Blood & Tacos #1 (9 page)

"Missile shield!" McCreary muttered. "You got Washington to sign ours away in that last treaty!"

"Backstabbers!" Whitefeather said. "We Americans
always
honor our treaties!"

"Be that as it may, gentlemen," Azov continued, "The only surviving Minuteman III missile—serial No. 8534-Dash-A—was enough to destroy its target: my village of Fertile Worker Fields, fifteen kilometers east of Kiev."

"That's ludicrous," McCreary said. "Americans never target civilians. The Dash-A was aimed at a radar station—"

"—less than a kilometer away from my village—" Azov turned and gazed at the oil painting above the fireplace "—and my beloved Svetlana."

McCreary lowered his head and studied the planks between his boots.

"The day I assumed command of our hidden forces in Laredo," Azov said, "waiting for our orders to invade the United States, I learned that our motherland had escaped unscathed—except for the missile that you launched. Imagine having everything you loved wiped out by the treacherous, glowing heart of an American atom."

Azov, still holding his glass, walked slowly across the floor to where McCreary sat.

"When I heard from a minor KGB operative, Lt. Hawkerov, that you had survived the strike on your base, I was seized with anger, a thirst for revenge—and a clarity I have not known since I was a young man. I made it my duty to take from you what you took from me."

"No…" McCreary whispered.

"Conquering this sector of Texas was easy," Azov said. "I was then able to locate your hometown, Capt. McCreary. To find your beautiful wife. To make her and all of the members of this … beautiful community… the beacon of Socialism that my home had been!"

"You Communist bastard!" McCreary spat.

Azov chuckled. "Do your American friends working in the fields not look happy? Do they not look fulfilled? A little hypnosis here, a little torture there… but at the heart of it all, Communism is simply a fancy word for ‘sharing.' And
you
have been sharing your beautiful Sunny—or should I say, my
Svetlana—
with me for the past three months."

His voice dropped further, into an oily and sultry tone. "Her skin… so very soft on these … lonely Texas nights."

"
Nooooooo!"
McCreary screamed.

"If my Moscow command knew what I was doing in this town," Azov said, "they might strip me of command. All they know is that I have taken Wrangler Plains—I mean, Fertile Worker Fields—as my command post. A staging ground for a thrust into the breadbasket of the future United Socialist States of America. But the inspired loyalty of our new comrades, my taking of a field wife—this is my personal effort."

"And of course, you had to destroy the church," McCreary hissed.

"We are not animals, Capt. McCreary." Azov said "We waited. And when Lt. Hawkerov let us know that you were en route, I decided that the church would be the perfect demonstration. The perfect incentive for you to visit us again."

"You've disobeyed orders," McCreary snickered. "Your own superiors can't trust you."

"As you disobeyed orders to come here," the general said. The ice in his glass clinked. "We're not that different, you and I, Capt. McCreary. We love our countries. We love the warrior's path. But at the end of the day, we are men who live by our own rules. "

Calm down, Jake old boy,
McCreary thought.
There's a way out of this. Don't let him get to you.

And in his calm, McCreary's plan gelled. He could taste its humble brilliance. It tasted like freedom.

"That's where you're wrong, General," McCreary said. "I'd never take another man's town, much less his wife. I'd never engineer a sneaky invasion of another country. That's not the American way."

Azov drained his glass and leaned forward toward McCreary. "You Americans," he said, "always so idealistic."

"Yes," McCreary said, "idealistic—and very good at untying knots.
Especially us Eagle Scouts."

Azov's eyes twitched in recognition that he'd made a grave error. Rope flew and McCreary's fist circled in from the right and smashed the good general's cheekbone. Azov crashed into the desk and crumpled to the floor. McCreary stood over Azov, fists ready.

"Get up, you Commie sonofabitch!"

The Russian guards at the door had already pulled their sidearms and had them leveled on McCreary.
"Ostanovit!"
one of them cried.
"Ostanovit, vas kapitalisticheskaya svin
‘ya!"

McCreary turned to them. "Go ahead. Do it," he said. "Shoot me, you godless puppets! I haven't got all day."

The arrows that pierced the windows of the mayor's office hit the guards' chests so quickly, it appeared to McCreary that they'd burst from their hearts. Both Russians slowly sank to their knees.

Still tied to his chair, Whitefeather let out a shrill cry. "It's my brother warriors, Captain! They heard my call on the spirit winds!"

Outside the mayor's office, three sets of dissimilar sounds rose: Russian cries of alarm, sporadic AK fire… and a hundred Comanche war whoops.

McCreary had the big Indian untied in seconds. Azov was struggling to his feet, but the general collapsed again, moaning, struggling to unholster his Nagant.

"That was some punch, Cap!" LaRoy cried. "Look at that Mongol bastard! He can't even stand!"

Whitefeather untied LaRoy. They each took one of the guard's sidearms. "You better do the same, Captain," Whitefeather said. But McCreary was way ahead of him. He grabbed Azov's pistol from the general's weakened grasp.

Outside, the battle raged. Through the windows, McCreary caught glimpses of action: scrambling Russian soldiers, flashes of gunfire, mounted Comanches in deerskin and full regalia, chasing them down. Gunfire. The twang of bowstrings and the thud of tomahawks. Screams of panic and pain.

McCreary pulled the dazed general to his feet.

"Leave him!" Whitefeather said. "The sacred battle is joined!"

"No," McCreary said. "You and LaRoy go. The general and I have someplace to be. Don't we, General?"

LaRoy was beside himself. "Let's go, Whitefeather! I always wanted to be an Indian brave!
Whoooooop!
" And out they went, leaving McCreary and the General.

"On your feet," McCreary said grimly. "Take me to my house."

McCreary's homestead lay to the north of town, away from where the battle between
the Russians and the Comanches was playing out. McCreary had to resist the urge
to shoot Azov, rescue Sunny on his own, and sprint out of town. But he couldn't
leave his men, and bringing Azov back alive might be the only thing that would
keep Gen. Pearce from court-martialing him on the spot.

As McCreary moved Azov through the abandoned streets, they saw only flashes of action through streets and windows. Tanks rumbled. Russian APCs sped along, surrounded by bands of jogging, terrified soldiers. None of them seemed to notice that McCreary had their beloved commander at gunpoint.

They neared McCreary's home. There was the mailbox, painted bright white. There was the same grass. The same picket fence. The same gate, the last thing McCreary had made before shipping off to North Dakota. The only thing that was missing was the American flag that always hung from a bracket off the porch.

"She'd better be alive," McCreary said.

The general had said nothing since leaving the mayor's office. In fact, nothing since McCreary had socked him. But now, the general seemed to perk up.

"Oh, she is alive, Jacob," Azov said, as he walked through the gate. "If things had gone as planned, she'd be baking bread like a good Russian wife. Waiting for her husband, me, to show up. To enjoy a good meal. Then enjoy her, afterward."

"Careful, General," McCreary said. Through the windows, McCreary could see that everything in the house had changed. Gone were the photos of his family, of Sunny's family, the oil painting of Jesus that Sunny had painted for the state fair. Instead, McCreary could make out mostly bare walls, adorned only with the occasional image of Marx, Lenin, and old Papa Joe himself.

Azov opened the front door. They walked inside. There was no smell of bread.

"Where is she?"

"In our bedroom."

McCreary responded by shoving the barrel of the Nagant between Azov's shoulderblades so hard that the general staggered toward the stairs. Up they went, one step, two, the steps creaking. In the distance, a tank fired. The house shook.

"My Svetlana!" Azov called out. "I have brought you a guest. He is… so…
very
eager to see you."

They reached the top of the stairs. Down at the end of the dimly lit hallway was the door to their bedroom. Where McCreary and Sunny had learned about the sacred covenant between man and wife.

"You'll be happy to know, she's been very resistant to my charms," Azov said, a few feet shy of the door. "It's taken much… persuasion to even get her to look at me, but never without distrust in her eyes. And I must admit that she has resisted even my more…
skilled
methods."

"Shut up," McCreary said. "Open the door."

The General obeyed.

The bedroom McCreary had shared with his wife had been stripped down to three things: a four-poster bed, a Soviet flag hanging from a six-foot staff in the corner, and Sunny herself. McCreary's wife was unconscious and pale, tied on the bed, clad only in the virginal white nightgown she'd worn on their wedding night. Her hair was a curly blonde halo around her sleeping head.

He couldn't restrain himself any longer. McCreary shoved the general aside and raced to Sunny's bedside. "Sunny! … Sunny, it's me! It's Jake!"

Sunny opened her eyes. They were sunken and tired—from what, McCreary didn't want to know—but they were the same bright blue. They lingered on his. He saw a flicker of recognition—and a flash of red in their reflection over his shoulder.

Instinct. McCreary turned and fired. Again, and again, and again. McCreary barely registered the sight of Azov, brandishing the Soviet flagstaff as a sharpened weapon. It was a sea of red—flapping fabric, and the general's blood.

Azov staggered backward. Blood poured from his surprised mouth. But somehow, the general lurched forward again. McCreary fired twice more. And again. Then, remembering that the Nagant held seven rounds, he saved the final shot for a spot right between Azov's dark, beady eyes.

Azov's dying body lurched backward, his shiny boots clattering against the hardwood floor. Back he flew against the window, and through it, shattering the glass, and tumbling to the yard below.

Sunset. McCreary carried his wife's limp form across the high school football field. He could barely take it. The unholy lines that passed on the turf at his feet.
Those aren't yard lines,
he thought.
The goddamned Reds turned this Texas high school football field into a soccer field. Soccer!

Suddenly the sound of hoofbeats erupted. McCreary turned. Here came Whitefeather, astride a brown and white paint, with streaks across his face, the color of Russian blood. Behind him was LaRoy on a gimpy palomino and no less than a hundred Comanche warriors. In prewar life, they'd been proud working men and boys on the Reservation, content to do whatever it was Indians did. But now, they proudly had revived the spirits of their ancestors.

"The battle is ours, Captain!" Whitefeather cried. "The Russians didn't quite know what to make of this outfit."

"Well, a fitter bunch I never did see!" McCreary said, happy but weary.

"Captain, look!" LaRoy held aloft a long knife. "They made me an honorary Injun!" McCreary nodded, his eyes drifting to the dark, dripping mats that hung from their saddles.

McCreary didn't want to know.

"We have to get moving," Whitefeather said. "The Russians retreated, but you know they'll be back. We have to get back to General Pearce and tell him what we know." The big Indian turned and raised an AK-47, and let loose a war whoop. The warriors behind him responded in kind.

McCreary turned and hunkered down to his wife. "Did you hear that, Sunny? We have to get going. … Sunny! Sunny?"

Lying beautifully on the grass, Sunny opened her eyes.

"Sunny! Did you hear me?"

His wife smiled faintly.

"
Da,
" she said.

THE END

Christopher Blair
is a teacher, freelance writer, and
former crime reporter. In addition to being raised on ten-for-a-dollar used
paperbacks, he grew up on a nutritious diet of comic books, Stephen King stories,
and pure cane sugar. "Texasgrad" is his first published short story.

 
By Thomas Pluck