scanner out of her bag and handed it to Hunter. “It’s on our channel so you can monitor things while this goes down. Are you going to be by the highway?”

  “Somewhere around there. I don’t want to get too close and spoil the surprise.”

  Norma left to get with her team for muster at the station while Hunter ate another breakfast taco. When she finished, she took the scanner, a snickers bar, and one of Norma’s old canteens full of water and climbed into her pickup, driving out Highway 90 to the area to be worked, the same area where the kidnappers came from when they abducted Anita.

  She listened to the talk on the scanner, hearing the team arrive and hide their vehicles before proceeding on foot into the cane jungle.

  Hunter found a good place to park behind an old, half-collapsed wooden shed of gray weathered wood and two-by-fours. She sipped water and listened, so antsy she couldn’t sit still because she wanted to be in on it.

  Norma and her partners located the white van deep in the cane, on a road overhung with the carrizo stalks and leaves. Norma said, “Who wants to watch the river, spot them crossing?”

  The Agent named Sam said, “I’ll do it. I’ll get a head count too, let you know what we’re looking at.”

  “The river’s not that far from the van, so it won’t take them long to get here.” Norma said.

  Mike, who was teamed with Norma said, “Think I’ll rig this van so it won’t start.” He searched for the van’s keys and found them on the right front tire. He unlocked the van door, and checked inside the cab. “They’re ready for some travelling, got a plastic five-gallon jerry
can held to the back of the passenger’s seat with bungee cords. I bet that gas smells good after an hour of sloshing back and forth on a road.”

  “What else is in there?” Norma asked.

  “A box with some tools, some greasy rags and a couple of road flares, the red ones. There’s an empty pint of Jose Cuervo, too. Nothing else.”

  Mike found the hood release under the dash and flipped it to unlatch the hood. He exited, disconnected the battery cables, and closed the hood gently so there was only a click. “They load up, they can’t move, can’t drive anywhere. All we have to do is hold the doors to keep them inside.”

  Sam said, “You mean we’re gonna Hodor them?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you watch Game of Thrones, that scene with Hodor? Hold the door! Hold the door!”

  Norma laughed, “You guys.” They were loose and relaxed, but ready.

  Sam left them and snaked through the green cane toward the river, moving as silent as smoke.

  The other three took places around the van and hid. Half an hour passed, and all they heard was the whining of mosquitoes. It was another hour before Sam said over the radio, “Movement across the river.”

  The others sat straighter and readied themselves for whatever came.

  Sam said, “They’re coming, but slow. Paco has two helpers, young guys, and they’re all carrying kids from somewhere up by the road down to the boat.”

  Norma asked, “Are the kids functioning?”

  “No, all of them are like they’re asleep, limp as wet noodles.”

  “Okay.” Norma thought it was a good thing, because they wouldn’t have to chase any children through the dense greenery.

  “They have ten kids, all laid out in the bottom of that old homemade boat. So, ten kids and three adults, all coming across right now.”

  Hunter listened and felt herself getting an adrenaline rush, even though she wouldn’t be there for the apprehension.

  Sam said, “This is my last transmission for a bit. I’m turning the radio off because they are gonna pass me close enough to see if I shaved this morning. You guys be ready, it’s about five minutes till kickoff.”