A False Dawn

SIXTY-SIX

I pulled out the Glock, motioned for the women to leave the trailer, and I started down the hall. The interior had been divided in at least a dozen small rooms. Most of the doors were open. I could see the same sized small beds in each room. The farther I got in the trailer, the stronger the odor of sheets and mattresses soaked in perspiration and body fluids. I could hear the air-conditioner straining in the hot sun.

I also heard a sound behind me.

I whirled around and pointed the Glock in the terrified face of a farm worker. He looked like he’d just come back from the fields, a John Deere hat on backwards, ruby red FSU T-shirt, filthy jeans smelling of green tomatoes and pesticides. He stuck his hands straight up.

I lowered the Glock. He looked over my right shoulder for a half second. It was all I needed. I dropped to the floor just as the gunfire roared in the trailer. The bullet hit the farm worker in the chest. I came up firing a shot at Ortega as he unloaded two rounds at my head. Both bullets missed my left ear and slammed into the flimsy trailer wall.

Ortega ran down the hall and out the front door. I followed. I saw other drops of blood past the fallen man. I had hit Ortega.

I ran around the side of the trailer where I knew Ortega had parked the SUV. I could see him searching frantically for the keys. I crept up behind the SUV and pointed the Glock in the window. “Hands on the wheel!”

“You fuckin’ shot me!”

“That’s the appetizer. Drop the gun and put your hands on the wheel. Now!”

He dropped his gun in his lap and slapped his hands on the steering wheel. I held the Glock in his face, reached though the open window, and lifted up his gun.

“I need a doctor!”

I looked at the gunshot wound in his right arm. “Get out of the car!”

“You’re trying to kill me!”

“I will kill you if you don’t get out of the car.”

He got out and stood in front of me holding one hand against his bleeding arm.

“Start walking!” I said.

“Where? Man, I need a doctor!”

I pushed him toward the dirt road in front of the trailers. He gripped his upper left arm and walked, blood seeping through his fingers, running down his bare arm. Farm workers watched from the edges of the road. The dog tied to a backhoe began barking.

“Shut up shithead!” Ortega yelled at the dog.

‘That macheen…sometime I see them take it out at night.’

“Stop!” I said, pushing Ortega toward the dog, a mix-breed with more lab than anything else. I kept the gun on Ortega while I rubbed the dog’s head. I looked up to where the rope was tied to the backhoe. It was then, in the late afternoon sun, that I saw it.

A long blonde hair, catching the afternoon light, glistening, hanging motionless from one of the teeth on the backhoe claw.