“You okay, amigo?” asked Court without taking his eyes from the gun sites.
Ramses crawled up next to Court, lay on the tile on the American’s left side. Ramses spit out a mouthful of stucco and terra-cotta and sweat. He answered back in English that was delivered in some sort of poor impersonation. “Yeah, dude. That was awesome.”
Court just laughed. He knew the adrenaline running through him would make him edgy for about as long as his ears rang. And after that he would crash hard.
TWENTY-NINE
Most of the surviving defenders gathered back in the living room fifteen minutes later. A crowing rooster told them the dawn was near, but the sky outside remained coal black.
Gentry stood, his hands on his hips, bloodstains drying on his denim jacket from his chest to the top of his pants. His beard sparkled with perspiration. He’d just returned from the driveway outside, where he’d found Eddie’s brother’s body lying across the front seats of the old farm truck. Wearily, he announced to the room, “Ignacio is dead.”
“He died trying to rescue us,” said Luz.
“No doubt,” Court replied, though he had every doubt in the world. A quick glance to Ernesto confirmed Gentry’s suspicion that Ignacio’s own father didn’t believe his son had gone out like a hero, either.
But neither man spoke up.
The five remaining members of the Gamboa family were huddled together on the sofa, sobbing and crying now. Ernesto seemed lost in space at this point; there were tears in his eyes, but he was not as energetic in his misery as were the rest. His wife diligently bandaged her husband’s shoulder. Ernesto just kept his chin high and ignored the pain as he gazed off into the darkened corners of the room.
Court continued with the bad news, and Elena translated for those who did not understand. “Ramses is wounded, shot twice, but he’s a tough little bastard. He’ll fight if we get hit again.” Ramses was in the kitchen just now, pouring clear tequila from a bottle all over his arm and shoulder. It hurt like a bitch, but it served as a decent anesthetic. The bandages that Elena had created by tearing bedsheets would help stanch the blood flow.
Court next looked at Laura. “Inez is dead, too. We found her in the chapel.” He paused. Tried to think of something “right” to say. “She went quick. No pain.”
Laura nodded distantly. Fatigue and shock had blunted the blow. Court noticed she did not even cry.
Court continued. “There’s more, I’m afraid. The truck is not going anywhere. It’s riddled with bullets and smashed. And… ”
“And?” asked Diego. He held the M1 carbine in his hand like a security blanket. He’d fired it twenty times at the man who’d been here in this room twenty minutes prior, and although there was neither a body nor a blood trail leading away from the room, Diego felt like he’d protected his family by holding off the attacker.
“And when I was outside, I heard trucks out in the distance, out past the walls of the hacienda.”
“Trucks?”
“Yes. They sounded like big armor-plated trucks.”
Laura stared through her bloodshot eyes. She understood. Nodded . “Federales.”
Court nodded. “I’m going to assume they are not friendlies. A half dozen trucks, maybe. I’m guessing there could be fifty men out there past the wall.”
Court was as shell-shocked as the rest of them. The room just seemed sucked dry of all life. As if even though de la Rocha’s people had not yet accomplished their mission, they had already killed much of the defenders’ will to survive.
Court searched his brain for a silver lining, no matter how narrow the strand. Damn, he wished he was a leader, an officer, a motivator. Fuck, just like he’d been told many times before, at this moment he felt like he was just a “door kicker.” A “breach bitch.” A “gun monkey.”
Finally, he lightened a bit. “As for good news… there is a little. It’s almost dawn, and I do not think they will hit us during the day. They know we have a bunch of new weapons at our disposal, and they can’t fight us from inside their armored trucks, so we have until nightfall to find a way out of this mess. We’ll come up with something.”
Not exactly the speech Patton would have made at a time like this, Court realized.
Laura shook her head. “Joe, you have not slept… you cannot function like—”
“I’ll be okay.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He didn’t have time to talk about how he needed a nap. “I’ve picked over the dead marines, and in addition to the sub guns, I found radios, a set of binoculars, and a mobile phone. They’ve apparently already changed their radio codes. I’ve got to figure the mobile will be tapped or traced, and the tower around here is down, but we can hang on to it. It may come in handy at some point.
They all discussed going to the U.S. for a few minutes, and then it was everyone back to their defensive positions. Court took guard duty on the back mirador, still the most likely avenue of any attack. He told Martin and Diego and Ramses and Laura to wander the house, keep an eye out all the windows as best they could, and the wounded and elderly Ernesto was ordered to lie down with Luz and Elena in the cellar. Laura gave her father a pistol to hold, to give him the honor of still taking a nominal role in the protection of his family.
Twenty minutes later Court lay on the second-floor balcony, facing east, and he watched the soft light of a clear dawn roll slowly over the forest. The white of the back wall of the property appeared slowly, as if it were being painted before his eyes on a black canvas.
Although Court did not expect a daylight attack, he recognized a new danger. With the light of day came the potential for snipers in the distant hills; anyone out on these verandas would have to remain on their hands and knees to stay below the level of the railing.
The rooster continued to crow. Damn rooster. Court’s veins had been filled and then sapped of adrenaline so many times in the past twenty-four hours, he just needed to sleep now, now that it was time to begin a new day.
He heard a noise in the distance, just on the other side of the wall, and his vision cleared with a fresh rush of adrenaline. A man’s shouting. Court fixed his attention on the part of the wall from where it came; he could just see the white band sixty yards from his position. Another shout, and just then something dark flew through the air, over the wall, over the jacaranda vines, and it hit the long grass, bounced high and awkwardly like an oblong ball. It rolled and came to rest in lower grasses, twenty-five yards from the far edge of the murky swimming pool.
Ramses and Martin appeared on the balcony next to Gentry. They had been “floating” through the house on patrol, and they had seen it, too.
“What is that?” asked Martin.
Court took the binoculars he’d pulled from a dead marine and peered through them; there was not enough light for the small optics, but he could see the roundish shape lying there in the grass. “No sé,” he answered. He did not know.
“A bomb?” asked Martin.
“If it’s a bomb, we’re okay,” said Court; it was still a good distance away from the house.
“A head?” asked Ramses while picking at the bloody bandage on his arm. Everyone knew that narcos loved to chop off heads.
Martin chuckled. “Did you see it bounce? That’s not a head.”
Ramses chuckled, too, though he winced from the pain in his wounds as he did so. “Yeah. It’s not a head.”
Court entered into the gallows humor while he scanned the length of the wall. “Plus, we would know if we were missing any heads. We’re not, are we? Should we do a head count?”