Shadow Creatures

Issue 13

     Billy didn’t want to spend the night in Nogales. The vibe was all wrong, he said, and he didn’t want to sleep with one eye open in a cheap motel. And driving back to Apache Junction only to return in the morning seemed ridiculous.
     We chose the desert instead.
     “I know a good place north of here on Sonoita Creek,” he said. “Clear lines of sight.”
     “But sleeping rough.”
     “There’s blankets in the truck, and we’ll build a fire.”
     “How far out is it?”
     “Just up the highway. We can be in town lickety-split.”
     “Lucky us.”
     We stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken for a bucket and biscuits and gravy. Then Billy drove out of town a couple miles and up a short lane to an overlook.
     “Let’s see if anybody’s following.”
     We sat there a while, but there wasn’t much traffic. Nothing that looked suspicious. The sun had dipped low and clung to a mountain top.
    “Just what are we looking for, Billy?”
    “A carload of Mexicans with bazookas.”
     “That ought to stand out alright.”
     The nagging aroma from the bucket of chicken finally got the best of me and I munched on a leg.
     “No eating on patrol,” he said, but pleasantly.
     I fished a breast from the bucket and handed it to him.
     “Well, if you insist,” he said.
     Satisfied there were no bazooka-toting Mexicans on our tail, Billy put us back on the highway and after a few more miles we found another lane that led off into scrub brush and mesquite. We left the truck behind some thick trees and hiked with canteens, blankets, and our bucket of Kentucky Fried. Alongside the creek, there was enough scrap wood for a fire.
     “You do realize that those Mexicans and their bazookas are tucked nice and sweet in their warm beds back in Nogales, right, Billy?”
     “Always know what’s on your six, Jack. That’s how it was in the Nam. Remember?”
     “How could I forget?”
     “You never will,” he said wistfully, staring into the flames.
     “But this ain’t the Nam. We didn’t have Kentucky Fried and babbling brooks in the Nam.”
     He pulled a joint from a pocket and grinned. In the firelight, his face looked vaguely on fire.
     “But we did have some of this.”
     “Now you’re making some sense.”
     He fired it up and soon I wasn’t imagining Mexicans with bazookas sailing down the creek in a boat.
     “You’d never get a boat down this creek,” Billy said, exhaling. “Too damn shallow.”
     “Well, that’s one worry off my mind.”
     The weed triggered major league munchies and we devoured the Kentucky Fried and biscuits and gravy and I felt full and even satisfied. The simple things are vastly underrated. I eased back and looked up at the full moon. I could see the craters.
     But it was still hard to believe that someone from Earth had recently landed there. I contemplated how Earth would look from the moon. Like a tiny globe in a library, I supposed.
     “Do you think coyotes howl at the moon, Billy?”
     “Probably. What else do they have to do at night besides chasing coyote poontang?”
     “Maybe we’ll hear some,” I said, warming to the idea, thinking it would be just like in an old western movie with us as the leathery cowboys driving a herd somewhere.
    “Hell, Jack, you might have one in your lap tonight.”
     I raised up.
     “What do you mean?”
     “We’re smack on a creek, chief. Where do you think they get their water?”
     “I reckon there’s plenty of creek for us all.”
     “You just keep thinking that. Besides, the fire will keep them away.”
     “But what if they get real thirsty?”
     “They’d just drink downstream or up. They don’t want any trouble with us.”
     I imagined a coyote sipping cautiously from bushes on the opposite bank, watching us sleep, contemplating the flames. It would wonder why we were here. It would stay in the shadows. I realized that coyotes had something in common with Victor Charlie. Like the VC, coyotes were shadow creatures.
     The fire popped and crackled as we stared into it. Sparks rose above the flames and looked like legions of fireflies.
     “We’ve never really talked about the Nam,” I said abruptly. “Not in any meaningful way, that is.”
     “You think we’ll find some meaning in it, Jack?”
     “I don’t know. Maybe. We could try.”
     “We could,” he said as he stirred the embers with a stick and a galaxy of sparks ignited into fireflies rising into the dark sky. “But you’d easier make sense of rabid Mexicans with bazookas than the Nam.”
     After a while, I said, “But we do have to try and understand it. Don’t we?”
     He stirred more fireflies into flight.
     “Do we?”
     I grabbed a stick and stirred fireflies, too.
     “We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”
     “Not much chance of that.”
     “So, all the more reason to try.”
    “If you say so, chief.”
     The quiet was suddenly punctured by a howling coyote. But it sounded far off. Still, I was pleased to hear it. I vowed to go to a library when we got back to Apache Junction and learn about coyotes.
     “That’s if we get back, Jack. Don’t forget them bazooka boy Mexicans.”
     “Why would it come to that?”
     “Maybe they don’t trust me anymore.”
     “Yeah, but they still need a man up north. They’re not stupid.”
     “They’re also not Harvard scholars, either.”
     “Then why bother?”
     “I have debts, man. Got to make a living.”
       “Well, there’s other livings, that don’t include Mexicans and bazookas.”
     “A little late for that, Jack old man. I’ve got both feet in, it seems.”
     “You got your feet out of the Nam, didn’t you?”
     “But maybe the rest of me is still there.”
    “Just let it go,” I said after a long moment. “Let it be. Bury the Nam.”
     “Have you?”
     “Well, I’ve got the shovel in my hand. How about that?”
     He smirked.
     “Maybe I’ll borrow your shovel if all this shit gets straightened out in Nogales.”
     “That’s the spirit.”
     “Spirit hasn’t got anything to do with it.”
     “What does?”
     “Pure dumb luck, maybe.”
     But luck wasn’t going to be good enough for me, I realized as I stirred more fireflies from the fire and watched them rise and disappear. A desert owl hooted from a nearby tree. It sounded close. The coyote started up again, too, perhaps answering the owl. Maybe the coyote would show up later and watch us sleep. Strangely, the idea of it didn’t worry me. I knew it was the weed talking, but I could imagine the coyote watching over me between glances up at the moon.
     But I wasn’t sure if anything watched over Billy and my heart sank. I now knew I’d got on the wrong train and would have to jump off sooner than I’d figured because it looked like Billy would be a casualty of the Nam after all.

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Michael Loyd Gray has been featured in a number of magazines. He is a member of the Society of Midland Authors and author of eight published books of fiction and fifty published stories. His novella Busted Flat, winner of a Literary Titan Gold Award. His novella Donovan’s Revolution, is the winner of a 2025 International Impact Award for Contemporary Fiction.

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