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Author: Subject: The Lion and his Pride
Osprey
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[*] posted on 6-1-2011 at 02:39 PM
The Lion and his Pride


more Baja fiction

The Lion and his Pride


It was not only that De Leon owned, ran and controlled the village of San Isabel, it was that, over time, he and his blood family had expanded their power over a great distance and deep into the fiber of life and commerce in this little corner of the tropics. As commandante of police for the municipio Oscar De Leon Castro had been the virtual ruler of San Isabel and the five smaller villages nearby – his power at times surpassed that of the delegado, the regidor, the procurador. The De Leon family was in trucking, construction, the water company and had great influence over those who would seek permits for new ventures in the municipio.

No one dared whisper about the family’s alleged connection to a major drug cartel or that Oscar had been instrumental in the ouster of three local judges – one was fired, two were shot and killed. De Leon left the local politics, the elections alone. It was well known that whoever was chosen by the people at the voting booth would become a subject or an accomplice, willing or not.

So the municipio was split; if you were connected to the De Leon family, in their favor, you paid your extortion but you would be allowed to prosper by your hard work, if you were outside the circle, you lived in fear and with very good reason. Visitors, outsiders thought the talk must be overblown, that no family could wield that much evil power. It was a simple matter of perspective.

Rick White knew all about the legend but he himself was only stung once, long ago. Stopped at a regular police road check point near the village, he was arrested and beaten, held for two days in a filthy cell, given water and tortillas and won his freedom when a friend came to his aid by delivering the fine of $3,000 pesos. The charge was Drunk Driving – there was a bottle of tequila open on the front seat of his truck. He had been drinking that afternoon at a ranch in the nearby mountains but had not been drinking in the truck. No test, no nothing, just off to jail in cuffs. No receipt, just a stern warning from one of De Leon’s flunkies.

The retired gringo came to the village to fish, to live in peace on his pension. He learned more than he wanted to know about the commandante from his fishing pal, Horacio Flores. They fished together from the shore or in Rick’s tin pangita for fun and food when Horacio was not otherwise employed throwing a bait net for the charter boats. The Mexican was saving money, when he could, to buy his own bait boat, work for himself rather than the few pesos he earned working for Bonifacio. His own personal grudge against the family was wrapped around the boat permit and registration which he thought might be around 4,500 pesos – it was vexing to know the real cost was 500 pesos at the port captain’s office.

Rick thought the legend might be bigger than the man – just another case where the myth took on a certain life of its own. In all likelihood the man, the family, were perceived to have powers they could not possibly hold and use against their neighbors. Each time Rick and Horacio fished, shared a few cervezas, the Mexican would recount the latest local chisme, word of some new tribal skullduggery which added to the evil like a new button on the rattle of a cascabel.

Usually the gringo just shrugged this stuff off. But this summer was different. Four straight years of hurricane drought – the worst kind, when the mountains got less than their usual seven inches of rain and villages near the shore not even a third of that with not one drop of the precious stuff delivered by passing tropical storms. This September dusk held only promise of more killing heat; wind from the south passed over a hundred miles of searing sand and scrub, reaching the villages near the shore, the beaches then carrying the desiccation right to the water’s edge.

The gringo had often harangued his friend to action against the family but the legend was too strong. The stranger had just enough heat, just enough beer, more than enough talk of the devil.

“Horacio, I’ll do this myself. Just get me a gun and I’ll put an end to this evil commandante.”

“Don’t talk crazy. You are a crazy fool.”

“You think so? Can you get me a pistol, some ammo? Just get me the gun and I’ll do it. Get me the gun or say no more about the man, the family. No more sniveling.”

“Rick, what makes you think you could kill Oscar? He’s surrounded by his faithful cops almost day and night. He rides in a bullet-proof Hummer, always in a convoy. The commandancia is like a bunker. How could you get close enough to him?”

“The whole town knows where he is on Fridays – he’s at Dos Gardenias restaurant. He and his flunkies get there at six, leave about nine or ten. His drinks are on the table waiting for him. He sleeps with Olivia Vargas, the owner – everybody knows everything about it. No secret at all. There’s a small window in the bathroom that looks out over desert scrub. When he goes to the can I can pop him if he uses the toilet when he gets up or standing at the urinal. I wait till full dark, ride my bike across the scrub desert, hide in the dark till I hear the bathroom door open.

I pop him, jump on the bike and I’m off in the dark before his drunken clown warriors know what happened. At the next paved street I ditch the bike, run a ways to my truck, drive slowly to my house, park the truck, go in the house, take my dinner out of the oven and open a beer, turn on the TV. If you can get me the gun, bring it here in your fishing bag after dark. I’ll put it in the old dry pila on the roof until Friday night. Make sure the ammo is fresh and the same caliber as the gun. I’m just gonna drop it with my old beat up bike.”

“That’s just crazy talk. They’ll catch you and cut off your head. You’re no asesino.”

“Have you forgot all about me talking a little about my contract work for the government in the middle east, in Iraq? You have no idea who I was, what I did, what I can do.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“You get the gun, then see what happens Friday.”

Tuesday night on the beach Horacio handed Rick the bag with gun and ammo. “Rick if you can do this, you will never know how many lives will be changed forever. There is no one as strong and cunning as Oscar in the De Leon family and at best they would fight for his position of strength but I really think his death could be the end of an era of evil.”

“Horacio, Mexico has a magnificent history of fighting for its freedom. What happened along the way in this little place that robbed you of your free will?”

“No se amigo, no se.”

Thursday night at 9:30 the commandante’s Hummer and two truckloads of local police pulled up to Rick’s house. Oscar himself knocked on his door.

When the door swung open two policemen grabbed Rick and cuffed him. Two others went to the roof and brought the jefe the bag with the gun and ammunition. The commandante loaded the small 38 and put two shots through the front door, two through the front windows. A smile crossed his lips as he unholstered his 9mm pistol and put two slugs in the chest of the gringo. When the gringo fell, the leader motioned for the men to take the cuffs off and ordered both of them to put one more bullet in the man’s chest.

Oscar went to the truck, called the coroner and a friend of his in the Policia Judicial. The 38 was placed in the gringo’s hand, photos of the crime scene were taken and the house and yard were yellow taped to preserve the evidence of the crime, the incident, the shooting.

News of the shooting was stifled and scant by fear of complicity, of any kind of suspicion or involvement. The villagers were all wondering what the old man was doing with a loaded gun, why he shot at the police. What was he hiding? There was no mention of anything of value in the house or of anything the old gringo had done that might arouse police suspicion.

In the week after the shooting of the gringo, the village, the police, the delegado were very busy with the investigations by all the appropriate departments. The second week saw a dwindling of official cars and strangers wearing flack jackets and sport coats until by the end of the week the village was almost back to normal. Horacio guessed right that De Leon would now be in the mood to celebrate, to eat too much, to drink too much, to lower his guard – the lion’s pride would show. He would thumb his nose at would-be assassins; he had informants and friends in every corner of his kingdom. Nobody can kill the lion in his own lair.

In San Jose Horacio paid 250 pesos to the port captain for his boat permit-registration. Oscar had paid him 5,000 pesos for the information about the gringo and the gun. Horacio busied himself with improvements to the used boat while waiting for the government assistance on the new motor.

The next Friday night Horacio’s wife took the kids to her sister’s as usual. He put his old bike in the back of his truck, drove a few blocks on the paved streets away from houses, stuck a 32 caliber pistol in his pocket, walked the bike to a place behind Dos Gardenias near the bathroom window. About an hour later Oscar appeared in the baño, stepped up to the urinal and took two shots in the head, dropped like a rock.

The shooter raced the bike through the scrub, dropped the bike and the gun, drove slowly home in his truck, parked behind his house and turned on the TV. His heart beat like a jungle drum each time a police vehicle, lights blazing, sirens screaming, passed close to his street, to his house. When the family returned, his heart rate went spiraling back down to almost normal with the kids still alive with energy from playing with all the other kids till way past dark.

His wife, Josephina said “¿Que paso con policia, truckes, luces?”

“Posible accidente, en la caraterra.”

The whole municipio was turned upside down – a strange manhunt indeed. A man, woman or teen wearing size 9 shoes with gunshot residue on the hands would be a perfect suspect. Who wanted to kill Oscar De Leon? Just too many suspects to count and nowhere in particular to look.

On the beach, not yet dark, Horacio already had a very nice pargo in the bucket. The Mexican was not alone. The spirit of his friend Rick sat just next to him again in the growing darkness, a beer in one hand, the worn monofilament handline in the other waiting for some movement to tell him it was time to set the hook.

Horacio spoke to his friend but did not open his mouth. “I’m so sorry Rick. I didn’t think they would kill you, not just for the gun on the roof. That’s all I told Oscar, just about the gun on the roof. I sold you for the boat but I swear to you, if I could turn back the clock I would sell the boat to have you with me here on the beach again. Ya cabo, se quedo. You paid the ultimate price for the freedom we will now enjoy. Mexico is all about sacrifice – our corridos tell the tale of that rich history you spoke of. You are part of that now but there will never be a corrido for you and me.”

Horacio remained silent for a few moments while he pulled in his line, put fresh bait on the hook, sent the bait and weight flying into the darkness. Satisfied with the splash, the placement, he finished his little speech.

“There is another reason I wish things had not gone down the way they did. You should be here beside me now. The first promising storm is boiling off Mazatlan. It is wide and full of water from the warming gulf – the outer bands are expected tonight and it feels like rain. This burnt dead place will come alive again, a cactus jungle so green and lush we’ll all look back on the long dry as though it was just a big mistake. You won’t be here to watch me wash your blood from my Judas hands and I won’t see you throw your shirt in the sand and do that wild gringo rain dance like the last time we had a good storm.”
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DanO
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[*] posted on 6-1-2011 at 02:51 PM


Truly awesome George. Thanks.



\"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.\" -- Frank Zappa
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Ken Bondy
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[*] posted on 6-1-2011 at 03:05 PM


One of your best amigo!!!



carpe diem!
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Iflyfish
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[*] posted on 6-2-2011 at 06:58 AM


What a fountain you draw from!!! Thanks for this little tale of intrigue and betrayal.
Sorry that the gringo had to die, but how else could this go down. No good deed goes unpunished!

Iflyfish

[Edited on 6-2-2011 by Iflyfish]
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shari
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Mood: there is no reality except the one contained within us "Herman Hesse"

[*] posted on 6-2-2011 at 08:09 AM


brillant....i always marvel at your depth of understanding of the culture.



for info & pics of our little paradise & whale watching info
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[*] posted on 6-2-2011 at 09:08 AM


Wow...great read!!
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briantroy
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[*] posted on 6-3-2011 at 01:21 AM


Nice work, I really enjoyed this. Keep them coming!



These endless lands and unique waters are not simply soil and sea. These elements of earth and water are as much a part of me as my blood and organs. And the people that populate this corner of the world lift my spirit to heights that allow me to see what is truly important; The beauty of life. And that is the essential gift.
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[*] posted on 6-3-2011 at 05:12 AM


Great!!
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Martyman
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[*] posted on 6-3-2011 at 09:01 AM


Thanks! Very entertaining
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[*] posted on 6-3-2011 at 12:10 PM


You wanted me to translate this for Rigo, no way, I am not putting any ideas in his head.
El Senor Hemingway de La Ribera.




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