The Savage(44)

Cotto and his men would continue their slaughterous hunt for the other, who went by the moniker of Chainsaw Angus. They’d continue throughout Harrison and Orange Counties until they found him. Once they were rid of him, the land would be left for prospering.

Out in the yard, they’d sat Purcell in a walnut chair before a tree that’d been chopped to a jagged stump. Stained by black liquids. Before him, several men stood armed, with faces devoid of emotion; Purcell’s graying locks and tufted beard fluttered with a brisk breeze that caused his eyes to blink. Cotto taunted about, nothing more than a murky shadow of brawn and death bearing questions. “As you were the last to hold stock on this bare-knuckle fighter whose name is Chainsaw, do you hold communication with him or claim his actions in your dreams? It is known that you rang a deal with this barbaric mercenary. Killed McGill. My father. Then robbed the Donnybrook of its worth.” Purcell sat as though a serpent removed of muscles for speech; tongueless and mute. Cotto pointed to Purcell’s feet with his rifle. Nodded to his men, who bared left and right foot of boots as Purcell tried to kick at them. It did little. His feet were restrained upon the flat area of the cresoled stump. Feet bottoms were bare of boot or sock, facing Cotto, who smirked. “The hammer.” One of his men came with a small mallet. Delivered the indent of fiber. The creak of bone that gave.

Purcell’s eyes pumped white as fresh dairy cream. Dentitions bit and walled behind sealed lips. Tears flavored bitter down his jaws. Arms tensed and shook.

“Leave him, he—he knows nothing of which you speak!” Jarhead screamed from the ground.

And questions were queried from Cotto to Purcell once more as he smiled into Purcell’s pain of wet eyes. “I’ve traveled miles, across desert, woods, trounced through riots, burnt bodies, crumbled lives, I’ve any and every intention of crumbling yours if you do not offer words, as I’ve grown impatient.” From his pocket Cotto removed a vial. White and black granulated powder. Uncapped it with his thumb. Raised it to his right nostril. Sniffed hard. Then to his left. Sniffed even harder. Eyes batted and burned. Tonguing his lips. “Goddamn!” he raged, and continued with “I can see the feline has stolen your usage. Word about the territory proclaims you as a prophet. A sage. Well, prophet, Where. The. Fuck. Is Angus?!”

“He knows not a trait of what you question!” Jarhead Earl shouted.

Anger flushed Cotto’s complexion of ink and he came swift, his boot aiming for Jarhead’s facade. Jarhead dodged. Brought his wounded leg around to foot-sweep Cotto, who didn’t drop but bent his leg, brought his knee down into Jarhead. Released his rifle. His thumb digging into the pulpy shoulder wound. “Ahhhh!” Jarhead screamed. Cotto wanted to see him squirm. Then he took on a second thought. Traded his grip on the wound for the grip on his rifle. Stood and stabbed the bore of the barrel into his forehead. “You’ve attained the softness of a crustacean. Jarhead Earl, you’re no fucking more!”

A smirk decorated Cotto’s face. Finger tug ended Jarhead’s life.

Back to Purcell, Cotto said, “Bet you didn’t draw that with your prophetic crystal ball, did you, sage?”

Limbs twisted like knotted roots of a tree by the hands of Cotto’s men, Purcell nearly chewed his tongue in half, saliva and blood ruptured from the corners of his mouth. Glancing to the slab of wickedness. Knowing that whether he spoke or said nothing, speech brought death the same as silence. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. He rasped, “Come closer.” Cotto stepped. “Your ear. Let me speak to it.” Smiling. Cotto turned his ear to Purcell. The prophet nestled a thick glob of lumpy cream-cheese-like goo into the lobe of this man who’d murdered Jarhead.

Cotto did not wipe the thick spittle. He let the warm gob string to his neck. Raised up.

“What I expected of you each was badasses. What I got was mush.” Pointing to Earl’s wife and children, who held wailing anger and tears after seeing their husband and father removed. “Your silence brings them whoring and soldiering. It was your choice, prophet.”

Purcell clasped his eyes.

Cotto told his men, “Lay him in a posture of rest, prepare him with a message before the stringing for others to know of our trespass.”

“What of the other you’ve branded with death, Cotto?” one of his men questioned.

“Saturate him with fuel, let the prophet watch him ignite, coal and smolder.”

Hands held Purcell down. Popped the buttons from his shirt. Ripped the cotton from his torso. Another punctured his flesh with a smirched blade. Inscribing the scripture of who they once were. The Mutts, the last of Manny’s men. While another formed a knot that rubbed up and down for the passage that would let the eyelet tighten. The twines of fiber slid over Purcell’s chicken neck while his frame writhed from the metal scraping the pectoral and center of his chest. The area became saucy as rare rib eye. Lubricating down his body until the men strung him from a tree. Face blistering. Eyes bulbous. His bare feet kicking some twenty feet above the ground. Before the wet mapped out his crotch and fecal fell around his heels, viewing the flames that cooked Jarhead, Purcell thought of what they’d endured, of his visions; it seemed Jarhead as a leader for the rural was nothing more than dreams, he thought, as the screams and cries from Tammy and her two boys grew distant and faint.





ANGUS