Fistful of Reefer

Fistful of Reefer: scene 28, 29 & 30

A crack of thunder shook Chancho from his sleep. Startled, he sat up in time to feel the first large drops of a pelting rain. After wiping the fog of sleep from his mind the threat lodged itself there. Running toward the opening of the tiny inlet where the wagons blocked the way, he squeezed past them into the gravel flat of the dry riverbed. A gust of wind whipped past his cheek bringing a wave of swollen raindrops splashing down around him. His worst fears clutched him as he looked at his feet where the water was already inches deep, and rising.

Another flash of lightening burned a terrifying image into his brain as a menacing wall of water rushed to meet them, two hundred yards upstream. "Flood! Flood! Muddy, Nena. Flood!" He slapped the side of their wagon until Muddy's eyes, startlingly white, pierced the pitch black. "Flood!" Muddy's eyes widened further while Chancho flew up the inlet toward the goats which had already begun to scatter.

He flapped his sombrero and cackled wildly, "¡Andanle, pequiñitos, andanle!" He did everything he could to flush the goats to higher ground, forcing them to climb the rocky slopes. Behind him, the giant wave slammed into the sandbar island, ripping in two. He spun in time to see another bolt of lightning illuminate the crushing surge of water beating against the wagons as it rushed past.

He sprung down the inlet from rock to rock until plunging into knee-deep water to help Muddy pull the marihuana wagon further into the inlet. The two men cracked their backs until the wheels settled so deeply in the gravel they would no longer budge. Without pause Muddy leapt onto the runner of the wagon.

"Nena!" He bellowed into the storm, but the word whipped from his lips.

"The horses! The island!" Chancho scrambled onto the wagon beside Muddy and pointed at the tiny sandbar, now nearly inundated in the surge. Nena had secured the three horses, but had gotten caught on the sandbar when the wave hit. With the terrible force of rushing water ripping away the vegetation, the sandbar itself was shrinking.

Muddy gripped Chancho by the shoulders. "I can't swim!"

Chancho looked across the widening gap, twenty feet. Maybe more. He gripped Muddy's arms and shook him. "Throw me! Throw me, mi amigo!" 

Muddy froze, eyes like snakes eggs hatching with slithering fear. He shook his head. 

Chancho reached up to grip him by both ears, "Throw me, dammit!" And he started running toward the end of the wagon, toward the island, toward the surging water.

Without time to hesitate Muddy pursued him, gripping him by the belt and the scruff of his neck. Just before Chancho reached the end of the line, slipping on the smooth wood, Muddy yanked him off his feet. The gorilla of a man pumped every ounce of his being up through his legs, into bent knees and bulging thighs. As both men lunged forward toward the swell, he spun. Whipping Chancho like a rag doll into a backbreaking three-sixty, he released him, clothes flapping, into the blinding rain.

As Chancho arced through the storm, Muddy plunged off the wagon into the rushing water. He tore at the soft, splintering wood but ripped past it. The second wagon, jutting further into the river, caught him broadside. It slipped slightly with his weight smashing into it, but held. Bruised, but not broken, he pulled himself along its edge.

Chancho, blinded by pelting rain, curled into a ball to control the pitch and yaw of his tumbling body. He wasn't going to make it. He'd known that from the beginning. Sensing his body was about to strike the water, he flung his arms and legs wide. With a slap the sucking water ripped at his clothing fiercer than he could believe. But his left hand hit something solid, a branch. He clutched it, feeling it give with his weight. Hold, dammit! He lunged further up the branch, the small tree, pulling his head above water.