Chapter 21.
By the end of spring we'd made a noticeable decrease in the number of outstanding felony warrants around El Paso, we even worked a few of the worst gang cases in towns north of us; Alamogordo, Las Cruces, and Tularosa. We had the chance to grab one near the town of Roswell but the local cops let it be known we should keep our noses in Texas and not their county. But this felon had a decent reward for his capture, $25,000 in tax free cash, offered by the family of his latest victim. Lesson he never learned: never sodomize and torture the daughter of a very wealthy man with a taste for vengeance.
One thing we didn't like about Roswell was how it turned into a magnet for UFO believers from around the world, it's actually just a boring little city in east central New Mexico. There were lots of retired people living in Roswell; the weather was mild most of the year but they occasionally got severe weather too.
We'd already used the DOD computers to locate the fugitive. He was a large man, having spent almost six years in prison in Colorado for felony sexual assault. That meant he committed the crime and the victim was seriously injured. According to the brief summary he met a fifteen year old girl at a gas station in Trinidad Colorado and convinced her to sit in his truck to talk and smoke a cigarette, then he punched her in the face and drove away with her bicycle in back. He took her to a park where he stripped off her clothes and raped her vaginally and prison-style. He was identified from DNA obtained in her vagina, rectum, and in her nose. She contracted two black eyes, a broken nose, fractured skull, fractured pelvis, and an STD. Six months later using a cane to walk the young girl killed herself when she stepped in front of an orange and black BNSF diesel locomotive racing across town at 78mph. That happened about six years ago.
The perp was a 39 year old man named Oscar Cervantes and was released from state prison in Colorado nine months ago and was hiding out in Roswell at a rural home with someone (Jorge Fuentes-48y) he met in prison; but Oscar was a registered sex offender living in Albuquerque. One day he cut off his ankle bracelet and vanished, which lead to the warrant for his capture. We located him using the DOD database.
Now, Oscar and Jorge shared a trailer home on Jorge's 150 acre rural property. Supposedly, Jorge had gone straight and lived a quiet life and ran a business he built by hand on his property. There was no warrant for his arrest, just Oscar.
Neighbors said Jorge grew legal Marijuana in a self-built indoor garden. This man supplied a few varieties of high quality pot for stores across eastern New Mexico. Local cops believed Jorge was totally legit, made a decent living, paid his taxes, etc. But he was known to be a gun owner , cops said growing pot and gun ownership went hand in hand. He could legally buy weapons from individuals but not gun shops.
The neighbor across the street (Matt Goff) was a retired teacher (from ENMSU) who wrote science fiction books at home, said his neighbors owned weapons, and might pose a threat if confronted at home. His roommate agreed, and that sounded to us like an ideal situation to use spiders with an extra battery and one sleep gas pellet.
We finally got recent photos of both men and the man across the street, but he was just a friendly neighbor. We also advised the local county sheriff of our op and despite their objections we advised we were coming to Roswell regardless. The sheriff warned us about the possibility for a shoot-out and loss of life.
We requested a drone and a Stingray from Chicago; both would be flown to ELP tomorrow, then we'd drive to Roswell and grab a hotel room away from the touristy areas, the museums, and the 'crash site.'
The location of our perp was southeast of Roswell near Bottomless Lakes, beyond the east end of Woodbine Way, the property bordered the Pecos River. He had a 1,200ft long driveway (too far for spiders) across a wide open field, like Elm Street in Dallas, it could be used as a kill zone. It meant we'd have to enter his property from the back side. We were advised by their neighbor that they had two (indoor) dogs that sometimes had free run of the entire property.
David found us a 1960s looking motel in Roswell on Main Street near Reed Street that was one block from a large grocery store and a fried chicken stand. We unpacked the drone and got it ready to fly. We also called the property owner across the street and asked if we could park in his driveway for a couple hours to take photos along the Pecos River. Matt was suspicious of our story but still cooperative.
When we arrived we learned Matt was seriously visually impaired but also very inquisitive but his roomie was also pleasant and willing to help. I think for lots of people when they met us they soon got a tiny hint of `plain clothes federal agent' flavor in their mouths but seldom said anything. David usually won people over with his charm school graduate routine. He's tall and very handsome so he had instant appeal with most people, maybe not so much with Matt because he couldn't really see him clearly but David tried anyway.
We had to assume when we talked in their driveway that the guys across the street might be watching with binoculars so we stood in front of the truck for cover, Matt and his roommate (husband?) kept us fully loaded with homemade lemonade and Fritos.
David flew the drone from the bed of our truck up into the air with the camera recording visual and IR at the same time. The drone came with a folded plastic sheet like a landing pad, from a distance the drone could see it and land perfectly on the X.
Let me clarify something, when I referred to this home as our target's neighbors, their homes were almost two thousand feet apart. If you wanted to see this area on g-maps do a search for the intersection of Woodbine Way and S. Oasis Road (SE of Roswell near the Pecos River).
David flew straight east to the river at 500 feet up then followed the river northwest until he was straight north of our truck then flew straight south back to us and landed so we could download the video files. The southbound leg of the flight took it almost directly above their home but it was too high to hear or see.
We saw ruins from flooded buildings long ago, and we also got great video in multiple modes of the indoor garden building and their trailer home.
The indoor farm was a simple pole-type construction with concrete slab floor and lower walls, so the building was rather flood proof, but not the stuff inside. We got the idea most of the people in that area lived in trailer homes so they could come in with a large tractor and pull their mobile home to higher ground in case of major flooding. On the days we were in Roswell the Pecos River was slow, muddy, and cold as ice. It ran two feet deep at most and sixty feet wide with lots of sand bars and multiple flow channels.
Matt told us the Pecos River had a history of ice dam flooding in their area.
At the hotel that night we reviewed the drone video, we went frame by frame through the video parts when it was above the pot growing operation. Matt said the owner boasted he was prepared for a small scale invasion with three below ground shooting positions, which were four foot galvanized drainage pipes buried vertically with sandbag rims on top. He said they proudly showed off their defenses to neighbors and their collection of Vietnam Era military weapons which included a 20mm aircraft machine gun they had mounted on a tripod.
Our plan was to put them to sleep and have them double handcuffed before they woke up. Oscar was our target, but Jorge was a safety threat so he'd be gassed too.
We never mentioned the neighbor, Matt and his Roomie made those comments because Jorge was a topic of discussion locally.
At 9pm David left on foot for the grocery store across the street and got a pad of sketch paper (and more beer), then we both spent two hours reviewing the video again and hand sketching the location; the buildings, the trees, any visible fences, ditches, and to some extent the contour of the land since it was downhill all the way to the river. They ran a two inch plastic pipe across the ground to the river to pump water for their pot growing operation.
The growing building was steel sided and looked to be thirty feet wide and seventy feet long and had two solar arrays in the yard. We did not see any foot paths or firing positions near the house, but could estimate them based on their view of the kill zone of their weapons. It appeared they expected the Greek Army would approach with the giant wood horse on their driveway, so that would not be our route of invasion.
We double checked that all our gear was charged overnight. We had to bring the pelican case with us but the Stingray would stay in the truck to record all cell use in the area, and the drone would be packed but we were probably done with it.
Luckily, the area along the river was lush green, with lots of big trees. We decided to approach from across the river on River Road; there were dirt paths used by locals to park near the river for fishing during trout season. We could park within twenty feet of the river on the far side and stay hidden by the trees. Then we'd cross the river, which looked fairly shallow, muddy, and probably just above freezing.
We stayed in town for breakfast then used the GPS to guide us to a place marked Comanche Draw, where we started our off-road trek; David actually enabled four-wheel drive. We followed tire tracks to a place beside a sharp bend in the river that looked like lots of people had parked in the past. There were lots of busted brown glass bottles strewn around. We decided to cross there because the scan by the drone looked like it was a shallow point and we saw lots of deer and coyote tracks.
One at a time we carefully waded across the water to the sandbar on the other side, David went first but I carried the pelican case. We carried our machine guns on velcro patches across our chests. Because they were the same color as the Batsuit the machine guns were nearly impossible to see from a distance. Because we were going to transport a large hostile man both of us also carried pepper spray cans on our chests too. Oscar didn't know it but we were there for the reward and needed to capture him alive so the machine guns were mostly for show on this mission.
When we first stepped into the river it felt ice cold but quickly warmed from body heat, like a wet suit. The Batsuits did a decent job of keeping us warm, which was weird considering how thin they were. If you looked at our Batsuit fabric with a microscope it actually looked like a black tinted nylon chainmail.
We left the Stingray running inside our truck, plugged into the 12v outlet. I shouted to David that it would be much nicer if the pelican case was mounted inside a backpack so I could wear it instead of having to carry it. He said there was no rule that said we couldn't just put it inside a backpack if we could find one big enough.
After crossing the river we had a 1.4 mile hike along a tree line to our target. Our OD was also watching the output of the Stingray in the truck that said there were two cell phones on inside the trailer house. The OD could also watch the stereoscopic images coming from our glasses and hear us talk too when the wind calmed down.
We hiked along the edge of a grassy/rocky field at the edge of the trees for cover and made decent time.
"You know what this reminds me of?" David asked when we stopped to pee.
"No what?"
"Remember the movie Lawrence of Arabia?"
"Uh huh."
"We're the Bedouin approaching a well defended military outpost. The city of Aqaba (AH kah bah) had all their heavy guns aimed out to sea, not towards the supposedly uncrossable desert; same is true with these guys, their defenses are all pointed the wrong way!"
I looked deeply into his eyes then leaned in and kissed him. "Or maybe that claim is total bullshit and they're completely unprepared." I countered.
We turned and kept trudging across the rocky/sandy field towards our target. Luckily the sun was out and felt warm but the wind on that rocky field was almost as cold as the Pecos River.
After several more minutes of hiking I asked him, "So how're we gonna to capture them?"
"Sleep `em first, then handcuff Jorge to something solid. When Oscar wakes up we'll march him at gunpoint back to the truck. We should re-gas Jorge when he starts to wake up which would give us time to get far enough away."
"You got the cutters?" I asked because we'd have to change his ankle cuffs before we started walking back. David reached into his belt and showed me two pairs of diagonal wire cutters for snipping plastic handcuffs.
"Where do we surrender him?"
"We need to review the wanted notice as I think it listed some special conditions. You can check after we hit the road, it's in the tablet computer under documents."
We marched along with trees to our right and open weed covered field to the left and finally got the first signs of human presence, so we veered into the trees and quietly moved towards their site.
David whispered that he recalled seeing two surrender options. One was to call police and hand him over and pray for a small reward. The second option was to call a lawyer in Albuquerque, leave a message and wait for a return call. Where that 2nd option lead was unknown but that was the one with the big cash reward. We thought it came from the girl's father, an eye for an eye kind of thing. He said the reward scenario sounded like the Hannibal Lecter movie in Florence Italy.
It took thirteen more minutes to arrive at the clearing. We saw the building and their plastic water line across the yard, the solar arrays, two vehicles, and an old dirt bike that looked like it hadn't been used in years. We saw no dogs and heard no barking. We had to move again to see the residence, so we picked another spot in the trees near the water line and crawled to there.
We lay on our stomachs with a view of the trailer home, which looked small. It was un-skirted but looked well maintained. The property was clean, no trash blowing around. David saw scattered piles of petrified dog crap on the ground around the yard, but the animals must have been indoors. I got out two spiders and loaded one with two sleep pellets, the second one with an extra battery.
David commented this could go easy or might turn into a fire fight. Once he said that we stared in each other's eyes briefly then moved again so we had cover behind a decent size boulder. From our spot we saw no signs of footpaths near us and saw no signs of movement inside either building. But we could hear the sound of a vent fan running; it was a constant whine that slowed down when a cloud passed overhead and put the arrays in shade.
We decided to start and sent one spider to the barn roof to look for vent pipes. It found one on the far corner, which told us they probably had indoor plumbing, and it proceeded to enter.
We had our machine guns by our sides and our glasses on as we lay on the cold rocky ground watching for movement. Next, we decided to hand steer another spider to a tree to the west that would give us a side view of the same area. We ran it up about 25 feet and out on a limb to watch the buildings and the vehicle. Running a spider across a grassy yard was time consuming because it had to walk around thousands of individual grass plants. Luckily, the software did that for us, all we had to do was steer it in that direction and watch the video feed as the slowly got closer.
We saw lights on inside the trailer home, which looked to be about twelve feet wide and fifty feet long. From the side view it looked like a newer model, maybe a park model RV and not a mobile home.
I asked him what the difference was and David said a Park Model was a short mobile home, "Half the size for twice the price," was his explanation.
We stayed in place until the first spider found a path to daylight inside the building.
Suddenly we got green flashing indicators from the first spider so we switched to it and saw it was in a large room with four rows of benches with tall marijuana plants growing under LED light arrays that hung from on chains. There were two seated men inside kind of hunched over, I guessed they were hand pollinating with tiny paint brushes. We watched for when they might turn to face the spider so we could identify them. We watched them work for almost an hour. The spider switched into power saver mode and started sending still photos instead of live video, it took one shot every fifteen seconds until we woke it up.
We confirmed there were only these two men inside the building, they were seated on rolling stools moving down the rows and it was confirmed that they were hand pollinating flowers. Eventually we got photos of their faces and compared them to driver license images and identified one guy, the owner of the property (Jorge), 100% for certain it was him. Then we concentrated on the other guy, our target.
David moved the spider with his keypad and identified an area for them to sit and relax, we saw an old sofa with a small old TV and a portable radio, and a space heater nearby. The building had no windows and the toilet and sink were in a corner with no privacy (similar to what they had in prison).
About twenty minutes after we arrived we finally got a good image of the face of the second guy and positively identified him as our target, Oscar Cervantes. His facial prison tattoos easily confirmed his identity.
He moved the spider under a shelf on the wall and watched for them to take a break. We wanted to catch them close to each other so we could gas them and cuff them without any injuries. So far there were no dogs seen in the building or running loose outside.
David turned on the microphone to listen inside the building and heard a radio station playing Mexican tunes, the genre we called Heartbreak Borracho Blues. It was a very rural Mexican type of song, that were often funny. It was kind of like Mexican country music with heartbreak lyrics.
Finally, at 11:30, they stopped for lunch and walked up front and set down their paint brushes in marked holders so they didn't mix different pollens.
Jorge opened a small refrigerator and tossed Oscar a sandwich in a plastic baggie then got another for himself, then came two cans of Coke and small bags of chips. They both sat on the sofa and started eating lunch. David moved the spider to the front of the sofa, just out of sight but halfway between the men. They sat and ate and had a nice lunch break, David let them enjoy their meal, then when the sandwiches were nearly gone, he activated one gas pellet.
It looked like both of them fell asleep, they both just stopped moving so after waiting for about six minutes we inserted our filters and got our stuff and moved quietly towards the building. With the possibility of dogs we had to move silently across the yard.
We got to the nearest corner and crept silently beside the red and white building on the soft sand and checked the door knob but it was locked so he asked for the knife. I unfolded the blade and placed it in his palm, he reached forward and slid the bolt over and the door easily opened. David went in first, then gestured for me to follow.
We went inside and easily identified them with our photos. They sat side by side on the sofa and looked completely asleep.
First we handcuffed their ankles, then we handcuffed their wrists with plastic cuffs that David carried in a black nylon zipper case velcro'd on his back.
I looked around inside the building and found a place to tie up Jorge. We picked him up by his ankles and arm pits and carried him to the wall and handcuffed his wrists around one of the 6x6 support poles for the barn structure. So he was on his side on the floor, we patted him down and found his cell phone and set it next to his hand so he could call someone to free him after we left.
David moved the spider and set it by Jorge's face so we could sleep gas him again after we left. We didn't want him chasing after us.
"You ready for Oscar?" I asked.
"Yep." He said as he took photos of the inside of the building with his cell. Then we snipped the ankle cuffs and added one more so he could shuffle his feet but not run, then we patted him down and splashed cold water on his face and got him to his feet but still totally confused about what was going on or who we were. This guy was a big dude but we had his wrists cuffed behind him. I double checked that my pepper spray can was handy, we didn't want to fight Oscar, he was a huge dude.
We marched him out the door, then re-traced our steps towards our truck almost 1.4 miles to the east and across the icy cold Pecos River. David held onto his arm with his machine gun on his chest. I followed behind and with the pelican case in my left hand and my machine gun on my chest. Before we got out of range, I triggered the spider in the tree to self destruct, then told the spider inside to burn another whole gas pellet and self-destruct. We hiked in the trees where the ground was firmer and left fewer foot prints because we were walking on a thick layer of dead leaves instead of dirt or sand.
We were probably 7/10ths of a mile away by the time Jorge woke up but it usually took people a while to get unfoggy enough to think or work a phone. We should be over halfway to the river by the time he had a full understanding of what happened and could call someone to come untie him.
Oscar kept trying to get us to talk but we kept telling him to shut up or we'd pepper spray him. When he didn't stop I grabbed the canister from my chest and held it near his face and threatened to use it, which really pissed him off but we got him marching again, but he still didn't stop cursing us. Eventually we stopped to gag him with gauze and tape. Oscar was definitely an unhappy camper after he figured out he was going back to prison for parole violations and violating sex offender rules. To be honest we really did not know what reward offer we'd end up calling or what would happen to him. Several people wanted to spend some time with Oscar, he made lots of enemies during his tragic life.
Getting Oscar to cross the Pecos River took some motivating, I crossed first to show him it was only knee deep, but he cried because the water was too cold. We had to walk across about thirty feet of knee deep muddy water with a sandy bottom. First, we had to cross a wide sand bar before we got to the water. Our feet sunk into the sandbar about one inch, it was like walking on soggy ice cream.
David stood near the truck with one finger on the trigger and the red dot on the side of his head while I carefully got Oscar in the back seat on my side, and double strapped in place so he couldn't break free, his ankles were strapped to the seat frame with some slack. Then we drove back to the paved road and eventually made it into Roswell and back on Highway US-70 and drove to the next city west, Ruidoso. A sign outside of Roswell said it was 73 miles to Ruidoso.
On the outskirts of Ruidoso Downs (Ruidoso Downs was a small town along the highway on the east side of Ruidoso, where the famous horse track stood since the 1940s) we stopped at a shopping center along Highway-70 and parked in the far end of their lot and called the Albuquerque number on the reward info sheet. The recording said they would call back, but t state approximately where we were.
I offered to get Oscar food from Wendy's but all he did was tell us to fuck off, so the gag went back on. We tried to be humane to him but he was too hostile for his own good, or maybe he knew something we didn't! It was probably obvious we were not handing him over to police. He probably thought we were just bounty hunters in search of easy cash. No, we were actually super heroes in search of easy cash and an improvement in overall public safety. And the world would be a little safer with Oscar in prison.
David stood in front of the truck waiting for their call and ten minutes later it vibrated and started to rotate on the hood of the truck. I heard part of it over Whispernet when he repeated back the instructions.
The surrender site was very close, only 300 feet away! There was a construction site next door, we were to drive there and park off to the side and wait. They'd arrive in a helicopter with the reward money after they confirmed we had the real Oscar.
We left the parking lot and drove east on US-70 maybe 200 feet and turned into a barren construction site and parked in the area close to the highway which left them plenty of space to land a helicopter. There were no power lines or overhead wires on that side of the highway and it gave them a clearing about half a football field of rocks and sand. David mumbled something about paint damage to the truck, he moved the truck so the tailgate faced the area where they'd land.
Thirty nine minutes later we heard the un-mistakable thumping sound of helicopter rotors. Enclosing the rear rotor usually eliminated the thumping. Soon it appeared in the sky and carefully landed 80 feet from our truck. They rotated so the helicopter landed facing north towards Albuquerque.
We turned to look away when they landed, this chopper was one of those fancy executive models that was designed for speed but only carried five people. We closed the doors so Oscar didn't get sand blasted since he couldn't cover his face.
After they landed the door slid open and two men got out, one looked to be carrying an automatic weapon under his long black jacket.
We showed them Oscar and aimed flashlights on his face but all Oscar had to say was, "Pinche Gringos!" With the gag on he couldn't spit at us. Both men confirmed he was their guy with the picture and his facial and arm tattoos. We got Oscar out of our truck and into the loving hands of the two large men from the cloudless evening sky. They were dressed to hide their identities and I thought they looked like the Blues Brothers. David whispered the same thing to me and asked if they were Jake and Elwood. We chuckled as we watched them escort their prize to the helicopter, shuffling along with his jeans halfway down his ass the entire way.
I noticed while they walked him across the empty lot that the license number on the chopper was covered with what looked like a large magnetic blank sign.
They took him at (concealed) gunpoint and strapped him in a rear seat beside the sliding door, and the guy in the suit (Jake) came back with a large manila envelope with the $25,000 in fifty dollar bills, in my head I did a quick: 25,000 divided by fifty was 500 fifty-dollar bills. David stood near the hood of our truck with his machine gun in hand while I sat in the truck and counted five stacks of one hundred bills each, it took a couple minutes for a fast rough count. My husband knew well enough to not distract me while I was counting. I whispered to David the count was good, he gestured for them to take off. They started the rotors when I was about halfway through my count.
The guy in the suit (Jake) got in the chopper and the guy with the long overcoat (Elwood) sat behind Oscar (we saw Elwood fasten a harness around his waist too). As they slid the door shut I wondered what they'd do with Oscar. If I was the rich guy that hired them I'd not want to break the law myself, so I bet they'd take him somewhere in the desert and shoot him. I sort of expected them to shoot him near our truck and leave the body there on the ground in Ruidoso, but he actually got a free helicopter ride.
Within one minute they lifted off and flew over the highway, cleared the trees towards the northwest. We stood there and watched them vanish and listened as the thumping gradually faded away. David looked at me across the hood, slapped it, smiled and said, "Let's go home." We drove back to El Paso at the limit with music cranked the entire way.
The drive from Ruidoso down to Tularosa was scenic and sometimes steep too. Ruidoso was 2,400 feet higher than Tularosa but they're only 35 miles apart. If you lived in El Paso where it was brown desert seeing the green pine forests around Ruidoso and Cloudcroft always looked beautiful and uplifting. Just like for vacationers from the Midwest visiting Jamaica, the palm trees looked lush and tropical but to locals they were a nuisance tree.
We got home at 7:05pm and put the cash in the Tac-room box. Then we plugged in our gear and ordered replacement spiders and pellets.
That evening we showered and I spent quite a while hand washing (detailing) David's body, then I extracted a load from him as my fee. That night, while he was asleep, I got up and used my ultra fine tip (0.2mm) black marker and drew a very tiny smiley face on the tip of his left nipple, just for fun. Sometimes he never noticed them!
Two days later a highway crew working along Highway 380 near Socorro New Mexico found human remains later identified as Oscar. It appeared after leaving Ruidoso they flew to 900 feet above the desert northwest of Ruidoso and somehow Oscar fell out. He plummeted 900 feet then coyotes ate his face and arms. His death was still kinder than what he did to the teenage girl he raped, but his frightening fall only lasted six seconds while her rape went on for several painful hours, then she killed herself. Oscar thought she died but she didn't. What he did to her really fucked up her brain.
Jorge's neighbor across the street kidded him about being well armed and ready to defend his property. Jorge told Matt he never expected he'd be invaded from the river side. We were going to send Matt some kind of thank you but decided to let the matter fade into history. We'll check on them again if we ever go back to Roswell. David said he'd like to go there once, get stoned, and visit the UFO `museums.' Maybe take a midnight jeep tour through Bigfoot territory.
That spring we broke ground on our back yard pool. First, we had to dismantle our mini golf course. That took two hours using two cordless drills with square tip bits to pull all the screws and totally disassemble the golf course back into sheets of plywood and 1x2 strips that kept the balls on the fairways.
The company that installed the variable shade over the yard took it down and stacked the strips on the ground on the east side of our house (near the Grumpy's house), but ten (of 12) steel posts remained in place. Two were temporarily removed to make room for the backhoe.
The pool job was scheduled to take four to eight weeks. They started by placing timbers over the curb to build a ramp over it, then guys came in with a Bobcat with an air hammer on the bucket and busted up the sidewalk between our driveways. That took two hours. The hole from the sidewalk was filled with sand and rocks.
After the sidewalk was gone they used the air hammer mounted on the Bobcat to break apart the rock and mortar wall between our yards about 2/3 of the way back to the rear property line. All the stones were stacked in the back corner and one unlucky young man sat there with hand tools and hand chiseled most of the old mortar off the stones so the walls could be re-built very similarly to their original appearance. They took detailed photos on each side and marked each stone in pencil before knocking it apart.
After the rock wall was gone a board-up company covered the side of both houses with sheets of plywood that leaned out to cover rain gutters too. Another company came over and removed two of our sun cover support poles that sat along the rock wall near the side gate. The concrete bases had four one-inch bolts coming out of the top, they drilled boards and set them over the bases to protect the bolts then buried them so the backhoe could drive around and not bend the bolts. Hopefully.
After those jobs were done they started on the yard itself. By then our back yard (we took photos) was barren sand and weeds and looked ugly. We moved our gas grille, smoker, and chairs inside. The picnic table went to the front yard until everything would be done.
On Monday morning 8am, a regular size backhoe carefully drove into the back yard and started digging trenches for the plumbing and one large hole for the pool. They dug a narrow trench from the front yard to the back corner of the back yard for the utilities, that was the first thing to get done so they could cover the trench and drive in the truck to haul away the spoil. They changed the rear bucket to a narrow one for plumbing trenches.
It took two days for all the trenches. The city came out and installed two meters and plumbed in the new water and gas lines for the pool, it would have its own account apart from the house. Same thing happened with the new electric lines, all buried and metered separately.
The pool work started on Wednesday. One group worked on the steel reinforcing mesh around the entire pit while another group installed plastic pipes for the filtration system. Another guy ran wires for lighting and speakers inside the pool. We opted for variable color low-voltage LED lighting instead of simple old `light bulb in the pool wall' like most had.
It took five guys two days to place the steel framework, and all the other stuff. Thursday the pool pump, heater, and filter arrived in large boxes that we stacked in back corner of the yard by the rocks.
During week #3 the concrete pumper arrived early in the morning. The truck parked in the street and extended a long arm over the house and lowered a long tube into the pit. Two guys stood in the hole and sprayed concrete, it hardened so quickly they walked on it before they were done spraying. Next, they painted it and placed decorative tiles while the concrete was still slightly soft. One guy used a special shaping tool and a four foot level finished the top edge of the pool. They were done Shotcrete'ing the pool by 10am and spent an hour cleaning their pump truck. The leftover concrete was poured into a wood form where the pump and filter went. The back yard looked like a vast 3D matrix of buried pipes and wires.
They let everything sit for two days to cure, we took lots of photos. The next week one of them came by and temporarily connected the main water line and started filling the pool.
The pool was eight feet deep at one end and sloped up to thirty inches by the large steps in the shallow end. It had two in-wall ladders in the deep end and wide stairs with one railing in the shallow end.
On Monday they came in with decorative ceramic tiles and finished the top rim of the pool. One guy connected the strainers and then assembled the filter, pump, and heating gear. The plumbing was finished after two days while the pool slowly filled, maybe one foot per day.
The pool was teardrop shaped, the deep end was in the corner outside our 2nd bedroom windows. The shallow end stairs were closer to the back door. The waterfall feature sat below the Tac-room windows.
Since we were paying in cash we made a cash payment ($16k) when the pool was fully formed and mostly complete except for the plumbing and deck.
On Tuesday they came back with the Bobcat and covered all the trenches, one of them ran to the curb in front of our house. They used almost one third of what they removed to cover the trenches then roughly packed it down with the Bobcat bucket. That afternoon they brought in loads of fine desert sand and spread it carefully around the entire back yard and gave the contour that the paving stones would sit on. The two brass drains for the patio deck were installed and someone started to dig up the concrete rock wall foundation and got set up to rebuild the wall.
The next morning a semi truck delivered skids of paving stones to (my side of) our driveway. They were the color of bare concrete and were square, about ten inches on each side, about two inches thick. They delivered a power saw for cutting concrete tiles between the houses and started installing them in the far corner so they ran on a diagonal across the yard. Two guys cut and measured while one guy with knee pads placed and tamped whole stones in place. Each perimeter stone was a custom cut and took time. It took all week to pave the entire yard. Slowly, one guy reassembled the rock wall and mortared the rocks in place. It would take years until signs of the old mortar were gone.
On Friday the filtration and salt systems were turned on and ran all weekend. We had to monitor the pH because it shifts a lot after a pool is newly filled. The heat wasn't on but the pool looked wonderful.
On Monday of the fifth week we noticed the crew was way down in size and the pool was full that morning. The yard cover guys came in and re-installed the two support poles and re-strung the cables overhead. After those were in they paved the side yard all the way up to the end of the driveway and took away the leftover pavers and the saw.
We had a huge pile of cut up boxes on the driveway after un-crating all the stuff (filter, pump, valves, heater, salt tank, drain covers, and skids from the pavers). We tested all the drains and everything worked. We dumped five-gallon buckets of water into each deck drain and seconds later it appeared in the street along the curb. But we didn't test the emergency drain, except for maybe ten seconds. It looked like a fire hydrant that discharged on the street too. The way the ground sloped the floor of the deep end was about one foot below street level so most of the pool could drain by gravity. The filter pump could empty it down to a few inches of water in the lowest point.
They built a curved stone wall partially around the filtration stuff and plumbed in a small waterfall feature we added beside the pool just for sound.
The last step was to install the pool cover and test the motor. The board-up company removed all their boards from the neighbor's house and Jeremy's parents came out and signed that they found no damage. That was the first time we saw Jeremy stand between his parents, he towered over both of them and the trio looked odd. You could just see the resentment on his father's face. It wouldn't surprise me if Jeremy grew his hair almost to his waist just to piss off his father!
From the street the space between the houses was a mess and the sidewalk was gone. When we cleaned up the side yard from the scraps and dust from the tile cutting saw we dumped all that concrete waste in the hole where the sidewalk went. One guy with a special drill installed and capped holes in the deck if someday we wanted to add a child barrier fence across the back yard. In El Paso those fences were not required on homes without children.
The next week a concrete service came in, formed the sidewalk, and poured the concrete and covered it with sheets of plywood so it didn't dry too quickly nor end up full of kid's initials, paw prints and shoe prints.
The final act was done by the landscaper. They repaired both yards. We extended our river rock landscaped front yard all the way to the neighbor's driveway, and they hired him to make it stones and cactus all the way across their front yard too. They planted an oak tree sapling between the driveways (on their side of the property line) and installed irrigation.
That weekend (seven weeks after we removed the mini golf course) the pool was ready for use. We held a party and invited the neighbors, who had been dealing with the noise and the dust. We also invited the Bonhams but only used our smoker. They stayed at a hotel on Dyer Street since camping was sort of impossible now in the back yard. The Grumpy's came over for free food then left but only smiled once. I told Jeremy that Mr. Grumpy reminded me of the Munchkinland Coroner in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. He laughed and said he never spoke to anyone in that family, he believed they hated him.
Total attendance was twelve adults and one tall teenager (we made Jeremy wear a swim cap due to his hair).
Jeremy acted like he was high, he had such a great time jumping into the pool and begged his parents to get a pool too (but we were sure they were counting the days until he left the nest instead).
Our pool party guests consumed three cases of beer, twenty hot dogs and buns, and smoked ribs. We even had traditional French fries too (deep fried in lard) and showed off our indoor diner. The big problem was that all that beer was peed into our little hallway bathroom. Jeremy knew our house well enough to run downstairs and use the toilet in the basement if the one upstairs was busy. Even though it was wide open with no privacy he was the only one who went downstairs.
We asked him to check the bathroom every thirty minutes in case it started to look like a middle school boys bathroom.
All our guests left after a good time and nobody triggered the door alarm to the Tac-room. And none of them knew they were less than fifty feet from two atomic bombs all evening!
The night after the party we hung out in the deep end making out. We heard the back gates squeak as Jeremy let himself in the yard, he brought his own floating lounge chair and floated in the shallow end while we stood in the deep end holding each other. David told him he could leave it here if he wanted. He said he wanted to leave his suit here too, he had no place else to swim.
The pool lights were set to a deep red and we played a recording of outdoor night time insect noises: crickets, frogs, bats, birds, owls, etc. We kissed and held each other for a long time and Jeremy was in his own world at the other end; we all ignored each other and never spoke.
I got David seated on the side of the pool, naked. He sat there so I could stand in the water and suck his rod, he came and softly moaned, Jeremy got out of the pool, peeled off his suit and tossed it on a pool chair and walked home naked in the dark. He was so oddly shaped I wondered how he dealt with showering at school, or maybe he couldn't take gym because of his heart. His butt was so pale white we could clearly see it wiggle across the yard as he left.
After we watched Jeremy disappear into the darkness and heard both gates squeak I looked over at my husband. He stared at me with a hungry look on his face, and reached down to stroke his still erect dick. My guess was in a few minutes he'd be leaning against the shower wall while I was on my knees with his rod in my mouth, with the hot water raining down on us. My forehead pressed against his soft lower belly and his entire length in my mouth. That was the closest I've yet come to heaven on earth.
The day after the pool party the crew came back and re-installed the blinds over the entire yard. It took them three hours to put them back in place, connected to the motor, and tested. The control was a dial on a box on the pole nearest the gate.
My birthday was three weeks after the pool was finished. I'd forgotten about our conversation but he told me we were going camping some place near Las Cruces. Instead, we drove to a large home in the desert east of Las Cruces near the mountains, the guy had a small helicopter in a barn in the back of his property.
David directed packing gear and I was concerned when I saw he packed nothing for cooking or bathing. We also wore winter clothes and were ready for some sort of outdoor adventure further north than Las Cruces.
The guy rolled his helicopter out of the barn and unstrapped the rotors and we got inside. He started the gasoline engine and in two minutes we lifted off and flew back down towards El Paso. I was confused because I thought we were going north to camp on higher ground where it would be much colder. We took off and had a brief view of Cruces at night.
On the way the pilot slipped on a night vision 3D headset and turned on an IR spotlight. He flew us over I-10 and Transmountain Road up to the flattened peak of Franklin Mountain and barely set down because there was an antenna thing up there. The peak was an oval shape about 50x70 feet, I think it was flattened during the 1950s by the Army Engineers.
We climbed out while he tightly held the controls. We had to get down on our stomachs on top of our gear while he raised the control and lifted off and flew away. I noticed when he left that he had no lights on the outside of the helicopter! David said it was illegal to do what we did so we had to sneak up there and he'd done it a few times in the past. That 27 minute ride cost $500 per person.
After he left we turned on our headband lights and opened our sleeping bags and positioned our stuff. It was very cold but there was very little wind. We took off our shoes and slipped inside our sleeping bags, side by side and inflated our pillows and sleeping mats and lay on our backs and looked up at the clear starry sky.
The beautiful thing was at that altitude there was nothing else that high for almost a hundred miles. Looking straight up the only thing I saw aside from the sky was the silhouette of my husband by my side, it looked exactly like being in outer space. We snuggled closer and I slid my hand into his bag and held his hand and whispered that I loved him; thanks for the birthday gift.
We counted satellites passing overhead and shooting stars and watched the billions of stars in the Milky Way rotate above us. The view was beautiful beyond description, like Jodie Foster once said, "They should have sent a poet."
We decided to zipper our sleeping bags together then I was able to slide my hand under his shirt.
We fell asleep for a little while with my head on his chest, my hand on his tit, his arm around my shoulders. I think I felt what it must be like for a newborn puppy to sleep huddled with the rest of the litter by mommy's warm tummy. We'd have a long hike down the mountain together after the sun came up. Hopefully we could thumb a ride back to the east side.
(This was the original ending of the prequel)