M. Banner - Stone Age

“When is the big date?” Max switched back to English because it was still easier and because Miguel wanted Max to always practice with him.

“She say maybe fif-weeks now. She get big as house.” Miguel was holding his two hands about three feet apart to demonstrate, in case Max didn’t understand the analogy.

Acknowledging the humor, Max smiled back. His face then sagged. “When we get back, you tell her to stay inside the special room we built until the baby is born, okay?”

Miguel’s face turned dark. “What happening, Señor Max?”

“I just want to be cautious, but I am a little worried. I won’t lie to you. Just promise me you will try to keep her there, especially during the day?”

“Okay, Señor Max. Gracias for always take care my family.”

The jeep and trailer, and its two passengers headed down the highway, already baking in the mid-morning sun, along a path it had taken many times before.

Luis “El Gordo” Hernandez Ochoa was the third biggest drug lord in Mexico. Rising to become the ruler of a two billion peso per year illegal enterprise taught him many things: use the talent God gave you, initiative creates opportunity, reward loyalty, and perform immediate cruelty to create respect and fear. He was as ruthless as his reputation. Nothing scared him and he feared no one, except of course, God. Raised in a devout Catholic family, he learned what it meant to fear God, and to watch out for signs. Like most Catholic Mexicans, his Madre taught him first about signs. “There are signs everywhere, Luis, you just have to watch for them,” she taught him every day she was alive. However, it wasn’t until her death that he came to believe in signs.

Five years ago, a competing gang seeking reprisals for his killing the leader’s whole family blew up his Madre along with much of his villa. On that morning, he had awoken from a bad dream, where he remembered feeling sadness and loss. When his sweet Madre was later blown to pieces, he learned never to ignore a sign, especially one in a dream.

Now, just moments ago, while sleeping through a hangover from alcohol and coca, El Gordo woke from the worst dream of his life. His dead Madre was standing in the middle of a road that he knew well. While he watched, she threw the red hair ribbons she wore all the time into the air. Each ribbon fluttered upward, ascending with the wind, waving back at him. Then, the first and second ribbon combined and became a larger ribbon. Then, the third joined into the collective and so on. The growing mass of undulating ribbons transformed further into a fiery form in the sky. Each subsequent ribbon rose and combined with the burning formation in the sky. Now, he could feel the heat, and he started to sweat profusely. He looked down and realized he was on fire. He could smell that his clothes, hair and skin were ablaze. He didn’t feel any pain, but watched horrified, as his fingers started to melt. His skin liquefied and then started sliding off the boney protrusions of his digits onto the ground below him. He could see that he was shrinking, now melting into a molten pile of flesh and liquid. It reminded him of that American movie he saw as a child, called The Wizard of Oz, with the ugly green witch melting. Faster, his mass was sliding into an El Gordo soup. He screamed!

In a pool of sweat, his silk pajamas and silk sheets soaked through, Luis sat up in a start. The mop of his artificially blackened hair stuck to his forehead and covered his right eye. He pushed it away and hurriedly took an account of his fingers, his body, and then his vast bedroom. The partially exposed naked forms of two young women lay beside him undisturbed. The smell of his sweat and urine was overpowering. He had wet himself.

This was a fear he had never felt. Worse, it was without reason. “Why was he afraid and of what?” He considered this, as he tried to calm his breathing.

Then, it hit him like a slap from one of his jealous lovers. He knew what he had to do right this minute, no, this second.

He swung his soaked flabby frame out of bed, and pulled off his clothes, leaving a trail from his bed, as he ran to the shower, a swiftness his hefty body hadn’t seen in years. He had purpose. He didn’t know why or what exactly it was; only that he had to do it and do it now. He slapped the intercom button as he passed into his bathroom, heading for the shower.

“Si El Hefe,” chimed in his Number 1.

“Get the truck ready with Chaco and Bingo. We’re going to the checkpoint in five minutes,” he yelled, already in the giant shower, its jets automatically engaging, shooting hundreds of raindrops from all directions and drowning out the response from the intercom.

Four minutes later, Luis, in his black Tahoe, his hair still wet, raced to the road he saw in his nightmare. The afternoon light sparkled off the truck’s gold highlights on the bumpers, molding, and headlamps.

None of his men asked where they were going, but they had their AK’s at the ready for whatever trouble they must be headed towards.

“Who is covering the gate?” He asked of his driver.

“No one today,” the driver answered somewhat sheepishly, his lips and the scar on his cheek moving rapidly. “Remember, El Hefe, the local police have been cracking down on checkpoints. We were going to wait for a week or two after Mayor Renaldo could say that he has been cutting down on crime and mordita to get our men set up again.” The driver spoke with a little more confidence. “Besides the cameras, as you told me, we have men every 200 meters around the villa and down the road. So if anyone comes, we’ll know it long before they get close.”

“Okay, thanks, Chaco. I can always count on you,” he said looking up to the sky, but not seeing any red.

It only took five minutes before they were already at the intersection where for years they manned the checkpoint on the dirt highway, if you could call it a highway. Only one vehicle every hour or two ever used it. Either you owned a ranch or villa around here or you were one of its workers. The owners paid him a protection fee at the gate to keep their streets protected from other gangs or crooked police. In truth, El Gordo wanted to keep tabs on who was coming and going near his residence: No reason why he couldn’t make a little money off of his investment in personnel.

In the distance, coming from Hwy 2, a cloud of dust was approaching, maybe three kilometers away.

Luis got out and looked down each straight away of the highway, the fear from his dream coming back. He just didn’t know what he was looking for. It wasn’t his Madre, since she was dead, but maybe something or someone that reminded him of her. He knew he had to be here at this place, but he didn’t know why.

The approaching engine and dust cloud were less than a kilometer away. He looked through the binoculars. It was an old but familiar Jeep trailing an ATV. It must be Señor Max coming again to his ranch.

He liked Señor Max. He always paid his fee, kept to himself, and sometimes could get him weapons and other goods that no one else could, including a giant gun that could hit someone farther than he could see. However, it was strange to see Max again. His men told him that he had been to his ranch over a dozen times in the last two months. Each time, he transported supplies to his other house on the beach. Luis didn’t care what this man did. Certainly didn’t care if he moved his belongings back and forth.

Then it hit him like the desert heat on a summer day often slapped his face when exiting his patio door, before a dip in the pool. His memory was now crystal clear. Señor Max always bought red ribbons for his Madre. He didn’t know what this had to do with his dream, but he was sure it meant something. Luis thought of his Madre’s face the last time Señor Max handed her a ribbon, years ago now.