Feast for Thieves

by Marcus Brotherton

  By eight p.m. the outskirts of Rancho Springs were in sight, and when we came to a regrettably familiar dirt road, Crazy Ake ordered me to pull off the highway near a thicket of trees. I started sweating something mighty fierce. A man with his connections both in and out of prison was a man with eyes throughout the country, but I confess I hadn’t given much thought to who our third party would be until a possum scuttled across the start of a long driveway. We drove the remaining fifty yards up the dirt tracks to our destination and when we came to the front of the ramshackle old pigsty, we screeched to a stop. Crazy Ake stayed where he was sitting and fired a single shot into the air. Sally Jo Chicory ambled out the front door and scratched underneath her armpit.

  “Rance!” she yelled, turning into the house. “This one’s for you.”

  Two minutes passed before Rance walked out. He was dressed in army fatigues and carrying a carbine, which he aimed directly at us. He squinted, broke into a long laugh, and called, “So this is your crew!”

  Crazy Ake called nothing back but turned to me and hissed, “Get out. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  I climbed out of the DUKW and Crazy Ake climbed out behind me. We walked over to where Rance stood near the porch. He lowered the rifle. Crazy Ake nodded in Rance’s direction then cast a glance toward me.

  “Rance Chicory, I believe you already know this sorry excuse for a man. We’re here to do what I talked to you about last time I came around.”

  Rance nodded. “When you want to go?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Fine by me, but you trust this scum to do the job right?”

  A corner of Crazy Ake’s mouth turned up in a smile. “When it comes to Rowdy Slater we’ve got security. How’s the rat doing?”

  Rance laughed. “His little cutie-pie is just about ready for work, I’d say.” He eyed me closely. “What happened to your face, boy?”

  I hated this man with every ounce of my being but kept silent.

  Rance shrugged. “No matter. Gun’s in the barn. Let’s hook up the gear and go to town.”

  Crazy Ake slapped Rance on the shoulder like an old friend and motioned to me to walk ahead. My stomach was growling something fierce. I glanced toward the house but didn’t see no sign of Sunny. Just as well. I didn’t want for her to see any of this.

  The barn doors felt cold in my hands as I creaked them open. The 88 antiaircraft gun squatted behind the doors. It stood taller than a man, was about the size of an automobile, although wider, and its huge muzzle of a gun stuck out from on top of the mount. Neither of the two men lifted a finger and I surmised they wanted me to do the heavy work, which was no problem. I swung the muzzle rest up to vertical and secured the gun to it, disengaged the gear clutch, released the hand brake, and connected the prime mover to the drawbar. The 88 was a marvel of a killing machine, one that could easily take out a tank.

  “All right,” Crazy Ake said, surveying my handiwork. “Go get the DUKW and hitch ’er up.”

  We strode back over to the vehicles and I disconnected Crazy Ake’s truck and let it roll free. Rance let Crazy Ake take a breather and kept his rifle aimed at me while Crazy Ake lit a cigarette and relaxed. I fired up the DUKW and backed it over to the open barn doors. The two greasy apes ambled behind me, smoking and jawing, and I climbed out, checked the gun to see if the recoil, recuperator, and rammer cylinders were filled with the proper oil levels, then hooked up the 88 to the back of the DUKW.

  “Okay then.” Rance was all smiles. “What time you got?”

  Crazy Ake studied his watch. “Time to rob a bank.” He grinned. “While we’re waiting, your woman got any more of that beef brisket on the stove?”

  Rance rubbed his belly. “Might as well fill up while we wait. What about him?” He glared at me.

  “Rope or chain. It don’t matter to me.”

  Rance bustled off to a sidewall of the barn where an old horse rope was coiled and hanging, then brought the rope back, knotted my hands behind my back and my feet together with the rope, then tied the other end fast to the German gun. He stuck a rag in my mouth as a gag, then they walked off toward the house together leaving me alone and tied.

  Silence fell, except the scurrying around of a mouse somewhere high over my head in the hay. An hour passed and darkness closed in around me as I stood tied against the gun. I tried to think of a plan, even something to take my mind off the job at hand. Maybe there was a poem that Bobbie had quoted to me once that I could remember, a song we’d sung in church, a verse I’d read that would give me some cheer. But nothing came to mind. All I could think was all was lost. Another hour went by and then another. From the open doors of the barn I could glimpse the night sky. The moon rose and another hour went by, and then another. I reckoned it was close to midnight when I heard a screen door burst open then slam shut, and two shadows walked toward me.

  “Time to go,” Crazy Ake said. He leveled a rifle at my face while Rance untied me and took out the gag. I spit a few times, rubbed my wrists and ankles to restore circulation, then climbed in the driver’s seat of the DUKW. Crazy Ake slid up into the passenger seat beside me. Rance hiked over to Crazy Ake’s truck and started it up.

  “You know exactly where to go,” Crazy Ake said. It was an order, not a question.

  The town of Rancho Springs and I were no strangers. I drove down and out the Chicorys’ long driveway and kept to back roads until the city’s lights came into view. I skirted the highway, then circled around town until I got to the general location of the downtown district, drove across a field, and cut across a back lot. We hit pavement and rumbled along for two blocks, made another right and a left and stopped. We were directly behind the bank. This being a Tuesday night, every soul for blocks around would be home and in bed already, snoring soundly until sunrise the next morning.

  Crazy Ake climbed out and motioned to me with his gun. Rance pulled up behind us in the truck, got out, and left the motor running. He brought sacks for our faces, all three of us, and we quick threw them on over our heads. I secured the mount in position by driving the stakes through the bottom carriage. We didn’t need to be overly accurate. Rance went to the far corner of the bank then heel-toed his way along the back wall to an area he’d evidently marked out earlier when casing the joint. He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a piece of chalk, and scratched a broad X on the wall. My target would be no problem to hit.

  “Gun’s ready,” I said to Crazy Ake.

  He grunted. “What you waiting for? You wanna take a nap first?”

  I placed a shell on the loading tray, swung the tray in line with the axis of the bore of the gun, and pulled the auxiliary trigger on the right side of the cradle.

  Kaboom!

  The gun blew a hole in the side of the bank’s outside wall and straight into the inner chamber of the vault. Concrete groaned and shuddered. I could see jagged spikes of rebar sticking up, down, and to the side. Dust and smoke billowed out of the hole.

  “Three minutes—go!” Crazy Ake yelled, and handed me a stack of gunnysacks.

  I started counting Mississippis in my mind, took a deep breath, and crawled through the hole ahead of Crazy Ake. The hole was big enough for a big man to fit through, but the broken rebar meant a fella needed to duck and shimmy his way around so as to not get cut up. He followed me inside, a flashlight in his hand, and we both got busy. It took a full seventy-five seconds for us to each fill a sack and tie it off. I shimmied through the hole to the outside. Crazy Ake stuffed the sacks through to me to take to the truck while he turned to another sack and kept stuffing.

  Rance didn’t even look my way when I ran up. The driver’s side window was rolled down. He’d taken off his army jacket as he waited and was smoking a cigarette, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. I threw the sacks in the bed of the truck and ran back to the bank, crawled through the hole, and emerged again inside the vault. Crazy Ake was almost finished with another two sacks, still stuffing in wads of money as intent as a hungry man gob
bling up a meal. We were coming up on three minutes. He threw the first sack to me, turned his back, and tied off the second sack.

  That’s when I spotted my moment of opportunity.

  Now, when a fella is fighting another fella in a bar, he doesn’t use his deadliest moves. Not the one’s he’s learned in the service anyway. If a man pastes your jaw in a bar fight, you turn in the most gentlemanly of fashions and paste him back. But if an enemy soldier has his hands around your throat and aims to crush your windpipe, then all the judo and self-defense moves they teach you in boot camp comes flooding back. You strike to hurt then. You disable or kill.

  With Crazy Ake’s back turned, I reached forward in an instant and chopped above his collarbone at the back of his neck. Immediately he collapsed to the ground. He wasn’t dead—I didn’t want to kill the man in cold blood. Not yet anyway. But I sent him unconscious. He was down for the count. I grabbed the revolver from his ankle holster, shimmied back through the hole, and sprinted to the truck. We were coming up on three minutes, fifteen seconds. Rance was still smoking, still drumming his fingers, still looking the other way. I pasted him in the side of the neck with the butt of the revolver. He broke like a beer mug and I opened the truck’s door, yanked him out, and dumped him to the cement. Three minutes, thirty-five seconds. I jumped inside the cab, threw the truck in gear, and barreled down the road.

  Rance wouldn’t be out for long, I knew. Maybe thirty seconds at the most. Crazy Ake would be out a little longer, but I strongly doubted if Rance would leave Crazy Ake behind. As slimy as Rance was, he still valued his life, and if Rance left Crazy Ake behind, then Rance would be a hunted man the rest of his days.

  I started doing the math. If Rance came to at minute four, then it would take him another forty-five seconds to drag Crazy Ake out of the bank. That meant I had a minute-and-a half head start, tops. The law might have arrived by then, but the boys in Rancho Springs were undoubtedly slow at this late hour. If the law wasn’t at the bank, then both Crazy Ake and Rance would jump in the DUKW and chase me down. They would want to kill me at very least, but they’d also be chasing the sacks of money in the back of the truck. That might provide a bargaining chip for me—the money or my life—if it came to a showdown. The truck could outrun the DUKW on the highway, offering me a bit more of a window of time once I reached smooth sailing, but it would take me at least five minutes to reach the highway. Fortunately, Rance and Crazy Ake didn’t know I had some things I needed to do first. And their inevitable confusion would offer me yet another short window of opportunity, I was betting.

  The truck roared out of town. I hit the familiar dirt road near the thicket of trees and roared up the long dirt driveway to the old ramshackle house. All was still dark, and I parked the truck with the motor running directly in front of the pigsty and left the headlights on so I could see if I needed to. A heap of confusion rolled around inside me, but this one thing was crystal clear: I would do this. I clattered up the front steps and across the porch, pushed open the front door, and flipped on the first light switch I came to.

  “What’s all this about …” came Sally Jo Chicory’s sleepy voice from out of a bedroom. I kicked open the door and stuck the revolver in her face.

  “Where’s Sunny?” I hissed.

  “What about Rance and Crazy Ake?” Her words mumbled out of her mouth.

  I grabbed the woman by the front of her nightgown and hefted her out of bed. “Where’s my daughter! Take me to her now!”

  Sally Jo pointed toward the back hall. Her voice grew instantly clearer. “Second door on your right.”

  I dropped her on the bed, sprinted down the hallway, stopped in my tracks, composed myself, and gently opened the bedroom door.

  Walls of bunks lined two of the walls. Sleeping girls were piled two to a bed. The room was filthy. Trash was piled everywhere, and I went to the first bunk and checked the bottom, middle, and top berths. No luck. I moved to the second bunk. There was my daughter, sleeping wall-side in on the middle bunk.

  She hardly stirred when I picked her up. A dirty stuffed monkey was clutched in her arms. An old towel lay on the floor, and I scooped that up with her. I made sure the stuffed monkey was still secure in her arms, then carried her out of the room, down the hall, and outside the house. Sally Jo watched me from the window, and I made sure she could still see my revolver. I kept an eye on her in case she went for her shotgun, but I wasn’t worried much with Rance not being around for her backup. I opened the passenger’s side door, made a little bed with the towel, lay Sunny on the bed, and covered her with Rance’s army jacket. The door I closed gently. I sprinted around to the other side, hopped in, circled the truck around, and floored it down the dirt road.

  We were on the pavement in thirty seconds. On Highway 2 heading south in another wink. The wind whistled through the open window and I rolled it shut to provide quiet for the sleeping child. I didn’t know where Rance and Crazy Ake were at that moment, but I didn’t care. I was heading back to Cut Eye, and Sunny was coming with me. As far as I was concerned, my debt to Rance Chicory was long since paid.

  Highway 2 is mostly flat and straight. But near sixty miles out of Rancho Springs you hit a few low hills and curves. If I was gonna make a move, that’s where I needed to make it. The truck maxed out at 60 m.p.h. That was fine by me. The DUKW would only do 45—and maybe not even that, seeing how they were still dragging the trailer with the gun on it. I didn’t know whether Rance and Crazy Ake were in front of me or behind, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I kept the pedal floored until I knew for certain otherwise.

  Sure enough, about mile fifty-eight I saw red taillights glowing in the distance. I switched off my headlights and slowed to fifty so I could inch up closer. When the vehicle ahead hit the hills I floored my truck again while they couldn’t see me through the curves. Before the highway straightened out I roared up behind the DUKW, veered into the other lane and around them, and switched my headlights on as I passed by. Ahead was all flat road south.

  Rance was driving the DUKW, undoubtedly still the more alert of the two. I could see his figure shake his fist out the window in my rearview mirror. A moment later the fist clutched a revolver. One flash showed behind me. The shot went wide. Another flash showed. It, too, came nowhere close to its target.

  By then Sunny and I were too far out of range. I kept the accelerator pressed against the floorboards and hurtled down the highway as fast as the truck could fly.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The hour neared 4:30 a.m., I guessed without a watch, by the time I spotted the lights of Cut Eye in the distance. A streak of pink showed in the eastern sky, and the dark prickly shapes of cacti and tumbleweeds showed as shadows in the desert around us. We flew straight past the sign for the Murray Plant and kept heading south. In another two minutes we were on the front end of town. Sunny was still fast asleep on the floor of the truck.

  I slowed to 40 m.p.h., careened past the laundry mat, the livery and feed supply on one side, and the hardware and lumberyard on the other. The needle on the dashboard mentioned the truck’s gas tank was nearly empty, but that didn’t matter no more—I downshifted and roared right past Gummer’s filling station. When we hit Main Street, I took a hard right, shifted into second, and drove past the sheriff’s office and jail. Another hard right and we pulled up into Halligan Barker’s driveway where I turned off the engine, jumped out, and ran around to the passenger side.

  Gently I opened the door. Carefully I scooped up Sunny. She stirred and nestled her head into my shoulder, and I kept Rance’s jacket over her for warmth as I headed toward the back door of Halligan’s house and knocked. A minute passed and no one came. I knocked louder. This time a light flipped on. Ten seconds later a voice came from inside. “Who’s there?”

  “Halligan, it’s me, Rowdy. Open up.”

  The door opened a crack and an eye looked me up and down. Halligan opened the door all the way. “Your face is a mess,” he said.

  “I got no time to ex
plain things fully, Sheriff. Is Bobbie here?”

  Halligan nodded. “Who’s the kid?”

  “My niece. Her name’s Sunny. She needs a safe house for a while. Have Bobbie take her to Emma’s. I’ll pay Emma back for the aggravation as soon as I can.”

  “No need for payment.” Halligan was already walking toward the back hallway.

  “Sheriff—wait. There’s more. In less than an hour by my reckoning, my DUKW’s gonna roar into town. It’s pulling a German 88 antiaircraft gun, and the two fellas driving my DUKW are looking for trouble.”

  Halligan stopped and stared cold. Bobbie appeared in the hallway. She belted a bathrobe around her and rubbed her eyes. “Rowdy—is that you at this hour? What’s wrong?” She came closer. “Oh … your poor face.”

  Halligan was piecing things together and snapped into action. “Bobbie, take the child from Rowdy. Use the jeep and take her over to Emma’s. Go inside and lock the door. Make sure Emma’s shotgun is within reach. Nobody comes out until you hear word. Understand?”

  Bobbie nodded. She ran into her room and emerged a minute later wearing jeans and a sweater. She carried a quilt with her, bundled Sunny in her arms, and was out the back door in a flash.

  Halligan turned to me. “How many total?”

  “Just two.”

  “You sure about that?”

  I nodded.

  He ran to the telephone on the side wall. “Martha—you awake?” He grimaced. “I know, I’m sorry about the hour. Look, we got some police business that can’t wait until morning. Call Deputy Roy and have him come to the sheriff’s station as quick as he can. Tell him it’s urgent.” He frowned as if in remembrance. “Wait—Roy’s patrol car is still at Gummer’s. Call Deuce Gibbons first. He’s south of Deputy Roy. Tell Deuce to pick up Roy and get them both here on the double. Got it? Good.”