19

Lorenza Villa was waiting by her front door when Sonny arrived. She wore jeans, a white huipil blouse, and a bright, embroidered Guatemalan jacket. Her long dark hair fell around her shoulders; her face was drawn. Sonny thought she looked thinner, her eyes dark and focused.

Was she summoning her guardian spirit’s strength now? Sonny wondered. What animal from the primal world was working in her blood, her soul, her eyes? He sniffed the air, felt a tingle along his spine and in his guts as her aroma filled the truck.

His adrenaline was flowing, he felt aroused, the chakras from head to sex were strangely alive.

“I feel … strange. The coyotes?” he said.

“Yes,” she replied.

That’s it! He felt as he had when he ran with the coyotes during the limpieza.

“You have learned to summon them at will. That’s good. Now it will be like that, a steady flow of energy.”

She said no more, but as they drove to Fiesta Control, he told her about Juárez and the kidnapping. She listened attentively.

“Raven always seems to be one step ahead of me,” Sonny said. “I had the premonition, but I did nothing. He knew I didn’t go up in flames, didn’t he?”

“He’s been ahead of you because he uses his raven power,” she said. “But you’re catching up.”

No, not catching up, Sonny thought, not if Raven has Rita.

But he said nothing.

When they approached the balloon field, Lorenza turned to him. “Since your limpieza my dreams are about flying. First the falling body, then Raven lifting Rita away. I know about the flight of the soul, but I’ve never flown in a helicopter.”

The woman wasn’t invincible after all, Sonny thought. “You’ll be all right,” he said.

He turned into the balloon grounds and gunned the truck past the empty food and souvenir tents toward the waiting helicopter sitting in the middle of the field. Madge, in flying fatigues and helmet, was standing by the chopper’s door; beside her stood her assistant and Jerry Stammer.

Sonny stopped the truck fifty feet from the helicopter, reached into his glove compartment, and took out his pistol. He checked to see if it was loaded, then stuck it under his belt. He jumped out and opened Lorenza’s door.

“Ready?”

She nodded and stepped out. The blast from the helicopter’s blades swept around her and swirled her long dark hair like a mare’s mane.

She reminded Sonny of a woman he had known, a woman in a dream. She seemed familiar and strong, like his mother had been to him when he was a child.

Lorenza paused. “Who’s the woman?” she asked.

“Madge Swenson. She directs the fiesta. It’s their chopper we’re using. She volunteered to fly us.”

Lorenza shook her head.

“What?” Sonny asked, puzzled.

“It won’t work,” she said.

Sonny looked at Madge, motioning for them to come forward. Everything was ready.

“It won’t work if she flies with us.”

“Why?”

“I saw this woman in my vision. She will disrupt my power to see,” Lorenza said, without further explanation.

“Do you know her?” Sonny asked.

“Only in the vision,” Lorenza answered cryptically.

“Okay,” Sonny shouted, grabbing her hand and pulling her across the tarmac to the helicopter, shielding her against the blast of the rotors.

“Who’s your friend?” Madge shouted above the roar of the chopper’s engine.

“Lorenza!” Sonny replied. “She thinks she can spot the place!”

“How?” Stammer interrupted.

Sonny didn’t have time to explain. Besides, how could he explain that he was going up with Lorenza because she thought she could recognize the streets from a dream of warning?

Stammer shook his head. “It’s crazy!”

“This thing won’t fly three people.” Madge frowned.

“I’ll fly it!” Sonny said.

Madge paused. “You don’t have a license.”

“I’ll take a chance,” he replied.

“But—” Madge paused, looking from him to Lorenza. “You sure?”

“It’s the only way!”

“Okay. Suit yourself.”

She removed her helmet and handed it to Sonny. “Try this on for size.”

Sonny put the helmet on, adjusted the microphone, and gave a thumbs-up signal. He helped Lorenza aboard, then climbed in beside her. He wished he was flying a Bell Jet Ranger with all its power, but the old Robinson would have to do. It was the same one he had flown before. Good. He shut the door.

“Strap on your belt!” he shouted at Lorenza, showing her how he was snapping his on. She nodded and did as he said.

Once the door was closed, the noise inside the plastic capsule lessened. There was no blast of air or dust. Sonny checked the instrument panel. Yeah, he could handle this baby.

He looked at Lorenza. Go, her look said. We have to move fast. Raven will not wait.

She was right. Raven held Rita and the girl; time was working against them.

Sonny drew a deep breath and gunned the chopper, feeling its vibrations, sensing its internal rhythm. He looked out the window and gave the thumbs-up signal to Madge. She returned the signal, then she stepped away.

The chopper lifted as Sonny pulled on the stick, rocked forward, then rocked backward as he overadjusted.

A little rusty, he thought, as he guided the chopper up. He relaxed, getting the feel of the foot pedals, leveled out, felt its lightness and compensated. He lifted it straight up, pushed it forward, and went swooping away, skimming toward the tops of some anchored animal balloons at the far end of the field. He pulled the stick up, and they cleared the balloons by a few feet, then he rolled it sideways and away.

He breathed a sigh of relief; beside him Lorenza whispered a silent prayer.

“Airborne!” Sonny shouted, and headed the chopper toward North Edith.

Lorenza relaxed. The sudden lift had made her stomach queasy. Her ears rang with the roar of the motor, but as they climbed, an inner peace replaced the anxiety. They were going to rescue Rita.

Sonny pointed and she looked out the window.

To the west the Río Grande was a green serpent with golden scales. The river was her main reference point. For her it was like a snake, a symbol of genuine intuitive energy, guidance, clear wisdom.

The valley was her Eden, home to the clarity of thought the serpent represented. The river as serpent was the giver of life, the mother source of water. So the ancient tribes had constructed their pueblos along the river valley. The water nurtured their fields, and they in turn gave thanks to the earth for the richness.

The river winding south was the mud-brown serpent glistening in her dream, a compass. The streets were her second reference. The UPS truck had traveled south, toward the inferno of the railroad tracks and the warehouse district. The devil’s street.

“Infierno,” she said to Sonny. He didn’t hear.

A street called hell.

“Is there a street named Infierno?” she shouted at Sonny and tugged at his arm.

“Infierno? Street?” He thought he knew every street in the North Valley by heart, or so he prided himself. “No, I don’t remember—”

Then it came to him. There was a very short dirt road that cut across from Second Street to Edith. It lay on a desolate piece of land that was an old gravel pit. And there was a deserted junked car lot there!

“Yeah! Infierno!”

Raven’s nest was in hell.

Sonny leveled off and swept south along I-25, then banked to fly over the railroad tracks. It was a wild chance, but if Lorenza had come up with a street name, then maybe the vision was paying off.

She was looking down, looking for the streets that had appeared in her vision, the infierno where Rita and the girl were prisoners.

“There!” she shouted. “See?” She pointed and he looked down.

He followed the line of the tip of her finger and he saw the warehouse, and Raven’s sign. Painted on the roof of the building in faded red was the Zia sign, the round sun and the four sets of radiating lines and the words ZIA JUNKED CARS. Sitting behind the warehouse was a UPS truck. Raven’s in there, Sonny guessed. With Rita and Cristina. And the drugs.

“That’s it!” Lorenza shouted.

Sonny nodded and touched the gold medallion on his chest. Raven was near, he could feel him, but only from the air could they have spotted the Zia sign. Rita and Cristina were in the old deserted building that lay in a dusty, barren field surrounded by the hulks of scrapped cars and trucks, now useless carcasses stripped of their once-valuable organs.

The lot was surrounded by a windbreak of scraggly, beetle-eaten elm trees. A high chain-link fence, partially hidden by the elm trees, surrounded the lot.

“They’re going to hear me land, sure as hell,” Sonny cursed, but he didn’t have a choice. If he landed outside the fence, he would have to climb it or find a way in, waste precious time. No, he didn’t have a choice; he had to set the chopper right down in Raven’s nest.

He swooped in to a standstill, then lowered the helicopter to the ground. It rocked sideways, and the rushing ground came up to meet them. A thud greeted them, but not as rough as Sonny had expected. He cut the engine and snapped open his safety belt.

Lorenza breathed a sigh of relief.

“You stay here,” he said to Lorenza.

“No,” she answered. “I’ll go with you.”

Sonny shrugged. There was no time to persuade her to stay behind. Raven knew they were coming, and he’d be waiting.

He jumped out of the helicopter, and together they raced toward the warehouse and pressed themselves against the side of the gray tin building.

Can’t depend on surprise, Sonny thought, as he reached for the pistol. The .45-caliber Colt felt cold to his touch.

He sniffed the air. It was late afternoon; the golden hue of light was already stirring in the clouds over the West Mesa. There was danger all around him; he felt it.

He motioned for Lorenza to follow, and together they cautiously approached the door. Sonny motioned for her to step back, then slowly opened the door. The room was dark, deserted. The smell of car oil permeated the building.

Together they entered a dust-laden office. The place was undisturbed. The dust on the desk and the office chair was thick. Cobwebs covered the window and the door that Sonny guessed led into the garage. Had they found the right place? Raven was an expert at creating false trails.

Sonny lowered his pistol and opened the door that led into the interior of the warehouse, and as he did, he was assaulted by two dark figures. They rushed at him firing a cloud of smoke.

“Tear gas!” Sonny cried as he inhaled the acrid gas. He pushed Lorenza back as the first man shot a cloud directly into his face.

He coughed, held his breath, and pointed his pistol at the masked men that rushed at him. Somewhere beyond one of the creatures, he heard Rita call his name, and he held his fire. The moment cost him. He felt a blow to his stomach and he went down, his lungs burning from the fumes.

Lorenza didn’t go down as quickly. She had cupped her hands over her mouth and nose. She reached up and stripped the mask away from the man who attacked her, revealing a grotesque face. The man cursed and struck at her.

“Raven,” she groaned, and fell to the floor beside Sonny.

Loss of consciousness came quickly. For a few dazed moments Sonny felt someone standing over him, and he heard strange sounds, grunts, then felt himself being dragged away. His breathing grew calmer, the burning sensation lessened. He slipped in and out of semiconsciousness, felt his body being tied, then pulled outside.

The cold air filled his lungs, easing the burning sensation. He struggled, but his arms and legs were tied. The fresh air revived him, the sunlight returned. He coughed, sucked for air, felt himself being dumped into a cart.

The cart of death, he thought. La Muerte the Nuevo Mexicanos knew as doña Sebastiana. She came in a creaking cart pulled by the souls of the dead.

Was he dying? Or had they already killed him and Lorenza?

Serves me right, he said to himself. I rushed in like a fool, threw caution to the wind. But he had heard Rita! She had called his name. What difference did it make? Raven had him where he wanted him.

He breathed deeply again. Fresh air. The stinging of the tear gas lifted. He wasn’t dead, he was reviving. He felt a tug at his neck and opened his eyes. Through a film of tears he looked at Raven as he pulled the Zia medallion from Sonny’s neck.

“Mine!” Raven shouted and held up the Zia medallion to the sun. The gold caught the light. “Zia sun! Now I am complete!” He laughed and slipped the chain around his neck.

He looked at Sonny. “You have nine lives, Sonny. Just like your old grandfather. But I have thirteen!”

Sonny shook his head. The gas they used had burned his eyes, but the cobwebs were falling away. He glanced at Lorenza slumped next to him, then at Raven’s assistant, Sweatband.

The black shape of an inflated balloon rose over them. They had dumped him and Lorenza into a balloon basket!

“So you escaped the fire. Let’s see how well you can fly!”

Raven grinned, took Sonny’s pistol, and emptied the chamber. One, two, three, four, five shells fell to the ground; then he tossed the empty pistol into the basket. He turned to Lorenza, leering. “You got him into this. Let’s see if you can get him out!”

“Cut the chatter! Let’s get the hell outta here!” Sweatband complained nervously. “Cops are on the way!”

Sonny blinked. He was the man who had nearly killed Sonny in his kitchen, the one with Tallboy at the Juárez warehouse.

Sonny flexed his arms and found them tied behind his back. When he moved, the rope around his neck tightened.

Garcia, Sonny thought, where are you when I need you?

He strained again, but the ropes were secure, tied so he couldn’t stand up. He struggled and found he couldn’t even sit up. Beside him lay Lorenza Villa. She, too, had her hands and feet tied.

“Relax,” Raven replied. “We got time.” He turned to look at Sonny. “You’re going for a ride, Baca. You’re going to fly as high as a raven. But you ain’t got wings!”

Sonny cursed. Raven was going to kill them by cutting the ropes that kept the inflated balloon moored.

“When this thing lands, you’re going to look like me! So’s your girlfriend!”

“Let her go,” Sonny protested. “She’s got nothing to do with this!”

“Oh, she’s in on it.” Raven cocked his head, turning to Lorenza. “You haven’t told Mr. Baca about us brujos? Ah, maybe he’s too innocent to know. Maybe your little ceremony didn’t work. No coyotes?”

“Don’t bet on it,” Lorenza hissed.

He turned to Sonny. “So she told you. So what? Maybe she’s taken you to visit your ancestors. That’s fine with me. So she got you here, now let’s see if she can get you out! Let’s see if the coyote can fly!”

“You have no power here!” Lorenza shouted.

Raven struck out and slapped her. “I see no brujos!” he hissed.

“Oh, the owl claws will strike!”

Suddenly, Raven clutched at his stomach as if in pain. He doubled over, moaning. “Bruja!” he shouted, stepping back as if to escape Lorenza’s stare.

Sweatband, seeing Raven fall back, jumped forward and pulled the rope attached to the lever on the propane burner. When he pulled the rope, the burner spurted a blue flame that fired up into the inside of the balloon, filling its belly with a fresh gush of hot air.

He slipped the loop of the rope over a pin on the side of the basket and threw a slipknot on it. Thus secured, the burner kept firing. The balloon tugged at the anchor ropes that kept it moored to the ground.

“A curse on all your kind!” Raven shouted. “Cut the rope!”

Sweatband bent and cut the anchor lines, causing the black balloon to rise rapidly into the sky. With the burner going full blast, the balloon ascended rapidly.

“Santo Nino,” Sonny whispered.

He had gotten them into this. He had sensed Raven’s presence, and he had still rushed in. Como un tonto! No, like a pendejo! He hadn’t waited for Garcia. He charged into the warehouse like Billy the Kid! His concern for Rita and Cristina had made him foolhardy, and now he and Lorenza were going to pay for it. And there was no sidekick to help him out.

He struggled to get up, straining every muscle to reach the burner rope above his head. If he could pull it off the hook, the burner would stop firing. He strained at his bonds, but the way he was tied made it impossible for him to move his hands without choking himself.

Below him he heard a siren and wondered if Garcia was arriving at the chain-link fence. Too late. Raven would have already slipped out the back way, his UPS truck loaded with Rita and Cristina and the drugs.

Sonny pulled at his ropes again, but it was useless. The balloon was rising rapidly.

“We gotta turn off the burner!” Sonny shouted. “About five miles up, it’ll go off! Not enough oxygen! Then we drop! If we don’t freeze first!”

Lorenza nodded. He saw her pulling at her ropes, trying to kneel or sit, but it was useless. The ties were expertly done.

Sonny heard a roar louder than the burner and turned to see a DEA helicopter swoop past them, making the balloon tilt dangerously to its side. A warning shot from a rifle exploded in the air.

“They’re shooting!” Lorenza cried.

“They think we’re Raven! Sonsofbitches think they’ve found Raven!” Sonny replied.

The chopper made a short circle and came by for another pass. Another warning shot rang out, zinging just past the basket, the whoosh of the rotors again making the balloon swirl and tip in its wake.

They’re going to kill us! Sonny thought. They can’t see us from the chopper. Or maybe they know who it is, and they’re firing anyway.

Sonny struggled against his ropes. The ropes held tight. Not a damn thing he could do! Not sheer strength, but craftiness was what was needed.

“If you get on top of me,” he shouted, “I can push you up!” He looked up at the burner rope looped over the pin. If they could pull it loose, it would stop the burner.

Lorenza understood. “Ándale!” she cried.

She pushed sideways and rolled on top of him. His feet were bound, but he caught her with his knees and steadied her. It was worth a try. He balanced her as she straddled him; he held her poised for a moment, feeling the firmness of her body, her warm breath on his face. “On three!”

He counted, “Uno, dos, tres!” and on three he shoved as hard as he could. She rose, snapped at the rope with her teeth, missed by inches, and came crashing down on him.

“I almost had it,” she said, gasping for air.

Already the cold air was getting thin, and the exertion took her breath away.

“Try again!” Sonny shouted. It was their only chance.

They both knew this might be the last chance they had to reach the rope. Their energy was already being sapped by the cold and lack of oxygen.

“Harder!” she cried, her teeth chattering. High, they were very high and growing colder.

He nodded and counted to three again, thrusting her up, pushing her as far as he could, arching his back and balancing her as high as he could so she would have the height she needed.

She rose, snapping like a drowning woman at a lifeline. Her teeth caught the end of the rope, and she clamped down hard. An excruciating pain shot through her jaw, but the slipknot gave, and as she dropped to Sonny’s side, the burner stopped firing.

“Yahoo!” Sonny shouted. “You got it!”

She groaned and lay exhausted and trembling against Sonny, panting for breath, her lips bloodied from the rope. Her face was dark from the cold.

The balloon came to a standstill. Soon it would begin its descent. The DEA helicopter chasing them read the sign as friendly and pulled back to hover at a safe distance.

“Great job, mujer,” he complimented her.

“Gracias,” she answered.

Shivering from the cold, she pressed against Sonny.

“I don’t ever want to see another balloon in my life,” she said.

“Yo tampoco,” Sonny agreed.

They floated silently in the high, thin atmosphere, in the silence that enveloped them. They burrowed into each other to ward off the cold as the balloon began its slow descent.

“We have to fire it again,” Sonny said when the balloon began to drop too fast. “Slow it down.”

She nodded. Now it was easier. Her strength had returned, and the shivering was subsiding. The rope dangling from the burner was within reach, and she took it in her mouth and pulled. The burner fired and slowed the descent of the balloon.

She kept this up during the long descent, firing the burner to slow the balloon, alternating the firing with the long drops.

From the floor of the basket, they couldn’t see the ground, they could only guess how close they were. Sonny tried to judge their altitude and the speed of their descent as the gravity of the earth pulled them down.

They didn’t know what danger would greet their landing. Were there electric lines, buildings, trees, traffic?

They heard children shouting.

“Where are we?” Lorenza shouted.

“Very close!” Sonny replied. “Give it one final blast.”

She fired the burner one last time, and the balloon seemed to sway to a stop, like an airplane flaring as it approaches the runway.

“It’s coming down! It’s coming down!” They heard someone call.

“Get out of the way! Get out of the way!”

“Awesome!”

Their descent was being followed by children as they chased after the black balloon. An empty balloon, they believed, because they couldn’t see anyone on board. It had come from nowhere, dropping from the sky. Now it was landing by itself, and it was being followed by a helicopter! Cops and robbers! Or maybe a movie!

Sonny and Lorenza felt the ground meet them, a welcome thud that jarred them, and they laughed and shouted at each other in relief and fear as the breeze sent the basket tumbling along the ground until the balloon deflated and folded itself to earth.

The basket tipped on its side and Sonny and Lorenza tumbled out. Sonny groaned. He looked at Lorenza. She smiled at him. What a woman, he thought. Without her, he’d be dead.

They had landed just short of the huge, black boulders of the volcano escarpment on the West Mesa. A dune buggy parked near them, and the kids came running. When they saw Sonny and Lorenza, they were surprised.

A tall, lanky boy said, “Hey, mister, you okay?”

His friend, a curly, blonde-haired girl, pushed him aside. “There’s a woman!” she shouted. “You making a movie or something?” she asked.

A third face, small and round, appeared, his eyes wide as milk saucers, and gasped, “Totally awesome.”