Ever Hayes - Emergency Exit

The months went by, and the treatment only worsened. It was almost as if the sergeant was realizing they couldn’t respond to his taunts. He started to push the line further and further, and he often pushed it so far he began to alienate some of the other Mexican soldiers. There was a growing sentiment within the camp something needed to be done. The pompous bigot needed to be put in his place, and Eddie could feel the troops looking to him. The problem was, they didn’t know he was on thin ice. They had no idea why he put up with Agos’s behavior, and he couldn’t afford to explain the dicey position he was in.

One afternoon in late April, Eddie had been sent to get water from the river next to the Liars’ Lodge where their camp was set up. Before he even reached the river, it occurred to him every time he’d been sent to do something, the sergeant had come to yell at him when he hadn’t done it quickly. Here, down by the river, there was no one around. So Eddie took his time. Sergeant Agos was so obsessed with demeaning the troops, especially the Africans, he wouldn’t let anyone yell at the Africans but him. Sure enough, about twenty minutes later Eddie heard the sergeant yelling at him as he came cruising down the hill.

Eddie didn’t respond. He didn’t turn around. The sergeant came up behind him and hit him with his nightstick. In a flash, Eddie spun on him and lifted him off the ground. He only intended to scare the man, but as he spun full circle to hold him over the river Eddie lost his grip. The sergeant fell from Eddie’s grasp and, upended, smashed his head against a rock. Eddie looked around, but he saw no one else nearby. He looked down at the sergeant halfway in the water and elected to push him all the way in. The river engulfed him and dragged a dead Sergeant Agos downstream.

As Eddie reentered the camp, it didn’t matter that no one had been there to see what had happened. When the sergeant didn’t come back with Eddie, the entire camp knew the man was dead. The base commander was already passed out drunk for the night. He wouldn’t know Agos was gone until the next day, and even then he probably wouldn’t care.

But this wasn’t what Eddie had planned. He didn’t want this target on his back. He was trying to lay low and wait. This wasn’t going to help. Eddie didn’t bother to explain to anyone other than Lazzo that it had been an accident. No one else would care. He had to hope the sergeant didn’t have any friends.

It turned out he did. Turned out the base commander hadn’t attained his post by knowing someone—he was just that incompetent. The one with connections was the dead sergeant, who was a cousin of the Mexican commander in Denver. Of course . And although the Mexican commander hated the man, it didn’t make him anything less than family. When it was reported to him a week later that the sergeant was missing from the Buena Vista camp, the Mexican commander became invested in the situation himself. His personal chief of security, Roman Roja, was a general in the Mexican army, and the commander assigned him to Buena Vista. The drunken base commander was sent packing to another remote location.

General Roja arrived with four of his own men, all officers, and two German shepherds. A new chain of command was rapidly established at the camp. The general was also a big man, although a couple inches shorter than Eddie. Word spread quickly through the camp that the general had been in charge of interrogation for Mexico’s Military Intelligence Division for a decade. He was one bad hombre. His four men were the Mexican equivalent of the Texas Rangers. If they felt they had any reason to shoot you, they would, and no questions would be asked. They lived by their own rules. In a way, Sergeant Agos had been multiplied by four. This was much, much worse.

The day after the five of them arrived, Eddie was called into General Roja’s office. Eddie stood at attention as the general looked him over. “I don’t like you,” were his first words to Eddie. “I know what you did.”

Eddie said nothing, unsure of which of his many supposed offenses the man was addressing. The general continued. “Because of you and your sloppiness, American president is dead.” Ah, that one . “You leave a mess and others have to clean it for you. You don’t deserve to live.”

He seemed to be waiting for an apology of some sort, but when Eddie didn’t give it to him he continued. “The men say you were with Agos when he was last seen.” That didn’t take long . He was standing directly in front of Eddie now, looking him in the eyes.

“I saw him. Yes,” Eddie finally replied.

“What happened?” General Roja demanded.

“Not sure what you mean,” Eddie responded.

The general didn’t speak but glared at him. It became apparent to him this wasn’t a staring contest he’d win, so he walked back behind his desk. “That be all,” he said. “Get out.”

Eddie paused, then turned, and as the door opened the general added, “I know it was you. You step out of line once. You’re dead.”

Eddie stopped, but he didn’t look back. He looked at the guard to his right, who couldn’t hold his glare. And then Eddie walked out the door.

When it became evident the snow was not coming back, we knew we needed to move. We spent two nights packing the trucks, little by little, careful to make sure no one was aware of our presence. By Friday night, May 21, we were ready to go. We were hoping for some helpful awful weather, but we didn’t get it until the twenty-fifth,which brought a warm front across the range with plenty of rain, thunder, and lightning. The combination of the high temperatures and rain created several potential problems. This was avalanche and washout weather further up in the mountains, particularly on our road, which was well known for both. But if we stayed any longer, the snow would be gone and troops would be coming down Old Fall River Road, perhaps even by tomorrow. It was a bittersweet feeling, blocking the entrances to the cave and walking away for the last time. We genuinely didn’t want to leave, but knew tonight was our best chance. It was now or never, all in or fold, make it or… Yeah, I’ll stick with “make it.” No one else was going to be out in this weather anyway.

We were wrong. At least I was. There was a lake eight miles up Old Fall River Road from our cave. After uncovering the trucks and moving them down to the road, we followed the Ford with the plow on the front slowly up the road for three hours. Coming around a corner by the lake, we saw a light and pulled to a quick stop. Upon further inspection, we spotted three jeeps parked in the road and a small cabin with the light we’d seen in the windows. The cabin was adjacent to one of the area’s formerly popular trailheads. None of us had seen the cabin before, and it looked like it had been built for this particular winter. The jeeps were clearly just blocking the road. There was no one in them. But there was also no way past them, and no way to move them without drawing the attention of however many men were in the cabin.

We backed the trucks slowly around the corner and out of sight about five hundred yards from the cabin. We were a little worried the sound of our engines coming up the hill might be heard, but the heavy rain appeared to have prevented that. It made sense now why Danny always preferred hunting in this crap. Everyone lost their advantage, and in this particular case, it may have actually given us one.

Danny was our only trained fighter now. The problem was, he didn’t want to be one anymore. He, Dad, and I had sat down several times since Cameron’s death and discussed Danny’s thoughts on war. Danny was tired of death, and tired of having to kill. He’d never wanted to kill anyone, under any circumstance, but he was decidedly even more against it now. It made him feel horrible inside, and watching Cameron go down like he did, even though it was from mountain lions…well, Danny wanted to be done with all the killing. That said, he knew what he had to do. My dad was great with him, particularly in getting him to see none of us would make it if Danny let his guard down. It was a lot to put on a young man, a heavy load to bear in every psychological sense, but we all needed Danny to shoulder it.