markwildyr.com,
Post #114
Okay, I
surrender. More of Curt Huntinghawk this week. And this one’s for my friend,
Rico. That’s okay, you don’t have to thank me.
As usual,
my Hawk stories are too long for a single setting. So I’ll publish weekly until
it’s finished.
By the
way, last week’s “Punk and Shorty” got a boatload of hits from Hong Kong.
*****
HAWK—OTRA VEZ
Curt
Huntinghawk stood at the edge of the municipal swimming pool burning with
humiliation and cursing himself for letting Grover Whitedeer to talk him into
coming. Not that he didn’t enjoy the water, he did. But he’d overheard
something when he went to take a leak in the men’s room that set his teeth on
edge. Two teens whispering at the back of the restroom failed to notice him
when he walked to the urinal.
“Did you see
him!” one young man squealed… actually squealed. “He’s gorgeous. I’d give an
arm and a leg for his body, but I’d die
for his face! Did you see it? Beautiful!”
“Im-PRESSIVE,”
the second said. “And he’s with another gorgeous hunk? Did you see him?”
“Yes, but I’ll
take the bigger one, sweetie. What are they? Mexicans?”
“Indians, I
think.”
Hawk’s urine
stream dried up. These two faggots were talking about him! Him and Grove.
Seething, he moved to the sink to wash his hands, conscious of sudden and total
silence while four predatory eyes examined every detail of his anatomy. He
stared them down when he went for a towel to dry his hands and then stalked
outside followed by snickers and muted cries of “Fabulous!”
Hawk hit the
water and made ten frantic laps of the pool. Shit! They weren’t saying anything
he wasn’t thinking about Grove Whitedeer. What made the two things different? For
one thing, he knew and liked and had feelings for Grove. Those two were just
looking for a lay. Crap, if Grove had any inkling of how Hawk felt about him,
he’d react this same way. His anger under control, Hawk exited the water in a
graceful power-lunge right up the side of the pool.
“Whoa! Stop
raining on us!” Grove laughed from the lounge he shared with his girl, Berry. “Where’d
you disappear to?”
“Went to drain
the radiator and took a few laps.” The sight of Grove in a pair of trunks that
barely covered the essentials was almost more than Hawk could stand. “You ready
to go?”
Grove pulled a
handsome frown. “What’s the hurry?”
Hawk swiped his
chest with a towel. “That’s okay, I’ll find a ride back.”
“Don’t worry
about him, Grove,” a plump, dusky girl in the adjoining lounge said. “I’ll take
him home.”
That was the
last thing Hawk wanted, but he could see no way out of it. “Thanks, Sheila. Appreciate
it.”
Grove came into
the dressing room as Hawk was changing. “What put a burr under your saddle,
man?” he asked, casually rolling his trunks over his lean, muscled thighs.
"I don’t know. Just
out of the mood. Sorry if I’m spoiling the party.”
Grove gave his
patented smile, one that melted hard hearts and narrow minds. “No sweat. Berry
and me’ll go eat and then head over to my place.”
Hawk laughed. “Is
a piece of ass all you ever think about?”
“Hell, no! Booze
is important. And work’s up there in the top half-dozen.”
Hawk jabbed his
arm playfully. “One of these days some gal you chase is gonna catch you, and
you’ll find out what life’s all about.”
As Hawk knew
she would, Sheila wanted to come inside with him. As he ushered her through the
door of the small adobe he rented, Hawk sighed and decided he might as well get
something out of it. After a meal of green chile stew and buttered tortillas,
he took her to bed. Knowing she and Berry would compare notes later, Hawk gave
it his best. He silently offered prayers of gratitude when she left around
nine.
After he
cleaned up and retired for the night, Hawk couldn’t let go of the incident in
the men’s room. Although he recognized his anger as fear, he wasn’t certain what
he was afraid of. There was nothing effeminate about him, he couldn’t sound or
act like those two if he tried. He’d been with a hundred women but been
intimate with four only men. Ramon Aquila, a young illegal alien, who’d saved
his bacon in the desert after a drug runner’s shot grazed Hawk’s head. They
fell into an affair almost by accident. The intimacy with Brit Guerrero, the
drug runner known as Wolverine who had shot him, began as a contest of
domination and ended in mutual respect and satisfaction. Both of those affairs
were deeply satisfying, but in different ways. Two casual one-nighters on a
vacation trip to Phoenix had proved more unsettling than gratifying.
The thorn in
his backside at the moment was his confused feelings about his best friend. Grove
Whitedeer was his working partner and running mate, but Hawk’s deepening
emotional attachment to the handsome young man would cause problems sooner or
later. At times, he was tempted to confess and pass the responsibility for their
future relationship over to Grove, but Hawk carried his own water… and dug his
own grave, apparently.
Hawk was up
with the morning star, a habit adopted when he came to this southwestern
country a couple of years ago. The cold Sonoran Desert nights were growing chillier,
so he donned his long sweats to take coffee on the front porch. He loved
studying the icy firmament, discovering something new and glorious almost every
morning. Contemplation of the heavens cleared his mind of earthly concerns.
An hour before he was to report for work, the
phone rang. Amadeo Tomé, the head of the Border Patrol’s all-Indian force of
trackers officially known as the Rezagados Colorados and
commonly labeled the Red Rezes was calling everyone in early. Hawk pulled into
headquarters, curious as to what was going on. Grove arrived at the same time,
looking as if he’d had a hard night of it. They walked in together.
“Listen up,”
Amadeo growled even though only four of the crew had arrived. “DEA raided a house in Sombra del Monte early
this morning, and there was a shootout. Six of the traficantes got away.
Found their car stuck in the sand about five miles east of here. Tracks led off
into the desert. They’re running for the border. We’ve been asked to help. Nobody’s
been killed yet, and I don’t want any of us to be the first.”
Amadeo sent two
of his men to the DEA agents waiting at the bad guy’s car to track them from there.
Hawk and Grove, he dispatched to Big Willow Wash to see if they could pick up a
trail.
“Make sure the
radios in your four-bys work,” Amadeo cautioned. “One of these days maybe the
cheap bastards’ll give us some shoulder units. When the others come in, I’m
gonna put them further south and east as backups. Okay, move!”
Grove usually
drove because Hawk had better eyes for the distance although Grove could spot a
footprint in the road as quickly as anyone. They not only tested the radio in
the truck but also the inexpensive walkie-talkies they’d bought with their own
money to keep in contact when they split. The gizmos worked fine if there
weren’t too many hills in the way
Big Willow Wash
ran northwest to southeast so the fugitives would have to cross it at some
point. Its wide, sandy trough made tracking easy if the bad guys didn’t pause
to cover their sign. At the stunted, scraggly tree that gave the deep arroyo
its name, they did some calculating. It was unlikely that the traficantes
had already crossed the gulch. The two scouts climbed the closest hill and
spent five minutes wordlessly scanning the vast flat spread out before them. Spotting
nothing, they decided to split up. Grove drove across the desert south of the
gulch while Hawk walked the wash looking for sign. He shucked his sidearm and
took only his rifle, canteen, and walkie-talkie, setting a steady,
ground-eating pace he could maintain all morning if need be.
Two hours later
he found tracks, but they were all wrong. Too many, and going the wrong
direction. Illegals. He climbed out of the deep gully and raised Grove on the
radio.
“Yeah, I saw
them,” his companion affirmed. “But they’re not our guys, so I ignored them.”
“They’re
illegals and maybe a mule or two, but I’m worried about the bad guys trying to take
them as hostages. You raise Amadeo on the truck radio. In the meantime, I’m
gonna track the illegals.”
“Okay, but
don’t get out of range. These little fuckers don’t talk very far.”
Hawk signed off
and started after the group of seven people at a trot. Judging by the
footprints, they were about an hour ahead of him. He halted when Grove’s faint
radio voice told him Amadeo was calling the INS. Hawk was to stay on the trail
of the group while Grove maneuvered around Big Willow and joined him. At least
one of the traficantes they were chasing had been spotted headed their
way.
An hour later
Hawk topped a rocky hill and saw the wetbacks two hundred yards ahead of him. From
his position he also saw what they could not, a green La Migra van
coming in from the west followed by two four-wheels. The illegals spotted the
dust the vehicles raised and began to break up. Hawk pointed his rifle into the
air and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot cracked across the dry desert
air; the group halted as if they were a single living organism. Then they broke
in all directions, but the arriving INS agents fanned out and ran them down.
After helping
round up the prisoners, Hawk heard a laboring motor and saw Grove bouncing
recklessly across the desert. He’d started walking out to meet Grove when
something brought him to a dead stop and left him fighting to hide his
surprise. Seated cross-legged at the back of the sorry little group was Ramon
Aquila. The handsome youngster saw him, but kept his mouth shut. After too long
a pause, Hawk turned to find Grove trotting toward him, his eyes curiously
searching the group of Mexicans to see what was so interesting to his friend.
“Hawk! Let’s
go. I spotted one of our guys headed south!”
Hawk raced for
the truck, trying to dislodge the image of the young kid he’d assumed was
safely in Denver.
*****
Well,
well… it seems as though Ramon Aquila, Hawk’s first gay lover, has returned.
Will this complicate his growing feelings for Grover Whitedeer, or will it
allow him to cool his jets? But Ramon’s in the clutches of the Border Patrol.
Can Hawk even reach out to him?
Care to
take a guess?
Please consider
ordering Cut Hand and Johnny Two-Guns from Dreamspinner Press. I’d like to convince them to publish the rest
of the Cut Hand Series, including the unpublished manuscript Wastelakapi… Beloved, It’ll take some
help from readers to get Dreamspinner interested.
My contact
information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:
Website and blog: markwildyr.com
Email: markwildyr@aol.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr
Twitter: @markwildyr
The
following are buy links for CUT HAND:
And now my mantra: Keep
on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!
Until next time.
Mark
New post at 6:00 a.m. on each Thursday of
the month until this serialized story is completed..
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