Page 5 of Vaquero
The day Oz and his men raided her orphanage while she’d been in town begging scraps and supplies, might just prove that bastard’s undoing. Because now Meg was mad. Not only for herself, but for kind and gentle boys like Pepe who still honored a man he might never see again. The papa Pepe spoke of had disappeared two years ago. His mother died of tuberculosis soon after. Pepe had no other family and nowhere to go, which was why he’d ended up on the streets, then in the orphanage. Like every last one of her kids, he was worth everything to Meg. She would save these children, damn it. They were hers. Not Zapata’s.
“Hide yourself, Pepe,” she ordered sternly. “Please, do it now. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
“Are you certain?” he asked, his large expressively dark eyes begging her to climb into the safety of the high branches with him and the others.
Too late. The air filled with noise and the ground rumbled. Scores of armed men in camouflaged uniforms, red bandanas tied at their necks like tribal/gang colors, and dirty black boots, broke through the trees like a dirty wave. Oz’s army had found them.
“Hide!” she hissed, as she ducked back in the shadows of that same tree. Pepe’s skinny arm disappeared up into the abundant foliage overhead. Barely in time. A dirty, rusted, topless Jeep roared into view, crashing over the bushes, saplings, and vines, bouncing over the same path Meg and her kids had walked just moments ago.
Oz himself was here.The ass.Only he didn’t ride seated like most men. That would’ve marked him a mere mortal. No. He stood in the front of the Jeep even as it bounced over roots and uneven ground, holding onto the windshield like a pompous peacock. Swearing and bellowing in colorful Portuguese with every jolt.
Oz was not a big man, not even six-feet tall. His driver was much larger and could’ve killed Oz easily with his hands alone. But what Oz lacked in height, he’d made up for in cruelty. That was how he commanded, with sheer brutality, some leveled against his soldiers’ families.
Dressed in rip-off ACUs, he wore dark glasses beneath his cap and the same garish bandana at his neck as his men. Meg wore a bandana, too, only hers was black, like the shadows she’d melted into. The last time she’d put on Army utilities, she’d been a real soldier, not terrorists like these guys. But hey. That red rag they all wore worked for her. It made every last one of them a target. Told a good sniper precisely where to shoot. Straight at all those bulls-eyes.
And her without her rifle...
Oz bellowed, demanding to know why his men couldn’t find one woman and a few kids. What were they,“Idiotas?!”He denigrated them again and again, but didn’t give anyone time to answer. His diatribe escalated from insults to threats of bloody punishments if she weren’t captured and hanging in his“quartos do general”by the time the sun set.
Meg’s blood ran hot at the image of her dangling like a piece of meat anywhere, certainly not in Oz’s headquarters. No doubt stripped and bloodied. Possibly dead. Or raped and about to be dead. Oz was no respecter of women, any more than men, children, or animals. People, his army included, were just things to be used and discarded on his way to fame and glory.
That this runty little twerp thought he could handle her? Not on his best day.
Where Oz pointed and bellowed, his muscle-bound driver cranked the wheel to go. They’d have to travel around the banyan’s impressive columnar trunks and roots, though. The tree blocked a long portion of the bank. Meg wished she’d told her kids to cling to the riverside of this tree. Surely Oz wouldn’t be able to spot them there.
Frightened now, she leaned deeper into the hollow of her hiding place while the rest of Oz’s army tromped by. She held her breath, making sure her backpack and sarape were tucked in tightly beside her.
This was no professional army. Bronze-skinned, many of the men weren’t wearing complete uniforms or boots. Each soldier looked weary. All were dirty and slick with sweat. Which made Meg smile. She’d outsmarted every last one of these men and their tyrannical leader. So far...
Some carried rifles on their shoulders while others gripped their weapons like shopping bags at their side. Many didn’t have rifles at all, only backpacks. Which might contain ammunition, food, maybe water. Other soldiers, most barefooted, walked the periphery of the main group, swinging scythes, hacking at the thick grasses and shrubbery along their route. Which now snaked around the far side of the tree instead of close to the river.Thank heavens.
Meg held her breath even as her poor heart jackhammered like a beast. But she hadn’t stayed on the ground to become a decoy or a bag of meat. Never. The large, dangling aerial roots dropped long ago from overhead branches of this tree had created hollowed-out depressions in these wall-like trunks. Backed tightly into one of those hollows, Meg prayed that every one of her children listened and obeyed. That no one slipped from those high branches. That no one had climbed too high to come back down safely. That no one cried out in terror if another child fell and was caught. Or killed...
Cradling Dom under her chin to comfort the silent child, she prayed,Oh, Jesus, please help my babies hang onto the branches of this tree.It’s a blessing from You. I know it, and thank You for it. Please keep Oz and his men blind to us. Let them search the riverbank beyond us, not the trees.
She hadn’t needed to worry. In minutes, Oz’s noisy army passed by, his Jeep leading the way, and leaving puffs of black diesel smoke thick in the air. Meg waited only as long as it took for the dust and smoke to settle and the din to subside. Then she whispered, “Come down, children. Hurry fast. We need to run away from here before they come back.”
Pepe dropped out of the tree to his feet first, then turned to help Pedro, Phillipe, and Joachim. Lithe Maria plopped to the ground all by herself. Pepe offered his hand and she climbed up his leg, her brown eyes wide, as she hugged his neck and laid her cheek to his sweaty back.
“Where to? The Giant’s Toes? Are you sure?” he asked breathlessly, his arms now crossed behind him, cradling Maria’s bottom. “Tell me. What do we do?”
Meg shifted the collar of her sarape enough that she was able to kiss the top of Dom’s sweaty head. Her backpack went up on her shoulder. Her determination never flagged. “Now, we run for our lives, children. Run. Run!”
