The Savage(16)

Rage glazed Dillard’s stubbled jawline. As he pressed his chest forward, the Widow’s grip broke from the jamb. Teetered her back. She sensed the cockfight that was brewing. Reached at the slab of door. Began to rear it closed, mashing Dillard’s fingers. “Maybe they is, maybe they is not. It’s my business, not yours or Elmer’s.”

Dillard sized up the situation. Saved the fight for another time. Pulled his hands away from the doorway, took a step backward. Watched the opening shrink while eye-fucking Horace and said, “Remember this, Widow, you’d not have a pot to piss in if it weren’t for my baby bro or the blood that birthed him.”

With that the door hinged shut.





NOW

Morning came with the threat of sounds, busted and splintered lumber. Feet trampled floorboards, heavy and weighted. Followed by the voices of men, muffled and foreign.

From the green military cot, Van Dorn rose already dressed in a knurled T-shirt and denim work pants stained by the drudge of days in search of food. Booted feet planted to the fungus floor of the basement. Hunger was a twisting pang for sustenance even after eating every cut of meat from the skillet the night before. Then digging into his memory. Memories brought on by the killing of three men with familiar engravings from his past but upon whom they’d been engraved, he could not place as it was unclear, fogged in his memory.

Gotta leave this place, Van Dorn told himself. Trying to rouse the grogginess of sleep from his frame. Pulling the .45-caliber Colt from beneath his pillow, sliding it into his holster. Still unable to shake the familiar face of the Sheldon girl being caged with those women and their young, Dorn grabbed the lever-action .30-30. Slung it over his frame. Stiffness fired about his muscles from the fall and fight of yesterday’s actions.

Snakes lay coiled in corners and about the floor like land mines ready to be detonated, but not by Dorn. For reasons unknown they’d always navigated to him like protective pets.

Making his way to the back wall of shelving where a metallic gun safe stood, door ajar, he wondered how many were upstairs, wondered if those from yesterday had tracked him. Pulling a backpack from one of the wooden shoals, raking supplies into it from the safe: Ammunition. Ohio Blue Tip Matches. Binoculars. Compass. Dorn slung it over his back. The tick of his heart was equal to an early-morning pot of coffee as he counted the steps of feet overhead, stomping from room to room, knowing that regardless of who it was he’d stayed in this home too long. Been fortunate not to have been raided or discovered long before now. Knowing that movement willed progression. Stagnation willed death.

Moving in a blistering rush across the fault-cracked floor to the slab of cedar that led outside, Dorn cursed himself, knowing he should’ve taken to the land long ago in search of others similar to him and his father and the Widow. Frontier types who understood their terrain. How to live from it. But then there was that fear of those who kill and rob you of all your worth.

Before the dollar had failed, and folks walked away from their jobs, formed militias across the United States to take out the power grids—after following the actions of the Disgruntled Americans—took a stand and told their government that they’d had enough, houses around him had turned to camps or rentals for getaways that never came. Beyond these homes within the valleys and back roads he sometimes hunted, he began to view men and women who went into hiding in cellars, embedded themselves into the earth, bunkered by soil and leaves. Folks who were scared. Dorn had spoken with some within those first weeks. They’d not wanted to risk lives. Traveling into town as others had and never returned. Hopes were that someone or something, be it county, state, government, or military, would come for them, offer answers. But after too many months, no one had. Only scavengers, militias, and the horde had made their way throughout the land more and more, reaping it of its commerce.

Grabbing the door handle, Dorn glanced to the corner. Made out the shape and the familiar scent of fuel. Listened to the ransacking going on from room to room. And voices that did not speak clearly.

Reaching down, Dorn grabbed the can of gas. Removed the cap, thought of the Sheldon girl. Of going catfishing late night down on the Blue River. Pouring fuel into a lantern that lay behind them on the gritty bank. Glow of a half-moon cast down upon the calm of water. Trees hung overhead. Lines baited, weighed down by sinkers with triple hooks and chicken livers. Fishing the current’s bottom till the zigzag came, Sheldon jerking the rod opposite the pull and tug of the fish. Her arms lean but strong as a boy’s until she fell in. Dorn dropped his pole. There was a panic at first. His struggle to help her. Hands holding her. Splash of water from limbs. “Stand up,” he’d told her. “Stand up.” And when she wouldn’t he grabbed her hips, pulled her upright. The river level stopping at her denim knees. Laughter reddened her face in the moonlight. Locks wet. Her shirt soaked. Braless. Van Dorn turned his eyes away from the shapes beneath, trying to be respectful. “Nothing to be ashamed of,” Sheldon told him. “I’m a girl. You’re a boy. There’s an attraction.”

Van Dorn thought of her and the others starved of hope and he knew what he had to do. Began dousing everything. Floor. Shelves. Walls. Stairs. He’d find these men and the women and children they’d taken, and he’d free them by whatever means necessary.

Overhead, the bedroom where Horace and the Widow lay was entered. Accented muffles hollered, “Goddamn, they’s dead! Rotted!”