The Savage(49)

In a state of hysterical anger, Manny took to the dirt of the streets and alleys, asking any and all passersby if they’d seen this female graced by beauty with a binge-bellied male. Heads were shook. Mouths smirked. They’d seen and known nothing. And Raúl was missing, too.

Weeks later, Kabeza’d turned up in an alleyway beneath bean-sack curtains covering her maggot-hole eyes. Her once silk-soft flesh had been pinched by heat and welts that rang into the bones of her wrists similar to branding.

Cotto watched a choice being made, one that Manny knew all too well. One that Cotto did not want to follow, but his hand had been secured in an iron vise that tightened every time he turned his attention from it. Tugging him back, until he realized his true nature. Vengeance.

Anger stained Cotto’s father’s veins. The weeks that passed were learnings from Manny to Cotto Ramos. Teaching patience. Precision. How to become a man whom others dared not cross.

Cotto’s father explained how he’d wanted more for his son. For his wife. To not be submerged back into a chaotic existence of an eye for an eye. The life of criminalities and organized crime. But it seemed there was no other option for him except to do what he had been trained to do. Kill, take, and eliminate any who stood in his way.

It had seemed too simple. Knowing the coyote met at the watering hole with walkers, those who wanted to immigrate across the U.S. border to the north. Wanted to be placed into a menial job in the States, one that Americans didn’t appreciate. Saw as being too beneath them. Where immigrants could earn enough money to send back home. Pay for a new roof, remodel their shacks, build a nest egg for their families, to get ahead and return back home or maybe better themselves and one day become legal citizens.

Cotto and his father waited until Raúl returned to the watering hole. Studied this chicken. Watched and followed his every movement. His going into town. Coming from the watering hole where he met other men, women, and their children wanting to travel to the north. Then his going back home miles and miles from where he’d met them. Once Manny and Cotto knew where Raúl laid his head, Manny came with nothing more than a nickel-plated Colt 1877 Thunderer revolver, not knowing if it’d even discharge the .41-caliber shells from its chamber. He had used what little money remained, buying it from a villager. Entering Raúl’s shack in the dry sand-blasted breach of night, Manny surprised him with “Remember me, you piece of scum?”

Cotto fence-lined beside his father. Watched Raúl, watched his eyes bore out of their coconut oil complexion. From the bone that housed them.

Manny held tight to the pistol. Took in his surroundings. A table to his left. No rugs on the dusted floor. No pictures upon the walls. Shelves to Raúl’s left, Manny and Cotto’s right held a revolver that lay on the center shelf within a clip-on holster. A thick square of shabby leather lay beside it with handcuffs chipped of their silver.

Raúl tensed his hands up like caution signs. “Wait, wait, se?or, you never showed up, only your wife.”

“We showed up. Funny thing, my wife, she showed long before us. Went missing. Was found, rotted and sour as a fresh lime in the gut of a roadkill goat.”

Raúl’s eyes went to his left. Then back to Cotto and Manny. “Was … was not me. I…”

Precision wasn’t Raúl reaching with his left hand to the shelf, where the pistol lay. It was Cotto’s father testing the stale air, parting everyone’s hearing with the tug of the trigger. The explosive kick of the pistol that rifled the lead. Pinched a kiss between the thumb and index bend of Raúl’s reaching hand before his palm grasped the handle of his snub-nosed .38. A thud of a scream coughed from Raúl’s lips. Blood slobbered from the open wound that he pulled into his chest, pawed with his right hand, while the fresh meat of his left breathed a damp decoration about the sweaty cotton of his shirt that expanded with the pound of muscle behind sternum. His thumb hung nearly removed from his appendage.

Cotto froze with shock from his father’s actions. Manny switched the Colt to his left, came with one confident foot after the other toward Raúl. Cotto followed. Watched his father’s right hand rise and reach for the .38. Manny knocked the square wallet to the floor. Pressed the .38 into Raúl’s right, which clutched his bleeding left hand. Pinned both hands to his chest until he screamed in dire pain.

Manny smiled. Pulled the .38 from Raúl. Cotto filmed his father’s actions with his eyes. Watched the weighted revolver’s butt hammer down over the bridge of Raúl’s complexion. Delivering a stress crack that expelled more gore and gave Raúl’s legs a new angle as he fell from his seated position within the chair, his knees thudded into the dusty wooden foundation.

Manny screamed to Cotto, “Get his wallet. Move!” Cotto came from his father’s side, from his stupor, kneeled. Peeled up the billfold from the flooring and opened it. Inside was the weight of a gold shield. An Eagle over top of it with a crest of letters that pronounced SPECIAL POLICE.

Cotto offered the open wallet to his father for viewing. Manny glanced down at the two halves that lay open in Cotto’s hands. Told Cotto, “In this land, no man can be trusted, every person is lawless. It is repercussion of poverty brought on by government that milks its people.” He paused, then barked to Raúl. “On your fucking belly, spread your hands over the floor.”

Twitching, Raúl begged, “But, se?or…”