Sarge ignored the comment, instead looking at Thad. “We need a place where we can talk with these guys, not around here, not where’s there’s any kids.”
“Let’s take ‘em back to Reggie’s place. There’s a barn there we can use,” Thad said.
“I want to move these guys, but I don’t want to parade ‘em through town. Morg, that Suburban run?” Sarge asked, and I nodded.
“Thad, go up there an’ get Mike an’ Ted, I’m gonna need their help,” Sarge said. Thad jumped on his ATV and headed for the barricade. “Get ‘em on their feet and load ‘em into the truck. Morgan, I know this is personal to you, but trust me, they’ll get what’s coming to them, just let me do what I need to first.”
I didn’t acknowledge his statement. I just turned and kicked the one man in the ass. “Get up,” I said as I holstered my pistol. Sarge told the other men to get to their feet, the man he had kicked wasn’t moving fast enough for him so he kicked his boots. “Hurry up or I’ll do it for ya.”
While Sarge was wrangling his prisoners, I went over and started the old truck. I hadn’t driven it since I had acquired my Polaris and it took a few cranks to get it started. I let it sit there and idle for bit and went into the house while Doc and Sarge were loading up the men. Mel was sitting on the couch with Lee Ann. Her sisters were lounging on the floor in front of the fire half dozing. Mel looked up as I came in. “What’s going on out there?”
“It appears those guys are the ones that shot at us at the cookout.”
“They shot Lee Ann? What’s going to happen to them?” she asked, anger rising in her voice.
“Sarge wants to interrogate them, then we’ll see what happens,” I said.
“You better kill them. They tried to kill us, you better not let them get away.”
I leaned over and kissed her. “There’s no way in hell they are getting away, I can promise you that.”
Mike and Ted were standing beside the truck when I came back out. All the guys were loaded into the back of the Suburban and Sarge was talking with Thad. He stopped as I walked up and said, “Let’s take em down to Reggie’s place.”
I climbed in and was surprised when Sarge got in the passenger’s seat. He looked over and smiled a creepy smile at me then Mike and Ted got in the back seat. I drove out the gate with Thad and Doc following in the two buggies. Nothing was said as we drove along. In the rearview mirror I could see Mike watching the men in the back. As we approached the corner where the stocks were located, Sarge let out a chuckle.
“What the hell’s that, Morgan?” he asked, looking out the window.
“We built them to have something to do with people that broke the law. Shooting everyone for everything wasn’t working out.”
“I guess not. Good idea, how’d it work out?” Sarge asked.
“We only had one person in there and he probably needed killing.”
Sarge looked over but didn’t say anything. The rest of the trip was silent. Jeff was at the gate when I pulled through it. Thad pulled around me and waved for me to follow him around the house to the barn. I stopped the truck in front of the door into the small room on Reggie’s barn.
As we were getting out, Reggie came out the back door. He stood there for a minute looking at the group as we all emerged from the old Suburban. He walked up to me, looking at Sarge and crew with suspicion.
“Who the hell are they?”
“No worries man, they’re friends,” I said, but it didn’t do much for his disposition.
I did a quick round of introductions. Reggie shook each of their hands. As he was shaking Sarge’s hand, the old man looked down at Reggie’s.
“Well, looks like all the fingers are on this one, how’s the other one?” Sarge asked.
Reggie held his other hand up, still bandaged up. Sarge looked at it, then called over his shoulder, “Doc, come take a look at his hand, see if he needs anything.” He looked back at Reggie and said, “Let him take a look at it. He’s a pretty good sawbones.”
Reggie nodded and Doc walked over to him. The two of them went into the house. When they walked away, Sarge returned to the truck and opened the back gate. He said, “Okay ladies, end of the road, get out,” and waited for the men to climb out. He told Mike to keep an eye on them for a minute and went over and opened the door to the small room in the barn.
Sarge went over and whispered to Mike and Ted and then asked me, “Is there a tool shed or anything like that around here?”
“Yeah, back over there,” I said, pointing behind the barn. “I’m gonna go get another friend of mine I want y’all to meet and later, and if it isn’t too much trouble, I got another guy that Doc needs to look at.”
“Fine,” Sarge replied with a wave as he headed for Reggie’s shop.
I climbed back into the Suburban and drove over to Danny’s house. I wanted him to meet Sarge and the crew. When I got to his house, he wasn’t there. Bobbie said he was over at Miss Janice’s house digging her a grave. Shit, I had forgotten all about her. I drove over to her house and found him working on the soft sand in her front yard. He must have known I was coming. He had two shovels there so I dropped in beside him and started digging.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Doc was finishing up the redressing of Reggie’s hand when Sarge got back from taking a few things from the tool shed. Sarge asked how it looked and Doc told him that it looked really good, that someone did a good job. When Reggie told him it was a vet, Sarge let out a laugh and shook his head.
“Lucky you got a good vet then. Did he give you your shots when you was there?” he asked with a grin.
“Naw, but when I woke up I had one of them damn lampshades around my neck.”
“Oh damn!” Sarge shouted and Doc laughed.
“I hope he didn’t clip your nuts, I ain’t checkin’ on them,” Doc said, and Reggie and Sarge both laughed.
“Hey Reggie, you got any water?” Sarge asked.
“Yeah, they’s a drum out back there. I fill it at Morgan’s house, well, he fills it and brings it down here.”
Sarge stood there for a moment studying the man. “Ole Morgan’s a good man, huh?”
“Yeah he is. He does a lot to help people. A few of us around here stick together, we look out for each other.”
Sarge nodded his head. “I know: people worth a shit seem to be drawn together. I’m gonna get some water.”
“Help yourself,” Reggie said.
Sarge found the drum. There was a piece of hose sticking out of the top and it didn’t take long to get water flowing out into an empty bucket that was sitting there. Sarge filled the bucket and carried it over to the door in the barn and set it down before stepping in.
Inside the small room there were four men standing on their tiptoes with their hands tied to trusses over their heads. Sarge told Mike to go find something to blindfold them with. Ted had one foot in the seat of the chair and was resting his elbows on his knee. Sarge looked at the men and smiled. He was met with blank stares for the most part.
“You boys sure are quiet,” Sarge said.
“We ain’t got shit ta say ta you,” Marvin told him.
“You will, you will,” Sarge said, nodding his head, then looked at Ted. “Help me take him down.”
Ted and Sarge took Marvin down from where he was hanging. He tried to struggle once, just as Sarge had hoped. They cut him down but his hands were still bound. Marv tried to hit Ted, more of a push so he could make a run for the door. When he did, Sarge was waiting. He was holding his taser in his hand. He had removed the cartridge and was all ready for the contact tase he delivered to Marv’s neck. Marv immediately yelped and went rigid. They drug him over to the chair in the center of the room and without a lot more effort had him seated and tied, hands to the armrest and legs to the chair legs. Sarge then
knelt down and cut the laces on his boots, pulled the boots off Marv’s feet and then his socks and tossed them aside.
“What the hell are you doin’!” Marv yelled.
Sarge stood up and looked down at him, reaching out and tussling Marv’s hair he said, “Don’t worry, you’ll see soon enough.”
Mike came back into the room with an old sheet and an old towel. Sarge told him to save the towel and cut up the sheet. Mike and Ted went to work making blindfolds, and the ripping and tearing of fabric unsettled the men a bit. Sarge took one from Mike and hung it on a nail, tossing the towel over his shoulder. Mike and Ted covered the eyes of the other three men. With the blindfolds on there was a very noticeable change in the breathing of all the men, an obvious increase in the rate and volume of air they were sucking in and blowing out.
Sarge motioned for Ted and Mike to follow him and they stepped out the door.
Marv started fighting against his bonds as soon as they left, rocking the chair and straining with everything he had to try and break free.
“Marv, did they leave?” Goat asked.
“Yeah, see if you guys can get loose. We need to get the hell out of here.”
When the door opened again though, their hopes sank. Without saying anything, Ted and Mike grabbed Marv on either side and tipped him back, laying him on the floor.
“What’re you doin’!” Marv shouted.
Sarge was standing over the man looking down at him. There was no smile this time.
“When I was a boy I had a dog,” Sarge said.
“Who gives a shit!” Marv shouted.
“It was my dog, but I wasn’t allowed to feed it. Worst beatin’ I ever got was for givin’ my dog a hot dog.” Sarge paused for moment, then continued, “You know why I wasn’t allowed to feed that dog?” He looked down at Marv.
After a moment Marv realized the old man wouldn’t continue until he answered. “Why? Like I give a shit, what they fuck—” Sarge planted a boot on his chest and pressed the air out of him.
“I wasn’t allowed to feed the dog cause my old man fed the dog, an’ he was a mean sum bitch. He fed the dog cause he pissed in the dog’s food ever’ time.” Sarge paused for a moment, looking at Marv. “Know why he did that?”
Marv shook his head. He was relieved when the old man took his boot off his chest. He took a deep breath, and Sarge straddled him.
“He said he did it so the dog would know who the boss was.” As Sarge said this, he reached for his fly and started to undo it.
Suddenly Marv had a terrifying realization and started to cuss, but a towel was quickly pulled tight over his face, so tight he couldn’t even turn his head, though he continued to scream through the towel.
“You son-of-a-bitch, don’t you even think of it, don’t you fucking dare!”
“Right now, you’re about to see who’s boss.” With that Sarge reached into his pocket and took out a plastic bottle filled with water and unscrewed the top. “So who you think’s the dog in this equation?” and began to slowly pour the water onto Marv’s towel-covered face.
At first Marv sputtered against the water, then he simply pursed his lips so none of it would get in his mouth. He was still growling through the towel, or maybe it was a choked cry. Marv tried to hold his breath, but the way the towel was holding his head back, it ran into his nose. Even clean spring water on a warm summer day that finds its way into your nose will burn, and that burn just reinforced the idea that this man was pissing on his face.
Sarge looked up to Ted and nodded, then reached back to his fly and pulled his pecker out, Ted quickly pulled the blindfolds down on the other three men so they could see Sarge shake his pecker over a soaked Marv, who was trying to blow water out of his mouth. The other three men hung from their ropes, mouths agape. Ned shook his head slowly from side to side and his eyes were wide with shock. Sarge waved at Mike and he pulled the wet towel off.
Before Marv could catch his breath and say a word, Sarge opened the door and reached outside for a PVC pipe he had loaded with sand earlier. With the other three men watching, Sarge gripped the pipe and swung like he was batting cleanup in the bottom of the ninth in the World Series. The slap that followed the impact to the sole of Marv’s right foot was thunderous, but not nearly as loud as the scream that came immediately from Marv.
Danny and I didn’t say a word as we dug the hole. We moved like machines, neither needing direction nor offering any. When the hole was deep enough, we went into the house to get the body, again in silence.
I went into a bedroom and stripped the sheet from the bed and carried it back out to the kitchen. We spread it out on the floor and with Danny grabbing her feet and I her shoulders, we moved the body onto the center of the sheet, wrapped it up and carried it back out to the hole. As is always the case with this sort of work, filling it in went a lot faster than the digging.
Danny was smoothing the small mound that would be the only indication that this was a grave. In a few years even the mound would be gone, leaving no outward sign what this place was. I was leaning on the handle of my shovel as he smoothed the soft earth over. When he finished, we both stood there for a minute looking at the place. Again, there would be no words, no prayers or clichés. After a short pause, I looked at Danny.
“Hey man, we need to go to Reggie’s. There’s some people there I want you to meet.”
“Who is it?”
“Remember the old guy I told you about? Sarge? He’s here with his crew.”
“What are they doing here?”
“I sent him a message. He gave me some gear and told me to stay in touch, but it took me a while to get to it. I told them what’s been going on here lately and they showed up.”
“Cool, I’ll meet you over there.”
I headed back to the Suburban and drove back to Reggie’s. Jeff was standing at the gate when I pulled up, looking a little disconcerted.
“What’s up, dude?” I asked as I rolled to a stop.
Jeff looked back over his shoulder in the direction of the barn behind the house, “What the fuck is going on back there?” he asked, looking back at me.
I looked in the direction of the house for a long moment, then back to him, “I would assume Sarge is having a word with those guys.”
At that moment a long shriek rose from behind the house.
Marv screamed. His back was arched as if he were trying to push himself off the floor. When Marv was at the end his scream, Sarge swung the pipe again, this time at the left foot. The pipe landed with a sickly slap. Marv’s lungs were empty from the first strike. His tongue shot from his mouth, the veins on his neck and forehead stood out and he raised his head from the floor. He took a deep breath and letting out another long wail of pain.
Just seeing what he knew was in store for him was more than Goat could take. He started to scream and thrash against the rope binding his hands over his head. Ned just hung there, slack jawed and his eyes wide in terror. A puddle slowly grew around his boots. Avery simply cried, no struggle, no fight. He wept openly.
Mike moved quickly and delivered a quick butt-stroke to Goat’s stomach. He immediately stopped screaming and went limp on the rope, moaning. Marv’s scream had trailed off into a moaning cry of sorts. Sarge took the pipe and tapped the man on his chest, causing him to flinch, close his eyes and look away.
“I assume I have your attention now,” Sarge said as he leaned the pipe by the door. “You an’ me are gonna have a talk now an’ if you got a brain in yer head you’ll answer my questions.”
Marv was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling as he huffed air. Sarge opened the door and reached out for a five-gallon bucket and brought it back in. After dumping his collection of goodies out of it—hedge clippers, an awl, pliers and other things—on the floor, Sarge turned the bucket over and sat o
n it, looking down at Marv.
Sarge sat there for a moment resting his elbows on his knees with his hands folded in front of him. He stared intently at Marv, then reached down and picked up the hedge clippers, holding them by the handle and chopping them a couple of times.
“What’s going on down the road there?” Sarge asked and chopped the clippers again.
Danny walked up to Jeff and I as we stood there listening to what was going on behind the door in the barn. He looked at each of us curiously. “What’s going on?”
“I think Sarge is in there having a talk with the guys that shot up the cookout the other day,” I said.
Reggie and Doc came out of the house. Reggie’s hand was wrapped in a fresh dressing. We stood in a group trying not to really pay attention to what was going on behind the door, though for a moment it was quiet.
“How’s the hand, Reg?” Danny asked.
He held it up and looked at it. “Alright I guess, for missing a finger. If I ever catch the sum bitch that shot it off he’s gonna pay for it.”
Doc looked towards the barn. “Well, he’s in there.”
“Who?” Reggie asked.
“The guys that ambushed us at the cookout,” I said.
“What, they’re in there?” Reggie asked, glaring at the barn door. “How’d that happen?”
Doc said, “They greeted us when we landed, but they bit off a little more than they could chew. Once the old man heard them say they were working for the DHS, he scooped them up. We had no idea that they were the ones that ambushed you guys, but that fills in the picture a little. DHS has been trying to scare people into their camps.”
Reggie moved towards the door but Doc reached out and grabbed his arm. “Just wait. Sarge is still working on them.”
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