The Savage(74)

The King stepped away, kept the pistol pointed to Manny’s head, told him, “Slow.”

Manny lifted the pack from his shoulder with his right, told the King, “Your people, they murdered my wife.” Holding the ruck’s weight before him, he kneeled and sat the pack on the ground.

Cotto could no longer keep the tension bottled up. Across the truck’s hood he erupted with “My mother!”

The King pursed his lips, looked over at Cotto. “You speak of the Ox?”

Still kneeling, Manny unbuckled the ruck, said, “Yes, the Ox.”

The King’s voice sounded careless as he exhaled with his words, not giving two shits. “He was an ex-sicario. You know what a sicario is?”

Manny reached into the ruck and told the King, “Hitman for the cartels.”

“Yes,” the King said. “He had little boundaries and a taste for the attractive whether they were attracted to him or not. Your wife must’ve been a beauty.”

Manny’s eyes went to slits. His demeanor arctic as he grabbed the contents within the ruck. “I delivered him to his end.”

“That you did, as I suspected this after being told of the fires that were tamed. The porous carbon of bone-shaped outlines that were uncovered. But it is enough of this bullshit. Why are you here delivering my dope, offering your hides? Is it vengeance you wish to procure? ’Cause if it is, well, you’ve gotten plenty for you and your pissant of a spawn, ’cause now you’re as good as dead.”

Manny elongated back up to standing; with the bloody mess in his right hand, he told the King, “I want a future for my son, me and my men.”

“And how do you elect to have that, with one of my men’s heads in your hands?”

“No, I’m not asking. I’m telling.”

The King chuckled at Manny’s words. “You think you, your men, and boy can drive to my land, think that I will just let you take all that I’ve created? You’ve killed my men, men with families, what am I to tell their wives and children?”

“The same that my son and I were told when my wife was taken from us. That the man who took her from us had little boundaries.” Manny let his words soak in. Then he finished with, “But we’re not of the cartel, we’re ex-Kaibil commandos from Guatemala.”

The King was an aged sculpture in a museum. Posturing a solid but silent opposition. Looked down at the mess of a head that Manny held at his side. Then across the hood at Cotto, where something had fermented and taken shape within him. Something meticulous and calculated. Something methodical. The days of violence and loss had congealed. A tear spilt down his cheek. Separated the young boy who was pushing toward a young man. Something had snapped.

Manny caught the movement from the corner of his right eye, knowing what was being executed. Cotto started to step from the truck’s passenger’s side, walking past the headlights and grill, toward the King. Manny reacted. Swung the decapitated head at the King’s pistol. Knocked it from his grip. Then pulled the transmitter from the mouth of the decapitated head, hollered, “To your knees, to your knees!”

Confusion ran over the face of the King until Manny thumbed the button on the bloody black box. Screamed to Cotto, “Down!”

One explosion after another decimated the packs. Arms, legs, heads, and insides of the peasants combusted with the King’s men. Particled about the air. Creating an anatomy of bloodshed and dust. The dogs ran from the entropy, back up the steps of the home. Cotto crawled over the ground, felt and reached for the King’s pistol. Ernesto, Chub, and Minister felt their way to the vehicle they’d wheeled in with, reached beneath the headless bodies, and pulled out the automatic weapons. Manny had the King by his locks. Grasped and groped him to standing. Cotto pressed the pistol into the King’s mouth. From a distance, horses reared and screamed. Those men who’d survived the blasting moaned. Ernesto, Chub, and Minister ran toward the barn, began sweeping the area, filling anything that moved or breathed with bullet holes, shooting men from their outposts. Manny looked to Cotto. “It is time for a new King.” Took the pistol from Cotto’s grip, thumbed the hammer, watched the King’s eyes burn like comets in the night, and told him, “This is for Kabeza.” Tugged the trigger. A mess of organ, bone, and fluid smeared over the grit or earth. The King’s weight dropped. Manny stood with Cotto. Listened to the growl of the hounds who sat in the home’s entrance, watching. Cotto questioned Manny, “Father, should we silence their snarls, show them their endings too?” And Manny told him, “No, we should fillet the King, let the new master feed them their old master.”

That was the day Cotto’s apprenticeship was sealed. A day of bloodshed. Killing most of those who’d worked for the King except for Cutthroat, a human interrogator and butcher. The King’s wife and children were fed the same fate as his, a bullet. It was part of Manny’s madness. Someone lives on until someone stronger comes along and takes all that another has built. That someone was Manny Ramos.

He ran drugs and humans from south of the border, implanted them in the Midwest. Enlisted the help of other commandos he’d served with. Taught Cotto the trade. Trained him in soldering. In tracking and recon. In killing and fighting. Once he’d had the reins to uphold the rules of the savage and the salvaged, Manny migrated to Indiana with Bellmont McGill. A man who at first wanted quality drugs. Something more than a rural outhouse cook could offer from separating cold medicine and battery acid. Something he could purchase. Resell for bigger profits in surrounding counties. He also wanted to add flavor to his bare-knuckle boxing tournament with dogs fighting men. And Manny did all of this with the help of Ernesto, Chub, and Minister. Muscled others. Delivered drugs to the small backwoods bars where bare-knuckle free-for-alls were held amongst the surviving class throughout Kentucky and Indiana.