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Chapter 44: The Ticking Clock

  Inside the shack, Valentina kneeled to embrace her brother. “Don’t go off with strangers. Especially, if they’re damn well weird.”

  The boy nodded under his racoon carcass hat.

  Valentina continued, “Please tell me you didn’t steal anything at the market. I have all Don’s money now, and you never have to take anything again.”

  “Heroes don’t steal,” Julian said.

  “Okay, hero,” she said, after standing back up. “Are you ready for Christmas. Going to meet your new baby sister.”

  “Si. I’ll protect her.”

  I touched Valentina’s arm to the boy’s swatting.

  “Julian, Doc Apollo is a friend and will be our guest on Christmas.”

  I chuckled. “It’s quite alright. Say, Valentina, you have a baby sister?”

  “My mother lives in this residency. We don’t talk much anymore, not since I married Don. We only came back to this shack one last time to meet our baby sister.”

  “And I just heard I’m a-coming?”

  “Of course, but...” She shook her head. “Don’t say anything about Don just yet. Not until the time is right.”

  The boy scowled and ran out the door.

  “Now where’s he going?” I said.

  He was skipping rocks into the ocean when I crept up on him. I was looking both ways for anything that would take him.

  “You alright?”

  “I miss Don Salvador.”

  I couldn’t help but be surprised, knowing the man wanted to kill him.

  “He used to let me transport his cattle. I want to get back to work.”

  “You’ll be working for your sister now.”

  “You know he adopted me?”

  “No. I don’t think anyone told me that.”

  “My name is Julian Salvador—Duran—De Hero.”

  I laughed. “And who am I?”

  “El Medico.”

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  “You see, how it’s getting cold, De Hero?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Gotta get cold before spring brings all the leaves and flowers back. Change can lead to good things.”

  He looked me in the eyes for the first time. “I’ve been watching you, and you drink a lot.”

  “Not anymore.”

  He said, “Well, do you think I should do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Sacrifice myself.”

  I frowned. No seven-year-old should be asking that. “Say, I bet you know how to fish.”

  “Hold on.” The boy ran in and came back with two nets.

  At night, we made a fire to cook what we caught. The boy thought he could do anything, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I helped get that fire good and smoking. Showed him a thing or two.

  When Valentina joined us with shawls to keep us warm, he told her he caught all the fish and made the fire by himself. Scary thing is I think he believed it. But who was I to argue with De Hero after he knocked off a bad auger like Ahote.

  As we sat in the sand, fire crackling, fish and earthy smells pungent, Valentina said, “Wait.” She was pointing toward the hills at the witch’s cave. It had a lamplight shining through a natural window.

  “I haven’t ever seen a light on in there,” Valentina said, nervously.

  I stroked my goatee and whispered to myself, “What are you plotting now, Calamity?” I looked at both of them. “Whatever you do, stay away from there.”

  ***

  When Christmas day came, I found myself a-dragging a wooden cart filled with some chickens and every vegetable in the market we could grab. I was struggling to pull it through a mangrove forest. The forest was crowded with dead trees stretching above dirty water and falling all over one another. There were huts, here and there, the water was so high up on them, fish were a-jumping.

  Their mother’s hut stood betwixt two limping trees about to meet. A raccoon was a-hugging on a limb for its life.

  The odor stunk like dung, seaweed and trash leading the way to where we’d have dinner. A shadow came over the entrance of the home, and out came a straggly haired woman, breast feeding. Her bottom teeth overlapped her top lip. She spoke an ancient Aztec dialect in a raspy whisper, shooing off Valentina.

  “Ma, please. It’s Christmas. I want to hold her.”

  My heart went out for the baby, full head of hair, quiet as the forest, supping.

  The mother’s yellow nails grazed the back of the baby’s head. She looked at me and smiled, had no top teeth. Then, she spoke Spanish where I could understand. “If you let me have that black man for the night, I’ll let you hold her.”

  “Ma, stop. You’ve been overdoing the opiates.”

  “I told you never to come back, Valentina, not until Don Salvador gives me the pesos that he owes. I didn’t give you and Julian to him for free.”

  It was all I could do but withhold my disgust. However, the matter wasn’t for me to get involved in. That’s until a Bowie Knife stained with dried blood came a-floating at my feet. I looked down in horror.

  The hag laughed and said, “A woman came by here—A mighty witch. She’s going to rule Mexico, one day, and she promised me a mansion inside the capital.”

  In shock, I said, “What did you trade her. What did you do?”

  She laughed holding up the baby. “You see baby Romina has no shadow?”

  I pulled Valentina near, and she had her mouth opened. “Ma, that sounds horrible.”

  “It’s true. The woman took Romina’s shadow up to the witch’s cave.”

  Julian flipped the cart over and ran. We chased after. When the hut was out of sight, he took up a tree like another of the racoons.

  “Julian, you have to come down,” Valentina hollered.

  “I’m going to go get my sister’s shadow,” he yelled, voice echoing past the leafless forest into the dull sky. “I’m the one the witch wants, and I’ll sacrifice myself; because, I’m Julian Salvador—Duran—De Hero.”

  The sound of footsteps and cracking branches turned my attention. The hag mother appeared between two trees, back humped over, and seething in vengeance. She whispered, “The witch predicted you would come, and she has a message for you. You have until the clock strikes midnight, three days from now to bring her Julian as a sacrifice to Sam Hill. If you don’t bring him, Romina’s shadow will have to do.”

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