can a frustrated single mom and failed big city journalist save her family and salvage her career by returning to a town run by a gang of bungling thugs?


“The Resurrection of Puerto Cielo” is a novella published in serial form, 43 posts.




1

The silent sentinel stared east. The night rain had left the ground wet, the air fresh. Stars slipped away as the far horizon began to brighten bronze.

Behind the watcher, the reservoir water lapped gently against the earthen dam. The lake level was high, unusual for September in arid Baja. Far below, the Rio Serpente, once a flooding monster, burst from the dam’s spillway, surging down the valley, twisting, turning, tumbling through low, rocky hills past small farmhouses  and specks of grazing cattle.

Far off, the gulf of California glimmered as a fireball inched higher into cloud spotted sky.

At the base of the dam, a dusty pickup bumped through shadows of treelike cacti and stopped. 

A door opened. Slammed shut. The young engineer stretched and yawned. He looked up at the mountain of dirt that had been built before he was born. Until a month ago, he hadn’t even known it existed. Now, every week he had to get up at six in the morning and make the two hour drive from town, half of it on an unpaved, rutted, muddy track barely resembling a road, to inspect the structure.

He scanned the hillside with binoculars.

Nothing unusual, certainly nothing worth hiking a mile up a washed out dirt trail to investigate.

No matter, Antonio thought, I’ll use the same pictures I took last trip. The boss never looks at my reports anyway, too busy setting up his next golf outing.

The engineer climbed into his truck. His stomach growled. Breakfast was calling.

For a moment, the squirrel watched man and machine disappear downhill. Suddenly spooked, it dived for its hole.

A shadow flashed by.

Talons scraping the earth, the hawk shrieked.

***

To be continued-

Copyright 2024 Tio Stib