by Frank Bill
Purcell sat in awe, saying, “The hell, never had no reckoning of you.”
Angus tried to shake the cobwebs from his head, push himself up off of Jarhead.
Fu stepped on top of both men, pressed into Angus’s back, and twined his left arm over and under Angus’s left arm while his right arm came around Angus’s throat, cut off his air. Fu’s right hand gripped his left wrist atop Angus’s left shoulder, torquing hard. He said, “When next you wake, you will be in the needles of purgatory.” And Angus grunted, tried to struggle, but found the same darkness as Jarhead.
Purcell’s bones creaked as he made it to his feet and asked, “What’s your handle?”
Fu gripped Angus by his hair, pulled him off Jarhead, unbuckled Angus’s belt, pulled it, bloody and stinking, from his waist. He rolled Angus facedown, tugged and laced his wrists tight behind him. Scanned his eyes over the money scattered across the barn floor. Turned to Purcell and asked, “Handle?”
Purcell said, “Your name.”
“My name is Fu,” he replied. “I have been hunting this man who calls himself Angus. He owes many debts.”
Purcell pursed his lips, looked at the money on the floor, said, “Well, they’s plenty for the taking. Me and Jarhead ain’t a greedy bunch no ways, ’specially since you saved our asses.”
Fu bowed to Purcell. He collected twenty grand in fifties and hundreds and neatly piled the money into a sack. There was plenty left over—he’d barely made a dent. Fu rolled Angus over his shoulder. Then stood, turned, and started to walk out the way he’d entered.
Purcell said, “I think we might be seeing you again. Just don’t ask me what for.”
Fu said, “Very well.” Then disappeared.
The barn walls vibrated from the crowd’s pounding. Purcell kneeled down. His back popped as he lifted Jarhead from the floor. His wound pulsed with ache as he stood up, balanced Jarhead, and led him out to the Bronco. He laid him across the backseat.
The man mumbled cherry-sized bubbles from his lips, and Purcell said, “Save it. We’s two lucky sons a bitches. I gotta get some of McGill’s loot sacked up ’fore them people out yonder figure out they’s a rear end to this barn. They’s fixing to hobble or lynch the each of us. We gotta make some dust.”
PART IV
THE BEGINNING
22
Angus’s veins were burning with thorns. Sharp points dented the meridians of his body, taking away the strength to flex his limbs. Now he was a flaccid piece of chilled meat.
Opening his eyes, all he could see was dark. Inhaling, he smelt his own flesh, sweat, and soap.
He had turbulent flashes in his mind: water so cold his body felt more bare bone than flesh; bristles scrubbing the blood from him, ignoring the welts and bruises; a careful hand guiding a needle, pulling and meshing open wounds back together. Being placed into a glittering tomb molded to his form.
Angus tried to wiggle a finger or a toe but could not. He heard voices.
Outside the silver tomb, Fu stood in his basement attired in new glasses, black dress slacks, and a bright white T-shirt, scab-faced, with plum-tinted circles patching his complexion and arms. Three men stood in front of him. One Chinese. One black. One white. They wore black T-shirts tucked into black military slacks, shiny black combat boots. Each man had tattoos of his chosen discipline inked on his inner forearm. The Asian man showed a black tiger with gray stripes, the black man had a golden dragon engulfed by orange flames, and the white man had a golden snake surrounded by red flutes of bamboo. The man with the black tiger tattoo asked, “What’d you do with the cop?”
Fu smiled. “I used a needle to remove his memory. Then I dropped him in front of the hospital.”
“And Mr. Zhong?”
“He is happy. His debt has been collected.”
“What about the redneck named Pete?”
“He will adjust. Every student has a learning curve.”
Black Tiger motioned toward the steel tomb, asked, “What happens if this man survives Si-Bok Lao’s training, wants to come back here some day, maybe find you, maybe find the cop?”
“Let him. I trained each of you just as Lao trained me and the ones that will train him. I am the one who offers a second chance. He is unique, just as I was. It would be a waste to not let him use what he knows best.”
Black Tiger said, “Fighting.”
Fu nodded his head. “Yes, fighting.”
Black Tiger observed, “Sifu. He must be one very dangerous individual, the way you treated him. I’ve never seen you use so many needles.”
Fu smiled. “One for every pressure point. He is helpless now. But without them, he is indeed dangerous. Menacing. He could one day be our equal.”
The three men bowed to their sifu, their teacher. Fu stepped back, watched each man grab a side of the man-sized case and lift it.
Inside the steel tomb, Angus felt his body fall backward, listened to footsteps bounce from the concrete floor, echo off the walls. He searched for something inside of himself to squeeze—be it be an organ, tendon, or muscle—but he could not find anything he could control. All he could do was wonder where these men were taking him.
Outside, the three men loaded Angus into the rear of a black Tahoe. Fu observed with his hands behind his back. When the rear hatch was closed, the three students turned to Fu and he said, “This Angus knows how to use pain for nourishment. The more he is conditioned, the stronger he will become. He will not be an easy man to break.”
Black Tiger asked, “We will see you soon?”
Fu said, “If he is alive in three months, yes. I look forward to it.”
The three men bowed to Fu. Got into their Tahoe, started the engine, and headed down the paved drive.
23
Their Chevys and Fords lined the blacktop lot, some parked along old 64, loaded with clothing, grills, and their remaining choices of booze or drugs, their bodies snaked into the brick structure of Swaren’s Funeral Home, each man and woman wanting a glimpse of the fallen, the person who’d been their center for so long, Bellmont McGill. Some tossing in things that held meaning to them—a pint of Beam, Turkey, or Old Granddad. Others gave double- and single-blade pocketknives passed down from long-gone kinfolk, or brass that had not been fired.
After the ceremony, the single file of cars that followed the hearse to the burial went for miles, all the way to where the Donnybrook had been held. Pallbearers came in worn denim, button-ups tucked, a few wore ties, some had hands bandaged and taped, eyes swollen, hair greased to the side or over the tops of heads. They stood in two formations, unloaded the dead, and trudged to the hole where McGill was to be lowered.
The blessing had been given and final respects were passed, the dirt shoveled down into the hole, over the coffin. Men, women, and fighters huddled in front of their beat, rusted, and scratched vehicles. And like the smoke that hung over the field from the barns that had been torched to chunks of rubble, an uncertainty remained on every patron’s mind: Would there ever be another Donnybrook?
A few dogs ran about the grounds that were littered with paper, cans, bottles, chicken, and fish bones. Snarling and growling for a final taste of what had been.
Bellmont’s stable of men stood like protectors brailled by ink, guns tucked into the hems of their waists. Knuckles nicked; eyes, noses, and lips botched and rent; their wounds flaking. All of them angered by the outcome but waiting for words of what would come next from Scar McGill. Thought to be dead, she was not, had only been pierced and riffled by bullets. She stood at the center of the unruly followers kneeling over the mound of dirt, knowing her father would be reunited with her mother, who’d been taken out by the booze that ruined her liver, then her life. But Scar, with her dirty-blond hair and oatmeal roots wavering in the breeze, a body full of ache and papered with bandage and bruise, she would pick up the pieces, bring a new generation of ideas and hell to the land and any person who lied about or hid the men she’d hunt, raising havoc along the highways and back roads
until she found the ones who’d taken her father from her and the outlet he’d built for these people.
* * *
Tammy’s green eyes glossed with worry watching the lights grow, detailing the trees and power lines that ran alongside the road.
One child suctioned his legs around Tammy’s bony waist. The other was at her side, his tiny hand in her sweaty fist. Each child had chocolate milk hulling his lips, his hair parted in all directions.
Late evening air knuckled their skin. Crickets and katydids chirped in the wilderness that surrounded them like the approaching darkness. Two plastic grocery sacks lay at their feet with the necessities: pants, shirts, bra, panties, and a few diapers. The sound of tires crunching gravel grew in pitch.
Earlier, a phone’s ringing had echoed throughout a rundown trailer. Tammy answered, “Hello?”
Jarhead said, “Be down at Blister Fork in four hours. Pack light.”
Hearing the wear and tear in his tone, she asked, “You okay?”
Jarhead hesitated and said, “Been better.”
She said, “It’s been three damn days, did you … did you … win?”
He said, “They was no winner. Get packing.” And hung up.
Now the rusted-out Bronco squeaked to a stop. Rocky dust fogged in front of the headlights. The engine rumbled. The Bronco’s passenger-side door opened. Jarhead stepped out onto the road. His scooped-out muscled arms embraced Tammy and his boys, helped them into the back of the Bronco with the two sacks of their belongings. Zeek sat on Jarhead’s lap, Caleb sat to his right. Tammy to his left.
The darkness inside the Bronco couldn’t hide Tammy’s melancholy any more than the shadows could hide the jagged purples fusing with the violets of Jarhead’s lumped facade. Tammy held tight to Jarhead, nodded to the Bronco’s driver, and asked, “Who is he?”
From the driver’s seat, a set of worn eyes, one outlined in swelling from Angus’s fist, caught Tammy’s gaze in the rearview, and a voice said, “Name’s Purcell.”
Purcell shifted into drive, and Tammy said, “Mine’s Tammy. Nice to make your acquaintance.”
Purcell said, “Pleased to finally make yours, Tammy.”
From the radio, Johnny Cash spoke with the crackle of static behind his voice: And I heard as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts sang come and see, and I saw and behold a white horse.
Tammy pushed her head into Jarhead’s chest and asked, “Where we going?”
Jarhead said, “To Dote’s gun shop.”
Tammy raised her head, looked at Jarhead, asked, “Dote’s gunshop?”
Jarhead looked Tammy in the face and said, “I gotta pay back what I stole. And Purcell here wants to do a little shopping.”
“For guns?”
Purcell looked in the rearview to Tammy and said, “We cashed out from the ’Brook by our hides. We got a sackful of cash, but we didn’t make no friends there. There’s some shit about to go down, and it’s startin’ right here in these counties. We need to make sure we’re protected.”
Confused, Tammy asked, “What kinda tongue is you talking?”
Jarhead gently grabbed her arm and silently nodded, his eyes expressing that he’d learned to trust this man, and so should she.
In the background Johnny Cash scratched at the strings of his acoustic guitar and began singing, There’s a man going around taking names, and he decides who to free and who to blame. Everybody won’t be treated all the same, there’ll be a golden ladder reaching down when the man comes around.
Purcell rounded the curve, and a Shell gas station sat on the left. Jarhead eyed Purcell in the rearview and said, “Through the light, past Wendy’s, and stop in front of the building next to it.”
Purcell nodded.
Jarhead explained to Tammy, “Purcell sees things before they happen.”
Tammy turned to Jarhead and asked, “He a fortuneteller?”
“Fortuneteller, soothsayer. He’s seen change coming, violent change.”
Tammy protested. “What’s that got to do with us? Ain’t you done enough?”
From the driver’s seat Purcell said, “This is Jarhead’s calling. Boy fights like an angel. We need him, we all need him.”
Jarhead felt Tammy tremor with worry, pulled her close to his side with his left arm, his boys with his right, and said, “I believe what Purcell is saying.” He turned and pressed his lips to Tammy’s forehead and told her, “It’ll be okay, Tammy, it’ll be okay.”
Purcell stopped in front of the gun shop. Reached across the passenger’s seat to open the door.
Jarhead released Tammy, pushed the seat forward, sat Zeek next to Caleb, and stepped from the Bronco. Purcell opened the driver’s side and got out with a stack of crumpled bills. Looked across the Bronco’s hood at Jarhead as they walked toward the gun shop and said, “Johnny, anything happens to me, remember this name: Van Dorn. No idea what it means. And another thing—you need to tell her that it ain’t even started yet.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the early readers of the Donnybrook manuscript, Donald Ray Pollock, Anthony Neil Smith, Christa Faust, John Rector, Craig Clevenger, Victor Gischler, Kyle Minor, Jed Ayers, Scott Phillips, Keith Rawson, Roger Smith, Elaine Ash, David Cranmer, Israel Byrd, Denny Faith, and Ella Baker. You guys and gals kick ass.
To Scott Montgomery, for spreading the word and having me at the Book People. For the music of Ray Wylie Hubbard and for being a damn good friend and letting me know that if one were to cut my words with a knife, they’d bleed.
To Rod Wiethop, for being an early fan and a damn good friend.
To all of my martial arts and boxing teachers, John King, Tony Wood, Matt Kitterman, Eric Haycraft, Frank Sexton, and John Winglock Ng. Without your passing me your knowledge, wisdom, and discipline, I’d have never made it this far as a writer.
Thanks to my agent, Stacia J. N. Decker, for getting this into shape and not letting me take the easy way out, and to my kick-ass editors Sean McDonald and Emily Bell, for sound advice throughout the editing process.
Thanks to everyone at FSG, my copy editors, proofreaders, Rodrigo and the art/design people, and the foreign-rights department. And my publicist, Brian Gittis.
Most of all, thanks to my family and friends for coming to my readings and spreading the good word. Your support means the world to me. And to my mother and father for raising me on Clint Eastwood movies.
ALSO BY FRANK BILL
Crimes in Southern Indiana
Praise for Frank Bill
“Frank Bill’s Donnybrook is Poe shooting heroin, Steinbeck freebasing cocaine, and Hemingway really drunk. It’s so great I felt I had been throat-punched, kicked in the cojones, and was going to spit blood.”
—Ray Wylie Hubbard
“Frank Bill is the kind of writer, and his characters the kind of fighters, who sneer at the rope-a-dope approach. In Donnybrook’s wild world of meth, bloody knuckles, flashing knives, and snapping teeth, you come out swinging—period.”
—Michael Koryta, author of The Prophet
“Good Lord, where in the hell did this guy come from? Blasts off like a frigging rocket ship and hits as hard as an ax handle to the side of the head after you’ve snorted a nose full of battery acid and eaten a live rattlesnake for breakfast. One of the wildest damn rides you’re ever going to take inside a book.”
—Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time
“Frank Bill’s Donnybrook is a backwoods, gut-punch masterpiece. Bill manages to imbue his characters with a full and deep range of human emotion in spite of the fact that their lives come in only two styles: hard and harder. Read and get schooled.”
—Reed Farrel Coleman, author of Gun Church
“Frank Bill’s characters all seem to be hurtling at ninety miles an hour down dead-end streets, and his recounting of their passage is vivid and unforgettable. Like Barry Hannah on amphetamines, but the voice is undeniably Bill’s own.”
—William Gay, author
of Provinces of Night
“Now listen here: I’m a big old boy, and I don’t scare easy, but the world of Frank Bill’s imagination is one so damned terrifying that I felt the urge, maybe thirty pages in, to crawl underneath the nearest table and take to sucking my thumb in earnest. With a cast of characters as depraved and leather-hearted as these, with a landscape as bleak and blanched by despair as this, with a convergence of conflicts so hell-bent on combustion, it’s a wicked wonder that this wonderfully wicked book doesn’t consume itself in flames the minute you open the first page and let the oxygen in.”
—Bruce Machart, author of The Wake of Forgiveness and Men in the Making
“Frank Bill’s prose rumbles and howls, as distinctly American as the exhaust note of a blown Chevy. Raw. Hard. True. There’s blood all over these pages. Where his first collection, Crimes in Southern Indiana, is a punch to the gut, Donnybrook is a shattering right-cross knockout.”
—Daniel Knauf, creator of the HBO series Carnivàle
“[Frank Bill’s] stories form the ideal nexus between literary art and pulp fiction: beautifully crafted, compulsively readable, and addictive as crystal meth.”
—Pinckney Benedict, author of Dogs of God
“Crimes in Southern Indiana brings to light a major American writer of fiction, the prose equivalent to a performance by Warren Oates or a song by Merle Haggard or a photograph by Walker Evans. Tempting though it is to compare him to other writers, the fact is that five years hence every good new fiction writer to come into view will be compared to Frank Bill.”
—Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest
“Take the bark of a .45, the growl of a rusted-out muffler, and the banshee howl of a meth-head on a three-day bender, and you approximate the voice of Frank Bill, a startlingly talented writer whose stories rise from the same dark lyrical well as those of Daniel Woodrell and Dorothy Allison.”
—Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding