Killer Be Killed (The Frontier Book 1)

by Travis E. Hughes

  He stood in the tent’s center, examining faces. She kept hers low when his eyes passed her direction. She had no way of knowing if he’d moved on, or if he’d made her. That’s when she realized she had shit for a plan. What the fuck was wrong with her? Dare she look up again? After a pregnant minute, she gave her head a quick turn. He wasn’t where he had been. She began to spin back the other direction when she heard the gun charge up and felt its metal against the back of her head.

  “Yo, you’re Drago’s ex, aren’t you?” Muscles asked in a loud whisper. The gamblers on either side of her cashed out and moved away. But most of them still remained within viewing distance.

  Roslyn released a long sigh and closed her eyes briefly. Then something told her to calm down. Was it her training? Her father? Why did it sound like Talbert?

  “Just the girl I’m looking for. Where’s your friends? Where’s Dogg Holly?” Muscles asked.

  “We went our separate ways once we got to camp. He’s moved on as far as I can tell,” Roslyn replied with a shrug. She very subtly leaned her head against the gun. Slowly, ever slightly increasing the pressure. She wasn’t sure why she was dong it, but she continued to steadily lean harder.

  “What about your security detail, bitch?” Muscles said with relish.

  “He took up with my business partner. So I fired him,” Roslyn said, increasing the pressure again.

  “Let me see those hands, bitch.” He lathered the last word with whip cream.

  Raising her hands, she shoved harder and then pulled back and rolled to the side, all in one fluid motion. She punched, using Bruce Lee’s deathblow, hard in the crotch. At the time of studying the blow in college, she thought she’d never use it. She was thankful for all the time they’d spent perfecting it now.

  She was quicker than his grab and she kicked the gun out of his hand. But he caught her pant leg in his firm grip. She didn’t have enough balance to spin and kick him in the head.

  “Hey!” yelled a white haired woman in a floral dress. “What offense has she done? What gives you the right?”

  “She killed people and burned down half of Phoenix,” answered Muscles as he threw Roslyn to the ground and put his foot on her back. He pulled a smaller pistol out of his boot and trained it on her.

  “Is that true, Miss?” said Floral Dress.

  Roslyn didn’t answer, instead she wriggled left, then suddenly right and shifted her weight, while taking out his other leg with hers. Muscles knocked over a table as he landed. Beer and cards flew. Roslyn’s hair dripped suds.

  Leaping the table and the heap it left, she sprang for the opening of the tent. But several men stepped between her and her escape.

  “Now hold on,” said the leader of the men. “We need to get to the bottom of all of this.”

  “Fuck you guys,” she said, somersaulting between two of them. She landed and rolled out the door.

  On her feet but in the muck, she splashed her way down the street. A hover bike nearly hit her. Stumbling away from the hover bike, she tripped on a bucket and fell backwards in the mud.

  From out of the tent flew Muscles, followed by several of the other men, including their leader. Roslyn rolled over and slipping and sliding, panicked. She was unable to find her balance as she scrambled to stand. The men were screaming. People moved aside for them.

  Up, finally, she slipped a bit upon taking flight. She ran and hurdled posts and railings. She spotted a construction site a few lots up. Could she make it? She could feel Muscles gaining on her. Something jangled in his pockets and there was a rhythmic gait to the sound. It grew increasingly louder. Until she fell.

  He’d slid from behind her and took her out. In futbolito it would have been a yellow card, maybe a red. Bright green, fungal mud and acrid ammonia filled her nose and mouth. So thick it gagged her. With watery eyes, she saw the men approaching and now she was headlong in the muck and busted.

  Muscles punched her. Hard. So hard it muffled all sound and rendered the stars to orbit her scrambled head. Warm, wet blood rolled out of her nose. The pain was too intense to pinpoint its origin. The world looked wobbly and greyish red. But she wouldn’t pass out. She wouldn’t give this asshole that much.

  After a few minutes for her to come back to her senses, Muscles lifted her to her feet and tied her hands with Da’akvine. The thing about Da’akvine was, the more you struggled the tighter it squeezed.

  “What do you have to say about this, Miss?” The leader asked.

  “I had nothing to do with whatever this nut bag is claiming I did,” Roslyn said. It made her feel guilty, lying like that, but the survival instinct has a way of vetoing all others. She was that young punk in New York again, being caught steeling a sexy top from an expensive shop on Fifth Avenue, having hacked the security device.

  “What do you think she’s going to say?” asked Muscles. Then he turned around to the gathering crowd. “Anybody here who was in Phoenix the night she burned?”

  “I was there,” came a loud voice from the porch of the club. People really moved aside now.

  “Oh… Well, yes you were,” answered Muscles with a nervous laugh. “Shit… You guys are armed, right?”

  The other men looked concerned and curious, nodding, while some shrugged. The leader looked back and forth between Muscles and the finely dressed man on the porch.

  A wave of elation and something close to hope and appreciation crashed over Roslyn.

  “Why do you ask?” queried Leader.

  “That’s Dogg Holly there,” said Muscles. She could hear the men tense up.

  “You’re first, then the loud mouth’s next. Then I go down the line. Then, my Roslyn’s got the rest of you.” Dogg stepped from beneath the shade of the porch and into the thoroughfare. Two nickel-plated pistols raised. He aimed one at Muscles and the other at Leader.

  “I hear you’re real fast, but, come on, man, you really think you can take us all on? Don’t be stupid, sir,” said a bald man with a double-barreled shotgun.

  “Well, they go before the blink begins and you go as it concludes,” Dogg said, keeping his eyes on Leader and Muscles.

  Puff swooped down onto the bald man’s head and pecked with his razor sharp beak. Blood rose and trickled down his face. Chrome Dome screamed and tried to shoot the dragon but Puff dodged the laser. He took up a perch just out of laser range, on the steeple of a Bird church still under construction. He watched with his keen eyes. That had been a warning.

  Then from behind the mob a couple of shots rose up into the air. Talbert and Hattie fired and then aimed at the mob.

  “It’s over,” said Talbert. “Go back to what the fuck ever you were doing before.”

  Hattie hit one that stepped toward her across the face with her sword. The man fell over limp. That was her warning. Devil Bill needed no warning. One look at him was warning enough.

  While Roslyn was inside the club, Puff had flown to waken Talbert and Hattie. He’d made it back in time to help.

  Talbert cut the Da’akvine around her wrists and gave her his extra gun. Guns raised they backed out of there and ran like hell to their campsite.

  All ran except Dogg, whose lungs wouldn’t tolerate a run. But he walked briskly, despite his illness. Upon realizing he wasn’t with them, Talbert offered to go back and walk with him. But Roslyn said she needed to do it.

  “Some bounty hunters we are? Teaming up with the bounty,” Talbert grumbled.

  “It’s deep undercover,” Roslyn said, looking at Hattie. “Remember?”

  “Right,” Talbert smirked.

  “I have to fetch Grace from the hotel,” insisted Dogg as Roslyn drew near enough to hear. “I can’t hardly leave her. Though what a relief in the ass that would be.”

  Roslyn didn’t laugh. So he added, “I’m only joking of course, madam. I love that woman dearly, I assure you.”

  Puff perched on Roslyn’s shoulder, head swiveling in unison with her.

  Once inside, Dogg looked around. Hattie changed he
r bandage by the lantern’s bright blue light. Talbert nodded his respect to Dogg. Roslyn noticed a physical change in Talbert when he was around Dogg. There was something childlike that she couldn’t quite settle on. It was almost cute, in a sad way. Like Dogg was everything Talbert had wanted to be, in some way, but not… She didn’t know. Both men were drunks and killers. So…Is that called professional courtesy?

  “Your dragon is something quite special,” Dogg said, smiling at Puff.

  “I agree. Thanks,” Roslyn stroked Puff’s belly. “But, nobody’s saying we’re going to leave Grace. I wanted to tell you that before, but…” assured Roslyn.

  “It’s over. What are you guys even talking about?” Talbert asked. “Once those assholes sober up, they aren’t going to give two shits about any of it. It’s not their problem.”

  “You’re probably right, Mr. Brown,” Dogg said, seeming to calm down. He even grinned at Talbert. It was a nod of respect. She was right.

  “Call me Bill,” Talbert said in a softer tone.

  “All right Bill, call me a taxi,” Dogg said, a chuckle turning into a cough. “I’m plum spent.”

  “It’s over for most of them. All but Muscles,” Roslyn said.

  “Who?” Talbert asked.

  “The guy that you punched out in Phoenix, that was leading that mob back there,” Roslyn said. “Big tattooed arms?”

  “What about him?” Talbert inquired.

  “He’s pissed at us even more than before. Now it’s like, I don’t even know,” Roslyn said.

  This is why you have to kill them.

  A part of her wished Dogg would simply walk up to Muscles and shoot the son-of-a-bitch in the head. End of story. But she reminded herself that it would be morally wrong to do so and the Birds would judge her harshly for even wishing it.

  She didn’t know how to repay him. He’d most likely saved her life. Fuck me! Now what was she to do? Perhaps it was time to abort the mission and find another bounty? But how would they find a bounty so high? She tried to calculate how many average jobs she would need to do to equal one Dogg Holly. She figured up how much they’d already spent as well. It proved to be physically impossible to accomplish; if dealing solely in linear time; in which most conscious beings are guilty of dealing. This man kills people for sport. She reminded herself.

  To pass some time in order to let the drunken mob sober, or pass out, they played a round of cards. Only it was not for sport. They were practicing. Dogg showed Roslyn how to cheat.

  He hovered over her shoulder watching, instructing. He smelled delicious, she thought. Leather mixed with something floral but tangy. Talbert stood in the mouth of the tent, looking out at the passers by. He also watched a group of people build a house out of bright green Da’akwood. Before it was treated, it really looked like a giant stalk of broccoli.

  “We should go get that asshole,” Talbert said, finally. “See what he knows. Who else is coming for us?”

  “I agree,” Roslyn said. “That’s exactly what I was doing before.”

  “By yourself?” Talbert grumbled. “How fucking stupid are you?”

  “Excuse me?” Roslyn stood up from the card game. Her hand was on her holster.

  “Are you really going to throw down on me?” Talbert grinned and turned. His thumb snaked across his pearl handle.

  The temptation grew to maniacal proportions. It was only on stun. Yeah, it would hurt like hell, but it wouldn’t inflict any permanent damage. It almost made her laugh. And then, after fighting the urge too long, she busted her belly.

  The entire tent fell to laughter. Even Talbert laughed. His was the first to dry up, however and he returned to the door flap, shaking his head.

  CHAPTER THREE

  As more fires burned and lanterns increased, the thoroughfare turned progressively crowded. The twin moons made the sky look like it was winking. One was nearly full, the other half and waning.

  Talbert slipped back into the shadow of his tent. Muscles stumbled past, looking extremely drunk and angry. Talbert turned and motioned for the others to get up. He mouthed that he was out there and charged his gun.

  They waited until he swayed fully by and then they fell upon him like a pack of dire wolves.

  They drug him back into the tent. Talbert punched him in the eye. It swelled instantly. The blow crossed Muscles’ eyes. He teetered on the edge of consciousness.

  They bound and secured his feet to his hands with Da’akvine so he couldn’t get up. Then they let him sleep it off.

  A couple of hours later, Puff swooped across the tent and opened the bag of seeds. He began to eat.

  “How intelligent do you think he really is?” Roslyn asked, watching this, amazed. She was not alone. Only Dogg, who was born on Danaus, found it unspectacular.

  “I’m not familiar with that particular species of pigmy dragon, but the ones down in Montgomery City and the abouts, are super, scary smart. They steal food like master thieves,” Dogg said. “This one’s from the north. I don’t know about them. But he seems to be even brighter.”

  “Is he fully aware, like the Avians?” asked Roslyn.

  “I’ve never seen an Avian,” Dogg shrugged.

  “Do the fire test,” said Talbert.

  “The what?” asked Roslyn.

  “My old man always said you can judge an animal’s intelligence by the fire test. Are they afraid of fire or are they fascinated by it? Surprised they didn’t teach you that in college, sport.”

  “Sport?”

  “Like Dad always said, nature teaches the same lessons, no matter what planet you’re on. Fire is fire and it’s a lesson and a test. Conquer it and take a major step forward. The animal that conquers nature, one day moves into the stars to join the cosmic family.”

  “Sounds like he followed the Avians,” Hattie said with a warm grin.

  Roslyn was amazed at how avidly Talbert was speaking. It was a rare glimpse inside.

  They were interrupted by Muscles stirring. He opened his eyes and blinked several times. He looked confused but upon realizing his situation, at least the part about him being bound and captured, he wriggled to be free. But he found that to be futile and gave up quickly. He finally just moaned.

  “I guess I probably knew you in a past life, huh?” Muscles said. “Some kind of karmic pay back is happening between us, I guess.”

  “It would appear so, yes,” Talbert said. “If you believe in that shit.”

  “I do,” said Muscles. “Thank you very much.”

  “Good for you,” Talbert said.

  “Well shit,” Muscles groaned. “I’m sorry for whatever the fuck I did to you in some other lifetime. Are we cool now?”

  “This isn’t about another lifetime…!” Talbert barked.

  “Okay, sir,” Roslyn interrupted. “Please pay attention to your own logic here. You’re asking Tal—Mr. Brown to…” she needed half a second to reassemble her thoughts. FUCK!!! Was the equivalent of her thoughts.

  Everyone stared at her. The world closed in around her. She felt like she was under water; fighting the tide of a violent ocean. Water was water, she imagined Talbert’s dad to say. Mastering water leads to the next level of development. She’d heard so many of the old man’s sayings she could recite them at will. She needed to reach the surface soon; she needed air.

  Dogg tilted his head to one side and then leaned back. From his new position, drawing his nickel-plated pistols would be invisibly fast and efficient.

  Dogg kept his deep, dark eyes trained on Roslyn. He was studying her. She couldn’t meet his gaze so she looked every place else. Her stomach rumbled. Was she about to die? A faint metallic smell hit her nostrils.

  “What’s happening back in Phoenix?” asked Talbert, kicking Muscles softly. “Why are you here?”

  “They put up some money,” Muscles said.

  “Who put up some money?” asked Roslyn.

  “The business owners,” answered Muscles. “The one’s who’s businesses got burned down.”r />
  “How much money?” asked Talbert, leaning his elbow on one lanky knee.

  “Ten grand,” said Muscles. “I can use ten K, you kidding me?”

  “So that’s what your life’s worth to you, then?” asked Dogg.

  “Well… I mean… No, but…” Muscles blinked rapidly and shook his head. “Are you going to kill me? I didn’t come to kill you.”

  “Look at my face, asshole!” yelled Roslyn, pointing to the cuts and bruises she’d sustained in their fight. Her lip looked like she had a wad of tobacco in it.

  “Who else volunteered to come?” asked Talbert.

  “I didn’t see anybody else step up during the meeting,” said Muscles. “We spread out, taking different boom towns and other established towns. I got New Vegas.”

  “Was Drago there?” asked Roslyn.

  Muscles turned to her and nodded.

  “So you’re the only idiot in that town of rough and tough mother fuckers, who took it upon himself, alone, to come and do what? Kill us all?” asked Talbert. “That’s Dogg Holly right there, dipshit.”

  Dogg tilted his hat at the large man tied up on the floor.

  “I wasn’t going to fight you fair, to confess, sir. That would make me an idiot. But more like wait until I found you, not paying attention,” Muscles tried to shrug.

  “Are you still begging us not to kill you?” asked Roslyn with a quick snort laugh.

  “Or are you wanting to commit suicide?” Dogg asked, but it wasn’t a question. He bobbed his head gradually and his eyes went flat.

  Muscles’ eyes filled with big, dewy wetness. His Adam’s apple shook up and down.

  What the fuck, seriously?

  “I got nothing without her,” Muscles blabbered.

  “Okay,” Roslyn said, trying to hide her annoyance. She glanced at Talbert and then to Hattie.

  “You ain’t a coward, son,” said Talbert standing over him, casting him in a large shadow. “Don’t take the coward’s way out. Keep riding. You never know what the next planet will look like.”

  Roslyn shook her head. This had turned into a lunatic shit show. What was happening?