A forgotten conflict...

The rain beat hard on the dusty dirt road.  Another hot day, but that was Africa.  Small miracle the rainy season happens when it does.  One more day of that heat, and the locals would burn to a crisp. 

John been here for a month now, with no sign, no message, not a single shred of evidence as to where his partner was.  He ended up wandering, as people are wont to do in such a place, and in no original manner had holed up in a reasonably sized town near enough to a disputed border.  It was the closest anyone dared to build one, anyway.  What a grubby place. 

“No, I don’t want any damn Bhang, damn you.  Bugger off.”  He pushed off the peddler. 

And still, he enjoyed it here, he thought, as he stamped through the sloppy grime.  His kind of place, really, minus the occasional busload of lost, frightened idiots.  The whole area was in a vast basin of parched dirt, with little vegetation to break up the monotony.  Any number of clustered mud huts sprawled out from the main drag, dripping now with slurry as their inhabitants basked in the rain.  He stepped into a bar.  His shirt was soaked in sweat and rain, but so was everybody’s.  

The place was seedy and dark, but this was nothing new.  This time, though, something was less right than usual. 

“Gimme two beers, and pull ‘em out of the box this time.”  He said, attempting at the same time to take in the scene.  “We all know you have one back there, ass-hat.” 

“Jambo, Mister John!  Right away!” 

A short while later, after miraculously discovering his long lost gas-powered refrigerator, ironically, in the same place it had been for years, the bartender returned. 

John knew the man had it rough.  It was a violent, dying place; festering in the African heat, set upon by bandits, and inhabited by thieves.   

"Oh, yeah", he thought.  "And people like me". 

A smile crept across his face. 

Even the few police stationed here were in on all the action, and it was never unusual for fights to turn bloody, with plenty of nowhere to bleed on. 

“Still here I see?”  Spoke the barman.  “I not surprised.”  

John lit a smoke and drank his beer, uninterested.  He was growing tired of the fellow, in his time here.  The man was a walking cliché.  Nice guy, though, said a part of his brain he’d been trying to permanently evict for years. 

“Still waiting for your lady?” 

John hated this question, but the man wasn’t going to give up. 

“Why should I?”  He said. “When I have so many women to choose from here?” 

The barman laughed genuinely, with only a touch of forced mirth, especially after seeing others in the bar glance over coldly.  After all, this was a seedy bar in a rough town, and John was a stranger for the most part.  You have to have an over-zealous bit of laughter in such a place, at least once.   If you aren’t from the border, the locals think you’re soft.  Odds are, they’re right.  And they hate outsiders swooping in and picking up their women.  They hate it with a passion. 

“From any other man, John.” 

“Yeah,” he replied “Cuz I’m special, right?  Just so damned popular.  Only white man in town that has to ask for cold beer.” 

The barman replied, laughing again.  This time with genuine pride. “But Mister John, you are the ONLY white man in town!  Besides, consider it a compliment.  We all drink warm beer here.” 

He wasn’t the only white man in town, that was a sure thing.  The only white man anyone gave a damn about, maybe, but there were others.  It was true, the cold stuff was reserved.  Reserved for the buggers that had never had it another way.  He didn’t care anymore.  He was tired of waiting, and being tired of waiting is always better with a cold drink. 

“You might be happy to know something that I know… A letter has been delivered for you, Mister John.  Delivered to me…

The fight was brief.  No sooner than he had read the letter, the fellows who had so kindly delivered it to the barman leapt from the few shadows available in that room.   There were three people this time.  They must have hired a local.  It was easy enough around here.

“You stay, John!” 

The speaker was perhaps the meanest looking bastard he had ever seen.  He knew this man, Michael was what he called himself.  His friends called him the Jackal, after seeing a movie they probably didn’t understand.  Regardless of his generally decent nature, the man would do just about anything for money short of killing.  

That, he had insisted once, was only done for free.  As John understood it, Michael spent a lot of his life not being paid to kill people.  "Mister The Jackal" was massive.  You can’t go about calling yourself a name like that unless you're massive. 

John noticed he was being crept upon again, slowly and from three sides.  Good old Mike was the closest. 

“Look, Michael,” John said, as he moved slowly forward, “How about I give you a thousand shillings to leave me alone today.” 

He could hear the crunch of grit beneath their sandals as they moved closer.  The patrons were placing bets now, some in his favor, some not.  That was the thing about this place.  The events that were currently unfolding seemed in no way special to the others in the bar.

“I am not a stupid man Mister John.”  Michael said “You stay.”

The others laughed.  One spoke: “You keeping calm!”  

“Hey!”  John countered, “Can’t we all be friends today?  I mean, ebony and ivory and all THAT!” 

He was lucky this time, and rammed Michael hard in the gut, knocking him over a table.  He felt a pinch on his shoulder as Mike tumbled over backwards.  The others rushed him immediately, but he elbowed past them and sprung out the door.  

Seems there is always a larger one in stories like this, and John knew that was just his luck.  He hit the muddy street running, and fell, scrambling for his footing as the first bullet splashed into the slop beside him. 

“Damn!  This is fucking bullshit!”

As he bolted down the street he heard the barman yell in the distance.  He hadn’t paid.  That was OK though.  Whoever won the bet would just have to cough up 160 shillings.  His boots splashed in the mud and he turned down the next street at full speed, scrambling around the corner and into an alley market. 

Ducking through, he caught another break.  People were wrapping things up and milling around in the rain, quickly gathering their wares to bring home for the day to celebrate.  He jostled them as he passed, only adding to the chaos as he chose an alley to skulk through as quickly as possible.

An hour later he was on the road.  The rain beat heavily on his windshield as his useless wipers smeared the water and mud back and forth, quickly and noisily.  The sun was setting, and his vehicle bounced and splashed along the soggy potholes as he tried to remember the details in the letter. 

She wouldn’t be dead, that much was certain.  He noticed he was a little chilly; light-headed. 

He remembered the instructions in the letter, and thought carefully.  

“Those assholes must think I’m some sort of fucking hero..."  he mused, as he cursed Lucas for inventing self-dimming headlamps.  Heroism was a premium service that he didn't provide.

“Too many movies…  What the fuck is with this car?” 

The beams flickered with every bump, and the earthy smell of the dark continent seeped in with the wind and rain, along with the tinny scent of bad wiring.  That was the thing about roads in Africa:  They weren’t.  

It wasn’t anything specific that they weren’t, they just weren’t at all, and this leaky, smelly, tin can of a Rover wasn’t either. 

If the truth be told, he was about as much of a hero as the dirt trail was a road.  Heroes never make it very far in life, and he knew it.  What he didn’t know was how they had gotten Cat’s letter, but that was fine for now, because he had a pretty damned good idea where they were.  

They were in precisely the opposite direction of his current heading, and they damned well wouldn’t be expecting THAT.  Of course, neither would she.  

“First things first.” He thought. “Let’s go get what we came for.” 

She hadn’t been very specific, but he had a good idea...