We Shall Return

The night rolled on. One by one our party thinned until it was just the three of us, Blanco, Justin and Princess. Loco had to leave a little earlier to make it home to the wife and kids. He left his car and made the trek home on foot. According to Blanco it is only a mile or so up the coast and opposite the beach from the highway.

Justin is a little more animated now, Princess moving closer, whispering in his ear. He smiles as she sticks her tequila soaked tongue in his ear. I can’t imagine how fucked up you would have to be to go with a girl like Princess. We will get our answer in the morning. She stands and takes his hand, almost yanking him to his feet. With an arm around his waist she leads him away.

The four of us head for the Morgan and the comfort of our beds for a long deserved sleep. No more beer, tequila, smoke, food, talk, just sleep. We get on board and not a word is spoken. I am out when my head hits the pillow.

It is morning, I think. The heat wakes me up and I look across to see that Lou is already up. Jerry is still crashed out, twisted up in his bunk. I can smell coffee and long for the sea breeze. It must be eight degrees. I get up on deck and stretch.
“Well, that didn’t work.” Lou hands me a cup of coffee.
“What?”
“That ten hours of beauty sleep you just had, you ugly fuck.”
I look at Blanco, “What time is it?” I tap on my wrist.
Blanco holds up two fingers.
“Two o’clock?”
He nods.
“Holy shit… I was out, huh?” I look at Lou, “When did you get up?”
“Just ten minutes ago. I woke you up, pussy… don’t you remember?”
I unconsciously rug my arm. Lou smiles.
“You shitbag.”
“We need to get out of here, you know?”
I nod, “Get Jerry up and we can be wheels up in an hour or so.”

In ten minutes time, Jerry is drinking his coffee and we are discussing our plans.
“I have to take a quick ride up the road. Nester was supposed to get Abigail loaded with his equipment the night we landed. Then he told me that he needed to visit with a cousin… or uncle or someone like that. When I was ready to leave town I am supposed to come and get him."
“No shit.” I look at him, squinting out the sunlight, “Does he even know what happened to you?”
“Probably not. Everything was normal when we went our separate ways.” He takes a gulp of coffee, “He will get a kick out of it.”

Lou is already drinking beer.
“You know that the hostage wants a ride.” He takes a sip, not a gulp. I think he damaged something last night and has to re-train himself to drink.
“This is the first time I have heard. Where does he want to go?”
“With us to El Corazon. Says he has connections on the coast and that he can get home from Huatulco.” Lou takes a big swallow and looks like he hurts himself.
I look at Jerry, “What do you think?”
“Hell, I don’t know. He looks harmless. How is he going to get to Huatulco. He expecting us to fly him there?”
“I can take him, I suppose.” Lou tries to chug his beer and is successful. Then he gets into a choking fit and loses half of it. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“He won’t cause any problems. I have to go back to the bar and get my stuff. I have a few things there that I’m not willing to leave behind.”

Loco meets us with the car and within ten minutes we are waiting in front of an immense resort as Jerry talks to the gate guard. A phone call is made, and within a minute or two we see Nester walking up the drive.

In the time it takes to get to the airfield, we have relayed the story of the killings,pursuit, and pirate battles. After hearing how we sunk the other boat with a couple of shoulder fired missles, Nester shakes his head in disbelief. He tells Jerry that he doesn’t know how we get into so much trouble.
We say our goodbyes to Loco,vowing to return. He drives off in a clowd of oil smoke and we are left standing in front of the planes. Abigail has been washed and serviced. Her hold is stuffed with mining equipement. Both planes are topped off and we settle our bill with the FBO. It is decided that Jerry will fly with Lou on the trip home. Me and Nester will fly in Abigail. The hostage is all but forgotten until Nester and I are in the cockpit and I am doing my final checklist. I can hear Naomi’s engines fire up and run to idle.
“HELLO?"
With Lou’s engines idling the voice almost goes unheard.
“HEY."
I turn and see Justin with a duffel slung over his shoulder leaning in the cargo door. I wave him in. He slings his bag into the bay and hops on board, climbing his way to the cockpit.
“I wouldn’t leave your bag there, you’ll lose it. Put it up here behind the cargo nets.”
He grabs the bag and stows it, then climbs toward the first officer’s seat.
“I thought you might have left without me.” He reaches out and gives the wheel a little shake. He jumps slightly at the sight of Nester.
“Oh… I, I thought I was sitting up here. Who is this?”
“Nester Olitas, meet Justin… Zitpin?”
“Zilgen… like the cymbals but spelled differently.”
Like I am supposed to know about cymbols.
“Well,” I point to the hammock hanging from one point on the port bulkhead, “String that hammock over to that hook on the starboard side and take a seat.”
He mills about for a moment and then stretches the hammock out to the other side and hooks it. With a little difficulty he positions himself in it so he is looking between us and out through the windscreen. He reaches up and pushes the cargo ready button. The green light illuminates on my display. This guy is trouble.
“Hey, don’t touch anything.”
He pulls his hands back and sets them in his lap.

Lou throttles up and then is moving, taxiing around me and out toward the runway. I turn the radio on and can hear Jerry hailing me.
“Come on, turn on your radio.”
“Its on, its on. I’m right behind you.”

I fire Abby’s number two and get her to idle before starting the other engine.
“I see our hostage made it.”
Justin reaches out between the seats for the microphone, I give it to him and release the brakes.
“My name…” He fiddles with the button, “My name is Justin.”
He hands the microphone back to me. I throttle up first and then take it quickly.
“Hey,” I yell into the microphone, “Shut the fuck up. I am trying to take off here.” I hand it back to him.

I watch Lou power up and make his run. Once he is up, I make the turn and then straighten her up. I lock the tail wheel and push both throttles to the stops. We lurch forward and in ten seconds or so the tail is up, then we leave the ground. I draw a bead on the little speck of Naomi in the blue sky out of my side window and bank to follow her.

I bring the gear up, adjust my cowls, and return the flaps to full up and continue climbing. Justin is yammering on about something. I think I hear him mention Princess a couple of times. What I am really hoping is that he is as hungover as I am and will realize that silence feels better than talking and listening. Nester looks my way and rolls his eyes. I think he is glad he doesn’t understand English all that well and knows he won’t be party to any long discussions.

An uneventful flight with no fuel stop takes us all the way to El Corazon. Luckily the days have been long and the light lingers a bit after sunset.
We make a pass over the strip to check it out. Once in a while one of the town’s folk will leave their cows or goats to graze and they wander over to the compound. A low fly-by usually chases them away. Tonight there is nothing but the dirt strip and a dark compound. Jerry had rigged a solar powered light… sort of a porch light that stayed on all night unless we turned it off. It is usually on and visible, but not tonight.

Justin had apparently been up all night trying to satisfy his date. This was a good thing. He fell asleep shortly after we reached altitude and just bolted awake when I banked over the compound.
“What… what is happening?” He straights up and strains in his hammock to look out his window.
“Relax, we’re home. Just making a quick inspection.

As we bank I can see Naomi touch down, sweet and neat, just like the first homecoming. Lou’s landing light sweeps across the compound as he motors in. I make my run to the end of the pattern and then bank again and drop the gear. Three good indications draw a quick nod from me. There is a string of questions coming from the hammock behind me, but I ignore the noise, concentrating on my angle of attack and my flap position. Nester says nothing, but looks out the side window at the jungle as it looms closer. I touch down rather hard and bounce just a little. The cargo isn’t loaded right, and I should have checked it out a little more before we left Puerto Barrios. But who cares at this point.

“Are we okay?” Justin has a death grip on one of the tie downs on the bulkhead in front of him.

“We’re fine.” I pull the throttles back and the tail drops. As we scoot down the strip I apply the brakes and she slows quickly. We pass the marker that Jerry erected and I unlock the tail wheel and we turn in through the wide open gates of the compound. I can see Naomi parked over by the hanger, so I just get her inside the gates and spin her around.

When I cut the engines the familiar sound of the jungle fills the air. It is sweltering here without the cooling breeze of the Caribbean we have had for the past several days. Before I get out of Abby I am running with sweat. It is after nine o’clock and we are all starving.
Nester gathers us around and tells us that Consuela makes a big meal tonight. Today is the day she makes tamales and that there are enough for a whole village if they had been invited.
“Oh hell yes.” I turn to Lou, “You haven’t tasted food until you have had some of Consuela’s tamales. That and her rice, awesome shit, man.”
Lou just looks back with his jaw agape, “I could eat the asshole out of a water buffalo.”
Justin looks at him, “You… you have done that?”
Lou slaps him on the back, “Hey… I want to invite you to a little party after dinner.”
“A party?”
“Yep. There’s gonna be a lot of drinking, fucking, and fighting.”
Justin twitched a slight smile, “Who’s invited?”
“Just you and me, kid.”

With that Justin moved away rather quickly and walked on the other side of Jerry.
“Why do you have to scare the kid?” I ask him as we walk toward Nester’s flat bed truck.
“He ain’t scared. But the night is young.”