by Nick Petrie
They slowed as they climbed the long dirt track into the trees, long guns now held at port arms, unsure of what they’d find. Of what might find them.
They came to a walk while they were still in the deeper shadows of the ancient forest, but they could see the clearing of the farmyard ahead. The house and the newer barn were dark and still, but the chemical smell was stronger. Overheated transmission fluid, Peter thought. Maybe some melted rubber, and something else. Something burnt. Maybe just the sulfur smell of all that black powder, released by the evening’s rain.
On the far side of the yard, a faint light seeped uphill from the drop toward the old leaning barn with the moss-eaten roof where the Country Squire wagon had been hidden. Where the bombs had been made and tested against the wood of the giant stump.
Peter stepped forward, his rifle up and ready. He felt something bubble up in him, rising like bile. The burning need to do some damage, to ruin something beyond repair, to set the whole goddamned farmstead on fire. As if the rage in this place was contagious.
Lewis held up a fist. Peter froze. Lewis stepped closer.
“Do me a favor,” Lewis said softly. “Don’t kill anybody if you can help it.”
Peter looked at his friend, nearly invisible in the darkness. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Hey, if you can ask me not to kill some gangsters, I can ask you not to kill these assholes.”
“Not even the guy who’s filed his teeth to a point? Who murdered seven people in prison? And God knows how many more on the road today?”
Lewis raised a shoulder. “Maybe him you can kill. But the brother, the one on disability, we wait and see.”
* * *
• • •
At the bottom of the hill, the hulking pickup with its improvised armor stood silent at the edge of the field like something prehistoric. Its headlights shone on the round wire-fence enclosure they’d seen earlier. Now it was filled with low shapes that flowed in darkness and light in endless circles around the perimeter of their corral.
Two men stood illuminated there. A short man with thick shoulders and arms, but with a sideways tilt to his posture and one leg gone too thin. He held his elbow tight to one side and a pistol in his hand, pointed at the other man, a giant. Broad and tall and powerful, with the overmuscled build of a gym rat.
The two men were talking.
Peter and Lewis slipped silently closer.
63
Albert could tell that Judah Lee had hit something important when he fired their daddy’s old .44 into the floor. Likely some part of the automatic transmission.
Not only was the pickup running way too hot, with smoke starting to seep from under the hood, it had stopped shifting right. Albert could smell the tranny fluid overheating. All the weight of that heavy steel plate wasn’t helping.
They were down to twenty miles an hour.
Soon enough they might have to get out and push. Or just start walking.
Albert’s side still hurt. Nowhere near as bad as having a tractor roll on him, break his leg, and crack his pelvis, but it didn’t feel good. That big double-aught shotgun pellet ground against bone with every bump in the road. He thought about what it would cost him to see a doctor. Surgery? That was money he plain didn’t have.
This is where he’d found himself. Where Judah Lee had put him. Making plans to drop his sharpest knife in boiling water, swallow a few gulps of their daddy’s high-test, and take the pellet out himself. Now there was a fun idea.
He wasn’t going to let Judah Lee near him with a pointy stick, let alone a knife.
Turning off 72, Albert looked again at his brother in the rearview. He kept waiting for Judah Lee to pick up one of those stolen M16s and blow Albert’s brains out, or come through the sliding window and twist Albert’s head off his neck.
Instead, Judah Lee just sat braced into the far corner of the cargo bed, biding his time. Probably thinking that Albert could fix what was wrong with the pickup. Albert still had his uses.
They labored up the long dark driveway into the farmyard. Instead of stopping at the house, Albert let the truck coast down the hill to the old barn, where he’d set up the hog trap at the edge of the south field. Rolling up to it, he could see them in the headlights, eight or ten feral hogs roiling around inside the wire corral. Meat on the hoof.
Albert was used to working hurt.
Killing feral hogs was the least of his chores, now.
Those pigs might get a reprieve yet.
It all hung on what was gonna happen between him and Judah Lee.
* * *
• • •
He parked the truck and turned off the engine and slid out of the driver’s seat with their daddy’s old .44 revolver in his hand. He moved as fast as he could, but he hadn’t been anywhere near fast since the accident, let alone when every motion made his blood-wet shirt pull where it was stuck to the mangled flesh over his ribs.
Albert clenched his jaw when his feet hit the ground, thinking again that a few pain pills would go down real good right now.
Soon enough, he thought. Or never again.
By the time Albert straightened up, Judah Lee had jumped over the high side of the pickup and landed easily, like Albert hadn’t bounced him off the armor a half-dozen times an hour before.
Judah’s hands were empty.
Albert pointed their daddy’s .44 at him. “What the heck am I gonna do with you, Judah Lee?”
“You don’t look so good, brother. Let me help.”
“I’ve seen your help.” Albert’s side throbbed. His head hurt. “I don’t want it.”
“I’m family.” Judah Lee smiled. “You want help, I’m all you got.”
Judah’s teeth, filed to points, had turned black at the roots. His breath smelled like rot. The blue skull tattoo seemed to float in front of his face, like it wasn’t a tattoo at all, Albert thought, but some kind of apparition. Or manifestation.
Judah Lee kept talking, his voice a velvet purr in the warm, liquid night. “You want to save this farm, don’t you? I’m your only way out of this mess you’ve made. But you and me, working together?” The pointed smile grew wider. “Just imagine what we can do. Carruthers won’t live forever. Somebody’s gotta step up to take his place.”
The trapped hogs ran in frantic grunting circles around the corral, tusks gleaming bright in the headlights. Albert wanted to look to see how many there were, how big they might be. But he couldn’t take his eyes off Judah Lee.
“What do you want to do, Albert? Run this farm? Buy more acreage? You follow my lead, we can make that happen.”
Judah’s voice rose and fell with a preacher’s cadence.
“You used to build cars, but what about restoring old ones? We’ll set you up with a shop, brand-new tools. You can rebuild those old beauties folks used to drive when we were kids. You know how many broken-down cars Carruthers has laying around at his place, just rusting away, waiting to get back on the road?”
Albert hadn’t gone to church in years, but he remembered the stories. How the Devil would promise you anything you wanted. All he’d ask in return was your immortal soul, given of your own free will.
Albert was afraid his soul was already long gone.
Judah’s voice was mesmerizing. “First thing we do, though, before any of that, is go back to town and find what those people took out from under that house. Our ancestor’s house. Take back what was ours.”
Then another voice came out of the darkness. Strong and low in the humid night air.
“Why do you think anything in that house was ever yours to take?”
64
Peter held his rifle on the big man with the blue skull tattoo, who bared his pointed teeth like he wanted to take a bite out of somebody.
Lewis kept talking, his voice calm but carrying. “Whatever might have been in that h
ouse, once upon a time, it was earned on the backs of those men and women and children whose lives were stolen from them. Human beings bought and sold, beaten and raped, worked to death. For four hundred years. For profit. So you boys have no claim to lay. You’re stuck with the mess you’ve made.”
Lewis gave them his tilted smile, the 10-gauge up and comfortable at his shoulder, as if he could stand there all day making conversation. Totally in command.
The shorter man with the pistol blinked, like he was coming out of a trance.
“Put down the gun,” Lewis said, not unkindly. The shorter man—who must have been the older brother, Albert—opened his hand and the gun fell. The side of his shirt was dark with blood. “Kick it away. Go on now.” Albert scuffed with his bad leg and the pistol slid a few feet.
Peter kept his eye on the monster. “That knife clipped to your pocket,” he said. “Toss it.”
Judah Lee flipped the folding knife away, sneering at Peter. “So you’re the race traitor. The nigger lover. Hiding behind a gun.”
In the wire-fence corral, feral hogs raced grunting in frantic circles, bright in the headlights then dark in the shadows. Churning up the ground with their hooves, rooting at the fence with their snouts and tusks.
The white static rose up Peter’s brainstem, all sparks and lightning. Anger and frustration, trying to get out. He glanced sideways at Lewis. “You sure you don’t want this one?”
Lewis shook his head. “I don’t want any part of it. He’s all yours.”
“Okay.” Peter held out the rifle and Lewis slung it over his own shoulder. Peter loosened the straps on his armored vest, pulled it over his head, and dropped it on the hot hood of the red pickup. He slipped off the leg holster and pistol and tossed them away into the night.
Without their weight, he felt light. Almost as if he were floating.
Almost.
“I don’t have a gun now,” he said. “I’m definitely not hiding.”
* * *
• • •
Judah Lee straightened up and stared at him.
Peter tasted copper in his mouth and felt the familiar lift of adrenaline.
Knowing the man was six feet seven was one thing, but to see him standing there with his hands balled into fists, his teeth filed into points, his face tattooed into a blue skull?
That was something else.
Judah Lee smiled wider. He enjoyed the intimidation. It gave him pleasure, that feeling of power that came even before the beating or killing.
Peter had fought big men before. Big men without real training were no harder to beat than normal men. Often, they were easier, because most big men didn’t really know how to fight. They were used to their size doing all the work for them. A single punch, with that much weight and power behind it, could end a conflict very quickly, so most big men rarely had to fight at all. They were used to other people backing off before the fight even got started.
But Judah Lee Burkitts had fought in prison and won, again and again. Peter could see by the loose way he stood, feet apart, knees bent slightly, weight forward on his toes, that he’d had a lot of practice.
And he liked it.
Peter didn’t much mind, either.
The white static sang its song of rage and destruction.
Sometimes a Marine needs a good fight to set free his demons.
* * *
• • •
Judah Lee looked a little banged-up, but he didn’t move like a man who was hurt. One moment he was standing, ready, and the next he came in way faster than Peter had expected, with a long hard left that Peter deflected with his right forearm as he slipped away.
His forearm went numb, like he’d been hit with a piece of cordwood.
Peter backpedaled and they circled in the red pickup’s headlights, feinting, trading and blocking blows, taking each other’s measure. He couldn’t let the big man get close, or that would end it.
Judah was fast, but Peter was faster.
Peter’s arms were long, but Judah’s were longer.
Peter was in better shape, but all the cardio in the world wouldn’t help if Peter got smashed in the face by a fist the size of a cantaloupe. And this fight wouldn’t last long.
It would end fast and ugly, when Judah knocked Peter down, then stomped him into the dirt. Or when Peter landed a punch to the big man’s throat, strangling him on his own crushed trachea.
Or any of a hundred other ways that Peter wasn’t thinking about on any conscious level.
He wasn’t going to win going toe to toe, that’s for sure.
He’d known that going in.
The other man was just too big, too mean.
Peter would have to come up with something else.
* * *
• • •
Judah led with his left again and Peter pushed it away with his dead forearm, then spun inside, snapping the hard outer edge of his right elbow into the big man’s temple.
It should have been more than enough to put anyone down, no matter their size, but Judah just shook his head and bared his teeth and, before Peter could get fully clear again, Judah threw out his right hand and got hold of Peter’s T-shirt and reeled him back in for a heavy left to the stomach.
Peter’s ribs might have cracked or broken at that moment, which could have made the next blow a killing one, but he took most of it on his arm as he rolled away from the punch, lessening the impact as he danced sideways again, making Judah pivot on his toes, chasing him without an angle.
Still, Peter’s side and arm hurt like hell, and the big man had kept hold of his T-shirt. He smelled like rot and fermented sweat. The punches kept coming, to the stomach and lower back. They were glancing blows, but they kept landing. Peter would be sore as hell tomorrow.
If he lived that long.
He reversed again, using the pivot and the full force of the muscles of his leg and back and shoulder and arm to drive his left fist toward the big man’s vulnerable neck.
Judah dropped his chin out of some animal instinct. Peter’s bare knuckles hit hard bone instead. A bright burst of pain exploded in his hand.
Judah blinked and Peter knew the big man had felt something, because he loosened his grip on Peter’s T-shirt.
Peter tore free and kicked the big man in the side of the knee on his way out, hoping to slow him down a little and keep some space between them.
They circled again, Peter’s feet in a loose, easy shuffle, watching Judah’s eyes and thinking without thinking.
His right forearm had lost feeling, his left hand throbbed with pain. Something broken in there, and pretty much useless as a weapon. It shouldn’t have lasted this long. If Judah got too close again and started pounding him, Lewis wouldn’t be able to step in without risking Peter, without risking everything.
If Judah disabled Peter badly, he was plenty strong enough to catch him up and use him as a shield. He’d rush Lewis, who might have to shoot Peter to kill Judah.
Peter still had his legs, two good elbows, both knees, and his feet. He let the white static rise higher and kept moving.
After all their circling, the wire fence of the corral was behind Peter now. The feral hogs had gone almost still, waiting like an audience before the curtain went up. He could smell the stink of their shit, the swamp mud caked on their bristles.
Judah Lee limped toward him. He was hurt, but not badly enough. The knee held his weight.
“Peter,” Lewis said.
Peter barely heard him.
The world had narrowed down.
Just Peter and Judah and the hogs in the trap behind him.
He was letting Judah define the terms of the fight. It was not a winning strategy. He needed something big to hit the man with. He shouldn’t have put down his weapon. The man was too big, too strong.
Peter started to fee
l afraid.
He let Judah Lee see it.
He kept his right elbow down, protecting his ribs. His weak spot.
He circled right, as if in a panic, but Judah countered, barely slowed by the kicked knee, keeping Peter by the fence. Peter went left, and Judah countered again, maneuvering Peter into place.
Backing him against the hog fence where the hogs gathered expectantly.
Where Judah could hold him against the strong, flexible wire and pound him until Peter was broken badly enough to fall. Then Judah would pick him up and throw him at Lewis, and use his boots on both of them until they were dead. It wouldn’t take long.
“Peter,” Lewis said again.
Peter ignored him.
Instead, he watched the big man’s eyes, the blue skull tattoo, the sharpened teeth, and allowed himself to feel his fear.
Allowed the panic and dread to blossom and grow like a poison flower.
He knew the big man saw it. Could almost taste it. Ten feet away, he leaned forward and licked his lips.
The white static rose up higher, taking over. Fight or flight. The adrenaline surged in his blood.
Judah Lee launched himself toward Peter in an inevitable, overpowering rush.
Peter didn’t allow himself to smile.
Instead he planted his boots in the fertile Mississippi soil and bent his knees.
His legs were strong from carrying that heavy pack up and down mountains, and around the steep walls of June’s little pocket valley. His arms and chest and back were powerful from working on the valley’s buildings and fields and gardens and trails. He could see that little valley somewhere faintly behind his eyes, the teardrop shape of it, the high waterfall at the head and the calm river wandering down through the center.
Judah Lee rushed in, committed, at full speed. Peter dipped his head. Bent his knees, down, down. The two bodies met, but not how Judah had planned.
Peter wrapped his arms around the bigger man’s legs and lifted him smoothly into the air.