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Measuring the level of fear on his face and fresh urine soaking his pants, it didn’t take a genius to realize he had no idea what was going on. I kept the muzzle trained on his face, opened the back of the Sprinter, and found the laundry cart sitting in the back. Full of drives.
Guido might have weighed a hundred and thirty pounds and never lifted a weight in his life. He stuttered. “Do I look like I staged that?”
“Manage large accounts with oversight into lessening tax liability per statute.” “What’s that mean in English?” “I help people pay less tax.” “So you help people cheat the government?” He shrugged. “Yes. Although I—” My BS-meter was dinging. “What else?” “I moonlight as a programmer.” “Programmer or hacker?” “Yes.”
“How’d you get involved in this?” Guido turned away. I turned him back. “Nope. I want the whites of your eyes.” “I got caught.” “Doing what?” I could tell the admission was painful. Maybe even embarrassing. I doubted it had anything to do with finances. “Something I should not have.”
Guido clammed up and bit his lip until I threatened to rip off his earlobe. “I paid for some time with . . . these boys.”
My reaction must have been subconscious because the next thing I knew my hand hurt and his nose had exploded like a tomato across his face. Much like Bernie’s. Both men’s noses now pointed to 7:30 rather than 6:00. Camp
“So whoever captured this video of you is using it as leverage. And now you’re a runner.” Guido nodded. “Among other things.” Here was the first twinge of bitterness. “What else do you do?”
He considered this. “I manage the data.” “Define manage.” “I deliver the drives and manually transfer the data.” I nudged Bernie. “That what you do?” He nodded. “Yes, but I’ve never met this guy.”
heard Bones: “Mutiny is easier to prevent if all the sailors never sail on the same ship at the same time.”
Bernie chimed in. “You should just come clean, man.”
From his French cuffs to his gold cufflinks to his matching Italian leather belt and shoes, Guido dressed with intention. And suggestion. He also wore a lot of jewelry, and I wasn’t sure if he did so to mask the watch he couldn’t take off or because he wanted to look flashy. Either way, I was pretty sure he wanted those around him to think a certain way about him. So, as with Bernie, I intended to take that away.
Guido stripped to his birthday suit, which reminded him that he was vulnerable and not in charge, which I gathered was a new emotion.
I figured the owner of that watch was tracking both Guido and Bernie, so I zip-tied them to each other. Watch to watch. Pragmatically, doing so would make any attempted escape comical to witness. At a minimum it would need to be coordinated. But in truth, my motive was a bit deeper. I wanted the ear on the other end to know I had two of his people. And two of his locations. And his drives.
maybe the owner didn’t care that I had two of his minions, but it made me feel better. I also thought if we could play one off the other, they’d sell each other out.
Soon the two men looked like fighting cats rolling around the back of the Suburban.
When I leveled the muzzle at his left shoulder, he started singing like a canary, proving that confession is good for the soul.
Seeing me, Gunner tackled me and attempted to lick the skin off my face, eliciting involuntary laughter. Which I needed. “Hey, boy, I missed you too.”
His tail was wagging at warp speed.
More moaning. His tail wag had slowed to intermittent wiper speed. Living in a town populated almost entirely by dog-loving women had spoiled him rotten. “Bones is in trouble and we need to go get him.” He let out a long moan.
How she loved. She never halved her love. She multiplied it. Exponentially. As a result, she never ran out of room. Which was why she was on the plane.
Before daylight, after the crickets and the frogs quit, there was a momentary pause. Often several minutes. When all the world stood in silence and you wondered if your ears worked at all. It was as if all of creation just stopped and stared in wonder at what was about to happen. That the sun was about to rise. That light would once again pierce the darkness, and the darkness would roll back like a scroll.
That singular sound that started the day. Many times I’ve thought it’s the sound of heaven. It must be. Any other description holds no value. If heaven has a frequency, it must be this one. It’s both a lonely echo and a magnificent cry. Made by a singular creature. And while I don’t pretend to understand frequencies, this one travels. I don’t mean it’s loud. I mean it travels. There’s a difference. You have to listen to hear it, and if you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss it. It almost slips by you.
It’s the song of the mourning dove. Calling to its mate. For me it has long been the cry of heaven, and I’ve wondered, more than once, if that is the sound of angels. In my life I’ve taught Bones very few things.
It’s the cry of the human heart. And every one of us knows it. As the water pulled me down, I had a singular desire. To hear that cry one more time.
But if I’d had time, I would have told him I was coming for him. That I was going to tear down his playhouse and that his meeting with God would happen on my terms and sooner than he thought. Lastly, I’d have told him that if he hurt my friend Bones, then our meeting would be painful for him.
A sow can reproduce three times a year and birth eight or more piglets each time, proving to me that they’re just overgrown rats. So I traveled inland to an archery store, bought a compound bow, and began shooting.
Her hair smelled of gunsmoke. I scanned the world around me, and one thing was apparent. No, glaring. I was losing. Frank was winning. And Bones’s life hung in the balance.
Whose you are matters more to the soul than who you are or what you are.
Replacing past pain with present tense.
I’d found my place in this world because of Bones. Why? One simple reason: I’d mattered more to Bones than Bones mattered to Bones. The needs of the one . . .
As for Frank, I didn’t believe him. The only thing I knew to be true about Frank was that he was a pathological liar hell-bent on pleasing himself.
Frank lived under the grip of one constant emotion. Fear. Fear of not being able to control every situation he encountered. The reasons for this fear might have been valid. Granted, he grew up in horrible situations, but so had Bones—and Bones was Frank’s antithesis. He didn’t live in fear and never had. Ever. He lived in freedom.
Frank insulated himself behind money, power, protection, pretense, and piercing betrayal. Consequently, whatever came out of that maniac’s mouth could not be trusted.
Frank despised Bones because at his root, Frank was a coward. Bones was not. And Frank hated him for it.
By the time Bones and Frank were held here as entertainment for priests seeking respite from the rigors of celibate life, it was a thriving center for the church. With its monastery, vineyards, retreat center, and private conference center, priests from around the world would trek here, often walking the last fifty to a hundred miles, making the destination a pilgrimage of sorts.
Only then did I notice the lid had been slid a foot off center. Walking around the crypt, I stared inside, expecting to find bones. Which I did. Just not the kind I was looking for.
People in darkness don’t know they’re in darkness because it’s all they’ve ever known. It’s their world. They navigate primarily by bumping off things that are stronger. Immovable. They don’t know darkness is darkness until someone turns on a light. Only then does the darkness roll back like a scroll. It has to. Darkness can’t stand light. And it hasn’t. Not since God spoke it into existence. The problem comes when you turn on a light and find those in darkness who, having seen light, prefer the dark. Who retreat into the shadows to do their deeds in secret. They are the ashen-skinned,
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They live convinced of their independence. Their power. Their lack of accountability. Truth is, they are. Accountable. From the beginning of time, light has shone into the darkness, and since that first spark, darkness—no matter how hard it tries, no matter what sword it wields or scheme it perpetrates—has not been able to overcome it. Ever.
Those of us who stand in the light wonder sometimes, How much longer can it last? This onslaught. How much more can we take? This constancy. Those of us who walk in the light grow weary. Our hope wanes. Fades. Darkness rages and threatens to drown us. We look around and wonder what happened. Where’d it go? Where’s the light?
Bones was the record keeper. He’d kept it all along.
Bones looked at me. Then back to his brother. “Because the needs of the one outweigh those of the ninety-nine.” Frank came unglued. “But you let them do all they did to you.” Bones nodded. The revelation was sinking in. Frank couldn’t hold it anymore. “But I don’t love you that much.” Bones nodded. “I know. You don’t love me at all.” He paused. “But that’s what brothers do. They remind us.”
And while we live it in real time, it happens too fast, so we watch it in memory. To know the joy, we shut our eyes and remember having seen it.”
A slave market. In Bones’s kingdom one man walked into the slave market and said, “What’s the price? For all of them.” And when the slave master quoted the price, Bones never flinched. He paid it. With his life. The magnitude of his sacrifice was inconceivable to me. Bones had known the cost going in. I’d never contemplated it.
Bones not only emptied the market, he ran back into that same hell—hell squared—a second time, to rescue the one who’d enslaved them. Why? This was my problem. As the days passed and the answer built, it weighed me down. Pressing on my soul. Then, when I was unable to keep it at bay any longer, it hit me all at once. A freight train. Because Frank, too, was enslaved. Unlike the masses, Bones found mercy for his executioner. Whereas I’d simply written him off.
Wanting justice, I’d kept a record of wrongs. Payment to be exacted from the guilty. On my terms. It fueled and justified my need for revenge. Bones? Bones kept a record of hope imprinted on his heart.
Once an angry woman draped in soiled clothing who created distance through the smell of urine and spit-filled obscenities, now something completely new stood before me. Smelling of roses. A reflection of the face of God.
Sometimes, given their depth, we become little more than the sum of our wounds, and it takes someone else to see what we can be instead of what we are. No one was better at that than Bones.
Then Bones. The two words that defined my life.
Over the next few days and weeks, thousands of prison doors would be flung wide. Ripped off the hinges. Shackles loosed. Bones was right. We needed a bigger town. Those who had been slaves would walk out of the market. Sun on their faces. Life before them. And none save me would know the price paid for their freedom. One life for the many—starting with the one I’d written off. Who wasn’t worth the cost. I did not understand that kind of love. But . . . then Bones.
there on the sand, where the land met the sea and God graced the earth with shell and wonder and mystery, I looked down. Why? I cannot tell you. Maybe looking ahead hurt too much. But there, in that impressionable place where the thin water flowed like film, I saw a boot print. So I knelt and ran my finger across the imprint of the lugs. They were new. Barely worn. Size 12. Vibram. The dim light made it difficult to see, but a stride’s length away, I found a second print. That made boot prints. Plural.
