The Savage(50)

“You fuck!” Manny spit, delivered a boot to Raúl’s gut. Watched the air leave the pain of his facade as he dropped face-first to the wood. Spreading his arms out, whimpering like an abused canine. “You … You don’t know who it is I work for. They … they…”

“Shut your face. You can tell me what I want when I ask it of you,” Cotto’s father commanded Raúl. Grabbed the cuffs from the shelf, kneeled, pushed both revolvers down his waist, reached at Raúl’s thumb that hung by blood, tendon, and hurt, ripped it free, tossed it across the floor. Raúl screamed until he went silent with faint. Manny snapped the cuffs around left and right wrists. Wiped the blood onto his pants leg. Stood, pulled the heavy Colt from his waist, handed it to Cotto, and said, “Tonight, you learn resurrection.”

*

What Cotto learned that night so long ago, he would never forget: becoming a man, a soldier, accepting loss. But now, with the rumbling engines maneuvering through the paved neighborhoods of suburbia, that time seemed as lost and distant as the loud begging of men, women, and children within the elaborately structured brick homes, two-car garages, yards once manicured by lawn services, and hard-earned fortunes that no longer mattered. Their pleas for trade, their wads of cash that no longer held worth, their silver or gold antiques, family heirlooms, all were met with the sardonic grins of men whose only purpose was war, slaughter, torture, and rule, while keeping an eye or ear open for Chainsaw Angus. Regardless of ruling the land, which was his destiny, Cotto would not pass up killing the man who eliminated his father, Manny Ramos, while abducting young boys, turning them into soldiers to fight against their own.

Cotto and his men offered pain and death to the fathers, to the older men, just as Manny had taught Cotto: remove the strengths, and power shall fall, as the men were hindered in their ways and views. Unlike the children, the young sons whom he gathered like livestock to be broken down, built back up with training until he felt the children’d been trained enough to be soldiers for killing their own.

Some men stood begging, others defying. Only to get the same words that were offered at every hoarding and butchering: “We’ve come for your children. Your wives. We’ve no use for you males.”

Some fell to their knees, pyramiding their hands in front of them. Others thought they could swing a punch as easily as they did a golf club on the golf course. Or aim a rifle or pistol for personal protection like they did on the shooting range or the yearly hunting ventures they took or viewed upon their reality TV shows. Those fell just as quick as the kneelers. Hit the ground before they’d even had a chance to touch the trigger, let alone pull it. Dropping like the previous beggars and brawlers. The weekend-warrior wannabes.

Some were hung from door openings of cherry and oak, others were chopped and grated, left like party decorations from trees in yards or spread and spiked into the paved roads. Left for birds and buzzards to feed on, or a possum, raccoon, or coyote to snack on.

One of the Mutts told a man just before gutting him, “You got fattened by working for so long, your soft hands have lost the skills your ancestors possessed. ’Tis a shame, as you were misled like those in my country, you helped bleed the dollars while being led by a senseless blue-haired government. No bonus checks for you, gringo! Your country has turned as crooked as my own.”

“Please!” the man begged. “Please.”

“Ask that of your God, gringo. Ask that of your God.” And then the Mutt drew a line of red with his machete from beneath his chin, down his bare chest, and stopped at his waist. U-turned the blade’s angle, pressed hard, and cut upward. Letting the organs of color rainbow and splash to the ground.

Turning his back, the Mutt said, “I guess your God is busy, gringo, I guess your God is busy.”

*

Within the cages Cotto’s men loaded, the scared and bawling children, restrained each with zip ties, wrist over wrist behind their backs and placed upon the flatbeds. Hauled away from the suburbs within the small towns, their mothers whose soft skin and tanning-bed flesh would help them none.

Trucks were led by four-by-fours and ATVs, led first through several small towns from the north, south, east, and west. These were viewed as the easier takings. Those lined around shopping centers and fast-food dives. But there were those who were not taken, those of law enforcement or military service or sportsmen who hunted for nourishment. Those who possessed a knowledge of combat, of killing, of strategy. Those escaped. Disappeared into the rural landscape. A landscape Cotto and his men began working their way through. The back roads and farmland. Sometimes they’d gathered none in the rural areas as surprises of ambush awaited them from those who’d gathered and amassed with others who’d possessed know-how. Men and women with skills of survival. Skills of hunting and gathering like those of their pioneering ancestors. Those who’d relied less on technology and lived from the land. Farmed and gardened. Read The Old Farmer’s Almanac. The Foxfire books. The mechanics. The electricians. The carpenters. The laborers. Those nomadic men, women, and children who patched their own roofs, changed their own oil and spark plugs, sharpened their blades; those who’d less and less dependency on their government or TV or Internet. These were the types the Mutts feared if they were to create a commerce and grow in numbers. These were the people they wanted cleaned from the territory. And they wanted their children.

Those who fought back were hidden, unruly but needing organization as they battled against their own. They needed someone to lead them, not rule them, like several of the religious sects that had spawned the brawling meat cellars.