Raven's Peak: Cold Hard Bitch

by Cole Savage

  “You boys got permits for those cannons?” Cameron said walking casually to Kyle, still covering his handgun with his right hand, pointing to the counter with his left hand; smiling robustly.

  “I’m gonna need you nice folks to lay those weapons on the counter over here.”

  Rollins gestured to his cronies to oblige, and his cronies took turns setting the array of guns on the counter.

  “What can we do for you this afternoon, Officer?” Rollins said in a rueful tone, hint of sarcasm, while the rest of the Hitler Youth scowled at the black officer with bellicose disdain.

  “I don’t know you, mister. I’m just here to make sure my friends get what is theirs. We don’t need to turn this into a race war.” Cameron paused looking around, making sure all the weapons were relinquished.

  “Give’em their product back and I never saw these guns.” Cameron winked at Rollins, as he pulled a clip out of a Keltec 9mm handgun that was laying on the counter.

  “Are you colluding with known felons, Officer? Condoning the sale of illicit drugs and offering a stark confession of these facts in the presence of the people who you, yourself, expect to uphold the law,” Rollins moved in to read Cameron’s nameplate. “Officer Washington?”

  “A public who presupposes and esteems you to a higher standard than average Americans as myself and my esteemed colleagues. People who hold officers like yourself in high regard, with expectations that they, themselves, would abstain from criminal activity by the very oath you swore when you received your badge, Mr. Washington.” Rollins paused, shifted his gaze to Kyle then back to Cameron.

  “Are you saying, Officer Washington, that you are above the law?”

  “Shit, boy. Seriously.” Cameron looked over at Kyle who was laughing at Rollins. “A turd like you talking to me about social responsibility. A Nazi shit-bird responsible for countless deaths, beatings, and illegal ventures of biblical proportions…Shit, boy, it’d be your lucky day if I don’t drop all of you white power junkies with my laser-guided Kraut detector, forty-five, and have my friends burn this place to the fucking ground so your virus doesn’t infect the rest of the world.”

  “Is that a threat, Officer Washington?’

  “Mr. Snowman. I don’t know if they call you that because you sell Crack or Heroin. Frankly, I don’t care. Go get their shit and I won’t arrest all of you for carryin’ unregistered weapons.”

  “But then you would have to arrest—what’s his name? Oh, yes. Slack Jaw. That’s what Mr. Tillman calls him.” Rollins looked at his crew smiling.

  “But, Officer Washington, then you would have to resign from your position as State Trooper, and go back to being an unemployed father of sixteen children, from different mothers, garnering your living off my taxes.”

  “I’ll give you two minutes, Hun. After that, I’ll have ten black smokies crawling up your ass. And hell, who knows what else we’ll find here, huh, T.D?”

  While Cameron blasted the Nazis, T.D, Skeeter, and Hooch turned their stools to face Rollins. Rollins' eyes were gleaming in deep sockets, like fire dims in a cave as Cameron used his Uncle Tom accent to further provoke Rollins. More than once Opie took a step towards Cameron, who tried incessantly to stir the white power junkies into doing something he could apprehend them for. Rollins barely able to speak, had fire and brimstone coming out of his eyes, trying to keep his cohorts at bay; fighting the urge to blow the black officer off the planet himself.

  CHAPTER 33

  “I think we can agree to exchange Slack Jaws Marijuana for the courtesy of getting this nigger out of my establishment. Wouldn’t you agree, Opie?”

  Opie grunted and nodded like a grizzly. Cameron smiled, catching Rollins’s gaze, and Rollins smiled back at him. Rollins turned and melted back to where he had come from. A few moments later, he returned with Slack Jaw’s bag of Kentucky Blue.

  “I’m afraid a few ounces are missing, Officer. We took the liberty of having a soiree at the behest of Mr. Slack jaw’s unfortunate accident. Although, I have to say, Mr. Slack Jaw took the beating very well. I did not expect he would recover anytime in the foreseen future. How is Mr. Slack Jaw doing, Mr. Tillman?”

  Kyle had his arms crossed, chewing on a toothpick, spittle forming in the corners of his mouth. He was seething, praying his fist didn’t betray him. But the Nazi’s unrelenting attack only served to galvanize them. Opie was eying Kyle, trying to get his measure.

  “Now if you wouldn’t mind, Caffer? Would you please leave our fine establishment before I have to have the entire dining area fumigated and sterilized?” Cameron with his hands on his hips, looked at Kyle, then Skeeter and Hooch who were sitting at the bar, Cameron pointed at Rollins and said, “You believe this asshole, T.D?”

  “Shit, Cam. What did you expect would happen when you wallow with pigs? Kyle shifted his gaze to Hooch, he laughed and answered his own question, “I expect you’re gonna have to get a little dirty.” They laughed as Cameron said, “Let’s go, boys,” and gestured to leave. “The smell is getting toxic in here.”

  Skeeter got up to follow Cameron, but Hooch and Kyle remained planted on the stools. Two men reminiscent of Attila the Hun and his Ostrogoth’s, while Skeeter in comparison to his wild and wooly friends, was Forest Gump or the Pope.

  “We’ll be right along, Cam.” Skeeter was half way out, he turned to Kyle, raised his arms up and said, “fuck.” Skeeter gave Cameron a look of chagrin, and went back to Hooch and Kyle. Cameron looked back, cocked his head disapprovingly, waved them off and said, “Shit, T.D.” Cameron headed for the door, and Rollins said, “Officer, would you mind taking the trash out with you?” Cameron ignored him, walked to his cruiser and waited.

  Opie was standing next to Rollins with steam rising from his polished dome, watching Kyle, Skeeter, and Hooch, stand from their stools. Kyle walked three steps to Rollins, but stood in front of Opie. Kyle looked at Rollins with narrow eyes, still chewing a toothpick, his body twitching, his thoughts dark, congealed, hotter then hot, fanning the embers of his obsession. He took the toothpick out of his mouth and said to Rollins with a dangerous softness in his voice, “You see, Fritz, I don’t care about the smack. To walk out right now, without retribution, would be denying these boys one of the six daily food groups.” Rollins eyes widened, his face twitched, and he forced out, “Are you talking about cornbread, Hillbilly?” Kyle chuckled, Hooch had no expression, and Skeeter was wound so tight he had a smile stitched on his face.

  “No, I was talking about tossing your salad. You see, Adolf, you would understand. Slack Jaw is blood. Someone has to pay for what you did to him. He’s got hospital bills, and you fucked up his face. His wife isn’t going to be real happy with me, seeing as I’m his Godfather.” Rollins was shaking, and Opie sensing the inevitable, lunged at Kyle with a right hand. Kyle saw it coming, and in a Pavlovian response, he slid in close taking away the big guys power, then quickly darted out of the way. With both hands, Kyle grabbed Opie by the back of his shaved head and thrusted his polished dome into his right knee. Everyone heard the cracking of Opie’s cranium; the sound was plaintive— an anguished moan that penetrates any man’s senses and makes his skin crawl. His body shook violently, and Opie fell in a heap to the floor, followed by a loud thud. Kyle recoiled from the move, and one of the skinheads playing pool broke the pool stick on the side of Kyle’s head. Kyle’s head shifted violently then rebounded. He felt a pain in his head, like someone tightening a vice on it. Threads of blood trickled down his cheeks, and Rollins queerly ran back behind four of his Aryan brethren.

  Simultaneously, Hooch buried a thrusting punch in the stomach of the man standing next to Rollins. The Nazi bellied down holding his stomach, then Hooch dropped a double sledgehammer strike on his head; knocking him out instantly. One of the Krauts standing behind Skeeter jumped on his back and put him in a headlock. Skeeter spun around and knocked a table over trying to break the man’s grip. Skeeter leaned forward and flipped the Hun over his head, breaking the headlock, then he
jumped on him, his butt on his head, holding his arms, while the man’s legs flailed violently. Skeeter swiveled his frame to face the man’s head, pinning the man’s arms between his legs, both hands around the man’s throat. The Hun’s left arm slipped out, and Skeeter caught the man’s wrist with his right hand and punched the Hun repeatedly with his left arm. The man’s head boomeranged off the floor with every blow, but Skeeter’s weak punches had little effect on the Hun’s face.

  Hooch lumbered over to three skinheads that were sizing up their attack on him, neither seemed anxious to jump first, so Hooch grabbed the middle guy, with a long Mohawk, by the hair and roundhouse punched him. The man’s hair pulled away from his scalp, and his body flew into the side of the bar, his head bounced off the granite countertop with a hollow thud. Every muscle in the man’s body howled like an animal caught in a trap. The Nazi twitched, seized, then floundered limp-less to the floor, leaving Hooch standing with a handful of hair, and two additional foes to contend with.

  Rollins charged Kyle with a bat, screaming something incomprehensible. Kyle moved forward two steps and caught Rollins with an aggressive snapping front kick to the chest. The kick sent Rollins reeling into the corner of the pool table. An audible grunt escaped his lips, then a noise that sounded like a cue ball hitting a tight rack filled the room, as another Hun blindsided Kyle with a concussion strike to the left side of his face. Hooch saw the cowardly move and stepped over Opie to help Kyle. Hooch turned the Hun around and hit him with a front paw blow, right under the nose. The Hun dropped to his knees, holding his hands over his badly broken nose, a blow that bloodied his nose, and all discerning thoughts fell away from the Nazi, awash in a red curtain of pain as blood gushed out in buckets. Holding his jaw, Kyle recovered and wiped the tendrils of blood from his lips with the back of his hand. He ran over to Rollins, who was standing against the pool table, leaning forward, regaining his wind. Kyle blindsided him with a breaking sidekick to the side of his legs that buckled Rollins’ knees in a direction knees weren’t supposed to bend. Rollins went to the concrete and laid in a heap. The shrill scream that escaped his lips was ear-piercing. He held his disjointed knee. His eyes were glazed with the look of a dead man.

  Skeeter was straddled over the Nazi, pounding him with left hand punches, jarring his eyes in their sockets, when the skank with the black skirt moved in behind him, choking him with one arm and scratching his eyes and face with the other. A shriek of pain escaped Skeeter’s mouth after she sank her teeth into Skeeter’s exposed neck. The guy on the ground had either lost his will to fight or was unconscious, so Skeeter put his hands over his own head and grabbed the skank by the hair. He pulled her hair so hard a swathe of her neon colored hair separated from her scalp. With her hands on her scalp, screaming, she went to her knees. Skeeter turned on her. He picked her up by the neck, lifted her to her feet, and the other skank swung a wood chair wildly, that exploded on the back of Skeeter’s neck. Shards and splinters of wood flew through the air, sending patrons to the upper deck for cover. The clacking sound of the blow would be familiar to anyone who had ever heard a bat break on a fastball pitch, only it was tenfold louder. Skeeter lunged forward, tripping over the unconscious Hun, going head first into the metal railing that separated the upper floor from the lower. His body recoiled back and landed on the unconscious Hun. Skeeter, sprawled on his chest and stomach, convulsed violently, and seconds later, he was out.

  Kyle was on the ground, vulnerable, on his side, after the sidekick he inflicted on Rollins, and another man tried to stomp his head with Doc Martens. Kyle rolled away from the pool table, still on the ground. He grabbed the Huns boot, twisted his leg violently, and brought him to the ground; the Hun hit the corner of the pool table on the way down. The Hun sat up groggy, holding his head. On his knees now, Kyle wound his right arm and drove it forward like a piston, rocking the Huns face with a blast that sent a fresh spray of bloody froth flying from his nose that landed on Rollins. The man’s torso recoiled back to the floor like a springboard, and a horrible red pain sank into his head, like a flaming torch thrown down a deep well. He tried to scream something defiantly but all that came out was a bubbling choke of blood that drenched the floor with splatters of blood and teeth. His feet drummed spastically, then stopped.

  The chair wielding Skank ran over to her friend, who was still holding her hair and wailing. She squatted next to her and held her by the head. She never saw Hooch coming. Hooch had witnessed Skeeter hit the metal railing, and he was fit to be tied, so he picked the skank up by the neck and belt, and heaved her over the counter, where she crashed violently in the crevice between the bar and the wall, filling the bar with a cauldron of black sounds. Squeals, grunts, thuds, and crashes drowned the sounds coming from televisions and punk music, still playing upstairs. The girl behind the counter was out cold. The first girl was back on her knees, holding her hands over her mouth, black gothic makeup running down her cheeks, her face a mask of shock and pain, and she watched in horror as her friend flew over the counter. One of the Huns saw Rollins go down, so he picked the bat up and ran over to Hooch, who was engaging another Hun in a choke hold. The Hun raised the bat over his head and brought it down on Hooch’s head. Kyle stood, feeling the dry red curtain, that was battle fever at the edge of his consciousness, and ran to Hooch’s side. Kyle hit the Hun with a spinning hind kick, sending the man into a harrowing face plant, right into the edge of a bar stool— saving Hooch from a game changing hit. Only four Nazis were left with the will to fight, three of which had come around a blind corner, probably from upstairs, and the few patrons who earlier felt the urge to jump into the Frey, suddenly seem satisfied to watch the melee from the sideline; retreating to the upper floor to watch.

  Hooch went over to Kyle, who was jousting a knife-wielding Nazi, in a standoff with the four remaining skinheads. Kyle administered a roundhouse kick that hit the man squarely in the Kidneys, separating the knife from the Hun, and Hooch moved in and hit the Hun with a shoulder thrust that knocked him off balance, then Kyle finished him with a knife punch to the carotid. Every muscle in the man’s body was howling like an animal caught in a trap. The Nazi twitched, seized, then floundered to the floor.

  Kyle watched one of the Huns run in the direction that Rollins had come from earlier, and he took chase, at the same time Hooch was being tag- teamed by the remaining two. One of the Huns was hanging on Hooch’s back trying to put him in a chokehold, the other Hun was throwing body blows to Hooch’s side. Hooch, undaunted by the body blows, hunched over and flipped the man choking him over his head. Realizing his body blows were landing on numb flesh, the man staggered back two feet and kicked Hooch with an instep sidekick on the side of his knee. Hooch dropped like a sack of rocks. He reached for his knee instinctively and winced.

  Holding his knee, taking deep breaths from the fire in his leg, Hooch released his knee, he crawled over and grabbed the Huns Booted foot, then spun him three-hundred-sixty degrees, right into a wall. The Hun hit a table, lost his balance and fell to the floor. Hooch finished him with a forty-five-degree elbow lunge to the face, and Hooch felt the man’s cheek bone explode under his elbow. The other Hun ran out the front door.

  Kyle was upstairs with the remaining Hun, who had run from him when he saw what Kyle did to Rollins. The Hun was standing against a wall, in an office upstairs, breathing hard, and it looked like he had soiled the front of his pants. Covering his pants and shaking, he plead for mercy. Kyle grabbed him by the ear and escorted him down the stairs.

  The two remaining Huns, who made the wise decision earlier not to participate, were standing behind the pool table against a wall. Their shoulders were sagging, their faces waxy and bloodless, like they had seen a ghost. Kyle looked at them, still clutching the other one by the ear. “You saved yourselves a lot of pain today,” Kyle said, gesturing with his finger, pointing towards the door. “Go Home.” They wasted no time running around the pool table and out the front door. Kyle threw the other Hun next to Rollins, wh
o was still clutching his knees, grimacing.

  Kyle looked over at Hooch who was leaning against the bar in obvious discomfort, expressed in a deep undertone of pain that he hid well.

  “You good, Hooch?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Can you check on Skeet?”

  “Yeah…Might take me a minute, I can’t walk right now”

  Breathing heavy, Kyle said, “Hooch, what should we do with Adolf here?”, looking around at the remaining patrons, who watched in awe, whispering through drifts of broken words, vanquished hope, trying to blend into the walls. Rollins had the flats of his hands on the floor, crawling over to the pool table where he tried to straighten himself against one of the legs of the table, still in a fugue state.

  “Shit, T.D, I think we ought to take him home and feed him to Butch,” said Hooch, limping over to Skeeter, who was still unconscious. Rollins had a lump of fear sliding down his throat, so audible his lips parted and his mouth made an involuntary clicking sound, as Officer Washington ambled through the front door noting the carnage— the dust in the air, the stink of blood and vomit, the blood-soaked bodies sprawled around the hellish scene, the broken mirrors, shards of glass, remnants of wood chairs splintered beyond recognition, broken liquor bottles with pools of the sweet alcohol resting aimlessly around the floor, music still playing from upstairs, and congealing blood everywhere. Music that minutes ago was drowned out by the black sounds of a bar fight. Ironically, Let the bodies hit the floor by Drowning pool was playing. Cameron stepped over a snoozing body, around overturned tables and chairs, and sidled over to Kyle with his hands on his gun belt.