Late November—1977
Lying on his stomach at the fence line of an Arizona ranch just inside the Mexican border, Frank Ford finds it hard to believe that only six months ago he was in northern Minnesota trying to stop two psychotic sisters from killing a douchebag pharmaceutical heir.
But it’s true.
Now the sky above him is a tapestry of stars and his three companions are up in the cosmos with them, each of the three men having consumed a number of peyote buttons before leaving Tempe.
Frank, being the driver, abstained. At the moment, though, he’s not sure whether that was a good decision or a bad one. He’s wired tight and the other three are loose goosey, so what the hell.
The four men are on a mission to rescue the younger brother of rising rock star Evelyn Raines, with whom Frank has a confusing and undefined relationship. It seems that Javier Raines was caught smuggling marijuana and Mexican citizens across the border—something he’s been doing for several years, according to his sister. The kicker here being that it wasn’t an official government law enforcement agency that snagged him, but a vigilante group doing unauthorized work along the border.
Unauthorized work that often includes torture, the rumors say.
Just a weird situation all around, Frank thinks, as he watches Ted Webb—the provider of the peyote buttons—crawl underneath the barbed wire, the butt of a .45 caliber Colt semi-auto sticking out the waistband of his faded jeans.
Being the most mobile of the four, Ted volunteered to sneak up to the barn, only outbuilding on the property, to see if Javier is actually in there. And, if so, come up with a plan for extracting him.
Squeezing the stock of a cut down twelve-gauge, Frank watches in the weak glow of the lone dusk-to-dawn yard light as Ted scoots across the dirt towards the barn. Yard dog is no longer a problem, yellow-haired mutt collapsed in a heap near the front gate, after consuming a hefty serving of Henry Ruiz’s Doggy Downer Delight.
Henry Ruiz, along with Frank’s roommate in Tempe, Bill Cross, round out the rest of the not-so-fearsome foursome.
Henry is stretched out on Frank’s left, looking at the front door of the one-story ranch house through the night-vision scope of an M-16 carbine, his souvenir from Vietnam. On Henry’s left, Bill Cross cradles a .22 caliber semi-auto plinking rifle, his eyes flitting around the yard like tumbleweeds in a windstorm.
Henry and Ted are ‘Nam vets. Bill served in Korea. Frank’s damaged knee kept him out of the military. Failed his draft physical.
Not that he’d have wanted to join even if his knee was perfect, he thinks, then tenses as he sees Ted coming back fast, crouching low.
Ted scurries to the fence line and squats down in front of Henry. “There’s two guys in there,” he says. “Both of ‘em naked and bloody and tied to posts in the ground.”
“They conscious?” Henry asks.
“Maybe, couldn’t tell for sure,” Ted says in a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t go in all the way. Didn’t want them shouting or something. They might’ve been aware of me, I’m not sure. Neither one of them looked in good enough shape to walk back to the car, though, I can tell you that much.”
“Well, no mission ever goes the way you plan it, we’ll just have to improvise,” Henry says. “Brings to mind an old Mexican saying: ‘Trust in God but keep one hand on your pistola.’ So I guess that’s what we’ll do.”
Henry slithers under the barbed wire and stands up. Raising the M-16 to the ready position, he trains the carbine at the front door of the house and walks sideways toward the barn.
Frank and Bill follow Henry’s lead.
Frank’s bum knee is stiff and sore from the walk in and he can’t help wondering how the hell things came down to this…
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