by Bill Olver
“I don’t know.” Ernie shook his head. “We’ll figure something out.”
“We can’t kill them. I’m not going through that hell again.” Drops of blood flew from Mike’s lips.
“We ain’t got a choice, Mike. If they live the whole story comes out.” Ernie cocked the hammer. “We ain’t got a choice.”
An animal shriek filled the air. Mac leaped from the rafters, his open mouth closed on Ernie’s nose. The teeth sank deep into the soft flesh. “Get this blasted monkey off me,” he screamed.
Steve dove into the darkness. His hands closed on his jacket and the .32 revolver inside. He yanked Mike’s head back by the hair and pressed the pistol to the fat man’s temple. Mac jumped from Ernie’s grasping hands, returning to the rafters.
“Now,” Steve’s raised voice echoed in the barn. “If anyone tries anything, old Mike here is going to be the first one going to hell.” He cocked the hammer. “Now which one of you killed Levi Drummond?”
“None of us.” Ernie wiped the blood away from his ravaged snout. He centered the pistol on Mike. “I’m sorry, Buddy. I really am.”
“Ernie, NO! Please don’t do this!” Mike blubbered. “Don’t do it.”
“You can’t do this, Ernie.” Bruce grabbed the pistol barrel. “You can’t kill Mike, damn it. We’ve drank coffee together for the last five years.”
“Even if you get lucky, and the bullet goes through this bag of guts, I’ll kill you before I take my last breath,” Steve warned.
“Hell, that peashooter’s been in the rafters for over a year, it may not even shoot,” Ernie snarled.
“Care to find out?”
“Put the gun down, Ernie,” Mike begged. “Please, put the gun down.”
“Daddy, put the pistol down.” A young woman walked into the barn. “It’s over with. In a way I’m glad. The truth will finally come out.”
The lights from the Chrysler placed her face in shadow. “Who are you?” Steve demanded. “Why are you here?”
“I killed Levi Drummond.” She stepped to the center of the barn and tugged the pistol from Ernie’s hand. “I graduated high school last year. The whole class got together for an end of summer party. We came to this barn to drink and make out.”
“Thelma, don’t say anymore please,” Ernie begged. “I don’t want you locked away in prison.”
“I was drunk. I stumbled outside to puke.” She stopped speaking for a moment to dry her eyes. “Levi Drummond showed up. He was mad as hell and ran the rest of the gang off.”
“So you killed him for that. You killed him for ruining your party.” Steve climbed slowly to his feet, the revolver centered on Ernie’s chest.
“I killed Drummond because he raped me.”
“I won’t let you go to prison.” Ernie wrapped his arms around his daughter. He turned to Steve. “I did it. I killed Levi Drummond.”
Thelma broke away from her father’s embrace. “Drummond found me out back sick as a dog. He was on me before I knew it, tore my pants and underwear away and pinned me to the ground. I tried to fight him off, but I couldn’t do it. I was too drunk.”
“Don’t talk anymore, Baby.” Ernie grabbed her hand. “Don’t say another word.”
“It has to come out. I stole dad’s gun and came back to the barn during harvest time. I hid in the rafters early one morning and waited for him to come in here. The trucks were running outside. I knew those engines would cover the noise. I dropped down and shot him in the chest. He kicked for a few minutes then he went all still. I crawled back up top, hid the pistol in the vent and crawled to the roof. I jumped to the ground on the low side and ran through the woods until I got home.” She turned to face Steve. “You can take me to jail. I’m ready.”
“You have me confused with the police. I’m a private detective.” He handed the .32 to Ernie and retrieved his .38 from the ground. “I’d get rid of that, if I were you. Take a torch to it and cut it into small pieces.”
“You’re not going to tell the cops?” Thelma asked.
“No, you’ve been through enough. Prison’s not the answer here.” He turned toward the darkness. “Come on, Mac. It’s time to go home.”
“How can I thank you for this?” Ernie stepped forward; he held his bleeding nose with one hand and pumped Steve’s hand with the other. “After everything we did to you. You’re not going to turn Thelma in. How can I thank you?”
“You’ll need to see a doctor for that. Makes us even for the brass knuckles. If you’re ever in LA, you can buy me a steak dinner.”
Mac descended from the darkness to Steve’s shoulder, signing with his fingers. “Yeah, we’re out of work again, and we’ll have to return some of Smithson’s money.” He walked into the Chrysler’s lights, circled to the door and sat behind the wheel. The engine fired up. He reversed the large automobile, made a u-turn and drove away from Preston.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Terry Alexander (Mac and Steve) lives in Oklahoma. His work has appeared in anthologies from Living Dead Press, Open Casket Press, Static Movement, May December Publications, Rainstorm Press, and Pro Se Press.
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¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
BACK STORY
by Beth Ann Spencer
Frame 352 of the Patterson film purporting to show a
Bigfoot near Bluff Creek, California
Through the trees a fire winks.
The moths are plentiful as stars,
as the bats wheeling after them
radioing joy.
He is dressed in motley,
his eyes dull coals of fear that flare
with each snapping gust.
In his hands a glinting flask
travels often enough to his mouth
that I begin to thirst.
Why has he come but to search for me,
his strange attractor,
and why have I but to burn
with the bulk of me
his reason down.
Still, I wait through the night,
watch him undress,
and with his pale cock
above its pale wattle
piss out the flames,
watch the moon
lay her bright cape on the river,
drag it west.
Before dawn I go to him,
blow upon the ashes of his dreams
until his eyelids flutter,
then I vanish
leaving my prints
near his groaning blanket.
I am bathing when the jays alert me.
In the time it takes a hawk
to fall upon her prey
I swim to the sandbar
and haul myself into the sun
his lens dishes out.
From myth to possibility
I sear my way.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
BIGFOOT TAKES A LOVER
by Beth Ann Spencer
It’s not hard to imagine why she did it,
only what took her so long.
We couldn’t have lasted a week
in those woods
alone
imagining her at each new sound,
her ripe scent.
She had been alone a long
time. It was summer,
hot.
The town went crazy afterwards.
Any town would.
Love is one thing but this?
We can’t stand for it.
Naked
into this world and out. His wife said
Bigfoot unzipped the tent, plucked him up,
carried him off. He was 23,
on his honey-
moon.
No sign of them since. Sometimes we think
we hear them singing, but
that’s not possible…a beast craving
a man or vice
versa.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
SINGING IN PLACE
by Beth Ann Spencer
I call this to t
he Yeti
inside four walls of avalanche
~ Wislawa Szymborska
I am drunk, what do you expect?
Try as I might, I can hit but one note
at a time. But Yeti, listen to the monks
of Tibet and tell me you don’t hear
the voices of your ancestors.
They would tell you, Beware
the urge to show yourself again.
If you returned to these woods
you’d be shot—or sedated, collared
and tracked back home.
The kindness of your face
is no defense, nor your loneliness.
The palace of wisdom
has manacles just your size
whatever it is.
Consider the Lord God Bird,
sixty years among the dying hardwoods,
safer as myth than miracle. Knock
knock, we’re all there, chattering
our wonderment. Is that what you want?
Yeti, we’ve got Oprah here,
Yeti, we play FreeCell, wear
the latest brands, harken to catastrophe
between news of the Dow
and smoke signals from the Vatican.
Fly from us while you have time,
while the icecap remains.
On clear nights tune in to the monks
singing in place. Those notes above
the drone? Prayers for weary travelers.
Keep to your castle of snow
and brush away your prints.
Truth is a pathless land.
Each temple has a gun to it.
And an avalanche above, waiting.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Beth Ann Spencer (Back Story; Bigfoot Takes a Lover; Singing in Place) edits poetry and short fiction for Bear Star Press (www.bearstarpress.com). She lives in Cohasset, California, with husband Antoine Baptiste and Ivan, their sled dog.
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¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
THE GREAT GERTIE
by Caroline Cormack
There was a gorilla sitting opposite me. This is less astonishing when you know that I was in her cage at the time.
I hadn’t been expecting a gorilla in the cage. She (according to the sign on her truck, her name was Gertie) was supposed to be performing in the big top. Had I known the cage was occupied I probably wouldn’t have entered. I say probably because while, ordinarily, whether to enter a gorilla’s cage is a fairly easy decision to make, there were men with guns and baseball bats chasing me which meant it wasn’t necessarily the worst of my available options.
I wracked my brains for any information I might have learned previously about how to behave around gorillas. Nothing. A finishing school education is worse than useless in these circs.
I didn’t have time to think about it much then because I was trying not to panic about sharing a small enclosed space with a huge gorilla, but I was wondering why the men were chasing me. I was up to no good but nothing they could have known about.
The problem with my hiding place (other than the gorilla) was that I wasn’t actually hidden. The truck was at the back of the park and the barred side was facing out of the field rather than towards the fairground. It was secluded but anyone walking past would see me.
I heard voices on the other side of the wooden wall of the truck. Gertie could hear them too, and she wasn’t pleased.
“Did she go into the truck?”
Gertie started to thump the wall behind her, growling deep in the back of her throat. Gertie had been a formidable sight when she was sitting quietly, now she was starting to get angry she was truly terrifying.
“Don’t think so, boss. She came down this way but I didn’t see her after that.”
“Who else was here? Did anyone see where she went?”
Gertie really didn’t like the boss. Every time he spoke she got more worked up.
“No, boss.”
“So, not only were you morons careless enough to let someone come down here, you didn’t even manage to see where she went.”
“Sorry, boss.”
“Go round there and look!”
I was about to be found. As far as I could tell the only hiding place inside the cage was behind Gertie, which meant I had a big problem. No way I was moving closer to those huge hands of hers.
“No way! You can fire me if you want but I’m not going round there. That gorilla damn near ripped Colly’s arm off last night.”
“I can do more than fire you, you idiot, now get round there and check if there is anyone in that cage!”
I guessed the boss was making his point with the gun I’d seen earlier. I had a choice: being found by the armed gang or being torn limb from limb by a gorilla. Gertie had so far not shown any aggression towards me, whereas the men most definitely had, so gorilla it was. Trying not to think about what might happen to me, I quickly scuttled across the cage.
Gertie had all her attention focused outside the cage, trying to grab at the man coming round the front of the trailer. I crouched down behind her and tried to keep her between me and the men in front of the cage.
“Nah, she’s not in there,” the boss said, “Look at Gertie, she’d be doing her nut if someone was in there with her. That girl must have doubled back. It doesn’t look like she knows about the secrets Gertie’s keeping for us.”
Interesting.
I heard the men walk away. I quickly backed away from Gertie, trying to get to a safe distance while keeping her between me and the front of the cage as far as possible in case anyone was looking. But then she took me by surprise. Rather than tearing me into little pieces, she calmed down and looked at me impassively.
Score one for the sisterhood.
Now it looked like she wasn’t going to kill me I felt sorry for her, stuck in this cage. When this was all over I’d call the RSPCA and see if they could do anything to help her.
I opened the side door a crack and listened for signs of anyone waiting for me. All was quiet. I left the truck and hurried away from the area.
There was a high wall running around the grounds so I couldn’t make a quick exit out of the back. I made my way around the edge of the grounds to the main gates where I found a long queue of people and cars. Security guards were searching everyone before they could leave.
“What’s going on?” I asked one of the security guards who was working the queue, keeping everyone in line.
“Theft in the main house. Bunch of jewels gone missing.” he said.
When I got to the gate, they went through my bag and scanned me with a metal detector wand. Neither guard enquired as to why I smelled quite so much like gorilla.
Once safely back in my hotel room, I made the phone call I’d been wanting to make since meeting Gertie.
“You told me that cage would be empty!” I yelled as soon as Nick, my partner, answered the phone.
“And hello to you, too. Nice day?”
“Lovely, aside from the gorilla in the cage that you said would be empty.”
“It should have been,” Nick said, “The gorilla show is always on at seven. They must have cancelled it for some reason.”
I had a fair idea what that reason was but I didn’t want to discuss it with Nick. Now I knew that Nick had made it safely back, too, I wanted to get off the phone. I was tired and smelly and wanted a long hot bath.
“Listen, Nick, I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Wait, before you go. Did you…?”
“Yes, as planned.”
“Okay, I’ll catch you later.”
Charming, he was more concerned that I’d done the job properly than about my safety. As a thief he was topnotch but as a boyfriend he was decidedly second-rate.
I ran myself a deep bath. As I sank back into the bubbles, I considered the day and its rather dramatic end.
Nick had started planning this job after he saw a poster advertising the circus’s summer tour including a week spent in the groun
ds of Shanly House near Canterbury in Kent. Nick has wanted to rob Shanly for longer than I’ve known him. They have jewellery on display which had some decent stones that would provide a nice return even if they had to be taken out of their settings. He’d learned the routine of the place and knew he could take the items without being spotted.
The only bit he had never figured out was how to get them off the grounds. Shanly sits in the middle of a large walled estate giving the owners plenty of time to shut the gates if a theft was discovered. The security was fairly lax inside the House because there was no way to get off the estate.
The circus would finally give him his way out. If he could hide the gems in one of the circus vehicles, the circus would carry them over the threshold and he could pick them up at the next stop.
It wasn’t risk free, of course. The circus would get searched once the theft had been discovered and even if the police didn’t find the jewels there was always a chance that the circus staff might.
Earlier that afternoon, Nick had arrived at the house and walked around looking like a bored husband killing time while his wife looked at the exhibits. Although he appeared to be wandering aimlessly, he was following a carefully planned route that would get him to the jewellery rooms just after the staff had led all of the other tourists out ready for closing up the house for the day.
His end all went well and, as we passed each other on the stairs, he slipped the jewels into my bag. He continued to browse around while I, who hadn’t been near any of the jewellery displays, went out into the grounds and to the circus.
Gertie’s surprise appearance had thrown me more than a little, but I had managed to hide the leather pouch of jewels as planned. Inside Gertie’s cage there was a narrow gully running around the top of the walls that was deep enough to hide fairly small things placed there. It wasn’t particularly secure, if anyone happened to put their hand on the same spot they’d find the bag immediately, but it was the best place we’d been able to think of without involving any members of the circus crew.