| |
I’m not dead. At least, I think I’m not dead. I’ve been shot before—once in the arm by an Aztec defending his turf and another time when I first joined up with the Apaches. It was just part of the hazard pay, really.
But this shot was different. I didn’t feel the burn that comes with being nailed with a bullet. The feeling of flesh being parted is something you don’t forget easily, and I’m not getting flashbacks. And there’s no pain either. At first, that’s why I think I may be dead. But there’s also no white light to greet me, and no friends and family above me singing a Hallelujah chorus. Not even the Devil is stalking my corpse.
I do hear an angel though. It’s Sierra. Her voice rings through the noise and the chaos. She’s shouting incoherently like a mad woman, but still, her voice is as sweet and as gentle as ever.
“Tank! Tank! You have to get up. We have to go... NOW!” My eyes pop open, and I take my first breath. “Tank! Come on... I need your help... please!”
My body shakes itself back to present. I sit up slowly, feeling every inch of myself as I try to figure out what the hell just happened. The door to the outside is open and the sound of motorcycles approaching is even louder than before. Sierra notices me being out-of-sorts as she explains, “He’s gone. That guy we thought was dead shot him,” She points at Guzman’s men. One of the corpses is now collapsed up against a wall, the gun still warm in his hands. “He got Abe in the neck, but he managed to crawl out the door. I don’t know where he went though so we have to get out of here!”
She was in a panic. Whatever happened before we got here was nothing. All we could do is run, and run fast. I pick myself off of the ground and grab her clammy wet hand in mine. Together, we dart out the door and towards the gate I entered through. We pass the guard booth just as we see the first headlights of the motorcycle gang peering around the driveway. I pull her inside as quickly as my arms can grab at her waist.
She shrieks, as she sees the dead security guard lying face down against the floor. The shock of the broken neck is gruesome enough that even I have to cower away from it. There’s nothing I can do but put my hand across her mouth and pull her down to the floor to wait. Around twenty bikers pass the little hut along with an ammo van taking up the rear. One by one, the bikes turn off and men’s voices replace the sound. The first shout goes up loudly as they discover the pile of their fallen friends just five feet into the door.
I know this is the best time to fly. I grab her once again, and we cross the driveway to the clearing, deep within the trees. She hobbles along behind me as I hear her audibly wince in pain. Her battered body won’t make it the mile to where we discarded our bikes, so I do the only thing I can think of—I pick her up and run with her piggyback.
My feet practically leap through the bushes and the shrubs, past the sandy fields and the lightening sky. It’ll be morning soon, and our spot will be given away in just an hour or so if I’m not careful. Still, that darkness I had getting in is becoming less and less of an advantage, as I try my hardest not to trip over the uneven ground with Sierra bobbing around on my back.
We pass the rancher’s home which is still burning. The flames are still spreading to the tree line, as the frame glows black against the red and orange flames. The sky becomes a cloudy black from the soot and smoke mingling with the dry air. I want to look away knowing that inside is the body of one of my best friends, but I have to look. I have to slow down and see it for myself.
Sierra begins to cry as we approach the backside of it. To her, it’s an omen of a night she will never forget, and I don’t blame her. She’s seen and experienced way too much, more than I could have ever imagined, even as the leader of the motorcycle club. My heart grows heavy for her, as I adjust her position on my back and begin sprinting away from it all.
In my ear, she is whispering prayers and bargaining with the Creator. “Please, oh God. Please help us get out of here. Make this go away, and I’ll do anything you want.” She repeats it over and over again until I set her down to take a breath. We’re only about five hundred feet or so from where I remember leaving our bikes. The fork of the road is in plain sight just beyond the ditch, but I can’t seem to make myself get there.
It’s when I place her gently down on the golden grass that I hear it. At first, I think it’s an animal. This part of El Paso is known for mule deer and Mexican wolves. But the sound is of something with two feet running at us. Sierra notes it first, as she crawls on her hands and feet backwards towards me, hovering behind my body as I reach for the gun still stuck in my back pocket.
“Back off!” I scream, as it comes within feet of us. “I will shoot you!”
I turn around to Sierra and place the gun I stole from a body into her hand, “If you have to, you aim to kill. You get me?”
She nods silently, choking back the tears she is forcing herself to hold back. I lean down and scoop her back up as we run from the sound in the clearing towards the light at the end of our tunnel. We zig zag, making ourselves moving targets, but my feet are headed towards that one streetlight just a few trees away
“Tank!” Sierra whispers, terrified, as she points just in front of my face, “The Aztecs!” A group of bikers are swarming up ahead. They have formed their own makeshift roadblock designed to trap us in. Two bikes circle one another as the other men light flares on the roadway. I don’t stop to look any further; I place Sierra down, take her hand, and run straight towards the bikes.
In a flash, I hitch Sierra onto the back and saddle myself. Before I start the engine, I turn to her, “Do you remember what I said about the gun? You’re going to have to be my shooter, Sierra.” I feel her nod into the back of my t-shirt as her left hand holds on tightly to my waist. Her other arm reaches out into the darkness with the gun cocked and loaded.
As soon as I turn my engine on, the men come running. Whips of tree and dust fly at us as the Aztecs shoot randomly into the direction of my bike. I peel off into the clearing, dodging cacti and shrubs as best as I can. Sierra doesn’t fire back though. There’s still no one in sight as we swerve off towards the gravel road, past where the Aztec roadblock is set up.
Two bikes appear behind us, as if by complete magic. Sierra shakes as she inhales deeply and fires. She hits the first one directly in the tire, though by accident. The bike swerves wildly till it falls into the ditch, the driver rolling in a heap. She lets out a squeal before remembering the second one.
The Japanese bike is slick, almost faster than my Harley is. It pulls within ten feet of me, as I add even more power. Sierra fires again, missing. The driver fiddles with his gun but the whipping wind throws him off as the shot hits my mirror. “Shoot him, Sierra!” I call back to her as I hear her cry out. The man pulls even closer, so close that he could jump on our bike if he wanted. His gun raises towards my head, and I close my eyes.
But the fatal bullet isn’t for me. Sierra’s shot hits him square in the chest causing him to lurch backwards towards his bucket. His bike stays steady and upright at first before the driver falls. The bike flies at us, and I only have seconds before I am able to grab Sierra and pull us both off. We hit the gravel hard, her rolling on top of me and into the grass. My skin scrapes and tears at the tiny pebbles, but I’m intact.
I cough, clearing my throat from the dirt and dust we tracked up. The smoke from our two bikes becomes unbearable, as I choke back the exhaust. I stand slowly and look around at our surroundings. We’re back in the middle of nowhere. A few lights of houses dot the skyline, but everything else is blank, and I realize that I’m alone.
“Sierra!” I call towards where I think she rolled off to. The grass moves in response as I run down the side of the ditch to the bottom where she lays. Her body is more beat up than ever, but she is breathing, and her eyes flicker up at me as she tries to say something. A few fingers reach up to touch a large scratch along my eye. I kiss her palm gently, as I place it back on her chest and attempt to pick her up.
“How sweet.” The man’s voice pops from the darkness. “Too bad it’s over. You lose. But hey, at least you’ll both die together.”
In the roar of our accident, I couldn’t have heard the third bike appear. But Abe dismounts and points his gun directly at my head. I set Sierra back down and step in front of her as the shield. “You don’t have to do this Abe.”
I take the man who is about to kill me in—the caked blood covering his face, neck, and arms, the body that sways in pain, and the leering grin on his face. He snarls at me almost joyfully, “Are you actually asking me not to kill you?”
“I’m asking you not to kill her.”
“Too late. I can kill her first, if you want though. I mean, I’d like to punish her by having her last moments seeing you with a bullet in your brain, but I can compromise for an old friend.” His arm stiffens as he steadies his aim. My hand reaches behind me, but my gun is nowhere. It must have rolled out of my pocket during the accident.
He takes a few steps at us as I swallow hard. My mind flashes back to my first meeting with Sierra and how she dared to touch me in that ICU waiting room, the flush of her face when she realized who I was, that first deep kiss... All of our moments together came rushing to me one by one so that time felt like it could replay itself in those few last seconds of my life.
My hands raise towards my head as I wait. He chuckles one last time as he says, “Oh, I’m going to enjoy th—”
“You’re not gonna enjoy anything, you sick son of a bitch!” Sierra’s voice screams into the dark. A blast goes off from just behind me, and I watch, stunned, as Abe’s body flies backwards. Another bullet soars into him, his shoulder flying up with his head lowered back. A third and fourth hit him, as Sierra’s voice shouts and cries out in pain. Abe falls to the ground stiffly with a thud, as I spin around to see Sierra and her gun still aimed towards where he stood.
“Sierr—”
She cuts me off as she drops the gun to the ground and lets out a long breath of air. Her hands search and find me in the dark, and finally, her tired body collapses in my arms. Days pass before she will wake again, but when she does, I’m by her side.