He chased the ocean, the needle pegged as he roared down from the hills, a puddle growing in the boot pressed hard against the floorboard, his lungs burning to scare the dark away. For several long minutes he held his breath, wishing the stars a longer domain, the moon threatening with each slowing beat its descent. He trailed tobacco smoke in his wake and cursed each moment that death didn’t creep into the cold passenger seat. The radio danced with static interspersed with a station broadcasting communiqués for those hanging cold in their continual war. From his stomach a trickle of blood leaked downward. Sparks and fireflies danced in his vision as he struggled to keep the tires between the yellow. From one horizon to the other was nothing but black, like the space between stars, the nothingness of the heavens, the eyes that haunt him in the daytime. The engine angrily growled as the interstate evened and took to a straightaway, the foothills nothing but a memory, the mountain a leviathan hidden in the night’s abyss.

            Three quarts of blood, a hundred miles, and several hours back, the night began with a young woman reading a thick book in an empty bar. A sliver of Norteño hung in the air, the bajo sexto carrying the melody of a woman trying to kill her husband after one strike too many. Cornelio the barman kept his distance, stepping forward only when she raised an empty glass. When Cornelio first served the woman she’d had been a girl of sixteen, as striking as the woman who sat before him now. A Criollo twice her age had put his hand on her thigh and when she spat to the dirt he laughed and called her ‘Indio.’ She shattered his nose with the bottle of tequila she was enjoying. As the man moaned on the floor, liquor and blood mixing with the dust his movements stirred, the girl pulled the knife strapped under her dress and removed his right ear with a slight motion. The Criollo never showed his crooked face again and Cornelio always kept enough añejo on hand. Over the next decade, the barman watched her mature, her coffee skin darken under the sun, her eyes grow hard and her blade-hand quicker. She raised her glass and Cornelio did his job in silence. She mumbled, ‘Gracias,’ and he smiled.

            The white man, his pants covered with cement dust, slid silently into the bar and took a chair beside the woman, placing a tamale still wrapped in cornhusk on the bar. She marked her place in the book of poems with a pink rose petal and looked to Cornelio, saying with a soft voice, ‘Uno más, por favor.’ She turned to the man and grimaced. ‘You are late, Güero.’ Her English was thick with accent but clear.  Her eyes danced over his features before finding their home observing nothing.

            ‘How are you, Yncarnación?’ Güero took a sip of the drink Cornelio set down before him and smiled. ‘Delicious, gracias.’

            ‘You are late.’  She lit a cigarillo, letting the velvet smoke play around her tongue before finishing her drink.

            ‘Long drive, short notice. You have a job for me?’ He unwrapped the tamale and took a bite. Green peppers were buried under the corn.

            ‘I did not request you for your company.’ 

            He said, swallowing before speaking, ‘I know, hermosa. What can I do for you?’

            ‘I want you to visit the King of Cups and the Page of Wands.’

            ‘You want them dead?’

            ‘I want you to deliver to each man a letter.’

  #

            Each moment blowing past like the obscured landscape required more effort to keep the accelerator to the floor, his eyes open.  The car was a bullet and the momentum was aimed at the coast, cutting through the night as it roared closer to the target.  Shock had set in and the chasm in his gut was rimmed with ice.  His hand shook on the wheel as he weaved between cavernous potholes.  The government had never seen the need to install streetlights this far out, nor would any policía risk themselves in land as hostile.

            He started hacking and had brought his hand up in an unconscious effort to catch the expulsion and the front left wheel came an inch within digging downward into the road.  A flash of the tire popping and the car swerving hard to the right, the weight in the rear moving ahead, the kinetic force pushing the frame over as the sound of metal grinding flooded through his ears, the ceiling below crashing in, his face slamming first against the steering wheel then shattering the side window, killing him before anything else had the chance.  He pulled hard and slung gravel, half the car dipping into the ditch before he could right his path.  His pulse vibrated in every inch of his body and the dribble under his shirt amplified to a gush as his vision faded until he brought the palm of his left hand sharply against his cheek.  He pushed a breath through his nostrils and laughed until he fell back into a cough.

  #

            Pimotl stood outside the church building watching the ocean beat against the shore, the moon slowly sliding downward, out of the sky. Towards the east the horizon was a dark red. His milk-colored eyes took in everything, as he did each morning, and he let out a sigh that carried the previous day’s sins out on the breeze. Pimotl’s was a ritual borrowed from the man’s father, long since resigned to the dust. Each day could be your last, the old man had said, and I don’t want to walk into heaven without seeing the sunrise again. Pimotl’s father had founded La Iglesia de Juan de la Cruz in early days of the last century, and even after the congregation stopped coming, the old man had continued the daily pilgrimage, and Pimotl in turn. His men, soldiers and bodyguards, questioned why he would always go there alone, given how easy it would be for a bullet to find its way there, how they would gladly walk the shore and give him company. Pimotl’s eyes would turn to stone and for several weeks, until hostilities broke out again, no man would say a thing to him as he left before the moon died and was he reborn in the sun. From a great distance he could hear the car driving towards him, the engine roaring and the tires slinging rock. For a moment, the thought that this would be the last day played out in his mind. Pimotl smiled and remained at his vigil. 

  #

            Güero left Yncarnación with two letters, each piece of paper sealed with candle wax.  The first was for a man named Adolfo, who Yncarnación had called the Page of Wands. The closer of the two deliveries. Güero drove across the small town, the sun slowly fading into the dust that hung like a fog.  His pistol sat on the passenger seat.  A wrinkled man stood hunched on a corner holding a rifle.  A priest laughed with a young whore over a bottle of cerveza outside of another bar, where narcocorridos played and the thugs drank without fear. Every eye turned to the Güero as he passed, then forgot about him when his taillights disappeared.  Adolfo was the patrón of a hacienda past the outskirts, where coyotes and crows scored the night. Güero pulled up the stone road through the open gate. Three gauchos stood smoking cornhusk cigarettes around a slaughtered pig, its insides steaming in the dirt.  They watched as Güero parked and left his car, the pistol tucked into his belt.  He called out to them, asking where he could find Adolfo.  One spat and pointed to the great house that stood like a pearl at the beginning of a great desert. Güero had taken three of the six stairs to the main door when it swung open, exposing Adolfo to the world.  He was light skinned, his face crooked with deep scars mapped out from the nose.

            ‘Did Yncarnación send you?’ A hand rose unconsciously to where his right ear used to be.

            Güero stepped up, even with Adolfo, and reached into his coat and brought forth the letter. ‘She sent me to deliver this to you.’

            Adolfo glanced down at the exposed gun in Güero’s belt before staring at the paper offered. His fat fingers took the letter and ripped it open, the wax crumbling to the stone the two men stood on. His nostrils flared as he read and he looked to Güero, asking if this was a joke.

            ‘I’m just a messenger here. Couldn’t begin to tell you what she wrote.’ Güero shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not able to find comfort.

            ‘She sends you, a pistolero, to deliver this piece of bullshit?’ The paper crumbled in Adolfo’s fist.

            ‘That does appear to be the case.’ Güero had the overwhelming desire to hold his gun.

            ‘And you have no idea what it is she wrote?’

            ‘No, I don’t. She wanted me to deliver a letter to you and to an old man.’

            ‘Pimotl?’

            ‘Yes.’

            Adolfo looked down, spreading the letter out and looking over its contents again, his lips moving as he read, before dropping it. Both men watched its descent. When it hit the stone, Adolfo spat and reached behind his back, bringing a blade flashing out into the night and burying it deep in Güero’s stomach. The wounded man took a staggered step backward, the knife sliding out and Adolfo stepping forward to deliver another blow. Güero’s left hand covered the hole as his right found the pistol’s grip and he hefted it forward. The muzzle rested for a moment on Adolfo’s forehead as Güero’s index finger searched for the trigger. The hammer fell on the chambered bullet, and it passed through Adolfo’s head and shattered the plate-glass window on the dead man’s front door.

             When Adolfo hit the ground, the gauchos yelled, the sound muffled by the wail in Güero’s ears as he moved the gun and stopped them in the dust. A woman came from the inside of the house, her knees grinding on shattered glass as she fell over the man and choked on her curses. Güero kept the gun on the three men as he left a trail of blood down the stairs and made his way back to his car. Flies found their way to the dead pig and each man glared thick with hate, but not one stepped forward. Güero fell into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. The tires spun before the car found traction and Güero was gone.

  #

            He fell out of the car and at Pimotl’s feet, his hand shaking as he lifted the letter up like a prayer. The old man looked down with a smile and helped him up to his feet, supporting the white man’s weight as they walked towards the shore. The two men sat on the cold sand and watched as the sun grew, a sliver of bright light at the horizon of a dead night. Güero’s fingers clutched the paper, refusing to do anything but deliver his charge.  Pimotl removed his arm from the dying man’s shoulder and received the letter.  He carefully broke the seal and spread the paper over his knees, ignoring the spots of red. Güero did not take his eyes from the ocean. They sat for several long minutes with the sound of the waves crashing, birds calling from the distance.

            When Pimotl asked if he would like to see the letter, Güero softly shook his head, saying it did not concern him.  The old man smiled and together they watched the sun rise. The sun became too bright and Güero closed his eyes, his head nodding forward, his hand still on the wound.  It leaked no more and Pimotl rose, leaving the young man in the sand.  Pimotl walked past the church and lit a cigarillo. Güero’s door swung on the hinge. Pimotl drove in search of his daughter.

            Güero sat on the beach, the spray of the waves washing over his face, until the tide came in, and even still.

___

Chris Deal writes from North Carolina. He can be found at www.Chris-Deal.com.