my weight over the front fork. Swerving around the spikes of saguaros, I skidded my foot on the ground for balance. Banging my boot off the rocks I was glad my Docs had steel toes. The path rose enough to see that in the light surrounding the truck, a group of tattered Mexicans were on their knees, four armed men stood over them. I had time to register a woman clutching what looked like a child to her chest before I dipped down and they disappeared from view.
I was a hundred feet behind Mikayla when she reached the truck. The men turned, shock caught on their faces as her headlight struck them. They were swinging guns up when she blurred through them with one of her arms stretched out from her body. Something glinted in her hand, then she was past them. The man in the bandanna fell to his knees, clutching his neck, fighting to staunch the blood cascading down his chest. The other three spun and opened fire at her. Muzzle flashes lit the scene, flickering like some demonic strobe light.
Twisting the throttle fully open, I aimed at the back of the biggest of the men. Pulling the front wheel into the air, I watched in slow motion, his body came closer, shells popped from his M16.
The people on the ground huddled down seeking safety in the dirt.
The crunch of bone sounded when my tire collided with his flesh. He fell forward. The handlebars ripped from my hands. The bike flipped away from me. I hit the ground rolling. Bullets pocked the earth around me as I tumbled.
Mikayla’s headlights flashed back on the remaining men. Drawing their fire, she raced toward them. They arced their barrels at her.
I slid to a stop. Digging in my pocket, I found the pistol.
Bullets sparked off Mikayla’s bike. She tumbled back, hitting the ground.
Holding the small pistol in both hands to steady my aim, I pulled the trigger. It sounded like a firecracker, with almost no recoil. Two slugs ripped into one man’s face. I turned on the other and dumped three shots into his chest before the automatic’s breach locked open.
I could hear a bike’s engine and its tire spinning uselessly in the air, a man’s moan, a woman’s prayers muttered in Spanish.
Running to the fallen bandits, I kicked a rifle away from the only one still breathing. He was hugging himself, letting out short guttural gasps. A woman holding a baby wrapped in a serape watched me without moving. I ran out into the chaparral, toward where Mikayla had fallen.
She was laying in a sandy patch of ground on her back. As I neared, I saw the shallow movement of her chest. Kneeling over her, she looked up at me. She was breathing slowly through her nostrils. Pulling open her jacket, I looked for signs of blood, but found none.
“Are they dead?” she whispered.
“All but one and I doubt he’ll last long.”
“Good.”
I sat in the sand and watched her as her breaths grew in depth. It wasn’t long before she could sit up. I was glad to see she hadn’t broken her back or any other bones. It would hurt like hell in the morning but she would live, if I didn’t come to my senses and kill her first. “Next time,” I said quietly, “you mind asking me before committing my ass to a suicide run?”
“They needed us.” Her voice was coming back.
“I have people back in LA, my people, who count on me making it back alive.”
“They’re all my people.” Her blue eyes flashed ice.
“You a saint? Or a lunatic? Some kind of Mother Teresa with a razor?”
“No, I am whatever I am, this is what I do. If you can’t handle it, we split up now.”
“And miss the fun of seeing what you do next? Fuck, no.”
The last of the bandits had choked on his own blood while I was with Mikayla. The travelers were still huddled on the ground; they watched us with frightened eyes. How could they know if we had come to help or rob or kill them? In this unforgiving wasteland, good Samaritans were few and far between.
Mikayla picked over the corpses while I searched the truck. I found a bottle of tequila, a rat-eared porn magazine and not much more. Mikayla had better luck, their pockets had produced a small wad of pesos and their hands had given up two gold rings and a watch.
After depositing her booty into her rucksack, Mikayla spoke to the travelers. Rising, they solemnly shook her hand and moved to the truck. Piling in, they started out across the valley, heading toward America. None had even looked at me, I think they were afraid I might go crazy and kill them. They had mistaken my size for danger and Mikayla’s gender for kindness. Or maybe they had seen the truth in us.
Cleaning my prints off the pistol, I tossed it out into the dark landscape. The bandits hadn’t offered up any arms smaller than a rifle, and I didn’t think the highway patrol would look too kindly on my strapping one of them on my back. I hated the idea of traveling without firepower, but I had no choice. Mikayla was placing her tarot cards on the bodies when I discovered that bullets had punctured her bike’s gas tank and shattered the carburetor. “Maybe we should have taken the truck,” I said.
“They needed it more than us.”
“Whatever you say, Mother Mikayla.” Against her will, she smiled slightly at my nickname. She arched an eyebrow at me when I slipped the tequila into her rucksack, but she didn’t say anything.
Climbing on behind me, she wrapped her arms around my waist. I didn’t bother cloaking the light, speed was what was needed now. I wanted to put as many miles between us and the dead men as quickly as possible. I wasn’t really worried about the cops, these hills were scattered with the bones of dead travelers. Reporting a body meant paperwork and one more unsolved case on the books. Most of the fallen lay where they died. Coyotes and vultures would feed off the carrion and the circle of life would continue to spin.
Mikayla was the perfect passenger, she crushed her body into my back, bending when I did, shifting her weight along with mine. The warmth of her breath moved across the back of my neck where her face was pressed. It was nice to feel her there, not that I had much time to think on it, all my concentration was used to keep us on the track while I blasted us across the valley floor.
A half mile up the mountain, we passed the pickup. In the back, the young mother watched me. Her flat Indian face was solid and strong, her eyes held neither gratitude nor fear for me. I was simply one more event in her short, long life. Something in her strength and way she held the child to her made me glad she was coming to my home country. We needed more like her, people with the will to survive the hard strange days our country seemed destined for. Greed and dishonor were tearing at the bones of America and if we had any hope, it would come from women like this solid mother who would risk so much for so little. In my head, I could hear Bono singing about climbing mountains and searching for that unfound dream. I hoped these travelers would find what they were looking for.
An hour later, we were down in the far southern corner of Anza-Borrego National Park land. We had made it to US soil and although the Border Patrol worked the area, two Anglos on a dirt bike wouldn’t raise their suspicions, even looking like we did. The desert was used to freaks, hell it collected them. The temperature had dropped below freezing when I rolled to a stop and leaned against a Joshua tree’s rough bark.
“Give me that tequila,” I said to Mikayla.
“You sure this is the time? We aren’t home yet.”
“We’re never home, you and me.” I twisted the cap off, the smell screamed drink me. Peeling my shirt off my shoulder, it took a good hunk of scab and flesh with it. I clenched my jaw to keep from yelling. Pouring the tequila onto the wound set it on fire.
“Here.” Mikayla handed me a clean pair of cotton underpants, granny panties as the strippers called them. “If you don’t scrub it, it will fester.” She didn’t offer to help me. If I had asked her to, I’m sure she would have, but to offer would have said she didn’t think I could handle my own problems. It was a sign of respect, not a dismissal of my pain.
I don’t know which was worse, cleaning the wound or not drinking the tequila. Mikayla handed me her last clean shirt to tear into a makeshift bandage. Laying down with her ruck sack as a pillow, she smoked, looking up into the sky. It was late, the thought of any more jostling miles that night seemed impossible. We agreed to sleep until sun up and then head for Joshua Tree, take the desert and avoid the San Diego border patrol check points.
Sitting against the tree trunk, I looked up at the star glutted sky. It was a carpet of pinpoints, those stars felt
