There was a soft, moaning sigh from across the room. It was Annie, whose eyes had gone glassy. A line of drool trickled out from the corner of her mouth. James was similarly affected, and even Sarah couldn’t suppress a twitch of longing. In fact, the only one not having some sort of palpable reaction to the idea of liquor was Dylan, who was distracted by a quest to determine which of his arms was longer. After several moments of stunned silence, it was James who snapped to action first. “That settles it, then,” he said, slapping his legs in determination. “Tomorrow, we steal back your things. And you’ll reward our bravery with wine and whiskey,” he said.
“So the food and weapons that might keep us alive don’t interest you one little bit, but the hooch gets your bravery fires burning?” Patrick asked.
“Well, sure. You don’t need food or weapons. We have food and weapons. And what’s ours is yours.”
“Communism,” Ben said sharply. Patrick elbowed him in the ribs.
“Don’t piss off the Reds.”
“Sorry.”
James smiled and continued. “But what we don’t have is alcohol. And, man, is that something we miss.” Annie nodded vigorously and did her little sigh-moan again. She looked like she was about to melt all over the floor.
“I miss my hammer. I wouldn’t say no to a morning snatch-and-grab,” said Ben.
“I’ve never said no to a morning snatch-and-grab,” Patrick snickered. “High five!” He put his good hand up. Ben did not slap it. “Come on, Ben. I mean, like...sex. Get it?”
Ben sighed.
“Spiver’s not the brightest bulb in the box,” James continued. “He only has two or three hideouts, and if we go search him out first thing in the morning, he’ll either be passed out or hung over.”
“On our liquor,” Ben said sadly.
“On some of it,” James admitted. “But, hey, he’s small. And alcohol’s hard to come by, his tolerance is probably low as hell. It won’t take much. I’m sure there’s plenty left over.”
“What about the rest of his gang? He was with at least one puppeteer that we know of.”
“And then some,” Sarah said. But James shook his head.
“The Carsons are a loose pack. It’s rare for them to all band together if they’re not raiding. And no one raids at 7am. Ol’ Spivey might have a friend or two lying around, but we won’t see the whole gang. And I think we can take a small, hungover group of theatre dorks.”
“I love this plan!” Patrick exclaimed. He clenched his good fist. “My hand feels empty without my machete.”
“Your hand is empty without your machete,” Ben said.
“So it’s not just me, then.”
“We’ll head out right after morning chores,” James said, looking to the group for confirmation. They all nodded, except Dylan, who was inspecting the floor for messages from an alien race.
“Chores! We love chores!” Patrick declared. “What can we do to help?”
“Come on,” James grinned. “You’re our guests. You do nothing. We’ll wake you when we’re done, we’ll go get your bags, and then we’ll celebrate on into the night.”
“And I can get the plans for the watering system underway. Because let me tell you, if there’s one thing I like better than designing complex tools, it’s designing complex tools after a few shots.”
And so it was settled. They finished their dinner, lounged around the fire for a while, then bid each other good night. As Patrick and Ben left the little cabin to make up a bunk in another, Ben thought he caught Sarah giving him the wryest little smile out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward her, but if there had been a smile, it was gone now, replaced by her typical facial reservation. Still, she had smiled. Hadn’t she? Maybe? Something down behind his intestines fluttered. Alabama wasn’t so bad after all.
17.
“Today feels like a good day for justice,” Patrick decided. “What say you, comrade-in-furry-little-arms?”
Ben looked up from his bowl of boiled carrots and dried apples. “I just want my wrench back,” he said, his mouth full of food.
“Well spoken,” Patrick said. “We should retrieve your wrench or die trying.”
“No, not die trying. I don’t want to die trying. I refuse to die trying. Let’s just get the wrench back. By trying,” he added.
“Fear not, Gentle Ben, for the Lady of the Illinois has foretold to us the--”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ben said, waving off his friend. “Your imaginary friend says we live. I got it.”
“What you got is firepower!” Anti-Annie hollered, kicking her way into the cabin. The door smashed against the far wall and snapped off at the top hinge. “Whoops...”
Ben had started at the sudden burst, and his breakfast now coated his shirt. “Aw, come on...” he mumbled, brushing the lumpy carrots to the floor.
“A decent entrance,” Patrick decided. “I give you a seven.”
“You will give me a mothafuckin’ ten!” Annie yelled. She hoisted two large M-16s, one in each hand, and stood in the doorway with her legs spread like a deranged rock star.
“Whooooa,” Ben breathed, forgetting about the mess on his shirt. “You guys have assault rifles?!”
“That’s what we’re using against Spiver?” Patrick breathed, horrified.
Annie shrugged. “Nah.” She tossed the guns to the floor. They fell like dead weights. “They’re just for show. No bullets. Great for an entrance, though, right?”
“Top of the mornin’,” James said, shouldering in past his sister. “How’d everyone sleep? Good?”
“I slept the sleep of the sleepy,” Patrick said.
“Fine,” muttered Ben, who was more than a little disappointed he wouldn’t be getting to use a machine gun.
“I see Sarah brought breakfast,” James said, nodding to their mostly empty bowls. “Ben, just so you know, for tomorrow morning, the food goes inside the mouth.”
Patrick shook his head sadly and clucked his tongue. “I still have so much to teach him.”
Annie toed at one of the assault rifles. “Think we should bring ‘em? For effect?” But James shook his head.
“They look good, but they’re heavy as hell, and if we do get into a firefight, they’ll learn pretty quick that we don’t have any ammo.”
Annie sighed. “No fun.” She scooped up the guns and bustled them out the door. James turned back to his guests.
“You gentlemen ready for a little early morning justice?”
“I was just ranting about what a perfect day this was for justice!” Patrick beamed. “Wasn’t I, Ben?”
Ben shrugged as he scooped the rest of his breakfast into his mouth. “You were ranting about something.”
Patrick waved off his friend. “Don’t mind him. He’s grumpy in the mornings. And afternoons. And most evenings. And probably while he sleeps.”
“Well, finish up your breakfast, then meet us outside,” James said, flashing his easy grin. “It’s time to choose your weapons.”
They joined the rest of the commune out in the yard. Their new friends were huddled around a low fire, inspecting various implements of death in the flickering light. “Pick your poison,” Annie said happily, gesturing to a large cache of weapons on a blanket near the fire. “We usually draw straws, but we figured since you’re the guests, you can pick first.”
“The fires of Solomon burn heavy in my eye. The weight of the earth is a feather to the one who sees,” whispered Dylan.
Patrick took James by the arm and muttered under his breath, “Is he going on this little mission?”
James grinned. “He’s good in a tight spot. You’ll see.”
Ben leaned in over the blanket and inspected the weapons. “Holy shit, you guys have a crossbow?”
James nod
ded. “Only two bolts, though. And it’s hard as hell to load, it’s a really old model, and the crank doesn’t--” But Ben wasn’t listening. He snatched it up and hugged it tightly to his chest.
“Wow. I’m going in with a crossbow,” he breathed, in total awe of himself.
“Aw, man,” Annie frowned. “I wanted the crossbow.”
“You’ve never used the crossbow in your life,” Sarah said quietly from the far side of the fire.
Annie shrugged. “Yeah, but now that he has it, I really want it.”
“How about you, Pat? What looks good?” James asked.
Patrick rubbed his hands together (carefully) and approached the weapon cache. “It all just looks so good,” he said. There were ten different kinds of knives, a length of rusty pipe, two sets of brass knuckles, a sledgehammer, a rubber mallet, three tire irons, a couple of bricks, and even an old fashioned branding iron.
“Washed up on the beach last year,” James grinned, following Patrick’s stare. “It has a PC brand. And it’s pretty handy. If you like the letters PC burned into things.”
“I do!” Patrick exclaimed. “I also like playing Jack Bauer in the interrogation room!” He reached for the iron, but another little implement of destruction caught his eye at the last second. “Oh, goodness,” he breathed. “I think I’ll have that.” He reached over and pulled a bullwhip from the pile.
“Apocapop,” Dylan said through an exhale of smoke. The gang turned to look at him. He opened his mouth and hissed at them from the back of his throat. The rest of the group shrugged and turned back to the fire.
“Are you sure you want the whip?” James asked. “It can be sort of--”
“Look out, Short Round!” Patrick screamed. He whirled the worn, brown handle excitedly around his head and flicked it toward Ben. The thong flailed out madly and sailed across the fire in a shaky arc. The popper brushed lamely against Ben’s shoe. He looked up at Patrick, unimpressed.
“Hold on, hold on,” Pat said, reeling in the whip, “I can be Indiana Jones. I can do this.” He gathered it in again and took a deep breath.
“Maybe you shouldn’t--” Sarah began, but he cut her off with a wild war cry.
“AAAIIIIIII! Take this, Nazis!” He twirled the whip around and around his head, doing his best human helicopter impersonation. The others dove for cover, Annie missing a popper to the eye by just inches. Patrick twisted his wrist and snapped the handle. The thong waved crazily through the air, then snapped back and bit Patrick on the shoulder. “Ow! Guten morgen!” he cursed.
Ben held up a cautious hand. “Pat, maybe you should just--”
“No, I can do it. I can do it!” He took a deep breath and gripped the whip as tightly as his injured hand would allow. Then, with all the grace of an elderly moose, he spun around, leapt into the air, and threw his wrist toward the stack of logs near the fire. But the fall of the whip caught around his ankle, and the thong fell lamely against his chest. He shook the whip, trying desperately to dislodge it from his ankle, but the more he struggled, the tighter it cinched around his feet. He flailed against the leather thong like a man caught in a giant spider web. He yanked the handle and gave it a final, hard snap. The whip jerked his own feet out from under his legs, and he landed on the cold earth with a hard thud. “Must be my injured hand,” he gasped, out of breath, staring up at the sky. “It doesn’t whip like it should.”
“Must be your injured brain,” Ben said. “Take the branding iron.”
“No, the whip will be fine. I’ve got the hang of it now.”
“Clearly.”
Ben helped Patrick to his feet while the others selected their tools of doom. James grabbed the rubber mallet, and Dylan chose the branding iron. “For reclamations paid out on the devil’s corporate culture,” he explained.
Annie picked up the iron pipe and hefted it a couple of times in her right hand, testing its weight. “This oughta do,” she decided. Then she raised it above her head and ran full speed at Ben. “Give me that crossbow!”
James caught her around the waist and hauled her back. “Easy, kiddo. Play nice with our new friends.”
“My pipe wants to play nice with his head,” she hissed.
Ben sighed. “Look, if you want the crossbow, you can have the crossbow,” he said.
“Really?”
“Hell no!” He raised the weapon and leveled the bolt at her chest. “But you can have the arrow.”
“Stop this,” said Sarah, her soft voice taking on the slightest edge. Her sad eyes carried an eerie, grave weight. “You’re wasting time.”
“Sorry,” Ben and Annie mumbled in unison. Ben lowered the crossbow, and Annie stuck the pipe in her belt.
It was decided that Sarah would stay behind to guard the fort while the rest of them went in search of duffel bags and vengeance. “Stay close to the gate,” James warned. “There’s a good chance we’ll be coming in fast with the Carson gang on our tail.”
Sarah nodded, once. “I know.”
“You sure you’re gonna be okay here by yourself?” Ben asked.
She squinted at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Uh--I don’t--I just--”
“Ben’s just a chivalrous sort of creature,” Patrick said, throwing his good hand around Ben’s shoulder. “He meant no offense, heroine of Fort Doom.”
“I just--yeah,” Ben sighed. Someday, he was going to talk to a girl like a grown-up.
“I wish Amsalu were here,” Annie whined. “Just the sight of him, and Spiver wets himself.”
James nodded. “He picked a bad time to go rogue. But what we lack in intimidating immigrants, we’ll make up for in really hard swings of metal.”
“And leather!” Patrick cried, shaking the whip. “Really hard swings of leather.”
“Will you please take a weapon you know how to use?” Ben sighed.
“Absolutely not.”
“All right, everyone ready?” said James, rubbing his hands together excitedly. “Let’s go kick some ass.”
•
“Oo-lay for-tay paw-la-tay.”
“What did I just say?” Calico asked, hitting the monk in the jaw with an oak branch. “No more bullshit.”
“Please, there’s no reason for this,” said the head brother, wringing his hands nervously. “We’re happy to speak with you. I just ask that you have patience until we finish the ceremonious Birth of the Post-Alignment.” Calico glanced at the scrawny monk near the fire, who had stripped down to his underpants and was lathering himself with something that looked like egg whites. Another monk was applying the same shiny, slippery gel to an oval-shaped hole they’d hacked through the trunk of a tree.
“Piker, you ever know me to have much in the way of patience?” Calico asked, spitting a long, brown stream through his front teeth onto the head monk’s feet.
“I ain’t never knowed you to have any decent qualities,” Piker admitted.
“Shut the fuck up,” Calico said, smacking Piker in the forehead with the branch. The Red Cap fell like a sack of potatoes. “’Course, he’s got a point there, Brother Damnhell.”
“Brother Triedit,” the monk corrected him.
Calico’s blue eye twitched. “Don’t never correct me.”
“Yes, I’m sorry, of course. If we could just finish our ceremony, I’d be happy to--“
“I tell you what,” Calico interrupted. He stripped a thin twig from the branch and used it to pick at his teeth. “You stop talkin’ right now, or I’ll give you a sodomistic experience with this branch.” The monk gasped, then clamped his mouth shut. Calico wheeled around to the rest of the hooded assembly. “I need answers, but I’ll take smashin’ in faces just as quick,” he bellowed. “Two men came thisaway not too long back, a big-headed skinny one and a stupid-lookin’ small one.
I wanna know where they’s headed. We’ll start with you.” He pointed the branch at a dopy looking monk with nervous sweat dripping down his face. “What’s your name?”
“B-brother H-haffs-staff,” he gasped.
“Who the fuck names you people,” Calico muttered under his breath. “All right, Haffstaff. Where they headed?” The monk looked around at his brethren nervously, uncertain whether or not he should speak. Calico helped him make up his mind by hoisting the branch and cocking it like a baseball bat.
“Disney World!” the monk cried, closing his eyes and holding his hands up to block the blow. “They went to Disney World!”
Calico lowered the branch and eyed the monk suspiciously. “What the fuck they goin’ to Disney World for?”
“We don’t know,” piped up one of the monks down the line.
Calico whirled around to face him, a fire blazing in his eyes. “Bullshit.”
“Ahh!” The monk fell to the ground, cowering under Calico’s seething figure. “It’s true! They never said!”
“They didn’t, they didn’t,” agreed the other monks, bobbing their hoods from side to side. Brother Triedit said nothing, but averted his eyes to the ground.
Calico lowered the branch. Truth be told, it didn’t much matter if they knew the boys’ motives or not. He grinned widely, turning his sharp teeth toward the nodding brothers. “Y’all’ve been very helpful,” he hissed. He bashed them each in the head with the branch anyway, for good measure, then gathered the Red Caps and galloped southeast.
•
It only took them an hour or so to track Spiver down. After they came up empty in the Sanger, Annie led them to a small apartment building on Dauphin Street. “It’s one of his flophouses,” she said. “I followed him back here after he torched the FBI building that time.”
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