Twitch and Die!

Ch.6: Old Times

His mind awash with thoughts of Chloe, Chancho finished gathering his supplies and squirreled them into nooks and crannies amidst the more practical things like food. While orchestrating a short service for the dead, he worried the explosives were too close to the jerky.

After spreading the last shovel of dirt and marking the bodies with crude wooden crosses, Angelo insisted they leave immediately. And so the four of them set out by midday via donkey—highly-trained, moonshine-running donkey. Riding in a caravan, the party followed the dirt road along the track toward Mingus for half an hour.

Chancho rode behind Chloe, whose animal followed Angelo’s with only a foot between them. Starr completed the comedic troop. Despite riding the largest of the animals, his boots hovered barely a foot above the ground.

Chancho kept his eyes straight ahead. How long had he felt this way about Chloe? As her bouncing brambles of hair tumbled from underneath her Irish cap, he knew the answer had been always. But his time in the wilderness, the rinche on his tail, had scarred him in ways he’d yet to discover. Pushing Chloe away was one.

She was rugged and beautiful. An adventurer who blushed at first mention of anything sensual. She anchored him and she laughed at his jokes. Most importantly, she didn’t begrudge his calling. Angelo’s piercing laughter woke him from his unabashed idolatry, and Chancho pledged an end to his flights of fancy for the remainder of the expedition.

So far Angelo had filled the entire trip with stories about the tight spots his donkeys had saved him from, obediently packing grappa into rendezvous all on their own. Chancho had caught most of a story about two of the animals being impounded. “I went down straightaway to reclaim them. ‘Yessir, they are my donkeys,’ I said, ‘but I got no idea how they could have gotten burdened with so much hooch.’” He had laughed a full minute after delivering that line.

 “Now a still, they would have destroyed. A truck, they would have seized. Then again, an auto would have most likely come with a driver for them to put behind bars.” He laughed even longer. Finally, he said the police had to admit they didn’t want the responsibly of caring for a couple of filthy donkeys. They couldn’t rightly destroy the things, and there wasn’t any law against owning one. So they gave them back.

Chancho was grateful for the stories, and Angelo told them well. They distracted everyone from the carnage they’d left behind and the question mark ahead. Shifting in the tiny saddle, Chancho was also grateful he wasn’t a larger man.

Angelo held them up. “It gets a bit shifty from here. We should not be seen too close to Mingus. Those peoples will recognize me, and not recognize you. Both is not so good these days. Into the woods.” He eased the lead donkey through a patch of mud, frozen on top but soft underneath. Shortly, he reached a tiny trail heading south. Chancho hadn’t seen the opening until Angelo’s donkey wedged himself into it.

Clamoring over crumbling sandstone fractured by the roots of prickly pear cactus clinging to the hillside, the caravan slowly distanced themselves from the main travel artery. A handful of minutes later they were well ensconced in the backwoods.

After ducking the whip of an oak branch laden with mistletoe, Chancho tangibly understood one advantage of donkeys over larger animals. Sure-footed and slight, they coursed their way along clefts in the rock and down gullies and washers that horses would have had difficulty managing without scraping off their rider.

Similar to a Tennessee Walker, the animals had a smooth gait, if a rider could find it. But alas, scrub-covered hills and muddy creek beds meant the vast majority of their time was spent bouncing up and down on tiny, four-legged pistons with ill-fitting saddles.