“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t kill them, but the evil came for me. They paid the price for my selfishness.”
“No, that’s not—”
The Stranger interrupted. “I’ve been doing this a long time and I have made the worst mistakes you can imagine. If you really want to help people, stay away from them.”
“What about the gas station?”
“We were trapped. It was fight or die, and even then look what happened to that young couple. Just being around people gets them hurt.”
The Stranger seemed to be freshly wounded by the past. He walked off into the desert. His frosty exterior hid deep misery. He didn’t take his rucksack, but Matt still wondered if he’d be back. There was now a spent, hollow quality to the man.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Matt wanted to help the Stranger, but he didn’t know how. Maybe someone knew words that could break through those walls of pain. Perhaps there was a way to convince the man he wasn’t to blame. The problem was that Matt had no idea what that was, so he waited outside on the lurching porch. He believed the Stranger’s guilt was due to Mr. Dark’s manipulations. While the Stranger was hidden by the shaman’s cloaking spell, the first village was slaughtered. Evil didn’t chase the Stranger to his village. It came on its own. They were likely to be the next target whatever the Stranger did. The barbaric and disgusting way the bodies were arranged was Mr. Dark’s attempt to destroy the Stranger with both horror and guilt.
However, the Stranger was partially right. The people they cared about were in danger. Matt’s own experience with his buddy Andy back home and the Stranger’s story convinced him that leaving Deerpark had been the right call. There was no question that Mr. Dark liked to torture anyone close to them. It was best to help people and move on quickly. The idea of a family, a home with loved ones and friends, was an illusion that they had to give up. Not just for the sake of the other people, but for their own sanity, too. Mr. Dark used their attachments against them as a way to weaken them. His capacity for bloody, violent acts was bottomless.
Mr. Dark created nightmares. Matt was sure these horrors were meant to break them. The Stranger might already be too damaged to continue fighting. Mutilating the villagers’ bodies was just the sort of move Mr. Dark excelled at. The Stranger could be a
powerful partner in the battle against Mr. Dark, but not if he had been convinced that fighting only made things worse. Matt wasn’t immune to Mr. Dark’s tricks, either. Still, if Mr. Dark was planning elaborate attacks just to weaken them, they were a threat to him. If one of them was a threat, what about two working as a team? They had a power they didn’t understand yet. Maybe together they could find and destroy Mr. Dark.
Matt knew he had to make the Stranger see the truth behind the manipulation. Some force had brought them together. There was a reason behind his wandering and the Stranger’s, too. He had been lucky too many times to believe it was random. When he needed to find Cheryl, he found Maria waiting inside the shack. Now he could free Cheryl and Maria’s sister at the same time. He knew that he had been led here somehow. He was meant to save them, and the Stranger was meant to help. Now he just had to figure out a way to convince the Stranger.
A sliver of moon moved halfway across the star-filled sky, and the Stranger still had not returned. Matt began feeling for rusty old nails sticking out of the porch and then driving them back down with the end of his ax. There were at least a hundred, but he pounded them one by one, and as he did, the little deck began to straighten. Behind him the shack’s door creaked. In the doorway he could see Maria outlined by the candlelight. He stopped work. “We’ll leave in the morning.”
She gasped. “Thank you.” There was quiet sobbing until, seeming embarrassed by her tears, she covered her face with her hands for a moment. When she took her hands away, the tears had stopped. “Where is the White Jaguar?”
“We’re going without him.”
“You want me to go instead of the White Jaguar?” She sounded fired up. “I don’t know how to fight!” She muttered something in Mayan and went back inside.
Matt followed, knowing she thought he was crazy or stupid or both. He explained that he needed her to guide him back to the place where the coyotes were holding her sister. She was clearly terrified by the idea of returning.
“The White Jaguar killed eighty murderers all by himself! You must make him go with you.”
“Eighty?”
She nodded. “The husband of my great aunt’s friend was there.”
The story that the Stranger had told Matt had closer to eight murderers, but Matt knew all stories get better in the telling. It didn’t matter whether you were Mayan or one of the guys from the mill back in Deerpark.
“I am like him.” Matt pointed in the direction of the door. “I can fight them. I’ve done it many times and I’ll do it until I die. I’m going to save your sister and my friend Cheryl. It’s what I’m supposed to do.” Matt didn’t bother saying he was her only hope. She already knew that.
She looked at the ground and whispered, “If you asked me to die for my sister, I would. But to go back there…getting caught would be a slow, hard death. What if they see me?”
“You’ll show me the place, and then you’ll go hide.”
Maria’s eyes showed the agony of being caught between her fear and her love for her sister. With a deep breath she looked up and nodded. Somehow she found a way to
defeat her terror. There were no more tears. Maria had her game face on, and she was ready to make the long walk back to her captors.
“Get some sleep.” Matt stretched out in front of the door. Maria curled up in the far corner. Neither of them slept.
CHAPTER NINE
Just before daybreak, the Stranger pushed the door into Matt. The Stranger’s night of walking in the desert blackness had calmed him. He took a package from his rucksack and made them rough, hot campfire coffee. When he stretched out his arm to hand a cup to Maria, she didn’t take it because she was looking at his left biceps. The stab wound was now just a faint red line.
“
Ahpatpehcahel!
” She turned her back like she couldn’t bear to look at him.
The Stranger opened his mouth to say something, but then, as if he had decided it was pointless, said nothing.
Matt was pretty sure he’d just learned the Mayan word for “liar.” If Maria had ever doubted that the Stranger was the White Jaguar, now she knew. When bitter grounds were all Matt had left in his cup, he said, “We’re heading out this morning. Maria is going to take me to the coyotes.”
“Weren’t you listening to me?”
“I was. Have you ever wondered why Mr. Dark worked so hard to torture you? I think he’s afraid of you, of us both. And what really scares him is the two of us working together.”
The Stranger threw his dregs on the fire. “You’re going to get them all killed and probably yourself, too.”
Matt pointed to Maria’s back. “If that little girl is brave enough to go back, I’m going to do everything I can to save her sister. It’s what we do.”
The Stranger bristled with disgust as he shook his head. “I’d call you muleheaded, but that would tarnish the reputation of the mules.”
Twenty minutes later, when Maria and Matt started out, the Stranger groaned, picked up his walking stick, and followed. Matt wasn’t sure what had made him change his mind, and he didn’t ask because he wasn’t going to chance some wrong word that might get the Stranger’s back up. It was a huge relief to have help, but Matt spent the first mile wondering if the Stranger was coming along to help or to die.
The desert was still cool, so they moved quickly; the fiery sun was rising and the temperature would rise with it. Maria was nimble and took the heat well. Matt wasn’t surprised she had been able to escape. He hoped he wasn’t putting her at risk for nothing. The coyotes would be well armed, and, as usual, Matt and his comrades had no guns. Still walking behind them, the Stranger was silent. Whatever he was thinking, it was likely to be gloomy, and Matt was relieved he wasn’t sharing it with them. Maria was scared enough already.
After ten miles of trudging, they came across a mesquite tree decorated with women’s panties. From a distance it appeared festive, but as they got closer and saw the panties, the hair on Matt’s arms rose. There were fifteen or sixteen pairs, mostly white, with a pink, a blue, and a couple of striped ones scattered throughout. Whatever this was, it wasn’t good. Matt turned towards the others and saw Maria staring with jagged anger. She said something in Mayan and spat on the ground. The Stranger quietly asked her a question. She started to answer in Mayan as if she was too upset to remember the English words, but she stopped and started over in English for Matt.
“It’s a rape tree.” Then she explained that the panties were souvenirs of rape. The smugglers compete to see who can get the most panties in their tree. “It’s a game to them. They bet with each other. Before we crossed the border, an old woman selling condoms told us we must buy some so we would not end up both raped and pregnant. I thought she was trying to scare us into giving her the little bit of money we had for food, but she was telling the truth. What kind of people know about this and instead of trying to stop it, they make money?” Maria took out her matches and started for the tree.
“No. Too much smoke.” The Stranger blocked her way. “It’s green. Probably won’t burn, but if you manage to catch it on fire, the smoke will be seen and smelled for miles.”
Maria repeated her curse and spat when they passed a second and third tree hung with sick trophies. Matt thought about what kind of evil cowards would prey on these women and girls and how desperate the women must have been to cross the border, knowing there was no one to help them out on the other side. How terrifying would that be? If Janey had been attacked like that.…Matt glanced at the Stranger, and from the man’s dark face he could only assume the Stranger was just as horrified. There were levels of suffering here he could barely comprehend.
Miles away from the rape trees, they found a large paloverde with enough branches to give them shade. They rested there and hid from the noon sun. A breeze blew through their sweaty clothes, making them feel cooler. Maria was quiet, but her expressive face revealed a struggle. Matt assumed she was growing more afraid as they neared the coyotes.
After twenty minutes of rest, Maria stood up. “We should go.”
Matt realized she wasn’t growing more frightened. She was angry. He looked at the Stranger, who shrugged and picked up his walking stick. It was almost dark when they stood on a small hill as Maria pointed and said, “Down there.”
CHAPTER TEN
The coyotes had taken over an abandoned house. Once it had been a humble working ranch, but now the corral’s fencing lay on the ground and the barn was missing half its roof. There were four vehicles: a banged-up old Ford F-150, two jeeps, and the moving truck from the gas station. Matt could see at least ten men outside the house. The setting sun glinted off steel pistols. He got a look at the closest man’s face in profile. It was Ant Man from the gas station.
“We can’t attack the house.” The Stranger was studying, too.
Matt nodded. At least the Stranger was still planning on helping.
“We have to draw them out.” The Stranger came up with a plan. He wanted to wait until the smugglers were asleep because stealth and confusion were their only hope. Yesterday’s waning crescent moon meant tonight would bring a new moon and darkness. “First we have to incapacitate the moving truck. Then you’ll hide in one of the jeeps. I’ll start a fire in the barn, and while I’m running for the second jeep, I’ll yell, ‘
La migra.
’ At that point the smugglers will be trying to get the women into the truck and leave, but the truck won’t start. With luck the coyotes will be confused and run for the jeeps, where we’ll surprise them.”
As plans went, it had some good points. It even sounded logical, but it was still suicide. Even if it all worked, they were hopelessly outnumbered, and these hardened criminals weren’t likely to panic or stay confused for long. If their timing was perfect, Matt and the Stranger would have about three minutes before the coyotes were telling
each other to get the guys hiding behind the jeeps. Still, getting the traffickers out in the open would give the women a chance to escape. If the coyotes hunkered down in the house, there would be no way other than fire to get them out. Matt remembered the chained girls in Breckenridge and knew that wouldn’t go well for the hostages.
“They leave the keys in the trucks.”
Matt and the Stranger turned to look at Maria. “I remember because I thought you wouldn’t do that in Guatemala or Mexico. They are very comfortable here.”
Matt nodded. He could drive with his right hand and swing an ax with his left. “Can you drive?” he asked the Stranger.
“I learned in 1946 just after the war.”
“I’ll start the fire.” Maria looked quite confident now.
Both men said, “No!”
“You’ll stay here and not move. No matter what.” The Stranger turned to Matt. “We can take the keys out of the trucks. Then we’ll drive the jeeps and go for the ones with automatic weapons first. We have to get them in the beginning to have any chance.”
Matt paused to think. “You start the fire and get in your jeep. I’ll get the keys and get in mine. When we’re both in our jeeps…”
“Then I yell, ‘
La migra.
’” The Stranger was nodding. “Your ax isn’t long enough for this. There might be something else in the barn.”
Matt’s fingers slid over the head of his ax. The edge was sharp enough to shave with. He’d rather have it than some rotten rake. Still, they had a better plan. No real chance of survival, but a plan that would cause chaos and hopefully remove enough smugglers to save the women stuck in that ranch house. To pass the time until the lights
went out, Matt and the Stranger studied the ranch, trying to plan every move, count every coyote. The Stranger estimated the distances between the jeeps and the buildings. They refined their plans even though both understood that with all the variables, this would be more brawl than military campaign.