Blood-Stained Kings

by Tim Willocks

  A moment later the chopper took off and disappeared; and Ella MacDaniels was alone.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  WITH THE WIND battering into his face and Gul’s black bulk pressed against his belly and chest, Cicero Grimes barreled through the fading dusk toward the Ohoopee River bottomlands.

  He was traveling the empty blacktop under a dense canopy of trees and the ‘73 Harley glided around the curves with the grace and ease he had been promised. Framed between the handlebars before him, Gul’s skull seemed like an ebony figurehead on the prow of a pagan vessel of war. Gul was a dog among dogs; Grimes was proud to be riding with him. He needed that feeling, needed something to hold on to. He and Gul would get the others to safety; they had to.

  When they reached the left-hand turn that would take them to the Old Place, Grimes slowed down and let his foot skim the pavement, for the corner was sharp and he didn’t want to lose the bike. As he straightened up he opened the throttle wide and in doing so felt a great anger rise in his chest.

  Too many people were doing their best to fuck him up and he was beginning to tire of it. He’d held the center as best he could; he’d eaten their shit by the pound without losing his cool—Jefferson, George, At-water, Lenna, the assholes at the airport; and now some redneck football fan whom he’d never done wrong was ramming a blunt instrument up his ass. Grimes felt his teeth grinding. He didn’t want this. He wanted to take Gul to Wyoming and stand under the Sweetwater Rim, he wanted to smoke more cigarettes than was good for him and not care, he wanted to drink whiskey in a cheap hotel and make love to a long-legged woman he’d never met before and watch her eat pancakes in the morning and never see any one of these son of a bitches again. But he could do none of these things. He ground his teeth harder. Then he reminded himself of his resolution to see this thing through without hate.

  Fuck the resolution. He would show them hatred. He would show them rage.

  Gul half turned his head and barked.

  Further up the hill ahead, flickering under the branches and leaves, was Holden Daggett’s tan Lincoln Town Car.

  So the scum-sucking pig in the green satin jacket was heading for the Old Place too. Why? They had their fucking suitcases; what more did they want? Another twist in Jefferson’s game? Grimes had been insane to trust him, to leave him alive. He urged the Harley forward. If he remembered right they weren’t more than a mile and a half from the valley. Soon the trees would give way to pasture. Daggett wasn’t going much over thirty miles an hour, and even with Gul on board Grimes figured he could overhaul the Lincoln if he wanted to. What would that achieve? He briefly thought of pulling out his gun and shooting the Falcons fan through the window: but even if he didn’t hit Daggett instead, and if Mr. Falcon didn’t shoot him first, he would almost certainly end up in a tangle of twisted steel by the side of the road. Grimes kept his distance. The Lincoln couldn’t reach the farm without alerting George, and George was more than a match for the Falcon. Maybe it would work out, then: George would recover the suitcases and they could all get out together. But the questions still grated on his nerves: why was Falcon going to the Old Place, and from whom was he taking orders?

  Up ahead the Lincoln topped the hill and disappeared. Then, further over to his left, Grimes saw a bulky black shape rise up slowly above the thinning tree line. Through the roar of the Harley’s exhausts he heard the puttering of rotor blades. The chopper paused in its vertical ascent and turned in their direction.

  The hand of Filmore Faroe had reached out across three states to close around them.

  Grimes abandoned caution and blasted after the Lincoln. The din of the bike engine and the whistling wind in his ears drowned out the sound of the chopper’s blades. Grimes felt the revolver pressing against his spine. If he reached for it at this speed they’d go down. He felt Gul’s muscles coiling beneath him, and a primeval power surged through his belly. He had no idea what he was doing; he could not see what good he might do; yet every cell within him that bore the reckless imprint of life pushed him on toward the paradox of death. He felt no courage; he felt no fear to give courage its substance. He felt only an atavistic delirium scoured of all morality and thought. He wanted to fuck someone up; he wanted to feel his fist pounding through the bones of someone’s face. Grimes opened his mouth and let out a shout that was lost on the wind.

  Grimes crested the hill and swooped down the grade toward the western sky.

  In the sky the chopper floated toward the road.

  On the road Daggett’s Lincoln was approaching the fringed edge of the forest. Grimes could see the two silhouettes of their heads and shoulders.

  At the last moment Holden Daggett deliberately spun the wheel and swerved the Lincoln leftward across the blacktop. He drove the car point-blank into the bole of a cottonwood tree.

  A hollow bang. Shattering matter. A bulky green blur hurtled through the windshield in a spray of pulverized glass and falling leaves and vanished into the meadow. The rear of the mangled Lincoln skewed sideways across the road. Grimes’s way was blocked.

  Grimes pumped the brakes and tried not to lock the wheels, fought to control the skittering trajectory of the bike. The wreck loomed closer. Squealing rubber. The bike was slowing, slowing. Gul, steady. There was still a gap, a strip of blacktop to one side of the wreck; he could squeeze through. Then with fifty feet to go Grimes felt the rear wheel lock and in his gut he knew he was going to lose the bike.

  Grimes threw his weight backward and to his left. The Harley, still moving, started to tilt and fall. Grimes let go of the left grip, threw his hand across Gul’s right shoulder and heaved him off the saddle. As Gul disappeared Grimes felt the rear wheel slew forward in a smoking arc. He let go and closed his eyes and heaved himself away. He clamped his elbows around his skull and hauled his knees toward his chest. He landed on his back. A power wave jounced through his skeleton. A blackness splashed with yellow and red spiraled around him. His brain tossed among violent sounds. The juddering vertigo abruptly ceased.

  Gasoline in his nostrils. He opened his eyes. Smoke. Through the smoke: green grass scattered with wildflowers. His body was still clenched. He pushed out an arm; a leg. He could move. He couldn’t feel anything yet; but he could move. He scrambled to his hands and knees. Something warm and wet lashed his cheek and ear. GuPs face thrust itself into his. Grimes shook his head and looked up.

  The driver’s door of the smoking Lincoln rattled open. The car had hit the tree off-center and the right side of the hood was crumpled back into the fender. Holden Daggett unfastened his seat belt, reeled out, dizzy, and caught his balance. He peered beyond the car and staggered forward.

  “Daggett!”

  Grimes struggled to his feet. Pain stabbed his body in too many places to identify. In his ears were implosive thuds, getting louder. In the grass beyond the road he saw a bloody face rise into view, a green jacket splashed with dark stains, saw Daggett lunge toward it on unsteady legs. Somewhere near the lacerated face he saw a brandished gun. An automatic.

  “Gul!” Grimes threw out his arm. “Go!”

  As Gul charged, Grimes ran after him. His view was blocked by Daggett. The gun-cracks came in a rapid, random shower but Daggett didn’t stop. As his hands reached out for Falcon’s throat Daggett convulsed and spun and fell as the back of his shirt tugged and billowed red with the exit of the slugs. As the line of fire cleared Grimes saw Gul leave the ground and clamp his jaws around Falcon’s gun hand and drag him screaming across the grass. Grimes hurdled Daggett’s body and put all his momentum into a bladder kick, the ball of his foot driving through Falcon’s pubic bone with a sick crunch. Falcon left the ground and landed among the flowers. Grimes moved in to stomp him some more but by the time he got there Gul was already astride the green-jacketed body, his snarls gargling in the spillage from the opened blood vessels of the neck.

  Grimes picked up the fallen automatic and turned. Holden Daggett was splayed on his back, his wiry torso punctured and drenched. Daggett coug
hed and scarlet phlegm sprayed over his lips and chin. Grimes dropped the automatic and knelt beside him and rolled him onto his side so he wouldn’t choke. Daggett blinked and looked up at him.

  “What the fuck did you do that for?” said Grimes.

  Daggett pushed out a mouthful of bloody drool with his tongue.

  “I never did like being told what to do,” he said.

  His pierced lungs spasmed in another bout of coughs.

  Grimes began to tear open Daggett’s shirt. “You got a first-aid kit in the car?”

  Daggett fought back the cough. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  The battering of the chopper penetrated Grimes’s awareness. He looked over his shoulder. The chopper was slowing as it swooped down above the road and angled toward the meadow, its tail section swinging for stability.

  Daggett reached out and took the automatic.

  “Put me on my belly, where I can see them coming,” he said.

  “We can make it to the trees,” said Grimes.

  The skin on Daggett’s face looked paper-thin, but his eyes were clear.

  “You see your father, tell him you and me talked old times together.”

  The Chosin Reservoir. Grimes felt a flame of guilt. He had gotten Daggett into this. But that was an insult to Daggett; he put the guilt aside.

  “I will,” said Grimes.

  He maneuvered Daggett into the position he wanted. Daggett rested his head on his forearm. He was weakening fast. Grimes looked up at the chopper. In its side, a door slid open and a rifleman appeared. Grimes squeezed Daggett’s bony shoulder and stood up.

  “Gul,” called Grimes.

  Grimes turned and ran for the trees. His left knee clicked and wobbled with each pace but held up. Gul bounded beside him. As he passed the Lincoln a spray of bullets rattled through the metal bodywork and chewed a shower of bark from the tree; but Grimes was through, into the twilight shadows of the forest. He threw out his arm and grabbed a trunk and his momentum jerked him around and slammed his chest into the far side. Pain stabbed his ribs. He heaved for breath.

  “Gul, here. Down. Stay.”

  Gul crouched, poised, at his feet. Grimes peered out from behind the trunk.

  The chopper was descending toward the ground at a safe distance from the trees. Through the opened door Grimes could see the rifleman; beyond him lurked dark figures. Grimes reached under his jacket and pulled out his Colt. His hands were shaking and he had to guide his finger onto the trigger. One side of the cylinder was bloody and smeared with a skein of peeled flesh from Grimes’s back where he had skidded on the road. He looked up. As the chopper setded onto the meadow, three riflemen jumped from the door and ran toward the Lincoln. They looked like soldiers. Grimes was about twenty feet from the wreck. In the doorway of the helicopter a fourth rifleman covered the trees. Daggett lay motionless in the grass. As the soldiers got closer Daggett started shooting.

  His first shot cracked and one of the soldiers stumbled, clutching his hip, and fell sideways. The gunner in the chopper opened up with a long burst. The two soldiers added their fire. If Daggett got off any more rounds Grimes didn’t hear it; but he saw the bullets churn Dag-gett’s body into rags. The guns fell silent. The two soldiers crouched low and changed clips. The wounded one got to his feet and drew level with them. The soldiers moved toward the Lincoln.

  Grimes pulled his head back behind the tree and squeezed the butt of the Colt. If these bastards wanted his blood they’d have to mix it with their own. He thought of Daggett and the Chosin Reservoir. His father. He asked himself how George would handle it. Close range. Grimes would let them get within six feet. No, three feet. Charge in among them so they’d be confused, afraid to shoot each other, their rifles cumbersome, jam the Colt into their guts one at a time. And there was Gul, too: he could take one, scare the others. It was a fighting chance; but only if they came to him.

  They never did. Grimes heard a clank. He risked a look. Two of the soldiers were behind the Lincoln, rifles sweeping the forest, while the third hauled Jefferson’s suitcases from the trunk. They’d known they were there. Grimes pulled back, waited. He could hear only the chopper. Another look; the three men were moving back toward the chopper, two of them walking backward to cover the third man, who was staggering on the soft ground under the weight of the cases.

  Grimes rested his forehead against the tree trunk. They weren’t coming in to flush him out: they had the suitcases and he wasn’t worth the risk. His gut rolled over with a sudden release of tension; then once again with anxiety: where was George? And Lenna and Ella? And Clarence Jefferson?

  They were either dead in the farmhouse or prisoners in the chopper. Was there any mileage in turning himself in? Grimes couldn’t see it. He had nothing to bargain with. He heard the tone and volume of the chopper blades rise in intensity. It was taking off. He looked.

  The chopper rose from a flattened disc of grass. The side door was still open but empty. At about forty feet the chopper stopped and hovered. Above the noise of the blades came an amplified voice.

  “Dr. Grimes? You remember me?”

  Grimes’s mouth curdled. Rufus Atwater. Atwater appeared in the doorway with a handset held to his mouth.

  “Rufus Atwater, yeah? Well, we got your pa, Grimes,” said Atwater. “Lenna and Jefferson too. But your pa, he’s hurt. He’s hurt bad. If I had the know-how, I’d help him, you know? But I don’t. Do you wanna come try?”

  Grimes felt all the fight drain from his body. The Colt almost slipped from his hand. Just as he was about to step out from the tree a voice in his head said, “Do it, but remember it’s for you, not for him.” Grimes didn’t move. The voice was right. He imagined what his father was going through right now: praying that his son wouldn’t add to his pain by giving up. Grimes squeezed the revolver. He wouldn’t betray his blood. He held his ground.

  “Listen!” said Atwater. “He wants to talk to you. I tell ya, Doc, he needs you bad.”

  In the chopper doorway a broad figure with iron-gray hair stepped unsteadily into view. His wrists were handcuffed before him. He seemed hunched forward with pain. Then he placed his feet wide and pulled his shoulders back, pushed his jaw out and looked out over the trees.

  Grimes felt himself shaking, a sudden sting in his eyes. They had no right to treat this man this way. This man was his father. Grimes ground his teeth. This man was his father. But the dread that filled him was not just fear of his father’s death. George could throw his arm around Death’s shoulder with the best of them and it seemed to Grimes that he owed it to him not to be afraid on his part. It was the last thing George would have wanted. Grimes’s dread stemmed from guilt at his failure as a son, the truth of which now bore down on him without pity. Grimes remembered the times he had fought with George and hurt him; the times he had avoided seeing him when he might have transformed barren hours into gold; the precious tales he had been told but had forgotten; the memories he had of George—mopping up his gravy—so pitifully few when there might have been—when there should have been—so many more. All these thoughts and more invaded Grimes’s every cell and synapse, demanding that he answer for himself, yet knowing all the while that his destiny was lost already, and he was condemned.

  Grimes tried to see his way out. He had to find the still point of the cyclone. George, he knew, would never find him wanting. Although George was the man upon the gallows, it was Grimes who stood now before the judge that was himself. Down the years he’d been ashamed of his love for his father. He didn’t know why. Now the shame of that shame paralyzed him. This was his last chance to renounce it, but he didn’t know how. His gut said, Let him see you.

  Grimes stepped out from behind the tree and walked forward into the field. When he thought George could see him he stopped. He felt Gul brush against his leg. He looked up.

  Although he could not see George’s eyes, Grimes could feel them looking back into his, and he felt an intense pride that cracked his heart. Grimes held the crack toget
her and pulled his own shoulders back, for at this moment, if it was possible, he wanted his father to feel proud of him too. And into the eyes that he could not see but which were staring into the center of all that he was, Grimes poured his heart that it might be healed. He couldn’t help his father, but even now his father could help him. Grimes thought: I’m with you, goddamn you, old man. I cursed you and defied you. I hated you and hurt you, but I’m with you. I always was. And I won’t be ashamed to love you anymore.

  Up in the chopper, George Grimes smiled.

  It was the hardest thing he’d ever done; but Cicero Grimes smiled back.

  Rufus Atwater stretched out his arm and held the handmike to George’s mouth.

  Grimes waited.

  George’s voice was steady and fierce.

  “Gene? You’ll do what you have to, like you always did, and so will I, like I always did.” He paused. “Just tell Ella I was proud to ride with her. And remember that work we talked on, you and me.”

  Then George smiled again and the words came back in Grimes’s head: “Some work of noble note may yet be done, not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.”

  Rufus Atwater scowled and made a gesture and a crouching figure suddenly appeared and a rifle barrel jutted down from the doorway.

  George Grimes, still smiling, stooped as if to lift a crate and snared his handcuffed arms around the figure’s neck. The rifle fell. Then George threw himself from the chopper, dragged the struggling figure with him and plunged them both down into the earth.

  Grimes raised the Colt at arm’s length and Atwater dived from view. Grimes almost fired, almost pumped the cylinder empty, but Lenna was in there. Grimes held back. The chopper dipped and wheeled and soared away into the safety of the sky. Grimes lowered his gun and watched the chopper disappear. There was a breeze. Grimes’s face felt cool and wet. He wiped it on his torn sleeve. Then in the silence he walked across the field to where his father lay.