The Keeper

by George C. Chesbro

  Jade shrugged. “Fine.”

  “You and Roy are going to get married, right?”

  “Wooaaa! Talk about changing the subject!”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  Jade put the knife she had been using in the sink, and then turned around. “What do you think of the idea?”

  “Are you kidding me? I think it would be real cool.”

  “Well, right now I think it would be real cool if we started thinking about dinner. Go down to the stream and tell Roy and your sister to leave a few fish for other people. I’m putting what we’ve got here on the grill in ten minutes. If they’re not up here by that time, you and I will eat it all.”

  “Okay,” Max Jr. said as he hopped down off the stool and headed for the door.

  Jade turned back to the sink to finish off the filets she had prepared. She heard her son’s footsteps crossing the kitchen, and then stop.

  “Mom …?”

  “What is it, my little-?”

  “Hello, bitch.”

  Jade wheeled around and gasped when she saw Henry Bolo, a large bandage on his forehead, standing in the open doorway. Bolo held Fatima by one arm, and he had a gun pressed up under her chin. The girl’s eyes were wide, swimming with shock and terror. Max Jr. stood flat-footed, looking uncertainly back and forth between his mother and the huge, barrel-chested man holding his sister. Jade put a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.

  Bolo’s pale blue eyes gleamed with hatred and triumph. “Surprised to see me, bitch?” he continued in his low, guttural voice.

  Jade put her hand down and moved her mouth as if to speak, but no words would come out. Thoughts raced through her mind in a confused jumble, driven by horror and panic. She searched desperately for the calm place inside her where her warrior lived, but her warrior was gone, taking with her all her weapons, leaving Jade defenseless, without a plan and without hope. She had assumed all danger was past, that there would be nobody else following or stalking her. She had let down her guard, and now Henry Bolo had a gun to her daughter’s head. She assumed Roy was dead. She was helpless to stop Bolo from doing anything he wanted.

  “Get over there, you retarded shit-for-brains!” Bolo snapped, momentarily taking the hand holding the gun away from Fatima’s head and shoving Max Jr. hard across the room

  The boy, his eyes bright with shock and fear, slammed into the cabin wall, and then slowly slid down to sit on the floor.

  “Stay there on the floor and save your energy, shit-for-brains! You’re going to need it!”

  “Mom,” Fatima said in a hoarse whisper. “I-”

  “Shut up!” Bolo shouted, and then shoved the bore of the gun back up under Fatima’s chin before looking once again at Jade. His pale eyes smoldered with madness as his lips parted in a thin, cruel sneer. “You do look a little surprised to see me, whore. You must think I’m as stupid as you are. I knew you’d been beating the bushes looking for me. With a lunatic like you hunting me, did you really think I’d be so stupid as to go anywhere without wearing a vest?”

  Jade swallowed hard to work up some moisture in her mouth. “But I saw the blood,” she said at last, forcing the words out of her.

  “I smacked my head on the nightstand when you blew me back across the bed. Knocked me cold, and it bled like hell. Then you nicked me in the arm. Lucky for me you were in too much of a hurry to check to make sure you’d done the job right.”

  “What have you done with Roy? I didn’t hear a shot.”

  “There wasn’t any shot to hear, whore. If your boyfriend has any brains left after the pop on the skull I gave him, they’re never going to work right again. He’ll be more retarded that your dumb kid over there. Now lie down on the floor, whore, on your stomach, and put your hands behind your back.”

  Jade slowly did as she was told, and then turned her head to look at Bolo. “It’s me you want, Sergeant,” she said, struggling to keep her voice from quavering. “Well, you’ve got me, and you’ve killed or crippled the man I love. You can do what you want with me, but let the kids go. They’re not a part of this. They haven’t done anything to you.”

  “Killing you and your boyfriend isn’t enough. Nothing is enough for what you did to me!” He paused, sucked in a deep breath, and then continued, “I am going to enjoy myself just as much as possible before I off you, whore.”

  The huge man with the pale blue eyes reached behind him and removed a coil of nylon rope he had clipped to his belt. He handed the rope to Fatima, and then shoved the girl in Jade’s direction. “Go tie up your mama, sweet thing. Hands and feet. Make sure the knots are good and tight. If I don’t like what I find when I check them, I’m going to blow your mother’s brains out. Do it!”

  “Do as he says, Fatima,” Jade said quietly.

  Bolo kept his gun trained on Jade’s head as Fatima, her hands trembling, tied Jade’s hands and feet. When the girl had finished, Bolo abruptly shoved the gun into his waistband, strode quickly across the room, and then gripped the front of Fatima’s blouse and tore it away along with her bra, leaving the trembling girl stripped to the waist, her arms crossed over her breasts.

  “Let’s go, retard,” Bolo said, turning to Max Jr., who still sat where he had slumped on the floor, his face ashen, eyes wide with shock and mouth hanging open. “Up on your feet. I hope you’re not too tired to get a hard-on, because if you can’t I’m going to shoot the three of you. If you put on a good show for me, maybe I’ll let you live. Your mother shot off my fucking equipment, so I’m going to have to use yours. You can start by giving your sister a good poke—something you’ve probably always wanted to do anyway. I’ll give you a little rest time when you’re finished with her, and then you can have a go at your mother. Let’s go! Get those pants off!”

  Max Jr. slowly got to his feet. Like Fatima, he was trembling, but his eyes now burned with fury and his mouth was set in a grim line. He moved his hands—but not toward his belt. He clenched his fists and raised them to his face, and then began to shuffle across the kitchen toward Henry Bolo.

  “Check it out!” Bolo said, barking with laughter. “It’s Joe Palooka!”

  Max Jr. lunged at Bolo and swung a right. Bolo easily ducked under the punch, and then straightened up and hit Max Jr. hard on the side of the head with a left jab, splitting the skin over Max Jr.’s cheekbone. Blood immediately began to flow. Max Jr. dropped his guard and sank down on his knees, a stunned expression on his face.

  “Get up, retard!” Bolo snapped, and slapped Max Jr. hard on the top of his head. “Get up and take those pants off. I’d rather watch you fuck your sister and mother than beat your brains out, but I’ll kill you right now if you don’t do what I say.”

  Max Jr. got to his feet, wiped blood from his cheek and mouth with the back of his hand. He glared at Bolo, and then raised his fists and started forward once again. This time Bolo hit him with a left hook to the ribs. Max Jr. grunted in pain, doubled over, and then went down again. Fatima screamed, and Jade pressed her face against the rough, wood floor of the kitchen and began to sob.

  But even as she wept, Jade resumed the search inside her for her warrior. Finally she found her. Her warrior was telling her that she must use this time that her son was giving her; she had to remain calm and think, even as Max Jr. was being beaten to death, for otherwise his courage and sacrifice would be for nothing.

  As long as Henry Bolo was being distracted, there was a chance for survival.

  Jade raised her head in time to see Max Jr. once again slowly get to his feet, stagger, but then raise his fists and start forward. Now he had dropped his left hand slightly in order to protect his midsection, and he had begun to bob and weave. Bolo swung a hard right at Max Jr.’s head, but the boy was able to duck under the blow and counter with a hard right jab to the man’s solar plexus. Bolo grunted, as much with surprise as pain, but then his head was snapped back as Max Jr. connected with an uppercut to the jaw.

  “His arms and right thigh, Maxie!” Jade shouted.
“Hit him in his arms and right thigh!”

  Bolo had recovered, and his face was flushed with rage. He raised both arms as if to crush Max Jr. in a bear lock, but the boy put his head down and rushed forward, hitting the man in the chest and driving him back against the wall at the same time as he pummeled Bolo’s upper arms with his fists. After one punch that landed on the area where Jade’s bullet had pierced his flesh, Bolo cried out and clutched at his right arm. Max Jr. kept punching the area, at the same time kicking at the man’s thigh.

  Jade turned her head and stared hard at Fatima, who was standing as if frozen, watching in horror as Henry Bolo and her brother fought.

  “Fatima!” Jade said in a hoarse whisper. When her daughter’s head snapped around in her direction, Jade mouthed the words, Get the knife in the sink. Cut me loose.

  Fatima instantly sprang across the room to the sink. She grabbed the filleting knife from the bottom, and then spun around and dropped to her hands and knees beside her mother, sawing away at the rope that bound Jade’s wrists.

  “Whoa, now!” Bolo shouted when he saw what was happening. He abruptly stepped away from the wall, and then spun around and hit Max Jr. in the side of the head with a roundhouse high kick. Max Jr. flew through the air and landed hard on his back on the floor. Fatima, still holding the knife in her hands, was once again frozen with terror as Bolo drew the gun from his waistband and pointed it at Jade’s head. “Say goodnight, bitch!”

  Suddenly there was a blur of motion as Roy, blood still seeping from a gash in his scalp and covering his face and neck, stepped through the doorway, leaped through the air and hit Bolo just as the man pulled the trigger. A bullet whined through the air over Jade’s head and thudded into the wall behind her as Roy and Bolo both fell on top of Max Jr., and the three of them struggled together in a heap of writhing limbs and flying fists.

  Jade quickly struggled to her knees, and then held out her hands so that Fatima could finish cutting through the rope that bound her wrists. When her hands were free, she snatched the knife from Fatima’s grasp. She started to cut through the rope binding her ankles, but then her warrior warned her that the one-sided struggle going on across the room would be over in a matter of seconds, and there wasn’t time to cut the rope. She flipped the knife in her hand and grabbed it by the blade, hefting it.

  Bolo pushed the semi-conscious Roy off him, slapped aside Max Jr.’s hand from his arm, and then got to his feet. He aimed the gun at Roy’s head.

  “Hey, Henry. Look over here. I’ve got something for you.”

  Bolo grunted and glanced in Jade’s direction. What he saw was a knife flashing as it flipped end over end in the air on its journey from Jade’s hand to his head. His eyes went wide and then crossed, as if he were trying to look down at the long, sharp blade that had buried itself to the haft in his neck and was protruding from the back of his skull. The gun dropped from his hand, but he did not fall right away. Instead, he staggered in a circle, clutching with both hands at the handle of the knife in his throat.

  With Fatima’s help, Jade quickly untied the rope from her ankles. She leaped to her feet, and then sprang across the room and picked up the gun. She put the bore against Bolo’s forehead and pulled the trigger. “That should do the trick,” she said evenly as Henry Bolo toppled over backward.

  Fatima quickly went into a bedroom and put on a robe before hurrying back into the kitchen to help her mother tend to Roy and Max Jr.

  Safe Harbor

  Fatima smiled as Jade sat down on the edge of Roy’s hospital bed, and then carefully pinned onto his hospital gown the paper and lace purple heart the two of them had so carefully constructed. Jade examined the handiwork, nodded with approval, and then turned and pinned a second purple heart on her son, who lay in the adjacent bed in the room. Max Jr.’s face was swollen and discolored, but his eyes shone with pride.

  “There,” Jade said in a voice that cracked with emotion. “Now you’ve both been properly honored.”

  “Hey, my big tube of … tubby tentacles, how come you’re crying?”

  Jade kissed Roy’s forehead, rose, and then sat down next to Fatima on her son’s bed. “I’m crying because I’m so terribly, terribly proud of you, Maxie,” Jade said, caressing the boy’s cheek. “You saved all our lives. I have never, ever met anyone braver than you, and you happen to be my son.”

  “Well, you’re not supposed to cry about it, Mom. Jeez, you’re embarrassing me. I’ve never seen you cry.”

  Roy said, “That kid’s got balls the size of mutant grapefruits.”

  “Don’t talk like that in front of my children,”

  “That’s right,” Fatima said, and laughed. “Before you know it, Roy, you’ll be cursing like my mother.”

  “What about you, buster?” Jade said to Roy as she wiped her eyes. “How are you feeling? The good sergeant said he popped you so hard that you’d either be dead or permanently brain damaged. You don’t look or sound so brain damaged to me.”

  The one eye that was visible in Roy’s bandage-covered head glittered with amusement. “Actually, I think the pop made me smarter. When I get out of here, I think I’ll go back to school to study rocket science.”

  “I think you’ll make a dandy rocket scientist.”

  “The hell of it is, I’d just hooked a really big one when he sapped me. I lost my damn fishing pole.”

  “You poor puppy. I’ll get you another fishing pole. I’ll buy you a whole tackle shop.”

  “Hey, Mom,” Max Jr. said. “Roy and I were watching television earlier, and you’re on all the news shows. They mentioned Fatima, Roy and me too. Grandpa’s right; you are a big shot. I think it’s really cool that you used to be a spy.”

  Jade turned to Roy. “I haven’t really been paying attention. What are they saying?”

  Roy smiled. “Everything.”

  “Everything?”

  The detective nodded. “The F.B.I. was trying to handle things quietly, but what happened at the cabin made the national news. Some reporter saw the local police report and started asking questions. Now it’s all public, from the Jolly Roger on Jack’s boat, to Beowulf, to your career in Naval Intelligence and how the Navy stiffed you after Bolo attacked you in Saudi Arabia and you, uh, reprimanded him. Heads are rolling, and I’m not just talking about the Beowulf boys. Your ex-boss at Naval Intelligence is out on his ass. They’re saying that the President is going to call you, and you’re going to be awarded a special medal.”

  “He’s already called,” Fatima said. “He called Mom at the house just before we came over here. I talked to him too.”

  “Cool,” Max Jr. said.

  “He’s going to call the two of you later.”

  “Really cool.”

  “When were you going to get around to telling us you’d talked to the President,” Roy asked Jade.

  Jade shrugged. “Why should I be impressed by talking to the President when I have my own two bravest Masters of the Universe to talk to right here in Cairn Hospital?”

  “Hey, Mom, they said on television that the President was going to ask you to go back in the Navy. He wants to make you an Admiral. You’re not going away again, are you?”

  “No, my little flagon of flabby flounder,” Jade said, squeezing her son’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere. Your Mom’s got other, better things to do. She’ll be very happy as a mother, wife, and riverkeeper.”

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © by George C. Chesbro

  Cover design by Ian Koviak />
  ISBN: 978-1-4976-9727-0

  This edition published in 2017 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  GEORGE C. CHESBRO

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