James Rawles - Survivors - A Novel of the Coming Collapse

The stretch of coast between the towns of Zempoala and Vega de Alatorre had an “Old Mexico” feel to it, and the locals were friendly. Many of them seemed curious about Andy and his horse. There were fewer horses, mules, and donkeys in this region than he’d seen inland, so young children would often run toward Prieto gleefully, wanting to see and touch “el caballo grande.” Prieto seemed to put up with it well. But once he snatched a straw sombrero off a boy’s head and started chewing it before Laine could stop him. Andy apologized for “mi caballo travieso” and gave the boy a silver peso coin. The boys ran off, carrying the mangled hat and the coin, shouting and laughing. Andy was surprised to have the boy’s mother return a few minutes later, with three quarters of the coin. One quarter of it had been neatly chiseled out, explaining, “You have paid of my son too much for his sombrero.”

As he moved up the coast, Laine’s diet shifted toward bananas, coconuts, and dried fish. There were so many coconuts available free for the taking that he cracked open several extra ones each day. After drinking their milk, he scraped out the insides with his pocketknife and gave the pulpy coconut meat to Prieto, who licked it up eagerly.

Not wanting to make a wide detour around some lakes, Andy opted to ride directly through the city of Tampico. Knowing that it would be a full day’s ride to get through Tampico and the many small towns clustered to the north of it, Andy decided to camp earlier than usual. He let Prieto graze an extra long time in a meadow that was a comfortable four hundred yards from the highway. Later, as he set up his camp in the middle of a large grove of coconut trees, Andy remembered an old Stan Kenton big-band tune that he had heard as a child, played on one of his Grandmother Bardgard’s 78 rpm records. It was called “Tampico.” He sang quietly to himself:

Hearing Laine singing, Prieto gave him a snort. Andy chided the horse to be quiet: “Callate, Prieto. No resopla.” Andy carried on, but just humming, since he couldn’t recall the rest of the song’s lyrics.

The ride through Tampico the next day was unnerving. By ten a.m. the temperature was already in the nineties. As near as Andy could tell, several gangs controlled the city and the surrounding towns. He saw, individually and in pairs, a few men armed with a diverse assortment of AKs, bolt-action rifles, HK G3s, M16s, M4s, and pump-action shotguns. A few of them had neck tattoos that reminded him of the Guatemalans who had robbed him. This made Andy very nervous. Fortunately, none of the men ever tried to intercept his horse.

Several times while he was riding through Tampico, boys on bicycles would ride up next to Andy and ask one-word color questions, like “¿Rojo?” “¿Azul?” “¿Negro?” At first, Andy didn’t understand them, and shrugged in response. Then he came to realize that they were asking Andy about his gang affiliation. He decided to bluff them by shouting, “El fortisimo. Vayanse, chiquillos!” (“The strongest. Go away, kids!”)

Andy didn’t start to relax that day until he had ridden north of the town of Ricardo Flores Magon, late in the afternoon. He was happy to be away from the Tampico gangland. After passing through several coffee plantations, Laine camped that night in a dense grove of trees a hundred yards up from a river. The hillside was steeper than he liked, but all of the level ground in the area had long since been cleared of trees. The moon was starting to wane but was still nearly full. Andy drifted off to sleep, stuffed full of wild bananas.

He was awakened by a snort from Prieto. Laine sat halfway up in his bivy bag and listened. He could hear something moving through the undergrowth, twenty yards downhill from his camp. In the moonlight Andy could see Prieto standing just ten feet away, with his nose pointing downhill. The horse’s ears were alternating between being perked up and laid back. He was obviously wary about something. Andy’s first thought was that it might be a jaguar. Then Andy heard a cough-a human cough. Laine slowly unzipped his bivy bag’s “no-see-um” netting and pointed his SIG pistol in the direction where he’d heard the noises. Only his head and forearms protruded from the bag. Realizing that making any sound could prove fatal, he decided not to move. He couldn’t further extricate himself from the bag without making noise. Listening intently, he could identify the sounds of two people walking up the hill.

Soon Andy could see that two figures were climbing the hill, coming directly toward Prieto. As they climbed up closer, Andy began to see some details. Both were muscular young men. Both were shaved bald-headed. One of them was wearing a white tank top. The other was wearing a white T-shirt. Both of them carried AK-47s and small rucksacks. Andy was uncertain if they might be local ranchers or coffee growers. When they were just five yards away, he could see that they were both looking at his horse. They hadn’t yet detected Andy, who was sitting in a spot that was shaded from the moonlight. As they stepped closer, one of them shouldered his rifle and thumbed down its safety lever with a loud clack. It was then that Andy could see that they both had tattoos covering most of their arms and ringed around their necks.

Andy lined up the glowing green sights of the SIG on the head of the man who had raised the AK and pulled the trigger through twice, rapidly. The bandit went down instantly. Then he quickly shifted his sights to the other man, who was turning to point his rifle toward Andy’s muzzle flashes. Andy fired rapidly, five more times, at the chest of the second man. He, too, went down, shouting. Andy took careful aim and shot each of the men twice more in the head. The shooting startled Prieto, and he shifted backward, dragging his hobbled front hooves in an odd jump. The horse snorted anxiously. The two bandits continued to thrash on the ground, bleeding out. A dog barked, far in the distance, perhaps a half mile away.

Andy fumbled in his sleeping bag, searching for a spare magazine. Finding it, he ejected the one in his gun and slapped in the spare. He tapped the butt of the pistol twice with his free hand, ensuring that the magazine was correctly latched in place. He was gasping, and he fought to control his breathing. After a minute, the two bandits finally stopped moving. He quietly wormed his way out of the bivy bag. His ears were ringing, and his hands were shaking.

Were there others? If so, how far away? Should he sit tight or flee? He decided to wait and listen. He waited for a very anxious half hour, hearing only the quiet sounds of Prieto breathing and the occasional high whine of mosquitos. He prayed silently and then decided that it was time to go. He holstered his pistol and then, after rolling and stowing his bivy bag, groped around until he retrieved the partially expended pistol magazine. He made a mental note to refill it when he had daylight available.

Moving quietly but quickly, he saddled and tacked up Prieto, but he left the horse’s hobbles on for fear of his running off. He rubbed the horse’s neck consolingly and whispered in his ear: “ Bueno, Prieto, muy bueno. Muchas gracias. You are Superhorse.”

He stepped down the hill to examine the bodies of the bandits. Both of them looked like they were in their twenties. The moonlight was just bright enough to make out their tattoos by. He could see that one of them had some large numbers tattooed on his neck. Most of the rest of the markings were swirling and geometric patterns. These were obviously crude prison tats.