Do They Know I'm Running

Jumping from the Corolla’s backseat, Samir called out, “Their guns.”

Beto and Roque followed, edging toward the truck, checking to see if anyone still alive might shoot. Only two of the men seemed conscious, they both moaned horribly. The other three, two in the cab, one on the road, were badly bloodied and still. There were two rifles scattered across the road, Samir picked up one, Beto the other, while Roque checked inside the cabin to see if either of the two trapped men were alive. Neither had worn a seat belt and they both lay tangled between the dash and their seats, bloody and dazed and frosted with shards of broken glass. Roque checked for weapons, saw none, then from behind Samir edged him aside. Lifting the rifle to his shoulder, the Iraqi fired two rounds point-blank into each man’s skull.

Seeing the look on Roque’s face, he said, “Better them than you,” then headed for one of the two men sprawled out on the asphalt. “Or am I wrong?” There was an almost feral indifference in his eyes. “There’s another rifle around here somewhere. Find it before the second truck shows up.”

Near the Corolla, Lupe was tending to Tio Faustino, still dazed, head lolling on his shoulder, and she dabbed at his facial wounds with the corner of her shirt while Samir, with Beto looking on passively, assured himself the remaining three men from the truck were dead, an insurance round to each skull. Roque felt like he might get sick, then caught the shrill grind of the second pickup downshifting into the bend. He scoured the ground, looking for the rifle Samir was sure lay somewhere nearby, while the Arab took up position in the middle of the road, shouldering his weapon.

The second pickup rounded the curve and Samir opened fire, at the same time circling quickly toward his right, the truck’s left, leaving the cone of the headlights and making himself a moving target while aiming at the driver, head shots with his first two rounds, then taking on the men in back who’d begun to return fire. Roque, on his hands and knees, continued his frantic search of the ground until Lupe screamed, the sound torquing his head her direction. She stood there against the Corolla, trying to hold Tio Faustino up as he slid down the fender to the ground, shuddering visibly as he clutched at the blood streaming from his throat. Please no, Roque thought, while Beto-standing in the road between Roque and the car, firing away-had his head jerked back suddenly like he’d been head-butted, then he dropped hard to his knees, eyes glazed, brow furrowed as though he were contemplating some impossible thought, a portion of his skull drilled open just above the eye.

Roque knelt there paralyzed until Samir shouted, “Help me, grab a gun, shoot, shoot, fucking hell…” The Arab continued moving through the darkness in the same wide circle, muzzle flash like a flaming spark in the night. He’d picked off two of the gunmen in the truck bed, the third clung to the railing with one hand, the other clutching his shoulder. The man still alive inside the cab was shooting wildly out his window on the passenger side as the pickup drifted on, its driver dead. Roque lunged toward Beto’s body-it lay in a strange lump, folded forward, as though he’d fallen asleep in the middle of a prayer-and pried the rifle from his hands.

He’d never held a gun before, never aimed one, never fired one. How hard can it be, he thought, raising it to his shoulder, aiming vaguely toward the pickup’s windshield, pulling the trigger. The noise was ear-splitting, the butt plate bit into his shoulder and ricocheted hard against his jaw even as the weapon almost jumped out of his hands. He nearly tumbled flat but collected his legs as the brass shell casing pinged against the blacktop. Jerking the weapon back to his shoulder, he re-aimed, forcing himself to ignore the bullets whistling past, willing himself not to look at his uncle or Lupe, not now, not yet. Following Samir’s example he began circling to his right, crouching as he pulled the trigger, once, twice, again, aiming toward the pickup cabin, not seeing faces, just shapes, firing over and over with no idea if he was hitting anything and then the rifle clicked helplessly. He was standing to the side of the pickup, dazed, his entire body cold with sweat. Only then did he notice the quiet: no gunfire. Just Lupe’s muffled sobs, the moans from one or two of the gunmen and once again the ocean wind, the swaying hillside grass, the surf below.

He threw down the rifle and ran to his uncle while the two-tap reports of Samir’s coups de grace punctuated the stillness.

Holding his uncle’s head in her lap, Lupe pressed hard against the wound, blood seeping up between her fingers as she murmured frantically, “No, no, no…” A tourniquet was out of the question, no way to tightly bandage the wound and stay the bleeding without cutting off his air. His eyes rolled back behind fluttering eyelids, a mindless twitch in his hands.

– Here, let me, Roque said, nudging Lupe’s hand aside, seeing the wound for the first time, lit by the glow from the pickup’s headlights, an inch-long rip in the flesh of the throat, black and wet, the bullet having sliced an artery, the blood a throbbing stream. Only then did he see how soaked through Lupe’s jeans were. He reached around the back of his uncle’s neck, felt for the exit wound, fingered a tear in the skin twice the size of the one in front, the blood pouring out. He tried to press against both wounds at once but his uncle’s eyes glistened whitely, his breathing was shallow, his skin waxy and cool. Lupe wept faintly, her face smeared with blood where she’d wiped away tears. She began whispering, “Lo siento,” I’m sorry, over and over and Roque whispered that it wasn’t her fault but she merely shook her head, closed her eyes and pounded her head with her fists.

Samir approached from behind, dragging the butt of his rifle against the pitted asphalt. Roque looked up over his shoulder into the Arab’s face.

“We need to get him to a hospital.”

“There isn’t time.” Samir’s voice was soft and sad and strangely peaceful. “Pray for him. That is what he needs from you now.”

Roque felt it then, the slackening of his uncle’s musculature, the stillness in his chest. Lupe’s whimpering grew louder, her eyes pressed shut and she pounded at her head even harder until Roque reached up, took her wrist.- Don’t.

– He was so kind to me.

– He wouldn’t want it.

He felt Samir’s hand in his armpit, snagging a fistful of cloth, pulling him to his feet. He had to fight off an impulse to swing around, leading with his elbow, catch the Arab square in the face. What would that atone? Their eyes met. Samir said, “I need you to help me.”

“You’re quite the killer.”

“I told you, I was in the army. Now-”

“My brother says the Iraqis were piss-poor shots. You were like-”

“Your brother doesn’t know everything. Now come, I need your help.”

Roque wiped his bloody hands on his pants and followed Samir toward the second pickup, still relatively intact. He smelled the lingering stench of cordite, the salt off the ocean.

Samir shuddered from exhaustion. “We’ll load the bodies into the Corolla.”

“Why?”

“Set fire to the car, let them think it’s us.”

Roque turned toward a sudden rustling sound. Beyond the headlights’ glow, he caught the vague outline of a zopilote rucking its wings as it planted itself on the edge of the kill zone.

Turning back to Samir: “They’ll figure it out sooner or later, the other truck-”

“It will buy us time. We’re going to need it.”

They set to work, dragging bodies from the truck, shoving them into the car, tossing in Beto too, a filthy business all around, the blood, the piss, the gore, the shit-men don’t die in real life like they do in the movies, Roque thought. Twice, he needed to stop, walk to the edge of the road, hurl. Then they heard the distant grinding of gears, the whine of an engine downshifting into the approaching turn. A truck was coming. Samir took one of the rifles, waved Roque and Lupe out of sight, then knelt by the back of the second pickup, waited for the headlights to appear. He fired twice into the air. The truck lurched to a stop, the hissing shriek of brakes, the clatter of gears-the driver backed up, his rig vanishing back beyond the turn.

“Hurry,” Samir said. “He may have a shortwave, a cell phone.”

They finished packing the car with the dead, stopping at five, then collected their own few belongings from the trunk. Samir found a jerry can of gas behind the rollover pickup’s passenger seat and he doused the Corolla while Roque and Lupe dragged Tio Faustino’s body to the intact pickup and laid him out in the truck bed, covering him with a tarp they found bundled up there. Using matches he scoured from Beto’s pocket, Samir set the Corolla ablaze, then collected all the weapons lying on the ground, tossed them in the back of the pickup under the tarp with Tio Faustino’s body, jumped in at the passenger-side door and said, “Drive! Now!”

They were beyond the first bend when the Corolla’s gas tank blew, the roar deafening and the plume of flame