Dos Coyotes

I

The outskirts of Mexico City stretch wide and indifferent beneath a sky surrendering its last light.

Wind drifts down from the mountains as the sun sinks behind their jagged silhouettes, the final splinters of daylight dissolving into violet and then into something darker. There’s a bite to the air out here and a stillness so complete it makes your ears ring.

An old Thunderbird growls its way down a strip of cracked pavement, flames painted along the sides in a style that was probably cool in 1998. The engine knocks. The muffler rattles. The suspension squeals every time it hits a pothole, which is often.

Mariachi music hums faintly through blown-out speakers as it comes to a stop on the side of the road.

The driver’s side door creaks open.

A massive boot meets the gravel.

The Anabolic Outlaw himself.

Daytona Motherfucking Diamonds.

Only tonight, he answers to Daytonio Diamantes; lucha mask on, identity obscured, hiding from the cartels that would love nothing more than to bury him in this very desert

It’s, admittedly, not the most convincing disguise.

He steps out and inhales deeply, releasing the breath with ceremonial gravity, as if arriving at something sacred rather than absurd.

On the passenger side, Ol’ Two-Belt Rob Williams climbs out, stretching the stiffness from his back. He surveys the landscape.

There’s nothing.

No lights. No buildings. Only scrub and rock and distant mountains fading into shadow.

“...Daytona.”

Daytona nods absently, as though confirming some internal prophecy.

“DAYTONA.”

He turns slowly. “Huh? What’s up, Robby?”

“...where the fuck are we?!”

Daytona gestures broadly at the empty desert. “Well, hell, Robby. We’re in Mehico.”

Rob stares.

“No shit, ‘Tona. I meant why are we in the middle of nowhere?”

Daytona stiffens and raises a single finger.

“First off,” he says, lowering his voice. “We don’t use that name out here. Comprende?”

Rob squints. “What name?”

Daytona leans in, glancing around the desert like someone might be listening, draping an arm around Rob’s shoulder.

“Daytona.”

Rob blinks. “... man, that’s your name.”

Daytona shakes his head. “No, sir. Far as Mehico is concerned, that man rode off into the desert and never came back.”

He taps his mask.

“Daytonio.”

Rob exhales slowly. “...you’re serious.”

“For safety.”

“You’re wearing a rhinestone lucha mask.”

“Exactly.”

“That… doesn’t make you safer.”

“I mean, that’s a matter of goddang opinion” Daytonio replies. “But it does make me Daytonio.”

“Fine. Daytonio. Why the hell are we in the middle of nowhere?”

‘Daytonio’ doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he walks around to the back of the Thunderbird, boots crunching on gravel. He crouches down and pops the trunk. The lid lifts. From inside comes frantic, muffled thrashing. Rob leans over, looking in.

Miguel and Toddrick.

The Lasagna Boys.

Tied up. Gagged. Dressed in crude approximations of goats.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Tonio.”

Horns strapped to their foreheads. Patchwork fur cinched around their torsos. Rope wound tight. One sports a forlorn tail pinned awkwardly to denim.

Daytonio dusts his hands together like a man proud of a job well done.

“Bait.”

“...bait?”

“Bait.”

Rob looks back into the trunk. Miguel is trying to kick his way deeper into the spare tire well.

“Why,” Rob asks carefully. “are the Lasagna Boys dressed like goats, hogtied in the back of this shitty car?”

Daytonio glances out into the darkness, eyes scanning the brush like he expects something to already be watching them.

“Two reasons.”

Rob pinches the bridge of his nose. “Oh good, there’s two.”

“Numero uno,” Daytonio’s voice falls to a conspiratorial whisper. “...I think they might be CIA.”

Rob turns his head slowly.

“You think the Lasagna Boys… are CIA? Tonio… they got three fucking brain cells between them and two of them are echos.”

“Think ‘bout it, Robby!” Daytonio insists. “Them boys just… showed up one day and we’re ‘sposed to trust ‘em? Wanderin’ ‘round, actin’ like a couple fuckin’ slack-jawed marmots with their dicks draggin’ on the ground? Ain’t nobody on this goddang planet that fuckin’ stupid without tryna hide somethin’. Ergo, the CIA. Moles. Undercover dicknoses tryna sweep our goddang legs out from under us!”

Rob  looks into the trunk again.

Miguel protests through the gag.

Toddrick bleats again.

Rob looks back at Daytonio.

“...okay. Fair. That’s reason one,” he says. “And reason two?”

“Well, that there’s the real trojan magnum opus of this here endeavor,” Daytonio says. “We’re gonna catch ourselves a fuckin’ chupacabra.”

Silence.

The wind rolls across the desert, tugging at Daytonio’s mask laces.

Rob exhales, slow and long. “Yeah, of course. A fucking chupacabra..”

Daytonio nods once. Dead serious. “Lure it in with goats,” he says, gesturing proudly at the trunk. “Boom.”

Rob stares down at the two hogtied men. “...those aren’t goats, Daytonio.”

Daytonio waves a dismissive hand. “Chupacabra ain’t got a fuckin’ doctorate, Robby! It sees horns, it sees fur, it sees somethin’ bleatin’? Best believe that sonuvabitch is gonna come in hot to fuckin’ go!”

Rob drags a hand down his face. “Hey Tonio, just checking the game plan here. We catch the chupacabra and then…”

Daytonio leans in, lowering his voice like he’s revealing a master plan.

“We put it under the ring.”

Rob doesn’t even react at first.

“We put it under the ring!” Daytonio repeats, more excited as if that’s what Rob was missing the first time. “And when that bell rings and we’re out there defendin’ them titles? Ol’ Clay Byrd wanders just a teensy bit too close to the apron…”

He makes a violent snapping motion with his hands.

“WHAM!”

Rob sighs. A big sigh. The kind of sigh that can only belong to a man questioning why he ever agreed to team up with a man like Daytona Diamonds.

“Look - I want to win, too. There’s a lot riding on this with me just beating Kerry. A defense shows we’re fucking serious. But you want to weaponize a mythical blood-sucking goat monster.”

Daytonio nods. “Clay Byrd already looks like a goddang goat. That thing’s gonna clock him from ‘cross the arena and go into a full fuckin’ sprint! Meanwhile, we handle ol’ Scotty Hunter. One-two-three. Still champs! Easy money, baby! All it costed us was a couple fuckin’ double agents. That’s a goddang deal, Robby!”

Rob looks back into the trunk, at the two wide-eyed, panicking Lasagna Boys and then back out at the empty desert. Nothing but brush and shadow and the low hum of wind. He runs his top teeth along the graying beard below his bottom lip.

“Fuck it,” Rob says. “Alright, let’s pretend for a second that you’re right. Let’s pretend that The Lasagna Boys are CIA agents. Let’s pretend they’re spying on us for… reasons. There’s one big hitch in that plan, Daytonio.”

“Yeah?” Daytonio asks. “What’s that Robby?”

“There ain’t no such fucking thing as the chupacabra. It ain’t real. But the VVingmen or whatever the fuck they’re called? They’re real.”

Daytonio stares at him for a long moment.

“...yeah?” Daytonio says slowly. “Well.”

He steps a little closer, lowering his voice like he’s about to drop scripture.

“...you told me the devil weren’t real neither, Robby,” he says. “And that sonuvabitch sold me some bennies that won us those goddang belts. So, I ain’t doubtin’ you or nothin’, but I am sayin’ maybe you oughta leave the es-oh-teric to the professionals, huh?”

Rob stares at the sky like he’s asking for strength just as Daytonio suddenly snaps his fingers. “Oh! Almost forgot!”

He leans into the trunk further. Miguel’s eyes widen in terror. Toddrick starts shaking his head violently. Daytonio reaches past them. Further. Deeper into the trunk. Rustling. Clanking. And then… he pulls out a small red cooler wedged behind the spare tire.

He sets it on the bumper.

Pops it open.

Inside? Beer. On ice. Condensation already forming in the desert air.

Behind that? Foil-wrapped sandwiches.

“Stakeout protocol,” Daytonio says. “Now, how ‘bout you stop all that bellyachin’, help me put these sad fucks out in the desert, and let’s get to drinkin’, buddy.”

Rob isn’t going to argue with that.

“Fuck it, alright.”

“Mazel Tov!” Daytona shouts, pulling a fully prone Rob into a bear hug. Miraculously, he doesn’t spill a drop of beer. “Ok, now we gotta get them good and lathered up with chupacabra pheromones."

Daytona once again leans in the trunk, but this time he produces a small bottle that looks a whole lot like a water bottle with a spray head hand jammed on top of it.

“Tonio, that’s piss.”

“...the fuckin’ medicine man that sold it to me assured me this was Grade-A chupacabra pheromones.”

Misting the air, both men realize it really is just a water bottle with a spray head hand jammed on top of it filled with... piss.

“Apparently, chupacabras like asparagus, huh?” Rob calls out while holding his nose.

“Guess they gotta eat somethin’ ‘sides goat’s blood, huh? Alright, help me get our bait. And don’t forget the cooler! Them brewskis and sammiches got my goddang name on ‘em! Yeehaw!”

Miguel lets out a muffled, betrayed bleat.

Toddrick squeezes his eyes shut.

The desert answers with nothing.

The trunk slams shut.

Headlights burn against the dark.

And somewhere out past the reach of the flames painted on the Thunderbird… the night awaits.

II

For the first hour, they stay close to the Thunderbird, lingering within the soft reach of its headlights. They nurse a few small beers, shootin’ the shit until they’re all out of ammunition, occasionally giving the ropes a testing tug when the Lasagna Boys fail to bleat convincingly enough in the dark.

It’s absurd and funny and for a moment they forget the problems. Assholes trying to take their titles. The lies they’ve told. Those thoughts you only share with your pillow.

Just two cool dudes having a few small beers and being human.

Out here there’s no Cooley or Charlotte. No weight.

He thinks of Finn and touches his pocket.

No phones, either.

The cooler lid finally shuts with a dull thud.

Wind moves through the brush.

One of the Lasagna Boys gives another half-hearted bleat.

Rob stares past the headlights for a long time before he speaks. “...you really think we got a shot at beating Vae Victis?”

“Robby,” Daytonio says confidently. “Once we got that chupacabra under the ring–”

“Hey.”

Rob stops him. It isn’t loud. It isn’t sharp. But it is serious.

“For real.”

The wind shifts again. Daytonio falls quiet. Behind his mask, something in his posture tightens.

“They’re not just mad,” Rob says. “They’re pissed. I cracked Kerry in the back of the head with his own damn belt. You and Fred jumped Scott. Anna went after Ami… We didn’t just beat them. We embarrassed them.”

Daytonio doesn’t interrupt.

“Vae Victis ain’t stupid,” Rob continues. “You saw it. Even in all that chaos? They were working together. Clay, Scott, Ami… They were covering each other. Kerry was gonna finish it in the ring.”

He nudges a rock with his boot, watching it skitter away.

“They’re gonna want that one back,” Rob says. “And what better way than to take these belts off us?”

Daytonio doesn’t answer right away. Somewhere behind them, rope shifts against sand. A nervous shuffle. Another faint bleat. He studies the darkness as if expecting it to answer for him.

“...Yep,” he finally says, voice low.. “Sounds ‘bout right.”

Rob glances at him. Daytonio rubs a thumb along the edge of one rhinestone, the gesture absent and deliberate.

“But you know what?” Daytonio says. “There’s one thing you ain’t accountin’ for…”

Rob waits.

“They ain’t us.”

A small shrug follows. A hint of a smirk.

“We ain’t righteous. We ain’t noble. We ain’t tryna be the good guys in somebody’s highlight reel. We’re fuckin’ survivors, Robby. Pickin’ at the goddang scraps and callin’ it a feast. Ain’t that right?”

“...yeah,” Rob says. “That’s right.”

Daytonio nods once, satisfied.

“They fight proud,” Daytonio continues. “They fight like they got somethin’ to protect. You and me? We fight like cornered animals.”

Rob snorts. “That ain’t exactly inspirational, Tonio.”

“Ain’t ‘sposed to be,” Daytonio replies. “It’s effective.”

He shifts his stance, boots grinding gravel.

“They wanna make it ‘bout revenge? ‘Bout honor gained, honor lost?” He takes a swig from his bottle of beer, shaking his head and letting out a satisfied sigh. “Fine. Fuck ‘em. Someone oughta tell ‘em thieves like us don’t give a good goddamn ‘bout no honor.”

He turns back toward Rob, energy climbing back up into his voice.

“Say it with me, Robby. Fuck ‘em!!”

Rob watches for a moment, the buzz is settling in now. The edges of the desert feel softer. The fear dulls just enough.

“...yeah,” Rob mutters. “Fuck ‘em.”

“That’s my boy.”

Daytonio grins under the mask, cracks what might be the last swallow from his beer, and gestures deeper into the dark.

“Alright, now back to the real business at hand,” he says. “This spot’s too soft. Ain’t no goddang chuppies gonna come this close to the road. We need to move out deeper into the shit.

At this point, Rob has a good enough buzz going and he doesn’t even argue.

“...yeah, sure man.”

“Atta boy, Robby,” Daytonio says. “Knew you’d see the bigger picture. Giddy up, Lasagna Boys! We’re headin’ towards the heart of darkness!”

The ropes tighten.

Miguel stumbles.

Toddrick bleats once; thin, uncertain.

The headlights of the Thunderbird burn behind them for a long moment…

…and then the two champions and their ‘goats’ walk past the edge of that light.

The car becomes smaller.

The desert becomes bigger.

And the dark swallows the rest.

III

Each man pulls one of the Lasagna Boys along by their rope. In no time at all they’re deeper into the desert. A place that feels foreign to all that man has known and seen - completely desolate and alien.

It’s silent. The kind of silence that makes you hear shit that isn’t there.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Tonio - you sure about this?”

Rob doesn’t know why he’s whispering. He doesn’t believe this dumb shit.

“Goddang right I’m sure!” Daytonio hisses. “We’re gonna catch the biggest motherfuckin’ chupacabra this side of the National Enquirer!"

He’s whispering too, for the record.

Like that somehow makes it tactical.

“Tonio, you don’t need no fucking monster under the ring. You got one beside ya in it. We’re going to fuck these boys six ways to Sunday.”

That hangs there.

The Lasagna Boys give a couple random, exhausted bleats.

Are they cold or scared?

Daytona doesn’t answer right away. He looks at Rob through the darkness. Really looks at him, rhinestones gleaming in what little moonlight there is overhead.

“You think I don’t know that?” he mutters. “You think I’m out here ‘cause I’m scared of Clay fuckin’ Byrd? I ain’t tryna hide ‘hind no monster! I’m tryna stack the deck, Robby!”

He gives the rope a short, sharp tug.

“And you’re right,” he adds. “I got a monster ‘side me in the ring. And, shitfire if he ain’t the meanest sonuvabitch I know. So maybe this chupacabra’s just insurance, huh?”

Rob exhales through his nose.

“Or maybe,” Rob says. “We don’t need insurance.”

The wind moves through the brush again.

They stand there for a moment longer.

“...fuck,” Daytonio mutters. “Maybe you’re right, Robby.”

“C’mon man,” Rob says. “If we hustle back we can probably hit that pharmacy you like when the sun comes up.”

They hesitate just a second too long.

Something rumbles in the bushes.

It’s not the wind.

The silence that follows feels different.

Heavier.

Threatening.

There’s a low groan…

Or a growl.

Rob senses the slack leaving his line on Miguel before he feels it. That animal part of your brain that science and consumerism has yet to rot away - the “oh shit, that’s a sabretooth tiger” part - lights up like a flare.

“Tonio…?”

No more jokes now.

“Yeah,” Daytona whispers, nearly with a gasp. “I hear it too…”

Both men stare into the darkness, wide-eyed and a hair more sober than before.

The brush parts. Slow. Careful. Two small eyes catch the moonlight. Rob tightens his grip on the rope. Daytonio slowly bends to his knees like he’s about to square up with folklore itself. The shape steps forward…

Not low and reptilian.

Not spiked.

Not even fanged.

Tiny. Wobbly. A soft, confused bleat drifting through the darkness. Out of the brush, just as bewildered as Daytonio and Rob, stumbles a baby goat. Big ears. Knobby knees. Patchy little coat. It looks at them like they’re the dumbest creatures it’s ever seen.

Daytonio doesn’t move. The kid takes one uncertain step forward… and then another. It sniffs at the rope in Rob’s hands. Another soft bleat and then Rob exhales. “That’s it…? That’s the monster?”

“No,” Daytonio says, already starting to crouch down to the baby goat’s level. “That… is a survivor. Just like us, Robby. Just like us.”

Rob blinks. “It’s a goat.”

“It’s a baby,” Daytonio corrects him. “Out here. Alone. In the desert. With predators.”

The baby goat takes another step forward and nuzzles its face against Daytonio’s shin. That’s it. Decision made. Daytonio scoops it up with both arms.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” he mutters. “You’re safe now, little fella. Ain’t nothin’ gonna hurt you.”

Rob stares. “Tonio, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Rescuin’ him.”

“From fucking what? Two hulking gringos hiding in the fucking bushes?”

“Chupacabra.”

Rob rubs at his face, not enough beer in the world to cover up his exasperation. “Tonio, for the last time, there is no such thing as a chupaca–”

“Shh,” Daytonio whispers, rocking the goat slightly. “He’s been through enough.”

The kid bleats softly.

Daytonio looks down at it.

“You need a name, don’tcha little guy?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Rob says, shaking his head.

“...Pancho,” The goat blinks. Daytonio smiles. “There it is. Pancho the Kid.”

Rob’s stare shows the exhaustion of all logic and reason.

“You just found him.”

“And now he’s family.”

The Lasagna Boys thrash faintly in the darkness. Miguel gives an indignant, muffled scream. Toddrick starts bleating incessantly, as if one more blather might be enough for Daytonio to let him go.

“Will y’all shut the fuck up?” Daytonio calls out to them. “I’m havin’ a goddang moment here and y’all are ruinin’ it! C’mon, Robby. Let’s get back to the T-Bird.”

Rob looks between the hogtied ‘goates’ and the actual goat. “...wait, we’re just going to leave them?”

“They’re trained operatives,” Daytonio says. “They’ll figure it out.”

Pancho lets out a long, agreeing bleat before laying his head on Daytonio’s shoulder.

Daytonio nods solemnly.

“Honorary Whoresman,” he declares. “Effective right fuckin’ now.”

Rob stares at the tiny goat in his partner’s arms.

“There has to be a law against kidnapping wild goats.”

“Nope,” Daytonio corrects. “I’m savin’ a goat.”

“You’re leaving two grown men tied up in the desert.”

“They’re CIA,” Daytonio corrects again. “They ain’t real fuckin’ men. Just a couple ghosts wearin’ skin, pretendin’ to be stupid while they take notes. Fooled you, huh?  Goddang good at their jobs, I’ll give ‘em that.”

Rob looks at the sky. He looks at his boots and kicks a lone rock while shaking his head.

“Yeah, ok man. Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

Daytonio starts walking back toward where the Thunderbird’s headlights glow faintly in the distance. Pancho’s ear flop with every step. Rob, with very few other options in this cavalcade of dumbassery, chooses to follow. Behind them, Miguel lets out one last furious bleat.

The wind swallows it.

The desert, once again, answers with nothing.

And somewhere out there, in all that sprawling, moonlit nothing, the only thing that truly almost got sacrificed to a mythical bloodsucking monster…

…was common sense.

IV

The slightest signs of daybreak meet them back at the Thunderbird.

“You know,” Daytonio says, adjusting Pancho in his arms. “Vae Victis are predators, Robby. They’re wolves.”

“Yeah?” Rob asks. “What the fuck are we?”

Daytonio smirks and nuzzles the goat’s forehead.

“We’re coyotes. We ain’t proud and we don’t fight fair. We steal what ain’t nailed down and take what’s limpin’.”

The corners of Rob’s lips try to curl, but he kills it.

“And when the wolves want revenge for one of theirs,” Rob asks.

“We fight ‘em like the fuckin’ animals we are.”

Rob finally smiles.

This is why he brained Kerry Kuroyama with his own 5 Star Belt.

And why it’s now Rob’s 5 Star Belt.

“Fucking right,” he exhales, sinking into the Thunderbird.

The Thunderbird coughs to life.

As the shitty car’s headlights cave through the fading darkness, and two potential CIA goats are alone.

Rob doesn’t look back.