by Billy Kring
I continued my move around and sent kicks to the knee and groin of the other big man, following it up with an elbow to his temple as he bent forward.
I heard an explosion and felt the puff of a bullet. I turned to see the Kiowa pointing a large pistol at me.
He didn’t get off a second shot. Hondo hit him so hard, I saw spittle fly from his mouth. He staggered back, but didn’t go down. I glanced at the women around Bodhi, but they ran away as Hondo charged. Moon’s hand came out of his pocket with a pistol, but by then Juan reached him and bit his arm like a small attack dog.
Moon screamed as he pushed on Juan’s head, trying to pry the small Mexican loose.
Hondo shoved Bodhi toward me, “Run!” He said.
Moon finally pried his arm from Juan’s mouth and shoved the smaller man from him.
He shot Juan in the face.
I saw Juan’s hair fly with the impact as he dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Hondo charged Moon, but the man dodged and ran beside the Kiowa, who aimed in my direction.
Bodhi reached me and I pushed her behind me.
Troy ran towards us and I started to punch him in the throat when he said, “Help me!”
A pistol exploded and Troy staggered. Blood showed on his shoulder.
The Kiowa was the shooter. He yelled, “Traitor!”
Hondo said to us, “Go!”
He kicked the pistol from the Kiowa’s hand, and they went at it. Moon tried to shoot Hondo, but my friend struck with a spinning back-fist to Moon’s wrist that sent the pistol sailing into the darkness.
The Kiowa hit Hondo a good one, and he wobbled. The Kiowa and Moon ganged up, but Hondo bobbed and covered, and a second later launched his own counter attack, punching and kicking.
The two black men stirred. I grabbed Bodhi’s hand, “Come on!” Troy followed.
I raced to the wall and hopped on top, then pulled Bodhi up and over to the outside. Troy struggled to climb, his wounded arm almost useless. Behind him I saw the two huge men stand, still holding their Uzis.
I reached down, grabbing Troy by his good arm and his collar and lifted him enough so he could have his stomach on top of the wall.
The two men turned their Uzis our way.
I glanced once at Hondo and saw the Kiowa and him battling like enraged lions. Moon stood apart and glared at me.
Troy groaned and I pulled him hard so he fell outside the wall just as two Uzis fired on full automatic, sending bright red lines zipping all around me and into the wall below my feet. Tracers.
I dropped outside the wall, pulling Bodhi and Troy across open ground, going toward the looming nearby mountains. I heard Moon yell, “Let’s get them!”
Bodhi kept up with me, but I half-carried Troy. Glancing behind us, I saw the two black men and Moon coming over the wall. I said, “We need to go faster.”
Bodhi struggled, breathing hard, but keeping up as Troy moaned and leaned his weight on me, saying, “It hurts, it hurts.”
I hoped Hondo won his fight with the Kiowa. It bothered me that I abandoned him.
Bodhi gasped, “Where…can we go?”
“The hills.” I heard a yell behind and knew Moon and his men caught sight of us. The moon looked luminous, and the blustery, increasing winds moved clouds to cover and then expose it.
I pushed us harder, finally putting Troy’s good arm across my shoulder and grasping his belt on the opposite side so I could carry most of his weight. Clouds obscured the night’s full moon and the darkness deepened.
A red tracer zipped by us and disappeared in the black mass of looming hills ahead of us. They were guessing, but I knew that when the moon reappeared, they could see us.
I felt the slight change in elevation as we scrambled up the slope of the first hill. Brittle, dry brush audibly cracked as we pushed through it on our climb.
Troy groaned, “Oh god, this is killing me. I can’t climb any more.”
“We’re going over these low hills, then into the canyon. It’ll be easier going down.” I readjusted his arm on my shoulder, grabbed his belt again on the offside and leaned sideways at the hip to help lift him. The canyon bottom would be darker and easier for us to hide in than out here in the open. If they wanted to catch us, they would have to put out some major effort. I knew about a narrow pathway on the canyon floor, called The Tree of Life Trail, and if we could reach it, we’d be able to move faster while they descended down the rougher sides.
As we reached the top of the small hill, I glanced back in time to see all three men raise cell phones and click on the flashlights. We kept far enough ahead of them that the weak beams didn’t fully show us, but in such dim light they definitely saw movement. One of the big men said, “There!”
Several tracers passed over our heads and dropped in a long red arc into the dark canyon below. I didn’t waste any time and started down with Troy in tow and Bodhi breathing hard, but keeping up with me. My legs burned from the lactic acid buildup and had no strength. They quivered with every step, and descending the steep canyon walls didn’t make it easier. I gasped for air and shook my head to throw off the salty sweat that dripped into my eyes and off my nose.
Wind whipped harder, and the clouds seemed to be ripping apart. The lower we descended, the stronger the gusts became. Bodhi stumbled and slid down twenty feet before catching a sapling. I moved beside her, “You okay?”
She said, “Uh-huh.” I noticed her palms bled, but she shrugged it off and said, “I’m ready.”
Several tracers hit within twenty feet of us, but none closer. We passed one bullet on the ground, and the base glowed like the lit end of a cigarette.
Several minutes passed before I staggered onto the Tree of Life Trail and put Troy down. My heart pounded as it attempted to push more blood through me, and I drew large breaths so fast I felt light-headed. Bodhi lay on the trail near Troy.
The increasing wind gusted so strongly that I had to lean into it to stand. Moon and his men made noises descending the mountainside, and at first the darkness shielded them. Then a gust of wind moved the clouds away and bathed the canyon in light.
We saw each other at the same time. They stood on a low ridge a hundred yards uphill, but I saw Moon point at us and say something to his men. They lifted their Uzis and I said, “Hide!” I grasped Troy’s collar and pulled him toward the shelter of trees and heavy brush on the far side of the trail. Bodhi helped me or we might not have made it. We pushed through the dead brush and crawled under a small oak as tracers rained down on us like red hail.
The barrage seemed to go on for a long time, and that’s when I remembered they used extended magazines, which held 90 rounds. Tracers sprayed around us, going in the brush, some into the tree with a splat when they hit, and others hit rocks and skittered away like a fluttering red cardinal with a bad wing. It let up for a second and I rose, then ducked down as the firing started again. They had more than one magazine.
I said to Bodhi, “Next time they stop, we go.”
She nodded. I looked at Troy, who said, “Okay.”
I told him, “You have to help, Troy. I’m about out of gas.”
He said, “I will.”
We rose to our feet and I caught a whiff of smoke. Hair rose on my neck. A fire starting in this canyon and fueled by these winds and all the dead grass and brush would race through it like a runaway racehorse, burning everything, including us. I glanced around but didn’t see any flames. The firing stopped. I trusted to luck and hurried along the trail. A mile or so ahead towered the north side of Mount Lee. On the south side was the Hollywood sign. I thought we could find some help there, or at least a good hiding place.
I checked our pursuers and saw them coming down at an angle to intersect our path. No more tracers lit the sky, so I assumed they used all their ammo. Now they would have to get closer to use their pistols.
Troy helped for about fifty yards and then gasped, “I can’t go on.”
Bodhi slapped the crap out of him. “Get up! Y
ou’ll stay with us or I’ll slap your head off!”
I almost felt too exhausted to grin, but I did. Troy repositioned his arm on my shoulder and we hurried down the trail. I saw several good hiding places along the slopes where boulders and slabs of stone showed cave-like areas underneath, but Moon and his men were too close now. The trail curved around a hundred-yard bulge in the mountain base and revealed Mount Lee a short distance ahead.
Several gunshots rang out and the bullets hit very close. I glanced over my shoulder and saw them coming, not seventy yards behind.
Behind them, the canyon glowed a deep, ruby red.
Chapter 11
I said to Bodhi, “We have to hurry, there’s fire coming and we have to get out of this canyon.”
Her eyes widened, “Oh no.” She rubbed her head as tears filmed her eyes, “Fire terrifies me.”
I said, “Stay with me. I won’t let you down.”
We hurried toward Mount Lee. Several more shots hit close to us. The area in front of us flickered from the fire’s light like someone waving a red-and-yellow beamed flashlight. The smell of smoke wafted over us, and Bodhi whimpered. Troy made a high-pitched, keening sound and wouldn’t stop.
When we reached the base of the mountain, I pointed up the slope and said to Bodhi, “Go up this way, and do it at an angle. We won’t make it if we go straight up. I’ll be right behind you.”
She nodded and we started the climb out of the canyon as the first flames became visible. They swirled and danced as if alive, forming a forward-leaning wall of flame and smoke forty feet high that rushed at us so fast I thought my heart would stop.
Moon and his two men became aware of it, and they hurried after us. One of the big men fired three more times.
I heard Troy grunt as the round hit him. He sagged, “I’m hit.”
The growing bloodstain showed low on his back. I looked at the fire and watched it spreading in every direction as if fueled by gasoline. Tall, curling, licking flames shot skyward and sent red cinders hurling with the wind to land in a hundred places, starting more fires. The fire’s loud roaring sound chilled my heart.
I bent and put Troy on my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Bodhi hadn’t left, but stayed with me. I stood on quivering legs and said, “I’ll be behind you. Don’t stop for anything until you’re on the far side.”
Her eyes were large as she nodded. She went up the rise and I stayed on her heels, silently hoping I had enough strength. Ten minutes later, my heart hammered so hard that with every thumping beat it jiggled the drops of sweat hanging off my nose.
Bodhi turned to look at the fire behind us and gasped. She stepped backward, losing her footing. Tumbling and sliding towards a steep drop-off, Bodhi clawed for anything to stop her slide, but she continued down toward a hundred-foot drop.
I dropped Troy off my shoulders and hurried to her on wobbly legs. I caught her wrist just as her feet went over the edge. I sat down to keep us both from going over the side. I leaned back and pulled her to me. She cried and clung to my neck as I lay there. Knowing we couldn’t stop, I rose and motioned her up, but she couldn’t. Her left ankle swelled as I watched it, and she held her right knee. I lifted Bodhi up and carried her to Troy. The flames raced upward fast now, pushing the heat and smoke over us. I said, “We have to hurry.”
Putting Troy on my shoulders and standing was no harder than squatting with an elephant on my back, but I got him there and I straightened. I told Bodhi, “I’ll carry you in my arms, and you hold Troy on my shoulders.”
“That’s impossible.” She looked scared, very scared, and glanced at the flames every few seconds.
I had her sit up and bend her knees so I could pick her up, putting one arm under her legs and the other under her arms. My arms quivered with the effort. My back and legs screamed, and I felt the veins stand out on my neck and forehead. Black and red spots swirled in front of my eyes.
Bodhi helped by moving her arms higher on Troy so they pushed down on my shoulders, giving my arms a little reprieve. As I stepped forward, I saw her look over my shoulder at the inferno and whisper under her breath, “It’s so close.”
I could feel the terrible heat, but didn’t look, afraid of what I’d see. Every step felt robotic, but I pushed on for another ten minutes and by then the heat was blast furnace hot on my back. With my body between Bodhi and the flames, she didn’t have to endure much of it, but she still felt enough.
I heard a scream behind us, and turned. The entire canyon blazed with ugly red and yellow flames, and thick smoke swirled and raced the fires to reach us as the hard gusts propelled them.
I caught a glance of Moon and his men and watched one of the big men slapping his leg where a cinder landed. They climbed in a panic, not following us, but going straight up the mountain slope, clawing with hands and feet, sliding down every so often, fleeing the burning, red-mouthed monster devouring everything.
They weren’t going to make it. Moon climbed in front, and reached a patch of boulders, where I lost sight of them as the flames and thick smoke rolled over the spot. I heard shots, then only the sounds of burning, crackling wood and howling wind.
Bodhi tugged my sleeve, “Hurry.”
I put one leaden foot in front of the other and carried her and Troy up the mountain. The racing fire seemed to fly up the mountain, and so close now that I felt the hair on my bare arms singe. My skin burned from the heat, and every breath scorched my lungs. Smoke swirled around us like long gray, curling fingers and still I climbed.
A nearby tree exploded from the heat, sending showers of tiny, burning splinters into my legs. My eyes burned from the smoke and I blinked rapidly as tears streamed down my face, leaving snail tracks through blackened soot and ash, but I clutched Bodhi close to my chest and shielded her with my body. Minutes passed, as I pushed and struggled up the slope like a zombie, and always the fire burned closer and closer.
When the mountain disappeared in front of me, I thought I’d stepped off a cliff. My shirt smoldered, as did Troy’s, and the back parts of my jeans burned my legs every time they touched. I coughed and noticed blood on the front of my shirt. I would go twenty more steps, I thought, then lie down and let the fire take us, I was that exhausted.
On the next step, I realized I was on top of Mount Lee. The Hollywood sign appeared sixty yards to my left. As soon as I moved a few feet down the slope, the heat vanished from my back. I turned to look and saw smoke and a few flames peeking above the summit, but none on this side.
I descended another hundred yards, and then several firefighters spotted our movements. They hurried to us, taking Bodhi from my arms and lifting Troy off my back, then helped me go the rest of the way down. The paramedics waited at the bottom and gave us fluids as they treated our burns and scrapes, giving concerned attention to Troy’s bullet wounds. They carried Troy to an ambulance and sent him to the hospital.
Bodhi sat beside me and put her head on my shoulder. Her ankle looked the size of an orange, and now rested in a clear plastic blow-up cast. The knee wore a blow-up cast, too. I smelled of wood smoke and sweat. We faced the Hollywood sign and I wondered how we made it out alive. Everything in sight had a red tint from the fire. The clouds and smoke were scarlet scarves across the sky, the letters of the Hollywood glowed like rubies, and the large, full moon just above the mountain showed as a blood-red ball.
Bodhi said, “You saved us. I don’t know how you did it.”
I held up my fist and she fist-bumped me, then hugged my neck and cried a little. She resumed the earlier position with her head on my shoulder and said, “Do you think they died?”
“I hope so.” Right now my mind worried about Hondo, and I wondered if he made it out alive from his battle with the Kiowa.
“We don’t have our phones. We can’t even call anybody.”
That’s when Hondo walked up to us. He didn’t look hurt. He said to me, “Leave it to you to burn down a mountain.”
He hugged Bodhi’s neck as I said, “Hey,
it wasn’t me. That’s all Moon’s doing.”
He winked as he put a hand on my shoulder. I asked, “The Kiowa, and the women?”
“He’s gone to the happy hunting ground, and the two surviving women are in police custody. The officers were making rounds.”
“What happened?”
They heard us fighting and walked to us, then said we were under arrest. The Kiowa shot at them and they returned the favor. When he went down, the women went crazy and attacked the police, only to meet Mr. Taser. I told the officers what happened and that you had a handful of trouble right then, and where I’d last seen you. We saw the fire as I said it.”
Bodhi touched Hondo’s arm and said, “He saved us. Ronny saved us.”
Hondo gave me a little nod and half-inch smile, “That’s what he does.”
I said, “How’d you know we’d be here?”
“I walked with the police to their vehicle and heard the radio chatter. I came here in your pickup and saw you with the paramedics.” He leaned closer and said to us, “What happened with Moon?”
“He and his two offensive linemen, and I mean offensive in the worst way, climbed the mountain a little slow when the fire came up the canyon.”
Hondo said, “I’m not sorry about it.”
“Me, neither,” I said. Bodhi didn’t say anything, but she nodded in agreement.
I couldn’t seem to drink enough water. I got another bottle from a paramedic, and one for Bodhi, too. She drank the same way. We sipped water and sat with Hondo, watching the brave men and women on the mountain as they battled the blaze.
When the police finished taking our stories, they told us we could go. One of the paramedics stopped us a dozen steps later and said that Troy was DOA on arrival at the hospital. He said he was sorry for our loss.
Hondo held out the keys to me when we reached Shamu, but I shook my head. I didn’t have enough strength left to do anything but sit. Our drive to the office took forever because of all the gawkers on the roads hoping to get a look at the fire.
