My Seoul Man

Chapter 54

Blaine snatched me back just as the dude driving the huge Caterpillar dirt compactor finally stopped about two feet from my feet.

I hadn't moved a muscle as that damned machine roared up closer and closer to the little mound of dirt I was standing on. Because that little mound of dirt was what remained of the grave of one of the first of us to move west 'way back in slavery days.

There were lots of graves out there. Unmarked and undiscovered just beyond the fenced in cemetery we'd created after we'd found, marked or moved remains from a few.

And just as I snatched away from Blaine, two loud metallic clinks sent the Caterpillar dude leaping down off that machine yelling, "The fuck?!" as he ducked down behind it.

Blaine shoved me down to the ground and barked, "Who's shooting out here?"

Yoli, Hae Won and the truck driver Wally'd lent to us hit the ground along with the other two Cat drivers in the distance. Probably really sorry they'd asked for a tour of The Quarters before we left for Sedona that morning.

And when I tried to raise my head, Blaine shoved my head back down and said, "Are you nuts?"

"It's family! They'll stop if they see me!"

"Or shoot before they realize who they're shooting at," Wally's guy grunted.

Former military, that one. Wesley Interpreter. That's a Navajo surname his great-great grandfather was given for being exactly that for some of the white government people who first came out this way back in the Bosque Redondo days.

That's where they corralled up damned near every Navajo they could find and held them prisoner until the world found out what a shit show it was and shamed the government into ending that little experiment in terror. I knew this because there'd been two Interpreters in my elementary school that the kids teased unmercifully about their last name.

Anyway, this Wes was a very good-lookin' Interpreter indeed. Kind of fine-featured, with dark velvety skin and silky black hair that he was forever shaking back like a model in one of those shampoo commercials. Yeah, he knew he was fine as hell.

He was also brave enough to stand up before any of the rest of us did.

And not bat an eye when the Cat driver leapt up and bellowed, "Anybody gets shot out here, ya'll will be in a heap o' trouble, I'll tell you that!"

But I yelled back, "This is a cemetery!"

"Cemetery's behind that barbed wire," Cat driver said, nodding in that direction.

"Yeah, but there's bodies out here, too! Dug up remains from that mound I was standing on about two years ago. They just threw bodies out here like trash after they dropped dead out there in those cotton fields. Ones that didn't have any kin to claim them."

"You got a beef, take it to the fat cats runnin' the show," the driver grunted. "I'm just out here doin' a job."

"Just following orders," Yoli said from somewhere not too far behind me. Real snide voice. "Like a good little soldier."

"Hey! I was a soldier!"

"Where at?" Wes hissed.

Cat driver muttered, "Reserves, but..." Looking kinda sheepish.

"Iraq and Afghanistan," Wes one-upped. Chin up. The better to stare down that aquiline nose at him.

"Yeah, well, I'm not tryin'a get shot by some fool right here in the goddamned United States, son! So, y'all better--"