Luneshale Pass lluvia

the girl takes much of his thought lately. days before the red keep she lived in hosted a celebration in her honor: soto watched from the sand dunes above. 

now he works to settle their claim here. the borders have been made rancid with his mark, fur and spit coat nearly every stone - and now soto toils away at the garden he and @Octavio started a week before.

safiya, he thinks as he tugs hard at a clutch of jewelweed. safiya — a pull of spring leek — safiya — a maul of earth. safiya safiya safiya, like sweet summer rain.

His gloomiest prognostications had been realized.
He was a gardener now.
Fuck.

Once Niño’s biggest problem was the war. Now it was water. Too much of it over there, too little of it over here. He was a hitman, not a seedman, but it wasn’t like he was gonna say anything and risk getting his throat sliced by los jefes.

Soto looks ridiculously pleased with himself. Wonder what makes him so chipper to do this work.

The hound grunts, cold eyes looking him over.

he’s pulled from deep thought like a man pulled from deep water; shoulders seized by the forceful utterance of a single grunt. 

he wipes the flecks of dirt from his brow and looks over niño; the boy made a better scarecrow than gardener, but so much of their business depends on produce. 

the weeds, they overtake this row— he communicates in their rapid tongue, flinging a clump of rooted plant matter right into niño’s face with a crooked grin. but good growth from the coca this last week. he glances to the gathering of clouds above them. any word from jefe?

Soto is suddenly back.

The hound snorts out a puff of brown air, shaking cheeks and grubbing his crooked nose with even more dirt. He stared down the man. A falcon had to learn to notice things, to read the truth that pushers hid behind their eyes.
Fact is, Soto was distracted.
He clicked his tongue.

“Nada,” another grunt, “follando a su mujer. Mismo que tu.”

the accusation scarcely leaves niño’s mouth and soto is upon him, attempting to wedge his teeth to the boy’s throat. his lips curl back to reveal teeth worn by years of disabuse. if niño forgets his place, a well-aimed fang is here to crudely remind him. 

he would wait; if niño relented, it would be a rough cuff to an ear and nothing more. 

but if he fought back, well — juárez gathered his pleasure from fucking; soto enjoyed piercing bodies in a different way, and it’s been far too long since he sunk something of his into quivering flesh. 

besides that, the accusation remains untrue. Juárez intended to share among them, but soto’s yet to taste the communal whore. ¿piensas eso? he throws a half-laugh into their battle grounds, spitting. al puta le falta una pata. disfigured things are beneath soto — his palate consisting of an altogether far more unsavory nature.

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Hound’s wordless.
A dog; muzzled.

Knew better than to rile up Soto further. Wanted to keep his tongue, among other appendages.
But Soto’s defensiveness spelled out something entirely different in his mind. He might not have been fucking around with jefe’s bitch of the week. But he had something.

Niño wanted to know what.

Boy snorted out another thick wad of dirty mucus.
He shakes his head, conceding. Compliant.

in affairs of discipline, soto could be measured -- but as he steps back from the hound, he ponders the virtue of jefe's touch.

his foul mood evaporates. as far as he's concerned, the matter's cleared: he's not fucking the tripod, and that's that. he has no idea the dog's onto him in a different way.

see these? pull them -- soto instructs of the jewelweed that's begun to crowd up their small patch of coca. if left unaddressed, their roots will blot out the shallower root-system of the coca, ruining their crop. he watches the dog long enough to confirm his orders are being followed before he goes to the next row, still rippling with undirected energy.

Pull weed. Sure.

The hell is going on with Soto?
He’d never let Niño's back-talk go without so much as a thrashing before.
No strike.
No bruise.
No blood.

Jefe’s gone soft.
The hound yanks up a mouthful of roots and spits them aside.

more pruning down the garden row. their forms bend as itinerant shadows, upended earth and ruin their wake. 

the work’s done in short order, but it’s like anything else. there will be more tomorrow. 

soto straightens the kink in his spine and glances to niño. covered in dirt and somehow just as greasy looking. 

he jerks his head for niño to follow. there’s others things needing their attention.

Tended, weeded, manicured.

It all looked the same to the boy, but he'd get it in time. Or Soto'd force him to (if the jaguar hadn't been neutered).
Jury's still out on that.

Niño follows jefe dutifully down another dusted foot-trail.
Once he was through with his internal bitching, he'd come to realize that Soto had trusted him with arguably the most crucial of processes. After all, there was no operation without their leaves.

gardening’s a daily ritual; each night come new cabals of weeds to prune, bugs to crush, rocks to haul. and down there between rows of grubs and dirt, it’s difficult to think too hard.  

therapeutic. except they grow poison. 

he swings along the rocky trail that leads to the river. here the scent of the brothers is thick. a reminder. a testament. see here the cartel’s strength. smell their piss that reeks of testosterone and violence. beware. 

soto glances to niño behind him as he hikes a leg. it’s time to show these hillbillies that luneshale is cartel property now.

Jefes’ scent is heavy here. It’s more than a warning. It’s a fact; a consequence:
Intruders will be killed.
And smack dab in middle of wolf country.
The brothers were inviting warfare. But so long as that was true, they had themselves a warhorse.

Niño lifts his leg and showers the earth with piss, adding his name to the outfit.
It was the proudest day in Octavio Sancho’s life.