Page 67 of High

“This is always sort of what I imagined camping would be like,” I said to Thio as we made our way to the nearest table.

“Shit, camping, kiddo? This is nothing. I go into the jungle for weeks, sometimes months at a time.”

I hadn’t realized Maddock was pissing next to the house in the dark, so I turned away, but he wasn’t shy, and started talking and telling me all about how a real man goes camping. Later, as we ate around one of the firepits, he told us stories of finding wild animals in the jungles around this house, and while he had a lot of tales to tell, I’d had a long day, and I found myself nodding off while sitting on the ground between Thio’s legs in front of his chair. I nestled my head against his thigh and let the warmth of the fire and the sound of men talking lull me.

Gunfire nearby had me jerking upright and shouts went out from around the house. Thio hauled me to my feet while I was still blinking the sleep out of my eyes and dragged me bodily until my legs started moving with him. He and Maddock were hustling me toward the trees beyond the glow of the fire. I shook my head.

“No, it’s too dark.”

“Quiet and follow me, boys,” Maddock said as we headed into the tree line. The jungle foliage was dense and the tree trunks close together, but Maddock, big as he was, and even blind as we were, seemed to pick his way easily through the mess. All I was trying to do was keep on my feet and not panic, and Thio helped me stay moving forward with a hand on my back and the other on my shoulder.

“What’s going on?” I asked. More gunfire rang out and there was yelling from the direction of the house. A scream. Someone cursing in Spanish.

“Don’t know. Don’t know if the poachers I was going to look for came after me instead, or something else,” Maddock said over his shoulder, not sounding very concerned about the chaos. He wasn’t trying to be quiet, either. The bang and crack of gunfire from multiple weapons was loud, and when we neared the edge of the lawn again, we had circled the house to the front. There were several vehicles, rickety trucks and other older-looking cars, parked near the Rolls Royces, and the men inside were firing on the house and tents.

“Only one way to find out what they’re up to. Geronimo, boys,” Maddock said, and laughed as he drew a gun out of the holster at his side. I hadn’t noticed the gun earlier, and I wasn’t sure if I was just getting used to everyone being armed, or if he’d put it on after I nodded off. He started forward through some of the thickest shadows toward the men firing their guns at his home.

“I’m going with him.”

“Like hell!” I grabbed Thio’s hand and he turned to stare hard at me. “Either we both go or neither of us does.”

He scowled, but in the end he gave in. “There are guns in the trunk of our car.” He took out a set of keys and hit the button for our black Rolls. The trunk rose slowly and gracefully into the air. “We get over there and I can grab them.”

Our men finally rounded the side of the house. It seemed like Rafael was giving orders, and they began returning fire. Thio grasped my hand hard. “Just stay here.”

“No.” I punched him hard on the arm and he hissed an irritated sound at me.

“Fuck, okay. On three. One, two, three.”

We ran together toward the back of the Rolls, and as soon as we made it, Thio shoved me down at the side of the car and stuck one hand into the trunk. He dragged out a bag. Grinning at me, he took out two handguns. He thrust one toward me and kept one for himself. My fingers shook as I closed them around the grip. It was too dark for me to decide the make of the weapon.

Someone began shooting at the car, but our men returned fire and the tings of metal on metal close to us stopped. My heart hammered. Thio reached over and pushed the safety button off on my gun, and then together we crept toward the front of the car. He braced his elbows on the hood, took aim, and then began firing at the vehicles full of men. I came up beside him and aimed toward the closest man firing at the house. He was in the bed of one of the old pickup trucks.

This was different than killing Felix. I couldn’t stand the idea of shooting people who maybe weren’t here to really hurt us; they were mostly just shooting up the house, after all, but we could have been inside. We might have gotten hit. I fired a shot and Thio let out an encouraging yell.

“Pick a target, Manny!” His eyes gleamed with excitement when he knocked his shoulder against mine.

I aimed at the man I’d picked out again, my heart jackhammering in my ears, and squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked in my hand and jolted my arm all the way to my shoulder. He didn’t go down, and I sighed, aimed again, and fired. This time he crumpled and fell over the edge of the truck bed to the ground.

“Shit, I got one.”

“Another. Don’t stop!” Thio fired four shots fast and another two men fell from the truck.

Maddock erupted out of the forest close to the vehicles and began shooting. More men dropped, whether for cover or because they were injured, I wasn’t sure. Several men seemed dead or close to it. Maddock vanished back into the woods, I assumed to reload, but now some of the remaining men turned to shoot in the direction Maddock had been. With their attention divided, Thio’s men and Maddock’s friends quickly moved in for the kill. We kept shooting until our bullets ran out.

It all ended abruptly. The men in the old cars and trucks dropped their guns as soon as they were down to five men standing.

“Don’t shoot them,” Thio roared. “Not yet.”

Maddock came out of the woods with his gun leveled on the remaining men, and Thio grabbed my hand and dragged me across the lawn toward them. Up close the “men” were actually boys. They were younger than I was, for sure, and maybe not even twenty yet. Thio seemed to realize the same thing because he grimaced and his face went sympathetic for a second before it hardened again.

“Who hired you?” he asked in English, and then when that got no response, he repeated himself rapidly in Spanish.

They shivered and cowered together.

Thio raised his gun and pointed it at the head of the closest boy. His mustache was barely a smudge under his nose. My stomach twisted. “Dime quién te pagó.”

The tallest, skinniest teenager raised his hands. “Méndez. Jefe Méndez.”