Adobe Flats (16 page)

the past

Can you take the shot?

—Pilar Cruz

thirty

They ran into the
man with the machete as the sun was dipping towards the horizon. After a long, hard day playing cat and mouse with the hoards of local militia. Militia in the broadest sense, in that they were armed and dangerous and aligned to a common purpose, supporting the warlord who ruled the township. They wore no uniforms and only a few had automatic weapons, but what they lacked in firepower they made up for in enthusiasm. And machetes.

Grant and Cruz kept alternating the lead and rear guard. They'd been zigzagging across town ever since the street café and were no nearer the safe zone than when they'd started. Every time Grant thought they'd made some headway, they had to divert around the mob that was searching the back streets for them. Grant had shot five so far. Lone searchers who were sweeping the alleyways behind the main force. Three they'd run into around blind corners, and two had come up behind them when Cruz had stopped to catch her breath. If Grant had been taking the lead this time, things might have turned out different, but it was his turn to be rear guard.

Cruz kept her back to the wall as she sidled along the shady side of the street. Shade was easy to come by now that the sun was so low. The baking heat that had been draining them all day was replaced by the gentle warmth of early evening. Dying embers of sunlight picked out the top of the crumbling buildings across the street, but the ground was gray and colorless without the bright yellow torch.

She paused at the intersection with a battle-scarred alley. Listened to the distant crackle of gunfire as the mob vented their frustrations, shooting at the sky. There was no sound around the corner. This was the tenth junction she had scouted, but it might as well have been the hundredth. Every corner was the same. The sameness bred complacency. Cruz threw a casual glance round the edge of the crumbling building, then looked back at Grant as she stepped into the mouth of the alley.

The shadows were deeper there. Grant was checking behind him as he joined her in the narrow opening. Cruz barely glanced into the shadows. Grant was two steps behind her. Then sudden movement and a gasp of surprise snapped his head forward, and Cruz let out a shout of pain.

The man had been checking the alley when they'd surprised him. Instinct had taken over, and he'd slashed with the machete—a swift downward stroke that missed Cruz's gun hand but sliced flesh on the meaty part of her thigh. The pain forced a spasm through her fingers, and she dropped the gun. She was a medic, not a combat soldier. Reflex action was to put pressure on the wound. Grant's reflex was to fire twice. Center mass. Critical injury. The man was blasted backwards into the alley, his chest a tangled mess of blood and bone.

Cruz dropped to the ground, her leg unable to support her. Blood seeped through her desert fatigues, standing out against the sandy colors and camouflage pattern. It didn't take a doctor to realize it was serious. It didn't take a tactician to know they couldn't stay here while they treated the wound.

Grant picked up her gun and shoved it into his webbing. He scooped her up with one arm around her waist and hurried across the street in the opposite direction. Away from the dead man and the dying echoes of the gunshots. Down one alley, then across to another. A left turn, then a right. Two hundred yards farther on, he found a building that was almost intact apart from the door hanging from its hinges. He helped Cruz through the opening and lowered her to the ground. The door creaked as he wedged it shut.

Cruz leaned back against the wall. “I'm sorry, Jim.”

Grant ignored the apology and tore her trouser leg open.

“You're the medic. What do you need?”

Cruz barked a laugh. “A vacation.”

Grant smiled, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. “I'd settle for an exit strategy. For now, let's make sure you don't bleed to death. You're the medic. Get it done.”

Cruz responded to the steel in Grant's tone. She swung her kitbag onto the ground and unsnapped the fastenings. Grant watched as she sprinkled powder over the six-inch gash in her leg, then laid a field dressing over the cut. He knew what to do next. Using both hands he applied pressure to the wound while Cruz tied it down with a length of bandage. Blood soaked through the dressing, so she applied another one over the top and tied that one down too. Tight. The blood flow slowed but didn't stop. Grant knelt beside her and wiped his bloody hands on his trousers. Camouflage wasn't an issue anymore.

“Give yourself the jab.”

Cruz shook her head. “Better save it.”

“What for? You don't have any other patients.”

“Yet.”

This time Grant's smile was ironic.

“Now there's a positive attitude for you. Give yourself the fucking jab. We're gonna have to move fast. Pain slows you down.”

Cruz took a morphine ampoule out of the bag and snapped the end off. She stabbed herself in the leg and almost screamed at the pain. Sweat broke out on her brow. Tears leaked from her eyes. She clenched her jaw and nodded. Done.

Footsteps sounded in the alleyway. Half a dozen, running in this direction. Grant noticed the trail of blood across the living room floor. Sometimes all you can do is your best; Grant's best hadn't been good enough. In his haste to get Cruz away from the dead man, he'd forgotten the first rule of evade and destroy: don't leave a trail of breadcrumbs. The bottom feeders had followed the trail. Now the only question was how many of them there were.

The first one burst through the door. Grant snapped his gun up and fired twice. The second and third men charged in blind, machetes raised. Grant shot them before they knew who was in the room. The bodies formed a barricade in the doorway. There were fewer footsteps outside now. Grant reckoned this was a small hunting party thrown out wide of the main body. Five or six. The remaining two or three were reluctant to come barging in. They were gathering outside the door.

Machetes were close-quarter weapons. Effective for a mob that could charge you down before you could shoot enough to stop the rush. The local militia might not be well armed, but they were unlikely to send out a hunting party without at least one gun between them. Maybe two.

Grant couldn't wait for that gun to be brought to bear. He took Cruz's pistol out of his webbing and moved across the room to the shuttered window, away from the door. He could hear the muttering voices outside. Two, he reckoned. At least one of them would be armed. He doubted they would be sharpshooters.

The shutter was as unstable as the door—hanging from one hinge, no glass in the window. Grant braced himself against the wall. He raised Cruz's gun and readied his own for when the shutter was opened. Using the butt, he knocked the slatted wood from the window and leaned through the opening.

He was wrong. There were four men standing in the doorway. Two had machine guns. Neither looked like they knew how to use them. Grant shot the nearest in the back. He went down hard, dropping his machine gun. The second gunman was partly hidden behind another machete man. The machine gun swung towards Grant and opened fire. Bullets kicked holes in the adobe wall, high and wide but near enough to deflect Grant's aim. He fired both guns, blasting the machete men and catching the gunman in the leg and arm.

The machine gun stopped firing as the man dropped to his knees. Grant shot him three times in the chest to make sure. The alley echoed with thunder. The acrid smell filled the air. Grant didn't wait to see how many would follow the sounds of gunfire. He dashed across the room and helped Cruz to her feet. He considered letting her use the rifle slung across his back as a crutch but dismissed the thought. The way this was going, he'd be needing it soon.

“Let's go.”

Redundant urging. Cruz knew they'd have to move and move fast. She picked up the kitbag and threw one arm across Grant's shoulder. He walked in a crouch so he wouldn't lift her off the ground. Towards the far corner of the room and the back door.

Another alleyway. Another race across the township. The sounds of outrage were somewhere behind them, polarized around the last burst of gunfire. The house of blood and death. Heading in the opposite direction, Grant guided Cruz along one back street after another. He checked the shafts of sunlight across the few bits of sky he could see to get a sense of direction.

“Come on. You can make it. We're going home.”

At the time he said it, he wasn't lying. The setting sun told its story. Grant was finally leading them in the right direction. Towards the desert airbase and the safe zone.

The sun had set.
The room was dark apart from the moonlight through the gaping hole in the roof. The windows had been blown out years ago, but the metal bars were intact. Grant felt like he was sitting in a jail cell looking at the stars through the bars. He smiled at the matching of words with his thoughts. Stars and bars. An off- kilter description of the American flag that was stitched into the lid of Cruz's stethoscope case.

He glanced to his left and watched her eyelids flutter as she slept. In the pale blue moonlight, her dusky skin looked white. She could be your typical English rose—dark hair, full lips, and pale skin. He doubted if she'd take that as a compliment. Pilar Cruz was defiantly Mexican. Grant gently removed his arm from across her shoulders and stretched his legs out. They were both sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall. Another play of words that mirrored reality. They were up against it. In deep shit. Facing a final dash that was every bit as doomed as the one that awaited Butch and Sundance.

He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. That was something Newman never did to Redford. Thank goodness.
Brokeback Mountain
would never have been made in the sixties.

Grant smiled despite the coming tragedy. He'd been surprised that Cruz even knew about
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
She hadn't struck him as a movie type until the conversation that eased sunset into night. Just after they'd made it to the last house on the edge of town and collapsed against the kitchen wall.

“What's it look like?”

Cruz fought to keep the pain out of her voice.

Grant was peering into the shadowy no man's land beyond the crumbling wall.

“Like manna from heaven.”

“What about the route from here to there?”

“That doesn't look so good.”

The sun had gone down over an hour ago but there was still enough blue in the sky to pick out the rubble-strewn expanse beyond the edge of town. Stars twinkled in the darkening sky, but the moon wasn't up yet. In the distance he could just make out the long, straight road that the Chinook had followed two days ago. A road built by military engineers once they'd completed the desert airstrip and army base. The base was in lockdown. Light discipline meant an enforced blackout. There were no choppers in or out. No runway lights or navigation blinkers. The shit had hit the fan after the Chinook went down. Shit was black. No light.

“It looks straight and even and plain for everyone to see.”

Cruz sounded calm. “No cover, then?”

“Only the cover of dark.”

“That won't help. Not with my leg.”

Grant looked at her shadowy figure leaning against the wall beside him.

“You're in a real glass-half-empty mood, aren't you?”

“Leg half empty—as in I've only got half of my full complement of two.”

“You'd better rest the one that you've got, then.”

He slipped his arms under hers and lowered her to the ground. In better circumstances it would have been a romantic gesture. He would have cupped her breasts and kissed her neck as he lowered her to the bed. In the shattered wreckage of the last house on the left, there was no bed. No furniture at all. Cruz shuffled back against the wall and stretched her legs out. The morphine had dulled the pain but it was still there, waiting in the background.

Grant went back to the window. The killing ground was too open and too long for them to traverse without being seen. The prize, if they made it, was life and freedom. The cost would be great. Because there was no way that Cruz would be able to cover the ground without the waiting hordes cutting her down—cutting them both down. One for all and all for one. What happened to one happened to the other. Just like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The natives had camped for the night. Fires showed their position a hundred yards south of the crumbling house and fifty yards east of the killing ground. They'd been searching the derelict buildings along the edge of town until bad light stopped play. A cricket term. Grant doubted Cruz would understand if he mentioned it. Bottom line was that the mob was too close for Butch and Sundance to make a run for it. They had their backs against the wall, with nowhere to go but out—either in a blaze of glory or a decoyed run.

Cruz tugged at Grant's trouser leg.

“Wait a minute. You didn't see Lefors out there?”

Grant was surprised, not only that Cruz knew the line but also that she'd tapped into his thoughts about the movie. He gave her Redford's line.

“Lefors? No.”

“Good. For a minute I thought we were in trouble.”

Grant threw one last glance at their version of the Bolivian army, then sat against the wall beside Cruz. He drew his legs up and rested both arms across his knees. The stars twinkled through the barred window. The moon wouldn't rise for another half an hour. It didn't matter. The darkness wasn't dark enough to hide a big man and a cripple dashing across open ground. He turned his eyes on Cruz.

“Lefors was a one-man tracker. Followed Butch and Sundance all across the west. It wasn't him that did for them in Bolivia.”

“They didn't know that.”

“We do. It's not the tracker we should be worried about.”

“It's the local militia.”

“Bolivian or not.”

Cruz let out a sigh. “We can't sneak past them?”