Into the Beautiful North(71)

“Yeah!” Tacho shouted, jumping to his feet. One of the thugs decked him with one punch. Nayeli was on the boy in an instant, jabbing him in the neck and around the eyes with her nails, striking like a bobcat. He staggered around with her on his back, on his front, up on one shoulder. “Get her off! Get her off!” He tried to bear-hug her, but she head-butted him.

Angel stood in front of Chava and Don Arturo, defending the elders.

“You all right?” he called.

“We’ve got it,” Nayeli replied.

One of his boys turned to help get Nayeli off the kid’s back, and Atómiko swept the staff across the backs of his knees and dropped him into a campfire. He screamed. “My hair! Fire! I’m burning!” His head smoking like a torch, he broke through the bushes and fell sobbing into the creek. Nayeli hopped down.

The remaining thugs circled her and Atómiko. Jimbo had lurched to his feet and limped toward them, gripping his thigh above his ruined knee. The two friends stood back-to-back. Atómiko made patterns with his staff, swinging it around and around, covering Nayeli’s left, then her right. As the three thugs closed in, Tacho and Angel attacked from behind with a frying pan and Jimbo’s abandoned baseball bat. The bat made a horrid flat clang when it hit the nearest fighter’s head. Poor ol’ Jimbo. He dropped like a bag of frijoles.

“Aluminum,” Atómiko noted. “I prefer wood.”

Whap! His staff stung the boy in front of him in the throat. The boy fell to his knees, choking. Atómiko jammed the end of the pole into his solar plexus, then smacked him on each ear so he’d remember the day.

Nayeli jumped in front of the last one standing. She was breathing heavily, covered in sweat. It dripped off her hair. But she was smiling. That was what scared the boy the worst: the crazy beaner chick was smiling. She licked her lips. She raised her fists.

“Hello, baby,” she said.

The boy plunged through the bamboo stand and ran all the way up and out of the canyon.

Nayeli turned to Angel and said, “Do you want a job?”



Chava dropped them off near midnight. Angel was going home with him to shower and buy some clothes. Nayeli couldn’t wait to hold up three fingers to Yolo to see her smile. But her arms were so sore from the battle that she didn’t think she could raise them. Her legs were trembling.

Tacho got out of the car and limped as if he’d been the one fighting everybody.

“M’ija,” he noted, “I am just too old for this. And too pretty.”

She laughed.

Atómiko said, “I am more pretty than you are.”

They walked up the little lawn and found Carla. Somebody had set up a huge inflatable pool on the grass, and Carla was lounging in the water. Atómiko pulled off his filthy shirt and kicked off his shoes and fell into the pool, sending a big wave out onto the grass.

“That there’s the only water that grass has seen this year,” Carla told them.

“?Y la Vampi?” Nayeli asked.

“Gone with that Satan dude,” Carla replied.

Atómiko was blowing bubbles under water.

“Yolo?”

“Inside with the Matt-ster.”

“Gracias,” Nayeli said.

“No prob.”

Atómiko surfaced.

“Pretty thing,” he said to Carla as he moved her way like a crocodile.

Tacho stood there watching Atómiko and Carla as if they were a National Geographic special.

Nayeli stepped into the duplex.

“Yolo?” she said.

She heard it before the screen door had closed: Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!

She could smell incense. Most of the lights were out. Oh-oh-oh! She should have backed out, left right away, but she could not.

She moved forward, toward the sound.

The bed was making thumping, squeaking noises. In Matt’s room. The door stood half open.

Nayeli looked in at them. She watched him atop Yolo. She could smell them. His bottom was pale blue in the window light. Yolo’s thighs were dark, like shadows. Her feet crossed over Matt’s back.

“Sí, sí, sí,” she cried. “?Mateo!”

Nayeli backed out. She tiptoed to the living room. She stepped out onto the porch. She had her hand over her stomach. She put her other hand over her mouth. Yolo? Matt and Yolo?

“Hey,” Carla shouted. “You got a call.”

Nayeli just looked at her.

“El phone-o? While you were out? Una call-o?”

Carla helpfully held her hand up to her face, thumb and pinky extended to form a phone.

“Ring-ring?” Carla said.

“Hurt me,” Atómiko breathed. “Break my bones, devil-woman!”

“Huh?” Carla said.

Nayeli gulped and stepped off the porch. She had tears in her eyes. But really—they weren’t children. They were all grown up. They were outlaws! She hadn’t staked a claim on Mateo. Still…

“Some lady?” Carla continued, fending Atómiko off with one hand. “Your tía?”

“My tía?” Nayeli said.

“Right—Irma? Is that the one?”

“What did she say?” Tacho asked.

“She was lookin’ for Nayeli. Said she’d call back. She’s down at some hotel.”