Feast Day of Fools - James Lee Burke [196]
His lack of fear and his whimsical attitude toward his own death stayed with him all the way to the Chosin Reservoir and his imprisonment in No Name Valley, and up until the present, he was not sure why his fear had temporarily disappeared or why it had returned. With time and age, he had come to think of mortality as the price of admission to the ballpark; but why had this road in Mexico taken him back to Korea? Was he finally about to step through the door into the place we all fear? Would his legs and his mettle be up to that dry-throated, heart-pounding, blood-draining moment that no words can adequately describe? Or would his courage fail him, as it had when he dropped a litter with a wounded marine on it and ran from a Chinese enlisted man who stood on a pile of frozen sandbags and sprayed Hackberry’s ditch with a burp gun and shot him three times through the calves and left him with years of guilt and self-abasement that he came to accept as a natural way of life?
The flatbed truck followed the Explorer between the hills, then emerged into a green valley where a paved road lined with eucalyptus trees led due south through meadowland and cornfields and farmhouses that were built of stone or stucco or both. Finally, the Explorer turned off the road and crossed a cattle guard and passed a burned-out house and pulled into a two-story barn that was filled with wind and the sounds of rattling tin in the roof.
Jack Collins cut his engine and got out of the Explorer and pulled his guitar case after him, then shut the driver’s door. “The sun will dip behind that mountain yonder in about four hours. If you want, you can rest up,” he said.
“What is this place?” Hackberry asked.
“It used to belong to a friend of mine. At least it did until the army burned him out.”
“You’ve spent time around here before?”
“Now and then.”
“Working for Sholokoff?”
“I did some contract stuff for him. I work for myself. I never ‘worked’ for Josef Sholokoff.”
“Why the wait?” Hackberry asked. Through a side window, he could see Eladio urinating inside a grove of citrus trees.
“You want to attack a houseful of armed men in daylight?”
“I don’t know if Ms. Ling can afford to write off the next four hours.”
“She hit me with a piñata stick, but I’m risking my life to save hers,” Collins said. “I don’t think she’s got any kick coming. Maybe Sholokoff will take some of the starch out of her.”
Hackberry kept his face turned away so Collins would not see the emotion he was trying to suppress. Through the window, Hackberry saw Eladio turn his back to the barn and zip his fly, then remove a cell phone from his pants pocket. “What’s your plan?” Hackberry said.
“I’ve arranged to have the cellar door and the French doors left unlocked on the patio. Three of us go through the French doors, and two go straight down the steps into the cellar. In the confusion, we’ll pop two or three of them before they’ll know what’s happening. The others will cut bait.”
“How do you know that?”
“They’re for hire. They go whichever way the wind vane turns. How do you think revolutions get won? You get the religious fanatics and idealists on your side, people with no monetary interest. What kind of weapons did you bring?”
“An AR15, a cut-down twelve, a Beretta nine-millimeter, and our revolvers.”
“Y’all didn’t end up with any of that Homeland Security money?”
“Worry about your own ordnance, Mr. Collins. How far is Sholokoff’s place?” Hackberry said, his gaze wandering out the window, where Eladio was walking back toward the front of the barn.
“Three miles, more or less,” Collins said.
“We go