Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [121]
“I’m afraid they do, Grandfather.”
“Here?” the old man says. “On my farm?”
Johnny nods. He looks down at the floor, unable to face his grandfather. When he looks up again, the old man’s face is streaked with tears. They run down the creases in his face like small streams in narrow gullies.
“Did you come to stop them?” the old man asks.
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“I will go with you.” He starts to get up.
“No, Grandfather,” Johnny says. “It’s better you stay here.”
“Those are my fields!” the old man yells. “I am responsible!”
“You’re not, Grandfather,” Johnny says, fighting back tears himself. “You’re not responsible, and …”
“I’m too old?”
“It’s my job, Grandfather.”
The old man composes his face and looks Johnny in the eye. “Do your job.”
Johnny gets up and bows.
Then he walks out of the kitchen and down into the fields.
134
The air smells like strawberries.
The acrid smell rushes through Boone’s nose as he breathes heavily, sprinting toward the trees, hoping not to be seen. He makes it into the tree line, then turns west toward the reeds. He can run more upright now, in the cover of the trees, and he makes it quickly to where the tree line ends and the reeds begin.
The reeds are taller than he is. They loom over him, vaguely threatening, the tops blowing in the breeze as if waving him back. He pushes his way in and is soon lost in thick foliage. He can hear voices in front of him, though—men’s voices, speaking in Spanish.
The last time you did this, he thinks, you got beaten half to death. He takes the pistol from his waistband and keeps it ready in his right hand. Pushing back reeds with his left, he plows ahead until he makes it to the creek.
He jumps in and wades toward the caves.
135
Sunny can’t paddle into this surf.
The beach break is totally closed out. There isn’t space enough between waves or sets to paddle out there, and the waves are too big to paddle over.
She comes out of the water and moves about two hundred yards south, between breaks, and paddles out onto the shoulder, then starts back north on the far side of the break. She’s not alone in this maneuver—all the Jet Ski crews are out there making the same approach, buzzing around like giant, noisy water bugs. She paddles strong, smooth, and hard, her wide shoulders an advantage for a change.
The Jet Ski crews linger farther out, giving them room for the highspeed run-up into the wave.
The biggest wave Sunny’s ever seen looms up behind her, with another after that. She paddles herself into perfect position for the next wave. It rolls toward her, a blue wall of water, its whitecaps snapping like cavalry guidons in the stiff offshore wind.
A beautiful wave.
Her wave.
She lies down on her board, takes a deep breath, and starts to paddle.
136
The shame is unbearable.
The Sakagawa family name is disgraced.
To think this was happening on my land, the old man thinks, in my fields, under my nose, and I am such a fool as not to have seen it.
It is intolerable.
There is only one way, the old man decides, to redeem the family’s honor. He looks around the kitchen to find a suitable knife, then doubts that he has the physical strength to do what is necessary with a knife.
So he takes up the old shotgun, the one he uses against the birds.
It is not ideal, but it will have to do.
137
Boone crawls up the edge of the creek bed and looks over at the little clearing where he had his confrontation with the mojados.
Now Pablo’s on guard, an ax handle in his fist, ushering about twenty field-workers into a ragged line in the clearing in front of the caves. One of the men who herded the girls walks up the line, collecting money. The workers pull dirty, wrinkled bills from their pockets, and don’t look at the man as they give him the money. There are a couple of white guys in line. They don’t look like farmworkers, just guys who like to do little girls.
The girls go into the