Vanilla Ride (22 page)

Big Guy said something, and then two of his guys, one with the shotgun, the other with a pistol, went back toward where they had parked the Ford. Big Guy eased toward us slowly, and one of the other guys started around the cabin, toward the back.

“Who you want?” I said.

“The big motherfucker,” Leonard said.

“Good.”

I hurried into the kitchen and stepped up on the counter that was near the door and pointed my weapon, waited. There was a slight sound at the back door, and then it was pushed back gently. I saw a hand with an automatic poke in, and then I heard a shot from the front of the cabin, Leonard’s or Big Guy’s weapon. I didn’t know for sure. And then the guy at the kitchen door, perhaps smelling blood in the water, charged in and I shot him above the ear and he fell back against the wall and his head stayed propped against it while the rest of him spread out in that relaxed manner only the dead have. There was blood on the wall.

I jumped down and charged into the other room. Big Guy had Leonard by the neck and was lifting him off the floor with both hands. Leonard’s gun was on the floor between Big Guy’s legs, and Big Guy’s weapon was thrown up against the wall. I wasn’t sure how things had got that way, who had fired and who was hit, but before I could blow Big Guy’s brains out, I heard a shotgun blast outside, and then another, and then Leonard went sailing across the room, slammed onto the bed hard enough for the slats to break and the girl to scream from under there, and then Leonard was up and the kids were crawling out from under the bed, cowering in the corner.

I lifted up my .38 and shot Big Guy directly in the chest. He stepped across the room quickly and grabbed my gun hand, and slapped the hell out of me with the back of his other hand. I did a nice backwards roll, and when I got it together, Big Guy was firing at me with my .38.

Leonard leaped like a panther and hit Big Guy above the knees with the side of his body, trying to clip him. Didn’t work. He bounced off.

I got the gun from the dead guy in the kitchen, a nine-mil, and went back to help Leonard. Leonard was grabbed again, and Big Guy was slinging him around like wet laundry. I couldn’t get a good aim.

All of this was going on at the same time there was a lot of racket outside. Gunfire, cursing, screams.

Finally Big Guy tired enough, that Leonard, still hanging high while this guy choked him, was able to slap his hands over Big Guy’s ears. Big Guy dropped him. I tried to shoot Big Guy as he came rushing toward me, but the gun jammed.

Typical.

He grabbed me around the waist and pushed me backwards and slammed me into the wall so that the back of my neck hit a bookshelf and the shelf came loose and fell and the one above it fell too, hitting me on top of the head dead center. At least the owner wasn’t a reader; no books fell on my head.

Next thing I knew I was pitched against the far wall next to the open front door. I got up and saw Leonard throw a right hook into Big Guy’s body and jerk back his hand with a sour look on his face.

I knew then why my bullet hadn’t hurt Big Guy. He was wearing a bulletproof vest.

The kids, both barefoot and Tim bare-chested, yanked a duffel bag out from under the ruins of the bed. They headed out the door before I could get off my ass, and when I did, the cabin felt as if it was moving.

I started to go after them, but when I looked back, Leonard was being slammed by a punch that might have killed a steer. My head was mostly back together, so I rushed Big Guy and threw a hard round kick into his thigh. It was a perfect kick, hitting right on the nerve in the outer thigh, and I had used it before, dropping the leg right out from under strong men, but if it bothered Big Guy his expression didn’t show it. He came rushing at me, and without really knowing I was going to do it, I started backpedaling and went right out the front door.

A gun barked to my left and I saw one of Big Guy’s team on the ground and Jim Bob walking over. I got a glimpse of Tonto, but I didn’t see the other bad guy. The two kids and their duffel bag had disappeared.

Big Guy came charging out into the open, practically foaming at the mouth.

I’m a little ashamed to say I turned and bolted. I thought I was running like a goddamn deer on steroids, but Big Guy was tight on my ass as a dingleberry, and the next thing I knew he had me and we’re tumbling down the trail, rolling like a couple of doodlebugs. When we came to the bottom of the hill, I got hold of his ear with my teeth and bit it as hard as I could, taking off a chunk big enough for a small sandwich.

He jerked his head up and came to his knees and let out a bellow. I tried to make a quick exit, stage right, spitting out the chunk of ear as I went, but he got hold of my rain slicker with one hand and hit me so hard with the other I thought I had accidentally stepped onto train tracks and been hit by a locomotive.

He was about to hit me again when I heard a grunt, and Leonard, doing a Superman, flew down the hill and hit Big Guy. The two of them went tumbling down some more, covered in mud, and ended up near the water’s edge. Big Guy came up on top and he was giving Leonard a pounding.

I ran down there and kicked Big Guy in the head. It was a pretty good shot, and it did more damage than the kick to the thigh. He was knocked over and into the water. He tried to get up and I kicked him again, but because I had to step out into the water to do it, it wasn’t as good a kick, and it only knocked him back. And then Leonard got hold of the minnow bucket and slammed it over Big Guy’s head. It was a tight fit. Leonard chopped Big Guy across the throat, twice in rapid succession. Big Guy stood up. Leonard slipped behind him with one smooth motion and tried to choke him with his forearm. The guy’s neck was like a tree, and Leonard might as well have been squeezing one. The guy shook like a dog and Leonard went into the water, scrambled up and out of it and onto the shore to meet me. We both stood there looking at the monster with the minnow bucket on his head. Big Guy clawed at the bucket, started pulling it loose. Leonard said, “Run like a motherfucker.”

And we did. We ran. We were like little children being chased by the Big Bad Wolf.

Leonard said as we ran, “Where the fuck is that guy from?”

“Hell,” I said.

We were coming up on the boathouse. I said, “Goddamn it. Let’s take the boat and get away from that sonofabitch.”

Looking back, I saw Big Guy minus his bucket, and he was really coming. When we got in the boathouse the kids were there with the bag of money. They had the other rain slickers on and the towels over their shoulders. They were just standing on the platform looking at the boat as if they thought they might be magically transported into it. The rain was really coming down outside the boathouse, and it could be seen through the big opening at the back where the boats went out and came in, peppering the water like buckshot.

“What the hell are you waiting on?” Leonard said to the couple. “Get in the boat.”

“I’m scared of water,” the girl said.

“Something comin’ through that door you’re gonna be a lot more scared of,” Leonard said, and at that moment Big Guy came in, flinging the door back so hard it slammed against the wall.

The girl was in the boat faster than a jackrabbit. Tim just froze. Leonard and I crouched. Leonard said, “This time, we got to get him.”

Big Guy, who seemed to have lost his wits, came charging along the planks and Leonard and I, as if through some mind-meld of knowledge, went for his legs, went low and lifted high. It wasn’t quite perfect. Big Guy went a little to the right, out over the platform and hit headfirst in the boat. The boat cracked, rolled, sent the girl into the water with a scream. Tim, who was standing behind us and had caught some of Big Guy’s body as it was thrown, was knocked the length of the platform.

The boat righted itself, and there was Big Guy, hanging on to the side of it. The girl, who was crying loudly, was clinging to the bow. I got down on my belly on the platform and grabbed one of the paddles floating in the water and stood up and cracked Big Guy over the head with it. It took about three licks before he went under.

There was movement at the door. I turned my head. Tonto came through, followed by Jim Bob. Somehow, Tonto had ended up with the double-barrel shotgun.

Big Guy was back, clinging to the side of the boat, trying to climb inside. Tonto came over quick and stepped off the platform and onto the boat. It was a graceful move and the boat only rocked a little. He got Big Guy by the hair and stuck the double barrel in his open mouth and pulled the trigger. The back of Big Guy’s head jumped out onto the water, and something, pellets, skull shrapnel, rattled against the clapboard wall across the way.

Big Guy, missing most of his head, went under, except for one hand that clung to the side of the boat. Tonto squatted and took hold of the fingers and peeled one of them off and then they all came loose.

Leonard said, “You better find that sonofabitch and drive a stake through his heart. I don’t want him coming back.”

Tonto made his way to the bow of the little boat and pulled the girl out of the water, then handed her up to me. I set her on the platform. She was shivering with the cold, just like me and Leonard and Tim. Tonto climbed up on the platform and took a deep breath. He smelled like the shotgun blast.

“The others?” I asked.

“They’re napping,” Tonto said. “Deep napping.”

“Yeah,” I said. “There’s one in the cabin, and he’s kind of sleepy too.”

At the top of the hill, with me carrying the bag of money, and it was a big bag and pretty damn heavy, we discovered that the two thugs were indeed napping by the Ford. While they were napping some red stuff had run out of them and onto the ground and had been mixed up and thinned by the rain so that it looked like spilled strawberry Kool-Aid. They were lying on their backs and they had some holes in them and their open mouths were filling with rain.

We grabbed the stuff from the cabin that belonged to the kids, got the guns, and wiped the place down of blood and fingerprints as best we could, hauling the dead guy out of the kitchen, putting him and the other two in the Ford. Jim Bob drove the Ford, Tonto drove his van, and Leonard took the keys of the Escalade from Tim and drove the rest of us out of there, me in the back with the boy, the girl beside Leonard. The windshield wipers beat methodically as he drove and the heater made it cozy. It was hard to believe that a moment before we had been in a gunfight, a fistfight, a wrestling match, and the like. It seemed surreal, though my ears were still ringing from the gunfire in the small cabin and I hurt all over.

We followed Jim Bob down a narrow clay road with trash thrown out on both sides. He parked the Ford and left it and joined Tonto in the van. Tonto and Leonard found places to turn around and got us back on the main road, which was a strip of aging blacktop.

We followed along behind the van. No one in our car had said a word. And then: “That man,” the girl said. “He … he was so strong.”

“Tell me about it,” Leonard said. “And he had a bulletproof vest on to boot.”

“You noticed that too,” I said.

“I did,” Leonard said. “For a moment I thought Superman had gone bad, and it was a real relief to discover he was just a man.”

“He was just plenty of man,” I said.

“I hurt all over,” Leonard said. “I feel like I been chewed up by a wolf and shit off a cliff and my pile got stepped on by an elephant.”

“I hear you,” I said. “I’m dizzy and I got a headache and I want my teddy bear. Bastard must have taken something. Some kind of drug. Damned if I know. But I’m going to dream about him, and I’m not going to like it.”

“I used to have a teddy bear,” the girl said out of nowhere. “His name was Lew. I think my momma still has him.”

We let that sail around the car for a moment, then, “Figure guy owns the cabins has already called the law,” Leonard said.

“No,” Tim said. “He said he would be gone a few days. Went off somewhere with his brother. We paid in advance.”

“I hope you left a dead body deposit,” I said.

“We didn’t give our real names. He wrote down our plates, but they’re false. I switched them.”

“Normally, I wouldn’t want to encourage such criminal enterprise as license-plate switching in the young, but let me, at this moment in time, give to you a symbolic high five.”

It was entirely symbolic. Neither of us moved.

Tim said, “So … are you going to hurt us?”

“Nope,” I said. “We already would have if we were. But you got to go back.”

“My dad … he turned himself in.”

“For you. And he’s going to talk to the feds. Putting himself in danger from the Dixie Mafia for one reason and one reason only. You.”

Tim was quiet for a moment, then said, “He’s done some bad things.”

“He has, and I suppose he’s actually going to get away with having done a lot of them if he tells the feds the right things, things they want to know. But there is this. He loves you pretty damn strong to do what he’s doing. Putting himself in danger, maybe going to jail, or having to be in the witness protection program. Something you may have to do
too. Thing is, he’s doing what he’s doing for you so you can maybe do something a lot better than he’s done with his life.”

“You think so?”

“I think so.”

“What about me?” the girl said.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “We’ll figure something out.”

“He just couldn’t stand we were together, her being black.”

“He got over it,” I said. “He only wants you happy.”

“He said that?”

“Yep.”

“Are you friends of his?”

“Nope,” I said. “Not even close.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“We sort of have our asses over a barrel and we got picked because we were expendable.”

Leonard said, “Girl, what’s your name?”

“Katie,” she said.

“All right,” Leonard said. “That’s good to know in case I want to call you to supper. Hap, are you okay back there?”

“A little traumatized. Not every day you meet Dracula and live.”

“Ain’t that the truth? We owe Tonto one.”

“We owe that shotgun one. Maybe we can take it to lunch.”