The Welcome Wagon

Man this is some nerve racking shit. This isn't the scene I had hoped for... abandoned "airstrip" if you can even call this fucking farmer's field an airstrip. A fuel truck that could have easily serviced Lindbergh's plane, and now what I am sure are some type of revolutionaries coming to engage us in battle. To think I could be sipping on a cold beer, swinging in a hammock somewhere.

"Grab the hose, Nancy."
Lou throws me off of my train of thought and I land on my feet next to the truck. He tosses a loose coil of fuel hose from the top of the tank and I let it drop to the ground in front of me.

We watch the dust trail grow as the vehicles... yes, it looks like more than one, approach.

"You think we can get her fueled and get the fuck out of here before they reach us?"
"Not if you just stand there with your thumb up your ass."

I get into position as Lou restarts the truck and engages the archaic power take-off that will pump the fuel up to our wings. Before I put this shit into Naomi I let a little of it fly into the air. Smells like AV-GAS, fingers to the tip of the nozzle and a sniff, texture... "I think we'll be okay, Lou."

"Great, just fuel the damn thing."
"Oh... sure, you would just pump away without testing it first. Just like you to charge ahead. What if it was water, LOU? What if it was insecticide?"
"What if I climb up there and kick your ass?"
"Point taken."

Even though the truck is old, the fuel is moving fast. I look at our approaching welcoming committee. You can plainly see two large stake-bed trucks rolling at the front of the dust cloud.

"How many liters are in a gallon?"
"What?"
"Liters to gallons? We need to leave some cash, don't we?"
"Let's just double what we normally leave for filling her tanks. That should be plenty."

I get a thumbs up and he leaves his post for a moment to grab some cash from the duffel in the cockpit.

My hand goes to the pistol tucked in the small of my back. I check the load and shake my head. I just want to fuel and go, no problems, no shooting, no killing... especially if it is going to be one of us.

Lou is back, putting the money on the ragged seat of the truck. Once he is back at his post he looks at the liters pumped and back at me.
"How we doing?"

The fuel is visible as it nears the top of the tank. Leaving room for any expansion I think we are done.
"Good... we are good. Shut her down."

The trucks are only a mile away now, but are driving up the same tracks we followed to land here. If we want to get out of here without any trouble we will have to time it right. I toss the hose down to Lou and close her up.

He has the truck parked in a way that we don't have to move it to depart. Lou muscles the rolls of hose over behind the tanker and is about to join me in getting the hell out of here when he spots something. He disappears behind the truck.
"LOU... COME ON."

He comes back, a spring in his step as he runs the short distance to Naomi's tail, a weathered envelope in his hand.
"This was stuck in the visor."
"No time for that now."

I am in the cockpit and have her engines fired when the trucks roll up behind us.
"They have us blocked in." Lou says, dumping the chocks and joining me at the controls.

We are blocked if we were to turn and try to exit the way we came in.
"I think we can make it around the back of the barn." I put the coals to her and the Wasps pull us forward with a lurch. Lou cranes around to see men climbing down out of the trucks.
"I don't... see any guns. Looks like about twenty men."

The path around the back of the barn is rutted, stacked with lumber and old tires, and has a rotted wire fence that runs the length of the barn and then some. We make the turn and leave the trucks behind.

"Two guys... " he turns and leans to look out my window, "no... five are waving us down. The are going to get in front of us, Jake, probably moving one of the trucks."

I push the throttles to the stops and and kick up a cloud of dust behind us that will surely slow the men on our tail.
"Oh... fuck."
I don't see the hole or ditch or rut that we drop into... but Lou does. He braces himself and we drop hard enough for the starboard float to catch the wire fence. No time to reflect on our bad luck. There is no feeling from Naomi as we snap fence posts and start to drag the remains of the fence behind us.
"Well son-of-a-bitch."

As we drag more and more of the fence, unplugging it from its anchorage in the hard-pan earth, Naomi finally shows the strain and I am afraid we may loose the float.
"Lou, in the tool bag... DIKES."

He bails out of the cockpit and I hear the bag being up-ended into one of the cabin seats behind me. I feel a quick clap on my shoulder to signal his success and then the door opens. Naomi's engines wind down a bit as I retard the throttles.

We're moving slow enough that he can run alongside as he clips away at the wire. He doesn't try to remove it from the float... it would take too long. It takes fifteen seconds or so and he is on his way back in.
"THEY ARE RIGHT ON OUR ASS."

I take the cue and as we turn the corner around the backside of the barn I give her both barrels and we are rolling hard. They have moved one of the trucks and are alongside us as we clear the barn and line up on the dirt strip.
"What are they doing?"
I expect gunfire, yelling, screaming... "
"Waving."
"Waving?"
Naomi picks up speed quickly and we are wheels up within moments.
"What do you mean waving?"

Lou looks at me and then pulls the envelope from his back pocket.
"It's got Jerry's scrawl on it."
He tears it open, reads the first few lines and then slumps in his seat.

"What?"
He looks down at the letter and re-affirms what he had just read.
"It says... hey boys, Mr. Juarez will greet you once you have arrived. His wife makes some kick-ass carnitas and corn fritters. She packs a mean basket... usually has a bottle of the family mesqual tucked in there too. Juaraz and his sons and nephews will get you fueled and send you on your way."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

It takes a while for the memory of the lost carnitas and corn fritters to leave us.
We have three or four hours to Anahuac and home cooked food like that would have made the trip palatable. Lou pulls out the jerky and a box of Wheat Thins with a look of defeat. Without a word we tear at the jerky, following it up with the crackers.
"Unbelievable luck, us barely escaping a delicious meal and friendly handshakes."
"Shut up, Jake."

The day has turned crisp and clear. The sky is ours with the exception of several distant contrails criss-crossing above us and out on the coast. I am glad we didn't have any home-made mesqual. We would have finished it, most likely, and that wouldn't bode well with what we might face when we land.

Just the blaze of sound from the Wasps fill the cockpit. No music, no conversation. I think we both feel like we are going to land in a shit-storm. After Lou slices up a papaya and we finish it, he goes back in to the cabin and does a weapons check. I remember the duffel we took out of the other Naomi.
"Stay out of those Walkers... and the tequila.
"What are you, Nancy, my damn mother?"
"You know what I mean."

After fifteen minutes or so he comes back up front.
"I don't know about those grenades. We should have tossed one to see if they even still work."
"Why wouldn't they work?"
"Shit gets old... it doesn't work, at least not like it's supposed to. Those are, like fifty years old. Who the hell would have a case of fifty year old grenades, anyway. I don't even know why we loaded them on the plane... probably so unstable they will blow once the pins are out."

Lou stops and thinks for a moment. Then he nods and heads back to the cabin.

"Come on, Lou, I was hoping you would take her for a while. I want to close my eyes for a bit."
"Give me twenty minutes or so, and I will take her all the way to Anahuac."

Whatever he is doing back there, he is very industrious. He pops back up to the cockpit.
"Don't we have some cord or something? I remember a roll of packing cord, or line or whatever the hell that shit is."
"Yeah, there is a roll of it in the tail access, you have to move the fly-away kit. What do you need cord for?"

"Weapons improvement."

What Dreams Are Made Of

"Over the hill by the river."
Lou is whispering... it is dark with the exception of a mist of quarter moonlight filtering down. I smell the forest, but it is wet and cold and rotting. There is something else... a stench that is brought in on a damp breeze from some far way place mixed with smoke from some distant fire.

"Five of them."
"So?"
"You take the two on the right, I'll take the three on the left."
I am all question and no action.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
He slides a broad sword from a scabbard. The metal shines dull in the moonlight. He is up and starts over the rise.
"Hey... wait." I whisper after him, but it is too late. I reach to my side, surprised to find the same weapon. Across my chest is another scabbard that holds a dagger. I scramble after him.

Over the rise and next to a small brook are the five men. They are not like Orlis' Keene's men. These men are dressed in much more ancient garb. That is when I see Lou, who is a good eight yards ahead of me, leap into the firelight... sure that I am at his back. I am not.

The men are quick to react, all of them with weapon in hand in the blink of an eye. Lou heaves his sword in a broad arc and slices the man nearest to him nearly in two. It is way too ambitious a move when facing four other men.

I run as fast as my feet will carry me and plunge my blade into the nearest man. Because of the way they are grouped I manage to stick two of them... like martini olives on a toothpick. To my surprise this does not kill them, and as I withdraw the blade I cringe for them. I can hear the sound over the action of the battle, their breaths draw in, the meat releasing the metal as I pull it out.

There is a cry of pain. It is my own. One of these men has taken their dagger and stabbed me with it just above my collar bone. I pull my own dagger and shove it into his gullet up to the handle, then I twist it as I withdraw. He drops to his knees, but his friend is on me, the wound I gave him flowing crimson in the moonlight. He swipes one way, then the next, his sword cutting through the air with the sound of angry hornets.

I watch as a blade appears from his chest and extends toward me, then pulls back. He falls and I watch as Lou takes on another man. I join him and swing wildly, hacking arms and legs. Before long we are standing alone, the five of them writhing on the ground in the throws of death.

"Oh... SHIT, oh shit. You would think I would be used to it by now."
"What is that, Nancy?"
"Killing people."

Lou puts his fingers to his lips, then changes his grip on the broadsword. He creeps over to the bushes alongside the brook and reaches in. With a yank he hauls out two people in his grip. They look familiar... and they are eating ice cream cones.

"Andy? Mike? What are you guys... "

"JAKE... JAKE PULL UP... "

Immediately the view changes around me and I am looking at jungle... well, the ground specifically, spinning slowly and closing in at about two thousand feet. We seem to be in a dive. Lou is pulling back on the wheel.
"PULL US OUT OF THIS GODDAMNIT."

I pull back as well and we give it full right rudder to boot. The spinning slows and as we both pull back it stops altogether and we begin to level out.
"What... the FUCK, Jake?"
"What happened?"
"Well I don't know, I was sleeping. Usually only one of us sleeps at a time."

We gain a little altitude, check time and distance. It takes a while before we fly over a landmark that we can place. After an hour or so on the correct heading we pass over Patzcuaro Lake.
"Mascoala is about a hundred and fifty miles ahead of us." Lou puts two fingers on the map, holding position over both places.

"Want a something to eat?" Lou reaches into the box Babe had prepared and pulls up a wax paper wrapped chicken salad sandwich. I nod and we eat. The fatigue that put us out is gone and we augment that with a couple of pulls off of the super apple juice.

After we have eaten, Lou shakes his head and smiles.
"So what the fuck were you dreaming about?"
"You... and me, killing a bunch of people at a river."
"When we killed Orlis and the boys?"
"No... this was different, midevil times, something like that."
"That is what you dream of? Man, I was in the middle of a beach, Sea of Cortez I think. Bronzed beauties all around, sweet cheeks moving as they walked by in the sand. I got one of them to stop and she was showing me her tattoo, then we started into that dive and I woke up."

"Sorry, Lou. If it is any consellation you kicked some serious ass."
"I would have rather slapped some serious ass."

Before long we see the expanse of Guadalahara over the mountains off to the west. It is just like Jerry to pick a place like Mascoala, smaller and less conspicuous.
"You know there aren't any airports or landing fields on this chart." Lou holds it up to show me.
"That's odd."

We see the city of Mascoala ahead of us. In a matter of minutes we over-fly the small expanse and have to circle around to see what is what. There is no airport, airfield, or even a road that would take a plane the size of Abigail. We, on the other hand, have several options. But it is Lou that makes the discovery.

"There, the tracks... they are wide enough to have been made by Abigail." He points out of his side window and we bank so I can see as well. It is a set of tracks in a field just outside of town. It is one of the only fields that hasn't been tilled up, so the ground is uniform and mostly flat.

We fly low and make a pass over the tracks in the field. Two become three where the tail wheel finally drops. The path leads up toward an old barn, beyond which are parked several trucks... including what looks to be a fuel truck.
"Well, that looks like the spot they touched down." I turn Naomi around in a long arc and line up on the tracks.

We drop the gear and touch down half way into the tracks that Abigail left and then taxi up toward the barn. Once Naomi's engines are silenced we wait for a beat or two for someone to greet us, but no one appears. When we step out of the plane there is no sound but that of the wind and somewhere the bleat of a goat or a sheep nearby.

"Can't beat the hospitality." Lou leads off, walking toward the back of the barn where we saw the fuel truck.
"Hold up, Lou."
I hop back into Naomi and grab the two 9mms. With a move of the slides I see that they are both ready for action. No sense in going off half-cocked.

We tuck the pistols away and walk around the barn. There is a structure beyond that looks to be abandoned. Lou heads for the fuel truck and I take a quick look around the back of the barn.
"This truck is nearly full of fuel." Lou calls back as he slaps a hand on the side of the big tank on the flat bed.

I step up to the cab and open the door, "No key."
Lou gives me a shove, "Let me see."
He hops up and in onto the bare springs of the seat. He turns a knob on the dash and then feels around on the floor until he finds what he is looking for. The old truck engine churns and grinds until it starts... like waking a hibernating bear.
"There we go."

He puts it in gear and we drive around the barn toward Naomi. As we back into place I can see a couple of dust trails coming up from the end of the field where the tracks started.

"We have company."