The Infinity Tattoo (5 page)

“Yes, I am. But I left the farm as soon as I could.”

“Yes. That would be that energy I see in you. You would not have been happy with that kind of life. You needed to get out, stretch your wings.”

“I guess that’s true,” Jack said.

“Did you go to college?”

“I did. I went to the University of Illinois. Got a degree in engineering.”

“And then what?”

“Well, I joined the Army Corps of Engineers.”

“Oh, how very interesting. And noble. We need young men like you defending our country.”

“Thank you.”

Meg looked over at him. “I thought you said air force?”

“That’s right. Officers in the Army Corps of Engineers are frequently seconded to the other branches of the military.”

Just then the kettle emitted an ear-piercing whistle and Jack was saved from further scrutiny. Meg set a tray on the table with a teapot, cups, and a plate of cookies.

Jack listened as the two women talked and sipped his tea. It was strong and surprisingly good. And he tried not to pig down too many cookies.

The conversation was about local news. The town had just wrapped up their annual film festival. There was an art show at Tlaquepaque next weekend. The lack of precipitation that winter was making for a tinderbox this summer and forest officials were gearing up to fight the inevitable wildfires.

When they had finished their tea, Bonnie stood up and looked Jack directly in the eye. “It is good that you came here, I think. Sedona is a place of healing. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard about the many vortexes around here. They are places where the earth’s energy is very strong. They have great power to heal both the mind and body. I can see that you need healing.”

Then she turned to Meg. “I think you two were destined to meet. Take care of him.”

Meg walked Bonnie to the gate, then returned and sat across from Jack.

“So,” she said. “Powerful and energetic.”

“Don’t forget passionate,” Jack said.

“Indeed. I ought to have Bonnie over more often. She’s pretty good at drawing information out of a person.”

“She’s something else, that’s for sure. How long have you known her?”

“Oh, not too long. She moved here when I was out of the country. Sedona seems to draw a lot of spiritual types.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“You know, I wouldn’t discount people like that. There’s a lot about this world that we don’t understand.”

“Are you saying you believe that people have auras?”

“Well, I’ve never seen one, but who’s to say they aren’t there?”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“I know it sounds crazy. But Sedona does that to a person. It opens the heart up to possibilities. If you stay here long enough, such ideas will seem pretty normal.”

“Hmph,” Jack snorted.

Meg laughed.

Then he smiled a crooked little smile that Meg found utterly endearing.

* * *

As Jack settled in for the night, he heard a light knocking on the door. He hesitated to open it. Who would be out there at this hour?

“Jack, open up. It’s me,” Meg said.

He quickly pulled the door open and Meg practically tumbled inside with a large bundle in her arms. She thrust it at him. “I thought maybe you would like to make yourself a little bit more at home.”

“Well, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “I guess I should have thought of it sooner.” Then she turned around and left, closing the door behind her.

Jack carried the bundle over to his hidey-hole and checked it out. She had thoughtfully given him a blow-up mattress, a large lounging pillow, a bed pillow, and a fold-up camping chair and table.

That night, after spending a good deal of time blowing it up with the foot pump, he settled comfortably onto the air mattress, with a fluffy pillow under his head. As he was drifting off, he rubbed his arm where a particularly thorny wound was bothering him. He could still feel the somewhat greasy ointment that Meg had applied to it. It rested just below his tattoo.

Then his thoughts focused on the tattoo. She had to have seen it. Which meant that she recognized it as a perfect match to the one Alex had. But she hadn’t said anything. Why had she kept silent about it?

He was still pondering this as he fell into a deep sleep. Suddenly, he was dreaming that he was at the pool at the joint US-Honduran military base hanging out with his buddy Mike. They were drinking beer, soaking up the sun.

Soon a couple of Honduran officers, Andres and Vicente, joined them. Andres had classic Latin looks with even features and close-cropped dark hair. When he smiled, which was frequently, white teeth sparkled from a sun-burnished face.

Vicente was a darker version of Andres. A swarthy complexion spoke of his indigenous heritage, common to the majority of Hondurans. His black hair was smoothed back from his forehead with gel. Black eyes darted from one colleague to another.

As they sat around the pool, the faces of Jack’s colleagues came in and out of focus. First there was Andres, his white teeth sparkling in an overly bright smile. Then Mike’s smiling face came into view as he swigged his beer and laughed. Then Jack saw Vicente’s face. He was smiling, but then the smile disappeared and his expression was dark and angry.

Vicente’s face dissolved and was replaced by Alex’s. Alex lay in a pool of blood by the side of a road. His eyes were open and he was talking, but Jack couldn’t hear what he was saying. It was dark and a light was shining on Alex. Then a shadow passed in front of the light and Alex disappeared.

Jack woke with a start and looked around him in the darkness of the shed. He remembered the day at the pool very clearly. He had been hanging out with some of his buddies when the two Honduran soldiers joined them.

They were part of the same joint task force that Jack had been asked to head up. Their English was fairly good, and they welcomed any chance they could get to practice it. Together, the group enjoyed a couple of hours laughing and joking in a mixture of Spanish and English. The beer helped break down any communication barriers.

At some point, Vicente noticed Jack’s tattoo. “Hey,” he said, pointing to it. “where did you get that?”

“This? It’s just something that me and some guys did when we were in college. Kind of a bro thing.”

“A bro thing?” Vicente asked.

Jack hesitated, trying to think of a way to explain it to Vicente. “You know, when you go to college in the States. Some of the guys join fraternities.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of them.”

“Yeah. Well I was in the Delta Chi fraternity. I made some really close friends. There were four of us and we really were like brothers. So one day we decided to get the same tattoo. We made a promise that we would always look after each other.”

“Do you?” Vicente asked.

“Do we what?”

“Look after each other.”

“Yeah, yeah we do as much as we can,” Jack said, taking in the serious look on Vicente’s face. “Why?”

“Nothing, man. Just curious, you know,” he said. Then he looked at Andres. “Hey, maybe we should get tattoos. Then we can be brothers,
verdad
?”

“And people think we are part of a gang?” said Andres. “No, man. We are like brothers, tattoo or no.”

Jack held up his beer. “A toast,” he said, “to brothers!” And together the small group at the pool raised their beer bottles. But when Jack glanced at Vicente, his face was murderous.

Now, in the shadows of the shed, he thought about Vicente and the look in his eyes. At the time, he hadn’t been sure if he had imagined it or not. Then one night Andres came for a visit. It was after midnight. The knock was so soft, he wasn’t sure he’d heard it. But he checked the door anyway.

When he opened it, Andres stood on the stoop looking nervous. “Hey, man. Can I come in for a minute?” This time, Andres made no attempt to speak English.

“Of course,” Jack said in Spanish, opening the door wider. Andres glanced quickly behind him before stepping in.

“What can I do for you, Andres?”

“I just came to tell you something. But you must never say who told you this.”

“Okay,” Jack said.

“It’s about your tattoo. There was another man in Honduras with exactly that tattoo. A journalist.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Yes?”

“He disappeared. Maybe you heard about it on the news. I think maybe you knew him, yes?”

“Yes, I did,” Jack said. Then he waited to see what Andres had to tell him.

“I know what happened to him. Vicente, he knows too.”

“Tell me,” Jack said.

“My cousin is married to a policeman. He saw it happen.” Andres closed his eyes and shook his head for a moment. “He told me that they took this journalist out into the campo. They tortured him. They wanted to know what the other journalistas, the Honduran journalists, had given him. My cousin’s husband, he said this man was very brave. He never gave them what they wanted. But, of course, then he died. A man can only take so much.”

Jack felt a shiver run up his spine. “Do you know what they did with the body?”

“They dumped it. On the road to Valle de Angeles. There is a shed behind a roadside cafe that serves grilled chicken and beer. My cousin’s husband says it was at the thirteen kilometer marker. The journalist was beaten so badly that no one would recognize him.”

Jack regarded Andres for a long moment. “Thank you for telling me this.”

“I tell you so that you will be careful,” said Andres, a scowl darkening his usually cheerful countenance. “I don’t like the way Vicente looked at you that day at the pool. See, another cousin of mine? He was a policeman too. Too many times he was asked to turn on a countryman. He didn’t like it. Now he is dead. Please, be careful.”

“I will be,” Jack said. Then he watched Andres stroll out into the night and disappear.

Now, in the silence of the night in the shed in Sedona, Arizona, all of that seemed very far away. Was it somehow related to what was going on now? But how?

His thoughts turned to Meg. And to Bonnie. Bonnie had said that the two of them had come together for a reason. He decided he would have to tell Meg about Honduras and the more recent events that led him to her door. Soon . . .

Jack paused for a moment to catch his breath and stare at the bold cliff of red rocks that rose in stark relief against a piercingly blue sky. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. Meg wasn’t kidding when she said he’d earn his keep. His first day on the job found him digging trenches for the irrigation system she was installing at a new residence. The whole area seemed to be under construction, with houses at various stages of completion.

She was right when she said it was a beautiful part of the world. As they drove to the work site early that morning, with the sun just starting to rise, they went through a magical landscape of red-rock monoliths rising out of hills covered in various shades of green brush.

Jack had literally stared, at a loss for words. So this is what Meg was talking about. It was stunning. Just stunning.

“Kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?” she said.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I can’t believe people actually get to live here.”

They arrived at the work site where Julio and Manny were already waiting. Meg hopped out of the truck and Jack did likewise.

“Julio, Manny, I’d like you to meet Jack. Jack is a friend of a friend. He’ll be working with us for a while.”

Julio stepped up to shake Jack’s hand. He was short, maybe five foot six, and wiry. His hair, once jet black, was now speckled with grey. His face was leathery, scored with deep lines around his eyes and mouth. His look was frank and appraising. Jack had no doubt he was assessing him. Meg had mentioned that he was like a second father to her. He was probably sizing Jack up both with respect to his intentions and his capacity to work.

Manny offered his hand as well. He was quite a bit taller than Julio. Jack guessed he was in his late twenties or early thirties. His hair was black and he was so deeply tanned that his skin was the color of chocolate. He had broad shoulders and chest, and his arms were like tree trunks. His handshake was firm and dry.

“Nice to meet you, Jack,” he said with an open and friendly smile.

“Likewise, Manny,” Jack said.

And without further ado, they got down to work. They unloaded the power trencher from the bed of the truck. Chalk lines were already on the ground, marking out where they would dig the trenches. Julio would operate the trencher while Manny and Jack would follow behind, smoothing the floor of the trench so that they could lay the pipe.

Jack led the way directly behind the trencher, removing the bulk of the rocky soil that the trencher had broken up, and Manny followed, shoring up the sides and scraping the bottom to create a level bed in which they would lay the pipes. As the morning wore on, the temperature rose from a pleasant sixty to somewhere in the eighties. The sun was hot and intense.

Every time they paused, Manny handed Jack a bottle of water. “Never let yourself get dehydrated, man,” he told Jack.

“Thanks.” Jack took this advice to heart. He had already experienced the effects of dehydration in the desert, and he didn’t want to repeat it.

Meg worked right alongside them. Sometimes she supervised, checking the depth and level of the trenches. Other times she wielded a shovel.

The power trencher managed to get the job done, but barely. Several times they had to stop and fiddle with it. The chain was old and worn and kept jumping off its track. And sometimes it hit a large stone. Then Julio would have to stop and Jack would help dig the stone out.

Julio took the opportunity to have a little discussion with Jack during one such effort.

“Tell me again how you know Meg,” Julio asked.

Jack opted for a version of the truth. “She’s a friend of a friend, someone I knew back in college. When I found myself in need of work and in this part of the world, I looked her up.”

“She’s a good woman,” Julio said. “I’ve known her since she was a child,” he said, holding his hand low to indicate a height at waist level, “ever since I started working for her papa. She’s kind and generous. Maybe too generous,” he said pointedly.

Jack stopped digging for a moment and looked Julio in the eye. “Well, I’m thankful for that. There are times in a man’s life when he needs a little generosity.”

Julio regarded him for a long moment. Then he picked up a shovel and resumed their task.

When the day ended, they had two trenches dug smooth, ready for the irrigation pipe they would lay tomorrow.

But when Julio brought the power trencher to the truck for loading, he expressed his concerns. “Meg, this machine needs work. We were lucky to be able to finish the job today.”

“I know, Julio,” Meg said. “But just now I haven’t got the cash to get it serviced.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Meg. We got to get the thing fixed if we want to take on more work.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

The power trencher wasn’t the only thing on its last legs. Jack, too, was all in. As he and Julio loaded up the equipment, he could feel Julio’s eyes on him, so he kept his posture ramrod straight and refused to let his fatigue show.

As soon as they were out of sight of Julio and Manny, Jack allowed himself to slump in the truck. Meg laughed.

“What?” Jack said.

“Men,” Meg said. “I saw you and Julio measuring each other up out there. Why do men do that?”

“Come on, Meg. Julio is as protective of you as an old dog. It was pretty obvious he didn’t want me around. I mean, who was I to you, really? For all he knew, I was some gigolo trying to take advantage of you. I had to work my ass off just to prove him wrong.”

“Well, you did. And I thank you. Don’t worry. Julio will come around. If you keep working like you did today.”

“Yeah, if it doesn’t kill me first.”

Meg laughed again. It was soft and full of mirth. Jack snorted, then pulled his cap over his face and closed his eyes for the rest of the trip.

When they arrived home, they wrestled the power trencher out of the truck.

“Meg,” Jack said, “let me take a look at this. I’ve done quite a bit of work on machinery. Maybe I can get it back in running order.”

“Anything you can do to get these old things running will be such a great help,” Meg said. “And, Jack, I know it’s hard for a proud man to be dependent on someone else, especially a complete stranger. But try, if you can, to make yourself at home while you’re here. There’s beer in the refrigerator and chairs on the deck overlooking the creek.
Mi casa es tu casa
.

When she looked at him, her dark eyes were soft with compassion. And he knew he was in trouble. For there was nothing he wanted more at that moment than to lean over and press his lips to hers. Instead, he pulled away and opened the truck door.

“You’re very kind, Meg. I don’t how I can ever repay you.”

“Would you stop already? Didn’t you just ‘work your ass off’ all day to repay me? Now go on with you and get yourself a beer.”

* * *

Jack grabbed a cold beer and immediately returned to the shed. There was something he needed to do and this was the first chance he had. Being AWOL was a very serious offense, one that he wouldn’t tolerate on his record. He had always prided himself as a man of honor. If he said he would do something, then he did it. If he said he would be somewhere, he would be there.

So now he needed to find out what the people were saying about him at the base. There was one person he absolutely trusted: his colleague, Bill Marsh. Jack punched in the number on his cell phone.

“Will Marsh,” said a crisp voice.

“Billy?”

“Jack?” said Billy lowering his voice to a near whisper. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“What’s going on?”

“Listen, where are you right now?”

“I’m in my cubicle.”

“Do you think you can find a more private place and call me back?”

“Sure thing. Give me a minute.”

Billy and Jack had become friends when they worked together trying to debug the formulas on an engineering project. The results of the study were in a spreadsheet from hell. Formulas based on formulas based on formulas meandered across worksheets and from one worksheet to another.

Billy had inherited the project from a lieutenant who was long gone and suddenly the powers that be were breathing down Billy’s neck. They needed the numbers, but there was something wrong with the calculations. Since Jack understood the formulas and Billy understood spreadsheets they teamed up and worked almost around the clock one weekend tracing through the calculations.

Billy was a shy, quiet young man from West Virginia with a face covered by acne scars. He was respectful to his superiors and kept his own council. But Jack had learned that quiet didn’t mean dumb.

Billy kept up with world events and observed everything that went on around him. He processed what he learned and had very astute observations, if you could gain his confidence enough for him to share his thoughts. Working with Billy on that and subsequent projects, he had opened up to Jack and a bond of friendship had formed.

Five minutes after Jack had initiated contact, his cell phone vibrated. “It’s me,” Billy said.

“What do you hear about me around the base?” Jack said.

“Nothing. It’s very strange. You’ve been gone for over a week now, and no one is saying very much. The story is that you’ve taken leave to take care of some family matter. Is everything okay with your family?”

“Yeah. Things are fine at home. Listen, Billy, I’ve had to disappear for a while. I can’t go into it. Can I trust you to keep my confidence?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, well I just need you to let me know if my status changes from authorized leave to AWOL. Or if you hear any mention of me.”

“Will do.”

When Jack ended the call, he thought for a moment. His commanding officer was covering for him. But was that good or bad? It was good because it gave him some breathing space. But Jack doubted that Parker was doing it out of the kindness of his heart. What was Parker involvement in all of this?