Just Add Trouble Read online

  I sat silent as ordered, hoping against hope they’d already added outboard motor oil into the gas can so we wouldn’t get three feet farther. I wanted to scream for help, pass a note, anything, but Maggie’s soulful eyes swam before me. I also really, really wanted one of those beers, but Nacho nixed their offer.

  After the helpful fishermen left, I started the car.

  Unfortunately, it fired right up, and at the next Pemex station, Nacho topped us off and did a quick calculation. “That should get us to Naco. Anything else I should know about this piece of junk?”

  I figured he was being rhetorical again.

  Naco? Naco? Where had I read about Naco? And where in the holy hell is it? I wanted to ask a couple of questions, but felt they weren’t really worth getting Jan shot. Back on the boat, when I was studying the road map and trying to come up with a plan to get Jan across the border without a passport, I’d traced Mex 15 from Guaymas to Nogales. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember any place called Naco along the way, but the name rang a bell. Maybe it was the sacred birthplace of guys called Nacho?

  I remembered there were tollbooths at Hermosillo, and near a place called Magdalena, but my hopes of getting help at either were dashed when, just south of the first tollbooth, Nacho instructed me to take a right. After driving on back roads through what looked to be vineyards for thirty minutes, we returned to the main highway. We’d bypassed the tollbooth. Not only was Nacho an asshole, he was a cheap asshole.

  Fatigue moved in on me. The adrenaline rush, the one fueling fury over our abduction, as well as Maggie’s, suddenly wore off, leaving me incapable of doing anything more than keeping us on the road. I backed my foot off the accelerator and slowed to a speed I thought I could handle safely.

  “What are you doing?” Nacho demanded.

  There he goes again, asking a question I’m forbidden to answer. And doing charades at forty-five miles an hour is not a great idea. I continued to drive.

  “What’s she doing?” he demanded of Jan.

  “Uh, the speed limit?”

  That stumped him, but he demanded I pull over. I did, in the first wide spot I found. “Okay, Red, I’m going to let you say one sentence. One, only. Why have you slowed down?

  Gee, I can finally talk, and all I can come up with is, “I’m tired.” I slumped over the steering wheel for emphasis.

  “That’s it?”

  I turned to look at him and raised my eyebrows.

  “Okay, another sentence.”

  “I’m sick and tired of you, you cowardly, lowlife son of a bitch,” I spat.

  Nacho growled a curse word in Spanish I’d never heard before, but I think it is derived from the noun, mother. Jumping from his perch, he un-wedgied himself, and motioned me out of the car.

  Jan let out a fearful mewl and asked, “What are you going to do to her?”

  “Put her ass on that bucket, that’s what. I’ll drive.”

  Why didn’t he just shoot me and get it over with?

  When bucket seats come to my mind, this version wasn’t one of them. But wait, if he’s driving, who’s manning the gun? What’s to keep me from stabbing him in the neck with my secreted letter opener?

  Jan must have been thinking along the same lines. She surreptitiously winked at me before I climbed into the back seat and tried to find a comfy spot on the sharp edges of the bucket bottom.

  Nacho stood outside the Thing’s open door on the driver’s side, punched a number into his cell phone and said, “If you don’t hear from me every fifteen minutes for the next two hours, shoot the mutt.”

  So much for removing his brain with a letter opener.

  He took off at mach one, which was okay until we hit a town called Imuris and we sped onto Mex 2, which if memory served, is an east-west major highway and truck route from Baja California to Juarez, across from El Paso, and points east.

  Surely what must be the entire trucking fleet of Mexico was headed to Juarez, and Nacho had little patience for trailing behind the twenty-mile-per hour semis. Passing in no passing zones, barely diving in front of horn blowing semis before we had a head on with another, Nacho rarely slowed down. Jan had her eyes shut, but, somewhat like watching a train wreck, I was mesmerized. If I was going to die on this long and winding road, I’d just as soon see it coming. Besides, it took my attention from my aching butt.

  Appropriately enough, it was a Tecate truck that finally called Nacho on his chicken game, and ran us off the road. After what seemed like an eternity of jolts, tips, screeching metal and screams, we came to rest in, miracle of miracles, a turnout.

  Several truckers, lounging next to their overheated semis, watched quietly as the dust settled, then began sauntering our way. Nacho, slightly dazed, got out to inspect the damage. Jan sat dumbly before turning to check on me. I was sprawled over the cooler where my overturned bucket dumped me. I pushed myself up and checked for broken ribs.

  Nacho waved the would-be rescuers off with a smile and shrug. I managed to clamber out, grab his arm and point to his watch, then his cell. When I grabbed the arm, he made a move toward his gun, but realized I was just giving him a heads-up on his second Maggie call. He flipped open the phone and hit redial. One of the truckers yelled something I didn’t understand, Nacho nodded, then spoke into the phone.

  Jan finally joined us, her teeth chattering from fear and the cold. Late afternoon cast shadows into the valley we’d landed in, and a crisp breeze funneling between the mountains added to the chill factor. Although it was probably in the sixties, it felt like low forties. I grabbed a couple of sweat tops from one of the bags and helped her slip one over her head while Nacho inspected the tires. Within twenty minutes, with Nacho patiently trailing the truck parade at a snail’s pace, we skirted the town of Cananea, lost the traffic, and a fast thirty miles later, took a sharp turn onto a secondary road.

  A secondary road, by definition, is just that: not a primary road. In Mexico, however, a secondary road is one step above gravel. Yes, it was paved, but the pavement was pitted with huge potholes, washouts, and a roller coaster-like surface that put what was left of the Thing’s suspension to the test. Every time we bottomed out, my bottom put a new dent in the bucket. Or vise versa. It is probably just as well I never wanted children.

  Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did.

  Chapter 31

  A gloomy dusk fell as fast as my own gloom. Past tired, I was numb and dumb with fear, dread, and cold. Deep grooves, worn into places left better unmentioned by the bottom rim of the bucket, gave a whole new meaning to pain in the butt.

  On the bright side, maybe I’d permanently lose some cellulite.

  On the horizon, an aura glowed, but from what city? By my calculations, we had to be nearing the border, but where? After a couple of more miles we saw what appeared to be a fairly good-sized spread of lighted houses and, strung to the left and right, a straight row of lights like those on a fence. No, a wall. The border? A little frisson of energy sat me up straight.

  Nacho slowed, then stopped, consulted a piece of paper, and pulled from his jacket pocket what looked to be a hand-held GPS. “You two get out. No cute ideas, either.”

  Jan stirred from the zombie-like trance she’d been in since our scary unscheduled departure from the highway due to Tecate truck interference, and slowly slid from her seat as I dismounted my bucket of doom. She looked scared silly, so I put my arm around her and patted her shoulder.

  Big tears loomed in her eyes. “Hetta, I’m scared.”

  I wasn’t feeling overly optimistic about our situation myself. More than one critter-ravaged body had been dumped in the desert by low life dope dealers. The thought of being left for buzzard food should have scared me sillier than I already am. Instead, a wave of fury swept over me and gave me the determination to survive so I could kick Nacho a good swift one in his huevos. Screw him and his gag order all to hell.

  “Look, Jan,” I pointed to the row of lights, “the border. Everything
will soon be all right, huh, Nacho?”

  Nacho seemed to forget I wasn’t supposed to talk. In the dim light I saw his face was drawn with fatigue. In a weary voice he answered, “Yes. It will soon be over.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Being all right and over are not necessarily the same thing.

  Still holding onto Jan, I growled, “You don’t need us anymore. Leave us here, dammit. By the time we walk to the border, you’ll be on the other side, safe and sound with your slimebag friends.”

  “No way, Red. This desert is crawling with dangerous animals.”

  “Ain’t it though? I, for one, prefer to take my chances with real rattlesnakes. They, at least, only kill for food or protection.”

  “Stuff the National Geographic bunk. You know how to use a GPS?”

  “No, I guide my boat by stars and Ouija board.”

  Ignoring my sarcasm, he handed me the GPS. “See these coordinates? I’m going to drive, and you are going to keep me on a straight course. Cooperate, and we’ll be in Arizona in a few minutes. Screw with me and I’ll drop a dime on Maggie, then put a bullet in Blondie’s leg and leave her out here to deal with the coyotes.”

  “Gee, I feel so left out. What you gonna do to me?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  Gulp. “Okay, make the Maggie call and get this show on the road. The sooner we get over the border, the sooner we’re shut of you. According to this,” I studied the GPS, “we’re only five miles, as the crow flies, from your waypoint, which I assume is in Arizona?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Is it or isn’t it?”

  “You’ll see. Now, load up and do what I say.”

  What choice did we have? “You just keep this rattletrap on the road, Nacho, and I’ll tell you where to go.”

  “Who said anything about a road?”

  For future reference, a Volkswagen Thing, not all that great on the road, is pure torture off-road. To its credit, though, the tough little bugger held up for what had to be the roughest ride of its life. Certainly mine. Comparatively speaking, my trip across the Baja peninsula in Nacho’s four wheel drive Toyota was like driving a Mercedes down a German autobahn.

  Nacho drove fast through the dark desert, without lights, and across terrain designed by nature to keep idiots like us from crossing it. I kept us on course, thanks to the backlit screen of the tracking device, and Nacho kept us right side up. Jan? She whimpered with each bump. I felt her pain, all over my backside.

  “Half a mile, straight ahead,” I yelled at Nacho, then asked, “Say, isn’t that, like, a wall or something?” I pointed at a line of lights illuminating a tall, rusty, corrugated iron fence much like the one I’d seen along the border between Tijuana and the US border.

  “Yep. Runs for several miles in each direction.”

  “Several miles? Looks like your coordinates are off. We’re headed straight for it.”

  “Shut up and watch that GPS.” He accelerated.

  “Quarter mile, straight ahead.”

  He concentrated on driving.

  The wall stretched to the left and right as far as I could see. The GPS said to go straight ahead.

  “Two hundred yards. Jan, get ready to jump!”

  “No!” Nacho yelled, “Do not jump. You’ll be killed. You have to put your trust in me. It will be all right.”

  “Trust you? Are you friggin’ nuts? Just because you have a death wish doesn’t mean—Oh, shit! Oh, dear!”

  Nacho bore down on the wall, but by now jumping was out of the question, as we were surrounded by tall, spiny, spindly cactus. Nacho mowed down the ones in front, but a forest of ocotillo enveloped us on all sides, just waiting to rip tender skin to shreds. Cactus, wall? Cactus, wall?

  I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket and cocked the flare gun. If I could get off a shot, at least someone would find our bodies before the coyotes did. Nailing Nacho with it would only hasten our own demise.

  As I pulled out the pistol, we barreled toward the wall at over forty miles an hour.

  Oddly enough, what popped into my mind at the nanosecond before impact was the old engineering paradox: What happens when an irresistible force—that would be us—meets with an immovable object, say, an iron wall?

  My life flashed before my eyes.

  No, not my life flashing, after all, but a burst of light. In my fear, I’d pulled the trigger, sending the flare high into the sky overhead.

  Just like in the song, the rocket’s red glare gave proof through the night that the wall was still there.

  Everything went into a surrealistic sort of slow motion. In the glow of what must surely be the fires of Hell, metal on metal shrieked. Or was that me?

  From behind me, Jan chanted, “Oh m’god, Oh m’god, oh m’god.”

  Then, in what I can only put down to Divine intervention, or maybe Divine comedy, the wall swung open, and we rocketed through, and instead of ending up like sardines in a flattened can, we found ourselves airborne.

  We’d slammed into the wall, sailed through a hinged opening, only to have the bottom drop out. There was that stomach rolling sensation of weightlessness, flight, before plummeting into what turned out to be a six-foot deep trench.

  Nacho, in the middle of crowing about how good the GPS coordinates had been, was thrown forward, his head connecting with the steering wheel. As dust billowed around us, and the Thing gasped its last, Nacho croaked, in a puzzled tone, “Well, heck, what’s the ditch doing here?”

  His eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out, but not before grabbing the GPS from me and stuffing it into his pocket.

  Turning to check on Jan, I saw she had a death grip on the roll bar above her head, but she looked unhurt.

  In the flare’s glow, a cloud of fine dust fluoresced, like a witch’s cauldron, all around us. Behind, the hinged gate squeaked softly, slowly returning to its closed position.

  I guess Homeland Security sorta missed that little entry point.

  I was squirming to extricate myself from the Thing when Jan let loose with a maniacal laugh and quipped, “Welcome to Arizona, and thank you for flying God airlines. Please check the overhead before departing the plane.” I’d forgotten she once aspired to be a stewardess, flight attendant, or whatever they call themselves these days, before deciding being a CPA paid better.

  I giggled with relief, somewhat stunned we were still alive. I looked through the red haze, up into an inky clear sky twinkling with stars. Yep, Heaven was still up, and I didn’t detect fire or brimstone pulling us under.

  Behind us, the fence had ceased creaking and left no sign of ever opening. Once again my engineering background kicked in, this time with a grudging respect for the artisan who redesigned that wall. Someone very clever had, probably in the dead of night over a long period of time, and using only small hand tools, created a masterpiece of illusion. He was probably, at this very moment, either tunneling out of some prison, or starring on a Las Vegas stage.

  “Hetta, you okay?” Jan, finally in control of her giggles, whispered. After our explosive entrance into the good old US of A, whispering seemed a lit-tle redundant as a means of obscurity.

  “I’m fine, but we have to boogie. Let’s grab our bags and some water.”

  As we unloaded our stuff from the Thing, Jan eyed the unconscious Nacho. “What about him?”

  “Screw him.”

  “He could be badly hurt.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  Nacho roused a mite, croaked, “That’s not nice,” then passed out again.

  “Not nice at all,” pronounced a deep voice from on high.

  If that was God speaking, He wore a cowboy hat.

  Out of the red haze sauntered an apparition, making me reconsider whether we’d actually survived the crash, but in a voice that could hardly be classified at angelic, it drawled, “What in hey-all are y’all doin’ in that ditch?”

  “Well, heck, Jan, we’ve died and gone to Texas.”


  Chapter 32

  Okay, so we weren’t dead, nor in Texas, but we were being pulled out of a ditch by a group of Militia Men from our home state. How lucky is that? Or was it?

  After a few questions as to whether we were harmed or not, one of them cocked his head suspiciously toward Nacho. “Whut you gals doin’ with the Mex?”

  Jan, fully aware of the disdain many Texans hold for interracial mingling, batted her big blues in the fading glare of the sputtering flare. “He…he…kidnapped us, and threatened to shoot Maggie.”

  One of the cowboys put his hand on my shoulder. “That true, Maggie?”

  “I’m not…yes.”

  After that we were treated with utmost sympathy, while the same couldn’t be said for the semiconscious Nacho. They manhandled him rudely out of the Thing and roughly propped him against a rock, but they did throw a blanket over his shoulders while they called the authorities. The first official wave arrived in minutes.

  “What we have here?” a Border Patrol guy asked as he speared us with his flashlight. Another reached inside their jeep and lit up the entire desert with his spots.

  Head Militia Man shrugged. “Two white gals and a Mex.”

  “What’s their story?” he asked, like we weren’t standing right there.

  “Claim they was kidnapped by the Mex, forced across the border.”

  “They were forced across the border from Mexico?”

  “Right through yon wall, if the tire tracks tell the story.” The agent cast a skeptical eye toward the solid steel wall, but refrained from calling the guy nuts. More vehicles roared up, and men in suits and various uniforms joined our circle of light.

  Nacho was bundled into an ambulance that took off into the night, lights and sirens going full blast. Desert creatures scattered in all directions. Then, once again, it was quiet.

  I produced a passport from a bag in the Thing. Jan, of course, could not.

  We were trying to explain how it was that she lost her purse, and all her identification, without divulging our whereabouts at the time. I was in the middle of backing up her hotel theft story when, over the wall, swooped a loud and winged creature.