Today I’m going to share with you my most brilliant solution for rescuing manhood from its modern day, metrosexual, skinny-pant-wearing, latte-drinking, urban-hipster evolution. That solution is called the Mancave Coop.
This type of concept has begun popping up in different urban areas around the United States. Just to be clear, I came up with it first. And by merging the idea with the model of the fraternal organization of old, I’ve taken it up a notch. So what exactly is the Mancave Coop?
First, let us assess the evolution of men over the last few generations using myself as an accessible example.
My two sons don’t know jack about fixing cars or hunting. They know how to use basic tools like hammers, saws, drills. My youngest is pretty good with a compound miter (he hasn’t cut off any body parts or anything). And both my sons can mow the lawn and yet they can’t fix the mower if it breaks (although they could probably find a video on youtube showing how to fix the mower…and they could order parts from Amazon).
Personally, I can muddle around with engines. I can figure out how to fix simple things. I can change my oil. When I was a kid, my dad and I rebuilt a ‘67 Camaro. I know how to frame, sheetrock, and rough out the basics of electrical and plumbing. I’ve remodeled four or five homes over the years and painted several more. I can stretch a fence if you give me some time to muddle around with it. But I can’t weld. I can’t sweat pipe (I’ve done it once twenty years ago). I don’t own a surface planer, a jointer, a drill press, a bench grinder, or a scroll saw, and I don’t have any real experience with said tools.
My father on the other hand, can pretty much do everything I can while also fixing most engines. He has a rancher/farmer knowledge of just about every manhood skill. He’s a much better hunter than me. He can weld pipe in a pinch, pull a windmill, palpate a cow, break a horse, and train up a damn fine hunting dog.
Now my father’s father could completely tear down and rebuild just about any tractor. He could tell when to harvest by the smell in the air. He could build a house from the ground up with basic tools. He could hear quail chittering in the brush from a hundred yards away. And he sang in the church choir.
Thus has been the evolution of manhood. Thus is the need for the Mancave Coop, a judgement free zone where men can learn the fading skills and dying arts of being a man. Need to know how to smoke a turkey? Need to quietly figure out how to assemble a basic tool box? Embarrassed you don’t know how to fix a leaky toilet or replace a flat tire? Want to become a master woodworker or welder? Want to spend weekends fixing up a go cart with your son or daughter? (Girls like getting greasy too.)
That’s my idea for the Mancave coop. Take an old storage unit facility. Add a commons area and a concession stand. Rent those units out to men looking for a private space of their own. But not just a space to be lazy, watch TV, and bad mouth their women. Nope. These mancaves would be places of education and communal sharing of skills. The shared language would still be grunting, farting, and beard scratching. But younger men would also find a place to share, learn, and grow along side older men—all for the betterment of mankind. Feel free to spread the word.
At the Desk This Week
I’m mostly done with my most recent rewrite of Episodes 1, 2, and 3 of Season 3 of The Green Ones. These episodes are really coming along at this point. The characters and their relationships are growing rich and believable. I’m liking their inner motivations and quirky mannerisms. They are growing on me. That’s a key sign that everything is clicking.
The main tension I’ve had to go back and live into is how it would feel to be forced to fake your own death as a teenager leaving parents and siblings behind. While on the one hand, these characters are escaping violent and dangerous enemies in order to protect their loved ones, they are also certainly doing harm to their loved-ones. I want that tension to blossom in these characters who are also just recently coming to grips with their abilities and the truth of the multi-verse. Talk about teenage angst!
This week the below bonus content describes the general rules of “shifting” within my Schism 8 World. Shifting is the term most often used for crossing telepathically between universes in the multi-verse. But shifting at the micro level is also responsible for telekinetic abilities. Most characters don’t understand the science of all this, but now you will! Occasionally, a story includes a character who understands all this stuff even better than I do. When that happens, I have to interview real life scientists who can help me grow my understanding of the human mind and the possibilities!
Planes, Trains and Blood, Scene 4 - 9
[Start with the introduction to the series.]
Jesse reloaded his mare’s legs with regular rounds as he bounced in the saddle behind Muddy. He chose to ignore the blood oozing from his side. “Sorry about that. I knew that snake Swisher had been staking me out, but I didn’t figure he’d make the connection.”
“I’m afraid Nena was right, we’ve only brought you trouble.” Muddy and Jesse rode double in the lead. Chancho followed them closely. Nena brought up the rear.
“Nothing doing. I’ve been in trouble since you left.” Jesse finished loading his weapons and craned his neck to see behind them. “Look, I haven’t been totally honest with you.”
“I’ve never known you to be anything less than honest.”
“Well, now you have.” He winced as Tripalo barreled into a dry wash and lunged up the other side. “That shootout was just as much about me as it was you.”
“I don’t understand.” They dodged a large prickly pear, forcing Jesse to clutch tighter around Muddy’s waist. The horizon ahead of them shone with the oranges and yellows of a rising sun.
Jesse shook his head. “There’s something going on along the border involving international players. It’s big.”
“Mexico’s big.”
“Nah, bigger than Mexico. Europe. Hell, the whole damn world. I’m sorry, I just haven’t put it together. Apparently there’re folk that don’t want me to.”
“Why would those folk suspect you?”
Jesse clutched his side. “Let’s just say I’ve seen some things they didn’t want me to.”
“Like what?”
“Just shut-up for a second. Damn, Nena’s usually the one with all the questions. There’s stuff I need to tell you, and not much time for the telling.” A gunshot rang out behind them. Jesse continued, “Some fellers offered me a job a while back moving guns across the border. I didn’t like the way they smelled, so I told ‘em no. I doubled back and followed them to the biggest stash of weapons I’d ever seen. Crazy stuff too. They turned out to be Germans connected to the Mexican government. Obviously they got spies around here too. I knew Swisher was one, but there’s probably more.”
Gunshots echoed behind them. Muddy clutched the reins, his prayers for Nena a clot in his heart. Jesse squeezed his waist. “Focus, Muddy,” Jesse said. “Trust me, she’s fine. No army of Rangers could bring that battle ax down. Anyway, not everything’s relevant, but there are things that can’t die with me.”
Muddy cut him off. “You won’t die.”
“That’s not for you to decide, dammit. The good Lord and I have known it was coming for a long time now. You need to listen!” Jesse grew more urgent. “There’s an abandoned railroad tunnel and mine south of here, not far from the border. The Huns are using it as a headquarters. I haven’t had the chance to report its whereabouts. If I can, I’ll use the phone at Fort Clark. I still got friends there, but I got enemies there too. First priority is to get y’all out safely. Now you know about the hideout, so there’s two chances the knowledge’ll survive.” He lifted his hand from his side. Blood oozed from the wound. “Even if I don’t.”
“Now that I know, who’ll I tell?” Muddy was confused.
“You’ll figure it out. The fort’s just ahead. We gotta figure a way through the fence if we’re gonna reach the airstrip.”
“I think we’ve got just the thing. Can you reach the saddlebags? I just hope no one knows we’re coming.”
Chancho cut the second gourd open with the crystal knife. Muddy rolled the putty from the first gourd into a long snake before sticking it to the chain link fence. He connected the first snake with the second and buried a fuse in the end. Nena and Jesse exchanged gunfire with the Ranger at a hundred yards. With little cover and Nena firing Muddy’s Spencer with deadly accuracy, their pursuers had been forced to dismount at long range and hit the dirt with only their pistols. But even in the dim pre-dawn light, they were getting close.
“Hurry, it’s only a matter of time.” Nena grunted in an effort to heft the butt of the rifle higher on her shoulder. She stood, creating a shield for the others.
Chancho tossed Jesse’s lighter to Muddy, who flicked it to life and lit the fuse.
“Get down, you crazy woman.” Jesse pushed Nena to the ground as Muddy and Chancho grabbed the horses’ reins. Nothing happened. Then a short series of pops peeled the fence back like a knife through flesh.
“Leave the horses,” Jesse barked. “You can’t take them where you’re going. Go. Go!”
Chancho unloosed his saddlebags and hefted them over his shoulder. Jesse tossed Muddy’s bags to him, depositing something swiftly into them before he did so. Nena fetched her own.
“Nena, leave me the Spencer.” Jesse already held the Blakeslee Cartridge Box. For the first time, Nena noticed the blood soaking through his shirt.
“You’re injured.”
“Damn hardheaded woman. I’ll cover you!”
“I’ll help.”
“Good God darnit! You made me swear, and now we both got troubles.” He nodded toward the airstrip. “You get ‘em to the plane. I’ll be right behind you.”
Nena looked over her shoulder. A small number of soldiers emerged from a barracks. The old man would not change his mind, and the Ranger, already back on his horse, advanced on them.
Without a word, she threw him the Spencer and darted with deer-like grace toward the others. Wasting no time, Jesse loaded it with the Blakeslee and threw himself to the ground. Resting the barrel on a rock, his first bullet cut the sheriff’s horse out from under him. The satisfying result was the lawman smashing into a prickly pear.
The two remaining riders split up, forcing Jesse to choose. Without hesitation he chose the Ranger. But as he swung the rifle into position, the Ranger leapt from his horse in mid-gallop.
“Polecat!” Jesse swung the rifle toward the deputy who pulled his horse up, uncertain of how to proceed. The Spencer bucked as Jesse encouraged the deputy with a hot slug to the leg. When his horse reared, he bailed out of the saddle backwards and crunched down on his head.
Jesse tried to find the Ranger in his sights, but rock chips showered him as a ricochet grazed his shoulder. “This ain’t good.” Chucking the Spencer, Jesse leapt onto Tripalo’s back. Two more bullets barely missed their mark. “We got one more ride, old friend. Hyaw!”
With the Ranger on foot, Jesse and Tripalo took the upper hand. High in the saddle, Jesse crossed his arms over his head and pulled his dual mare’s legs from their criss-crossed holsters strapped to his back. In a downward movement, he spun the two pistols, working the levers to load them.
Tripalo bore down on the ranger, hungry for blood. Jesse burned the air with lead and smoke. Then he spun the cutdown Winchesters to reload them.
The damned Ranger, insistent on survival, whistled for his horse as he zigged a crooked path toward it. Jesse kept the 44-40s blazing until both were empty. Stubbornly, the Ranger still lived. With Tripalo only twenty yards away and galloping at full speed, the Ranger mounted his horse.
Nothing for it now. Old enough to know what he was about to do was the stupidest thing he could think of, Jesse left all earthly anchor. He leapt from the saddle and crashed full-mast into the shocked Texas Ranger. Entangled, the two men flew from horse to ground over the span of ten yards. The Ranger absorbed the blow as they hit. Jesse bounced, the ranger’s ribs compacting below him, and rolled a somersault in midair before crashing down to earth.
Tripalo swung an arching loop. For several seconds, the falling of hooves and the ringing in his head were the only things Jesse could hear. He pitched onto his stomach, heaved himself up from the ground, and took a few staggering steps toward the Ranger’s crumpled body. He felt like he’d been tossed from a moving train while crossing a bridge a hundred feet above a river.
Suddenly, a bullet clipped Jesse’s left arm. Angrier than a mother porcupine, and with just as many quills, the sheriff walked steadily toward him—his pistol spitting lead. Tripalo’s hoofbeats came fast. Jesse threw his right hand out to catch the saddle horn in his grip. With one bound, he bounced his chest off the neck and shoulders of the running horse. With his right foot in the stirrup, and let his momentum swing his left leg over the rump of the horse until he was seated backwards in the saddle.
As he passed by, he waved at the sheriff who still had one bullet left in the cylinder. Turned out, it was the one Jesse had been waiting his entire life for—seventy years of living up to his Warrior name. When the burning lead tunneled through his chest Jesse thought first of the Warriors who had gone before him. He had served his people just as they had. Next, he thought of Muddy and Nena and hoped for his people’s future.
The early morning gunfire woke some soldiers while catching others in various stages of routine. Stumbling from the barracks in disarray, they took up arms—but with no clear idea of the threat. Never suspecting someone would steal a plane, they drove the trespassers in the direction of the airstrip, intending to strand them in the open. Muddy and Chancho reached the biplane moments before the soldiers figured out what was going on.
Nena coiled, ready with her crossbow and waiting to strike. Muddy dropped his things, unscrewed the gas cap, and took a whiff. “There’s gas. Chancho, load our things in the back.” He moved around the front of the craft. “British S.E. 5 with a second seat. This is nothing like what I’ve flown.”
“But you can fly it.” Chancho stashed the saddlebags under the seat. “No time for flight school, mi amigo. ¡Viva la revolucion!”
“Shut up, you crazy Mexican! We’re on a U.S. airstrip,” Nena snapped.
“Perdóneme. The heat of the moment.” He slapped Muddy on the back.
The order must have come for the soldiers to use all necessary force to prevent the invaders from stealing an aircraft. The follow-up command floated across the fort grounds audibly, “But for God’s sake, don’t shoot the plane!” Gunshots followed tentatively, wide or high of their mark, in an effort to encourage the invaders to stand down.
“Well, mis amigos, I suggest we get in the plane." Chancho started to climb into the front seat.
“Muddy!” Nena crouched with her crossbow directed toward the breach in the fence. Muddy followed her aim until he saw Tripalo walking toward them across the gravel compound with Jesse slumped in the saddle.
Muddy gritted his teeth. Past the hulking black horse, metal gleamed in the shadows of the hanger as a rifle drew a bead on the old scout. Muddy bolted past Nena, snatching her crossbow and releasing a torrent of darts. Like a starting pistol, the rifle crack released the stored-up tension across the entire fort. The soldiers, assuming they had been fired upon, loosed shots with more deadly intent. Taking knees, they fired at every perceived threat.
Lipscomb emerged from the shadow of the hanger, firing the stolen Spencer Repeater. He shifted his target from Jesse to Muddy.
Unarmed, Chancho clung to the hull of the aircraft. “Nena! Muddy!” He knew Muddy would never make it. A bullet thwacked the wooden frame of the plane, causing him to flinch. He scanned for the source. “The rinche!”
Nena heard him. McCutchen and the sheriff stood in the breach, firing from behind their horses. Without another thought, Nena dashed toward Muddy. Muddy moved steadily toward Jesse, exhausting his supply of arrows. Finally, he struck the deputy, causing him to drop the Spencer. But before he could sprint the last thirty yards to his mentor, friend, and father, a searing pain chewed into the meat of his thigh.
“Muddy!” Nena dove, rolled, and sprang to his side as he stumbled onto his knees. She caught his crushing weight, preventing him from sprawling face first.
“Jesse!” He continued to strain his muscles, dragging the couple forward on their hands and knees until his leg folded beneath him.
“You stupid kids.” Jesse regained consciousness. Blood dripped down his leg and from the bottom of the stirrup. Ashen faced and dry, he swallowed hard before he could talk. “Git, this is my funeral, not yours.” He managed a yank of the reins. Obediently, Tripalo turned and headed toward the breach to block the Ranger’s line of fire.
Muddy clutched a fistful of gravel and peppered the side of the hanger in a burst of rage. “I’ll see all of you in hell!”
“Muddy.” Nena buried her head and shoulder in his armpit and lurched upward. “Time to go.” The two of them loped awkwardly toward the plane. Shots pocked the runway and tore through the fabric of the aircraft. Having awoken to violence, a frenzy unleashed on the fort and everyone in it.
Chancho jumped down from the cockpit and helped Muddy climb into the rear seat. He and Nena took the front. Within seconds the engine sputtered and came to life. The prop became a spinning blur pulling them forward. Unarmed, vulnerable, and cramped onto Chancho’s lap, Nena slapped the Mexican across the face. “You have done this to us!”
Silenced by the sting and the anger in her voice, Chancho closed his eyes in prayer. Did the people around him always come to harm? Bouncing down the runway, they distanced themselves from the dying gunfire. The three gritted their teeth and clutched the aircraft with white knuckles as the wind whipped past them faster.
Muddy focused everything on his memories of flying scout planes for the 14th—the tug and pull of the controls in his hands, the pitch of the wings, the torque of the engine. But everything had changed in the years since. The power that tugged them down the runway felt unfamiliar.
With a grunt, he pulled harder on the controls. Their stomachs rose and fell as the plane bounced, pitching dangerously from side to side. The cost Jessie had paid for their freedom played in his mind, along with his dying wish that they would survive him. With a steely anger, Muddy jerked the controls and lifted them into the air.
The soldiers continued firing on Lipscomb, McCutchen, and the sheriff until the latter convinced all three of them to drop their weapons and lie down. “Dammit, we’re on your side!”
“Cease fire!” The officer in command marched forward with a small detachment. “What in the name of all things holy! You boys better have a good explanation for all this, or God help me, the coyotes are going to feed tonight!”
McCutchen was the first to stand, hands still raised head-high. “Here’s your explanation,” he narrowed his eyes at the approaching officer, “Sergeant—”
“Sergeant Major.”
“You just let three known fugitives aided by a seventy-year-old man break onto your airstrip and steal a plane, all the while preventing local law enforcement and the Texas Rangers from doing their job.” He flashed them his star.
“Well la-di-da boys, we got ourselves a Texas Ranger shooting at American troops, trespassing, and vandalizing government property, all the while preventing us from cleaning up their mess before it cost the government a $30,000 airplane! Shit. You fellas are about as useful as a tit on a billy goat.”
“Your incompetence cost you—”
“Incompetence! You piss—”
“Gentlemen!” The sheriff interrupted. “We’ve had casualties, for God’s sake.”
For the first time, the sergeant major took a broader scope of the situation. Lipscomb stood on one leg, blood soaking through his pants, and an arrow through his hand. McCutchen looked like death eating a cracker: a bandaged left hand, broken arrow in his arm, crusted blood and dirt covering his cheek, neck, and chest.
“Like I said before, we’re on the same side here.” The sheriff plucked cactus needles from his face.
“Ah hell. Lysander.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get the medic. We’ll meet him in the hanger.” The soldier trotted off. “Tooley, Smith. Round up those horses, and for God’s sake clean up that dead Negro over there.” He turned back to the sheriff, who had become the de-facto liaison. “Speaking of, should we be concerned with that one? I’m assuming he ain’t with you, seeing how I’m pretty sure you guys are the ones who lit ‘em up.”
The sheriff gave Lipscomb a look. “He was a local smuggler mixed up with our fugitives. Good riddance.”
McCutchen broke back into the conversation. “Sergeant Major, I’d be grateful for your medical services, but I’m still tracking three fugitives.”
“Through the air? Not likely.”
“I’m sure you’re interested—”
“In getting my plane back? You’re damn straight. I’ll get my plane back, Lord willing those nut bags don’t crash it.”
McCutchen’s teeth ground audibly.
“About your fugitives, the sheriff’s right. Like it or not, we’re on the same side now. The order went out before they left the ground. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph if it don’t make us look like a bunch of tumbleweed humpers, but there you have it. We got all eyes watching for a stolen plane bumping its butt across the hills. If they got the sense to not crap and call it candy, they’ll head west before they decorate a cliff with the fanciest tinsel this side of the Atlantic—”
“Major! This man ain’t dead.”
The whole entourage turned on their heels toward a private inspecting the black body still slumped in the saddle. Everyone gawked except for Deputy Lipscomb who used the opportunity to bend down for the discarded Spencer rifle. “Gun!” he cried as he cocked and fired the rifle in a smooth motion.
The private stumbled backwards while McCutchen drew his Colt and pointed it at Lipscomb.
“Good God almighty!” The major bellowed as he unsheathed his sword.
For a pregnant few seconds, the party stared each other down before the shocked private broke the silence. “He’s dead now.”
Jesse’s body shifted inch by inch until it sloughed from the saddle completely. He thudded to the ground, and his mare’s legs spilled from their holsters. All eyes shifted to Lipscomb.
He held the rifle loosely in one hand, the other turned outward in surrender. Blood dripped down his arm. “I saw a gun and took the shot.” He deposited the Spencer on the ground.
McCutchen holstered his Colt as the group took a collective breath. For the second time that morning, McCutchen suspected the local lawman of more than he let on.
“Tooley, get these men to the hanger. The medic’ll be there soon. Then show ‘em the barracks where they can get cleaned up.” The major turned to go, still muttering, “I got a damn plane to find and a trigger-happy bunch a looney tunes.” He called over his shoulder, “I’ll come and find you when I got any news on your fugitives,” before trailing off into a string of colorful expletives.
McCutchen waited patiently for the medic to finish removing the shot from his chest and staunch the bleeding. Taking deep breaths, he reminded himself that sooner or later the fugitives would have to land. When they did, he’d pick up the trail again. After the medic moved on to Lipscomb, who was turning pale from loss of blood, he quietly dismissed himself and found the livery. The cavalry at Fort Clark kept a good number of horses on hand. They were still the most reliable means of pursuit in the rugged borderlands.
McCutchen found Chester fraternizing with a fiery appaloosa. Chester acknowledged the Ranger with a snort. After some grooming and another guzzle of water, horse and rider left the way they’d come in, bound for Brackettville.
McCutchen determined to proceed on his own terms. He suspected both the military and the local law of being involved in the larger conspiracy. While he didn’t doubt the military would help him find the plane, he knew he couldn’t rely on them for getting to the bottom of anything except the barrel. Profits dangled like low-hanging fruit along the border. A big enough profit could tempt almost anyone with gumption enough to go and get it.
After arriving in Brackettville, McCutchen directed the Rangers waiting in Fredericksburg on to Rocksprings with orders to wrap up loose ends with Bronco O’Brien. That brought a much needed smile to his morning. With the immediate business tended to, McCutchen chased sausage gravy and biscuits with a carafe of coffee. He then purchased a ticket on the first train departing for San Angelo, where he’d have quick access to most of central and western Texas.
Certain his fugitives weren’t heading for Mexico and that they were only the tip of a seditious network, he determined to inject his brand of poison into the heart of the operation and track it to the furthest reach of every artery. He’d panic the most visible members of the conspiracy into revealing their connections. Then he’d track them to their bitter ends.
After handing Chester off to stable boys with firm orders to load him on the train last for quick departure, McCutchen took a minute to relieve himself. He flipped the seat down on the crapper and fumbled with a cigarette. Everything was a nuisance with only one good hand. Finally, he inhaled several long drags and began to relax. He’d remained jittery even after filling his stomach at breakfast. His body couldn’t hold up forever under the current level of abuse.
He filled the basin and splashed water in his face. He ran fingers across coarse stubble and stared back at the man he saw in the mirror. Almost forty years old and weathered beyond that, his skin was creased with exhaustion. Scars, fresh and old, dotted every visible surface, as well as the rest of his body. Those who chose to break the law, to flee justice, to rob him of the dignity of a clean shave—
He slammed his fist down on the counter, closed his eyes, rolled his neck loosely on his shoulders. This was what the work had brought him to? He didn’t even recognize himself anymore. What have I become? He flashed back to Matamoros and the lifeless face of the Mexican girl as it listed into the moonlight—the image of Swisher slumped against the fence in the alley. He held his bandaged club of a hand in front of his face. The words “El Chupacabra” ran across his thoughts. El Chupacabra—the demon, the monster.
He rubbed the scar along the side of his head before putting his grandfather’s Stetson back on and taking one last look in the mirror. He noticed the medic had shaved two tiny bald spots while removing lead pellets. “I’ll give you your monster.”
He walked to the edge of the platform as the train pulled into the station. He’d already taken this case to the edge. He didn’t mind pushing it over. America still needed heroes, whether She believed in them or not. His form of justice might never make him a hero, but a lover’s infidelity was no excuse for a great man to ingratiate himself with whores.
“Muddy! Stay with me!” Nena yelled into the wind. In the rear cockpit of the biplane Muddy shook his head, clearing the tears from his eyes and focusing on the sound of Nena’s voice. He was losing too much blood. The higher altitude made his heart beat faster and his head spin.
“I’ll make it!” But he wasn’t sure. “We’ll run out of gas before I run out of blood.” He grimaced. “The flight time can’t be more than a few hours!”
Chancho said, “We’ve been flying for over three hours already!” They each looked over the edge. A thousand feet below, the ground rushed by at over a hundred miles per hour. In the distance, a skeletal city of black oil derricks scarred the horizon like jagged stitches on the seam between sky and earth. Chancho pointed. “Boomtown!”
Nena shifted in Chancho’s lap. “We have to land!”
“You’re telling me.” Chancho tried to rub feeling back into his legs and fend off the chill wind.
Muddy knew from the time they took off that crashing would be more likely than landing. Watching the countryside pass beneath him, he momentarily regretted not setting a course for Mexico. But his choice had been final, even before Jesse. When he wasn’t focused on landing the plane without killing them, he seethed over the dishonor and ingratitude extended toward his mentor. He had to correct it.
They needed a flat surface away from notice while maintaining access to ground transportation. No use in landing the plane just to be stranded in the wilderness without even a horse among them. Muddy had decided on the best option but hesitated to commit to it.
Watching the ground blur past, he spotted what he had been looking for and finally forced his mind to assent. He banked the plane sharply. Through the support struts of the biplane, they watched dark smoke from a distant derrick transition toward the nose of the plane and across to the other side until it passed out of sight toward the back. Turning 270 degrees, they came around for what would be their final pass, one way or the other.
Muddy dipped the nose of the plane into a low wisp of cloud. All three of them shivered from the cold and damp as well as the unnerving feeling of whistling blindly through the air at a breakneck pace. Moments later they emerged from the cloud into much warmer air within a few hundred feet of the ground. Beneath them, a railroad continued seamlessly over a small hill on the horizon like a chalk line snapped across the surface of the earth.
“The railroad?” Chancho craned his neck. “I love trains, but I don’t want to see one—”
Nena interrupted. “There should be room beside the tracks to land. The hill will slow us.”
“But what about trains!”
“Exactly. Sooner or later, a train will come, and we’ll get on!”
“What if it’s sooner?”
Nena turned until she could look Chancho in the eye. “You had better not die. I am not finished with you yet.”
Shockwaves of pain spidered through Muddy’s body. He used the adrenaline to focus. Land the plane. He repeated the words as a mantra. He slowed as much as he dared, pulling hard on the controls to keep the nose up. Tears whipped off the sides of his face. The temperature of the air rose steadily as their altitude fell. Green blurs of scrub and live oak swelled in his peripheral vision. The ground rushed toward them. “Hold on!”
First contact came too hard, but he held the wings level and the nose up. They bounced, the landing gear creaking under the pressure. The torque on the steering slammed Muddy against the side of the fuselage. The smaller steering mechanism in the front cockpit bruised Nena’s ribs. Aware of the strain on Muddy, she did what she could to help hold it steady.
With both of them focused on maintaining the plane’s wheels, Chancho was first to spot the belching smokestack looming over the hill. “Train! ¡Por el amor de dios! Train!” Seconds later, a one-hundred-and-twenty ton steam engine chugged into view. “It was sooner!”
The plane crashed down a second time. The rear wheel snapped off, and the tail of the plane dug into the ground, jamming the controls. Steam purged from the sides of the engine as it deployed full brakes.
They could have easily stopped by the top of the hill, but with the hundred yards between them and the train shrinking every second they’d never make it. Even if Muddy could steer effectively, the terrain thirty feet from the tracks grew thick with juniper. Still, crashing into trees seemed favorable to a smoldering furnace on wheels.
A terrible screeching licked Muddy’s ears as steel wheels slid along the polished tracks, spewing sparks. He plunged the controls of the plane forward. The flaps lifted the tail off the ground and dipped the nose instead. Skidding momentarily on one wheel, the plane bounced sideways. For a split-second, it flew. Muddy revved the engine full throttle for one brief burst before cutting it entirely.
As the train closed within twenty yards, the chewed-up tail of the plane lashed out over the tracks. In a final gasp, the plane lurched forward and out of the way. The engine car blasted them with hot steam as it slid past.
Muddy overcorrected and finally lost the battle to the jammed controls. The left wing dipped into the ground, catapulting the nose of the plane into the body of the train.
The full heft of the plane’s 200hp Hispano-Suiza v8 engine struck the gap between the second and third cars, lodging under the coupler. Both vehicles slowed below twenty miles an hour. Still, the tugging momentum of the train ripped the left wing from the fuselage of the plane and splintered the wooden frame in multiple spots.
Nena dangled from the front cockpit, dragging her feet across the railroad ties as they slid past. Chancho, dizzy after a lashing strike across the face from a snapped support cable, held three of her fingers in a tenuous grip. Each passing railroad tie chewed another piece out of the side of the plane and dropped her closer to the train’s grinding wheels.
Throwing his weight out of the cockpit, Chancho grabbed her wrist and slung her away from the train. The motion pulled him the rest of the way out of the cockpit. He followed her to the ground where both of them bounced and rolled clear of the tracks.
The remaining section of the fuselage bit into the ground. The mass of the train rolled it before the steel wheels cut it in two and crushed the front half. The rear cockpit, with Muddy still in it, slid to a stop yards from where Nena and Chancho lay crumpled. Sixty long seconds later, the train shuttered to a stop.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read these scenes of Fistful of Reefer, Season 1 of The Lost DMB Files. I’ll be publishing FREE daily scenes from The Lost DMB Files until…I die…or something terrible happens. Seriously, I’ve got over 400 scenes written so far, and I’ll be writing more until the story reaches its natural ending. You are totally welcome to read the entire story for FREE! If at any point you decide you would rather finish the story in ebook or print format, just click the buttons below and you can do that as well. If you enjoy reading the serial releases, BUT you would also like to support me as a writer (my kids need wine!) please subscribe to my premium content for bonus scenes, exclusives, and insider access to my process. And of course, I’d be grateful if you would share this post with any of your reader friends who you think would enjoy The Lost DMB Files. Happy reading!