Termination Shock

The man turned his head to one side and stuck his tongue out in a way that reminded her of New Zealanders doing their haka dance. She wondered if he might be a Pacific Islander, at least in part.

Having got that out of the way, he turned toward her.

“Ma’am.”

“Thank you for helping my friend. We are going to get him to hospital. We will get your knife back to you.”

The man glanced past Saskia, took in the scene. “Mary’s fixing to help you. Gonna be fine. Y’all need anything else?”

It seemed a remarkably generous and open-ended offer from a man in such a condition. Saskia looked sharply at him to see whether he was being sarcastic. He would not meet her gaze, but his eyes strayed briefly toward the dead boar. “I got no purpose now,” he explained. “Gotta fix on something.”

“Well, for example, would you know how to get us out of here?” Saskia ventured. It might have been better if she had worked in some extra phrasing such as hypothetically or in principle, supposing we were to request it but this was how it came out. “We can pay you.”

“Cash?”

“If you prefer.”

“Where you want to get to?”

“Houston.”

“Is there some kinda legal situation I should know about?”

Saskia shrugged. “Maybe with immigration? But we can’t help it.” She now thought a little harder about the man’s question and understood what he was getting at. “Not drugs or anything like that, if that is what you were thinking.”

He hesitated, trying to get the story to add up. Not that he didn’t trust her. It was all just very odd. She could see this. Key information was lacking.

“I am the Queen of the Netherlands,” Saskia told him. “I am here on a secret mission to save my country.”

“Rufus. Most people address me as Red. My not-so-secret mission is now accomplished.” He glanced at the huge dead boar and repeated the strange gesture of sticking his tongue out.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Red.” They exchanged a sweaty handshake and began walking back toward the plane. She had to remind him not to leave his rifle on the ground. The gator-adorned pickup truck was moving toward Lennert, Amelia standing up in the back keeping an eye on the open-air hog and reptile butchery.

“The pleasure is all mine, Queen.”

“No one ever says that. ‘Your Majesty’ is the correct wording. But please don’t. Just call me by my nickname. Saskia.”

“You want to hide the fact that you’re here? Is that what’s up?”

“This was supposed to be discreet. People weren’t meant to know I was coming to Texas.”

“How many in your party?”

“Five, if the wounded go to hospital. But Willem should probably go with them. So, four.”

“I can have you on a boat in three minutes.”

“On the lake?”

“River. The Bosque. Which runs over yonder into the Brazos.”

“Brazos?” Saskia knew the Spanish meaning of the word but wasn’t sure how Rufus was using it.

“Arms of God,” Rufus said. “It’s the big river that runs on down to Houston. Spaniards named it that. Don’t know why. They were funny with their way of naming things. Sick on religion.”

She liked the sound of it. “During those three minutes would we have to pass through any roadblocks or the like that emergency services might have set up?” Because an impressive line of flashing red and blue lights was thickening about a kilometer away on the other side of the airport.

“Roads ain’t gonna enter into it.”

“Everyone out of the plane?” Rufus inquired, before setting fire to it. This was a pretty abrupt move on his part and caused Saskia briefly to reconsider the wisdom of entrusting her party’s fate to a random desperado. As they sped away, however, leaving the eruption of flames in the truck’s numerous and incredibly large rearview mirrors, she perceived the wisdom of the move. Everyone on the other side of the airport would be looking at that during the few seconds it took Rufus’s truck to speed clear of the crash site and disappear into the woods. The plane was a total loss anyway.

Or perhaps she was cutting Rufus too much slack here, dreaming up post hoc rationalizations for the actions of a deranged man. Anyway, he was driving the truck and their fate was in his hands.