by Ron Charach
—Please! Please! Don’t shoot! wheezes Gomez, doin’ a feeble break-dance, arms ’n legs twitchin’ as he looks straight into cabana’s bloodshot agates. In a second galloway steps between cab and Gomez, tryin’ to hustle the disabled guard into the tin shed. Gomez trips over his own feet and stumbles into the tiny space as two shots pop neatly through harold galloway’s white-shirted back.
cabana reaches into the shed, screams ringin’ in the tight space—and in the gadawfullest loud noise that ever rung out in a confine, John Gomez is shot straight through, the bullet ricochetin’ an’ nabbin’ cabana’s right arm.
Lookin’ pissed off even fo’ him, cabana lopes away, his gun hand holdin’ his bloodied right arm—the daze of havin’ shot his maker slowly dawnin’.
bad news
Henry awakens from his daily afternoon nap—two or three hours at a stretch some afternoons—a nap that leaves him wide-eyed and unable to sleep at night.
News from Sheila Gordon, who rushes over with Arlene, the two of them frantic about bein’ unable to reach Rose. —He’s dead! harold is dead. And the combinations and master plans gone with him.
Henry don’t budge, just pulls the cover of his cot over his ear and listens.
—He must have tried to escape, because he was shot through the back—by his guard, Anita Gomez’s husband John.
Morgan can’t see his old “friend” Zwyxy taking a risk like that. galloway warn’t cut out for great escapes... But he jest lies there and savors his right to stay out of it.
—Somehow, harold managed to also kill Gomez—with Gomez’s own gun.
What? A shot-from-behind galloway wrestlin’ away the gun of a powerful guard? Or what? galloway gettin’ hold of Gomez’s gun, shootin’ him, but somehow losin’ the gun to a strugglin’ Gomez who still has enough power left to pump him twice? Fancy-full scenarios.
—As for Gomez, his poor wife couldn’t even identify him, because he was shot up close through the face.
Henry Morgan swings his legs round. Stands up bare-chested and in blue jeans, startlin’ the three good women. —Only one thing kills like that.
Claire mouths the c-word.
The others nod. Henry Morgan rises, splashes water on his face near the little sink and mirror, straps on his droopy gun belt and walks out the front exit of the little apartment for the first time since he’d been brought there from the infirmary. Claire don’t call Wait! after him—she jest sits down with Arlene and Sheila Gordon beside her, each of them shakin’ their heads and wonderin’ if the last of the big eight is set to ride again.
But Henry is back in a minute. Walks right by them to his bedstand to open a bottle, countin’ out eight or nine nitros into a little aspirin tin that he slides into the back pocket of his jeans. —Extra rounds, he winks as he tramps out a whole lot slower than he used to, but standin’ straight for the first time since he lost his battle with ma’s ungodly deep-freeze.
in search of cabana
The key is to find cabana before meetin’ up with john gideon and his men. If he’s to resonate with the vibes cabana puts out, he had best clear his mind—though he might also have to talk john gideon out of killin’ him.
He has a hunch cabana will revisit galloway’s bunker, around the same place he—as the once-mighty henry—used to lie in wait for galloway—the very spot where galloway would be if he were still runnin’ the show. But there are few hidin’ places near that part of the dome and no way of gettin’ through those thick steel trapdoors that hold the remains of the old civilization—if’n you lack the proper com-bine-ation.
It’s crazy to be out here. gideon’s likely sent a few men to comb the settlement for cabana—but the head of Henry Morgan might do fine in a pinch. gideon likely figures cab would leave the sealed portion of the complex to risk the radiation outside—the way big ned often did.
What’s more: if Henry is spotted by a townie and the word gets out that he’s gettin’ ’round again, there might be rumors that he, and not cabana, had tried to free galloway—with the two of them killin’ John Gomez in the process. But it’s only several hundred yards of pipe and then a brief walk at ground level to get to galloway’s bunker, and he figures he c’n manage it—if he pops a nitro every couple hundred yards. He lies on the ground alongside a pipe seam, recovers his strength, and ever so quietly tunes in—for cabana.
encounter
But Henry can’t reach galloway’s bunker—and it ain’t his heart, but his legs that stop him cold. Shootin’ pains up his calves—both of them—ya c’n only walk so far on legs that have been idle for days. He’s been back to “rollin’ pills”—homemade ciggies—dippin’ back into the stash ole harold galloway laid on him after galloway himself quit, “for vaping only,” and this return to the old habit, while it helps his mood, don’t help his legs none. So he’s forced to take a nitro and jest stand and rest a while—which makes him a target for both former friend and foe.
By the time he reaches the heavy steel door—three nitros later—he feels whoozy, near to passin’ out. Pourin’ sweat and wishin’ he had put on more than just a shirt and vest, his teeth begin to chatter. Memories of ma’s larder.
And there, about a hundred yards ahead of him, looking live as fresh bait, is Rose. He c’n see her walkin’ slowly towards him and he knows that if he’s gonna repay his “debt” to her in full, this is his chance. She too is carryin’ some kind of piece—a small pistol affair he can’t identify at this range. Is she out huntin’ too?
—Henry! she calls. —What’re you doing out here...
—Catchin’ my death, he calls back—then feels his legs shake ’n go rubbery as he collapses in a heap jest outside galloway’s bunker, his head narrowly missin’ the metal trapdoor. When he comes to—he still feels clammy, but not as weak an’ his head is in Rose’s lap. She and Arlene, who is also wearin’ a gun on a makeshift kind of belt-holster—had somehow walked, dragged or carried him back to Claire’s.
Women with guns. Wet dream of Wayne LaPierre.
deposition
They lay Henry’s failin’ body across a cot at Claire’s. Rose draws a basinful of warm water and drops a hand towel into it while Arlene pulls a sheet borrowed from the hospital up over his shiverin’ form. He remains silent—except for once mutterin’ What’s the use—as he looks up at the concerned faces of the women millin’ about him.
As she sets water on to boil, Rose remembers somethin’. Somethin’ she’d noticed as the women hauled a gaunt but deadweight Henry back to the apartment. The out-the-corner-of-one-eye apparition happened about forty or fifty yards down the pipe—somethin’ shaped like a vat. But with a hat. A vat with a hat. She did a double-take then, but with the weight of half of Henry Morgan to support, didn’t dare bring it to Arlene’s attention. It was as if somethin’ wouldn’t let her do that.
—I saw him! It! she stammers to Arlene and Claire. —cabana’s out there! And before the others c’n even react, there’s a dull dead thud of a knock on the door, like a dead fist landin’.
—Make like Henry’s dead! she tells the others. —Don’t ask—just do it! Battle stations…
—One moment, honey, darlin’, Rose drawls sweetly, wavin’ Claire away, but instead of headin’ for the door, she heads for the cupboard—sweepin’ a bottle of ketchup and squirtin’ a big blob of it into her basin of water. In the same motion she throws the mess of it on the covers over Henry and pulls the drippy sheet over his face. Arlene and Claire stand back in a frozen posture. The door strains at its hinges and comes crashin’ to the floor, narrowly missin’ Arlene’s foot. Fillin’ the emptied doorway is cabana—his huge gray arms streaked with dried blood—with the eyes of a bewildered desert animal.
A menacin’ grin spreads across his face as Miz Cahluh begins to wail, indicatin’ the bloody sheet over Henry’s body: —Dead, cab, Henry’s dead!! And john gideon says yo’re next!! Yo’re
the last of the eight, cab!
cabana jest smiles out from under his sweat—licks a canine and moves forward to inspect the cadaver of his former rival. He registers a long pale arm hanging limp from the bed. And a whole mess o’ red.
Rose throws her arms around his granite shoulders and puts her cheek to his slate face: he backs up a might, his face recoilin’ an’ his arms takin’ up the blockin’ stance of a samurai. He lifts the huge door while the women look on in terror—he’s lookin’ like he might just heave it at the remains of Morgan—but then sets it down at an angle in the doorway, backs slowly out into the tunnel—and is gone.
Rose sits down on a chair as Arlene and Claire each place a hand on her back—drained and relieved.
—amos used to say that chocolate sauce made great blood in the days of black-and-white films, says Rose.
—I could go for some of that, says a thin voice from under the covers, startlin’ the women, who don’t know whether to laugh or cry. —Ah’m beginnin’ t’feel like a freedom fry.
Shots ring out and four hearts are pounding.
Rose hadn’t been the only one to spot cabana earlier. gideon’s men were on his trail, and were there to welcome him at the exit to the tunnel system.
a deal
When john gideon and his men step through the empty doorway of Claire’s apartment with smokin’ guns drawn, they nearly back out at the sight of a ghostly white Henry Morgan sittin’ up on his cot with a bloodied sheet around his waist. The men fill the room with their autumn bulkiness, as the women circle around Morgan as if to protect him.
Says Henry to gideon: —I still walk the land of the living... albeit with a little help from my friends.
The al-be-it is in response to gideon’s outfit. gideon wears a bulky tweed overcoat with a blue blazer, a black sweater, and a white dress shirt worn backwards under it all—to give the effect of a preacher’s collar. His thinnin’ hair is slicked back with some kind of gel. Morgan is surprised that none of gideon’s men look like they’re in drug withdrawal; instead they seem hopped up, energetic—game.
gideon must have coaxed out of galloway the locations of the drug caches outside galloway’s personal bunker. Might even have managed to obtain access to the bunker itself. If that is true, then what did he and Rose and Arlene and Claire—or The Girls, as he’s begun to think of this new gang of four—have left to bargain with? A sheet full of numbers…
The preacher pulls up an empty chair, turns it to face him, and straddles it. —Well, Morgan, you look depleted—but not too grave, given the apparent blood loss. Sniffs the stale room air. —What’re you guys doin’—a ketchup commercial? His men snicker and laugh and the women try to look amused. They know to keep still when gideon holds court.
—Well, Morgan, we have your pal cabana on the run.
—Sounded like you got him pretty good. Ambush-style.
—Well, we keep grazin’ him, but he don’t go down easy. Not like the next-to-last member of the eight.
—galloway’s dead, says Morgan.
—We can’t claim credit for that one.
—Show a little heart, mr. christian revival. This woman here happens to be his sister, says an exhausted Henry.
—Listen, con-valescent, my heart’s not nearly as bleedin’ as yours. As for these collaboratin’ harridans, they’ll be lucky if they find grace with me and manage to stay alive.
He continues: —Now you women had best go and look after preparin’ some meals for my men. As of today, Claire and Arlene, you will remain with me to look after my personal needs. Rose will attend to the needs of my household. He looks Arlene up and down as he says this.
—No, says Henry Morgan, my wife stays here, and Arlene—who’s actually like my own daughter—goes on living by herself, as she has been doing.
gideon grins. —Ain’t three women a bit rich for a soft-shell-crab senior like yourself?
—Let’s cut a deal, gideon. A deal involving the women too. Claire and Rose and Arlene exchange looks—surprised as gideon is, even as Henry is, to hear him speak with any of the old authority.
—It’ll be an exchange. A disarmament by you and your men, and the settin’ up of an election—with women’s votes countin’ the same as men’s.
gideon laughs. —And I presume that cabana will also throw down his guns and come in on this little deal?
—I thought about that. We’ll allow your men, and whatever town faction that opposes you, to hang on to a couple of guns each side—let the community keep a look-out for cabana. The right to a well regulated militia, and all that… But we don’t need more than a couple of guns each side. Henry realizes as he says this that a recent effort to limit gideon to two bullets in a single gun hadn’t fared too well.
—You really want to turn back the clock, don’t you Henry? To the days of disarmament treaties and “Mutual Assured Destruction” and all that garbage; as if it worked then. As if it could work. Oh, yesss, we have two rifles and they have two rifles—so that jest about ought to keep us out of each other’s hair—right? Bullshit! At least galloway had the good sense to know that the only way to run a society is to keep things hoppin’—keep everyone too busy or too scared to ponder all the “Big Questions,” which only cause them to band together in idealistic movements up to no good: the ecology movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the occupy movement—anythin’ just to evade our core christian values.
—If you don’t like “movements,” why dress up as a preacher? The voice is Arlene’s. Henry signals her to shut up.
john gideon pulls his gun and slowly aims it in an arc at each of Arlene’s breasts. He cocks the trigger, then aims towards the ground, firin’ a shot just shy of her foot. She flinches and cries out. He continues: —You’re a mite too pretty to kill, Miss Cahluh, but we do ask you to bottle up your cleverness—the way you once did. You keep on purrin’…
Henry flinches worse than Arlene and asks Claire to hand him some of those nitros, which gideon allows...
—Another thing galloway knew, says gideon, was how to keep everybody happy, and ever since he’s been dead there’s a lot of us here in town that are a mite irritable, havin’ to take on the world with nothin’ but booze for a cushion. Me and my boys here have decided that the power of faith does as well as booze—but some of my townie deputies do miss the manna pappy harold made fall from heaven.
—Well, gideon, I can help. I’ll provide the combination to galloway’s bunker and lessons in some of his surveillance equipment that I picked up during my visits to the bunker. That’ll go a ways to helpin’ you deal with the cabana problem... You guys get the run of what little is left of “the good life” around here—in exchange for some general peace and lettin’ folks work out a way of tryin’ to be happy enough under strained conditions.
—’Til the food runs out? jeers gideon. —We plan to ration some of these townie mutations—if only to extend the food supply as long as we can. What does happen when we run out of food?
—Then it’s time to test the limits of life outside the complex. But we need to do it as one people—men and women together, able-bodied or not.
—All Children of Israel, nods gideon. —And this “disarmament” of yours—who’s going to carry it out, the UN? He laughs and his men uneasily join in.
—galloway kept a strict count of existin’ weapons including those that ended up in the hands of townies and “unauthorized big eight candidates.” So, I think if we had a great big pile of guns turned in we’d be able to figure out which ones were still missin’—start conductin’ searches and announce that no drugs and no other goodies will be given out to anybody ’til every gun is turned in.
As he talks, Henry Morgan’s hands and arms begin to pink up. Rose indicates this to Claire, who finds herself again drawn to the grayin’ eminence now negotiatin’ with gideon.
An agin’ calm and confidence have replaced the old empty swagger. He may have little control over his life, but he has a renewed sense of how to tap the power of others.
—You know, Morgan, I reckon me and my boys could induce you to hand over some of this special knowledge you have, without having to sell the farm to get it...
—What’re you talkin’, gideon? Torture...? You look at this face of mine. I reckon I’ve finally earned the title white man. You really think torture will work, on a ticker like mine? Besides, you start torturin’ folks, you lose legitimacy. I don’t know that Doc Halverson will work for torturers.
—What’s he got that you ain’t got? taunts gideon. As fer these “free elections” you want, Morgan—you wouldn’t be thinkin’ o’ runnin’ in them, now would you?
—I have no such intention. Maybe Rose Seeton would like to, though. She pampered the eight, but only in an effort to contain them. Did her brother a real favor. I reckon we all owe her somethin’ for that. Anyway, gideon, I’m pretty sure that you would get most of the town’s votes—if only ’cause you’ve always been the biggest and strongest and, ’cept for Halverson, the smartest of the townsfolk. But let’s scale down the power thing some. Let’s not just do another harold galloway.
—How about I go along with the disarmament and the elections—it’s the great American way—but not the women votin’ idea...which is not how I interpret Scripture.
—What do you have against the women, gideon? You afraid we might organize against you? challenges Rose.