Death of the Extremophile

by Stuart Parker

  *

  Hope and Hawkshaw walked and drank from a flacon of wine. There was homemade biscuits and cheese to go with it. It was the perfect breakfast with the occasional shooing of flies. The track Hawkshaw was guiding him on looked to Hope to be of different terrain to those he had taken on his own. There were more rocky outcrops, towering oaks, berry bushes and wild summer flowers - or perhaps it was merely that people bestirred by affection noticed these things more.

  Hawkshaw seemed to read his thoughts and laughed; she pushed him on the shoulder and more gently took the flacon out of his hand. ‘I’ve been wanting to tell you something. And confidence out here in the woods feels easy.’

  ‘No one to hear me scream?’

  ‘I want to explain that night when I acted so strange, asked you who you really were and all of that.’

  ‘The black eye?’

  ‘Yeah, all of that.’ She swigged from the bottle and waved off a bug that had been aroused by the scent of it. She shook her head. ‘I was out of my head that night because I knew I liked your type, but after days of thinking about it I just couldn’t find a word to fit what that type that was. It got to me.’

  Hope nodded contemplatively and sucked in some of the forest air. ‘Why put a name to it at all?’

  ‘So as to remind myself what to expect. And to remind you. Charming men descend from ambitious rascals to paranoid burnouts in the blink of an eye.’

  ‘They do sometimes.’

  ‘So, then, what type are you? I would like to be enlightened.’

  Hope shrugged. ‘I don’t have a good word for it either. But I won’t go forgetting.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Because I was asking the question for quite a long time myself. I once actually went through the entire Oxford dictionary letter by letter, looking for the word that would best explain me. I got nothing and by the time I reached Z, I was starting to feel ignored. But scrolling down the Zs I kind of got the feeling I belonged somewhere there. Maybe that was why the monks who compiled their dictionaries in their monasteries added so few Zs, so that if you reached the end of the book without resolution, there was still this dark alley in which you could add something of their own. Infinite should be a Z word too. It’s the only place it makes sense.’

  Hawkshaw laughed. ‘Okay, Z person. It’s fortunate you didn’t try this line when I was in my mood. I daresay I would’ve hit harder.’ She grinned and saluted him with the flacon. ‘But I can almost buy it now. Just as long as you don’t let the word pathetic slip into the Zs.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And any of those other heavy words that are liable to prise themselves loose and slip to the back.’

  ‘Words such as better and cook?’

  Hawkshaw punched him with that but at least this time it was in the arm. ‘Don’t mess with me, buster,’ she said teasingly.

  She was on guard for any retaliation on Hope’s part and so was quick to react when another bug got into her face, getting it with a fast, no nonsense swat. Or was it a bug? The whir was gone as quickly as it came and Hawkshaw checked her hand for any squashed remnants but there was nothing.

  Hope peered away into the woods, his senses suddenly tightly attuned, as though in the presence of tigers not insects; and then he was flung off his feet, grasping wildly at his arm. Hawkshaw was screaming even before the sight had fully registered. To Hope the voice sounded distant and foreign - but then he realised she was still using the fake name he had first given her. If he was not careful, he would be buried with it. A steel bolt was protruding from his shoulder and blood was streaming from the wound. He resisted the urge to pull it out, for a barbed point could see half his shoulder torn with it. He gritted his teeth and took in the pain. This wasn’t like the weather. This he could feel.

  Hawkshaw knelt beside him. Tears were falling freely.

  ‘It’s the Young brothers,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Hope touched her wet cheek with his good hand. ‘For trying to put salt into the wound?’

  Four men calmly walked up to them. They were holding crossbows and had rifles slung over their shoulders.

  ‘Good morning, Ms Hawkshaw,’ said one, his voice slow, easy and haughty. ‘Nice morning for a walk. Me and my brothers have been out doing a bit of hunting. Apologise if we have in any way disturbed you.’ He waited for a response, an insult to fire his blood preferably, and when none was forthcoming, he continued. ‘Your friend was enquiring about us a few days back and so why don’t we take this opportunity for a formal introduction. I’m Art. I’m not the eldest but I do the talking.’ He pointed to the brother on his left. ‘Les is the eldest and the tallest last time we checked. He doesn’t talk much himself but being a mean sonofabitch no one much wants to hear what he has to say anyways.’ He pointed to his right. ‘This is Joel, the inquisitive one. We used to think he was wrong in the head the way he would spend hours cutting animals open. Pull out their eyes and everything. But he wasn’t making earrings out of them. He was just being a little scientist. He’ll probably want to cut you open as well. See what’s inside.’ He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘And last, or at least youngest, is Rex who he tells us you already had the displeasure to meet.’ He gave Hope a prodding kick. ‘Let you have some of this, didn’t he? Though he might not be able to shoot for shit, he’s the hunter of the family all the same. For the past few months he has been spending his nights lurking outside Ms Hawkshaw’s residence. And why not? She’s quite a dish. Recently widowed. And apparently she doesn’t know that curtains are there for the closing. So we left him to watch. Boys will be boys and that kind of thing.’ He kicked Hope harder. ‘That was until he mentioned her strange new house guest and that she had obviously gotten over her husband’s premature demise with flying colours. And when this same stranger turns up snooping around our garage, then there is something for the whole family right here.’

  ‘Wow,’ replied Hope, trying to sound as indifferent as he could under the present circumstances. ‘That voice of yours has my ears hurting even more than my arm.’

  The jibe cost him another vicious kick to the ribs, but he well realised there was little point in becoming precious about the treatment being meted out; in fact, there was nothing he saw or heard in these four men that suggested any attempt at appeasement or begging would be received with anything more than derision and further cruelty. They would savour it. A grand finale at their hands would thus not be worth dragging out; better by far to start shaking the tree as hard as possible and just hope a miracle fell out.

  ‘No,’ he spat, ‘it’s still my ears hurting more.’

  Another kick.

  ‘If we’re going to turn this into a sport,’ Art Young hissed at him, ‘ it’s your head that’s shaped like a football.’ He took a step back and set himself as though ready for kick off. ‘Blow the whistle, ref.’

  ‘Easy, Art,’ interjected his big brother, Les. ‘If you do him here, you’ll be the one doing the burying. And I don’t care how hot it is, you’ll bury him deep enough that no critters can go digging up his bones.’

  Art pondered this a moment and then straightened up from the kicking position and spat on Hope. ‘Lucky for you the rules to the game are not all that appealing.’

  Hope did not have anything more to say for now. But he was thinking. Were these brothers really as bad as they seemed or was it merely that his feelings for Hawkshaw had softened him up? Perhaps, when the looming next world war eventually arrived they would be the type who kept America safe. The heroes. In peace time, however, violent urges that could not be contained, inevitably fell into the domain of the innocent. And it was like dropping vinegar into a cocktail. In this case, the innocent happened to be someone Hope had fallen for. And even if she had bladed her husband into the most definitive of divorces, he now certainly considered her an innocent. The number of those who had preceded her could only be speculated on. The Young’s themselves
would probably have required a family meeting to estimate their own figure. Names such as Alison Monet would likely have come up in the process. Hawkshaw’s name would only be the latest addition if the Youngs’ intended Sunday frivolities were allowed to play out. Hope, however, would have a chance to do something about it - if only because his disposal promised to be bothersome. And thanks to the pounding he had given himself against New York’s flagpoles, he was feeling fresh and relaxed. The Youngs would have needed to have looked beyond the cover of spilt blood and swollen flesh to see it, but he was ready.

  After some back and forth of opinions between the Youngs, their huddle broke up and Art returned to Hope and Hawkshaw, replacing his crossbow with his side pistol. He smirked slyly. ‘Saturday night has come late for us to be sure but the principle remains the same,’ he said. ‘The pretty one gets taken home, while the ugly one is left behind flat.’ He chuckled at Hope. ‘Not left exactly here. There’s an old quarry nearby. These days it’s a stinking, muddy, mosquito infested shit hole.’ He trained his pistol on him. ‘You, me and Rex are gonna go trekking there. Fun, right?’

  ‘No way,’ protested Rex and thumbed at Hawkshaw. ‘I wanna’ go with her. I found her.’

  Art glanced at him and shook his head. ‘I think you like her a little too much. You’ll get your turn.’ He was back with Hope. ‘If you can’t walk, you’re no good to me and I’ll blow your fucking head off. So, give this question careful consideration before replying. Are you ready to go?’

  Relying overwhelming on his good arm, Hope slowly, painfully got to his feet. Hawkshaw stepped in to assist. A caring hand at this moment felt like life itself; she would have made a great nurse, he thought.

  With her cheek brushing his ear, she whispered, ‘Rip these sons-of-bitches to pieces or I will.’

  Hope smirked to himself and disguised it as pain. Well, maybe not a nurse.