Rumble Tumble

23

Next morning Bill called and we made arrangements for him to come over before dark and lead us to our airplane ride. When he came we followed his pickup through town and out.

The town where we had slept, Echo, wasn’t much. There were lots of tractors parked about and all kinds of yellow equipment that might have been designed for most anything. Farming. Tank warfare or prairie dog removal. In fact, Echo seemed little more than a town of old cars, old people, and huge yellow machines.

We drove out where there were no houses, no mobile homes, and no beauty, only long miles of dirt and brushy growth and soaring buzzards.

Miles later, we dipped down into an area between great hills and rocks and the falling shadows of the late afternoon. Beyond the hills, stretched out on a flat expanse of land that went for so many acres the eye could not follow, was a long tin shotgun building in front of which grew an oak that looked as if it might suddenly shed its sad sunburned leaves, keel over, and die. There was a relatively new blue pickup parked by the tree.

A man was sitting in a lawn chair under the oak, and when we pulled up close to the shed we saw he was drinking from a can of beer. There was a Styrofoam chest beside his chair. He looked to be a Kickapoo, or certainly to have a lot of Indian blood. He had on blue jeans, boots, and a leather jacket, which seemed inappropriate for the heat. His hair was oily and combed up high and flies had found it; they circled it, looking for a solid place to land.

Bill got out of his truck toting a pack of gear and four canteens strapped to the outside of it. We got out of the car, holding our guns. The man in the lawn chair didn’t seemed surprised by any of it. He sipped his beer. Bill nodded at him, and the man nodded back.

When we were gathered around the chair, the man crushed the empty can, tossed it on the ground, pulled back the lid on the Styrofoam chest, clawed another beer out of the icy water, closed up the chest and said, “You got the money?”

“We got the money,” I said.

He popped the tab on the can, drank from it, held out his free hand, palm up. I took two hundred and fifty out of my wallet and put it in his palm. He folded his fingers over it and the money disappeared inside his jacket faster than a teenager can stuff a fuck-zine into a sock drawer.

“We leave when it gets dark,” he said.

“Since that might be an hour or so,” Brett said, “why don’t you quit suckin’ them suds. I don’t want a drunk flyin’ me nowhere.”

“You can stay here, lady,” he said.

“Not hardly,” Brett said. “I’m the one financin’ this little shindig.”

“I keep the money, and I drink the beer,” the man said.

Leonard kicked the ice chest over, used his leg to sweep the chair out from under the man, who hit the ground, came up rolling, reaching inside his jacket. By then I was on him. I hit him with a backhand. It wasn’t a hard strike across the jaw, but it wasn’t gentle either. He went down on one knee and said, “Shit. I think you loosed a tooth.”

“What the fuck you doin’?” Bill said to him. “They all got guns.”

“I didn’t mean nothing,” the man said. “What’s everybody so jumpy for?”

“Too much coffee,” I said.

Leonard, who was carrying the shotgun, said, “You must have had one too many beers already, fuckin’ with a bunch of folks got guns.”

“I’ve had one beer,” the man said.

“Must be one too many,” Leonard said. “And it’s rude not to offer us some. Everybody get a beer.”

We did. We popped the tops and sucked on them. I didn’t drink beer much anymore, but I enjoyed this one.

Leonard said, “And keep your hand out of your jacket, asshole, or you’ll wake up with it in your ass.”

The man smiled. “All right. All right. You’re all tough guys. And one tough broad. Where’d you get the midget?”

“There they go again,” Red said.

“We bought him off a souvenir rack,” Leonard said. “But we lost the funny hat came with him.”

“That’s enough,” Herman said.

“And you got a giant to go with him,” the man said. He laughed and brushed the seat of his pants off, uprighted his chair, found a fresh beer on the ground and opened it.

“Where’s the plane?” Brett said.

“In the hangar,” the man said. “I’m not supposed to fly it. I’m not supposed to have it. I had my license taken away. I used to fly puddle jumpers for the U.S. Mail.”

“And why did you have your license taken away?” I asked.

“I crashed one,” he said. “Killed the motherfucker with me, which was no loss. I didn’t like him anyway. I don’t think that bothered them so much, but I lost a lot of mail. Burned up. ’Course, I kept some things and they found out, and I ended up nearly going to jail big-time. They didn’t want the scandal, so I gave back the courier packet.”

“What was in it?” Brett asked.

“Money,” he said. “By the way. They call me Irvin.”

The shotgun building was long and dark and hot. When Irvin hit the lights dust motes swam around like little sponges underwater and dust rose up from our feet in billows, and as our eyes adjusted we saw our ride. It looked like something you’d wind up with a rubber band and toss.

“Them wings glued on?” Leonard asked.

“It’s better than it looks,” Irvin said.

“I sure as hell hope so,” Brett said. “When’s the last time you flew it?”

“Not so long ago that you no longer recall how to fly, I presume?” Red said.

“Month ago,” Irvin said. “But it’s gassed and ready, and safe, long as you don’t make too long a flight or get in too big a hurry.”

“Or want to get airborne,” Leonard said.

“It’ll get up there,” Irvin said. “It just heats up some you fly too long. Unfortunately, it’s the engine heats, not the cabin. Not unless it catches on fire. Which, if we push too hard it could.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Brett said.

“It’s warm now, but come nightfall, up there, you best have some long jammies on under your clothes. It’ll freeze your balls off. And in your case, lady, whatever’s hangin’.”

I turned to Bill. “This is it?”

Bill shrugged, “I didn’t say I could offer you Air Force One.”

“This is Negative One,” Brett said.

When night came it turned cold as Irvin predicted. We helped push the plane out of the hangar, then boarded. It was crowded in there, us with our guns, and Red ended up sitting on the floor.

The plane’s outside lights were dim, the inside control panel lights a sickly green. The motor sounded as if it would really rather not do this. The runway was bumpy. We left out of there with a bang and clatter and a sickening lurch.

We bobbed into the night sky and the engine coughed and sputtered and the propeller on the left wing stopped and started, eventually caught as it cast the remnants of a wasp nest away. Directly below us there was nothing but the dark land, and way to the left were lights, clean and clear and bright, like fallen stars. I assumed they were the lights of sleepy Echo.

We rose higher, but never really gained much altitude. The night grew darker, and Irvin was right, the plane was cold. It bit through our clothes and filled our socks and shoes and circled about us like a wraith.

Red said, “This is most unpleasant.”

“Can we drop you somewhere?” Leonard said.

“Quite amusing,” Red said.

“Yeah,” Leonard said, “well I’d like to hear you laugh on the way down.”

“Leave him alone,” Herman said.

“All of you shut up,” Irvin said. “Let me concentrate. Mexican Border Patrol, they spot us, they’ll take a shot at us. Had a bullet come through this ole rotten floor once, ran up my trouser leg, come out through the skin on my knee. Close call. Didn’t need any more than a Band-Aid. I got an iron plate under the seat here now, don’t want to catch one in the balls or up the ass.”

“How are the other seats fixed?” Leonard asked.

“Just cushions,” Irvin said.

“Hell,” I said to Leonard, “your balls are iron anyway, aren’t they?”

“You know, you’re right,” Leonard said.

We continued to fly low, trying to stay under radar, if there was any, trying to take a straight line to where we were going, which, according to Herman and Bill, was on the edge of the Great Plateau and the Western Lands, some of the most inhospitable terrain in all of Mexico.

We flew for some time. How long I can’t say. Couple hours at least. I nodded off to the hum of the motor, Brett and I falling together for warmth. When I awoke it was to a coughing engine.

“Is the engine playing out?” I said.

“No,” Irvin said. “I’m lowering us. I make a change up, down, or sideways, the engine farts. I got to get some work done on it one of these days. Everybody grab your asses, we’re going down.”

Irvin cranked the plane into a steep turn, and down we went at an angle so tight we were temporarily lying on the side of the plane, then suddenly we were straight, being tossed about the cabin like jumping beans. Next thing we knew, the ground was coming up fast. I took hold of Brett and tried to remember my plan about going out between her legs, but there was no time for that.

The plane sputtered and spat and leveled out. We came in hot as a flaming hard-on, the nose down a little too much. At the last moment Irvin righted us and we smoothed out and the wheels hit and the plane hopped a few times and came to a jerky stop.

We got off, pronto. I bent over and lost what I had last eaten, which only reminded me I was hungry. Or maybe what I felt gnawing in my stomach was fear.

Leonard gave me some water from one of the canteens Bill had brought. I rinsed my mouth, then drank a sip. I looked around. There was nothing. Just a flat expanse of land, some rolling night-shadowed dirt, some brush clumps here and there.

Bill came over, said, “What you do is, you walk five miles that way.” He was pointing to the west.

“Five miles?” Brett said. “Why the fuck not ten? Shit, you could have gotten closer.”

“They’d have seen us come in,” Irvin said. “May have already. I’ve run some stuff for them, and I don’t want to lose jobs in the future. More than that, I don’t want them to find me. I want to keep my balls, they give me ballast. You walk that five miles and you’ll come to a place where there are lots of things growing. That means you are nearing water. Next you will come to an oasis. At the oasis is The Farm. You can’t miss it.”

“And if we walk five miles and there’s nothing?” Leonard said. “We’re in the middle of the desert and you’ve got our money, and come morning our asses are burnt crackers. I don’t think I like this plan.”

Herman and Red came over. Herman looked very big in the moonlight. Red seemed oddly smaller than ever.

“Bill’s right,” Herman said. “This is the area. We go in, we get the woman, we go out.”

“You head southeast,” Irvin said. “You meet the plane there.”

“Seems to me it would still be easier to come back here,” Leonard said.

“It would be easier, but it will be easier for them as well,” Irvin said. “And like I said. They know this plane. I’m not putting myself or money I might make in the future on the line with these guys for your lousy money or your lousy asses. Though, lady, I must admit, you got an ass worth lining up for.”

“That’s enough of that,” I said.

Irvin held up his hands. “Hey! Peace.”

“This is rough country,” Leonard said. “How we gonna know we’re going the right way to meet you? What if they follow us? They’re gonna see your plane then, aren’t they?”

“They follow you that far then my ass is dead,” Irvin said. “But truth is, you’ll be lucky to make it that far. You’d be lucky to make it to the plane if I kept it where it’s sitting. You’ll be lucky you bring your asses out at all. I’m not sending you in there. You want to do it. It’s your problem, and it’s my rules for flying you back.”

“Bill knows his way around?” Brett asked.

“Hey,” Bill said, dropping one of the canteens and a small pack over my shoulder. “I’m not going. Me and Irvin will be waiting on you. I don’t owe you a fuckin’ thing. We’ll give you till tomorrow night, late, then we fly back to Texas. You don’t show up, may I now extend my best hopes and wishes that it all ends quickly.”

“I know the country,” Herman said. “I can lead you through it. I know where Irvin wants us to meet. It’s maybe ten miles on foot.”

“Ten miles!” Leonard said. “I say the goddamn plane waits for us here.”

“If you can find transportation, take it,” Bill said. “You people have a change of heart, I’ll take you back. Now. But no refunds.”

“I just want to get Tillie,” Brett said.

“That’s what we do, then,” I said.

“Red stays with the plane,” Herman said.

“Capital idea,” Red said.

I looked at Leonard and he shrugged.

I looked at Brett. “Whatever,” she said.

“Good,” Irvin said. “It’s decided. Good luck and all that.”

Bill said, “There’s some food in the pack, some blankets to put around you if you get cold. A knife. Matches. Some odds and ends. Light stuff. Don’t worry about returning it.”

Bill and Irvin started back to the plane.

Red said, “Take care of yourself, Herman. If it is you or these people, make it you. I think you and I can start our own business when you come out of this. To hell with Big Jim. We both have the experience. What do you say?”

“I say we talk later,” Herman said.

Red shook hands, hugged his brother, and went back to the plane.

Herman pulled the pack off my shoulder. “We’ll take turns with this.”

Herman started out across the wasteland.

We followed, carrying our guns.