The Yellow Earth: Free Preview

 

"He will not deal in it, understand. But, for a price, he might tell you where to go. I don’t know where such a place is. But it would be somewhere deep inside Mexico , a small town off the beaten path. A place where people are left alone. A place not far from where the right type of cactus grows.”

“Down!!!” Robert yelled, pushing them both behind a parked car. A single high-powered rifle shot ricocheted off a rock inches from where they had just stood. Jimmy and Robert instantly had their guns out. “All I saw was a flash off to the east,” he panted.

“That was no .22,” Jimmy observed, his voice wavering. “Something long range. He could be a thousand yards out.” Another shot fired, this time from directly in front of them. The car’s windshield shattered, cracks spreading out in a radial pattern from the bullet hole.

“There’s two of them,” Robert said. 

“Fuck! Not much we can do with these popguns. These guys are playing long ball.” Jimmy’s gun hand was shaking, the pistol’s elongated barrel chattering off the car’s metal fender. He closed his eyes and muttered to himself, “Steady.” 

“What the hell is this? I told you we were gonna get hit,” Robert said angrily.  “They must’ve followed you from Marquez’s. Probably been watching us all the time.”

“Possibly,” Jimmy agreed. “The H you bought,” he said to Jonathan, struggling to keep his breathing even. “You bought it for four thousand, since the law changed it is worth six, maybe more. These men will kill us all for a tenth of that.” 

“What are you saying?”

“Shit!” Another bullet hammered into the cars frame and they felt it shudder. Robert leaned over, his face inches from Jonathan’s. “Let me explain it real clear to you. What he’s saying is that you toss the Hoddentin out there.” He pointed to the street. “They’ve been following us. They know we have it. If they can get it without a fight, they might let us live.”

“They won’t,” Jimmy disagreed. “They want to demonstrate to all that they own the streets.  But it might provide an opening…” His body shook in a long convulsion.

“What’s the matter? You hit?”

“No, I’m fine. Never mind. If you toss it out there, it might give us a chance to slip away. They want us, but they won’t pass up the chance for a good patch of H. Just make it a good throw.“

Jonathan sat back, his legs stretched out in the gutter, his back leaning against the protective solidness of the car, weighing his options. He pulled the small derma-patch from his pocket and looked at it, running his fingers along the sealed plastic edges. Suddenly he jumped to his feet and, with a speed that very nearly matched that of his NFL prime, sprinted to the middle of the gravel street. He gripped the patch firmly between the thumb and index finger of his right hand and stuck his arm straight up in the air. Then he stretched his left hand up, mimicking a man under arrest. With a single definite movement he torn open the plastic, dropped his arms and stuck the patch just below his right ear.

The two would-be thieves were so stunned by this act of seeming bravado they did not shoot, instead watching the stupid gringo’s every move through their 24x zoom scopes. When the patch became glued to his skin, the penetrating agent was gone, effectively destroying it for anyone else’s use. Their spirits dropped, there would be no big pay-day this morning. Now it was time to make him pay. They both squeezed the carbon triggers at the same time.

Within a half-second, the chemicals in the patch seeped through the layers of Jonathan’s skin into the thousands of small capillaries that joined to larger veins and arteries. After that, within one beat of his heart, the first initial surge of the drug, having an effect not unlike a massive dose of speed, was carried to every inch of his frame. By the time the snipers had recovered from their disbelief and fired, Jonathan was literally vibrating, twitching as his muscles coiled and uncoiled in spastic shock. The bullets streaked by to the left and the right of him. He collapsed and spasmed hard once.

Robert and Jimmy had both thought Jonathan would be cut to pieces beyond the protection of the car. Robert had lunged at him as he had sprinted away, but he was just too big and too fast to stop. They, like the snipers, had watched, stunned, as he attached the derma-patch. Then, they had looked at each other, nodded once and quickly crossed the exposed sidewalk before disappearing like two ghosts down an alley, leaving only a barking dog behind them.

The snipers whirled when they saw movement behind the car, but the two were gone so fast they couldn’t get a shot off. They turned their attention back to the man lying in the street wondering if one of the bullets had found its way to a vital area, but the tall white man was up and running at a full sprint away from them. One of the snipers, reputed to the best shot in the entire Sonora region, managed to adjust and keep the figure in the crosshairs. He fired twice, and saw the characteristic blood spray of a hit, before his target vanished behind the trees and buildings of the south plaza.