Chapter Ten: No Souls Escape the Underworld

If you knew that somebody you love was going to be taken from you against your will, what you do? Me, I added a locator so that I could always find him. I hid it deep in his guts where I knew the Nords wouldn’t look. Then I made sure to turn on his tracking software. If they found that I hadn’t done something as simple as turning on his locator, they probably would have thought I was up to something.

When I wasn’t attaching the locator, I was fixing Cerbie after the gun troll attack. A few of his wires I replaced with old wire. The springs in his legs were busted by gunfire. I had replacement springs, but not housing. So I bolted an old plastic bottle over the spring. I had to wedge it in, but it worked.

Cerbie’s casing still had holes in it, so I applied some fiberglass and sanded it out. That plugged the holes.

Dad and I had been avoiding each other since I found out about the drug crops. I kept to the garage, and he went out to watch over the herd. I was just finishing with Cerbie, who was twisting his legs and nodding appreciatively, when the garage door opened, bringing in a gust of snow. Dad was there, and he was with somebody else.

“Mateo, this is El Enano Rojo.” Enano is Spanish for dwarf.

“Cause I send people to the ER,” the stranger said. He stepped under the garage lights, and I recognized him as the boy from the brothel, the one that Hel was running out of the door from. He smiled, revealing his metal teeth. He was a Sköll like the one Rocket Girl and I fed to a short-faced bear. In the back of my head, I remembered how the metal teeth gleamed even in the Forever Night.

“I’m here for the metal mutt.”

Cerbie growled.

“Boy, get the dog down from the table.”

“Off, Cerbie.”

Cerbie whined, one head frowning at the Sköll and one pleading to me.

“C’mon down, Cerbie.”

Cerbie jumped off the table and faced me. I leaned down and hugged him. “You’re going to go with this guy for a little while, but we’ll come back for you. Until then, you do as he says, you understand?”

“Yeah, whatevs,” the Nord said. He slapped a restraining harness over Cerbie’s body. Cerbie growled electronically. Enano jerked on the leash that was attached to the harness. “Move it, mutt.”

Cerbie attacked him, leaping for the Nord’s throat. Enano ordered him to sit, and Cerbie dropped into a sitting position, but he did not stop growling at him.

The Nord pulled his gun on me. “You do something to this thing? You alter his programming to attack Nords?”

“No, he didn’t,” Dad said, stepping between me and the Nord and raising his hands. “My boy is gifted with these things. But he didn’t do anything to make the dog violent to you.”

To me, Enano said, “You make him stop, or I will shoot your dog and then I will shoot you, to hell with the crops. Entiendes, cabron?”

I kneeled down and opened his chassis. I pressed a few buttons while sniffing away my tears. “I am resetting Cerbie to default settings. That will make him docile and pliable to you.”

The default reset, and Cerbie’s eyes flashed. He stopped growling at the man and took on that stupid domesticated dog look, all tongue and adoration.

Enano kicked Cerbie. He barked excitedly but did not move.

“Okay,” the Nord said. “If I find out you’re pulling something funny on me, or if attacks me on the way to San Malinche, we’re returning here and we are burning you and your home to the ground.” He jerked on the lead, and Cerbie yelped, but he fell in line. He jumped into the hover car with the Nord, and then they took off.

“Mateo,” Dad said.

“Go to hell.” I retreated to my room.

I tried to avoid Dad as much as I could, but the next day he walked into the living room during math and turned off the console.

“Hey, I was at school! That’s federally mandated!”

“We need to talk.”

I was at my desk, so there was no place for me to go. Dad dragged a chair into the room and sat down in front of me.

“I guess we need to have this out,” Dad said.

I waited on him.

“Son, I know you’re not happy with what I’ve done. I know you would rather I did things differently. Not get involved with the drug trade or the Nords. And believe me, I wish it was different. I wish we had a hundred moths and calves coming in every season and we lived like Kings of Texas, but life took a different turn with us. Our herd is small, and we are lucky to have calves in a season. I barely have enough money at the end of the day to pay for the wranglers and the mortgage and feed us. So I saw an opportunity and I took it. I don’t intend to always raise crops for the Nords. All I need is one or two seasons, and we will be able to buy several herds and a few robots. And then I will end it. Needs must when the devil drives, son.”

I shook my head. “Needs must? To hell with Needs must. You aren’t good only when it benefits you. You are good all the time, Dad.”

“And I am a good person.”

“No, Dad. There are kids dying on the streets of alphatropolises in gang wars because of what you are growing in the Hideout. There are people whose families are being ripped apart and they are lying and cheating and stealing to get their hands on any form of the drug they can get. And worse, Dad. They are overdosing. There is blood all over your salvation.”

Dad stood up and pointed his finger at me. “Now listen here, Mateo. Do you think I give a damn for what happens to some kid a million miles away from here? That’s not my concern. You are my concern. You are my only concern. And I know you want off this rock. Hell knows I see it in your eyes every day, but that kind of money don’t come easy or often, so you got to do what you can to get ahead if you are going to survive on this iceball.”

“You mean like give my dog away?”

“She was going to take you away, Mateo. The Frost Giant ordered Hel to come get you. That’s why she was here. She didn’t want to do it, but she had orders, and she asked me to give her anything else. I had to give her your dog or she would have taken you away from me. I couldn’t stand that.”

Dad was tearing up, and I was a hundred kinds of angry.

“I have a way to get rid of the crop quickly, and to finally get a bull mammoth.”

“What is your plan?”

“I made a deal with the Sisters.”

“The Doña Muertes? They are cultists, Dad.”

“Maybe, but they also offered me double what the Nords offered for the crop.”

“You can’t just go back against the Nords, Dad. They’ll kill us if they find out.”

“That’s why you ain’t gonna say a damn thing. And I know you won’t because you’re a good kid. And when the Doñas run off with our crop, they are going to make it look like retribution for what happened in the Hideout. And when we are done, they are going to give me a bull mammoth. We will have a money, a bull, and the Nords will be off our back. All you have to do is stay here and say nothing.”

But things never go the way they are intended on Mala-Mundial.

Two days later the Doña Muertes showed up. Dad and the wranglers met them out front. I was supposed to stay inside, but there was a window on the second floor of the dugout from which I could watch them. Times like this, I really missed Cerbie. He had a few programs I could have used for listening in on the conversation. I wondered if Hel watched over him in the brothel or if the Nords were using him in bot fights. It was a pretty common form of entertainment here, even if it was illegal on most other worlds. I could see them coaxing him to fight a robot basilisk or a manticore. Unless they altered his programming, he wouldn’t have a chance. The basilisk would rip his carapace open with hits claws and leave his wires strew all around him like guts. I tried not to think of those scenarios. They were like day-time nightmares.

There were lots of Doñas behind her. Like, at least two dozen women. They had with them an all-black mammoth. Chains tethered to his tusks helped them guide the moth.

I know there is a system to telling apart the different rankings of the Doñas, but with the hooded cloaks and intricate makeup, I always had a hard time telling them apart. One was thinner, another was taller. I couldn’t make out much more than that. The one who spoke, she was taller than the rest.

“His name is Mammon,” the Doña said to Dad. “He is young, twenty years old, and was bred to sire many fattened calves.” She handed my dad a tablet. “Here is his paperwork.”

Dad looked it over. Then he inputted the information into a transponder, which was in a syringe. He took the syringe and plunged the transponder into the moth’s hide. The moth groaned. Dad rubbed the transponder into the moth’s skin. That’s when he noticed the cuts in the moth’s skin, like little folded-up pockets.

“Hey, what are you trying to pull? This moth has been tampered.”

“Sr. Cavazos, how did you expect us to sneak all that cragweed into San Malinche? We are going to use this bull as a drug mule.”

“That wasn’t part of the plan. You said you were going to take the drugs and leave me the bull.”

The Doña broke out into a giant skeletal grin. “Plans change all the time per Santo Muerte’s will. It is up to us to adjust. Remember from the Proverbs of Hell, Señor Cavazos: no souls escape the underworld. Bring your boy with us.”

Dad growled something about the Proverbs of Hell and started to protest, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. He was between the Nords and the Doña Muertes, which was a very delicate tightrope to walk. He waved for me to come down. We got in the rig and loaded Mammon into the trailer. He went peacefully. Mammon was the most tranquil, laid-back bull I ever met. He made Leche seem aggressive.

We all drove to the Hideout, where Boca already was putting thing together as best as a one-armed man could. He was the only wrangler dad had left. He had fired all the rest since my skirmish with the gun troll. I wasn’t sure if this was due to dire straits or distrust, like pirates all marking each other for death after the treasure is buried.

The Doñas went out to harvest the crop. “It is too early,” one of the Doñas said to me. “The petals should be shiny and bright, like purple shields in the starlight. When the plant looks like that,” and she smacked her lips like a chef.

“Sister Elena, leave him be,” said the tall Doña.

“What? I was just giving el niño an education. Maybe one day he wants to be a botanist.” Sister Elena winked at me as she walked out into the fields.

I went out with everyone else, and we harvested the crop. Cragweed is thorny, and the entire weed is used in various drugs, so it has to be cut at the root. That means you are bent over cutting a thorny plant and getting cut up yourself. You place the cragweed in special bags that Dad kept in the shed. The bags were made to let the cragweed breathe while securing it. We only got about half of what was available. We stuffed Mammon’s sides deep with the cragweed, bound in the bags.

“We will come for the rest another time. And maybe then, we will bring you another bull,” the tall Doña said. I overheard one of the other Doñas calling her Sister Diez Osos.

As we finished stuffing Mammon, a wind came through and the snow began to swirl.

“Are you sure we should be crossing to San Malinche in this weather?” Dad asked Sister Diez Osos.

“Let me ask you this: we have placed probably five hundred pounds of cragweed into the lining of your new bull mammoth. If those bags break, and the cragweed seeps into your moth…well, I don’t know how much sedative it takes to tranquilize a moth, but I know how much cragweed it takes to kill a man. Are you willing to risk it?”

“Mother Macree,” Dad growled. He tapped Mammon on the back and led him out on the ice.

“Why don’t we drive him into San Malinche?” I asked Dad. We had stopped about ten miles out of San Malinche and started walking the rest of the way on foot. The snow was blowing savagely. The Doñas were tucked deep into their hoods and cloaks, and Dad was holding his grey-white jacket tight. I was cold in my old jacket.

“Cause driving a moth to slaughter looks weird, boy, and will attract the attention of the Nords.”

“Won’t the Doñas attract their attention just as well?”

“What Doñas? It’s just you, me, and some mothpokes I hired to help bring this bull in for slaughter.”

All around me, Doñas were putting on helmets, hats, and scarves over their faces. They were trading their slick black cloaks for wool jackets. Suddenly, they looked like a sorry lot of mothpokes.

Sister Elena came up beside me and pointed into the horizon. I had to squint to see what she was pointing at. It wasn’t San Malinche, at least not yet. It was a herd of brontotheriums in our path. “Without torture, no progress, Mateo.”

Dad cursed.

“What should we do?” Sister Diez Osos asked. “Have you ever driven a moth into a herd of brototherium?”

I should explain. Brontotheriums are like giant, shaggy rhinos with a Y-shaped horn on their snout. They are big, powerful, and they can be tempermental.

Dad scanned the horizon. “This storm isn’t letting up. Normally I’d say drive around the herd just to be safe, but I don’t know if we have that kind of time.”

“May Santa Muerte shine her dark light upon us!” Sister Diez Osos shouted for all the Doñas to hear. We headed into the herd.

All around me stood brontotheriums six to seven feet tall at the shoulder. They were stout, powerful creatures capable of mass destruction. One of the early incarnations of San Malinche was destroyed by a stampede of brototheriums. They were known to mix with moths and elk on occasion to keep a watch out for sabers and bears.

This close to a brontotherium, it was hard to imagine the saber that was willing to charge into a herd. I’d had my share of encounters with sabers, and I would have called the saber that charged into this herd either extremely courageous or foolish.

The brontotheriums were hard to see in the snowstorm. I could barely make out shadows and shapes between the swirling snow. It was so thick, the snow was caking on my boots and on my jacket. I wore a face guard to protect my face from frost bite.

Mammon was as cool as ever with the brontotheriums. He snorted, and I expected the brontotheriums to snort back, but they didn’t. It was probably too cold to for the brontotheriums to want to interact. I was surprised they weren’t huddled closer together, but then again, I was no ice age expert. Moths, I knew my share about. Brontotheriums, not so much. We avoided them when we could on the plains, so I was a little excited to be this close to them.

We were almost through the herd when I nearly stumbled into one. It was dark and grey and came out of the snow like a samurai out of the mist. I nearly bumped into the brontotherium’s head, and he didn’t budge. That is stout. And kind of weird. Animals generally move when another animal approaches them.

I saw a metal sheen to the brontotherium’s underbelly. Then everything erupted into chaos.

There was metal and gunfire, and again the earth swelled up in front of me. Only this time it was almost all snow, and I was thrown into Mammon. Mammon, who was definitely not cool anymore, roared something fierce and fled across the field.

“NO!” Dad roared over the flurrying snow. But he could not chase after his bull because shots were being fired all around us. He grabbed me and threw me into something dark and cold and furry. It was like an instant cabin. I didn’t know where it came from. There were more explosions and more gunfire, and there was a lot of cussing. I’m pretty sure I heard Sister Elena die not far from me.

At some point the cabin we were in toppled over and rolled and broke. We were closed in a dark place, my father’s hand over my face, and me looking through his fingers and a bullet hole in our encasement. It seemed like a really long time that the gunfight was going on. At one point, another hole ripped through the cabin and grazed Dad’s shoulder. He struggled not to scream, but I could sense it was hurting him badly. He was bleeding over my face. Have you ever played that game where someone tries to simulate an egg being broken on your noggin and the yolk running over your head. It was like that, only with real blood.

When finally the fighting stopped, I saw some people come to our hideaway. I hoped it was Doñas. I was wrong.

A body leaned over and looked into the cabin through one of the holes. I recognized the metal teeth, the eyes, and the voice. “Lift this damn thing up,” El Enano Rojo ordered the other Nords.

The darkness was removed from around us, and Enano held out his hand. Dad took it, and we stood up. We were trapped under a metal frame built to look like brontotheriums. They were covered in hide, and I didn’t want to think of how sanctuary-enthusiasts would react when they found these hides. As if to answer me, Enano said, “Oh, they’ll never find them. We’ll burn them so they can’t pull DNA off them. I’m not going down to La Regla Primera.”

“What happened?”

“Your father did the Nords a solid. We knew the Doñas would come for that cragweed, but we didn’t know when. So your father sold the crop to them so we could ambush them. That’s problem solving, yo.”

Idiot.

Before I could accuse Enano of murder, Dad pulled me aside. We followed Mammon’s bloody tracks for half a mile, but it was to be a bad outcome for us. Blood dripped alongside the bull mammoth as we tracked him to his carcass. He lay on the ice breathing out blood.

“Damnit!” Dad growled. He checked his pockets. “I don’t even have a tranq to put it out of its misery.”

“It’ll be okay, Dad.”

“No, it won’t, Mateo. We needed this bull.”

“There will be other chances to get a bull. C’mon, dad. No tears on the ice, right? Something about freezing your eyes shut, right?”

Dad nodded. He looked over Mammon’s heaving belly and out onto the ice. “I’ve got an idea, Mateo.” He wiped away his tears. “I’ve got a really good one.”

He pulled out his knife and gouged into Mammon’s leg. Mammon moaned pitifully and kicked at him, but the beast had no energy left in his bones. Dad dug into the bull’s skin and pulled out the mammoth’s transponder. He wiped it clean in the snow and pocketed it.

“You should be proud of your old man,” Enano said when he and the other Nords caught up with us. They ripped the cags of cragweed out of Mammon’s still breathing carcass. I felt really sorry for this poor bull, raised to be the bull of his own herd, cut off in his prime by this twisted turn of events.

“I said, you should be proud of your old man,” Enano repeated to me. But how could I be proud of him? He had set up an ambush of twenty four people and gotten most of them killed. How many lives was my dad willing to sacrifice for our livelihood, and when would it end?

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