Hawke's Fury

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  Wanting to give them the option of leaving our standoff, I stepped back, pulling Villarreal with me again. The others did the same in a weirdly coordinated ballet.

  Gimme Cap didn’t get the point. He switched to English, and I realized he’d been playing with us. “You! Cowboy, hiding behind that woman. Put your weapons down and give us your packs. We have men behind you. If you don’t do as I say, we’ll kill you all and take them.”

  “Bullshit. There’s no one back there.” Perry Hale’s voice was even, but I could tell he was tense as I was.

  I shook my head. “Not happening, and I’m getting tired of standing here in the sun, talking.”

  Out-of-Style said something and Gimme Cap’s head snapped around to find his group headed away as if nothing were happening. They’d taken the out I’d provided. He shouted at them to stop, and when they didn’t, his smiling face hardened and he broke loose in a long string of Spanish directed at everyone with him.

  A grin fractured Out-of-Style’s face and he sashayed to the left, following the migrants. Gimme Cap finally did the same, backing away for several feet before breaking into a trot to catch up with them.

  When he reached the leader, Gimme Cap slapped the man in the head, then hit him again with his fist. The group paused as if they’d reached a stop sign. Gimme Cap struck the man twice more until he fell, then pointed at himself.

  His authority restored, he turned and led the way. They soon disappeared down into a draw and vanished, while we let out long-held breaths.

  Perry Hale lowered his weapon and blew out a breath. “Just like that it’s over? I was ready to kill that sonofabitch.”

  “You still might get your chance later, but right now the fire’s getting closer.” I pointed. “We need to get.”

  Chapter 68

  Geronimo drove without any particular destination in mind. He slowed and pointed at the smoke coming from the canyon fire racing northward. “They can’t be back there. I say we intersect the canyon and drive toward the fire. It will be like the rabbit killings I was a part of when we were kids.”

  Esteban had never heard of such a thing. “What?”

  “A couple of times we were overrun with jackrabbits in the village where I grew up. When it got really bad, the men would gather in a line and beat the bushes, driving the rabbits toward great nets they had erected between posts. When the rabbits arrived there, they couldn’t pass through and ran in circles. Our people were there waiting and beat them to death with clubs. It was great fun. This is the same. We strike the canyon and drive toward the smoke. The fire will chase those who have La Jefa into our guns.”

  Esteban glanced northward. In addition to the canyon fire, the desert was also burning toward them. “I say we give this up and wait for them at the river. These fires are coming too close. We will burn if we stay here.”

  Even as he spoke, a jackrabbit bounded by, away from the fire coming toward them.

  Incencio studied on the problem. “Why drive. We wait right here until it is too dangerous. If they don’t come, then they are burned to death or they have gotten past. Either way, after that, we go to the river.”

  “I like that idea better.” Esteban relaxed, as much as he could.

  Chapter 69

  There was no time to wait. The wildfire was moving fast, heading straight for us and driving wildlife before it. Deer, rabbits, and javelina ran south, away from sure death.

  We needed to do the same.

  This time Perry Hale took the lead. “I hope those people are moving fast, ’cause this is the only way we can go, and I don’t want to run up on them.” He gave a strange little grunt. “Or maybe I’d like to catch up with those three.”

  Yolanda fell back to cover our rear. “Temper, dear.” She stopped behind me to check on the little one in my pack who’d slept through the whole thing. “She must be burning up in there, but the poor little thing’s sleeping hard.”

  “It’s all been too much for her.” I told Villarreal to get going with a nod of my head and fell in behind her. “Perry Hale, this fire’s moving fast.”

  He waved two fingers and set a pace that ate up the ground trampled by many feet. After a few minutes he slowed, then stopped. “I got a bad feeling about this. Yoli, I think you and I need to go on ahead. I’ll bet a dollar to a donut that they’re waiting for us in the next draw deep enough to hide everyone.”

  “Better idea.” She pointed. “They keep on this way and we make a wide swing. Get behind them, or at least come in from the side.”

  “Let’s all go around.” I liked that idea better. “Perry Hale, lead the way and we’ll sweep around them double time. I don’t want to get in a fight with this baby on my back.”

  He bit off a response, and I was sure he was spoiling for a fight. “Fine then. You, lady, keep up.”

  Villarreal frosted him with her eyes and we ran northeast, the shortest way around the threat that might have been waiting for us.

  We pounded along, and I couldn’t believe that baby stayed asleep back there. It might have been a rougher version of when parents strap infants into their car seats and they drop off and stay asleep for an entire road trip, at least until the driver stops in front of the house.

  Keeping in stride behind Villarreal, I tightened the straps so the pack wouldn’t bounce as much. That little sleeping body was pounding a mud hole in the middle of my aching back.

  The terrain sloped down, helping a little and we reached a dry wash leading toward Chalk Canyon. The slope on the opposite side wasn’t bad, and we were making tolerable time until I heard Perry Hale shout.

  “Baja esa arma! Put down that weapon!”

  I came up on level land once again to see Out-of-Style standing there with the AK shouldered and pointed in our general direction. Perry Hale and Yolanda separated, advancing with their own weapons ready to fire.

  A quick glance to my left showed me Gimme Cap standing there with a pistol raised. They’d outsmarted us, likely leaving their group to make their way north all alone for a while, so they could ambush us.

  I snapped the AR to bear and pulled the trigger on Gimme Cap faster than conscious thought. My three-round burst caught him dead in the chest and he fell at the same time all hell broke loose up front.

  The third coyote had been lying behind a creosote bush and opened fire at the same time everyone else started shooting. Bursts of sand exploded around him as Yolanda’s rifle chattered nonstop. His body jerked at the impacts and the gun fell from his fingers.

  Gimme Cap dropped like a rock, dead from Perry Hale’s extremely accurate fire. He paused, and shot once more, taking Gimme Cap directly under the rolled bill.

  Yolanda lowered her weapon. “Get your point made?”

  “Told that bastard I’d bury him.”

  I checked the area around us. “No time for that.”

  Perry Hale lowered his rifle. “Look.”

  We followed the point of his finger to see the migrants running nearly two hundred yards away, free, but on their own.

  “They’re going to the river, but whoever’s waiting on the other side won’t let them cross. Not without these three.”

  “They’ve wasted their money.” Villarreal laughed. “They’d just as well walk back into the fire.”

  I gave her a hard shove. “Get going. We’re traveling with them now.”

  “I don’t travel with such trash.”

  Yolanda gave her a thin smile. “I felt the same when I met you, but then again, here I am.”

  Chapter 70

  “Incencio.”

  A grunt from the back seat told Esteban the sicario was listening.

  “What if La Jefa is already dead.”

  “That may be so.”

  “And if she is, what do we do?”

  Esteban was quiet with the thought, as was Geronimo.

  Even though Esteban fought the urge to continue with that line of thinking, he waited, just as his grandfather had taught him how to fish.

&
nbsp; First throw the lure onto the water and wait. Let the ripples still so the fish underneath can ponder the meal above. Wait some more. Now the fish thinks the meal is his and moves up to eat. Give the lure a tiny twitch, signifying life. Maybe enough life for the meal to swim away, and the fish rises to swallow the bait. Unfortunately for the fish, there is a hook inside and he is caught.

  Incencio finally spoke. “If she is dead, then there will be a new jefe.”

  Esteban waited, and waited some more while flies buzzed in and out of the Humvee. The time was right. “Then who will that be?”

  The figurative ripples radiated from the center of the question.

  Instead of Incencio, it was Geronimo who spoke. “Maybe the three of us could work together.”

  Incencio breathed through his nose. “If she is muerte.”

  “Sí, if she is muerte.”

  “We will try and get her back, of course.” Esteban gave the lure one final twitch. “Maybe at the river we’ll find out.”

  Formulating an answer, Incencio took a long, deep breath through his nose and opened his mouth to speak at the same time distant gunfire took his thoughts. He pointed to the north. “There. They were further than we thought.”

  Geronimo slammed the Humvee into gear, rolled over a small mesquite, and accelerated toward the spot where he figured the gunfire was coming from, only a mile from the Rio Grande.

  Chapter 71

  We caught up with the group of migrants who stopped at our arrival. Casting frightened glances around, they waited, most kneeling on the ground. One young man with eyes full of life stepped forward and spoke.

  As usual, I didn’t understand what he was saying, but Yolanda talked, patting the air with her hand, letting them know we didn’t intend any harm. You could see the people visibly relax as if they’d been tensed up for days.

  While they spoke, I glanced toward the south, seeing smoke rising high above the fire incessantly moving in our direction. A real, four-legged coyote ran past only a few feet away, most of the hair on his tail burned off.

  I was pondering the poor animal when I saw smoke coming from a different place, to the east, and much closer. It took a moment to put two and two together and I realized the fire had jumped, not from the wind or sparks, but likely from a burning animal.

  It’s the hard truth about wildfires, especially forest fires. Sure, sparks and the advancing firestorm moves the conflagration forward, but burning animals running in panic also spread the flames, and that’s what was happening here.

  Even as I watched, two more scrub bushes exploded into flame fifty yards away. “Yolanda, wrap this up. We gotta move!”

  “What’n hell?” Perry Hale’s eyes narrowed.

  “You’re from East Texas. You know how wildfires spread.”

  He looked in the direction that the coyote disappeared. “Burning animals. We gotta move. Yoli, tell them to adelante!”

  “Already have, and you two quit calling me Yoli!”

  “Villarreal, get moving. The river’s less than a mile away. Once we’re across, we’re safe. There ain’t much around there except rocks and sand.”

  She took off after Yolanda, who led thirty migrants toward the Rio Grande, and I wondered why the Devil Woman’s eyes crinkled in the corners.

  Chapter 72

  The Humvee driven by Geronimo seemed to hit every rock and pothole in the desert, bouncing them like ping-pong balls. Esteban was the first to see the tracks of several people in the soft sand of a dry wash, but he pretended to be looking ahead.

  It was Incencio who finally looked down through the open back seat window. “Look! Tracks. Follow them.”

  “I don’t have to. They are going where we want.”

  Half a minute later, they came to still another wash and the bodies of three men. Geronimo slammed the breaks, and the big vehicle slid to a stop. Incencio stepped out into the roiling dust and stared down at a young man with a hole in his forehead. A semi-automatic pistol lay at his side.

  “Coyote.”

  He cast around, looking at the tracks and working out the scenario in his head. “They waited here, probably to ambush the ones we’re after.”

  “I hope they didn’t shoot La Jefa.” Esteban opened his door and stepped out.

  “There is no other blood around here.” Incencio pointed at the body of a man in a sleeveless gray sweatshirt. He was lying on an AK-47. Another body was sprawled several yards away. “These are the only ones who are hurt. They enredada with professionals.”

  Geronimo, still behind the wheel, pointed. “The tracks lead that way.”

  Hands on his hips, Incencio studied the smoke rising far above their heads. “Then that is the way we will go.”

  Chapter 73

  It was well over a hundred degrees as we made our way to the river. It was odd to see the vegetation change. Where there had been scrub, cactus, and low-growing bunch grass, there were now wide spaces between the plants. With no fuel, the fire would die out behind us.

  We slowed to a walk behind the people who kept talking quietly to themselves. Yolanda drifted back to join me and Perry Hale. “They say they’re too open out here. They want to drop back into the canyon over yonder.”

  Villarreal was walking with her chin up, looking ahead. I studied her posture for a moment. “I feel the same way. Anyone on the other side of the river is bound to see all of us before we get there. That goes the same for anyone on this side. I don’t want to get caught with this gal in the open.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Perry Hale reached into a pocket on his vest and pulled out a package of chewing tobacco. Tucking a pinch into his cheek, he returned the package and spat.

  “I say we all drop into the canyon. That fire has nothing to eat now. Look, the smoke’s getting lighter.”

  The young man who was leading the migrants led them toward the canyon. Lacking any other alternative, we followed.

  It was easy walking, not having to dodge so much cactus, and we made good time back to the steep canyon. Luck was with us, and we crossed an arroyo that would have fed water into Chalk Canyon, if there’d been water. As it was, we stepped down into the wash and followed it to the confluence of the canyon.

  At this point, the young man stopped, putting both hands in his pockets and giving us a wry smile. Once again, I relied on Yolanda. “What’s that about?”

  After talking for a minute, she grinned and turned back toward me. “He says the coyotes told them there’s a grove of mesquites not far away. They are to wait there until dark to cross. Someone will be waiting on the other side. He says we can pass for coyotes in the dark to get them across. Those over there won’t know who we are.”

  I turned my back on the group so they wouldn’t see my expression. “He wants us to help get them into the country?”

  “That’s his thought. He’s a pretty sharp guy, and he has no idea who we are. You two gringos traveling with two Mexican women makes him think we’re some kind of new coyotes who carry more power this close to the river, moving people, tied up or not.”

  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I was beginning to suspect Villarreal had something up her sleeve. She hadn’t said a word to the migrants, and was uncharacteristically cooperative.

  My watch said it was barely noon, and I was almost at the point of exhaustion. Like the young man and the migrants, I didn’t really want to cross in the daylight. Because so many came through Chalk Canyon, it was too well known to those over in Texas. There was too much of a chance the Border Patrol would be there, and I wanted Ethan and Agent McDowell close by when we came out of the water.

  “Tell that guy we’ll wait with them, but I’m not helping anyone cross but us and my prisoner, and that’s a fact.”

  I would have said more, but the little girl on my back woke up and was telling it. None of the immigrants knew she’d been in the pack until that moment, and I almost laughed at the looks on some of the women’s faces at the little girl’s cries.

  Yo
landa quickly told them what had happened as she came around back and took the straps so I could slip out of the pack. Seconds later, two of the women lifted the little girl out and carried her away, hugging her and talking in soothing voices.

  “You did good.” Yolanda smiled at me. “They think you’re one of them now.”

  “I’m not sure I’m even one of me.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t much farther to the waiting point the young man I knew now as Leon Gutierrez had told us about. A natural-born leader, Leon took his people to the least filthy shade where they waited for the sun to go down.

  Again, flies were everywhere, especially near a section I soon thought of as the latrine. No one wanted to go over there, but those in need did just the same, breathing through their mouths until they were finished with their business.

  One of these days a good, hard rain would wash down the canyon, flushing all that filth into the Rio Grande, where people swam to get to the other side, and fished downstream. I didn’t want to think about it further than that.

  The three of us, along with our prisoner, squatted in the shade of a twig. I was glad to have my hat on. Yolanda and Perry Hale had their caps, but Villarreal was bare-headed. For once, I didn’t care. She could pop and sizzle in the sun like a slice of bacon for all I cared.

  Expressionless, she sat with her back against the canyon wall, waiting for the sun to slide farther west and give her some shade. Yolanda and Perry Hale had water that we shared, but I felt guilty that there wasn’t enough for the other people. We made sure the baby got some, though.

  We’d gotten loggy in the heat when Yolanda suddenly perked up. “Oh! I forgot.” She rummaged around in her pack and came out with something I didn’t expect.

  It was my .45 with the Sweetheart Grips in my holster.

  “Here.”

  “Where’d you get that? I left it in the truck in Del Rio.”

  “Well, we knew the most likely place for you to park your truck.”

  “But it was locked up.”