Rumble Tumble

26

We came to a little road that seemed oddly placed out in the middle of the desert. We drove down the road a ways and came to a little town that looked to be out of an old Western movie. It was at least sixty or seventy years back in time. There were very few lights and there was only one place open, a cantina.

“You sure this is it?” Brett asked.

“Yeah,” Herman said. “The airstrip is on the other side of town. It’s used for smuggling. Lot of drugs are run from here. The town isn’t much, but it’s what’s out here and it’s reasonably close to the border.”

Herman drove over to the cantina and parked.

“What are you doin’?” Leonard asked.

“I know Bill and Red,” Herman said. “They’re more likely to be here than sitting out at the airplane. I got a feeling Irvin isn’t far different. They aren’t here, it’s a short trip to where the plane’s supposed to be.”

“Make it quick,” Leonard said.

Herman went inside. Leonard adjusted the belt on my leg. “Guess it wasn’t a major artery,” he said. “Stopped bleeding for the most part. I think we can take this off.”

“Yeah,” I said. “All the blood’s on the floor of the jeep.”

“How you feelin’?”

“Not good,” I said. “I had some moments there where I drifted off. Didn’t think I was coming back.”

“I knew you were comin’ back,” Leonard said. “You still gotta get all your shit out of my house.”

I turned my head and looked at Brett. The movement was incredibly draining. “Brett?”

She had her arm around Tillie, who had fallen asleep. Tillie had her thumb stuck in her mouth like a baby.

“I’m all right, hon,” Brett said. “I’m never gonna forget what you two done for me. Never.”

“Ain’t over yet,” Leonard said. “Hand me that shotgun, just in case there’s someone in there got a different plan than the one we made.”

Brett handed him the gun. Leonard reached in the coat draped over me, took out a box of shells, carefully loaded the shotgun.

“One thing is,” Leonard said, “we can’t sit around here. Them people gonna know where we’re goin’. Ain’t no other place to go south other than this. We put a dent in them ’cause we had surprise on our side and they were fucked up. But when they get straight, ain’t gonna be so easy. ’Specially Hap here havin’ holes in him.”

“Can’t believe these shits are hanging out in a saloon,” Brett said.

“Irvin and Bill didn’t think we’d be coming back, that’s why they wanted far away as they could get,” Leonard said. “Red, he didn’t give a shit. I don’t know he cares all that much about Herman, even. I think his mouth could say all kinds of things he doesn’t mean. I may kill all of ’em on general principles.”

“Been enough killing,” I said. “I don’t want no more of it.”

“You don’t always get to choose, Hap.”

Herman came out. He had Bill with him. Herman leaned on the jeep, said, “You won’t be flying out tonight. Irvin is so stoned he’s passed out on the floor next to a jukebox. He got in some kind of fight with a Mexican and got his block knocked off pretty good too.”

“Shit,” Leonard said.

“What about Red?” Brett asked.

“He’s pretty drunk himself,” Bill said.

“I was just hoping he was dead,” Brett said.

“Hap needs a doctor,” Leonard said. “Got any ideas?”

“I can ask around,” Bill said. “I think I can find enough Spanish in my memory to do that.”

“You do that,” Leonard said. “And that doesn’t mean drink more first. I want Hap with a doctor. I want him with one pronto. I don’t hear from you quick, you’re gonna need a doctor. Comprende, amigo?”

“I don’t like to be threatened, black man,” Bill said.

“It ain’t no threat, red man, it’s a promise.”

Herman got in behind the wheel, started up the Jeep. “We’ll be out at the plane,” he said.

I passed out somewhere between the little town and the plane, and when I awoke I was lying across the plane’s seats, stripped down to my underwear. A little Mexican man with a wart on his cheek about the size of a doorknob and a hairdo that looked to be about three-fourths Wesson oil was poking at me with a pair of long bloody tweezers. There was blood all over the tweezers. He was dropping pellets from my side into a coffee can. When he saw I was awake, he nodded, smiled, poked the tweezers into my side, pulled out another pellet.

He carefully rolled me on my back and started probing at my shoulder and thigh wound with his fingertips, which didn’t look all that clean.

“You have to do that?” I said.

“He doesn’t speak English,” Herman said.

I turned my head. Sitting nearby were Leonard, Brett, and Herman. Bill was standing up, smoking a cigarette. I didn’t see Tillie, Red, or Irvin.

The Mexican turned and spoke to Herman. Herman nodded, said to me, “He says you’re not too messed up. Lead went through your shoulder. There’s a piece in your thigh that’ll take more work than he’s willing to do. He’s stuffed some gauze in the wound, and he’s picked out all the buckshot you got in your side. None of it went in straight on. Just the pellets from the shotgun, and you caught the far edge of the spray. Still, you need blood.”

“Then let’s get him some blood,” Leonard said.

“This guy, he does abortions mostly,” Herman said. “Delivers babies. He’s not a real doctor.”

“Me and Hap had a veterinarian work on us once,” Leonard said. “We’re not proud.”

“He doesn’t have access to blood,” Herman said. “He’s just telling you so you’ll know.”

“Shit,” Leonard said. “I could have told him that.”

“What we got to do is sober Irvin up,” Brett said.

Bill shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’re not talking a little drunk, we’re talking about being so fuckin’ drunk he’ll wake up speaking in tongues. Thing we got to do is let him sleep it off, lay around tomorrow, fly out when it’s solid dark. Then, if the Border Patrol doesn’t catch us, and my guess is they won’t because they never have, we end up back at the hangar. You folks go your way, and I go mine, and we never do business again.”

“But we can send you a Christmas card?” I said.

“A little candy on Valentine’s would be all right too,” Bill said.

“All this sounds like a lot of waiting for blood,” Leonard said.

“I can make it,” I said. “Leonard’s just scared I’m going to die and leave my dirty underwear under his couch. Where is Irvin?”

“He’s outside under the plane,” Bill said. “Me and Herman went and got him. He was still passed out, so we stretched him out there.”

“And Red?”

“He was at the cantina, pretty drunk. Doing handstands and stuff. He was trying to make the Mexican drunks in there understand he wanted a big dog to ride and he was showing them his dick, dipping it into a glass of tequila. He passed out on the way here. We left him in the jeep.”

“This sitting around bothers me,” Leonard said. “Those assholes will change tires on the other jeep, and someone in town will talk.”

“They might change tires,” Herman said, “but they’re going to have hell going anywhere with all the dirt I put in the gas tank. Pissed in it too. And it won’t do them a lot of good with the wires ripped out from under the hood and the gear shift bent.”

“Good for you, Herman,” I said.

“They could come by horse or mule,” Leonard said.

“They could,” Herman said. “I think they’re so stoned they’ll do good to stand up, let alone saddle and ride a horse. My guess is they got to wait about as long as Irvin’s got to wait.”

“From your mouth to God’s ear,” Brett said.

“Where’s Tillie?” I asked.

“At the back of the plane, sleeping,” Brett said. “They had her on something strong. Or she had herself on it. She’s really wiped out.”

“I think we take turns at watch,” Leonard said. “I don’t like being surprised.”

“Very well,” Bill said. “I’ll go first.”

The Mexican held out his hand, said something to Herman. Herman said, “He wants money.”

Brett picked up her purse, opened it, gave him a ten dollar bill. “That’s pretty close to tapping me out,” she said.

“Gracias,” said the little Mexican, then fired off something very fast in Spanish, got up, and left.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He hopes you don’t die,” Herman said.

It was late at night when I awoke, hurting like holy hell. Brett was sitting on the floor with her head next to the seat where I lay. When I turned to look at her, I saw she was awake.

“How you feeling?” she said.

“Shitty.”

“I’ve got some aspirin. I can get you some water.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Brett disappeared for a moment, came back with aspirin and a canteen. She had to hold my head up. I took ten aspirin and a sip of water.

“I owe you, Hap Collins,” Brett said.

“Hope you don’t think so,” I said. “Except in sexual favors, of course.”

“I’d give you a blow job, but frankly my guess is your dick stinks and you’ve bled all over it from your thigh. On top of that, you haven’t had a bath in a while.”

“Neither have you,” I said.

“Yes, but I brought perfume and I never soil my underwear.”

“Not even when I make you hot?”

“I guess that’s an exception.”

“How’s Tillie?”

“She’s still out. I think she’ll be all right, though. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“I feel weak, but all right. I get something to eat, a big glass of ice tea, and I’ll be ready to rock and roll. After a month of bed rest.”

“Soon as you get better, what you’ll be doing in bed won’t pass for rest.”

“You’re going to have your work cut out for you with Tillie, Brett.”

“I know.”

“You don’t just come out of a life like that and take up choir practice and run supermarket errands.”

“I don’t know. Maybe Tillie would love that sort of thing now. Maybe she’s through rebelling.”

“At her age, she’s not rebelling, Brett. She’s living a lifestyle.”

“Don’t depress me. Not after all we’ve accomplished.”

“Sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to.”