Read Online Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francesco X Stork - Free Book Online Page B

Harder now. Hitting not just with the arms but also with the legs and shoulders. He felt the tension inside his arms soften into tiredness and then exhaustion, and at last there was some relief.
    “I wish I could do that.”
    It was D.Q. standing behind him. Pancho stopped. He took off his T-shirt and wiped his face with it. “You’re up early,” he said.
    “I got up as soon as I heard the thunder.”
    “You came out in the rain?”
    “I got to the cocoon before the rain started.”
    “The what?”
    “Come on, I’ll show you.”
    Pancho slipped the wet T-shirt over his head. He noticed D.Q.’s bare feet sticking out of the baggy blue jeans. They walked. D.Q. bent down to pick up a pecan. “Can you crack this for me?” Pancho stuck it in his mouth and bit it gently. He peeled off the shell and gave the intact nut to D.Q. “Nice,” D.Q. commented. “I can never get them to come out in one piece.”
    “What happens to all the nuts?”
    “We keep some, we sell some. We make pecan fudge and give it to benefactors. We fill about twenty big sacks the size of your punching bag back there.” When they reached the end of the grove, D.Q. pointed at a green hammock. “That’s the cocoon,” he said.
    There were two patio chairs in front of the hammock. D.Q. lowered himself into one. The hammock had u.s. army printed on it in black letters. Pancho lifted a plastic flap that hung from the side.
    “It has a net for the mosquitoes, and when it rains, that flap turns into a tent roof.”
    “How do you breathe?”
    “There are openings on the side for ventilation. It’s a neat feeling to be inside the cocoon in the middle of a thunderstorm.”
    Pancho sat in the other patio chair. The sun emerged over the Organ Mountains. A breeze shook the branches above and drops of rainwater fell on them. “You were inside that thing during the storm?”
    “I got in there just when it started to pour. It was nice and scary.”
    Next to their trailer, his father had built a toolshed with a galvanized steel roof. Pancho remembered the sound of rain on the roof, like a bag of marbles spilling from the sky. “The paint in your room should be dry by now,” he said.
    “I saw it last night. You and Memo did a good job.” D.Q. had his eyes fixed on the mountains.
    “When are you moving in?”
    “After we come back from Albuquerque. How long do you think it would take to walk over to those mountains?”
    Pancho looked at D.Q.’s muddy feet. “On those two things?”
    D.Q. wiggled his toes. “Hey, is that like the first time you smiled since you got here?” Pancho looked the other way. “Okay, how long do you think it would take a normal person to walk over there?”
    “Half a day. Less.”
    “No way.”
    “I’ve hiked those mountains. They’re not far.”
    “What was it like, hiking them?”
    “Rocky. You have to be careful not to step on a rattlesnake.”
    D.Q. sighed. “I’ve been looking at those mountains since I first came here and I’ve never set foot on them. Someone told me there were caves with Indian paintings made a thousand years ago.”
    “The only caves I saw were used by people to take a dump.”
    “Oh, don’t tell me that. I need to hold on to all the good images I have.”
    “It’s the truth. Shit, rubbers, and beer cans. That’s what I saw in those caves.”
    “Oh, well. That reminds me. Our trip to Albuquerque has been moved up. We leave tomorrow. The Panda is driving us.”
    “How long will we be there?”
    “You’re coming, then,” D.Q. said. He didn’t act surprised. He already knew what Pancho would decide.
    Pancho thought about what he’d read in Rosa’s diary. “Yeah,” he answered. “I’m coming.”
    “You’ve heard about my mother,” D.Q. said. It wasn’t a question or an accusation.
    “Yeah.”
    “There’s not much to the drama, really. After my father died, she went a little nutty and dropped me off at St. Anthony’s, God bless her. She married again, to this lawyer