The Savage(66)

Before the Sheldon girl could turn and run, the front door of the home unbarred. A female came from within. Her face an expanse of abuse, nose and lips plumbed by something durable. Crusted red with eyes raccooned, she shouldered a lever-action .30-30 on the Sheldon girl.

Viewing the actions through his binoculars, Cotto muttered, “I shall call her the ugly bitch.”

The Sheldon girl seemed to be surveying the rifle that the ugly bitch wielded upon her. There was an exchange of words between the two. Then the Sheldon girl raised her hands, palms facing the ugly bitch. Cotto caught something within Sheldon’s features, a smirk about the corner of her mouth, and though he couldn’t hear it, she bared teeth with rage and attacked the ugly bitch. Clawing and punching and kicking her until she dropped the rifle, caved in, and fell into a fetal position. A warrior, Cotto told himself. A numbness for her skill lubed Cotto’s insides.

Picking up the rifle, the Sheldon girl thumbed the hammer of the .30-30, stood over the ugly bitch with anger wetting her face, demanding words Cotto could not make out. As he adjusted the focus of his binoculars, fingers trembling with excitement, trying to decipher her lip movements, it looked as though she were asking Where? Where did you get this? By this Cotto thought Sheldon was asking the ugly bitch about the rifle.

The ugly bitch reached for something Cotto could not see. He caught the reflection of a blade. The Sheldon girl screamed. Then came the rack of gunfire. The ugly bitch’s brain was thrown from the rear of her skull like guts dropped in a slaughterhouse’s slop trays.

Cotto wanted to clap, to laugh with joy at the fast action of violence that came unexpected but was needed in order to survive the situation. This girl is a beast!

The Sheldon girl chambered another round, her arms pulsed and quaked and she entered the house. Within seconds gunfire erupted once more. Cotto stood in the tree, waiting, unnerved, anticipating her exit from the house. Knowing the gunfire was from the same weapon. It had cast the same echo, but did the Sheldon girl pull the trigger?





ANGUS

Eyes blinked open to the tilt of floor level. Reek of animal carcass and the laughter of madmen. A vibration of pain welted Angus’s skull. He lifted his neck, glancing at the worn black boots; his pistol lay from his reach. The boots were a barrier between the two, so he pulled himself back to standing. From the opening where the men had come wobbled a pink-haired female; she had potato-skin knees, arms vibrating, inked with daggers, eagles, and swastika tattoos, and the color of bruises lined each of her sockets. Then came the quick view of the laughing man who stood over his left shoulder. A pip-squeaking stabber not much taller than two and a half bales of hay that’d been twined and stacked, with wilted skin that held the gloss of a turnip’s insides, he wore boots with three-inch soles to add height to his sunken demeanor.

Angus twisted his attention to the two men in front of him. Smiling, they offered their gums of decay. Each was wormy and fidgeting. One veered a pistol sideways at Angus; the crud between his knuckles was earthy and human. The other kneeled, reached for Angus’s pistol, stood studying it.

Smirked. “This here’s one of them plastic-type constructions.”

The female lay off to the left, still unconscious. The man with the pistol trained on Angus spoke. “Thought you’s fitting yourself up to a beauty nap.”

Angus knew if he kneeled and ducked all at once, he could spin to the man over his shoulder, take whatever steel he plowed the rear of his skull with, and use it, blanket himself from gunfire with the torso, or maybe they’d not shoot one of their own; it was a gamble.

Inhaling deep to situate his nerves, Angus stood before the misfits aligning his frame, reached, and felt the bulbous knot that leaked crimson from the rear of his head. Tested their movements, reflexes. They’d not moved him. Taking in the textures of the two men. Ragged cotton and denim. Damp flesh pocked by tats, scabs, and open wounds. One holding Angus’s pistol was barefoot, the nails of his feelers were glazed by grease or oil, each looked as though he’d had leeches burnt from his frame after rolling in cresol from a woodstove. The man holding the gun on Angus said, “You some kinda mute?”

The stringy female came from behind the two men, bare feet smacked the dirt floor. Slapped forward. The female’s vision appeared possessed, the blacks in her eyes were expanded to dismiss all color, and she stuttered a duck whine. “G-g-got any salt?”

The man holding Angus’s pistol told her, “Nip that talk from your tongue, Okra.”

The female kneeled down and started touching the unconscious female, rummaging and picking through her hair as though she had burs in her locks. “Why for, I think I’ve discovered me some salt.” She giggled.

And Angus questioned, “The fuck you plan to extort from us?”

“Whatever it is can be offered.”

Shaking his head, Angus clenched each hand into bone-hardened hammers at his sides, told the man through gritted teeth, “We’s just looking for a place to bed down. Let me get the female from the ground and we’ll be particles in the wind.”

The man wrinkled his flaky unibrow, motioned with the pistol, and told Angus, “Sure, just scoop the ole gal up and be on with your travels. Stupid shit, done trespassed into the wrong territory!”

Angus glanced at the female, her locks strung from her head to Okra’s chafed lips as she jerked and chewed. The man holding Angus’s pistol turned it toward his right eye. Closed his left to look down the barrel.