The Savage(54)

“Us all?” Angus interrupted.

The girl paused. “They was a woman and her children. Zeek and Caleb. A man whose moniker was Jarhead.”

Jarhead was a charred torso out front, Angus thought, his prophet noosed from a tree.

“Where are they? These savages, did they remove them?”

The lady was having problems forming speech. Angus clutched her left and right arms. Dug his thumbs into the thin aerobic meat of each bicep. “The woman and children, they took them, how long ago?”

She jerked from Angus’s grip, and shotgunned a catatonic intensity of rambling.

“A beast tortured Daddy, could hear the strain of his pain from down here. They was looking for a man whose moniker was Angus, told us if we survived, to give him a message, to tell he had a hand in taking something from him and now he’d hunt him. When he discovered him he’d know pain, then death.”

She crimped her lid shut. Moisture dripped down her cheeks, hardened with silence, then a switch was flipped. A paste of saliva formed in her mouth and she spit, “The savage tortured my father! Forced us to eavesdrop. Left us tied like feral hogs to be butchered. Left me and David until—”

“The savage, did he carry a name?”

“They referenced him as…”

“What?”

“Cotto, goddamn it, Cotto Ramos.”

“Your father, he’s—”

“He’s what?”

Linked by his neck from a tree limb out in the yard, that’s what he wanted to say. But he did not. She’d see his rotted outline when he drove them both out of this rural hell.

“Dead.”

“No!” she screamed. “No!” repeating the same word, over and over.

Cotto Ramos. The name swiveled through his thoughts; he floated off for a split second, thought of the words carved into the prophet’s chest. Then came back, realized he’d no time for that now, he needed to get this crazed female someplace safer. And she held a frantic madness in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Angus told her.

“You, who the fuck are you?!”

“Angus.”

She spoke like a lunatic. “My father’s pain, they left us for these fuckin’ lechers to feed like vultures, to give a message to others.”

“Gotta venture you to my truck. I’ll get you—”

She tried to fight his grip on her arms. “No.” She jerked. “Let go! You ain’t reapin’ shit!”

Releasing his grip, Angus raised his palms up, faced them toward her, showing he’d meant no harm. “Your mind’s not firin’ on all its plugs. Calm the fuck down, I’ll get you someplace safe. I’m only in search of fuel and medicine.”

“Ain’t going nowhere with you. Gotta search out Daddy and David.”

David, Angus thought, is the one I saw gutted and T-boned up on the barn. Angus had to get the female and himself outta here, knowing there’d be more of what he’d done encountered. Criminal-eyed men with a hankering for females, provisions, and whatever else they could squander. He needed the fuel. Upstairs came the slam of the screen door. The shift of weight over the floor joists. Angus pulled his pistol from his holster. The female elbowed past him. Ran out into the daylight.

She paused, shielded her eyes against the burn of day. Screamed, “No! No!” She was running to the barn, where the man was spread over the weathered lumber like a dead deer strung up in a cryptic greeting card for what the world was turning into, a lawless proving ground for the mad.

Adrenalized air crystallized her lungs, caused her inhale to crash and burn. She sunk at the site of David, her husband. Several feet behind her, Angus came, pistol in his grip. Working his way through the tall grass and weeds. The barn door unhinged, out stepped a man in another orange jumper. Face scabbed and stubbled, one hand held a machete. Stains of human ran up and down each of his arms, Angus was beat and thought, So much for getting some fucking rest, fired his pistol.

The man’s chest splintered like decaying wood. He fell backward into the barn door’s opening.

The female tugged at her husband’s body. At the wet denim of his trousers. Thick mucus rivered from the crusted openings of her nose, tears poured down her cheekbones.

Angus grabbed her, knowing if there were more, he’d just sent them a notification to their whereabouts. “Get a flame in your ass!” Not knowing how many more there were, he’d worn out his welcome.

“Remove your hands from me!” she screamed.

Angus’s heart was running a relay. Taking one hurdle after the next without passing the stick. Glancing back at the house, he could make out a face looking from the kitchen window. From the basement came two more men attired in orange jumpers. Escaped convicts. The female was wasting time, she’d either sink or swim. Angered, Angus dug his hand into her buttery hair. Dragged her up the decline toward the Tahoe, feeling her strands give. Nails scraped and dug the top of his hand. Blocking out his conscience, to feel empathy, knowing what she’d been through. Seeing her husband dead. She’d probably been raped. Add that to not knowing the man she called Daddy to be the body strung up like a cannibal tribe’s Christmas ornament from a tree along the driveway.

Angus’s lungs ignited as he humped through the thick growth. The men came bearing tools for the land. One came with an axe, the other a rusted sickle. They were too far out of range to waste pistol ammunition on.