The Creed of Violence - Boston Teran [72]
They pressed on with the stencil of the truck long and sleek upon the earth. They were buying time for the hourglass when far ahead in the melting heat a floating illusion of water damn near shimmering like sunset. John Lourdes yelled to Rawbone to come about and he did ... and was sure of nothing that he saw.
It appeared to be some vast standing lake that would blink and disappear as the ground dipped, then it would liquid back up out of the desert clay as the truck wheels climbed some hardened dune.
It was there, then gone, and then it was—
The truck braked. The men got out. They walked to the edge of that still and seemingly endless body of blood-colored water.
"The storm that came in from the Gulf," said John Lourdes.
"Dry lagoon ... this'll be nothing by tomorrow."
Rawbone ran to the truck and grabbed the binoculars. John Lourdes looked up shore and then down. The damn thing stretched on for how far he could not tell. He stepped into the water to test its depth. Rawbone scanned the desert. That body of dust had broken into two widening wings.
"We've got just a couple of beers' worth of time before they get here."
He turned to find the son near forty yards on into that glassy red muck.
"How deep do you think it is at the worst?"
The father understood. "We get stuck out there-"
John Lourdes hurried to shore and hustled past the father and jumped into the truckbed.
"We're too heavy. And if the tires sink-"
John Lourdes was surveying what they carried. There were four drums of gasoline and a few crates of munitions. "Look across that lagoon," John Lourdes said. "You can see slips of land. It wasn't more than a few inches where I walked."
He'd grabbed a crate and spilled out its contents. He now tossed back in a few hand grenades, dynamite, a reel of cable, the detonator. He slid the crate to the father. "Put that up front."
He jumped from the truckbed and ran to the cab. He was on one side, the father the other.
"You're always one to throw around a remark," said the son.
"I pride myself on having a good wit."
John Lourdes pointed to the lagoon. "Do you think you could part the red sea for us?"
WITH RIFLE IN hand Rawbone loped ahead of the truck. Water spilled out through the slow-turning wheel wells and John Lourdes kept watch from the cab. Every time the truck sank or the tires spun he sweated out the moments till the reflection of the rig on what looked to be a pan of liquid fire rolled on.
Rawbone swung about and looked back. The advancing riders were no longer dust but men trampling down upon the phalanx of their shadows stretching out across the earth.
This was to be the hour. They swung the truck up onto an island of red clay in the heart of the lagoon. They plotted their defense. They protected the tires with crates. They rolled two drums of gasoline out from the truck until they were almost submerged. They knifed holes through the metal casings large enough to wedge in sticks of dynamite. They set the charges and ran the wire along the surface of the water to the detonator behind the truck. They would have the sun at their backs, and if they could survive to see nightfall they might yet steal away with their lives.
The oncoming battery of guards reached the edge of the lagoon. Doctor Stallings had one group under his command, Jack B the other. Stallings focused his binoculars. The truck sat sideways on a shell of ground. The words AMERICAN PARTHENON were streaked wet with red cake kicked up from the wheels, and imprinted like a coat of arms upon the water before it.
Doctor Stallings issued orders. The two wings of the assault started forward at a slow walk, the attackers feeling their way until that slow walk became an easy trot and Doctor Stallings lifted his arm and there was a volley of gunfire from their ranks followed by a storm of flares.
The shells exploded against the truck, above it, in the water before it. The air burned and stank, the sky discolored. John