Blood of My Brother (29 page)

“Over the mountains, senor?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Across the highway the riverbed continues as a dirt road.”

“Have you driven it?”

“I sometimes go with my brothers to visit our cousins in Miahuatlán. The road is narrow, senor, and the mountains are high. It is better in the dry season, which is now. In the wet, it falls apart, and there is no repair.”

“Is there an airfield in the mountains?”

“There is one in Ejutla de Crespo.”

“How far is that?”

“Eighty kilometers.”

“Can we get gas, if we need it?”

“There is no gas until Oaxaca. I will give you gas to carry, five gallons.”

“Can you bring it now?”

“Yes, senor. I will return with it in a few minutes.”

“
Gracias
, Hector.”

“
De nada
, senor.”

When Hector left, Jay opened the bag of food on the table. Inside on top he found an envelope and a small box wrapped in silver paper and tied with a red ribbon. The envelope contained a Christmas card addressed to “Isabel and Senor Jay” with a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the front and the words “Feliz Navidad, Hector,” written inside in careful script. Jay brought the gift to Isabel to open, which she did. Inside were two hand-carved wooden angels, painted black, each about three inches high, each with wings spread wide. The angels had the flat eyes of a statue, but eyes that nevertheless seemed to look upward in anticipation of the delights of being aloft.

While they were eating their lunch, a black SUV appeared on the ocean road, coming from the direction of Zipolite to the west. Jay and Isabel watched it slow down as it passed their intersection before continuing on into the village. Twenty minutes later it drove by again on its way out of town, this time not slowing, but looking sinister and out of place as it bumped and rocked over ruts and through pools of standing water steaming in the sun. It was much too early for the Ferias to arrive, but the car, with its big wheels, black tinted windows, and command of the road, had
hit men
written all over it.

While they were cleaning up, Hector returned with a red, five-gallon can of gasoline, which Jay put into the boot of the jeep. At six o’clock, the sun low in the western sky, a helicopter came whirring out of the hills behind them, flying directly over the cottage, then turning right at the shoreline, maintaining about a hundred feet of altitude. Isabel, sleeping on the chaise, was wakened by the angry noise of the helicopter’s engine and rotors, and sat up to watch, with Jay, as it disappeared into the setting sun. They exchanged glances.

“We could leave now, Jay.”

“No.”

At midnight, the SUV, clearly visible in the light of the full moon, returned and stopped at the foot of the hill. A minute or two later an open-bed truck pulled up behind it. In the bed of the truck, on benches facing each other, were a dozen soldiers, carrying rifles, wearing black baseball caps, their faces darkened with smudge. Two men, dressed in black, emerged from the SUV, and an officer climbed down from the passenger side of the truck’s cab. They conferred, and returned to their vehicles, which began slowly to drive up the dirt road toward the cottage, the troop vehicle swinging around the SUV to lead the way.

“They’re not going to dinner at the Vista del Mar,” said Jay.

“No,” Isabel answered. “What shall we do?”

“Run,” said Jay. “Get in the car.”

Jay grabbed both bags and threw them in the backseat while Isabel got in the passenger side. Looking down, Jay saw the truck approaching the switchback near the entrance to the Vista del Mar, whose terrace was strung with blinking, multicolored Christmas lights. Jay took the gasoline can from the boot of the jeep and brought it on a run into the cottage, where he spilled its contents rapidly over the furniture and floor. He then threw the can down, lit a full book of matches, and threw it onto an old cotton rug that was hungrily soaking up the dark, acrid-smelling liquid. It caught immediately, and as Jay ran out the side door he could feel the heat pushing him into the night. He started the jeep and pointed it toward the narrow opening in the woods that led to the riverbed. Looking back, he saw the troops leaping from the truck as it rolled to a stop at the top of the drive, and then throwing themselves to the ground as the entire cottage burst with a fierce sucking noise into flames. Ten minutes later, Jay turned the jeep’s headlights off and nosed it onto the rough
shoulder of Highway 200. To the left was the roadblock, to the right, about fifty miles away, lay the town of Huatulco, a minor tourist destination with an airport.

“They will be watching the airport,” said Isabel, reading Jay’s mind.

“Yes,” he said, “and probably patrolling this road once they figure out how we got away.”

“We could head into the mountains. Hector told us the road continues.”

“No,” said Jay. “Not yet. Were those the Ferias?”

“I think so.”

“If it was, then they were nearby when you called Herman.”

“They may have spoken to the nuns in Polanco. I didn’t think of that. Herman still gives them money.”

“Lazaro and Rafael have the entire federal military at their disposal,” Jay said. “Herman must have called them.”

“Hector lives about a mile that way,” said Isabel, pointing down the highway to her right.

“We have no choice.”

“Yes . . .
mi amado
?”

“Yes?”

“Are you depressed?”

“Yes,” said Jay. “If the Ferias had approached first, I would have shot them, then tried to light the fire.”

“There was no time. The soldiers would have killed us.”

“I know, but I may never get that chance again.”

“You will. They will come looking for us, and this time they will not know we are waiting for them.”

With the headlights still off, hugging the tree line, they made it to Hector’s whitewashed cinder block house, down a dirt road in a rocky clearing at the foot of the mountains. Jay waited in the jeep, while Isabel went to the front door,
knocked, and then stepped back into the dirt yard. A minute or two later, Hector emerged. He and Isabel talked, then together they approached the jeep.

“I will take you to a place where you can park the jeep,” said Hector.

In the house a light came on, and Jay could see a woman standing at the front window, watching them. Behind the house, the forest rose mutely with the mountain, its treetops, bathed in moonlight, turning from black to silver, black to silver, as the night breeze rustled through them.

Hector got into the backseat of the jeep, and directed Jay to a path that climbed about a hundred feet to a small clearing, encircled by trees, in the center of which stood an ancient stone well and a rusted pump, its curved iron handle laying next to it on the ground. They parked at the tree line, under a thick canopy of branches. They walked back to the house, now dark again, in silence. Once inside, Hector lit a candle, placed it on a small table, then went to the rear room—there were only two small rooms to the place—and returned with a blanket, which he placed on the floor under the unglazed window at which his wife had been standing when they first arrived. The candle cast flickering shadows on the room’s low ceiling, and by its mellow light they could see a small Christmas tree in the corner, decorated with paper cutout snowflakes. Under the tree, in tiny wooden rocking chairs, were two handmade dolls in bright holiday dresses, their ceramic faces fixed in happy smiles.

“Tomorrow,” said Hector. “I will take my family early to my brother’s house in the village. You are welcome to stay here while we are gone. There is food, and water in the cistern, which you must boil before you drink. I will bring you bottled water when I return tomorrow evening.”

“We will probably stay here tomorrow,” said Jay, “and
leave at night. Can we drive on the mountain road without headlights?”

“It is dangerous,” Hector answered, “but if the night is clear, the moon will help you. I will try to explain the turns to you.”

“Thank you, Hector,
again
.”

“
De nada
, senor.
Buenas noches
.”

“
Buenas noches
, Hector.”

The next morning Hector and his family were gone when they woke. While Isabel made coffee in an old aluminum pot, on a wood burning stove that was still glowing from the family’s breakfast, Jay stood at the house’s one front window, the one they had slept under, where he could see directly down the dirt road to the highway. They had woken to the distant, droning buzz of a helicopter, and now he heard it again, flying low and slow somewhere close by. They spent the day taking turns sitting at the window, watching the dirt road and listening for sounds of truck engines on the highway.

The house baked in the sun and, unlike the cottage, where the sea breeze blew all day, the air was still, the world motionless in the ninety-degree heat. The house, a twenty-foot-by-twenty-foot square, had no plumbing and no electricity. In the far right corner was a door that led out to a stone cistern. Fat, and as tall as a man, it sat on cement blocks, connected at the top to a series of tile gutters and troughs from the house’s tin roof. Taken as a whole, Hector’s crude water collection system had the look of an avant-garde sculpture, patched together from things found on the ground. Around four o’clock, the troop truck, empty, went
by, followed a few minutes later by the helicopter, this time sounding like it was traveling much faster.

“I think they’re searching homesteads along the highway,” said Jay.

“What if they don’t come today?” Isabel asked. “We cannot stay here long. We will put Hector in great danger.”

“We’ll leave tonight, whatever happens.”

“And the Ferias?”

“We’ll go into the mountains, and figure something out. Chris Markey wanted to use me as a decoy. Maybe I’ll call him and make a deal.”

“That would take time.”

“We’ll find a place to hide. Unless you want to leave.”

“I will not leave you.”

At six, Jay brought two clay jugs out to the cistern to collect water. The pump was old, and he had to work the clanking handle vigorously for several minutes to produce a trickle. He filled one jug, and, as he was placing the second one under the spigot, he heard a car door slam shut, and then another. Reaching for his gun, he stepped behind the cistern, gathering himself, listening, hearing the front door open and shut and then voices, one of them Isabel’s, inside.

Crouching, he edged away from the cistern until he had a view of the front yard, expecting to see Hector’s patchwork pickup. Instead he saw the black SUV. He flipped the safety off the gun and, flattening himself along the side of the house, he made his way slowly toward the back door. He was only a few feet away when it crashed open, and Isabel came spilling out, stumbling on the gravel under her feet, and pitching headfirst into the cistern. On her heels came the shorter Feria brother, wearing a white shirt and black slacks, his black hair thick and slicked back, aiming a pistol as he calmly walked toward Isabel.

Jay, only ten feet away, aimed carefully and shot Jose, the bullet catching him high and right and torquing his body to the left as he fell. When he hit the ground, he dropped his gun, and Isabel, bleeding profusely from the forehead, scrambled to pick it up. Kneeling, she pointed it at Jay, screaming something in Spanish, and Jay thought surely he had been betrayed and was going to die. Instinctively he dove to the ground; at the same time Isabel fired two shots toward the side of the house, over Jay’s prone body. Turning onto his side to look behind him, holding his gun straight out, Jay saw the taller brother standing in the long shadow cast by the cistern, a bright crimson stain blossoming on the front of his white shirt where one of Isabel’s shots had hit him. Jay watched as the elder Feria, in slow motion it seemed, fell face forward into the gravel; then he quickly got to his feet and pried Edgardo’s gun from the blunt, manicured fingers of his right hand.

“I thought you were aiming at me,” said Jay to Isabel.

“No,
mi amado
.”

Jay walked over to Jose, who was lying on his back at Isabel’s feet. The younger Feria was alive, breathing raspily through his mouth, his black eyes open and staring with hatred at Jay. Jay’s shot had gone through Jose’s body, coming out above his heart, where a trickle of blood was beginning to darken his snowy white shirt.

“
Buenos días,
Jose,” said Isabel, keeping the gun—Jose’s nine-millimeter automatic pistol—pointed at him.

“This one’s alive, too,” said Jay, who had rolled Edgardo onto his back.

Isabel’s bullet had hit Edgardo squarely in the chest, and his shirt front was covered entirely in blood. His eyes, as dark and reptilian as his brother’s, were open, but were losing their focus.

“Do they speak English?” Jay asked.

“Yes. Herman required them to learn.”

“I’m going to kill them.”

“J ay.”

“Yes?”

“I will help you.”

“No.”

“Edgardo,” said Jay, kneeling on the ground next to the body. “I am going to kill you. I am taking your life for the life of my friend, who you killed in Miami, first crushing his manhood. Do you remember him?”

Without waiting for an answer, Jay placed the barrel of his gun against Edgardo’s crotch and pulled the trigger. The elder brother’s body jumped as if jolted by electricity. Then Jay put the gun’s muzzle into Edgardo’s mouth, saying, “
Hasta la vista,
Edgardo,” before pulling the trigger, spilling the Mexican’s brains and fractured skull pieces onto the ground beneath what was once his head.

“Step back,” Jay said to Isabel as he approached Jose, kneeling before him in the same intimate position in which he had faced and killed Edgardo.