Josh Stallings - Out There Bad

Mikayla lit a butt, cupping it in her hand to hide the cherry. Hunched down she looked at peace, eyes alert but not nervous. She was comfortable waiting. I used to be like that, now whenever I stopped moving, my head filled with voices. Voices of the dead or walking wounded. Whisky had always shut the damn voices up. Now court was in session 24/7 and only forward movement would hush their harsh judgment.

The chopper rose and floated off towards the dim city lights in the west.

“Let’s ride,” I said.

“No, wait.” She lit a second coffin nail. After a bit, we saw it — down in the valley, a small group of shadows distinguished themselves from a grove of cypress. They moved across the floor of the valley. We waited another minute until we were sure that our fellow travelers hadn’t brought the Border Patrol swooping down out of the hills.

Kicking over the small engines, they sounded like machine gun fire against the night’s silence. The trail switched back and forth across the steep incline. A half hour later, we finally reached flat ground. The trail rambled through the chaparral, dodging scrub oaks, cypress and boulders. Our covered headlights lit enough of the path to keep us from collision if we kept the speed down.

Without warning, Mikayla powered up beside me, twisting her handlebar to the left, she forced me off the path. Brush tore at my legs as I bounced down a shallow gully. She was close beside me when I pulled the bike to a stop. I was about to yell at her when she leaned in and shut my motor off. Jumping off her bike, she caught me mid shoulders. I tumbled back, landing on the hard dry earth. Her hand was over my mouth and she was on top of me. I had enough time to wonder if a razor was coming next before I heard the roar of an engine.

Headlights bounced on the branches above us. Through the brush I could see a pickup speeding down the path. A light bar on the roof illuminated a wide circle around them. Over the cab, between the lights, two men stood. I could clearly see the outline of a rifle held by one of them.

Reaching in my pocket, I took hold of the pistol. My muscles tensed, readying to leap up. Mikayla’s breath was warm and shallow on my face, I could feel her heart beating against my chest. Her pale blue eyes glowed with intensity. How had I ever mistaken her for a boy? The scar running from ear to lip stood in defiance of her fine features. Strong cheek bones, an elegant nose and thin but perfectly shaped lips. Women, even with the possibility of death rolling toward me, I still marveled at the draw they had on my attention.

The pickup passed close enough for me to read the tread on monster mud tires. The man with the rifle had a bandanna over his nose and mouth, a defense against the dust storm they were stirring up. Glare reflected from the light bar on his goggles, making him appear inhuman.

“Bandits,” Mikayla said when they had passed, “people crossing bring every cent they have, to start their new lives. These vultures pick them clean.” Noticing her hand was still covering my mouth, she removed it. She seemed uncomfortable with our closeness. Climbing quickly off my chest, she turned her back to me. Staying low, she watched the receding taillights.

The report of a rifle echoed against the mountain walls. Mikayla was up, kicking over her bike before the last reverberation died away. Ripping the cover off the headlight she was bounding up onto the trail while I stumbled to get my bike started.

Half way across the valley, the truck stood, a glowing beacon. Mikayla sped towards them. Cranking back the throttle, I felt the front tire fighting to come up off the ground. Pushing up from the pegs, I leaned forward, keeping my weight over the front fork. Swerving around the spikes of saguaros, I skidded my foot on the ground for balance. Banging my boot off the rocks I was glad my Docs had steel toes. The path rose enough to see that in the light surrounding the truck, a group of tattered Mexicans were on their knees, four armed men stood over them. I had time to register a woman clutching what looked like a child to her chest before I dipped down and they disappeared from view.

I was a hundred feet behind Mikayla when she reached the truck. The men turned, shock caught on their faces as her headlight struck them. They were swinging guns up when she blurred through them with one of her arms stretched out from her body. Something glinted in her hand, then she was past them. The man in the bandanna fell to his knees, clutching his neck, fighting to staunch the blood cascading down his chest. The other three spun and opened fire at her. Muzzle flashes lit the scene, flickering like some demonic strobe light.

Twisting the throttle fully open, I aimed at the back of the biggest of the men. Pulling the front wheel into the air, I watched in slow motion, his body came closer, shells popped from his M16.

The people on the ground huddled down seeking safety in the dirt.

The crunch of bone sounded when my tire collided with his flesh. He fell forward. The handlebars ripped from my hands. The bike flipped away from me. I hit the ground rolling. Bullets pocked the earth around me as I tumbled.

Mikayla’s headlights flashed back on the remaining men. Drawing their fire, she raced toward them. They arced their barrels at her.

I slid to a stop. Digging in my pocket, I found the pistol.

Bullets sparked off Mikayla’s bike. She tumbled back, hitting the ground.

Holding the small pistol in both hands to steady my aim, I pulled the trigger. It sounded like a firecracker, with almost no recoil. Two slugs ripped into one man’s face. I turned on the other and dumped three shots into his chest before the automatic’s breach locked open.

I could hear a bike’s engine and its tire spinning uselessly in the air, a man’s moan, a woman’s prayers muttered in Spanish.

Running to the fallen bandits, I kicked a rifle away from the only one still breathing. He was hugging himself, letting out short guttural gasps. A woman holding a baby wrapped in a serape watched me without moving. I ran out into the chaparral, toward where Mikayla had fallen.

She was laying in a sandy patch of ground on her back. As I neared, I saw the shallow movement of her chest. Kneeling over her, she looked up at me. She was breathing slowly through her nostrils. Pulling open her jacket, I looked for signs of blood, but found none.

“Are they dead?” she whispered.

“All but one and I doubt he’ll last long.”

“Good.”

I sat in the sand and watched her as her breaths grew in depth. It wasn’t long before she could sit up. I was glad to see she hadn’t broken her back or any other bones. It would hurt like hell in the morning but she would live, if I didn’t come to my senses and kill her first. “Next time,” I said quietly, “you mind asking me before committing my ass to a suicide run?”

“They needed us.” Her voice was coming back.

“I have people back in LA, my people, who count on me making it back alive.”

“They’re all my people.” Her blue eyes flashed ice.

“You a saint? Or a lunatic? Some kind of Mother Teresa with a razor?”

“No, I am whatever I am, this is what I do. If you can’t handle it, we split up now.”

“And miss the fun of seeing what you do next? Fuck, no.”

The last of the bandits had choked on his own blood while I was with Mikayla. The travelers were still huddled on the ground; they watched us with frightened eyes. How could they know if we had come to help or rob or kill them? In this unforgiving wasteland, good Samaritans were few and far between.

Mikayla picked over the corpses while I searched the truck. I found a bottle of tequila, a rat-eared porn magazine and not much more. Mikayla had better luck, their pockets had produced a small wad of pesos and their hands had given up two gold rings and a watch.