good a humor to be dismayed by Kath’s report of the Hellhound. He agrees with her plan to handle the beasts if they return.
Roy has been running his crews in shifts from first light in the morning until full dark. He knows that toward the end, his people will have to work all night, under lights, but in these first days, he has let them get as much rest as possible for the sprint to come. It is during second shift lunch, right at noon on the fourth day, when the plague of snakes arrives.
They are rattlesnakes, sidewinders as long as gravel trucks and with hides armored like a Caterpillar. They bite two lunching workers and an assistant cook, while bullets from side arms and rifles bounce off harmlessly. The toll would be higher, but for their habit of coiling before a strike. As one huge head, jaws agape and fangs dripping corrosive venom, weaves back and forth above her, Kath pitches a lit stick of dynamite into the gullet. BLAM! When the smoke and the rain of snake parts clears away, so have the snakes. Deep scores in the rock show the fleeing trails. Roy sends scouts armed with RPGs after the surviving snakes. They destroy two more and report the rest have vanished.
Quick action in the emergency RV saves the workers’ lives. Roy has had his medics stock up on Holy Water as well as antivenom for just such contingencies. He directs the cleanup of the site and the careful butchering of the remains of the snakes. That evening the workers feast on rattlesnake fajitas, with mounds of corn tortillas and roasted chiles. “¡Delicioso!” They salute the cooks. “¡Tastes like pollo!”
That night the Hellhounds return, but this time Kath has sent her teams out equipped with night-vision goggles, laser sights, and teflon-coated bullets. All night long Roy’s dreams are punctuated with the crack of rifle fire, and in the morning he swings up the side of a dump truck to view a reeking pile of carcasses. “Treat them like el coyote,” he tells Kath.
Ramón has come to report on the progress of his asphalt crews and overhears Roy’s instruction. “What is she going to do with them, Tío Roy?”
“Wait and see, nephew.”
A few hours later, Roy stops his pickup beside the canopy where Ramón has set up his headquarters for the day. As the radio dispatcher coordinates asphalt spreaders and rollers, Roy opens the truck door and motions Ramón inside. “Come, nephew. Let us ride the route and see how work is progressing.”
Behind the asphalt team, at the beginning of the route, crews are already building forms for the concrete, while at the far end of the route, the slurry teams are finishing the road base. Every few miles, Kath’s hunters have hung up a Hellhound carcass beside the roadway. “Is that what you meant, Tío?”
“Sí. With el coyote, you kill one and hang him up in the yard to warn the others. Figure it will work with Hellhounds, too. Remember this, nephew, for when you run the company—though let us hope you never have a project like this.” Roy grins at his nephew, then turns serious.
“Ramón, even if we survive this, your mother my sister may never speak to me again for bringing you onto this project. If we fail, we lose everything—not just our lives, but our very hope of Paraíso.”
Ramón squints into the sun dazzle out the windshield. “We won’t fail, Tío Roy. This is the best road-building crew ever assembled, and they know what we stand to win. We won’t fail you.”
Roy drops Ramón back at his dispatch hut. “We work the night through, nephew. Tell your people.”
“Sí, Tío Roy.”
That night, as the asphalt crews hasten to seal the road base ahead of the form construction teams, swarms of vampire bats, so thick they blot out the stars, swoop down to feast. But the cooks have been adding bushels of garlic to the daily menudo and posole, and the bats flutter away in confusion. The ultrasonic cries of so many might have damaged the workers’ hearing, but Roy has told his bosses to enforce the rule requiring earplugs on the job. At the height of the attack, Felipe turns on the ultrahigh-frequency broadcaster. Stunned bats rain from the sky; the crews kick them off the roadway and work on.
Ramón asks Roy, “Why didn’t Felipe turn the power high enough to kill them, Tío?”
Roy sips his coffee and smiles. “Think, nephew. Where do we get