Death is Not Forever (Barefield Book Book 3)

by Trey R. Barker

  “You shoved him into a van with some cartel boys.”

  “Somebody’s been talking outta school,” JD yelled. “Who’d you track down? Tommy-Blue? Fucking raggedy coward. He doesn’t have any idea what happened, he ran away, tail tucked deep in his pussy!”

  “Talked to both of them...Tommy-Blue and Andy. They told me it was all you.”

  Bean yanked the shotgun’s trigger. The gun barked and jumped and the table wobbled. He fired again and the second shot took out the table’s far edge. Like maybe a gila monster had taken a bite from the table. His shots peppered the far wall, buckshot spreading like splashed water as he swung the gun on its wire hook, trying to get a bead on Jim Dell.

  “You’re fucking crazy, you old goat. They’re junkies...like you. What the fuck do they know from nothing. They’re dead-ends. I made my life a success. I’m protecting the Governor now, Bean. You’re eating junk, shooting it into your veins, and I’m protecting God, State, and Governor.”

  Jim Dell dashed table to table, trying to work his way closer to Bean.

  “Think those tables’ll save you, Jim Dell?”

  “Don’t need saving, motherfucker, just need one good shot.”

  “Like the shot you took at her?” Bean growled and jerked the shotgun out of the wire holding it to the table. He shoved all the extra founds in his pocket.

  “How could I shoot her when I was on the floor covered in my own blood?”

  Bean tried to spot a path closer to Jim Dell that didn’t leave him exposed. Near the door was the jukebox. Holding the shotgun in one hand, he tried to roll the round table with him to give him cover long enough to get there.

  Great, now I’m in a cheap action flick.

  “Goddamnit, Bean, she tried to kill me.”

  “Mariana tried to kill you?”

  “What?” The shooting stopped for a moment, a long breath. “Uh...Judge? She’s dead. Or did your little junkie brain forget?”

  Bean emptied the shotgun, firing wildly, blindly, hoping to tear JD’s face off or rip his heart straight out of his chest.

  Not only are JD and I not on the same page...I’m not even sure we’re in the same fucking book.

  When the shotgun emptied, JD poked his head carefully above the edge of one of the overturned tables. Reloading as fast as he could, Bean caught a glimpse of JD. His hat was cock-eyed and one of the 1911s sat uncomfortably in his hand, as though he’d never held a gun before. The Ranger fired randomly, one shot toward the ceiling the other toward the wall opposite Bean.

  “You’re shooting crazy, JD.”

  Jim Dell fired again. His bullets continued high and wide, like a major league pitcher who finds his control suddenly gone.

  “You’re wasting rounds, JD. Get a sight picture. Shoot slow. Yanking the trigger like that...you’ll never hit me.

  The firing stopped. Silence clanged down over the place.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Jim Dell raised his head and watched Bean roll the table. “You’re teasing me? Apparently you ain’t noticed...I’m trying to kill you.”

  “Funny because I’m trying to kill you, too.”

  The unfamiliar woman laughed loud, a gigantic sound that boomed through the joint. She’d ducked behind the bar but now kept a watchful gaze using what was left of the shot-up bar mirror.

  Dust filled the air. Holes peppered every wall, the ceiling, all the tables. Most of the windows were gone, though a tiny one near the far side had managed to get through unscathed. The hanging doors were shot to pieces, bits of ruined wood hanging from the hinges.

  Jim Dell disappeared again and Bean heard him pop the empty magazines out and shove full ones in. Bean took the opportunity to make sure his cannon was ready to go. “Jim Dell, what the hell is going on?”

  “I can hear you loading,” Jim Dell said.

  Bean shoved shells into the breech with fingers that refused to work properly. Rounds hit the floor, rolled beyond the cover of the table. He tried jamming others in backward.

  The picture of JD bothered him. There was something else, too, that wasn’t quite clear enough to register. Like seeing it through an alcohol haze.

  Or the eyes of an old man hit with the family madness.

  “Jim Dell, let’s—”

  The Ranger started shooting again. The bar filled with noise and cordite, with the stench of burned gunpowder and the clink of spent brass.

  Jim Dell’s rounds were still going high, killing the bar’s wall and windows.

  “He ain’t up there,” the unknown woman said, laughing. “Ain’t nobody but God up that high.”

  “What happened in the van, JD? Where’d you take Zapata? What did the cartels give you for him?”

  Another three rounds hammered the thick table. Bean stuck the shotgun out around the side of the table and fired twice just as he slipped behind the jukebox. He had no idea where they went.

  “Fuck you, Bean.”

  When Jim Dell fired again, it was from a totally different angle and with a different sound. Higher pitched. The bullets slammed into the jukebox and plastic shards exploded and stung Bean’s face. He hit the ground hard, to the far side of the jukebox, whipped the shotgun around, and fired behind him.

  At Reuter. Her face was twisted and angry, finger working overtime on her trigger.

  Jim Dell laughed from in front of Bean.

  “Ain’t over there, boy. But I’m coming for ya now.”

  Bean swiveled the gun and fired toward Jim Dell’s voice. Obviously the guy was moving quick so when Bean ran for the cover of the bar, he sprayed buckshot everywhere, shooting whichever direction the gun happened to be pointing when he pulled the trigger.

  Bean dove behind the bar just as Reuter went behind the jukebox and Jim Dell ran for who knew what but tripped. He hit the floor hard, busting a lip, and the missing piece of the picture bit on Bean’s brain again.

  The uncreased pants. The dirt and blood. The askew hat. The random comments.

  Bean fired toward Jim Dell to keep him moving, then loosed another shot toward Reuter over his shoulder. His chest heaved, breath hot and liquid in his throat.

  Reuter shot at Bean three or four times.

  “You ask me for a judgment and then shoot at me?” Bean said.

  “You ain’t giving away my money.”

  “You gotta pay, he said so.” Thomas’ voice. High and scared.

  “How about I pay this?” she said.

  She fired once, clean and tight and Thomas’ whine stopped just before Bean heard a thud on the floor.

  The tattooed woman was behind the bar with him, though he had no idea when she’d hidden here. Down on the floor, and with most of the light fixtures blown out, there was little light. What sunshine made it this far was saturated with dust. He was barely able to see her.

  “Do you have a gun?” Bean asked.

  “Not in the bar. If I did, people’d be dead.”

  “Uh...as long as it’s the right people, I guess.”

  Jeremiah? Honey, I think—

  Not right now, Mariana, I’m a little busy.

  But—

  Babe, please. In a few minutes.

  The woman pointed toward Jim Dell and Gladys and put a double-barreled finger gun against her head. “Pop pop. His and hers Divinely-directed matching headshots.”

  As though unperturbed by her threats, Jim Dell shot out the last of the mirror. Shards rained down, peppering both the woman and Bean. Most of the pieces came down on Bean’s cowboy hat and tinkled harmlessly to the floor. The woman had two bleeding cuts on her arm. With no hesitation, she sucked the blood off, which left a blood mustache smeared on her upper lip.

  “Getting to be a shitty day, Mariana.”

  The woman’s eyes flashed.

  Yes, it is, Jeremiah.

  “Seems like everyone wants me dead.”

  Yes.

  “I’m tired.

  Yes.

  “And I miss you.”

  I miss you, Jeremiah, my
love.

  “So Jim Dell was the one?” Bean asked. “The one you saw coming for me?”

  Beneath Jim Dell’s shooting, Mariana was silent.

  In that silence, Bean realized what had been bothering him. It wasn’t just JD’s scuffed boots or his bloody pants or his crooked hat. His shirt was also different. It wasn’t the deluxe-starched, button-down, boring-ass white thing the Rangers all wore.

  “Son of a bitch.” Bean sat back, stunned. “Jim Dell...what’s going on?”

  Two or three random shots banged against the front of the bar.

  “Well...think I’m’a kill you.”

  “They all trying to kill you, ain’t they?” the bloody woman asked in a whisper. “What’d you do to piss all these people off? Everybody got a grudge.”

  “It’s not everybody,” Bean said. “Just him.”

  “Prodigal Ranger comes home?” She laughed. “Coming home for some reckoning.”

  “Jim Dell,” Bean said. “What’d you get from the cartels? Money? Drugs?”

  JD laughed. “That’s your thing, not mine.”

  “What’d you get? Why’d you deliver Zapata to them?” But then a different question occurred to Bean. “Jim Dell, where’s your badge?”

  Laughing, Jim Dell blasted off a volley of shots. “Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter, aren’t we? I’m flying a black fucking flag, baby.”

  “So you’re...unemployed?”

  “Since this all came up again? Fuck, yeah, I am.”

  This was bad...real bad.

  31

  Shit.

  Black fucking flag, baby.

  “He ain’t a Ranger no more?” the woman asked. “Well, ain’t that too bad.?”

  Jim Dell had been a Ranger since Moses came down that fucking mountain in his robe and holding the first set of unreasonable laws. That Jim Dell was no longer a Ranger left Bean’s world titled.

  Mariana, why didn’t you tell me it would get this fucked up?

  And how could I know that, Jeremiah?

  You told me someone was coming for me, someone who wanted to do me harm. But when I just asked you if JD was who you dreamed of, you said nothing.

  No, Jeremiah, I don’t think it’s JD.

  And another girl to get home? Damnit, Mariana, how much more?

  I love you, Jeremiah, but I don’t know everything.

  Well, what the fuck good is Heaven if you can’t know every—

  Shut your mouth! Jeremiah, I love you but I will beat your ass if you blaspheme.

  With bullets flying around, thunking the bar, shattering every last bottle of booze and every window, Bean felt a sense of relief. If he stood up, gave Jim Dell a clear aim, then he’d be able to let his dead wife open her can of whoop ass.

  He wanted nothing more than to see her. It had been so long since she died, so long since he’d had any real family. Not politicians and criminals, thugs and junkies in shooting galleries, but someone who loved him and wanted to protect him.

  Jeremiah, you aren’t done yet. You can’t stand up and let him shoot you. You have something else to do yet.

  Damnit, Mariana, I don’t have to do shit. You hear me? I don’t have to—

  Jeremiah, stop it.

  —do a damn thing I don’t want to. There isn’t any damned make believe fairy in the sky deciding who does what. And if He is, then—

  Jeremiah!

  —FUCK HIM. If He’s in charge, then why’d He take you from me? Why’d He make all my people crazy? Why the fuck did He make me give my daughter away?

  An explosion of gunfire answered him. And only the gunfire. Mariana was gone, as he’d known she would be. She always left during his childish tantrums, let him stew in his anger and realize he’d been a complete asshole.

  The woman with the bloody face stared at him, concern now traced in the blood. “Uh...you okay, dude?”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  She shrugged. “Nobody ain’t nobody.”

  “Whatever.” Bean tried to ignore the pain in his heart for having blasphemed Mariana’s God. Though his lack of belief was devout, he had never thrown his disbelief in her face. “I’m sorry, Mariana.”

  “Bean,” Jim Dell said. “You dead yet?”

  Bean tore open one of the many boxes of extra shells behind the bar, jammed five rounds in the shotgun, and stood. “Fuck. Off.” His voice boomed over the bar and he hung the trigger until the gun clicked empty.

  His ears rang, smoke hung heavy in his face. His shoulder hurt from not holding the gun tightly enough.

  “Lookit that.” Jim Dell’s voice bled excitement. “Gotcha now, mofo.”

  “Get to it, then.”

  But the bloody woman changed it. She yanked on Bean’s empty holster and hauled him to the floor. He crashed to his ass, bit through the tip of his tongue, and growled at her just as Jim Dell blasted away with both 1911s.

  Explosions, shots that seemed so much louder than they had moments earlier, tore the bar’s air, left it ragged and stinking the stench of cordite and the tang of blood and piss and the shit of dead men voiding themselves. The concussion from each shot thundered against Bean’s chest, like a repeated kicking from a school yard bully. Glass shards—mirror bits, window bits, chunks of liquor bottles—pelted Bean and the woman.

  And still the guns fired. Round after round after round. Was Jim Dell a fucking magician? Could he make rounds appear from thin air?

  “Stop.” Bean was exhausted. Not from lack of sleep, not from too many late-night poker games, not from fighting with Bassi or Tommy-Blue or Andy and his gun thug, but from everything, going back years and years. From Mariana being dead, from Angela being dead, from his father losing his mind and dying bloody in the desert. From his grandmother taking her own life and drinking her own blood while she did it. He was tired from everything and he wanted it all to end.

  Now.

  “Stop. No more.”

  Jim Dell screeched a laugh but kept shooting.

  “Stop it.” Bean’s voice boomed, louder even than at Johnny’s, yet impotent in the teeth of so much noise. “No more.”

  “Judge?” the woman said.

  “Jim Dell, we’re done. Whatever you think I’ve done, and I’ve done plenty, we’re done here. You shot Mariana. I know it, you know it. I can cash it in now that I know that. You were getting paid by the cartels, you gave them Zapata, Mariana found out, you tried to kill her. When that didn’t work, you came up with the bullshit story you guys fed the media. Well done. Well played. You win all the marbles. Now you can have me.”

  “You are totally batshit crazy, aren’t you?” Jim Dell asked. “Talking completely out of your ass.”

  The woman covered Bean, pressed him deep into the stained floor behind the bar. “Shhhhh...Hell cain’t go on much longer than forever.”

  But it could, couldn’t it? It could go on from a birth night until a death night. It could continue on eternally in a man’s head because there was nothing else to fill it except madness.

  “He’ll be done, run outta them bullets unless he knows the Kennedys and then we’ll get him. Okay? We’ll get him. We’ll tear his head off and shit down his—”

  When the world exploded, her words were lost. There was a piercing, high-pitched whine, then a short yelp, and the crash of the bar coming apart at the seams. Wood and glass, sheetrock, beer signs, parts of the jukebox. All of it in missle-like projectiles. Flying everywhere, bursting through what little glass was left in the windows.

  A tornado? Fuck, I didn’t even hear the storm.

  “Son of a bitch.” Bean tried to shove the woman off.

  “No,” she said. “Stay here, I’ll protect you. I’m magic.”

  Pieces of chairs, parts of tables, crashed against the back wall, where the mirror had once been and crashed down on their heads. The woman covered Bean’s head with her hands and arms, both suddenly spouting blood spots from cuts. Bean shoved her beneath the bottom shelf of the bar.

  “I’
m the only safe place you have right now.”

  Jim Dell’s triumphant howls disappeared beneath the tornado’s scream. His shots stopped suddenly.

  Did the tornado snatch his guns?

  Or maybe it did Bean a favor and snatched the fucker right outta the bar, guns, dirty hat and all. Maybe Jim Dell was flying through the west Texas sky headed for a stray cow or something. Maybe the tornado would shove his head deep into the cow’s ass.

  Goat impaled on the front of a truck, anyone?

  Bean opened his mouth to laugh but—

  —Nothing.

  Dead silence. As sudden as the tornado had struck, it was gone. Air full of debris and dust, dirt and the smell of destruction.

  But no sound.

  Am I dead, Mariana?

  Didn’t I promise you an ass-beating if you died?

  Yes, ma’am.

  Are you getting said ass-beating?

  No, ma’am.

  Then obviously...

  Mariana...I’m so sorry.

  Hush, Jeremiah. I love you, even when you’re an asshole.

  His heart dead in his chest, Bean motioned to the woman to stay put. Her face was still bloody, but now also crusted with dirt. She nodded as he crawled out and carefully peeked around the corner of the bar.

  The bar was gone. Some blasted by gunfire, the rest by...

  “Fuck me running,” Bean said.

  ...by Digger and his ’75 Nova.

  He was still behind the wheel of the car...which sat at an angle with its front bumper hooked on the far corner of the bar.

  “Digger?” Bean didn’t see Jim Dell at all. Nor anyone else. “You dead?”

  Digger shook his head. “No, but I might’a pissed myself.”

  “So you were trying to get to the bathroom?” Bean clambered over the bar’s wreckage to the car.

  “Jim Dell was going to kill you. I couldn’t shoot him. I kept missing.” He turned away from the Judge’s gaze. “I was trying, Judge, I really was.”

  “Digger?”

  “Judge, I’m sorry but I just couldn’t get him. He was moving so fast. Hiding behind the tables and everywhere else. I just couldn’t hit him.”

  Was the man crying? Bean had never seen him like this. “Digger, you did your best. That’s all I ever asked.”