Glancing down at the gravel parking lot he noticed a shellcasing, kicking it away from him. One casing wasn’t all that strange. Then, one turned into two. Two turned into four. Suddenly Lance realized he was standing in a pile of shells, the brass scattered through the gravel. Smelling gunsmoke is what dropped him to his knees. That, and the repercussive sounds of an automatic machine gun. Lying on the ground, he saw two motionless bodies. Lance didn’t know if they were wounded, hurt, or dead, none of which would’ve surprised him.

He ‘psssted’ toward the first body, a young woman wearing a pair of torn blue jeans, a few tattoos visible on her lower arms. “Hey. Are you okay?” He watched her leg twitch, a hiss, like someone shushing you, coming from her direction.

“Shut up!” she hissed back. “You’re gonna get us all killed.”

Lance heard three separate guns firing in varied directions from where he was lying, close to the tattooed girl.

“Keep your eyes shut. And try your best not to breathe.”

Lance did his best not to breathe, hearing the sounds of heavy footsteps crunching across the gravel. Two voices speaking what he assumed was Spanish were yelling at each other. The closer the voices got, the harder it was for Lance to stop breathing, but he knew his life depended on it.

“You let them get away, you idiots!” The voice spoke perfect English, something that Lance hadn’t expected. Unless you were raised in the United States, you always had a bit of an accent. English sounded different from those not native-born and raised in New Mexico. “And you killed three more? That’s perfect! You know the authorities will be here any minute.” Eyes closed, Lance heard the soft sound of a radio with the volume turned way down. The squawking, he guessed, was law enforcement receiving reports of the gunshots. “See? They are on their way, and we are not one step closer to figuring out who stole Guierrmo’s money!” More casings fell from the machine gun, and another body dropped to the ground next to the tattoo girl. From the brown skin, Lance guessed it was one of the yelling man’s enforcers. More Spanish came from the remaining men, panicked voices rushing to explain themselves. “I don’t care! I want that money back. And you and you will be getting it back!” He yelled something else in his mother tongue kicking gravel into Lance’s face and closed eyes. Lance did his best to keep from coughing, listening to a vehicle’s doors open and close and the ignition start. More gravel from the car peeling out hit Lance on his legs, leaving small red welts.

Hearing the vehicle accelerate on the pavement, both the tattoo girl and the other man slowly pushed themselves up on their hands. “Shhhh. Stay low for a minute,” she hissed at Lance. Three minutes later, the man said, “Okay, Angie, we’re good.” Standing up and brushing dust and gravel from his blue jeans and Mötley Crüe t-shirt, he helped the tattoo girl. “I thought you were kidding about the cartel coming up here.” Up here was Beclabito, roughly five hundred miles from the United States-Mexico border. The guy in the Crüe shirt had a black goatee neatly trimmed, unusual for this part of New Mexico. It was more likely to see a biker dude with a heavy, long, unkept, and dirty beard than a guy like him. He looked like he was a transplant from either California or Washington. His hair wasn’t long, but it wasn’t shaved short, like a military buzzcut.

After brushing the loose dirt from her jeans and jet-black, sleeveless AC/DC shirt, Angie punched him as hard as she could in the mouth. “You drug me all the way out here, telling me it was a new start!” Her shouting sounded tinney like something was preventing her voice from coming out of her mouth. It was more of a loud squeak than a yell. But Angie’s punch landed just right, knocking the man off his feet. “I told you if we got into something crazy one more time, I was gone. Well, guess what, Dan? I’m gone!” she shouted, kicking the dead man beside her. “And you did this!” Angie screamed. “Three bodies? Or is this four? I lost count!” She stormed back into the little roadside café bar. That’s when Lance realized three vehicles: his sky-blue Pontiac Sunfire, some motorcycle that wasn’t a Harley, and a rusted-out banana-yellow Chevy van that looked like it had at least one flat tire.  

“How’re you gonna go anywhere, Ang? The van’s got a flat. And if you think you’re takin’ the bike and leaving me here, you got another thing comin’!”

She said nothing, jumped on the bike, turned it over, and burned out, leaving gravel behind her. Lance couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark sunglasses. The last thing both men saw of her was her middle finger sticking up in the air as she left.

“You’ll be back!” Dan shouted after her. “I know you will be!” Lance stared at the girl riding off, doing his best not to give Dan any attention.

“What are you lookin’ at, frat boy?” Dan referred to Lance’s t-shirt emblazoned with ASU’s maroon and gold logo. “Ain’t nothin’ here. Unless you wanna deal with that,” he pointed at the girl riding off on his motorcycle. “I ain’t got time for her or you,” he said, walking inside.

Lance, freaked out as it was, walked out to his Sunfire, jumped in and left Dan inside. He reached the gravel drive’s end, pounded on the steering wheel, and drove back. Lance didn’t know if Dan would take the offer. Considering there wasn’t any other option, Dan was likely to take him up on a ride out of Beclabito before the police arrived. Lance wasn’t sure what he would say if they asked him a bunch of questions.

Lance ran inside, Dan drawing down on him with a 9mm pistol. “Woah, dude! I came back to offer you a ride, but I guess you got this all figured out, right?”

“Wait. You got the Sunfire, don’t you, kid?” Dan kept the pistol aimed at Lance’s forehead. “Well,” Dan said, sliding the gun into the waistband of his jeans, “what are we waiting for? Let’s get the hell outta here!” Both men ran for the door, the sound of sirens in the distance. “Probably a few miles from here,” Dan said, getting in the passenger side of the blue car. “Let’s just go. If they stop us, they can’t detain us, right college boy?”

“How the hell should I know?” Lance asked. “I’m a physical education major!”