The Gravedigger- Chapter Three

Chapter three of my work-in-progress novel:

He heard the vehicles before he saw them. Revving engines echo through the trees, making it difficult at first to pinpoint from which directing the sound is coming. There’s more than one—that he can tell.

His attention focuses on the county road—the obvious place a vehicle would appear. He stands and the old wound in his hip screams again. It seems like he would have learned by now that his legs need a considerable amount of stretching and warm-up before he can do anything athletic. On this hip, by the time he ran to the county road, the vehicles would be long gone anyway.

He shuffles through a gap between the tombstones. Within a few steps, his leg starts to loosen up and he’s able to jog more naturally, the way he used to before the war.

Something’s wrong. He stops and leans against another large oak, head cocked to the side in confusion. The sound of the engines bounces all around him. Finally, he turns to the west, where he had just been lounging in the shade and eating his lunch.

It sounds like they are coming from there. He takes a few tentative steps in that direction as a feeling of apprehension washes over him. His white and red lunch cooler still lies on the ground by the huge, mossy oak tree and for some reason, the cooler looks like a beacon, announcing to anyone that sees it that there is someone near. He starts back toward the cooler, that feeling inside becoming stronger with every step—all he can think about is putting the cooler out of sight.

As the vehicles draw closer, there’s no doubting they are coming from within the forest and not from the county road. Their approach from the west strikes him as suspicious, thereby solidifying that feeling within that something is not quite right. That sense of danger is something that he’s felt on numerous occasions. He’s trusts his senses: it’s one of the things that helped keep him alive in Afghanistan.

Just over the fence-line is a downed tree. He snatches up the cooler, tosses it behind it, and then scrambles back to the old oak tree to settle in and wait. The louder the engines become, the better focus he’s able to make on the direction in which they are traveling. They are definitely getting closer, and they are definitely not coming down the county road. They’re approaching from the west.

He scans the tree line and his eyes rest on a gap in the underbrush about thirty yards south of where he stands. On the ground he can just make out a slight change in the terrain where two shallow channels—barely-used wheel ruts—emerge from the tree line and cross the open yard to the white rock cemetery driveway. He moves further around the tree so that when the vehicles emerge, the drivers would not see him.

Stay hidden and evaluate the situation. It’s a mantra instilled in him since the beginning of his military training. The engine noises suddenly grow louder as two Jeeps burst out of the gap in the underbrush and into the clearing. They follow each other across the lawn, onto the white rock drive, and then turn back onto the grass and head straight toward the fresh, open grave.

There appear to be only four men—two drivers and two passengers. The rear windows are dark with limousine quality tinting so he can’t tell if there’s anybody else in the back seats. The Jeeps come to a halt and the passengers immediately exit the vehicles. Each man is dressed identically—dark suits and sunglasses. They are all of Hispanic descent but he believes each of them have more Spanish genes than the traits typical of Mexico—all four of these men are tall and lean.

The shortest of the four appears to be the one in authority over the others. He points toward the open grave and starts barking orders in Spanish. Steven digs his phone from his jeans pocket and selects the camera application He slides his thumb across the screen, changing the feature from photo to video. He presses the record button and turns the camera toward the four men near the grave.

* * *

“Tony. Andres. Get him out and kneel him down right there.” Juan waives at the ground by the edge of the grave. Addressing the third man, he says, “Manuel, go find us a couple of shovels in the shed.”

The three men walk away to perform their tasks as instructed while Juan bends over the metal framework around the edge of the grave. He removes the three straps that stretch across the hole. When he finishes, he scans the clearing, looking and listening for any sign that they are not alone.

Tony and Andres return, dragging the hooded man between them. They dump him at the edge of the grave and he falls forward, head striking the metal frame surrounding the grave. A muffled grunt of pain escapes from within the hood.

Juan stands and stares at the man on the ground. He lets the silence build then says, “Take the hood off.”

Tony reaches down, grabs a corner of the hood, and yanks it off the man’s head, revealing a face that’s swollen and bruised. His left eye is a bulbous mass of swollen flesh and a cut above the eye still seeps red. A silver strip of duct tape covers his mouth. Tony rips it off and the adhesive removes the scabs from the man’s lips and a fresh cascade of blood streams down his chin and neck.

Juan squats in front of the wounded man and stairs deep into his one working eye. “Where’s the product?” he asks.

A muddled word escapes the man’s swollen lips: “Please...”

“Please? After everything, you still think that you’re going to get through this alive?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’ve been a part of this organization almost from the beginning—even longer than myself.” He pounds his chest for emphasis then pushes the man’s head and screams, “But you had to get greedy!” He slaps him and his hand comes away bloody. He wipes most of it off on his pants leg, then pulls a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe off the excess.

“Now, I’ll ask you again and this will be the last time. Where’s the product?”

“Sold...gone,” says the man on the ground. He tries to push himself up but crumples back to the ground.

“Who bought it?” Another slap to the face but the man remains silent. “Get him to his knees!” Juan pulls a 9mm Beretta from a holster concealed under his left arm. Tony and Andres lift the man to his knees and hold him up between them. The man’s head lolls forward.

“You know how we operate.” Juan paces in front of the man. “I can’t believe you’d risk your life like this.”

The man says something but Juan can’t make out the words. He leans down, his face only a few inches from the ruined, bloody face of the other.

“Say again?”

“My family...needed money.”

“Your family?” Juan screams. “Your family!” Spit flies from his mouth and lands on the man’s face in bright white streams. “We were your family!” Then, in a voice too quiet to carry, Juan says, “We would have helped you if you would have only asked.”

Juan waves the pistol in front of the man’s face and uses the barrel to lift his head. “And now you and your family won’t be needing anything, will they.”

The man’s one eye opens wide. “No. Please. Don’t hurt them,” he says through lips that can’t quite function well enough to form words.

“Oh, it’s too late for that.” He makes a dramatic showing of checking his watch. “Your parents, your grandparents, your aunts, uncles, and cousins in Mexico? They should all be disposed of by now.”

The man’s head lowers as he repeatedly cries, “No, no, no!”

Again, using the barrel of the gun, Juan forces the man’s head up. “And that pretty little wife of yours...and those two little daughters—I plan on taking care of them personally and—well, I’ll just let your imagination run wild with that image.”

He turns to Tony and Andres. “Take note, my friends: this is what happens when you go against the organization.” Juan lifts the pistol. The barrel is only a few inches from the kneeling man’s head. His finger tightens on the trigger and it moves millimeter by millimeter until...

...a shout echoes through the clearing.

* * *

Manuel pulls open the door to the shed and rummages around inside for a couple of shovels but all he can find is a short handled spade with a thin blade. He exits the shed to the sounds of Juan’s voice yelling in Spanish at the traitor. Beside the shed is a parked backhoe. He crosses to it and as he walk around it, he places his hand on the metal housing that covers and protects the engine.

“Caliente!” he shouts, jerking his hand away from the hot metal and rubbing it on the leg of his pants. If the engine’s that hot then...

“Senor!” he shouts. He turns toward the Jeeps and Juan steps out from the other side.

“What?”

“Somebody’s been here.”

“We know that, how do you think this grave got here?”

“No...Sir...I mean...someone’s been here within the last few minutes.” He points at the backhoe. “Engine’s still hot.” He hold up his hand to show Juan the angry red blisters already forming on the palm.

* * *

Juan takes a few steps toward Manuel. He glances toward the backhoe and then his eyes follow the tracks that it had made in the ground around the grave. He stepped onto the white rock drive as Manuel joins him.

“No trailer,” says Juan. “The gravedigger drove it in.” He points to the tracks leading up the drive from the county road.

Manuel says, “Maybe somebody picked him up?”

“Maybe.” Juan shouts over his shoulder. “Tony!”

“Yes, sir?”

“You and Manuel each take a Jeep. Sweep the road two miles in each direction. If you see the gravedigger, call me on the radio.” He reaches into the passenger door of the closest vehicle and grabs a small hand-held radio. With no cell phone coverage, the radios are the only means of communication.

Tony asks, “What do you want us to do if we find someone?”

“Radio me first and I’ll make a decision then. Now go.”

Tony and Manuel each climb behind the wheel, fire up the engines, and then speed away down the drive. Manuel takes the lead and turns south on the country road. Tony turns north. Within a minute of leaving the cemetery, Tony is on the radio. “Got a truck and a trailer about a half mile up the road. The truck has a flat and there are marks in the ground that match the tracks on the backhoe.”

“No sign of the driver?”

“No.”

“Both of you get back here.”

Juan turns a complete circle and scans his surroundings again. There is someone here; he can almost feel it now.

Tony and Manuel return, exit their vehicles, and stand waiting for further instruction.

Quietly, Juan says, “Keep your eyes peeled. I think the gravedigger is here...hiding...watching us.”

“What are we going to do?” Manuel asks.

Juan pulls his wondering gaze from the trees and looks back down at the traitor. He says, “Let’s see if we can’t shock him out of hiding.” He takes a few steps closer to the man kneeling in font of open grave. “Get him to his feet.”

Andres pulls the man up but the traitor almost pitches forward onto the ground again so Tony steps forward to help. Together, they hold the man upright between them. His mumbled pleadings continue to spill from his broken, bleeding lips but Juan is beyond hearing him now. His mind is now on the messy task ahead of him.

Juan lifts the gun.

He steps closer and places the muzzle against the traitor’s forehead. He gently adds pressure to the trigger and watches the gun’s hammer pull slowly away from the firing pin. This part always mesmerizes him—watching that hammer draw back toward its release point. Once its reached—faster than the eye can see—the hammer slams forward into the firing pin; the firing pin strikes the firing cap which in turn creates a tiny spark that ignites the gun powder within the cartridge. The combustible material expands and forces the lead bullet away from the cartridge and out the gun’s muzzle. The lead bullet then strikes the traitors forehead and the force of the soft metal striking bone causes the projectile to fragment. The largest piece maintains its trajectory through the traitor, leaving an exit wound ten times larger than the entry wound. The smaller pieces quickly lose momentum and bounce around inside the traitors head like a ball hitting the bumpers of a pinball machine.

In the space of a millisecond, it’s over and the lifeless body of the traitor falls backward into the open grave.