Redemption's Warrior (7 page)

Christopher’s hope for the stranger’s peaceful transition onto their sailboat fractures. Shards of sunlight break over the group spearing Christopher’s eyes. Nauseous he puts his head in the sand and vomits.

El Jefe
drags the women back to the canopy. Adjusting the cameras lowering his head like a bull ready to charge, he smiles. Christopher frowns.
The intruders have transformed into prisoners for
El Jefe
to abuse.

Unhooking the bull whip at his waist,
El Jefe
unsnaps his pants. The whip explodes and Christopher’s hands clench. Blood blooms, slashed across one woman’s belly and down the other’s back and buttocks. Specks, bursts of skin, fly as the whip cuts deeper. Both women are screaming high pitched sounds breaking into sobs as the whip carves their bodies. The guard silences his woman with a slap. Her body goes still.

In the desiccating heat Christopher vomits again. The sun stripping-scourging, sparks shoot off angles. He deteriorates into the astral flares. Lost in the dream, he sees his body retrieve his hidden fishing knife. He seizes
El Jefe’s
head, exposing his throat to the serrated edge. In his sun soaked dream
El Jefe’s
life drains away, the earth bright with blood.

Broken branches pierce his skin. Stones imprint bruises. Christopher shakes his sun drenched head and the dream flees. He’s trapped and can only witness. Hovering over
El Jefe
he sees the Spanish Fighting Bull, the thick muscular neck and shoulders heave with sexual aggression. The rapes are quick, under thirty seconds.

Trained in the dojo’s Christopher’s inability to intercede, to save these women, is shattering. Bruised, slashed and bleeding the women are thrown into the rowboat with their companions who are shaking with shock and terror. As the rowboat retreats
El Jefe
and his
compadre
open the abandoned coolers. Christopher’s last hopes of escape deflate like a balloon losing its air. He crosses his arms over his belly to bear the pain, crouched in the sand, surrounded by thorn brush and grass. Christopher crushes his forehead into the sandy dirt.

Waving beers in the direction of their mate manning the launch
El Jefe
knocks the beer cap off on the edge of the cooler and drains the bottle with one long swallow. Once again the air horn blasts the waiting guard’s displeasure. He’s missed out on the fun. He’ll get a cold beer as a consolation prize. The duo fire shotgun rounds at the retreating sailboat. Laughing, they’re drunk on their dirty deeds.

Christopher tumbles into more sun stroked dreams, layered and interwoven, fracturing, prisms of light. Grass and thorns cushion him. He deteriorates into a million pieces. A brilliant flash precedes a woman floating in solar flames.
Hallucination?

Oscillating, infinite variations, her voice echoes across the shattered landscape, “Who has desecrated my beach?”

Looking down the beach it vibrates grim and bleak at the site of the rapes. Pointing at Christopher, she says, “You will be mine, Redemption’s Warrior.”

Christopher’s head drops to the hot sand. He seems to be watching outside his body while simultaneously feeling each and every grain of sand rubbing against his forehead. “Redemption’s Warrior?” he mumbles.

Searing light soaks his every molecule and cell, imprinting his DNA. “The first lesson of redemption: You are alone. The last lesson of redemption: You are interconnected with the totality of life. Live the first and win the last.”

A flicker of understanding, the infinitesimal flame, an outline of light within light, she raises her arms. “I am the Divine Transmuting Flame. I hold the Cosmic Balance.”

He blinks. She’s gone.

Shaking Christopher draws in a small breath. A breath practiced in years of martial arts. Designed to break through jammed up trauma, a cleansing breath, lower respiration and blood pressure, restoring equilibrium, one, two, three breathes. He rests his throbbing head, forehead still pressed to the ground, his mouth unbearably dry.  His muscles pulse with a fiery ache.

Right now, a little clearer, he needs to pay attention.
El Jefe
is nearby. His life is at stake. Found here they will shoot him on sight or
El Jefe
might hide him in an isolated cave, torturing him. Stretching out onto his belly, sand burning his skin, Christopher raises his head. The guards grapple with the cooler’s handles. They carry their bounty across the sand, a modern day treasure chest. Of the four coolers confiscated only three fit. The launch has limited space for their pirated bounty.

From his vantage point Christopher watches them push and shove. The guard left to man the launch is unhappy. Elbowing and landing punches where ever possible they push the launch into the water and jump aboard.
El Jefe
waits sitting in the Captain’s chair. Christopher shakes his head.
They look like a bunch of clowns. Clowns with deadly toys.

• • •

As the launch speeds out of the cove Christopher runs to the abandoned cooler. He has just a few minutes. Lifting the lid reveals a dozen beers and two magnums of Champagne. Seeing the bottles packed in ice Christopher shoves his hands into the melting cubes. Splashing his face, drinking his fill, he takes an icy chunk and shoves it in his mouth like a Popsicle. Ice was a taken for granted commodity in his former life with his family. Shoving down these feelings he grabs a bottle of Champagne and three long necked beers.

Moving into the shade of brush and trees, he jogs, putting time and space away from the beach stained with violence and the other strange occurrences. He moves down the trails until he only hears bird song. Crouching back to back with a Jacaranda tree he drinks the ice cold beer. The bitter brew cannot begin to wash away his rage and futility. He rolls up the Champagne and two remaining beers in his shirt. He’ll take them to the cave, high on the cliff where he hides his
pesos
.

B
ack at quarters Checo interrogates him. “What have you seen? Do you know who broke the perimeter? How did the
El Jefe
dispose of the intruders?”

Christopher reports the gruesome events, omitting only his strange waking dream and his confiscation of beer and Champagne. He’d hoped telling Checo would lighten his burden. This has been one of the worst days of his life. Unable to intervene while women are assaulted right before his eyes. Anguish. He’d thought, he’d hoped, Checo would understand his misery.

Instead while Christopher is dispirited, Checo is excited. He asks endless questions. A growing paranoia stalks Christopher. Suddenly he doubts Checo can be discrete.
Can I trust him? Will he broadcast this day’s events, embellishing with his storytelling skills?

If
El Jefe
discovers Christopher’s presence on the beach today it will be his death sentence.
Damn! I should have kept it to myself
.

At dinner his worst fears are realized. Checo tells the tale as if he were the witness. Inmates laugh and sigh. Checo plays out the scenes. “Checo,” Christopher shouts. “Are you out of your mind?”

Publically mocking El Jefe!

El Jefe will kill the man who gossips about him.

Undeterred by Christopher’s steely eyed disapproval, Checo continues to pantomime the sloppy assaults. Hearing the violence cheered by Checo’s audience infuriates Christopher. He will never forget the helplessness not daring to intervene. While his table mates are spellbound by Checo’s reenactment Christopher is reliving the horror. Dinner tastes like burnt corn and ashes in his mouth.
What a mistake. Checo is acting like a wild elephant on a rampage, unaware of the hunter with the assault rifle.

What did Master Jojo say
?

“Buddha tells us the mind is a wild elephant. You are the tiny rider sitting on the elephant’s back. When the rider and elephant want to go in the same direction all is well.” Christopher recalls Master Jojo sitting straight backed on the cushioned dojo floor. He gestures with his heart hand. “However, when the elephant wants to go in a different direction to disagree is futile. You cannot argue with an elephant, especially an elephant on a rampage.”

Christopher thinks
tonight
Checo
is the elephant on a rampage
.

The rowdy laughter falls away as Christopher is caught in the memories of Master Jojo’s teachings; his serene intelligence, his comic faces. “The elephant is our mind’s power and strength, but undisciplined it will trample through our lives and the lives of loved ones and friends…”

“The tiny rider on the elephant represents the rational mind… The rider or rational mind, thinks he’s in charge… in truth, Buddha teaches, he serves the wild elephant.”

Christopher recalls right at that moment Master Jojo threw a baton at him. As it rocketed toward him, Christopher batted the missile away.  Master Jojo laughed and said, “What part of your mind protected you from the stick? The elephant! The rider does not the rule our instincts.” He adds, “A myth.”

Christopher smiles remembering, Master Jojo’s teaching style best described as unexpected. Reaching across the mat, patting Christopher’s knee he said, “When you are fighting for your life the elephant drives your combat maneuvers. Rapport between the rider and the elephant will be your secret to beating the odds when overwhelmed with attackers.”

Master Jojo closes his eyes concluding the lesson. His final sentence the most important, “Learn to mediate. Quiet the wild elephant and forge a bond.”

Getting up from the table, while listeners are caught in Checo’s stories, Christopher heads for a quiet place near the beach. He sits with his back to the coconut tree and his eyes drift closed. He searches for inner quiet. For the last four years Christopher has sat in meditation. He has befriended the wild elephant dwelling within us all. Meditation frees him of some anxieties others suffer. But on
Islas Tres Marias
it’s impossible to extinguish the fear real and imagined that eats away at the mind. Utilizing meditation and martial arts Christopher calms his fears. As the rider he watches and assesses the dangers of the moment. Simultaneously he trusts the instinctive nature of the wild elephant that dwells within him and acts for his greater good without the need for thought.

This sets him apart from every other man on the island.

• • •

Christopher lives for Juanita’s visits. Their conversations are the elixir of his life. On one trip up the bluff, he tells her the details of his eighteenth birthday. “At dawn I left without waking my parents. My dad might have felt the rumble of the car.” He laughs, “It has power, sleek, streamlined, sweet power!”

He shudders remembering his errand at the tuck and roll shop, “a double-dealing skunk! His workers hid a kilo of marijuana in the passenger door!”

Recalling, Christopher’s gut wrenches, as if his car disappearing from sight, vanishing, is happening all over again. He can’t count how many times each day he relives the nightmare. Outrage and helplessness pour through him. He shakes his head, “The police! The Tijuana Police!”

Juanita horrified, feels his loss. His beating strikes in her body. A new ache in her soul, to hear he was abducted, kidnapped and beaten. She understands his tortuous path to
Islas Tres Marias.
They sit in silence, surf pounding in the distance. Christopher feels each wave, a tug, a singular inhale and exhale. In a quiet voice he adds, “The worst part? My parent’s worry. Knowing they are terrified.”

Grabbing his arm, squeezing, Juanita begs, “Christopher let me call them.”

Brushing her hand he says, “No Juanita.” He swallows hard against her offer, “too dangerous.”

After witnessing
El Jefes
savage treatment of the women on the beach Christopher is determined to keep Juanita safe. “I have to escape soon.”

“What? You spoke softly.” Shaking her head, peering into him, “What did you say?”

Changing the subject, he asks, “Do you learn ceremonies and healing prayers with
La Currandera
?”

He is protecting me.
Hiding her sadness, Juanita nods vigorously, “Yes, and much more. I practice dreaming.” She laughs, just as he hoped she would, at his wiggling eyebrows. “There are many kinds of dreaming. Right now I train to walk between the waking and sleeping world.”

“I know that place!” Christopher shouts. “Sometimes I find myself both waking and sleeping. I try to hold onto both. It’s hard. Tell me more!” Juanita laughs. Rarely does she find people interested in her work with
La Currandera
.

“She teaches me the healing properties of herbs and stones. You’d be surprised at the slippery nature of this knowledge.” Juanita’s voice drops into a whisper. “I’ve learned words of power to pull my dreams from the invisible world into the physical world. And she reminds me to confer with my power animals.”

He nods, “You are the only person I’ve met who knows the animal close to them.” Frowning he asks, “I don’t know how to explain what I see. The animal is part of them?”

“Yes!” Juanita shouts. “Exactly! We all have an animal reflecting our instinctual nature.” She pauses, “Thank you Christopher for respecting my ways.”

Christopher has a surprise for Juanita. He smiles and says, “The first time I saw you, a swan peeked at me from around your waist. And I’ve seen lights sparkle around you.” They share a smile. Remembering his strange waking vision he asks, “Have you heard of a saying ‘the first and last lessons of redemption?’”

Juanita’s face brightens immediately. “Of course. Some call it ‘the first and last lesson of power.’”

Juanita brushes back a strand of hair lifted in the ocean breeze. “It means: You are alone. You are responsible for every aspect of your life. Lastly, you are interconnected with all of life.” Laughing she says, “
La Currandera
made a little jingle. She says, ‘live the first and win the last.’“

They are sitting at the top of the bluff. Looking across long vistas of endless sparkling water is infinitely beguiling and daunting. Humming aloud he says, “Hmmm… live the first lesson of redemption and you’ll win the last lesson of redemption.”
Familiar
.