by Susanne Beck
The rim of the rising sun was carved in bas relief along the face. And below that, an intricately carved and absolutely beautiful tree, spreading its limbs to the sun.
A bonsai tree.
Close enough to the one Ice had carved on our headboard to have been its twin.
I looked up from the bracelet to the artist who created it. His black eyes, just seconds before youthful and innocent, seemed almost ancient in their wisdom. It wasn’t as if he was looking at me. It was as if he was looking through me, beyond the flesh and blood and bone and into that space where my soul resided.
I felt a prickle of fear skitter up my spine.
"How did... ?" I trailed off, realizing in my shock that I was speaking English.
He smiled, pressing the bracelet into my hands and backing a half step away, diluting somewhat the tension between us. "Sometimes, things just are," he said, likewise in English, his voice soft and warm. "It belongs to you, now."
"Oh no," I demurred, holding the bracelet out to him. "I couldn’t possibly... ."
He held his hands up, refusing to take it back. "I saw this vision in my mind, and when you came, I knew it was meant for you to have." He cocked his head slightly. "There is someone close to you for whom that design has deep meaning, yes?"
Stunned, I could only nod.
"Good. Then I have chosen wisely. Please. Accept my gift to you both. It is a tradition of my people."
"But... I... ."
"I give this to you, knowing it will be cherished. What more can I ask?"
I laughed a little, as much to break the tension as anything else. "Well, money’s nice too... ."
He laughed then, looking much more like the young man he was—to my great relief—than the wizened ancient he’d appeared just seconds before. "Yes, money has its uses. And rest assured that the compensation I receive from well-to-do jewelers to the north guarantees that I’m rarely without it. But, if art is not sometimes done for art’s sake, it quickly loses much of its meaning." He grinned. "To me, at least. So take this, with my good wishes, and enjoy it. Or throw it away. It’s yours."
I knew the look in his eyes very well indeed. It was the same expression Ice used when a subject was closed beyond all possibility of ever being reopened again. In this century or any other, for that matter. It was an expression to which there was, really, only one answer.
Graceful concession.
"Thank you."
Another charming, boyish smile, and then he dismissed me, though not unkindly, by returning his full attention to his work.
At somewhat of a loss, I looked back down at the bracelet in my hand, viewing it from every possible angle under the brilliant light of the midday sun. I imagined, as I did so, how it would look on Ice’s wrist, the silver gleaming brightly against the deep, burnished tan of her skin.
Ice didn’t wear jewelry as a rule. In fact, in all the time I’d known her, I’d never seen her so much as eye a piece, much less don one.
Still, I had a feeling that this particular object just might change all that.
And if it didn’t, it wasn’t as if I’d lost any money in the deal.
"And speaking of money," I muttered to myself after giving my benefactor one last look. "I think I know someone who’ll appreciate some right about now."
After a quick glance around and noting that the coast was still clear, I set off in the direction of the booth the thugs had torn apart earlier. The proprietor was still there, sitting on an overturned crate, his shoulders slumped in disconsolation. Several people were gathered around him, speaking in low and sympathetic tones. My heart went out to him, this poor man who had likely lost enough potential income to keep his family through the winter.
Stepping through the small crowd, I pulled all the money Ice had given me out of my pocket and thrust it into his trembling hands. "For you," I said in my faltering, grade-school Spanish. "Merry Christmas."
He looked up at me with moist eyes the size and shape of saucers. His mouth hung open in a perfect oval as he stared.
Blushing to beat the band, tuba section and all, I bowed my head a little, smiled, and quickly turned on my heel before I started blubbering like some sort of idiot under the influence of a little too much Christmas cheer.
Half running down the wide, dirt-packed aisle, I looked quickly around me, then stopped dead in my tracks as I spied two figures entering through the main gate. Tall men, both, with regimental haircuts, broad shoulders, and clothes which, though they tried their best to look casual, were obviously quite expensive.
Thinking quickly, I ducked into a corner booth, breathing fast and trying desperately to fight against the memories their presence brought with them. Images of staring down the barrel of a gun as I tried to protect Corinne with my own body. Images of my unconscious lover being dragged away as I begged and pleaded with them to please leave her alone.
"Alright, Angel," I whispered, the sound of my own voice calming me somewhat. "Now’s not the time to be having flashbacks, here. Those are the guys we’ve been waiting for. You know it. So let’s just get on the ball and find Ice, alright?"
Thus fortified, I was about to turn when a warm pair of hands descended on my shoulders and almost sent the life screaming right out of me. "Good eyes," came a husky voice in my ear, as fragrant hair brushed softly against my cheek.
"Jesus, Ice," I breathed, relaxing back against her. "You almost gave me a heart attack."
With a gentle squeeze, Ice stepped back away from me and Critter and Pony gathered ‘round. "That them?" Critter asked, looking somewhere beyond my field of vision.
"Yup," Ice replied softly.
"So, what do we do now?" Pony chimed in.
"I’ll show you," she replied, reaching down to clasp my hand in hers, then starting out with that long-limbed, take-no-prisoners stride of hers, which left me half running every other step just to stay on my feet.
Before I knew it, we were out the gate and heading rapidly toward our car, parked toward the back.
"Um, Ice?" I queried when I was able to get my wind back.
"Mm?" she replied, unlocking the doors and opening them quickly.
"Aren’t...aren’t the guys we’re after thataway?"
"Yes." She drew the word out.
"Then...why are we going in the opposite direction? Aren’t we supposed to be keeping tabs on them?"
"That’s exactly what we’re doing."
I looked over my shoulder at Critter, who grinned and shrugged helplessly before ducking her head and getting into the back seat. Pony just smirked.
I looked back at my lover. "Wouldn’t it be better to keep tabs on them where we could actually see them?"
Her smile put the Mona Lisa’s to shame. "We will. Eventually."
Grumbling, I slipped into the car and slammed the door shut. Ice smirked when she slid inside, and when she lowered her glasses, her eyes were twinkling mischievously. I stuck my tongue out at her, and she chuckled, laying a warm hand on my thigh. "We’ll wait here until they come out. That way, they won’t see anyone following them out of the market. Then, when they pull out, we’ll follow them at a safe distance."
"That makes sense," I allowed, not totally willing to let her off the hook just yet.
She, of course, wasn’t buying my act. "Of course it does," she replied, giving me her own version of a cheeky grin before sliding her glasses back to their customary position and turning forward once again.
Still, her warm hand lay comfortable on my thigh, and when I reached down and covered it with my own (as if I could help myself) she squeezed our fingers gently together, and all was pretty much alright with my world.
* * *
We didn’t have all that long to wait before the two men cleared the gate and started heading for their car, followed by several merchants each toting boxes full of goods. The car in question was a long sedan which was likely black, but currently sported a reddish-yellow covering of desert dust. Parked among a bevy of bastardized trucks and c
ars whose showroom dates were no later than the nineteen seventies, it stuck out like a hammer-smashed grasping appendage.
Within minutes, the merchants had finished placing their boxes in the back seat and trunk of the car and were summarily waved off by the two men without so much as a "by your leave", as far as I could tell.
The men got into their car and were off in a spray of gravel and dust.
A moment later, Ice started up the car and pulled in behind several other shoppers who were heading toward home after a long day of bargaining. She’d taken the radios from both of the police cruisers before they shuffled off to auto heaven, and had reinstalled them in the two cars we now used. Unhooking the mike, she depressed the button as we drove at medium speed down a straight-as-an-arrow two lane highway, following a short convoy of cars and light trucks. "You there?"
"Yeah." came Rio’s voice over the radio.
"How’d it go?"
"They were the bait, alright. Led us on a good chase, but I backed off before it became too obvious. Heading back to you now."
"We’re on our way out now, headed west toward the mountains. We’re about two miles out."
"I’ll continue on and swing in behind you, then."
"Alright. We’re following a black sedan, two men inside."
"Will do. Out."
Racking the mike, Ice put both her hands on the wheel and raced the winter sun as it began its slow, meandering trek westward toward the mountain ranges in the near distance.
Conversation, what there was of it, was sparse, and I spent some time silently thanking Ice for sending Nia with Rio. Forty-five minutes into the trip, I saw Rio’s beaten beige sedan pass us in the opposite direction, then U-turn across the highway and slide in behind the line of cars heading to the west.
We continued on for maybe another half-hour when Ice’s radio crackled with an incoming call. Rio’s urgent voice came over the speaker. "Shit. I know where he’s going. Follow me."
As Ice slowed down, Rio crossed on a dotted yellow and slipped in front of our car. Up ahead and to the left, there was a turnoff, and when Rio signaled, Ice followed behind a line of two or three other cars and turned as well, leaving the rest of the unintentional caravan to continue on, still led by Cavallo’s men.
We were in the foothills, and as the cars in front of Rio’s continued forward, Rio herself pulled off , her front bumper almost touching the rocky hill which sprung up in front of us like a shark fin in an otherwise calm, if rather dirty, ocean.
The car hadn’t even stopped rolling before she jumped out and sprinted up the rocky side of the hill (more like a small mountain, really) at a speed far quicker that one would think a body that large could possibly go.
Nia exited more slowly, simply staring up the mountain and the quickly retreating form of Rio with open-mouthed shock.
After pulling up along side the parked car, Ice exited at a more leisurely pace, but once she was free and clear, she went up after Rio, catching up to her rather quickly despite the other woman’s rather large lead.
"Up?" Pony asked me, eyebrows raised.
"Up," I replied, already taking off.
"Figures," she muttered, climbing next to me with Critter and Nia joining in the chase.
The route to the top was steep, the footing very unsteady, and by the time I made it up, I was breathing heavily and bathed in a fine layer of sweat. I was inwardly pleased, however, to note that both Pony and Critter were both more winded than I, while Nia was still struggling to the top, her face florid and wet with sweat.
Covering the last few feet, I went to stand next to Ice, who was standing in a small stand of tough, gnarled pinion pines, and breathing as if she’d just taken a leisurely stroll down the lane. Where I might once have felt envy over her supreme display of physical fitness, I instead just grinned and shook my head.
"What?" she asked, eyebrow raised.
"Nothing," I replied, nudging her a little. "What’s going on?"
Following my lover’s pointing finger, I noticed a rather large dwelling surrounded on all sides by a high stone wall. The house itself looked to be made of pink adobe with a blue Spanish-tiled roof. It looked slightly run down, as if it hadn’t been properly cared for in quite some time. Some of the roof tiles were missing, the yard was an overgrown proliferation of cacti, olive trees, and pinion pines, and the large in-ground pool was thick and green with algae and god knows what else.
As I watched, the black sedan pulled into the compound and stopped in the circular driveway near the front entrance to the house. Several men emerged from the home, all armed, to help remove the boxes the men had brought back with them.
Try as I might, I couldn’t see Cavallo himself anywhere which, as I’m sure you might guess, didn’t cause me much of a problem at all.
"How did you know?" I whispered to Rio, who stood to the other side of Ice.
When she looked back at me, her expression was one of self-loathing. "I didn’t. But I should have." Her large hands were clenched into tight fists, which she beat uselessly against her tree-trunk thighs. "Buncha compounds like this all around here. Drug lords and dictators on the lam hide out here. Been doin’ it for over fifty years or more. Didn’t realize this was where he was holed up until we got close, though. Damnit."
"Rio, enough." Ice’s voice was soft, but the note of command it held was undeniable, and unalterable.
Rio’s shoulders sagged.
"Do you know anything about this particular compound?" my lover asked, raking her eyes over the land in question.
The other woman’s expression brightened slightly as she shoulders squared. "Matter of fact, I do. A friend of mine was caretaker here for about ten years before the drug lord who lived there went back home. As far as I know, it’s been empty for two years, maybe three."
"Is your friend still around?"
"Yeah. Twenty miles or so back the way we came."
"Alright then. Let’s head over there. I want an idea of what’s inside before I make my move."
Knowing a conversation ender when I heard one, I spun away from the mountain-top view of the compound, then stilled my motion as I tried to mentally adjust to the picture my eyes were presenting me.
What I thought I was seeing was a large fogbank moving in from the east. If fog was yellow, that is. Which it isn’t. Like fog, though, it had a mysterious quality to it, and might have even been beautiful, in its own fashion, if not for the ugly yellow color.
Entranced, and a little spooked, to be honest, I looked up. And saw something that, if possible, was even more strange.
It was as if someone had taken a ruler and drawn a perfectly straight line across the sky. To the west of the line, the sky was a clear, vibrant winter blue. To the east, a deep, black void. Black as night, but without any moon or stars to show the way.
It was something I’d never in my life seen before, and it was more than a little frightening.
As if to frighten me further, a freshening breeze blew up, and that breeze was cold. Icy cold.
I shivered inside the flannel Ice had given me, and pulled it tighter against my sweat-drenched skin.
Pony was the next to turn, and like me, she froze when presented with the view. "Dust storm," she muttered disgustedly. "Shit."
"More than that," came Rio’s voice from behind. "Monsoon. Bad one, by the looks of the sky."
"A monsoon?" Pony countered. "In December?!?"
"Mother Nature doesn’t always read the White Man’s calendar," Rio replied.
"She should damn well start, then."
Sensing that a storm of a different type was brewing, I stepped forward, drawing Rio’s attention away from Pony. "So, what do we do?"
"We head east, like we were planning."
"Into the storm?" I asked, doubt coloring my voice.
Her dark, somber eyes met mine. "The only way through these mountains is to take that highway, which leads down into a deep valley and crosses a major river. It’s fifty miles or more
before the valley floor raises up. It’s a flood plain. We’ll never outrun the storm." She pointed ahead. "There’s higher ground back to the east. It’s a lot safer, even if it means going into the mouth of the storm."
I looked over at Ice, who nodded her acceptance of Rio’s succinct assessment.
"Out of the frying pan and into the fire, huh?"
My lover smiled slightly before stepping up and laying a feather light touch to my back. "Let’s go."
* * *
Driving through the dust storm was interesting, to say the least. It was like being in a fog bank, and a snowstorm all rolled into one. One choking breath of that swirling dust, however, convinced me that Ice meant what she said when she ordered all windows and vents closed tightly.
Nia rode with us this time, though thankfully she was too busy gawking at this interesting weather phenomenon to break out into song. If I could be grateful to a storm for one thing, it would be that.
The dust soon thinned and then disappeared altogether. My sense of relief lasted, however, for all of about two seconds before the deluge hit.
No simple winter rainstorm, this. Nor even remotely like anything I’d ever been through before in my almost thirty years of living on this planet of ours.
About the only thing I can think to liken it to is going through one of those drive-thru car-washes without using your windshield wipers. The rain came harder than it had any right to, completely swamping the car and making it utterly impossible to see anything but the rippling pool of water battering the windshield.
Lightening flashed in rapidfire bursts, like the finale of a fireworks display in fuzzy monochrome. Thunder boomed and cracked so loudly that I clapped my hands over my ears and feared for the strength of the glass in the windows.
"Ice?" I asked, my voice high and wavery. Though loathe to disturb my partner’s intense concentration, I was, quite frankly, scared to death. "Do you think we should maybe pull over until this lets up some?"
"Can’t," came her succinct reply as she willed her keen eyes to see beyond the curtain of water the storm laid over the windshield.
