by R. O. Barton
“That’s for sure,” Phil laughed.
The road we were traveling on was well defined, but suddenly, without putting on his blinker, Teemo made a sharp left turn off the road and onto the bumpy, cactus littered prairie. It was as if he’d almost missed his turn.
I managed to drop a string just as Phil made the sharp left.
“Sorry about that, Tucker.”
“Couldn’t be helped.” I said.
We were definitely off road now. I couldn’t ascertain what Teemo was using as a guide, as he wound his truck around scrub brush, cactus, through small washouts and dry creek beds. Then again, I was too busy to worry about it.
“This is bad,” I said, as I rolled the window down all the way. As I got on my knees in the front seat, I kicked my .45 onto the floor. I pulled the bags of stringed corks close to the door, so I could get to them easily with my left hand.
“What’re ya going to do?” Phil said quickly. He too was busy, fighting the wheel as he followed Teemo’s erratic pattern.
I was hanging out the window so far my waist was resting on the edge of the door. I had a string of corks in my left hand, doing my best to keep them from becoming entangled. We had gone to great pains loading the bags, laying the strings in carefully and placing a piece of newspaper between each strand as we stacked them. I had been wadding up the paper to consolidate it, and every so often would drop a large ball of it out the window.
As Phil made a sharp turn, I leaned over as far as I could towards the ground, praying I wouldn’t slap a cactus with my face, and laid a string down. Hopefully aimed in the direction we’d have to turn to find the next string.
I grabbed a bag with my left hand and put it on the seat behind me, as close to Phil as I could reach.
“When you get a chance, take some strings out and lay them across the seat next to me, I’m trying to lay them down with some kind of direction in mind,” I yelled over my shoulder. “Tell me every time he turns and in what direction. I can’t see him from down here.”
“Gotcha,” Phil said.
We dropped into a dry creek bed. I laid down a string, my hand only a foot off the ground. I hoped I’d laid it down at the edge of the drop so we could see it when we came back this way alone. I was starting to think we might have to, it sure seemed like Teemo was trying to lose us.
“Tucker, I think he’s trying to lose us!”
“Yeah!” I yelled into the ground, laying down another string in the creek bed.
We drove down the creek bed for a snaky, bumpy five minutes, then Phil yelled, “He’s turning left, going up the bank!”
I raised up from the ground long enough to pick a few strings off the back seat where Phil had neatly placed them, and was hanging again just above the earth when we went up the bank. I dropped two strands in a pile as soon as we came off the incline onto flat ground.
“He’s turning left!”
My abs were starting to burn, and I felt bruised across my stomach. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. Plus, I was getting pissed off. I tried to keep the thought of leaves blowing across the ground out of my mind.
As we turned left, I laid down one more strand, and heard Phil say, “A fuckin road, we’re on a fucking road. Not much of one, but a road.”
I raised up to take a look and sure nuff, there were shallow tire depressions in the ground between Teemo’s truck and ours. I was sweating, and my gut hurt. I picked up my pistol and sat it between my legs and rearranged what few strands of corks we had left.
“How many do we have?” Phil asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll either have enough or we won’t, no use counting them,” I said shortly.
At that moment, I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. Then I revised that, I wanted to be in my bed, lying next to Margie.
“Yeah, guess you’re right,” he said. “Looks like you may have been right about a lot of things,” he added, unhappily.
“You know,” I said, as I had the thought, “if I were bringing strangers to where I’d warehoused a load of grass, I might do the same thing. You know, make sure they couldn’t find their way back to it.”
“Hey, you’re right, maybe we’re just paranoid. I bet everything is cool,” he said with some relief.
I wasn’t quite there. There was a fine line between paranoia and careful. I always like to have a safety valve.
A couple of minutes later, Teemo’s brake lights came on, and he slowed to a stop. In the light cast from his truck, I could see the rectangle front of an old adobe structure. It was about 20 feet across with a boarded up window on each side of a small wood door in the middle.
“I’ve got to take a piss,” Phil said.
Now that he brought it up, I suddenly had to go like a race horse.
“Me too,” I said, squirming, “but, let’s not get out just yet.”
I was cleaning up the cab of the truck, putting away any evidence of the corks and putting my pistol behind my back, when Teemo and Robby got out of the XLT and started relieving themselves.
Robby’s back was to us, with his head profiled, and he was picking his nose like digging for gold.
“You ready yet?” Phil asked. “I’ve really got to go.”
“Yeah.”
I got out of the Bronco and started watering a cactus a few feet from the vehicle.
I heard Robby come up behind me and drop the money on the ground.
“We’re fucked,” he whispered.
“What’s wrong?” I said calmly.
“What’s wrong? We’re fuckin’ lost, aren’t we? He’s trying to get us lost so we can’t get back.”
I filled him in on my theory. How we’d probably do the same thing in Teemo’s shoes. It seemed to calm him down, a little.
“Hey, amigos!” Teemo shouted jovially from the side of his truck.
“How did he seem to you on the drive?” I asked.
“Okay. He talked a lot, asked me a lot of questions about you. Made up a bunch of shit about what a bad ass you were. But you were my bad ass and would do whatever I told you.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Did you see those fuckin’ spiders on the road?” he asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Man, you could hear them crunch under the tires. Teemo said they have these great big fangs . . .”
“Why don’t you go in and check it out,” I quickly interrupted. “We’ll stay with the money until you come back and say it’s okay.”
That shut him up. My skin was crawling, like hundreds of spiders were on me. It took all my will power not to visibly shiver.
Phil had come around to stand with us, and we all looked over at Teemo. His teeth were gleaming in the headlights of the Bronco.
“Looks friendly enough to me,” Phil said.
From where I was, I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or leering.
“Okay,” Robby said, “I’ll go check it out, be back in a minute.”
He walked over to Teemo and talked for a few seconds. Teemo looked over at us, then shrugged, and they both went through the old wood door.
I said, “Phil, go put your shotgun and duster on.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“Just go do it while you still have the chance, unless you want to walk in there unarmed.”
“Yeah, okay. Up to now, you’ve been right about most things.”
“Yeah, well, I hope I’m wrong about this. Stand in the dark when you put it on.”
A couple of minutes later, Robby came out with a big smile on his face and waving us over, said, “Come on, it’s cool. You guys are going to fuckin’ love this.”
He turned and went back inside, leaving the door open.
All right! It looked like everything was hunky-dory. I shouldered the bag of money, that I had yet to see a dollar of, and Phil and I walked over. The Bronco was still running and the headlights were on.
When we walked through the door, you c
ould smell it, marijuana. The adobe structure was at least 50 feet deep. We were in a narrow hallway. The walls, all the way to the 8 foot ceiling, were made out of bricks, bricks of marijuana. About every 10 feet there was a cord hanging from the ceiling with a low wattage light bulb at its end, giving off a brown and yellow glow.
The hallway came to an end about 20 feet from the back wall. About five feet from the back wall was an old wooden table with another single bulb hanging above it.
Teemo was standing on the other side of the table with his back to the wall, next to a chair. Robby was standing on this side with his butt against the table, facing Phil and me, wearing a large smile.
Upon walking into the small clearing, I could see it was made by the removal of bricks. There were still a few stacks of bricks along each side wall to our right and left.
There had to be quite a few tons of pot here. I didn’t feel like sharing Robby’s smile. This was a big operation. You didn’t leave this much laying around without men guarding it. Men with guns.
Behind the table to the left and to the right, were doors, I presumed leading to the outside.
“Give me the dinero, Tucker,” Robby said.
He was relaxed and confident, so I handed it to him.
He set it on the table and to Teemo said, “$225,000, in small bills, just like we said.”
My bowels turned to mud.
“How much are we buying?” I asked incredulously.
“3,000 pounds,” Robby said grinning.
I wanted to slap the smile off the little bandy rooster’s face.
Instead, I said, “We should have gotten a bigger trailer.”
“It’ll fit. We’ve done it before,” Robby said, turning to face me.
Phil walked over to the right of Robby, and I was standing to his left. We were all about 5 feet apart. I saw Teemo look at Phil and take in the duster. I didn’t like what I saw. I started trying to dig a Cadillac out of my nose.
Robby saw me and turned around to face Teemo, who was still standing on the other side of the table, with his back against the wall.
That’s how we were positioned when both doors opened and in walked six Mexicans. Three on each side.
I didn’t think they were here to help us load up the pot.
There seemed to be a lot of guns showing. No one, that I could see, had one in their hands. But, there were plenty of pistols sticking out the front of their pants.
The first one through the door on my side was a big mother and had a brown leather cord around his neck. The cord looked unusually tight to me. He also had some kind of big ass pistol sticking out of his pants I didn’t recognize.
The next two both had smaller revolvers stuck in their jeans, but they may have just looked small compared to the big assed one.
Of the three, the one in the middle had a big gut, the one on the left had long greasy looking hair, and something that looked like a mustache trying to grow under his nose. Big mother was to my right.
I didn’t pay much attention to the three on the right of Teemo. After all, there was just so much I could do.
Robby was backing up, moving a little to his right. Phil moved over to his left, getting closer to me.
“Keep spread out,” I said quietly. This really wasn’t happening. I was watching it, like a movie.
That stopped Phil about 5 feet to my right. Robby was a few feet on the other side of him.
Teemo’s smile didn’t look so friendly anymore. He put up his hands and said, “Rowbee, theys no need for jew and you amigo’s to ge hur’ jew know. Jew can jus leave de dinero and go. We no hur’ you.”
While I waited to hear what Robby had to say about that, I didn’t take my eyes off the three on my side of Teemo.
I wondered if they spoke English, because they started spreading out a little and while doing it, were very interested in me. I felt my amigos may have overdone it, making me the bad ass body guard. The few extra butterflies that fluttered in my stomach said Teemo may have had a little talk with them when Robby came out to get us.
“Fuck you, you goddamned pepper belly, greaser motherfucker,” Robby said, perfectly enunciating every word.
Great, a diplomat.
Everything slowed down. I thought about how I’d always told Margie that the last words I would speak before dying would be ‘Margie, I love you’.
The three on my side went for their guns. They hadn’t practiced as much as me. The big Mexican with the tight cord was reaching behind his back, and I figured he had a shotgun back there hanging from that leather cord.
“Phil!” I yelled, “Watch that big fucker…shotgun!”
My gun was in my hand and went off by itself.
“Bang!...Bang!” It doubled tapped.
The first two hit the one in the middle, high on his right shoulder. Of the three, he had his hand on his pistol first. He was up on his tiptoes for a moment, then slammed into the wall and started sliding down, leaving a bloody smear on the wall. He was no longer holding his gun.
“Bang!” That was from Robby’s gun. I didn’t have time to see if he’d hit anybody over there.
The long-haired Mexican was just bringing his gun out of his belt. His eyes were wide with surprise. He looked like he wanted to change his mind, but it was too late to stop his hand.
“Bang . . . Bang!” My .45 exploded in my hands, I was now crouched, in a frontal stance, holding the gun with both hands.
Longhair’s right hand came apart as it slammed into his right hip, propelling his gun towards the middle of the room. He slammed against the wall, where he started listing slowly to the right.
I thought I may have heard Robby’s gun go off again, but couldn’t be sure, my ears were full from my .45.
I sensed Phil dancing beside me, fumbling with his duster.
The big mother with the cord did indeed have a shotgun, and was bringing it up to bear on Phil, who had danced between big mother and me.
I couldn’t shoot over Phil. He was moving around too much, trying to get his shotgun out.
I quickly took one step forward, and with my left hand grabbed the back of Phil’s duster and jerked him to my left. Over Phil’s right shoulder, I shot once at the big Mexican, just as his shotgun went off, aimed at where Phil had been standing.
I felt a tug on the right side of my shirt, like a child had pulled on it to get my attention. Funny how that actual image came to me at that time.
The Mexican I had shot spun about halfway around to his left and sidestepped into Teemo, who quickly pushed him away. The shotgun was now hanging in his right hand, aimed at the floor, his arm looking useless.
When Teemo pushed him away, it helped to stand him upright, and I could see blood in the joint of his right shoulder.
“It’s over!” I yelled, my voice sounding small in the echo of the gunfire.
“Fuck that!” Phil screamed from my left. I could here the terror and adrenalin that laced his voice. Then, “Bang!” it was loud and I knew he had pulled both triggers.
It looked like the big Mexican had been hit hard with a giant feather pillow. His shirt depressed into his stomach. His stomach was pushed back into his spine. His mouth formed an operatic expression, like reaching for a high note. His hands came out in front of him as his feet came off the floor, like he was trying to touch his toes in mid-air. Then he gently kissed the wall with his butt and sat down on the floor. His head was now trying to touch his knees. There wasn’t a lot of blood . . . at first.
No one moved. It was very still. The only movement was the light bulb hanging from the cord. It was gently swinging, moving the light it cast back and forth from the wall to the middle of the room, highlighting the smoke from the guns.
The smell of burnt cordite and dust was in my nose. But for the smell of marijuana and blood, I could have been at the gun range.
Teemo was still standing where he was when it all started, just a few seconds ago. To me, it seemed like at least five minutes.
Teemo
was flat against the wall with his hands up around his shoulders. His eyes were mostly white, so was his face.
The three Mexicans on my side were down, one was dead for sure. Of the three on the other side of Teemo, two were standing with their hands high above their heads and one was lying on the floor. Because of the table, I couldn’t tell what kind of shape he was in. The two who were standing, now that I had time to look at them, appeared to be twins. They were very dark complexioned, black haired, clean shaven, handsome men, in their mid thirties.
Robby started moving towards the table and the money, so did I. I heard Phil reloading his shotgun and turned toward him.
“You killed that guy,” I said.
“No shit,” he said matter of factly, followed by, “and, Tucker . . . thanks, you saved my ass back there. I guess I didn’t practice enough.”
“Yeah.” Robby said, “And I’m going to kill this hijacking asshole.”
This wasn’t good.
“Keep me covered, Tucker,” Robby said, and walked around the table towards the now Caucasian Teemo.
With my left hand, I reached into my left back pocket, pulled out a full magazine, quickly dropped the magazine out of the .45 into the same hand, and slammed the fresh one home. I put the partially used one in the same back pocket. I was back to eight shots again.
The sound of the gun being reloaded was sobering and dangerous.
Robby had reached Teemo and was dragging him around to our side of the table. I kept my gun aimed in the general direction of the twins.
They didn’t seem as afraid as Teemo, or as afraid as I’d like them to be. Although they did keep their eyes on me. Looking at them a little harder, I saw they were well dressed, nice shirts and slacks. They didn’t appear to be any kind of muscle.
I leaned over the table and took a look at the downed Mexicans as Robby pushed Teemo against it.
The one on the left, long hair, was just rolling over onto his right side, leaning his back against the wall. His right hand was a gory mess, and there was blood on his right hip. It looked like I shot him in his hand and his hip, or through his hand into his hip.
