by Dan Padavona
Collecting bounties was a tough lot in any economy. But this one, as they say, was on the house. Loman, who had been on the run for nearly two weeks, had beat the hell out of his wife in Goodland, Kansas, leaving her in a coma as a parting gift to ten years of boozing and terror. That had been just a little too close to home for Viper, who still fell asleep to a fantasy of tossing his own old man through walls for all the times he had struck Viper’s mother. Dick Sanderson had taken the easy way out, choosing fatal cirrhosis over the pain that Viper would have laid upon him as an adult. And surely Dick had seen his son coming for him even at the age of twelve, those cold, blue eyes biding their time, waiting, planning.
And now there was Loman, six foot eight inches and 300 pounds of black-bearded jackass, probably lumbering up to the bar for a beer while his wife was hooked to a life support machine in Goodland.
“Time has come,” Viper said, stepping onto the sun-beaten blacktop.
Walking out of the Missouri sun into the bleakness of the bar, Viper could only see the garish lights of the jukebox against the far wall and the bar counter top, which glowed in the reflected sunlight caught off the mirror behind the bar. The vague rectangular outline of a pool table near the back of the bar. A vintage cash register behind the counter which had probably been here when the bad guys rode into town on horseback.
He couldn’t see Buddy, only the shadowed outlines of five men at the bar, bent over mugs. Creedence finished, segueing into the eight hi-hat shots that exploded into AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”
“Can I get you something?” the barkeep asked, watching Viper out of the corners of his eyes.
Viper prided himself on not being seen until he made a move on someone. But Buddy Loman had sensed eyes on his back all the way through Oklahoma and Missouri, and so he noticed that the rusty Chevy pickup in front of the bar was the same one parked across the street from his motel room last night. Buddy didn’t walk up to the counter upon entering. Instead he made a sharp turn to the right as soon as he safely merged with the bar’s gloom, his back pressed up against the wood paneled walls, waiting to see who was going to walk through that door.
The behemoth of a man came from behind Viper, fists balled and knuckles white.
But Viper wasn’t one of the most feared bounty hunters in the central and southern plains by chance. Behind the muscle and swagger was observation and attention to detail. Even before his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he perceived that none of the men at the bar looked close to Buddy’s size. His quarry must have hidden behind him. Viper was ready when the floorboards creaked.
“Looking for someone, boy?”
Viper spun around as Buddy swung. Viper ducked under the blow, feeling the breeze of Buddy’s sizable fist whistling over his head. With Buddy exposed, Viper landed an uppercut to his ribs. The big man stumbled two steps backward, a mix of shock and anger in his eyes.
The shock vanishing, Buddy Loman charged Viper like a rampaging bull. “You’re a dead man.”
Viper sidestepped the attack and landed three blows to Buddy’s back in rapid succession. Buddy fell into the bar, and the two men who were seated at those stools dove into the patrons to either side, spilling beer and popcorn.
“Time has come,” Viper said as Buddy spun to face him.
“I ain’t going to jail, and you ain’t man enough to bring me in.” Buddy balled his right fist, pulling his arm back as he prepared to deliver a roundhouse punch that would knock this bald-headed wise ass into next week. But Viper dodged the blow and countered with three quick jabs that caught Buddy’s nose flush. The first blow broke the nose. The next two turned the nose into a red pulp of meat fresh from the grinder.
“I don’t think you understand, Buddy. I don’t aim to take you to jail. I intend to whoop your candy ass from one end of this bar to the other and let the cops peel you off the floor with a spatula.”
A bloody waterfall poured from what was left of Buddy’s nose. When he tried to curse at Viper, it came out as something like, “Ruck Ooh.”
Nose or not, Buddy wasn’t about to back down. He lunged at Viper, bellowing like an injured elephant. Viper lowered his shoulder, and Buddy flipped over the top of him, crashing back first onto the pool table. The pool stick snapped. Three balls fell off the table and rolled toward opposite walls as though fleeing.
“You know, Buddy,” Viper said, standing beside the pool table where Buddy was outstretched like a beached whale. “You really shouldn’t have put your old lady in the hospital.” Buddy’s eyes rolled in his head, unfocused, as though his head was weighted down by bags of wet sand.
“She had it comin’”, Buddy said, spitting out a piece of molar.
Grabbing a second pool stick, Viper called his shot. “Jackass. Corner pocket.” He cracked the stick over Buddy’s chest.
Buddy screamed. “You know how it is. Fuckin’ whores. You gotta put ’em in their place,” Buddy said, wincing.
Viper saw red. The bloodied monster on the pool table became Dick Sanderson, and it was Viper’s mother laid up in a coma in Goodland. A switch flipped inside Viper’s head, and Buddy saw the those cold eyes wavering between controlled rage and madness, as though Viper was a grenade with the pin pulled. That made Buddy very frightened.
Viper grasped Buddy by the shirt collar, pulling him forward with his left hand while his right fist rained punches down on Buddy’s face. Buddy’s eyes kept rolling around in his head. The monster on the pool table lost consciousness, hanging limp like an oversized stuffed animal.
The bartender’s voice, begging Viper to stop before he killed Buddy, seemed far away, blending with the rock and roll roaring out from the jukebox.
Two silhouettes rushed out of the harsh Missouri sunshine into the bar. As Viper pulled his fist back to deliver another blow to Buddy’s purpled face, he felt his body cramp. An instant later he had the sensation of someone cracking a two-by-four across his back, and then he lay twitching on the floor as two cops holding Tasers stood over him, looking as though they had just bagged a fifty-point buck or reeled in the Loch Ness Monster.
“What the hell do we have here?” asked a tall, thin cop with reflective sunglasses that were quite unnecessary inside Davey’s. He carried a look of arrogance, and as he turned to his wide-eyed partner, a pudgy fellow with a boyish face, he said, “He looks like one of them ultimate fighter types.
“Hey, junior. You hearing me down there?”
Viper’s eyes turned glassy. His whole body trembled. The blurry images of the cops had doubled.
The thin cop kicked Viper in the ribs as his partner looked nervously away. “You chose the wrong town to beat somebody to death in a bar fight. But I gotta say, you got spunk…well, you had spunk. Wait until the boys down at the station get a load of you.”
They turned Viper over, cuffed his wrists behind his back, and yanked him to his feet. Viper couldn’t control his legs yet, and the two cops had to drag him out of the bar, down the steps, and into the car. A third cop buzzed past to deal with the remains of Buddy Loman, whose unconscious body hogged the pool table.
“Hell yes, we hooked a big one,” the thin cop said, starting the police car engine. The vehicle pulled out of the parking lot onto the loose stone road that led back into town, kicking up rocks that pinged against the underside of the police car like a calypso drum. Somewhere within that cacophony of noise, Viper had fallen asleep.
Behind the dentist office lawn, a buckled concrete sidewalk ran perpendicular to the police car, disappearing behind a row of trees fringed with the verdant bloom of late springtime. Viper grunted.
Crawling through the window with his hands still cuffed proved more difficult than expected. He managed to slip his right leg through the window, supporting himself with his hands on the sill. As he dropped down upon his right leg, his left leg, still in the car, wedged up at a 90-degree angle. His nuts clipped the sill real good, and black spots clouded his vision. His groin flooding with agony, he fell sideways, and his left leg
slipped through the window.
Free, Viper reassessed his situation. He no longer felt the effects of the Taser, but two prongs were stuck in his back, feeling like hornet stings. He should have run from the scene, but something told him that, crazy or not, nobody was coming to investigate the crash.
The underside of the police car was caught on a tree trunk leftover from a recent cutting. The front wheels were off the ground, spinning uselessly. Viper bent over, looking through the driver’s window.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
A key chain rested on the passenger seat where the fat cop had sat. Viper tried the handle and found the door unlocked. Slipping into the front seat, he pressed his foot down on the brake pedal and shifted the car into park. He snatched the key chain and sifted through about twenty keys until he found the one to unlock the cuffs. The locking mechanism sprang open.
“Thanks for doing me a solid, fatty. I owe you one.”
Placing the cuffs on the passenger seat, he started to get out of the car. That’s when he noticed the same pop country band was still on the radio, changing from one song to the next, as though an old school disc jockey had headed off to the john and left the CD to play unattended. He hit the scan button on the radio, hoping to find some Bible thumping zealot or maybe a death metal station as a parting gift for the kind officers who had given him a ride into town. But the radio kept catching on stations transmitting static and cold silence. Knowing he was pushing his luck, Viper slipped out of the car, took one more look around to see that no one took notice of the accident, and walked toward a suburban neighborhood, looking as inconspicuous as a muscular bald dude who had just taken a joyride over a tree trunk could.
Walking into the late afternoon sun past ma and pa shops that formed a smallish town center, Viper noticed another curiosity. All of the shops are empty. Sure, it was common for small town businesses to close shop at 5 pm on Saturdays. But why did all of the signs on the doors say OPEN, and why were the lights on? Even if the shops were closed, there were bound to be a few people on the sidewalks. Another quandary. The town center was lined with vehicles, yet the streets were deserted.
To his right was a brick-faced antique shop set upon a perfectly manicured lawn of deep green. A quaint concrete pathway lined with purple and pink geraniums wound invitingly to the shop entrance. A white sign hanging over the pathway welcomed visitors to the Exceptional Finds, the finest antiques in Brodus. Viper had never heard of Brodus, Missouri, but he felt damn confident that it was a one-antique shop town. Like the other shops, a YES, WE’RE OPEN sign hung in the front door. The shop appeared as deserted as the others.
Half a block up the road, overcome by curiosity, he decided to check out Antonio’s Pizza across the street. He looked both ways before crossing, but there wasn’t so much as the hum of a distant motor. Birds chittered away in the trees. A black Labrador dog wandered out from behind the pizza place, tongue lolling. The dog barked once-—a happy bark which said, Hey, I sure am glad to see you-—and Viper extended an open hand. The dog padded forward, sniffed Viper’s hand, and wagged his tail.
“Hey, boy. I’m new in town. Does this place serve authentic Italian pizza, or is Antonio’s real name Cletis?”
The dog cocked his head, whined, and padded back to where he had come from.
“That bad, eh? I guess I’ll take my chances.”
A red, neon sign in the window proclaimed Antonio’s was open for business. The outer walls were green and red, and the scent of perfectly browned crust was on the wind. Mouth watering and stomach growling, Viper entered Antonio’s.
Booths with green seat cushions lined the side walls. Round tables meant for two were scattered across the floor, though metal chairs were dragged to one table where four people had squeezed together for a meal. Upon two of the tables were large, uneaten pizzas. Full glasses of Cokes, beading with condensation that ran in rivulets across the tables, were set next to the plates.
“Hey. Anyone here?”
He stood listening to the deafening silence, knowing full well that nobody would answer. He strode to the metal counter. Behind the counter and to his left was a brick oven. Enclosed in glass beneath the counter was an assortment of red and green sweet peppers, long hot peppers, whole tomatoes and onions, homemade vinegars, and oils. The smells were intoxicating.
Turning away from the counter, he walked toward a table holding a thick crust pizza topped with sweet peppers and onions-—his favorite. He touched the crust. Still warm. He grabbed a slice and devoured it in five famished bites. He ate another slice, drank half a glass of Coke which was still cold, belched, and apologized to the missing guests for his bad manners. Then he grabbed a cardboard pizza box from a stack on the counter, threw the rest of the pizza in the box, and walked out the door.
The black lab was back, eying the pizza box in Viper’s hand and drooling.
“Sorry, my friend. You aren’t allowed to eat onions.” Viper opened the box and pulled off two handfuls of crust. “Here you go, pup.” The dog took the crust in his mouth and ran off.
The sun lowered, and Viper’s shadow elongated as it trailed him. He repeated the same procedure at three more shops-—-a mobile phone repair shop, a burger joint redolent of greasy fries, and a gas station mini mart. All were deserted, doors unlocked so anyone could take anything they wanted. But there’s nobody to take anything, is there? Inside the mini mart, he ditched the pizza box, went behind the counter and made himself a 12-inch roast beef sub with all the fixings. He stuffed a dozen health food bars into his pockets.
Glancing up at the oval mirror in the corner, behind which was a security camera, he smiled and raised his middle finger. Half the state was probably looking for him for escaping from the police car—
No really, your honor. The officers waited until I was asleep, and then they jumped out of a moving vehicle and laughed their asses off while I bounced off a tree. Real funny bunch of officers you have in this here town of Brodus. They sure pulled a fast one on ole Viper, yessiree.
—so what difference did it make if he was caught on videotape filching a hoagie? Besides, times were about to get tough, and maybe he needed a little charity. You can’t eat corn on the cob without teeth, and you can’t make a living as a bounty hunter when there aren’t any bad guys left to hunt.
Has the entire world vanished, or just Brodus? One thing was for sure: walking would get old, fast. So when he noticed the empty Highlander sitting beside the pumps with the keys still in the ignition, he accepted one more gift from Brodus.
He drove across miles of empty farmland with the bloody sun in his rear view mirror, past silos that stood like silent giants, weaving around the occasional shell of an abandoned automobile. Pressed against the road like advancing walls, fields of corn, sorghum, and wheat flourished without need for farmers and their machines.
Halfway to the Gateway Arch of St. Louis, the sun was a distant memory below the western horizon. A stranded vehicle rested on the shoulder every few tenths of a mile, gleaming in the starlight like metallic boulders. Now and then he came upon a vehicle in the road, requiring him to jerk the Highlander’s steering wheel to avoid a collision. A few of the vehicles still ran, their taillights like glowing embers. But nobody sat behind their wheels.
Viper’s mouth went dry as cotton. He was alone in the world, and for the first time in his adult life, he had no goddamn idea what to do.
He did the only thing he could think to do. He kept driving, searching for signs of life in a dead world.
CHAPTER THREE
The Dagger of Geldon
The blood-red sun perched over a copse of spruce trees along the Minnesota-South Dakota border, and in the failing light, the valley appeared bathed in gore. A cool breeze blew down from the foothills and agitated the tall grass, crooning like a dirge through the fiery, desolate meadow.
Among the sweet-scented conifers, he stood with his hand resting upon an ornate dagger hilt, blending in with the advancing darkne
ss. The forest floor was black and fecund. From the copse to the meadow, the worn paths of hikers and hunters were non-existent. One could be truly alone in unsullied country such as this, which was the reason Joshua Geldon traveled here so frequently.
Dr. Joshua Geldon was due back at the University of Minnesota Medical Center Sunday morning, but he would not return tomorrow nor ever again. Sometime between 4 PM and 5 PM central standard time, Dr. Joshua Geldon ceased to exist. While hunting through the needled boughs, he felt a ripple in the air, like silent music pounding out of a stereo speaker. He fell to his knees, feeling the chill of the damp, woodlands floor bleeding through denim and into his skin.
Since the day he had turned twenty-years-old, he had dreamed of this day. Now, at the age of 51, the day had finally come. Initially, he felt an urge to rush home and gather whatever supplies he needed for his journey. But there was no reason to hurry. Pulling the black windbreaker hood over his head, he moved silently through the trees for the next three hours, delighting in his ability to stalk within five steps of a deer before his presence was sensed. Fingering the dagger hilt, he imagined sliding the weapon free of the sheathe. In the split second it would have taken the deer to react to the danger, he could have plunged the point into its torso or ripped the blade across its neck. He crept close enough to the animal to lay his cold hand upon its skin.
The doctor was dead. At the same time, Joshua Geldon had never been so alive.
The deer’s doll eyes opened wide. It bounded into the brush, fleeing from the hawk-nosed apparition that was Joshua Geldon.