by Frank Bill
Raúl explained that the entire smuggling operation was run by the King and his trusted gringos. Where he lived, some said Texas. Others said Arizona. And some even insisted it was right in the area the walkers crossed. Raúl didn’t really care so long as he got paid.
Manny knew what he needed to do to make things work. To create a new future for him and Cotto. Made a call to another like himself, Ernesto. A man who’d fled with him, was part of the unit he commanded, along with two others. Unlike Manny, they’d no wives or siblings. Ernesto kept in contact with the others. When they went their separates, he gave Manny a number, told him if ever he needed anything, or wanted to stir the pot for some action, to give him a ring, these people would get word to him, and they did.
“Manny, my friend, good to hear your voice. I see retirement has made you restless?”
“A man has murdered my wife and now I need bodies, guns, explosives, some form of adhesive, and other supplies to accompany me to America. Make a delivery to a man known as the King. The reward will be big.”
“Sorry to hear about Kabeza. A tragedy. I knew that AWOLing the unit and seeking to go straight wouldn’t work out. But that was something you had to discover on your own. You know whatever you need, I’m there, just say when and where. We’re blood brothers, my friend. Chub and the Minister always ask me, have you heard from that crazy SOB Manny? Now I can tell them I have a big surprise!”
“Yes, you can. But what of the guns and explosives, will it be a problem?”
“You need not worry, Manny, have I ever let you down before?”
“No.”
“Then it will be like old times.”
“Yes, old times, only we’ll no longer work for the man, we will be the man, this I promise!”
“Will you need anything besides guns and explosives?”
“Maps, compass, flashlights, binoculars, and water. Plenty of water to drink. And one last thing.”
“Yes, Manny?”
“Your dress, wear clothing that is haggard, ball caps, slick-bottom boots.”
“Like a peasant?”
“Yes.”
Manny took the wadded bills and land deeds offered by the job-starved peasants from Raúl’s scuffed metal box, stuffed them into a pack, finished interrogating Raúl. Understood the simplicity of the workings: leaving the truck at Sasabe, trekking through the Sierrita Mountains to meet the contact. Like his wife and him, the peasants came to Raúl by word of mouth. Paid what they could to be picked up by the Ox and his men to be transported to the border. Then led into the United States, through the desert by a coyote to be picked up. Transported to a safe house. Squat until they’d be driven like bleak smudges across more terrain from one state to the next. Thumbtacked somewhere in the Midwest. Given a job. A place to sleep and get on their feet as the West Coast had become too overpopulated. But new salvation came with a price. Those who could not afford the price of getting into the United States muled drugs. Others sold themselves for sex. That was part of the swap for freedom and ruin of people.
Cotto and Manny saturated Raúl’s home with fuel after Manny milked him for his worth. Planted a bullet between Raúl’s near-bled-out begging eyes. Tossed a match to the home’s interior. Watched it engulf as they slid onto the cracked and foaming vinyl seat of the truck. Watching orange flames roast the night in the side mirror, Cotto listened to Manny’s words.
“When you’re going to take something, you react, hit hard. No second thoughts. You must know who is the weak link and who is the strong. Who the lures are, those used for baiting, and use them to your advantage. The strong cannot be given leverage or they will kill you when you let your guard down. The weak must be squeezed of all they’re worth, then disposed of. These men we meet, they can smell fear, any that you encompass must be replaced with confidence. What we do now is for your mother, that you must remember. From here on out, we are our own family. And our way, our coda is to kill or be killed.”
Cotto sat holding the pistol, the memory of Raúl’s eyes lit up like wicks of dynamite sticks. As he thumbed the release on the .45, the clip dropped into his palm.
“Quit fucking around,” Manny snapped. “This is no game. Slide that back in. Be sure one is shelled in the chamber, just as I’ve learned you over the years. Now comes the greatest lesson you shall learn. How to be a leader.”
Clicking the rectangular housing back into the handle, Cotto fingered the safety. Asked his father, “We’re not going at this alone, are we?”
“No, my son, we’re not stupid.”
“You called your friends from before?”
“Yes, from before. Men I’ve done many, many bad acts with.”
“We can trust them?”
“Such a question from a sixteen-year-old boy. Yes. Just as I trust you and you trust me. They are like your own father. Like my brothers.”
“That’d make them my uncles.”
“Yes, and your uncles are as ruthless as your father.”
Those words of his father had accompanied Cotto on his missions, informed how he saw them: missions to conquer. To survive as the hit of a pin to brass sparked the lead of gunfire that came quick and unexpected. Followed by the smoke, reminding Cotto of that night Manny taught him about true vengeance, the separation from boy to man. And having men you could trust. Those same men who’d delivered the news of Manny’s murder. Ernesto, Chub, and Minister, the same men who visioned this man, Chainsaw Angus, as he spread Manny’s life across the land, same as he’d done Bellmont McGill. And the ones who stood watching all of this take place was one Jarhead Earl and a prophet named Purcell. Then they robbed the McGills of their stake. No loyalty. But Cotto had loyal men, they were now holding down the encampment. Were preparing the young he’d taken from homes. Keeping them doped up. Training them to fire weapons. To kill. To be soldiers. Savages.
Inhaling wet powder into each nostril, Cotto watched gray billow up into the sky, creating a cloud like smog that soon devoured the shape of the old farmhouse. Screams of men inside replaced sound and the Sheldon girl pointed. “There. There he goes.”
Offering her food, canned fruit, and boiled grain had created a bridge of trust. In return, the Sheldon girl agreed to show Cotto where Dorn laid his head. Where she believed he was bunkered down. Knowing Dorn was skilled, all she hoped was he’d not be killed. Regardless of how angered at him she was for abandoning her and the others, she didn’t want him to be taken from this world like her father. A bullet honing his skull and expelling what lay inside of it.
Repulsion coursed within Cotto, watching the home ignite, listening to the sounds of his men perish behind the walls of the structure. Seeing this shape run toward the barn. Hulking with a pack slung over his shoulder, a rifle in tow, he was young and too damn cunning. Cotto knew, regardless of how many men he sacrificed, he had to capture, not kill, this Dorn. Drug him up. Force his pioneering knowledge of survival to create a merciless soldier to help train others. Offer his know-how of the land. And then it hit Cotto. The very thought of finding another as knowledgeable as himself sent shivers and chills throughout his frame.
Before Cotto realized what had transpired, the Sheldon girl had foot-stomped one of Cotto’s men, pulled his pistol free, shot him in the gut, his tone belled as he dropped to his knees. Turning, another man took a bullet to the leg from the first man’s pistol, compliments of the Sheldon girl as she’d seen her window of opportunity to escape. Seized it. A third man pressed the butt of his AK-47 to his shoulder. Cotto shouted, “Do not shoot!” And he forearmed the man’s rifle to the ground, watched the Sheldon girl take to the thigh-high weeds and foliage of field until her frame disappeared into the camouflage of barked ash and pollen, the opposite direction of Dorn. Turning to Sergio, he told him, “You and the others, search the area for provisions. Radio Ernesto, tell him to keep up the search-and-destroy, keep the heat in the bush till he finds the man known as Chainsaw Angus.”
“And you?”
“As I do every day, I�
��m putting what my father taught me to use. I’ve my radio, will check back with details. This Dorn will be of great use and the girl will find him much easier, as she knows the land and its ways.” Then Cotto took to the field to track the female known as Sheldon.
ANGUS
Muscles burned and tendons ached to reach that place so few ever arrived and even fewer held on to. Fists tanned ribs like mortar fire, fingers dug into the soft spots of tissue like carbine piercing wood, sounding off as if a hollow tanker being filled with ball bearings. Fu had conditioned Angus, over and over. Callousing his frame.
Sleep for Angus was blades threading lines across foreheads. Scalps ripped away. The sloth of men yelling, being christened for their wrongs of sin. Nightmares, they churned in his mind similar to the earth that became clumped and heated with decay ladling in brain grease.
For the most part Fu became like a father to Angus. Even with the rigors of training that delivered heated hands and feet, pulsing and swelled. The meanings of his conditioning unknown to him over those first passing months until all the bad occurred.
Fu would repeat how he was preparing Angus. Who questioned in return, Prepare me for what? But when the world swam in a sea of debt that could no longer be paid by the print of bills and the aid once offered no longer came to the foreign, well, by then it was too late for most. And Angus would soon understand what he was being prepared for.
Leaving Fu behind, in search of medicine, passing dwellings of the struggle, curves of smoke whisking from the surrounding wilderness, vehicles muddied by corrosion and on blocks, furniture in yards or on wilted porch stoops, Fu’s words rattling his brain, After light is banished, nourishment shall follow. Fuel will cease. Value will be something of weight. There’ll be those who rape, kill, and steal, but their ways are temporary. They’ll eventually extinct themselves as all men of the savage do when they do not make investments to the continuance of race or people.
The power had absolved and the world had tilted into an unknown mode, Angus told himself as he hung a left onto north Gethsemane Road, drove beneath the overpass of the interstate, then hung another left onto Green Valley Road. He followed the long stretch of crumbling pavement, farm pasture to the right with dead stalks, rusted fence to the left where the interstate ran west and east, but no vehicles were visible except the ones that had been abandoned, all was of the quiet.
Angus wanted rest, drove to the road’s end. Hugged the right curve that morphed to gravel; countryside sprouted up with several shack-like barns and an old house where a ’72 Chevy truck sat in what passed for a drive with ruts of earth, vegetation, and tree limbs decorating it. Pulling up behind the truck, he looked to the female. Eyes clasped. Anger ridged his mind as though just a separate passenger, a manic pugilist without boundaries.
Opening his eyes, Angus studied the house that sat off to the right, paint chipped from the wooden planks of siding; a rock walkway ran along the dead flowers where ceramic figures of dwarfs and Snow White ornamented the area, their colors just as shambled and faded as the house’s siding.
Shifting to park, Angus sat. Tired and worn.
As he pulled the rickety driver’s-side latch of the truck, the door hinge bartered for a greasing, and Angus stepped onto the property. The smell of burnt plastic heated the air. He looked at the sky above, the trees off in the distance; there were no plumes of smoke, only the scent. As he started to approach the screen door, tension replaced the blood that creaked through his body, feeling stronger than what he’d dealt with before a bare-knuckle fight. Unknown was if anyone resided, if he could find rest, recoup, and make plans for where and what to do. Then came the noise. The words of Hank Williams III blared from a distance behind the home. Punch. Fight. Fuck. Muffled almost, but recognized, the sound harnessed his attention.
Walking around the truck to the passenger’s side, Angus unlatched the truck’s door, reached in, and unbuckled the female, fearing to leave her unattended, fearing for her safety. Breaking her down at the waist and over his shoulder, he took her weight, walked across the yard, his pistol in one hand, his other across her ass, mashing through knee-high grass laced with twigs and leaves. Nerves panged in his belly and he’d come to a large rusted tin-sided structure, palmed open the side door. Without thinking, he entered, instead of investigating the interior for squatters, thieves, or worse. He just entered.
Inside, insects trespassed. About the floor were bones, mangled hides, the smear of fluid and animal entrails turned green and black as drained engine oil, hardened like straws amongst crushed beer cans. Flies weed-eated the air with infinity. At the far left wall, several worn leather heavy bags lined and were suspended from an overhead rafter. Squares of foam with knuckled centers hung from walls, used for punching. The back wall was adorned with an aged Nazi flag. Below it were crates upon crates honed of wood. In the area’s center, spent brass lay scattered amongst grease that spotted the dirt floor. And from behind the back wall came that tune from a radio or CD player with Hank III still jamming. Angus clasped his left hand into a fist. Over and over to lax the anxious rattle that plagued the inner workings of his frame. Held tight to the pistol in his right. Looking at the construction of the building, he studied the old six-by-six rafters, which were rough-cut, the type that was hard to sink a nail into. Counters ran along the right wall where any and all manner of tool hung, wrenches, sockets, hammers, and a jack. Tubs for cleaning with small cans of gun oil above them. And what looked to be a rusted fridge. Walking toward it, he could make out framed photos that were freezer-taped to it, they were of bruised limbs and facades of bodies that’d been beat. Teeth broken and busted within gums. Faces of men with eight-ball eyes of bruise, a scalp with locks removed, appeared like a sauced pizza dough before being cheesed and baked.
Standing there, he shook his head. What the fuck have I stepped into? He walked off to his left, where the large leather heavy bags hung. His eyes followed the chain connected into the dated wood, meeting a thickly gauged hook that screwed into the rafter, the bag’s center was wrung by seams of duct tape. Meaning it was still being used. Several sets of bag gloves and weathered jump ropes lay upon a bench. Racist brawlers, Angus thought.
Wanting to release his tension from the situation that was being created, the pugilism that was coming, Angus raised his left hand to his temple, hinged his knees, tucked his chin, felt the heft of the female across his shoulder, wanted to ball his foot and come southpaw with a bone-rattling lead right hook that’d shake the ceiling, the walls, but he could not as he clutched the pistol and the unease of something amiss within the dwelling.
From behind where the Nazi flag hung came the slide of a stall door. Dust beamed in the haze of light and the music of Hank III bounced hard from within and a voice sparked with, “Who the shit—”
Angus twisted around, glared at the image of not one but two men, one holding what appeared to be an unction-stained rag in one hand, the other clamped onto a .45 handgun. Each was shirtless, bruised, scabbed, tattooed with swastikas, skulls, the SS symbols flagging their necks. Their pants tucked into their boots. Suspenders ran from their waists and up over their shoulders; each was smudged by ill living conditions. Stubbled faces, ratty locks, and their teeth were amiss, stained the colors of yellow jackets.
A feeling of dread coated and clung to Angus. He began to step backward when the track of feet patted behind him and the pound of angular steel shafted the rear of his skull. Something like electric pain sheered through his limbs. He lost sensation in his feelers. Eyes blinked and blurred. He dropped his .45. Then his thighs, knees, shins, and the balls of his feet wavered with that confetti-like inertia. He lowered himself to one knee, brought the female from his shoulder as though a sack of grain. Slammed her forward, padded the dirt floor with her back. Trying to shake the butterflies that circled his head with the tromp of boots coming before him, he listened to the high-pitched hick giggle coming from behind him with “Got his ass, I got his ass good.”
COTT
O
Rough as flint edge that’d been sharpened by Indians, several men eyed Manny and Cotto with bloodshot suspicion and possibility, not knowing if they were affiliated with drug lords, men on the lam, or those who had a dollar on their heads. Father and son stood beside the beat farm truck loaded down with peasants in the rear outside of the decaying-clay cantina several miles before the border.
While they were waiting for Ernesto, Chub, and Minister, the sanctum was a place where beer was warm and the women were stained by the men who batted their skin as a means of foreplay. This was a land where if a woman claimed to have been defiled forcefully by a male, she must prove her chastity before any action could be taken.
Splotches of bone-colored flesh with patches of fur marbled the skinny strays that pawed across the uneven road.
They came like shadows from the sun, Ernesto, Chub, and Minister. Ernesto announced, “It’s been too long, my brother.” Each offered their condolences to Manny and Cotto for the loss of a wife and a mother. Manny nodded a thank-you, asked, “You bring everything?”
Ernesto smiled and unholstered his pistol, handed it to Manny.
Manny looked over the rubbed steel of the .45.
“Nice,” Manny told him, and handed the firearm back, asked, “And mine?”
Minister went back to their vehicle, came back with a worn military pack, reached inside, offered Manny a holstered pistol and several clips. “Yours.”
Chub told him, “Look in the pack, everything you asked for. Even a nine-millimeter for Cotto. And more provisions in the truck.”
Manny stood palming two pistols as if he were the lead in a John Woo film, one in each hand, testing the weight. Then slid it into the clip-on holster, pushed it down into the side of his waist. Took the pack, looked at the boxes of ammo, the clips and the pocketknife-sized lengths of putty, grinned at Ernesto, and asked, “How did you come by all of this so quickly?”
