Chapter 5

Sam and his henchman were driving a red van with Conner’s Fresh Produce painted on the side. Sam walked closely behind Evan, the gun barrel aimed squarely at his back. The streets of Shinoe were virtually dead and even if anyone happened to pass by, the parking lot was so badly lit that a passerby would not have seen the events unless they had been specifically looking out for them. The van was parked at the far edge of the lot, cloaked almost completely in darkness and shadows.

“Inside,” Sam said.

“Conner’s Fresh Produce,” Sam said. “Nice cover.”

“In!”

Evan opened the sliding door on the side of the van and stepped inside. He was ordered to sit in the front seat while Sam took the wheel and the second attacker sat directly behind him. Sam handed his friend the gun as he started the van. From behind, Sam’s friend leveled the gun at Evan’s head as Sam pulled out onto the road.

“We’re giving you a chance,” Sam said. “We’re giving you a chance to come out of this smelling like roses.”

“How’s that?”

"We’re in the same boat,” Sam said. “We are both drug runners. So is my friend, sitting right behind you. I don’t know your bosses or who you work for, but if they are anything like the people I work for, your job is probably shit. And if you were to tell them that you lost the drugs that their fake money paid for, they’d probably kill you. Does that sound right?”

“It had crossed my mind,” Evan admitted.

“Well, thanks to your fake money, I may be killed,” Sam explained. “I have a considerably huge debt to pay off and your money was supposed to pay it. It was to be paid by tomorrow morning and now that is obviously not going to happen. Not unless you can get me two hundred thousand dollars by tomorrow morning.”

“That’s impossible.” It was a large figure and Evan wondered how Sam had racked up such an enormous debt.

“That’s why you’re going to do me a favor,” Sam said simply.

“What favor?”

Sam had pulled onto a road that Evan was fairly familiar with. It would carry them into the desert, far away from everything living and into the absolute middle of nowhere.

“You’re going to be my spy,” Sam said. It was not a question, nor a suggestion. It was a demand.

“I don’t think I’m really qualified for that,” Evan said. “I didn’t even realize you had slashed my tires until about four hours after you had done it, so I think spy work is a little over my head.”

Sam’s friend tapped the gun barrel against Evan’s head. “No jokes,” he said simply. Evan got the impression that this man didn’t speak very often. He bit his lip to refrain for making any further wisecracks.

“A spy for what?” he asked, ignoring the man sitting behind him and exchanging glances between Sam and the road that unwound ahead of them.

“There’s a bus that runs down this road every so often,” Sam explained. “Usually it’s about two times a month, sometimes three, sometimes only one. This bus…somehow it’s like a ghost. There are stories about it driving down the road but I have never spoken to anyone that has been on it.”

“Like a Greyhound bus?” Evan asked.

“I think so. But rumor has it that a huge drug cartel out of Mexico is using it to deliver drugs back and forth from Mexico to California.”

“That sounds far fetched,” Evan said, baffled at the absurdity of the concept. “Where did that rumor come from?”

“It’s sort of obvious, really,” Sam said, as if Evan had asked an incredibly stupid question. “It’s a bus that runs a route that is not on any local bus schedules and, by all accounts, never stops at any regular bus stops. There aren’t but so many things it could be doing out so late, you know? And I figure that if I can let my debtors in on a tip like this—that there is some secret drug train running under everyone’s noses and stealing their business—then maybe they’ll take it easy on me.”

It was hard for Evan to hide that the idea impressed him. Still, the story about the bus seemed nonsensical to him. “Wouldn’t something like this be reported to the police or something?” he asked.

“I thought so, too,” Sam answered. “But apparently there have been no complaints about missed stops or foul play. And to tell you the truth, I really don’t even know if anyone other than drug dealers and a few of the folk in my tribe know about it.”

Evan was so confused by the story that he had almost forgotten about the gun pointed at his head. “How would people in your tribe know about it?”

“I think you know as well as I do how much peyote and mushrooms my people sell to you stupid white people. Therefore, if you want to get technical, my entire tribe is really nothing more than a drug warehouse.”

“That’s true,” Evan said. Then, once again unable to stop his sarcastic tongue, he added, “It’s nice to see someone take pride in their heritage, but where do I fit in?”

“The bus is running tonight. We’ve had a few people keeping their eyes out for it for the last two months, set up along the routes that it’s been said to follow. I got a call less than an hour ago from one of my guys out in Arizona. It should be through here in about an hour and a half. And when it comes through, you’re getting on it.”

“You think a bus running drugs is going to pick up a hitch hiker?” Evan asked. This notion seemed dumber that the scenario of a secret drug-running bus.

“Well, that’s where it’s all on you,” Sam said, pulling the van over onto the side of the road. Evan had almost completely lost track of where they were, but if he had to guess, he would say they were probably a good twenty miles outside of Shinoe.

“All on me?” Evan said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam parked the van on the bare and dusty side of the road and turned to Evan. “It means that when you see that bus coming, you do anything you can to get on it. I don’t care what you do, but you have to stop it and convince them to let you on. So when you get out of this van, keep walking to the south to meet the bus.”

“And,” Sam added as an afterthought, “don’t bother trying anything stupid. You’ll see a few cars on the road periodically. Those are members of our tribe that we’ve sent out to check on you.”

With that said, the man with the gun reached up past Evan and opened his door for him. Nudging the gun against Evan’s neck, he pushed Evan out of the seat and into the dry desert night.

“That’s it,” Sam said. “Get on that bus, find out what’s on it and who is running it and then meet me back at your motel tomorrow.”

“So you honestly think that a secret bus that’s running drugs will not only pick me up, but will also let me off with no problems? Are you crazy?”

“That’s your problem for right now. But if you don’t show up tomorrow morning, it had damned well better be because you’re dead.”

Before Evan could even start to protest, Sam closed the passenger side door in Evan’s face. He threw the van into Drive and made a quick U-Turn, headed back towards Shinoe.

“Shit!”

It was the first time Evan had screamed to the top of his lungs in a long time. It felt surprisingly good, despite his situation. His voice didn’t echo; it only rolled gently in all directions to the wide open spaces all around him.

He glanced at his watch. It was approaching eleven o’ clock. The desert was now cloaked perfectly in the night, an endless sea of dust on dark that stretched out further than he cared to imagine. He was all alone in the midst of it and he felt like a very small fish in an enormous sea.