by Gareth Spark
I guessed then it was Charlie Haynes, or Sleepy Haynes as he got called on account of his lazy eye. I'd heard of him; heard he ran brown dope over in Springer.
“Who else is out there, Sleepy? You tell me an' maybe I'll make it quick.”
“This ain't done, McCarthy. You boys is still owing,” he said.
Out front, a truck spluttered into life and roared off, spitting gravel up on to what was left of the front porch.
“Sounds like your buddy just lit out on you, Sleep. You all alone now.” I got to my feet, not entirely sure that my legs would hold me up. Sleepy was on his back in the corner, blood coursing from his torn ear. Leroy hovered above him like a storm cloud.
“Who's that with you? One of them Crenshaws? That asshole, Jackpot Ray?” Leroy ground the gun barrel into the folds of fat hanging out of Sleepy's ripped shirt. He stiffened as the metal bit into his stomach, but kept his eyes fixed on Leroy, one sharp with pain, the other hooded and milky looking.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Naw Sleep, you the one who's fucked.”
#
Dirty smoke stained the oblong of sky in the truck's rear view mirror. The fire Leroy had set, caught hold and took the cabin: Big Earl's funeral pyre and Sleepy's executioner, unless he'd already bled out. In which case his executioner was sat next to me. Either way Sleepy hadn't talked.
Leroy propped an open can of PBR between his legs while he bandaged his hand with a flannel shirt.
“You want I should go by the hospital?” I asked, already knowing what his answer would be.
“It's just a crease boy.”
We drove on and I felt the silence weighing heavy again. In all the years the McCarthy brothers had hunted with my old man, I doubt that Leroy had spoken to me directly more than a dozen times. He wasn't much for conversation and I guess I wasn't much for hunting, but I went along anyway, more for the old man than for me.
He was never happier than when we were up here stalking game, father and son pitting our wits against the sly forest bucks. I hadn't thought about it since the cancer took him, but lately it had been on my mind more and more. Our trip for early season, White Tail just seemed like something that still needed doing, not out of habit or tradition, but perhaps out of respect.
“I think I winged him,” I said.
“You what?”
“The other guy, I think I clipped him when I fired at the door.”
“Son of a bitch, you seen him hit?”
“No, but I heard him squeal out.”
“Good enough,” he said, looking at me like he was trying to see inside my head and not sure of what he might find there. “Listen Tommy I got to know if your with me on this.” I held his stare, thinking about how my dad always said he owed Big Earl on account of that day at Khe Sanh.
“I am,” I said and felt my guts tying a knot.
The white oaks parted and the tires of Big Earl's Ford ran out on the pot holed blacktop of Larkford County Road #16.
“We'll go to the Hog Pen. I'm fixin' to end this today,” Leroy said.
I started to ask him just what the hell this might be; why Earl was dead and why some dope runner from the next county was crisping in our old hunting cabin. He shushed me with a cold stare and a bloody finger. I suppose the details didn't matter. Spite and malice was always simmering on the stove in these hills, feuds that had been festering since God was a boy ran through them like open sores. All kinds of wrongs, both real and imagined got righted with the country justice of a sawed off side-by-side.
#
I pulled off of the 421 just north of Hartford and parked in the weeds of a vacant lot beside the Hog Pen. Rooms rented by the hour in the back, dime a dance and buck a beer roadhouse out front. This was the place those Springer boys went to scratch their itches.
I started to get out and Leroy grabbed my arm.
“Easy. Where you goin'?” I could feel something warm and sticky seeping through his makeshift bandage.
“Inside. I thought.”
“That' ain't the way. Just sit tight.”
There were ten or so vehicles in the parking lot, all pick ups of various makes, except for a sorry looking blue Nova. We watched for an age, but no one came or went. I sat there chewing things through. Just when I'd decided I actually preferred getting shot at to all this waiting, two guys more or less fell out of the front door into the gathering dusk.
One was a big fella in bib overalls, he was laughing hard at something. The other was skinny, dressed in hunting camo, he didn't seem to get the joke. Leroy sat up beside me leaning forwards to get a better view. Laughing boy was shaking his head and made to put an arm around his pal. The skinny guy shrugged it off and started loping towards the Nova, favoring his right leg.
“I don't recall Jackpot having no limp,” Leroy said, fingering the.44 on his lap.
The Nova belched a cloud of oily smoke and rolled out of the lot, making a left on to the 421 and heading towards the Snake. I looked at Leroy. “Well go on then, follow him, but don't make it look like your following.”
“How in hell do I do that?”
“Fuck Tommy, don't you got a TV? You know. Just drive casual.”
#
I tried casual and almost lost that blue shit box before we'd even got to the Snake. Leroy was cussing me up and down, but I caught up with the Nova at the top of the switchbacks.
The Snake was what locals called the 421 past Boone. Here the road flipped around the mountainside like a carnival ride, diving down into huddles of dark pine that jostled for space on the narrow granite ledges. We started down after the Chevy and my choices were to either drive right on top of it or hang back out of sight in the bends. I settled on the second one and paid out a little slack, catching a reassuring glimpse of his taillights now and again when we swept through a softer turn. The highway flattened on a ledge high above Doe Creek and straightened out to follow it for a mile or so. The Chevy was 50 yards in front with nowhere to go. Bare rock climbed up on one side and plunged away through scrub pine to the river in a sheer drop on the other.
“Go alongside,” Leroy said. I edged the Ford on and pulled around. Jackpot glanced across. When he saw Leroy McCarthy sat next to him, his face dropped and he mashed the gas. The Nova lurched off like a scalded pup, its whipped motor screaming in protest. “Thought so, you bastard. Git after him, Tommy.” I did as I was told, down shifted and gave it some beans. The powerful Ford easily reeled him in on the straight, but as the road started to hairpin down again I couldn't see a way around.
Leroy leaned out of the window and blazed away left handed. He got lucky with one shot and took out the back windshield, making Jackpot weave from side to side, but the rest were all over the place.
“Hold this damn thing steady for Christ's sake,” he said, spent jackets rattling out onto the floor as he fumbled in fresh ammo. Jackpot fired back with what looked like a squirrel pistol. The little rounds pinking of the hood were no real threat, but they got Leroy madder than hell. “Ram that fucker!” He yelled, emptying his .44 in the general direction of the Nova, dry firing two chambers before realizing he was out again.
I closed up and nudged the bumper, sending a good jolt through the Chevy, but when the wheel snatched through my hands I instinctively backed off again.
“Jesus Tommy, don't tickle him, fuck him up.” Leroy stomped his foot down on top of mine, pancaking the pedal and launching a six ton guided missile complete with a chrome mags and a gun rack at Jackpot's Nova. I clung on, desperately trying to keep all four tires in contact with black top, slewing Big Earl's Ford around a bend and piling into the Chevy.
The impact sent us fishtailing wildly, Leroy went careering along the bench seat into a swearing heap on the floor. My forehead cracked off the windshield and the world took on a haze of red as blood poured into my eyes. We skewed off into the rock wall, raking along it in a squeal of metal before kicking back out towards the drop off. I pumped the brake and fought agai
nst the laws of motion, dragging the wheel over to plough more granite. Sparks ground off the cab, the front tire blew out with whoomp and we shot a 180. The back end slammed into the cliff as we came to a stop more or less facing back the way we'd come.
#
The stench of gasoline forced its fingers down my throat making me gag. I wiped enough blood away to see that my side was wedged tight against the rock. Leroy was out cold, laying amongst the litter of empty Papst cans and shell cases on the cab floor. I reached across and tried his door, the handle came away as I yanked it. The whole frame was crooked as the number seven, the metal folded over and fused in place with rock slide welding.
“Well now ain't this a fine evening for a drive.” I peered through the crazed windshield glass and saw Jackpot standing in the road with a shotgun cradled in his arms. He looked like he'd been beat some, but he was still pitching. There was no sign of his shitty Nova. “Get them hands up nice an' high where I can see 'em boy. Where's McCarthy?” I started to motion to the floor and he swung the gun up and drew a bead on me. “Uh, huh, hands boy. Keep 'em up. Is that bastard out of it?” I nodded and felt a fresh trickle of blood run down my nose. “I know you, don't I?” He asked limping around to the side of the truck. “You're Buck Hopkirk's boy, out of Larkford.” I just sat there bleeding and didn't answer. Jackpot continued to circle, keeping his side-by-side trained on me all the while. “How is old Buck?”
“He's dead,” I said.
“Well that's a damn shame, he was always straight up and down.” Jackpot pulled a dirty handkerchief from his pocket and bent to mop up gas from the puddle forming under the truck. “You made some bad choices today, boy. Weren't none of this your concern. I guess you're gonna have to think on that, but not for too long, eh?” He said, spinning off the filler cap and stuffing his snot rag in the tank. I kept my eyes fixed on Jackpot and kicked furiously at Leroy with my boot. “Give old Buck my regards when you see him,” Jackpot said and spun the wheel on his Zippo.
Flames leapt from the lighter and touched off the rag. All the time that weighed so heavy on me earlier, curled up like burnt paper and carried away on the breeze. Jackpot let out a cackle and went gimping off down the road. I tugged once at Leroy, he didn't move, just lay there like he was sleeping off a good drunk. I had a few seconds and no options. I swung my legs up and kicked at the busted windshield, working my boots along the top edge to try and pop it out and knowing that any moment those flames would reach what gas was left in the split tank.
“C'mon you fucker!” I yelled and stomped with all I had, finally the glass gave and flopped onto the hood like a dead catfish. I scrambled through the opening, my escape hastened by a hot blast of exploding truck that flung me and some assorted auto parts across the highway into the scrub pine.
#
Soft flurries were blowing around the parking lot, dancing in the sodium glow of the Hog Pen's security lights. Heavy snowfall had shut the 421 a few days back, so I took the long way around, through Boone and Hartford. I'd been waiting for a while now, not just here in the lot. The one thing I got again is time.
Last Sunday I overheard the preacher talking about my old man's funeral, saying what a pleasure it was to bury a Hopkirk who didn't have a bullet hole in him. I guess he'll wind up being the only one. It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive, but it's not something I'm right proud of either. Most nights the whole thing plays again in my head, like the re-run of some grainy old home movie.
Big Earl's sightless gaze, watching me from the cabin floor, Leroy laying unconscious in the truck like a pile of old clothes left out for the welfare. Some nights the windshield pops and sometimes it don't. Nowadays I keep a bottle on the nightstand for when the walls of my room start closing in and the smell of gasoline is so thick it's like trying to breathe through corn syrup. I'm alive alright, but it don't feel much like living. Maybe putting this right will help, but I doubt it. Right and wrong don't matter, they're just two sides of the same coin.
I checked the load of the .410 for the umpteenth time and rested it back across my lap. The wind was turning back towards the north, strengthening, a snowy gust slammed the Hog's front door back on its hinges, pulling if from the grasp of skinny guy in a camo hat. He paused in the doorway, a warm fug of raucous laughter and loud country drifting around him from inside the bar. I curled my finger around the twin triggers as the guy cupped a Zippo in his hands and lit a smoke; drawing deeply on it before flipping up his collar and limping off across the lot. I eased myself out of the cab, dragged the hammers back on my old man's shotgun and followed Jackpot out into the night.
Chris Leek is 1/5th of the team behind Zelmer Pulp Publishing. He also writes a review column for Out of the Gutter Online. His fiction has appeared at or in: All Due Respect, Shotgun Honey, Out of the Gutter, Near to the Knuckle, Thrillers, Killers ‘N’ Chillers and Spinetingler Magazine. He blogs at www.nevadaroadkill.blogspot.co.uk
By David Barber
“I told the wife not to do it,” Joe said. “I told her it was asking for trouble.”
He took a mouthful of his beer, his anger rising.
“You can’t blame Louise,” the landlord, Liam Thompson, said.
“I’m not blaming her, Liam. I know what she was doing was for the kids, to make it all Christmassy, but those thieving scum bags only need the tiniest opportunity. They’d rob their own grandparents to get their drug fix. Well, I’ll tell you what, Liam. I’d fix them bastards if I got my hands on them. I’d ring their scrawny necks for them.”
Joe Walsh was standing at the bar of The Red Lion, a pint of Stella Artois, half empty in front of him. He was normally an optimist, a half full type of bloke, but the robbery had dampened his outlook.
“Take it easy, Joe. Aren’t you insured?”
“That’s not the point, Liam,” Joe replied, eyeing the landlord. “The little arseholes broke into my house. They were in my house. Do you know what that feels like? I’ve heard people talk about being burgled and how they feel like their home isn’t theirs any more. How it feels dirty and soiled and I used to think, ‘well it’s still their home, they can clean it and claim back on their insurance etc. etc.’. But, I’ll tell you what, Liam, they’re right. My home feels dirty. But the worst thing is, they’ve upset my wife and kids. They’re thinking Christmas is ruined. Every last present under the tree has gone, along with the flat screen TV; the play station, the DVD player and some other bits ‘n’ bobs. And before you ask again, yes we are insured and everything is going to be replaced, but that’s not the point, is it? Do you know what the coppers said when they eventually turned up?
Liam simply nodded.
Joe slapped his hand against the bar and chuckled. “Do you know what they said? ‘You probably shouldn’t have left them out on display.’ Can you believe that? Where are we supposed to put things when we’re at work? Pack it all up every morning and then unpack at night? Fuck that, Liam. Is it too much to ask that we should feel safe in our own homes?”
Liam didn’t know what to say and was relieved when a customer shouted to him. He walked down to the other end of the bar to serve.
“I wish I could get my hands on the little bastards,” Joe whispered, burying his face in his hands.
“I can help you with that.”
The voice came out of nowhere. Joe turned around and stared at a thin and scruffy man standing next to him. The matching black hoody and sweat pants and scuffed trainers the man was wearing had seen better days. He was pale, almost translucent. The veins under his skin were plainly visible. An unpleasant smell hung in the air and, when he spoke, there was an unnerving undertone to the words.
Joe backed away slightly, the man’s sour odour overwhelming.
“I can help you with your wish, Joe,” the man said again.
“What? How do you know my name? Who are you?”
“You don’t need to know who I am, Joe. I know you and I know how much you want to get back at those thieves who’ve ruined your Christma
s. I can smell your anger, Joe.”
How you can smell anything else but your own odour is a mystery, Joe thought to himself.
The man placed a hand on Joe’s forearm. “I can feel your anger,” he said. “I can sense what you want to do to the people who invaded your kingdom, Joe”
“Look pal,” Joe said, pushing the man’s hand off his arm. “I don’t know you from Adam so…just leave me to finish my drink, eh?”
The scrawny man looked Joe in the eyes and smiled, his thin and dry lips looking like they would tear if he smiled any wider.
Joe looked away, pushed past him and went to the toilet. Standing at the urinal, he looked down and noticed a red blemish on the back of his hand where the man had touched him. He finished up, washed his hands and pulled up his sleeve. He touched the reddened area. Heat was coming from it but there was no pain.
“What the f…..” Joe rubbed at the blemish and as he did is started to disappear. “Oh, I’ve had too much beer,” he mumbled to himself, walking out of the toilets.
He made his way back to the bar, looking around the pub for the hooded man, but he was nowhere to be seen. He drained the rest of his pint and the landlord walked over to him.
“Another pint, Joe?”
“Err, no thanks,” Joe said, rubbing his arm. “Think I’ve had enough. Did you see where that bloke went?”
“Eh?”
“I was talking to a bloke, right here. He was wearing a black hooded top.”
Joe scanned the pub. There were a few people in but the man was nowhere to be seen.
“I didn’t see anyone, Joe. You’ve been stood on your own since we were talking earlier.”
“I was ju…he was st…Oh forget it, Liam. I’d better go, mate. Think the stress and the beer have gone to my head. See you later, pal.”