Page 20

Behind us the engine coughed once, twice, and quit.

Out of fuel. Exactly like she said it would be.

The quiet that came after was so sudden it rang. The dust began to settle, drifting down over everything like dirty snow. Somewhere out on the road, men were coughing and swearing in Spanish, and my brothers were telling them to get their hands where they could be seen.

I pulled my bandanna down and looked at Vega.

He was breathing fast and shallow, both hands clamped over the hole in his side. Blood was coming between his fingers, dark and fast, a lot of it. He knew what it meant. I watched him figure it out.

“That’s your liver,” I told him. My voice was low. “It bleeds like hell. You’re losing it faster than your body can make it. In a few minutes your heart’s going to start racing, trying to keep up. Then you’ll get cold. Then you’ll get real tired.”

He stared up at me. His mouth moved.

“I could slow it down,” I said. “Pack it, put pressure on it. Get you to a hospital. I’ve saved men in a lot worse shape than you. I know exactly how to do it.”

I kept my hands right where they were. Flat on my thigh, nowhere near him.

“I told you nobody would help you.”

He tried to say more. Nothing came out but air.

I heard the cockpit door open above me.

Mya was there in the doorway, holding on to the frame, covered in dust. She looked down at Vega lying in the dirt. She looked at the blood, and at me kneeling on him with my hands at my sides doing nothing.

I waited for her to look away.

She didn’t. She held on to that door and watched every second of it with her chin up. She watched him go.

It didn’t take long.

When it was done I stood up and walked over to her. Then I reached up and took her by the waist and lifted her down out of that plane.

She looked at Vega one more time.

“Good,” she said, very quietly.

Then I pulled her in against me. She was shaking all over, and she held on to me as hard as I held on to her. I didn’t let go until Preacher called my name.

Deacon came around the wing with blood running down his arm from a bullet graze, soaking through his sleeve. He watched me with Mya, holding her until she calmed down.

“Take your time,” he said with a half-smile. “I’ll just be bleeding over here if you need me.”

There were nine of them left.

Two were hurt bad and needed carrying. The rest were on their knees in the dirt with their hands on their heads, coughing grit, faces streaked with blood and dust, their eyes red and swollen half shut. My brothers stood over them with rifles. Every one of their trucks had its glass blown in.

They were kneeling close to the crates.

Preacher walked down the line of them, slow, without a word. Then he nodded to Gage.

Gage and two prospects brought the gas cans from the club truck. They went down the stack of crates, one after another, and soaked every one of them. Rifles, foam, wood and all. The smell of it hung in the cold air.

One of the cartel men realized what was about to happen. He started talking fast in Spanish. Preacher looked at him, and he quit.

Preacher struck a match.

He held it a second, letting every one of them see it. Then he dropped it.