Excerpt of Gone To Ground by Morgan Hatch

Alex sat in the back of Manny’s dark blue Impala with Chuco, slowly coming unglued. One of the capitanes, a human tree stump named Tony, was in the front passenger seat, one hand out the window holding a Modelo, a pair of Loks slung backward around his fat-folded neck. Manny had doused himself in cologne, dragged a comb through his hair, and had a pressed white shirt, giving the impression he would offset his evening’s sins by putting on his church clothes.

The evening air was Santa Ana warm, 210 freeway traffic, the sound of AC units humming away, the whippet-thin voices of children somewhere on the other side of the wall just behind them, and Alex sat with a Glock in his waistband at loose ends with himself. He double-checked the safety, certain he was going to shoot himself in the balls, then ran a hand over the ribbed seat redolent of his father’s carcachita where he would stuff wrappers and search for change to use at the arcade.

Chuco, his leg jackhammering, offered Alex a bottle of tequila with a label featuring a burro wearing a sombrero, now half finished. Alex tipped it back once again, felt his throat catch fire, and passed it back, though his friend shook it off leaving Alex to stick it between his legs. The silence was a heavy blanket that made him feel clammy, like he was yoked to a team of horses, each one wishing they were somewhere else.

“What time is it?” he asked, like punctuality was an issue. No one responded.

He could see across the tracks, a pickup soccer game, kids no older than himself, their shouts like sparks in the night. He went at the tequila, his throat no longer burning, a lust for action starting to fill his head.

“I mean, we’re gonna do this, right, like where’s the train?” He leaned forward against the top of the front bench, poking his head between Manny and this Tony guy, once again a carcachita rewind, Mama and Papa and a trip to the beach. The Tony guy turned slowly, his teardrop tats the nonverbal shutdown, leaving Alex now feeling a black heat of depression. He’d never gotten the full story on the teardrops, just like the sneaker fruit that hung from the phone lines; ask ten guys what it was all about and get ten answers, all part of the myth-making that sold the newcomers.

He gave up on the front seat and turned to Chuco, leg still bouncing. “You got your whistle?” Alex thought he’d try out his street-speak. Chuco gave him a puzzled face, and Alex patted his lower stomach. Chuco nodded and hiked up his T-shirt to reveal a handle-grip poking out of his considerable girth. Alex gave an approving look and realized then and there he wasn’t much cut out for this life.

He could sense a grim resolve coming off Chuco and wondered if the two boys were cut from the same cloth. Theirs had been a friendship of initiates, two boys stuck on the same Denker bench whose primary qualifications were to follow orders and keep their gobs shut. They’d played their part, covered for each other, gave each other heads-up, and yet here, at the moment of truth, Chuco seemed like a stranger. Manny and Tony had pulled them both off the benches two nights ago promising a “taste to take home and spend on the ladies.” Alex knew that’s what most of the guys did, but it seemed like such a waste, like most of the girls who went in for that stuff were stupid and lazy. He liked the girls with hair bands, who buttoned their shirts up, not the prancing loud mouths always leaning in, uneven girls who made him feel uneven just listening to them.

“Strap up, fellas. Train’s comin’.” Manny’s thumb started bouncing on the steering wheel. Chuco shifted his weight but didn’t look at Alex.

The locomotive came into sight pulling a single boxcar behind it. The tracks ran through an open expanse of the north Valley between a set of freeways and then disappeared into the rail yard. Alex noticed a white van idling on the other side of the tracks, lights off, though the glow of phones on the inside told him someone else was here, possibly waiting for the same train. The locomotive slowed with a metallic grind that announced the beginning of whatever was going to happen. The train stopped, and the four of them stared as though expecting circus animals to suddenly climb out. Alex was now drunk and had gone fuzzy on the overall goal of the mission.

“You sure this is it?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Alex wasn’t sure who had said it.

The engine and the boxcar decoupled with a metallic pop, and a moment later, the engine inched away as though glad to be done with the boxcar. Another moment later, a loud clank, and the door on the boxcar slid open maybe a foot, revealing a black interior. The locomotive blew out a cloud of diesel smoke and slowly disappeared the way it had come.

“You’re up.”

“Wait, what?” Alex froze, Chuco already out and moving toward the train. But before Alex could argue the choice of pronouns, another car, a late model Dodge Charger, suddenly pulled up, engulfed in its own dust cloud, and out popped two more jugglers from the benches, gold swinging freely from their necks.

“Apurate!” Manny finally said something, telling Alex to get moving.

Alex got out, slid the gun to his back, and broke into a jog, first in the direction of the soccer game until Manny got on the horn and pointed toward the train. The locomotive was no longer in sight, leaving the boxcar looking like a Trojan horse, suspiciously abandoned, its door ajar. Alex wondered how thorough the vetting process was for Denker, how much time went into sourcing backgrounds on leads. He’d never had much cause to rely on instinct before, but he felt himself in the early stages of a doomed finale.

The two boys from the other car hadn’t waited for either Alex or Chuco but were now standing on opposite sides of the sliding door. The deck of the boxcar was a lot higher up than it appeared at a distance, and the four of them had to work out a system to boost each other up, the last one getting arm-pulled on board. The instructions had been vague—find the crate, open it, and bring the contents back. Fortunately, once on board there was only one crate, wedged under one of the steel rails at the front of the boxcar. Alex walked up to it and examined it, equal parts curious and terrified. It was a locker-sized wooden crate with something stenciled on the side, its lid screwed shut with a series of brass lags.

“Who brought the drill?” Alex asked, already knowing the answer.

“Hijo de puta!” one of the boys from the Charger blurted out. The four of them stood their hands on hips, each waiting for someone to make a suggestion.

“Look for something to lever it open with.” Alex was somehow taking charge, which made him even more uneasy. No way he should be calling the shots. The three others started searching the boxcar, grateful to have something to do.

“Over here!” It was Chuco. He’d found a metal bar and raised it proudly over his head like a prize when the left half of his face exploded, his body pitching forward like a felled tree and hitting the floor of the boxcar with a thud.

Alex dove just as the fusillade tore through the boxcar. The metallic clang of the bullets raining through the steel siding was deafening, Alex doing his best to remain flat and as far from the open door as possible.  And as suddenly as the gunfire had started, it stopped.  The silence was even more unwelcome, the gunmen certain to be on the move. Alex ran his hand over his abdomen, the sudden apprehension that it was blood between his fingers flipping a panic switch, a hot pain flooding his body. He’d never imagined getting shot would hurt so much; his vision went blurry, his sense of things coming in and out. He was losing consciousness but was aware of the two other boys leaping over Chuco and out the door. Alex went to his friend, stymied an urge to throw up, and managed to feel for a pulse but got nothing. For a heroic second, he considered putting Chuco’s arm over his shoulder and carrying him to safety but knew right away that was out of the question.

Another shot split the air over his head, causing him to turn and see that a second door facing the opposite direction was open revealing two men with rifles next to the white van.  He half jumped and half fell out of the door he had come through, landing on the ground, rolling once before staggering back up.

“Wait!” None of the others even so much as turned to watch Alex take two hesitant steps forward before falling down in the weeds, his head gone to soup in semi-conscious shock.

He sat up just enough, saw the boys getting into the Charger, already in motion, doors open, before out of nowhere, a Ford F-150 pulled up directly in front blocking its path. Whether it was instinct or la Virgin or the tequila amplified with the loss of blood, Alex lolled to one side and fell like a reluctant tenpin, looking up at the dusk-teal sky from the protective length of weeds. He heard the unmistakable sound of shotguns getting pumped, followed closely by a volley of fire. He could hear the gravel beneath the boots of the men, now walking his way toward the train, maybe ten feet from his prone form, heard them board the boxcar. A conversation in Spanish began, some loud banging and the sound of the wooden crate being dragged to the door. Alex waited, breathless and bleeding, reciting a prayer he was surprised he’d remembered.

Even lying down, he could see the cowboy hats of two of the men pass close enough to smell the gun smoke still lingering in their wake, then the sound of a diesel engine casually making its exit, leaving only the white noise of the city thrum. He propped himself up on one arm and noticed the blue Impala was gone. He managed to stand and zigzag back toward the dirt road. The Charger sat there idling, its left turn signal blinking uselessly, four doors flung open, bodies hanging out of two of them.

A faint sound of sirens, as he spun and collapsed. The last thing he remembered was noticing how dirty his Vans were.