Chapter 10: Del Rio
"So what happened? I don't understand why they just let us go."
Sands wasn't paying much attention. Their captors had just dropped them at the convertible and were pulling away. He took a few steps after them.
"Hey, tell your employers that if they find what they're looking for I'll meet them on the Mars Colony in 2108!" He had been unnervingly cheerful since Brody had been released form the room they'd been gassed in earlier.
"What did you do? Who are they?" he asked Sands, who continued to chuckle to himself.
"They, Alex, are a bunch of the best funded government conspiracy nuts I've ever seen," Sands said as he unlocked the car. "Don't worry, you'll never see them again. I, on the other hand, will not be surprised if I find one tailing me again some day."
They pulled into the street. The sky was dark. The day had felt short, no thanks to the afternoon siesta. In fact, Brody realized he had no idea what time it was.
"What did they want from you?"
Sands eyes darkened as he looked out at the road. "Lets just say I have one of those faces…."
Despite the hour, which they found to be somewhere in the premises of 5 am, Sands insisted Brody show him the way to Del Rio. "I've lost enough time on this vacation, I'll be damned if I'm going to lose anymore."
.
The water tower stood on the top of a hill just off the highway. It was painted to look like wood, but the round shape betrayed it as being like any other fairly modern towers that stood everywhere in America. Brody stared up at it from the bottom of the hill. It stirred up things long forgotten, funny how a place can do that to a man. He'd had his first kiss there under that tower, a dry, awkward affair.
He climbed the hill, ignoring the twinge of pain in his knee as he stumbled over rocks in the dim light that came from the tower's few lights. A couple stunted, windblown trees grew bent forward, as if pointing them on.
The dawn began to light the sky as they reached the giant leg of the tower, and from there they could look down the other side of the crest of hills to see the remains of Del Rio.
The place was half old western front stores and half Spanish style mission and garrison and all of it was falling apart. A wood fence circled it like a thin skeletal snake, its sun-bleached wood splintering, some posts where on the ground where over 40 years of water had done it's wearing work on the dirt.
"A strange meeting place." Brody whispered to himself.
Maybe, maybe not. Depends who you're meeting."
"Well Yosemite Sam, who are you meeting?"
Sands took the first step drown the hill. He wasn't smiling, he was crouching. "I don't know yet."
.
When they reached the bottom of the hill the sun had almost broken free of the horizon and the dust that had settled began to dance again in the morning breeze. A tumbleweed blew by and Brody thought of every western shootout he'd watched on screen. He was again following Sands, something he couldn't understand but always seemed to be doing. Sands eyes were alert, scanning the fence, which they had nearly reached, and the buildings beyond. They closer they grew, the more disrepair became evident. Paint had pealed near completely from all the western style buildings, but the mission and courtyard with the military housing which stood farthest from them, had barely crumbled. The Spanish building materials held better against water and burning sun.
Sands pulled the Webley and hopped the fence, hurrying to the first wall, the side of what appeared to be a general store style building. The window by Sand's back was missing all but one pane of glass. Brody scurried after him.
"If you don't know who you're meeting, how do you know they're your friends?" He asked. "For all you know, they could be the one's who sent the man to the diner."
"Could be," Sands replied. "Now shut the fuck up, before you blow our cover."
Brody grit his teeth, attempting to keep himself from punching his ex partner in the throat.
Sands looked out from around the edge of the building. The main street. Dirt, deeply cut where years of rainwater had drained to a nearby stream. Little gravel remained. Across the street was what appeared to be a bank by the shape of the fake architecture. Next door to this was a hotel, next a textile market. Sands moved up onto the wood sidewalk, crouching behind a wood barrel. The next building down looked like the Saloon, one door out on the sidewalk, the other hanging by one hinge. They'd still been attached when Brody'd kissed under the water tower.
Something stirred in the direction of the mission. Sands motioned with his head for Brody to walk into the street.
"What? Are you crazy?" he mouthed back, shaking his head.
"Draw him out," Sands mouthed.
"YOU draw him out," Brody hissed.
Sands retreated to where Brody stood beside the building. "I'm the better shot here, so you go into the street."
Brody narrowed his eyes. "He. Will. Kill. Me."
Sands face contorted in anger. "If you don't," he pulled the hammer back on the revolver. "I will kill you." He pointed the Webley in Brody's face. "Can you dig it?"
Brody peeked around the corner. Someone was definitely sanding in the arched entrance to the mission's courtyard.
Suddenly, he felt a great force hit the base of his back and he went stumbling into the street. Before he could even recover properly the phantom in the archway had covered the twenty meters and stood with another pistol aimed at his person. Splendid.
"Are you Sands?" this man, who had a heavy Mexican accent, asked when he had Brody's attention. Brody put his hands up.
"I? I-no. I don't even- Hey, there's no need- I'll just-"
He saw Sands come up swiftly and silently from the far side of the general store. He assumed Sands would knock the man unconscious. But in a split second the revolver was at the back of the man's head at a slight upward angle. A gun shot.
The man collapsed; brain separated from spinal cord.
Blood, grey matter, and bone scattered.
Brody caught some of the aftermath on his upraised hands. After a second of shock he began to shake it off in utter disgust. "Dear God, dear God!" Red streaked his hands, made poke-a-dots on the dirt.
"Americans eat ___ hamburgers a year," Sands was saying almost to himself as he flicked a piece of brain matter off his finger like a booger.
Brody stared in disbelief. "If we survive this, swear to me you will NEVER call me again."
Sands looked a little disappointed. "I'll consider you fully retired." He looked down at the body. "He wouldn't have survived too much longer in this business anyway, poor begger. Didn't even see it coming." He looked back up at Brody. "If it hadn't been me, it just would've been someone else." As he said it, Brody thought he say a flicker of pity in the man's eyes. As twisted as some of the things Sands had said could be, Brody had never felt how serious he had really been before. This man was truly dangerous, he'd just never realized to what degree.
"Now, that shot must have warned somebody of our presents…." Sands went to the moderate cover of the sidewalk and fake front buildings, and moved toward the mission.
Brody stood, unsure of what to do. After a minute, he realized that as unlikely as it may seem, beside Sands was probably the safest place to be in his weaponless situation.
Cursing himself, he followed suit.