Prohibition Reborn

Getting In

The Year is 2025, and economies around the world fell into the purging fire of another blistering depression.

 Here, in the middle of a lush green desert, one wonders, “How can I really be in greener pastures?”

The dollar is deader than that sunbaked snakeskin afoot, reminding me of all the perils still ahead on this journey. I’m here because of a whisper, ‘find cattle and you’ll find gold’. They are here. The sound of so many clattering hooves never sounds right, but transport of the equestrian kind has again replace rubber on road. You drive when your destination is too far away, if it’s absolutely necessary, or you walk. This is happening across the country. Flying and boating is now reserved for the super oily rich and important people who regulate and control every single drop of it. I’m talking about the good stuff, and the underground is thriving. I can’t tell you where I am except that I followed some pipes to get in and have no idea how to get out. One thing I’m sure of is that I’m here to cash in, arriving this morning in the land of big oil, Texas. The only crime is crossing state lines with it. Archibald said beyond, one hundred barrels will make you rich and they pay in solid gold. Liquid gold is the new prohibition. Get caught in the crosshairs of the oil runners or the law and you’ll be floating in the river before you can change your mind.

To be honest, I’m not used to life in the wild. I came because my brother-in-law Archibald promised me a way out of a desperate existence back east. He said he has connections so here I am.

Now I see him coming, and his horse looks tired.  Archibald got way bigger since he moved here. It seems prosperity will die here last. One horse for the both of us seems cruel.

 I’m sitting under a tree sweating in the one hundred degree shade, his horse trots comfortably underneath it and stops right in front of me. Archie looks down, and I look up. We both smile simultaneously.

 “Why are you being so cruel to this horse in the land of hooves?” I ask.

Archie doesn’t even get off the horse to greet me. He simply says, “This isn’t my horse.” Then looks around and extends his arm to help me mount.

“I might just stay here. You seem to be doing well.” I say, and stand.

 “Did you come here empty-handed? Where’s your bag?” he asks.

“Archie, the only thing of value where I’m coming from is the oil I came for. How’s Vanessa?” I ask.

“Unfortunately, pregnant,” he says.

Of all the shocking things, why this?

An awkward ten seconds of listening to the sound of horse trot is now unbearable, I can no longer resist the temptation to ask, “How could you let this ha—“

“Shut up and put this on your head before you get heat stroke,” he says, and gives me a tan-colored hat over the top of his head, “You need to also look like one of us or else this will be much harder to do.”

When I look around all I can see are rolling savannahs of pastures, and I ask him, “How far will we be travelling like this?”  

“It’s three and a half miles to the state border. Half way we will stop at the Hill View Ranch to return this horse and borrow Mr. Mason’s truck. My guys will meet us on Mr. Mason’s ranch tonight. Get to the border and go through the tunnel. That’s all you have to do brother. Then wait for my phone call on the other side,” he says.

Well, it sounds easy enough, so I’ll press him no further. The thought of my sister being pregnant while her husband and I go boot-legging doesn’t sit well, but I’m taking his word for it that we only need to succeed once. Then we can buy our own land, raise some cattle and maybe I can have my own family too, and also give them a better life.

It took Archie and me two years to save enough gold to pay for the entire operation tonight. We can’t screw this up. On my watch it says three hours to sundown and I’m looking forward to it. This heat can cook us like an air fryer.

Now we are riding alongside some fencing, “This is Mr. Mason’s ranch, isn’t it? Will Mr. Mason have dinner waiting for us?” I ask.

“You sound like Vanessa. No he won’t,” Archie replies.

 I can hear snorting, grunting breath of horses at work reminding me of the good life when I watched old western gunslingers on TV shooting each other for land and shiny yellow metal. We end up in the barn along with the horse. I can’t tell you what Mr. Mason looks like. He hasn’t come out to greet us yet and I don’t think he ever will, but sitting in the barn gives me and Archie a private space to talk.

His face says it all, and he is sitting across from me on a stack of hay sharpening his machete with an oil stone, “If we get caught tonight, by anybody, it’s a fight to the death. You might need this,” he says.

To my horror he tosses the machete right between my feet. The blade sticks in the ground and I watch and listen to the sound of a sharp, quivering blade between my legs. I can’t even hold a machete right much less use one. Is he giving it to me so I can sign my own death warrant with it, perhaps with an ill-fated swing that boomerangs into my own foot to sever a toe so I can be easily disarmed of said machete, unable to run away? This is madness. I might be better off with a gun.

“What happened to guns in the good old west brother Archibald?” I ask.

I know I’m a stranger to these methods but still he looks at me confused.

 “In this business gunfire comes with explosive consequences. You have to get up close and personal when things go wrong. Are you up for it or not?” he asks, in a deep, grumbling voice.

A machete, “You’re serious aren’t you…?” I ask.

“It’s now or never Daryl,” he says.

Suddenly this doesn’t just feel like a bad idea, it feels like a disaster waiting to happen, so I’ll choose this moment to spill my cowardly beans and say, “Archibald I’ll be honest with you. I’m not as brave as you might think. Give me a gun and hopefully a loud bang will be enough to scare somebody off, if necessary. Don’t ask me to butcher another man.”

 I look him in the eye so he will believe what he sees. Clearly Archie isn’t buying it.

“You can always go back the way you came. Daryl, the shipment gets across the border tonight, with or without you,”

I can’t help but think about my pregnant sister. Return to a life of meagre portions is the alternative, for her sake. Instead, I yank the machete out of the ground and like Archie I try to be a man about it. One pay day is all we need.

He throws me black shoe polish with a full black array of garments and shoes, “Keep your steps in line with mine until we get there. If our new trail has been discovered it will be littered with sensors. If you step near one it’s game over. The Calvary comes running.” He says.

He was the one in the military. Whatever he says goes.

Nightfall

Its pitch black out here, I can hardly see Archie in front. Still, I follow in his footsteps and tread lightly. I didn’t realize there were so many stars in the sky before.

“Watch your step,” he whispers.

We have gotten to an open pasture full of sleeping cows and cross it. We get to another barn and inside I see both the front and back end of a heavy-hauler sticking out behind a mountain of stacked hay. This is it. Archie stops first and whistles once. Ten seconds pass, but then two men emerge from behind the mountain and walk towards us. They are also wearing black and have machetes hitched on to their belts.

“Is he the driver?” one of them asks.

“Yes,” Archie replies.

The man tosses me the keys. Through sheer luck I catch them. These guys look like they might be hard-core. If they are I am right, this machete on my hip I brought for them. It makes sense though. They are the gate-keepers around here and everywhere else along state border lines.

“Drive with the lights off?” he says.

I am shocked that Archie said yes. He confidently said yes. Do they mean drive with the lights off to the next stop or with the lights off the whole damn way, even through the tunnel? Being macho means I must stay quiet. I’ll just have to wing it.

The man continues to speak to me instead of Archie as if I know what I’m about, “Go one mile north. Our guys will be there waiting.” Then he turns to Archie and says, “We collect for the truck here.” 

Archie tosses him a bag which I assume has in it at least three ounces of gold. I’m hoping it wasn’t all mine but that’s about what I gave him in the other barn. Three ounces of gold for a truck is what I saved for two years. How much gold will we need to pull the whole thing off? Archie must have been doing this for years and clearly hasn’t told me how much gold he really has.

We jump in the truck and I crank up while the two guys open the barn door. I am surprised at how well I can see, and drive under Archie’s navigation to our destination with the lights off through one pasture after another. When we get to a gate, Archie gets out, opens it and then jumps back in after I go through. We do this until he signals me to stop. We are on location.

I hear another whistle from outside the truck. We jump out simultaneously. Walking just a few meters in front I start seeing the outline of jugs upon jugs of oil stacked on top of one another, but no one is here.

Suddenly, two more guys step out of the bushes, one from the left and the other from the right.

“Hurry up, let’s get this done before the window closes. There’s your one hundred barrels. Where’s our money?” the one closest to me asks.

“I have your money, one hundred barrels, one hundred ounces of gold.” Archie replies.

“We want one hundred and ten now,” the man says, with a cynical smile on his shoe-polished face.

I look at Archie and he smiles, “Forget it.” He says, using his thumb to signal me to get back in the truck.

“Wait, one hundred and five. Don’t let us come all this way for nothing. We will still get paid tonight either way. Another buyer is offering much more and this is a once in a life deal. You know this Archie,” the man says.

Suddenly on his radio, we all here a panicking voice, “Abort, police, there coming!”

I am amazed to see two brave men cloaked in blackness sprint away into the bushes, vanishing like ghosts into the night, leaving me and Archie here in the middle of the pasture with the one hundred barrel’s worth of oil, a very big rig, and all the gold to pay for it! So they are not hard-core military.  I can still hear their desperate footsteps in the brush getting fainter and fainter. This just got real but where the hell is Archie!

My God! I’m the only one here!

Is this for real? Now I’m sweating. I think my adrenaline has now turned into fright unlike the others! My legs won’t move!

Where’s my common sense? Finally, I breathe and snap out of it, zooming in on a cow twenty yards away and run. It’s the only way. I jump over the cow the way the cow jumped over the moon and lie down beside it. I find myself kissing dirt and breathing only because I have to. For ten minutes I can hear only crickets and the chewing of cud.

I’m shouting in my thoughts here, “Archie you son of a bitch,” I wish I could say it. I have to purse my lips together to keep dirt out of my mouth, and hopefully along with it, bovine excrement.

I might be over-thinking everything but, what if she rolls on her side? At this point there’s nothing I can do except wait and hope she doesn’t.

There are no flashing lights or sirens, just me in the black of night lying faced-down beside a cow in a lonely pasture. I hear footsteps approaching. This is it, time for the machete!

“Daryl, Daryl it’s me where are you?” Archie whispers.

 I stand and throw the machete at him. I’m angry, but he is wise enough to step aside and doesn’t retaliate.

 I hear more footsteps. The other two ladies have returned.

 “False alarm,” the skinny one says, but his friend is winded. Every breath for him is precious overdue oxygen, and he sits on the ground beside my cow.

 When his breath catches up, this time they are in a hurry to accept one hundred ounces of gold for one hundred barrels of oil.

“Now we’re paying ninety for our troubles,” Archie says, and they don’t even object.

If it was me I’d go even lower, but now isn’t the time to tempt fate. We need to get on with it.

An embarrassing silence now fills the darkness. All I can hear are jugs of oil landing on the truck bed. I count every thud until we are loaded and ready to go. I am the one now standing tall and proud.

Archie and I exchange very few words on route to the tunnel, he starts using his finger to point me in the right direction. This dirt road is straight and flat. I won’t need the engine brake so the journey is pretty quiet all around. If he opens his mouth, I’ll put my boot in it.

Getting Out

We get to the tunnel. Staring into the void is giving me claustrophobia. Archie says once I get inside I can drive with the lights on. I drive a few meters in to get the truck out of sight then stop. I really need to talk and get this off my chest. After all, this man is married to my sister and he simply ran away after the first sign of trouble.

“Does she know what you do for a living,” I ask.

Why is it taking him so long to answer, he usually has an answer for everything. I only realize why when I hear sniffles. Archie is crying. What have I done?

I feel terrible, “Archie I’m sorry bro. Forget about what I said. Just tell me what happens next and I’ll make sure it happens. We can finish this and then everything will be alright,” I say, but still all I hear is the bravest man I’ve ever known crying like a child.

“She doesn’t know what I do for a living Daryl. She thinks I work for the oil company. She thinks I have a stable job and that this stable job is what takes care of us and now our family is getting bigger. I can’t do this anymore, not with a child coming into this world. This is truly my last run, whether or not we make it,” he says.

His tears are in every word coming out of his mouth. He is scared out of his mind. I forgive him for running away. This is his last run and my first. I have to make it count. I have to make it count for his family. I am running this oil across the border tonight, and I don’t care about what waits for me on the other side. This isn’t just about me and all the reasons why are flashing vividly before my eyes. I went oil running with a machete hitched on to my belt, and in a sense, borrowed a rancher’s truck to do it. I even believed at one point I might actually have to kill someone with this machete to get away. Archie gets out here. I will wait for his call on the other side. Somehow my life before I came here doesn’t look so bad anymore. I came here seeking prosperity, and I thought that was what Archie and Vanessa had. Now I know better. Now I know why we have to make this once in a lifetime shipment work so we never have to do this again. Vanessa, if anything else happens tonight, I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can forgive us.

THE END