Grits, Guns & Glory - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 2

by John G. Hartness

  “Well, that solves that bit. Now we just need to convince Jacob here to let us make his magic thighbone into a sword, and go whoop Kitner’s ass. Y’all handle the talking. Come get me when we get to the ass-whoopin’. It’s hotter than a two-bit whore in here.” Bubba made for the door, wringing sweat droplets from his beard as he went.

  “Wait, Bubba. I would like to speak with you.” Jacob said, holding up a hand.

  “How.” Bubba said, holding up his hand in response. Jacob didn’t smile. “Nobody ever laughs at my jokes. Can we speak outside? I mighta mentioned it’s hot in here.”

  The two men stepped out onto the sidewalk. Night had fallen since they entered the smithy, and the gaffer was walking down Peachtree Alley lighting the gas lights. “This bothers me, Bubba.” Jacob said, his eyes tracking the man as he went from lamp to lamp with his long pole, igniting the gas within and carefully replacing the glass globes.

  “It ain’t no big deal, Jacob. People been using gaffers for a long time now, and I bet the ones in a big city like Atlanta are pretty good. I bet he don’t even burn his hat at all most nights.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I have had visions of this. Visions of you, and of this sword. I believe I must let you take my people’s totem, but I also believe this gift will be no blessing to you.”

  “I don’t understand. I think you said you’re gonna let us make the sword, but I didn’t really catch that last part. Tavvy’s the smart one, Jacob. I usually just beat folks up when they do wrong by other people.”

  “I think this sword will bring pain to you and to your family for many years. But I feel that you must have it.”

  Bubba looked down at the man and studied him for a moment. His dark brow was knit, and his deep brown eyes looked up at Bubba with concern. Bubba took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Let me tell you something, Jacob. We all gotta do some things in this life that we don’t much like, on account of it’s the right thing to do. Last time me and Tavvy got messed up in something with this much magic in it, I ended up burning a man alive so his dead daughter could find some peace. I didn’t want to hurt nobody, but he was doing wrong by the souls of them dead children, and I couldn’t let that stand. Now I don’t know if this Kitner feller’s really evil, or if he just got smacked in the head by one of them star rocks. I don’t know. But he’s gonna go hurt a bunch of people in that movie house, and I bet some of ‘em ain’t never done nothing to nobody. And I think I can stop him. At least, with your magic bone, and this sword made out of star rocks, and Preacher Mason and Tavvy, I think we can. So that’s what we’ve got to do. We got to help them that can’t help themselves. And if that means I take up this sword that might hurt me later, well, I reckon that’s worth it.”

  “You don’t sound like such a dumb hick all the time, do you?”

  “Don’t tell Tavvy. I like to let her feel good about herself. So do I get to make a sword out of your lion bone?” Bubba held out a hand.

  Jacob looked up at the big man. “I think you may regret this in time, but yes, Bubba. You may have the relic of my tribe to bring your Kitner to justice.” Jacob handed Bubba the bone and the two men went back inside.

  Jacob walked across the room and handed the wolf’s thighbone to Gerry. “This is a holy relic of my people. Please treat it with respect.”

  “That I’ll do, friend.” The small man said. He looked up at the rest of them. “Get out. Go out front and arm yourselves. I’ll have this ready in about an hour, then we’ll need to hotfoot it over to the Fox before your friend kills all the people that he’s decided need killin’.”

  Bubba, Tavvy and Preacher Mason did as they were told, gathering weapons from the front room of the smithy. Mason picked up a matched pair of .45 revolvers, while Tavvy’s attention went straight to a short-barreled .30-.30 repeater. Bubba just picked a chair and sat down. He pulled out his pocketknife and began to clean the dirt out from under his fingernails.

  “Bubba?” Tavvy asked. “Aren’t you going to pick out a gun?”

  “No, sis. I reckon if I’m supposed to take a knife to this fight, there ain’t no point in gun shopping.” He went back to his grooming while the Preacher and Tavvy finished arming themselves. Gerry was generous in his estimate, as it was barely more than half an hour later that he walked out behind Jacob holding a cloth-wrapped bundle.

  The two men stopped in front of Bubba. “Here you go, son. Use it well.” Gerry said, holding out the bundle. Bubba unwrapped the sword, and drew in a hiss of breath at the sight before him. The thighbone was carved almost completely straight, with just one notch for the thumb. It was polished to a high sheen until it looked like ivory, with a gleaming silver-blue blade stretching three feet out of the hilt. Bubba stood and tested the balance of the blade. It felt perfect in his hand, like an extension of his arm. He flexed a wrist, and the blade whooshed through the air. As it stopped, an almost musical ringing tone came from the blade, like a finger on the rim of a crystal glass.

  “It’s right pretty, Ger. I reckon you outdone yourself. Jacob, I’ll take care of it best I can, but right now we got a bad guy to stop. Let’s move.” Bubba motioned for the door, and Gerry led them out into the street.

  “We’ll do just as fast to hoof it, since most of the bigwigs will be in them newfangled limousines, and the street ain’t yet built for them kinda contrivances. It ain’t but a couple blocks thataway.” As Gerry pointed, a huge explosion rocked the night, coming from the direction he indicated.

  “I reckon we might better run, Ger.” Bubba said, breaking into a sprint. Three blocks later, they came upon a scene of chaos. People from all walks of life ran terrified in the street, while mangled pieces of metal that used to be cars and limousines littered the area in front of the Fox Theatre. Men and women in their finest clothes milled around in confusion, some with blood pouring down their faces and others covered in soot and dirt.

  “I’ll stay here. I can help these people.” Tavvy said.

  “Preacher, you and Gerry stay, too. I’ll take care of Kitner.” Bubba said.

  “I’m going with you.” Jacob said. “He’s using the magic of my people. I cannot allow that to continue.”

  “All right then, Jacob. Come on.” Bubba turned and dashed up the steps of the theatre, moving fast for a huge man. He got to the entrance and lowered a shoulder. The wooden door splintered inward, knocking aside a dozen people scrambling to get out. They ran through the ornate lobby, ignoring the screaming men and women tripping over each other and their own fancy clothes trying to make their way to the exits. They fought their way upstream against and unyielding tide of humanity and finally shoved their way into the theatre, where they saw Kitner on the stage.

  Kitner had dressed for the occasion in a tailcoat and tophat, with one sleeve shredded to reveal his mechanical arm. The piston-driven fist at the end of his arm was wrapped around the throat of a fat man in an overburdened tuxedo, while his normal fist pounded again and again into the man’s face. Kitner laughed louder and louder with every blow until his mad cackling drowned out even the screams of the panicked theatregoers struggling at the exits.

  “Kitner!” Bubba yelled from the aisle in front of the stage. “Quit punching that old walrus-looking fat man and come down here. I got a score to settle with you.”

  “And I got a score to settle with Mr. Lewis here. He’s the man that fired me from my railroad job. Fired a bunch of us top men, just so he could hire cheaper young’uns to work our jobs!”

  “I heard you got fired ‘cause you was batshit crazy and put a bear’s arm in your shoulder socket. Way I heard it, didn’t have nothin’ to do with your pay, had everything to do with you being nuts!” Kitner snarled and dropped the fat man. He collapsed to the stage with a wet thwap, like a three hundred pound ham, only with a handlebar mustache. Kitner leapt from the stage to the aisle in front of Bubba, mechanical arm raised to smash.

  Only there was nobody there to smash. Bubba ducked as Kitner jumped, and by the time the ot
her man landed, Bubba was six feet away. Kitner lowered his head and bull-rushed, but Bubba stepped aside and swatted the enraged railroad man on the seat of this pants with the flat of his sword. Kitner stood up straight, whirled around and lashed out with his magical arm. Bubba batted the punch aside with his sword and twisted his wrist to leave a faint red line of blood dripping from a cut on Kitner’s cheek.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Kitner. I think you might be touched in the head, and my mama always told me to be nice to them that’s soft in the noggin like that.” Bubba said.

  “Well I want to hurt you very much, you fat hillbilly! This is twice you have interrupted me, and it shall not happen again! Look around, you fool! Look at them! They sit here in their frippery and finery, laughing at their moving picture, never thinking for a moment about the blood and sweat of the men that broke themselves to build their stupid iron horses! They know nothing of the sacrifices we made, nothing of the years of work we poured into their company! They just know that a train ran off the tracks, and Kitner was at the lever, so Kitner must be to blame!” Kitner reached down with his arm and ripped out three seats, still bolted together, and hurled them at Bubba.

  Bubba dove for the floor just in time and felt his hair blow as the chairs whizzed overhead. He scrambled to his feet just in time to catch a mechanized fist to the jaw and go flying across six rows of seats. Bubba landed in a crash of seats, splinters, mangled frames and two audience members who couldn’t get out of his way in time.

  He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and stood up. Bubba looked down at the man he landed on and said “Sorry ‘bout that. Didn’t see you there,” then turned his attention back to Kitner. The dark-haired man strode up the aisle, swearing with every step. Bubba made his way out from between the seats and stood in front of him, sword held at the ready.

  “Fine. No more Mister Nice Guy. We’re gonna finish this, Kitner. You and me.”

  “Fine.” Kitner grinned. “Then I’ll finish it.” He flicked a punch toward Bubba’s nose with his normal hand, and when Bubba ducked, he caught an uppercut to the gut for his troubles. Bubba’s breath rushed out, along with a piece or two of the sausage he had for dinner, and he went down to one knee. Kitner raised his brass-and-bone arm to the heavens, intending to bring it crashing down on Bubba’s back for a killing blow, but Bubba was playing possum. Beauregard Ulysses Brabham was a lot of things, and one of them was a sneaky fighter. He spun around onto his back and stabbed up with his sword, piercing Kitner’s gut and heart and stopping the fatal blow cold.

  At that exact moment, Jacob pointed his jawbone to the heavens and called down the lightning onto Kitner. A bolt of blue-white fire split the azure ceiling of the Fox and flashed down to the upraised fist of Kitner. Lightning ran down the mechanical arm, into Kitner, down the deranged man’s body into his chest, then followed the blade of the sword down Bubba’s arm, setting him to twitching on the floor of the theatre like a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. His last thought before he blacked out was “I hate magic.”

  *****

  Bubba came to his senses some time later and found himself lying on the carpet in the theatre lobby. Jacob, Preacher Mason and Tavvy were all clustered around, and Tavvy let out a huge sigh as his eyes flickered open and threw herself down on the floor, wrapping her arms around him.

  “Get off me, Tavvy, somebody’s gonna get the wrong idea in a minute.” He struggled to a sitting position and Tavvy backed off a little bit. He was surprised to see her reach up and brush at her eye. He thought for a second that he saw a hint of moisture there, but upon reflection wasn’t sure.

  “How are you feeling, Bubba?” Preacher Mason asked.

  Bubba took a minute to make sure everything still worked before he replied. “I reckon I’m all right. I can move everywhere that moves, and I don’t feel nothing moving that shouldn’t, so I reckon I’m fine. A little crispy, but pretty much fine. Where did that lightning come from? Does it usually storm indoors in the city?”

  “I’m afraid that was my fault, Bubba. I called the lightning because I thought Kitner was about to kill you. I didn’t realize you were just play-acting. I am truly sorry.” Jacob said.

  “Don’t worry about it, Jacob. I’m about as good an actor as some of them folks up on the screen, though, ain’t I?” Bubba reached up and shook the Indian’s offered hand.

  “Yes you are, Bubba. Yes you are.” Jacob replied.

  Bubba’s face turned sober as he looked around. “Kitner sure made a mess of this place, didn’t he? How many people you reckon got hurt?”

  “We don’t really know, but it was dozens.” Tavvy said.

  “And it would have been more if you hadn’t stopped him.” Jacob added.

  Bubba struggled to his feet, but with Jacob and Preacher Mason helping, he managed to stand. As the group started walking toward the street, Bubba turned to Jacob. “You get your bone out of Kitner’s arm?”

  “Yes, I did. All the relics of my people are now back where they belong — in the hands of the Creek.”

  “Well, then I reckon you’ll be wanting this.” Bubba held out the sword.

  Jacob took it, stared at it for a moment, then handed it back to Bubba. “I think it would be better for you if I did take this. I still think it bodes ill for you and yours, Bubba, and I don’t wish pain and suffering on anyone. But something else tells me that you need it to complete your work. So take the sword, and remember you have friends with the Creek as long as you shall bear it.”

  “And you can come get liquored up with me any time you want to, Jacob.” Bubba replied. They all laughed and limped down the stairs into the street, headed home.

  A Special Preview of

  Raising Hell

  A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter

  Novella

  By John G. Hartness

  Available now

  Exclusively on Amazon

  Chapter 1

  I fuckin’ hate demons. That’s what ran through my head as I got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to the Garda home. It was a nice place, for the suburbs. There was a two-car garage off to one side, a neatly manicured lawn leading up to flowerbeds in front of a nice little porch, and an SUV in the driveway because I’m sure the garage was full of bicycles, tools, lawnmowers and other shit that I only see when I get a call out here in the ’burbs. I live in a condo in the middle of downtown Charlotte, so the only time I see lawn equipment is when I get lost in a home improvement store looking for a new mallet or maybe a new wheel for my grinder.

  I walked up to the pale yellow siding nightmare of a home and stepped up on the front porch. The welcome mat was a little askew, the only imperfect thing in an otherwise totally Good Housekeeping image. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, opening my Second Sight and taking a look around. My third eye saw nothing out of the ordinary on the porch, no roiling black evil miasma ready to consume my soul and suck me down into the depths of Hell. It looked just as Martha Stewart in the supernatural spectrum as it did in the visible one. Good, I thought, maybe the little darlin’s just on the rag and I can get the fuck out of here and back uptown before the game lets out and traffic gets stupid.

  I opened my eyes and snapped back to the mundane world. After a second to adjust back to seeing the world with my eyes instead of my soul, I rang the bell. A dog immediately went apeshit on the other side of the door, as if the real trouble wasn’t already in the house. A couple of shouted “shut up”s later, the door opened and a flushed forty-something man opened the door. The top of his balding head stopped at about my nose, but I’m tall, so I was used to that. His polo shirt had sweat stains under his man boobs, and it stretched tight across his spectacular belly. He looked up at me, close-set brown eyes set deep in a florid face, capped off with a red nose that only happens when you’ve hit the bottle pretty hard for a pretty long time.

  “You Harker?” he asked, glaring up at me.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “You got ID?” he asked.<
br />
  No. I just randomly wander up to houses in suburbia and pretend to be an exorcist, hoping to arrive at the exact time their appointment was set for. I bit my tongue before that one could escape and just handed him my card.

  “You got any photo ID?” He had that belligerent tone of a middle manager, the kind of guy that shits on all his employees’ good ideas until somebody smarter than him hears them, then takes credit for the good one.

  I didn’t bother to hold back this time. “You want my badge number, too? This shit doesn’t exactly come with a union card, pal. You called me, remember? I’m here, the right time, the right address, now let’s see if I’m in the right place. I’m Quincy Harker. You got something needs banishing, or should I just go back to my sofa and NFL network?”

  “Sorry, sorry. No need to be a—” he cut himself off, but I didn’t.

  “Dick? Yeah, I’m a dick. You’re the stupid bastard who lets a demon into his teenage daughter, yanking me off the couch in the middle of the first Panthers playoff run in living memory, but of course I’m a dick because I didn’t immediately take off my hat and wipe my shoes before entering your fucking Ikea palace here. Now point me towards your daughter’s room and get out of my way before I do something really dickish, like turn you into a toad.”

  I pushed past the stammering jackoff and stomped towards the stairs, registering him mumbling something about the bedroom at the end of the hall. I didn’t need his instructions; as soon as I stepped onto the second floor, I could feel what I was there for. This time the sense of evil, of just wrongness was so strong I didn’t need my Sight to find it. It almost knocked me over the second I turned toward the door.