Treasure Trail

Chapter 1: Happy BirthdayDesert dwelling buzzards conversing back and forth and the shake of a rattler’s tail close enough to hear but unseen brought the feel of an old TV western. The slow clomp of hoof beats kept time with the steps of a cowboy duo leading their horses across the barren, parched earth that was America’s newest frontier. Dry dirt rose with every step, forming a thick layer on the tips of their boots. August put himself in the middle of the story Memo was telling. “Dagnabit, it’s hot!” He felt the sweltering heat. “How long we been walkin’?” And conjured the appropriate jargon and a wild west drawl. “It ain’t been long,” Guillermo said, several paces ahead. The San Pedro Valley desert seemed to stretch on forever, interrupted by only the heartiest sagebrush or occasional cactus. “It sure feels long.” Stifled with half his face shrouded, August yanked off his white Stetson to wave it about for much needed air. Dungarees, a long sleeved undershirt, a leather vest, and the hat, cowboy garb wasn’t Arizona summer weather friendly. “Put ‘at back on.” Guillermo’s bandanna left only his eyes visible when he glanced back. “‘At pale skin an’ yella hair a-yern, the sun’ll roast ya quick.” August scoffed. “Them eyes what look plucked from the sky need shade, too.” “I ain’t knowed you ever noticed what color my eyes is.” When Guillermo’s eyes narrowed, August pulled the hat back over his. “Happy?” Sometimes, he found Guillermo’s bossiness endearing. “Of course I noticed, gringo. Keep walkin’.” Not always. “I swear we been walkin’ a week or more.” If the hat was staying on, the black handkerchief over August’s mouth and nose had to go. “I thought restin’ the horses meant stoppin’ somewhere, not us just gettin’ off ‘em.” “Consarn it!” English was Guillermo’s second language, cowpoke jargon a third. “Cover yer face! The grit’s a-flyin’ mighty.” August knew the bandanna served another purpose. “Why didn’t we wait ‘til winter to jack a stagecoach?” Frustration showed with a shake of Guillermo’s head and the scuff of one boot across ground that hadn’t seen rain for months. “I guess this is as good a place ta wait as any.” They finally stopped walking, though, so August didn’t care. The rock they hitched the horses to was nearly as tall as the steeds. “Behind these brambles is good.” But August had already sat in the middle of the path. “Git up, boy!” Guillermo tugged on August’s arm. “Consarn make me move again…Why can’t we hide behind the rock? At least there’s shade there.” “We gotsta be able to see. Now, quit yer mutterin’. The sun’s indicatin’ the Tucson-Los Angeles Weekly’ll be through in ten minutes er so.” August stood, but he didn’t hide. He took a long pull from his cowhide canteen instead. “And some for you, Moonshine, and you…” The horses got water, too, followed by a loving pat for each. “Why don’t yer horse have a name?” “Never mind my horse’s name. Git yerself behind these thorns.” August huffed. “I’m gittin’.” “And hide yer mug, gringo!” “Once upon a time, you called my face handsome.” “Still would.” Dry, brittle leaves crumbled at Guillermo’s touch as he pushed at the tangle of prickly vines to peer through. “It’s my face what’s messed up.” “Nah. Still perfect, I think.” “I don’t wanna see either on a wanted poster ‘cause some lawman gots a glimpse, so cover up.” “I thinks…” August squatted beside Guillermo in a similar stance, making contact at the elbows, knees, and already aching hips. “You ought take yer mask off and kiss me.” He gently tugged at it. “You know how turned on I git when you call me gringo.” Guillermo’s expressive brown eyes, handsome face aglow from the heat, a thick growth of black whiskers under his nose and over much of both cheeks made him rather irresistible. The smell of his sweat was as intoxicating as dance hall whiskey, and when he ran his tongue across his full, pink, delectable lips, August had to taste whatever saltiness remained after. “I’ll kiss you later.” Now wet with spit, those lips said one thing but did something else. “I’ll kiss you again later.” “Anytime ya want.” “August!” Guillermo spoke for real. “Huh?” “I was sayin’, if ya wanna be a bandito, ya gotsta be patient.” “Oh.” August had been lost in a fantasy unlikely to ever come true. “I’m tired a-bein’ patient. Ain’t I, Moonshine?” “How come yer horse is named after rock gut?” “He ain’t.” August sat on the dry, warm ground and reached up to pat Moonshine’s haunch. “I named him after the way the sky looks when the moon’s still hid by the mountains, but its light starts to turn the black sky silver. ‘Cause of how he’s black but shiny.” “‘At makes sense, I suppose.” “I thought so. Why ain’t yers got a name?” August asked again. Guillermo put his ear to the ground. “‘Cause I ain’t as smart as you.” “What do you think yer name oughta be?” August looked up at the brown and white Pinto, a snort and whinny its only response. “I think he oughta be called Sunday.” “Why Sunday?” “My mother always said black britches is fer farming, and brown ones is fer Sundays with a pristine starched white shirt.” Guillermo smiled, obvious just by his eyes. “You think that’s a good name fer ya?” August reached up high to pat the horse’s muscular rump, “You think so, bandito?” then stole a glance at Guillermo’s. “I think you ain’t know how to shush, gringo.” August scowled, but then he was quiet. “So, this ain’t a one-time thing?” Though not for long. “Robbin’ stagecoaches?” Guillermo smiled again. “What?” August wondered why. “Nothin’.” “It’s our life now? You, me, Moonshine, and Sunday…Stickin’ up money runners and startin’ saloon fights ‘cause some varmint calls us sissies who gotsta take off our petticoats to f**k?” “Who said anything ‘bout sticking somethin’ up? I ain’t even own a gun. Ain’t care what those varmints say, neither.” “Prejudice no goods.” “What’s ‘at word mean? Pre-ju…” “Prejudice. It’s when ya look down on someone just because they’re different from what you are.” “I right should know about that,” Guillermo said. “Well, I’m proud ta be next ta you doin’ whatever we’s doin’ or whatever others think we are, whether we’re doing it or not. I threw the first punch more because of what they said than what they insinuated.” “Them big words a-yours got me all confused, boy.” “What I mean is I don’t care if they think I lay with you, but it makes me mad when they call you names.” “When they’s prejudice ‘cause a-my color, ya mean?” “Yeah. Your brown skin is—” “Or ‘cause a-my face after some other prejudice no goods tried ta set it on fire.” August reached out to touch the blemish—the miscolored, scaly patch on Guillermo’s cheek where hair wouldn’t grow. Guillermo had told of an attack several years earlier after a grueling day in the mines. His head was shoved and held to hot embers when he had the nerve to ask for a wage equal to the other men. White men. “I guess no man ner woman would wanna be with a full-time rustler,” Guillermo said now. “‘Specially one what looks like me.” “I would,” August whispered. “It’s high time people became a little more woke, though.” “Woke?” “Like woke up to what’s new in a day.” “Now you’re usin’ words I ain’t never heard.” “I done just made it up,” Guillermo claimed. “Some Mexican vaquero falls in love with some American gaucho, what’s that gotta be anyone’s business fer but theirs? It’s 1890, consarn it, not 1870.” August thought Guillermo couldn’t get any sexier, but hearing him cuss like a wild west prospector made thoughts of gold and riches vanish in favor of kisses and f*****g right there under the relentless, blazing yet somehow now romantic sun. “Some Mexican vaquero and American gaucho or two in particular?” “I think the heat’s gettin’ to yer brain, kid.” “I ain’t no kid. Turned twenty yesterday, just so ya know.” “Well, happy birthday. Yer still a kid in yer head if not yer body.” “Am not. And I bet there’s lotsa people who’d f**k ya right here in this desert.” “Loot we’ll be grabbin’ I could finally take someone ta bed down in the fanciest lodging house we could git to. Show ‘em a proper good time. Maybe in one-a Miss Tasha’s beds.” “Ain’t the only way to lay in one-a Miss Tasha’s beds to lay with one-a Miss Tasha’s ladies?” “I’ll pay for the whole lot of ‘em.” August frowned. “How much gold you fixin’ to steal from this money runner, bandito?” A pounding rhythm against packed earth, felt before it was heard, interrupted the conversation. A moment later, a rushing brown cloud gave notice. The stagecoach was coming. “I’ll tell you how much.” Guillermo raised one thick black brow. “All of it.” “Then let’s git ta robbin’.” August unhitched the steeds, and he and Guillermo mounted. “Yah!” With the crack of two sets of leather reins, they were on the move. Racing north to meet the stagecoach as the first of a pair of flaring black snouts came into view, the banditos were quickly swallowed by the barren desert’s version of London fog. “Easy, Big Guy.” August stayed close behind the man he’d come to trust over the past few months. Maybe even love. As the sound of thundering hooves and creaky wooden wheels got closer, the sense of sight clouded by grit and brown haze, his heartbeat and breath got harder and faster. “Guillermo won’t let nothin’ bad happen to us.” Should anyone ask, he’d claim to be comforting Moonshine. “Whoa!” The stagecoach driver brought his rig to a quick, jerky stop when Guillermo blocked him in front. One whinnying horse conveyed his displeasure, as did the driver directly. “Get out of the f*****g road, Mexican!” “Git off the f*****g coach and gimme the gold ya’s carryin’.” Bad Guillermo gave August a hard-on. “f**k you, bandito.” The driver threw in a slur and hocked up tobacco spit he aimed at the front right hoof of Guillermo’s horse. “Oh no, you ain’t!” August spoke up. “The gold coins. Now.” He tried to sound tough. “And watch your prejudice mouth.” The driver was a squat little guy, spindly as the one deciduous tree trying to thrive in the inhospitable environment a few miles back. August’s size seemed to give the money runner pause, while the repetitive duet of rattler tail and buzzard caws obviously brought on jitters. “Time’s a wasting, partner.” August dismounted and stood tall, hoping a confident nod, a menacing gesture, would be as effective as more words. Still, the driver stalled. “You can hand ‘em over, or we can take ‘em by force.” Guillermo hopped down, too. “Either way, I’s owed some gold, an’ it seems ta me it’s payday.” “I don’t owe you nothing.” “Anything.” August corrected the obvious northerner. “Or don’t say don’t.” “What?” The guy’s Adam’s apple protruded as he swallowed hard, no doubt ingesting a mouthful of rancid tobacco juice and fear. “Never mind.” “What’s it gonna be?” Guillermo asked. “Ride away whistlin’ without the gold or limp away bleedin’ without it? Either way, you’re goin’ empty handed.” “Damnable criminals.” Just another moment to think, and then the driver rose from his rickety seat. “Get a job or go back where you came from!” August could easily picture his bandito’s whole face lit up with satisfaction, despite the bandanna covering half of it, when Guillermo turned his way. There was pleasure there and, wishful thinking, affection. He knew his own soul shone only for Guillermo. His own eyes and smile brighter for him, too, behind the damp mask now fluttering from a hardly refreshing warm breeze. “I came up with a third choice.” The time taken looking at one another might have been better spent following the movement of their foe. “Guillermo!” August lunged forward the moment he focused there. “I wouldn’t.” What the wiry man lacked in bulk and presumed might, he more than made up for with quickness and dedication to his mission. “Those buzzards sound hungry for white meat and dark. I’m about to feed them both.” The fact the scrawny driver now held a shotgun as long as he was tall likely added to his newfound bravado. “Now who’s outta options?” “Not me.” “Guillermo…” “We came here for gold coins,” his voice was steady, unlike August’s, “and we ain’t leaving without ‘em.” When Guillermo took a step forward, a shot rang out. “Guillermo!” * * * * August sat up in bed with a gasp. “Oh, no!” Though he’d put himself in the old west tale Memo had been telling, in real life, he was happier in a different century, a different part of the country, lying naked in their bed. “Did Guillermo…? Is he…? Did he die?” Just a few days left in September, and a red leaf danced near the window, the first to change on the biggest tree outside August’s upstate New York apartment complex lit up outside with several high wattage floodlights. “Almost certainly by now,” Memo said. “Stagecoaches stopped rolling around a hundred and fifty years ago, and Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Uncle Gustavo was close to thirty at the time.” “Gustavo…I pictured him as you in my head and called him Guillermo.” “We have the same scar from different fires.” August had cringed at that part of the story. “What was the other guy’s name?” But he let the self-deprecation go for the time being. “Alfie.” “Gustavo and Alfie…like Guillermo and August…” “Right, except Alfie was a blond, and my blue-eyed calendar hunk has dark, curly hair, like me. Here.” Real-life Guillermo, who went by Memo, reached for a plate on the nightstand. “Have a sip of Fudgy the Whale.” Hours had passed since they’d settled into bed with two dinner plates, each plate holding half an ice cream cake inscribed Happy Birthday, August, just like it was written on the calendar on the fridge. Now, they were left with a psychedelic puddle of brown, white, and blue reminiscent of Gustavo’s horse and Alfie and August’s eyes. “Thank you.” August slurped from one side, Memo from the other. Because Memo’s hair was wild, long, and wooly, he got melted ice cream in it. “I like to think Gustavo and Alfie got away. Off to enjoy more heists, more adventures, and more romance.” The optimism was nice. “Me, too.” But when August tried to kiss Memo on the cheek, Memo turned away, likely not because August’s lips were sticky. “Don’t do that.” August put those sticky lips to the scar Memo called ugly. “I love you. Every bit, top to bottom.” The numbers on the clock indicated the date on the calendar had changed during the short time the two had slept. Nightmares about the fire Memo had been trapped in just weeks earlier were still a frequent occurrence. He hadn’t yet returned to the pulpit. He hadn’t returned to his faith. If he and August stayed inside, if their world extended no farther than August’s tiny apartment, Memo was almost back to his cheerful, excitable, expressive self. He’d urged August to go through with the annual birthday bash Mamá Cirillo threw for him. She threw one for all her boys. “You can go solo. I’ll be fine.” “No way.” They’d discussed it right in front of the refrigerator where the date was highlighted, August in just underwear, Memo in just a T-shirt. One naked from the waist up, the other from the waist down, that was how they walked around most days, two homebodies home from the hospital. “Someone in the family has a birthday every month,” August said. “And I have another one next year. We’ll go when we both feel better.” Doctor’s appointments were unavoidable. Memo was always on guard. There were no friendly smiles for strangers or random conversations with others in line at the front desk. Memo didn’t even look the receptionists in the eye anymore. “I was never naïve enough to feel the world was all positive, all loving, all good,” he’d said more than once in slightly different ways. “But I never thought of it as frightening and overtly evil, either. Not until some hatful creep tried to burn a building full of people alive just because some of them are l***q+.” Memo ended up with a scar and a gray-ish patch on his cheek that would likely be permanent without cosmetic surgery. Nearly twice as long as his middle finger, it started behind his ear and stopped just short of his chin. Normally, much of it would have been covered with beard growth. Follicle damage prevented that, however, making camouflage, at least temporarily, impossible. August’s hands were nearly healed. He’d been cleared to return to part-time desk duty starting mid-month. “Kiss me, like Alfie dreams of Gustavo kissing him.” August smiled then traced one onto Memo’s lips, dreading the thought of soon leaving him home alone. “Mwah.” “Always a sweet treat, even without chocolate ice cream.” August set his plate aside and plopped back onto his pillow. “So, the gold coins your abuela has are from the Tucson to Los Angeles heist?” Memo made a seesaw motion with both hands. “Maybe, maybe not. This particular piece of Padilla family history is the tale shared most. It’s been handed down through generations. I was probably four or five the first time I heard about bandito Gustavo and his gringo sidekick.” “Leaving out the lovers part.” “Partners only in crime.” When Memo went knuckle deep to collect a trickle of ice cream running down his finger, August’s d**k twitched. “But I have a feeling. Plus, my version of this particular ancestry tale’s more fun.” “Agreed.” “I only remember up to the gunshot. But there’s gotta be more. More story. Different stories. Unfortunately, I didn’t know who to ask.” “Now you do. I’m glad you and your grandmother are speaking again.” “So am I.” “It’s a true blessing,” August said. Abril Padilla had gotten word of the fire that put both of her grandchildren—Memo and his sibling, CJ—in peril. The tragedy, which in her own words was terrible, but what if it had been worse, made her question her choice to become estranged. “I always felt it was temporary,” Abril had shared via Facetime. She spoke all in Spanish, but Memo translated for August. “Now, I realize life itself is, Guillermo. No one knows when their last chance will come to change their mind.” If any good could be found in what happened, just like that, the most senior living member of the Padillo family as far as August knew, a Padilla through marriage, was reunited with the youngest. “Today when we spoke, Abuelita Abril did sort of refer to them as a couple, though. Gustavo and his Alfie. She said it just like that, right after speaking of My Guillermo and his August, remember?” August didn’t speak a lot of Spanish and could only rely on what Memo told him. The youngest of five boys, he was, however, fluent in matriarchal glaring. Abuelita Abril’s eyes, August was certain, bore a hole right into his soul through the screen.