Yeagers mission, p.1
Yeager's Mission, page 1
Yeager’s Mission
Copyright © 2016 by Scott Bell. All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: May 2016
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Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
This one is for Earl Bell, the inspiration for Abel Yeager.
Chapter 1
The dog heard it first.
Six months old, the German shepherd pup already weighed forty pounds and had feet the size of a pony’s hooves. Rascal’s radar-dish ears came to attention, catching Yeager’s eye as he sipped from a cooling cup of coffee.
“What is it? What do you hear?” Yeager was rocking on the porch, putting off another trip to the hardware store. He measured remodeling projects by the number of trips for different—or replacement—supplies. So far, the bathroom remodel was a three-trip job with no end in sight.
The dog flicked a look at Yeager, and his tail thumped the wooden porch. Silly human, his look said, can’t you hear that? And then Yeager could. The whump of a helicopter’s rotors beat the air somewhere over the hills to the south. Yeager tilted his head, trying to catch more of the sound. The chopper was heading their way, flying low from the sound of it. Only one guy he knew would come to visit in a chopper.
“Hey, Charlie,” Yeager called over his shoulder at the screen door.
“Yeah?” Charlotte’s voice came from several rooms away.
“Company coming!”
Rascal trotted to the edge of the porch, planting his front paws on the top of the railing, tail swishing in time to the beat of the rotors. He woofed and twisted a look back over his shoulder at Yeager, tongue lolling out as if to say, What fun! Company! Yeager joined him at the rail and tossed out the cold dregs of his coffee.
To most people, the view from the porch wouldn’t be anything special. Low mesquite-and-oak-covered hills surrounded the house in all directions except for a flat field in front. A gravel drive ran from the barn-slash-garage to his left all the way to the main road, fifty yards across the field.
The screen door banged, and Charlie came out. The sight of her slugged Yeager in the chest whenever he wasn’t expecting it—a little tap under the sternum that made his heart jump. How a woman of her quality and beauty would want anything to do with a beat-up trucker, an ex-sergeant who’d made it through high school more by luck than application, was a mystery he pondered every day.
Today she wore jeans and running shoes and had thrown one of his old flannel shirts over a blue tank top. She brushed back her red hair, the color of old pennies, with one slim hand. Long legged with a loose, rolling stride and a sunny smile that wrinkled her nose, Charlie could stop a parade by walking past it.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Victor, I think. At least, Brainless here thinks so.”
“I’d better put on another pot of coffee.”
The shepherd woofed again, more emphatically, and a Vietnam-era Huey topped the hills, thumping the air with a percussive beat. Rascal went berserk, dancing in circles and barking. The dog liked his Uncle Victor. A lot.
A heavy, sharp-toothed demon curled up in Yeager’s stomach. Victor “Por Que” Ruiz visited every couple of months, but he never arrived unannounced only two weeks after his last visit. Yeager frowned, and his eyes narrowed.
Rascal made a dash for the front yard, but Yeager had a hand on his collar by then. “Hold up, Brainless.” He had to yell to be heard. “That chopper will squash you like a tomato.”
“He knows what you mean when you call him names,” Charlie said, covering her smile with a hand. “He’s very sensitive that way.”
“Sensitive. Yeah. That’s the word I was thinking.”
The Huey settled in the field in front of the house, flattening the grass and blowing dust into a minihurricane before shutting down with a long whine. Victor Ruiz waved from the pilot’s seat, flipped some switches, and hopped out while the rotors were still winding down. He held up a finger and ran around to the other side of the helicopter to open the door for his passenger.
“Who’s he got with him?” Charlie shaded her eyes against the early-morning sun.
Yeager shrugged and held Rascal’s collar. “Sit!” he snapped. The big pup looked hurt but complied, though his tail wagged so hard it threatened to come loose. Uncle Victor alone was cool, but Uncle Victor with company was a romp in a doggie-biscuit forest.
“I don’t know,” Yeager said. “Looks like… a priest? What the hell?”
“Maybe he’s here for a wedding.”
“Hah. Funny. He’s probably taking the itemized version of Vic’s confession. That right there would take a month at least.”
“Victor’s moving well,” Charlie said. “His leg’s not bothering him at all anymore.”
“Take more than a bullet to slow him down,” Yeager said. Victor was built like a nuclear reactor: short and powerful, as if somebody took a shrink ray to Arnold Schwarzenegger and made him a tiny Mexican muscle man.
“Hola, amigo!” Yeager called out with a wave.
“Hola, yourself, you ugly gringo!” Victor and his companion straightened up when they were past the arc of the slowing blades. The muscular man wore a standard green flight suit with a myriad of insignia patches, no two of which matched. The man walking beside him stood a head taller and fifty pounds lighter with a narrow face and dark hair combed straight back.
Rascal whined, and his entire body quivered. The mournful look he cast at Yeager could have won him an Oscar. Best Ham Actor in a Dog Suit.
“Go on, mutt.” Yeager released the dog, who launched off the porch and bowled into Victor with the momentum of a furry freight train. Yeager and Charlie followed the dog at a more adult pace, holding hands. Yeager studied the priest. He wore a black shirt with a white dog collar, a black blazer, and blue jeans. Though thin and young, he carried a solemn expression more suited to a man twice his age.
While the dog barked and cavorted around his long-lost friend and the new playmate, Yeager glanced at Charlie with a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t look at me,” she said, keeping her voice pitched low. “I didn’t ask for a priest. Rascal! Don’t jump on company. Get down!”
Victor wrestled the dog away, worrying the shepherd’s ears and telling him that he really was a very good dog. Rascal rolled over for a vigorous chest rub, wiggling his butt into the grass.
“Stop corrupting my dog,” Yeager said while Charlie told the priest how sorry she was for Rascal’s behavior. Up close, the man looked even younger than Yeager had first suspected.
The boy’s barely out of college, if that. And why is he hanging around with Por Que Ruiz, of all people?
“No need to apologize, señora,” said the priest. “Your dog is very… exuberant.”
“Yeah, exuberant.” Yeager shook hands with the priest. “And he’s sensitive. Abel Yeager.”
“Of course, Señor Yeager.” The priest looked confused but smiled anyway. “Dominic Yglesias.”
“So what brings you out to see us?” Yeager asked.
Charlie jabbed him with an elbow. “I’m sure that can wait until we’re inside, Father Yglesias.”
“Please. Call me Dominic.” He smiled as Victor snagged a stick off the ground and threw it across the yard. Rascal was off in a flash. “And it is a long story, I’m afraid.”
“No, it ain’t.” Victor joined them, brushing grass from his flight suit. He grinned at Yeager. “It’s simple, hombre. Some people down in Mexico, they need their asses kicked. You up for it?”
Charlie gave Rascal a beef bone and left him outside while everyone else gathered around the kitchen table. She tried to ignore the ice-cold ball of dread expanding under her chest. She rinsed the coffeepot, refilled it with water, and got the machine going again. A plastic container of yesterday’s scones took a minute in the microwave to warm up and soften. She arranged them on a Blue Willow serving plate and set it on the kitchen table along with a butter dish, a pot of fresh strawberry jelly, and four small dessert plates. Her pulse thumped so hard she could feel it in her neck. Get a grip. It’s only Victor.
But he wanted Abel to go back to Mexico—back to a place they’d barely escaped with their lives. And Victor wouldn’t ask for help if it was going to be easy. So no matter what his friend wanted, it meant Abel would be in harm’s way. Again.
&
She set mugs, milk, and sugar on the table and went back for the coffeepot.
“Thank you, Señora Yeager,” Father Yglesias said when she poured a cup for him.
Victor cackled his silly laugh. Her heart warmed, and the block of ice in her chest melted a little.
“No, Father Dominic, not Mrs. Yeager. At least…” She hesitated and looked at Abel, who gave her a rueful smile.
“You might as well tell him,” Yeager said.
She smiled and laid a hand on Abel’s shoulder. “At least not until the spring.”
“What?” Victor jumped up with a comic look of surprise. “You’re gonna do it? You’re getting married? Holy fu—uh, hot dang!”
He tackled her in a bear hug that squeezed the breath out of her lungs then dropped her and thumped Yeager on the back.
“How’d you do it?” Victor grabbed her by the arms and shook her. “Was it drugs? Mind control? Hypnosis?”
“Just an iron skillet to the head once or twice,” Charlie said, laughing. “You know, he gets pretty agreeable with a concussion.”
“Man, that’s awesome!” Victor punched Abel in the arm then paced across the kitchen. The short man brushed his hand across his flattop, making the hair squish down and spring back up. He jerked to a halt and pointed a finger at Yeager. “I know, esse. Your first kid, you need to name him Baker. Then your family, you could be Abel, Baker, Charlie, and David. A, B, C, D, huh?”
“Yeah, I don’t think so, buddy.”
Father Dominic leaned across the table to shake Yeager’s hand. “Congratulations. A marriage is a beautiful thing.”
Charlie shooed Victor back to the table and went to check on the coffeepot. The ball of ice returned to her chest, replacing the happy glow lit by Victor’s enthusiasm. She finished stacking the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. Earlier that morning, the day had promised nothing more exciting than watching Abel battle the bathroom remodel. But that was prehelicopter. She ran a dish towel across the counter with quick, jerky motions.
She looked at Abel from the corner of her eye while pretending to stare at the coffeepot. Strong enough to pull a stump out of the ground with his bare hands, Yeager was built like the diesel engine of the semi he once owned. He had mallet-like hands that could drive a fence post—or caress her cheek with a tenderness that left her breathless—and the saddest, most brooding pair of eyes that could melt her insides when he smiled at her.
Stop being such a… such a wuss, Charlie. Jesus, woman, get a grip. He’s not gone yet, and you don’t even know what’s going on. Get some control of yourself. Six months ago, you were running your own business and raising a son single-handedly. Falling apart isn’t your style.
Charlie forced a smile and snagged the pot. “Anybody want some more coffee?”
Chapter 2
Juan Guerrero decided today would be his thirteenth birthday and that his name would be Artemis d’Artagnan—Artemis for the hero Artemis Fowl in Colfer’s books and d’Artagnan for the bravest musketeer of all. Esteban, the janitor, had once told Juan he could decide such matters because no one knew his real name or birthday anyway.
He hiked the mountain trail high above the village of Rascón, scuffing his sandals in the dirt and pine needles along the trail. A swishing to his left, downslope, snapped his attention to the fleeing tail of a mountain goat, flashing between the trees before disappearing in the thick brush. Juan shifted his burlap knapsack to his other shoulder and continued on. The sun had risen over the horizon and burned away the mountain chill. He wanted to make the cave before the day got much warmer.
“I can make my name whatever I want, right?” Juan said to his dead brother, Armando. He spoke with Armando from time to time, especially when he was alone. Something else Esteban had taught him: Armando was with God, and you didn’t have to get on your knees to talk to God. And He was everywhere. That meant Armando was everywhere, too, and could hear Juan anywhere he happened to be.
“The priests, they chose my name when they took me in,” Juan told Armando, not for the first time. If Armando was tired of this story, he didn’t have to listen—he could go sing with the angels or whatever. “They picked Guerrero because the people found me there after the narcotraficantes killed you and our parents.”
He negotiated a fallen log in the trail by first hopping on top of it then jumping off with both feet together to land with a whump three feet farther on. “But why Juan? Such a boring name! The priests have no imagination, Armando. None at all.”
For the twelve years he’d lived at the orphanage in Rascón, Juan had found the lack of imagination among the priests to be their one great failing. Except for Father Pepe. Juan smiled. Father Pepe can find an adventure in a simple trip to the toilet.
He kicked a pinecone down the trail, and something twisted and chattered a dozen feet away. He froze and studied the black-tailed rattler blocking the trail. Easily two meters long, the snake aimed his wedge-shaped head at him, flicking his tongue and ticking his tail in warning.
“So, Señor Snake, you think to challenge me for the trail, hey?”
He set his pack on the ground and dug into his pocket for the handful of rounded stones he kept there for a need such as this. Juan zipped one, two, three rocks in a row at the snake. The first three were hardly out of his hand before he had another three ready. They were not necessary. Juan’s first volley scored three out of three hits, one directly on the snake’s nose. The rattler knotted into a spaghetti curl and rolled more than slithered as it tried to get away. The snake surrendered the trail, clearly beaten.
“Hah! Take that, devil snake,” he shouted as it slithered into the brush, moving as fast as it could through the thorny acacia and flowering manjack trees.
Father Dominic had told him once he had the arm of a major-league pitcher, like Nolan Ryan. Whoever that was. He also said he would take Juan down to Ciudad Guerrero to play baseball when he was older, perhaps enroll him in the local school so he could play with other boys his age.
Boys with a family.
“Hmmph,” Juan said. Who needs that, huh?
With the sun still two hours from noon, Juan turned right from the main trail at a place he’d marked with a piece of white quartz. He followed a much narrower path heavily overgrown with species of bushes he had no names for. The trail ended in fifty meters at a sheer cliff face. The only feature in the rock wall was a vertical cut as wide across as a large car and as tall as two men.
The floor of the cave was solid rock with a scattering of dusty, dead leaves and a blackened ring of stones at the entrance. Juan found the scat of some animal and studied it in minute detail, picking apart the dried clods with a stick.
He sat against the wall of the cave and placed his knapsack between his knees. Juan retrieved a water bottle and took a long drink before setting it aside. Next to that he set a cloth bundle with several stolen tortillas and a small plastic container of beans. The thought of lunch made his mouth water, but he resisted the impulse to eat everything at once.
“You will just be hungry later,” he told himself. Instead, he dug a book from deeper in his sack. Los Tres Mosqueteros. He was halfway through the book and couldn’t put it down. He kept it hidden because the other boys would make fun of him if they knew he was reading books for more than just schoolwork. This was the reason he escaped the orphanage and made his way to this small cave high in the mountains. Here, no one would bother him while he read, and better yet, none of the priests could find him and give him chores or more schoolwork. He was safe from algebra, at least for the day.
Today, as for the past several days, the priests had been too busy to notice where he went or what he did. The earthquake had disrupted their routine, and they squawked around like angry chickens. He found it much more pleasant to stay out of the way and not be drafted into extra chores.
Juan had just cracked the book open to where he’d left off when a sound drew his attention to the forest outside his cave. His first thought: fireworks somewhere near the village. But then his brain caught up with his ears.
