“Son of…” Avery hopped around on one leg while the other throbbed in pain. Avery took the broom handle and stuck one end in the ground. Holding the top of the long wooden stick, he placed his foot in the middle of it. He tried to snap it. Avery fell over. The stick rolled away. Picking it up, he jammed one end into the space between the tire and wheel well of a backhoe loader. Pulling back with all his strength, he leaned his weight into it. This time the broom handle snapped. It sent Avery rolling over backward. Dusting himself off, he took the two pieces of broom handle and began to alternate swinging them diagonally back and forth in front of his body in a looping motion that brought the sticks up and around his head.
“Strike, strike, deflection,” he said as he swung the sticks. Avery whipped the sticks back and forth, faster and faster in a crisscrossing figure-eight pattern. “Block, block, deflection, strike, strike.” On the balls of his feet, Avery moved side to side with small, hopping jumps. “Evasion, evasion, deflection, strike, strike. Keep the sticks moving. Never stop moving. Don’t let your opponent judge the range of your sticks. Block, block, strike…strike…deathblow!” Avery leapt in the air and took a huge downward swing with one of his sticks. “Victory is mine.”
Avery placed his arms at his side and bowed deeply to his imaginary sparring partner. He wasn’t at all happy with the weight and balance of his sticks, but they would have to do. He hoped he wouldn’t run into any Filipino martial artists inside. The odds weren’t good, but they’d die laughing if they saw his pathetic fighting sticks. Avery marched to the main door. Stepping around the bodies of dead cartel gunmen, he ducked inside.
• • •
Deep underground, Barquero watched as the Padre’s men began to barricade the massive meth lab against Cesar and his men. The majority of the Padre’s men took positions around the freight elevator at the far end of the facility as the gunfire above intensified. The rest of the Padre’s men went to guard the stairwell that Barquero had come down. He knew he couldn’t kill all of them. He needed to wait for Cesar. Then he could kill the one he wanted the most. Barquero slowly lowered himself from the platform above the facility’s floor and dropped to the ground. In the chaos and confusion, no one noticed as he hid behind a stack of chemical containers.
• • •
“General.” Fire Team Leader Alpha wiped the sweat from his face. “That’s all of them.” The General and men stood looking at the ten wooden crates.
“What do you think is in ’em?” Private Tango asked.
“They look like coffins to me,” Private Zulu answered.
“Hell, no.” The General kicked one of the dirt-encrusted boxes. “Too short and too skinny for coffins.” He got down on his knee and began to rub the dirt from the side of one. “It’s got something painted on it.” The General spit on the top corner of the crate and rubbed furiously at the dried soil. “New…New Haven…New Haven, Connecticut. Private, get me that smashing iron from the bus.” Private Zulu returned promptly with a claw hammer. The General took the tool and pried back one of the corners of the crate. The men of STRAC-BOM aimed their flashlights into the crate as the General lifted the lid. Even Ziggy looked on in anticipation. Nancy ignored them. “Great day in the morning,” the General said as he gazed upon the contents of the crate.
“What are they, General?” Fire Team Leader Bravo asked. Tears welled up in the General’s eyes as he lifted up something long and heavy.
“Henries, boys. I’ll be goddamned, but we found Henries.” The General lifted up the mint-condition Henry repeating rifle to show his troops. “You could load this salty bastard on Monday and shoot until Sunday. It’s…it’s…beautiful. It’s perfect.” The General wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
“They worth much?” asked Private Zulu.
“Perfectly preserved like this?” The General brought the never-before-fired weapon to his shoulder and sighted down the long barrel of the lever-action rifle. “Thousands, maybe tens of thousands apiece.”
“So,” Private Zulu said. “We got ten crates, at six rifles a crate, times thousands…tens of thousands…” The scrawny private stuck out his tongue as he attempted to do the math.
“Like, did we find the hip bone, man?” Ziggy interrupted.
“Quiet,” Private Zulu said. “I’m ciphering. Carry the…”
“It’s a lot of money, boys.” The General turned and shook the hands of his Fire Team Leaders. They saluted in return. All of a sudden, Nancy hissed. The big iguana’s head bobbed up and down violently. From the desert, sets of glowing eyes moved back and forth in the dark.
“Battle stations!” the General ordered. “Fire at will!” The men began to unload their weapons into the night. Like ghosts, the sets of eyes vanished from view and then reappeared in another place. “Keep firing, men!” The General squeezed off rounds from his pearl-handled revolvers into the dark.
“Behind you!” Fire Team Leader Alpha yelled as he let off a blast from his shotgun. Private Foxtrot turned around and aimed his single-shot twenty-two at nothing in particular and fired.
“I’ve only got two more shells,” the private said as he fumbled to reload his rifle.
“I’ve only three more,” said Fire Team Leader Bravo.
“I’m out!” yelled Private Zulu. Ziggy picked up Nancy and crawled into the pit.
“Ohmmm, ohmmm,” Ziggy chanted as the gunfire rattled his delicate nature. “Like, peace, man.” He was terrified, and even meditation wasn’t helping.
“Keep up the fire, boys.” The General shot from the hip as he aimed at glowing sets of eyes. The growling coming from the pitch black beyond their flashlight beams became louder and louder. The General’s pistols clicked empty.
“I’m out!” Fire Team Leader Charlie yelled. The sound of gunfire stopped.
“Into the hole!” the General ordered. “Fall back! Fall back!” The men piled in on top of one another. Seven civilian militia, a hippy, and one exceptionally large iguana made for a rather tight fit. “Men, when they come for us, remember, no surrender, no retreat.” The evil growling became ever louder. The glowing eyes steadily advanced on their position.
“I just want to, like, go home.” Ziggy kissed Nancy. Nancy bit him.
• • •
Inside the Padre’s building, Avery followed the trail of dead cartel gunmen down a long hallway. As he took cover in doorways, every advance he made was preceded by a violent lashing of his improvised fighting sticks.
“Cover, cover…move, move, move,” Avery muttered as he launched himself at another doorway. Eventually he reached the last door before the stairwell. “Advancing, advancing…cover, cover, hold.” Avery looked down the stairs and suddenly got a very bad feeling.
• • •
Cesar and his men knelt poised in the freight elevator, their weapons at the ready. Cesar looked at his men.
“They’ll be waiting for us.” Cesar chambered a round in his assault rifle. He took out a grenade and pulled the pin. “I’ll go first.” The elevator came to rest at the bottom floor. Two of Cesar’s men took hold of the bottom of the elevator’s sliding door and lifted it up. Cesar tossed the grenade underneath it. A hail of gunfire exploded from inside the lab, puncturing the door in long streaks of bullet holes. One of Cesar’s men went down. The grenade exploded, and Cesar’s men threw the elevator door all the way up. Cesar dove into the massive lab. Dust and smoke filled the air as he took cover behind some machinery. He fired his weapon at the cartel gunmen as his troops spread out looking for cover. Another of his soldiers fell in a heap to the floor. “Padre! I’ve got you!” Cesar reloaded and began firing again.
“Get me out of here,” the Padre said to his two bodyguards as he tied a rag around his wounded shoulder. The burly Mexicans began to escort him away from the dock. “You three! Come with us. The rest of you stay here. Kill those goddamn government dogs!”
• • •
“Bayonets at the ready, men!” General X-Ray ordered. Private Zulu pulled out h
is rusty Swiss Army knife as the menacing pack approached the open pit in the middle of the desert. The terrified private could smell their foul, reeking breath. His knife blade wouldn’t open. He flipped out the corkscrew instead.
• • •
The Padre and his two bodyguards ducked as they ran for the stairs in the back of the lab. The bodies of army soldiers and cartel gunmen surrounded the entrance to the stairwell. The Padre fired his pistol at the one remaining army commando at the stairwell. The soldier went down. His bodyguards grabbed him and helped him to the doorway.
“Not that arm!” the Padre yelled in pain. Around and around the flights of stairs they climbed up.
At the top of the stairs, Avery heard footsteps coming. He backed up over the bodies of two dead cartel soldiers and took a fighting stance in the doorway of the nearest room. Whipping his broom handles in a figure-eight pattern, he steadied himself. He’d been training for this his whole life.
“Deflect…block…strike.” Two men carrying a third emerged from the stairwell. Avery stepped forward. “Be like water…” He whipped his sticks in front of himself and charged. One of the Padre’s bodyguards raised a pistol and aimed directly at Avery. Suddenly, the bodyguard’s chest exploded. From behind the Padre and his men, El Barquero, the Ferryman, shot the other bodyguard in the back of his head. The first guard, his blood splattered over Avery’s tracksuit, already dead on his feet, stood without falling. “Strike, strike!” Avery yelled as he whacked the man twice over the head with his broom handles. The man fell to the floor. The Padre turned and fired into the stairwell. His gun slide locked open. It was empty. He dropped the pistol. From the darkness of the stairwell, Barquero emerged. He stared the Padre directly in the eyes. Barquero’s hate-filled gaze made the Padre freeze. With one hand, Barquero took the Padre by the neck and picked him up. The Padre’s legs shook and twitched above the concrete floor. Barquero squeezed harder. The Padre’s eyes began to bulge. His face turned purple. It was his last few moments on the earth. With them, the Padre thought of his parents. He thought of the priest who did this to him. He thought of Carnicero. A gunshot rang out.
“Let him go!” Cesar yelled. Barquero tightened his grip. “I’ll shoot you in the back, Commander,” Cesar implored. “He’s worth more alive!”
Barquero wavered, and then he dropped the Padre to the cold, hard concrete. The Padre grabbed his throat, choking. Barquero spit on the Padre’s face. Cesar’s men rushed from the stairwell and restrained the man in the priest’s collar.
“He’s mine!” Barquero seethed.
“No, he’s mine,” Cesar said. “He’s mine, and you need to remember that there are as many people after you as there are after him. You get to disappear. That was the deal. I won’t come looking.” Barquero put his pistol back in his waistband. He looked at the Padre. The drug lord, in his immaculate dark suit and polished cowboy boots, wiped the spittle from his face. He looked at Barquero and laughed. Barquero’s eyes were filled with fire. His gun hand quivered. “Go now,” Cesar said, pushing Barquero in the back. “Go!” Barquero walked down the hall. On the way he turned and looked at Avery standing in the doorway. Avery readied his sticks.
“I know you,” Barquero said. “I remember you.”
“Yeah, sorry about all that,” Avery replied. “Complete misunderstanding on your part. Don’t feel bad. Could’ve happened to anyone. Besides, I’ve decided not to press charges.” Barquero stared into Avery’s eyes for a moment. The hair on the back of Avery’s neck stood on end. Barquero turned and disappeared down the hallway without looking back. Cesar’s men pulled the Padre to his feet. “Now, Colonel,” Avery said to Cesar. “About that reward…”
• • •
Ziggy could see the saliva hanging from the gleaming jaws of the beasts as they approached the pit. Their blood-chilling growls filled the air. Ziggy held Nancy in his arms.
Private Foxtrot adjusted his Spanish conquistador’s helmet. All three Fire Team Leaders looked at each other and nodded solemnly. Private Zulu and Private Tango shook hands. General X-Ray prepared to give the order to attack.
Then, suddenly, for some reason, the largest of the animals lifted its head and looked up at the night sky. It let out a long, wailing howl at the moon. Slowly, the pack retreated into the darkness...
• • •
Back in New Orleans, Mae Mae sat in her rocking chair. Her headache had faded. After a while, she got up and went to her table. She rolled the bones. Then she took out her tarot cards and began dealing them out. Examining the cards, she smiled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Occasionally, Lost Cats Found
The men of STRAC-BOM and Ziggy sat at the kitchen table of the big white house in Austin. Avery was expected soon. The men were starving and ate whatever Aunt Polly gave them. Her crazy mane of clown-red hair bobbed as her high heels buckled in an attempt to keep her upright.
“Jell-O salad with mayonnaise, pimento cheese, also with mayonnaise, bacon, and grits.” Polly smiled. “Go on. Eat up, boys!”
“Thanks, ma’am,” Private Zulu said.
“Be sure to put some butter on those grits, sugar.”
“Yessum, ma’am. Thank you kindly.”
“Why, General, your men have such nice manners.”
“Thank you. Militia policy. But don’t pay no mind to the private. He thinks a seven-course meal is a possum and a six-pack.” The General tried his Jell-O hesitantly. He managed to choke it down. “Delicious.” Bennett stood in the corner of the kitchen and tried not to laugh. Max, the feisty French bulldog, was on his leash. The end of the leash was tied around the kitchen door handle. Max’s paws scampered in place as he tried desperately to get at Nancy, who was under the table, chewing on a carrot stick. The sight of the big iguana in his favorite spot under the table was driving Max crazy, like an itch right in front of his tail — one he couldn’t reach.
“So, Avery is some kind of hero down in ole Mexico,” Bennett said as he lit his pipe. “You don’t say.” He waved out his match. “Hell, Polly, order these boys a pizza or something. Don’t make them eat that stuff.”
“Bread today is better than cake tomorrow. You boys eat up.”
“You sound like a damn fortune cookie, woman.” Bennett puffed on his pipe. “General, what’s going to happen to you and your men now?”
“Well, sir,” the General said as he wiped his mouth, “we had a bit of good fortune down south. Came back with some artifacts of value. Plan on selling them and re-outfitting the unit.”
“That so?”
“Top of the line, all the way.”
“Flamethrowers?” asked Private Zulu.
“And Tasers,” the General replied.
A horn honked outside. Bennett walked to the front door and saw Avery climb out of a taxi parked behind the mud-stained school bus. He was wearing a tan suit, a skinny black tie, and dark sunglasses. He carried a silver-colored metal briefcase.
“Ma’am,” Private Zulu said, “got any more of them pickles? From last time?”
“Why sure, honey. They’re even better once they sit awhile.” She leaned down to his ear. “It gives them more of a kick,” Polly whispered. “You just stay right there. I’ll get you some.”
“Two is his limit,” the General said, looking at Private Zulu. “I mean it, Private.”
Avery climbed the front steps to the house. Bennett opened the door and let him in.
“What’s going on with the getup?” Bennett asked. “No more tracksuits?”
“Bloodstains don’t come out of yellow.” Avery walked straight past his stepfather. “Polly!” Avery yelled out. “Dew me!” Polly unwrapped a straw and pulled a can of soda from the fridge. Avery walked into the kitchen and took the can from her. “Bad dog,” he said to Max. Max growled. From under the table, Nancy hissed. “Jesus!” Avery yelled at Ziggy. “How’d you get that monster through customs?”
“We, like, took the river route again, dude.” Ziggy reached down to pet the big ig
uana. It bit his hand before he could get close. Avery opened his briefcase and took out some money.
“General, consider our business concluded.” Avery drained the Mountain Dew in one long pull as he handed over the money. “Save the straw.” He handed it to Polly.
“Thanks. By the way, on our trip home, the boys and I chipped in and got you a little something.” The General handed Avery a gift box adorned with a camouflage bow.
“Go ahead, open it.” Private Zulu could barely contain his excitement.
Avery opened the box.
“A grappling hook. Honestly, you shouldn’t have.”
Private Zulu beamed. “I knew you’d like it.”
“You know, we never did get your chupa…whatever it was,” the General said. “What’re you going to do now?” Avery removed a newspaper from his briefcase and opened it to the sports page.
“According to this,” Avery said. “The New York Yankees are in last place in the American League East. Dead last. This season is a hopeless waste for a chupacabra spawning.” He put the paper down. “It just wasn’t meant to be this time. But…the day will come. Oh, you trust me, it will come, and I’ll be ready.” Avery sighed. “Until then, I have more important business to tend to.” Bennett stifled a laugh as he chomped on his pipe stem. “Where’s Kip?” Avery asked.
Trail of the Chupacabra: An Avery Bartholomew Pendleton Misadventure (The Chupacabra Trilogy - Book 2) Page 28
