Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King

by Blackmore, Keith C.

  “Don’t like stupid questions, is all,” O’Leary said, but his tone had dialed back a bit.

  “It’s like this,” Top Gun explained. “How many meat puppets did we have when we first started out here?”

  “Five.”

  “How many we got now?”

  “Three.”

  “And why is that?”

  “‘Cause I shot the others. But that was—”

  Top Gun held up a hand. “What did you just say?”

  O’Leary didn’t answer.

  “You said something just then.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Top Gun waited, not impressed. “Repeat it, please.”

  O’Leary sighed in what sounded like embarrassment. “‘Cause I shot the others.”

  “‘Cause you shot the others.”

  “But that was because—”

  “Ah!” Top Gun interrupted again, as if he were dead-lifting a tractor tire. “You shot the others. You. You pulled the trigger. You blew their heads off. All because they didn’t do something fast enough or didn’t answer fast enough. Now you’re about to fuckin’ execute a third meat puppet. I can’t let you do that, son. Just because, if you do, you severely limit our workforce, and I’m not gonna change a fuckin’ tire because of you. Not me. And not the Jipman.”

  “Fuck no,” the Jipman said, nervous.

  No one spoke then, and in the tense stillness that followed, the puppet’s arms ached even more. He thought about putting them down, but didn’t, mostly because O’Leary was standing right behind him. The surgeon was back there, his presence as palpable as a blazing furnace.

  “Get back to work,” O’Leary commanded the meat puppet. The meat puppet obeyed.

  The conversation continued behind him, however.

  “Glad that’s over with,” Top Gun said. “You did a wise thing, O’Leary. A very wise thing. You gotta have more patience in times like these.”

  “I think you two are ganging up on me,” O’Leary rumbled.

  “We’re not—” Top Gun faltered before taking a breath. “Goddammit, you fucking moron, think for a second. Stop thinking with that boom stick of yours and use your other brain.”

  “The hell’s all the shouting about,” a fourth voice asked from a short distance. Jake. ‘Jolly Jake’, as the others called him. The meat puppet remembered the name. Reminded him of buccaneers.

  “Fuckin’ O’Leary,” Top Gun answered. “He’s getting a little overeager about shootin’ people.”

  “What?”

  “They’re gangin’ up on me,” O’Leary protested, the anger returning. “Both of them.”

  “I’m not ganging up on you,” the Jipman complained.

  “Look,” Top Gun stressed. “All I’m sayin’ is… take it easy with the threats, all right? Just take it easy. We only got three meat puppets left. That’s three. We don’t want to use the merch in the trailer, right? I mean, that’s all fresh. So, we gotta use what we got, and all we got left because of you are three slabs of meat,” Top Gun carried on. “That’s it. That’s all. Look, in an effort of preserving the peace, go ahead and shoot the meat. I don’t give a shit anymore. But I’m not going to change that goddamn tire. You understand me? I am not. And Jipman ain’t gonna change that tire, either. Old Jolly over there got a fucked-up leg, so you know he’s not gonna do it. So that leaves you. Understand?”

  Peace then, of an uncertain kind. The meat puppet remained poised in front of the tire, tensed and waiting.

  “You know something?” O’Leary spat. “Fuck it.”

  He fired.

  Top Gun jumped at the sound.

  The blast removed the top part of the unfortunate meat puppet’s head and slapped a tattered rag of scalp and bone and brain matter against the very truck he was poised to work on. He fell over as if shoved from behind. Top Gun and the Jipman were speechless, partially in shock, and partially wondering if they should just shoot O’Leary right there. Top Gun had said it before—in private. The surgeon was a little past being desensitized to these impulsive acts of violence. Top Gun used to think O’Leary simply didn’t care about what he did. Now, however, Top Gun suspected O’Leary was enjoying himself. Very much.

  “Gotta break a few fuckin’ eggs, right?” O’Leary swore, spittle flying from his bearded chops. “Gotta break a few to make the others work, right? Right?”

  The Jipman nodded, and that took the attention off him. “Sure, dude. Sure.”

  Top Gun sighed, his shock bleeding away. It was only then when he heard the screams coming from the six-by-twelve cargo trailer hitched to the rear of his Raptor. O’Leary heard it, too, and while the man wasn’t big, his unsettling anger and eagerness to kill made him a much bigger problem than Top Gun cared to admit.

  “See what you did?” Top Gun said and turned to the trailer. He slapped the trailer wall, near a series of airholes punched into the side. Fingers poking out retreated when Top Gun hit the wall a second time, and a few wide eyes quickly withdrew into the trailer’s dark recess, for fear of being poked.

  Top Gun was beginning to think it was time to lessen the gang by one. Just to be on the safe side. He knew he’d sleep better at night. Hell, if he really wanted to sleep better at night, he’d just leave the whole unsavory business. It wasn’t for him, anyway.

  A child moaned from within the trailer and that annoyed O’Leary. He primed the shotgun and walked up to the airholes. “Shut the fuck up in there! Shut the fuck up or I’ll put a round of shot in there right fucking now. Maybe two blasts and fuck the mess. Just fuck it. I’ll wash out the whole trailer with a garden hose next time we stop. Hear me?”

  The moaning ceased, as if someone had clamped a hand over the kid’s mouth. O’Leary jammed his shotgun against one of the holes anyway.

  The Jipman exchanged glances with Top Gun, and both men fluttered with indecision.

  The meat puppets were one thing.

  The cargo was another.

  And just as Top Gun braced for more carnage, laughter erupted from the lead pickup truck.

  Jolly Jake, apparently, had found humor in the proceedings.

  “The fuck you laughing at?” O’Leary demanded, eyes wide and back-lit by a stick of crazy burning far too bright.

  “You, dude, you,” Jake laughed. An elbow jutting out of the driver’s window was all that could be seen of the man, until he stuck half his head outside for a second. Only a second, as if daring O’Leary to take a shot at him. “You’re hilarious. ‘You kill him and you’ll have to change the tire. I’m not gonna change that tire. I’m just sayin’, you shoot him and you’ll have to change the tire’ and fuck it! BLAM! That shit tinkled it was so fuckin’cold.”

  Jolly Jake laughed again. Laughed so hard he even put a hand to the pickup’s horn, the sound goosing the air and causing the Jipman to flinch.

  “Cold, O’Leary!” Jake yelled. “Drop dead cold! What was your field of specialty again?”

  O’Leary stopped and stared at the lead truck, the distraction disarming the tension. “Ruh,” he said, as if trying to remember. “…Rhinoplasty,” he finally managed, looking a little uncertain, and more than just a touch breathless.

  “Rhinoplasty!” Another hearty chortle. “Goddamn. You sure as hell took care of that slab’s nose.”

  The surgeon smiled. “Sure did. Damn straight, I did.” And he released a soft chuckle.

  “Well,” Jake said. “You gonna change that tire, now?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  And to Top Gun’s and the Jipman’s mutual dismay, O’Leary handed off his shotgun to the Jipman, giving him a look of you gonna help or what? No sooner did the Jipman take the weapon when O’Leary got to his knees and went to work on the flat.

  “Fuck me gently,” Top Gun muttered at the unexpected scene of roadside assistance. He waved off the Jipman, urging him to cool down. The Jipman indicated that he would, but he clearly wasn’t happy about it. Shaking his head, Top Gun turned and walked away, believing the dangerous mo
ment had passed for the time being. He kicked up pebbles scattered along the blacktop as he approached the lead truck in their two-truck caravan and faced Jolly Jake.

  Jake was a long-haired hippy freak, with icy eyes and a mouth containing only half a load of teeth. His hair had been tied off in a foot-long tail with an elastic, of which he had about half a dozen spares around his right wrist. Jake was also a merchant of highjacked meat and bones. A pusher of prime, forcefully appropriated ass. And he was the captain of the little miserable band that Top Gun—once a high school gym teacher—found himself an increasingly unwilling part of.

  “How do you do that?” Top Gun asked Jake, keeping O’Leary in sight as the brutish man struggled with the tire.

  “Do what?”

  “Talk him down like that.”

  “It’s all in the laugh,” Jake said with that spotty smile. “Laughter’s the best medicine, right? Takes the sting outta everything, don’t it?”

  “Guess so,” Top Gun said with a relieved shake of his head. Then he leaned in. “He’s getting worse, Jake.”

  The Jolly one smiled. “Relax, Gun my son. Stay cool. I mean, really, we’re all a little too close to the chicken barbeque, right? O’Leary’s under some pressure is all. Let him have his fun—or in this case, let him blow off some steam. But, sweet Christ almighty, never challenge him. That’s the road to some serious Tom-fuckery. Especially with him. And, if all else fails, just remember… ask what his old job was.”

  “He worked in a used bookshop,” Top Gun whispered.

  “See,” Jake scolded with a frown. “You’re fucking up again. In his mind, O’Leary was a cosmetic surgeon. A damned good one. Just don’t ask him to do any work on you is all.”

  Top Gun couldn’t help but smile nervously at that.

  “Seriously,” Jake carried on, lowering his voice and eyeing O’Leary. “What the hell, right? What does it matter what he thinks his old job used to be? Or his new one? Let him be Fire Chief Jim if it keeps him under control. A fucking astronaut if he pleases. Just remember to play along with the whole idea, but not, like, in a condescending way, right? But in a good way. It’s an off-button, okay? For times like these.”

  “He was about to—”

  “I know what he was about to do, which is why I started laughing here. And look. Suddenly everything is rum and roses. You get it now? Off-button. Just remember that. You gotten learn how to handle the freaks better. It ain’t hard. All they want is attention, really. A little acknowledgement. That’s all.”

  Top Gun supposed that was all, but his balls were still drawn up all tight and tingly.

  “Look,” Jake said, studying his companion’s face. “He’ll ride with me from here on end. That savage is too damn valuable to lose. Oh, make no mistake, one of us will end up shooting the poor bastard in the back of the head one morning, either before or after breakfast beers, but let’s hold off on that for as long as we can. Whatever you might think of him, the bottom line is he’s valuable. He terrifies the cargo. Terrifies them. Terrifies the meat puppets, too. You can’t… teach that shit. You can’t. You either got it or you don’t. And he’s. Got. It.”

  Top Gun exhaled a note of Oh he’s got something all right.

  “Listen,” Jake continued. “Don’t you worry. You and the Jipman can drive on behind us. Play some tunes. Play ‘em loud if you want. Fuck it, dude. Just fffffuck it. We got the goods, and this time tomorrow is payday. So fuck it. Okay? Hear me? You good?”

  By “payday”, Jake meant supplies of food and gas in exchange for the cargo.

  Top Gun felt uneasy just thinking about that, but what he said was, “Yeah. I’m good.”

  “Smooth. Hey O’Leary!”

  Top Gun flinched as the surgeon’s—the delusional surgeon’s—head snapped up.

  “You get that done, then come on back here. You’re ridin’ up front with me, you crazy rabid bear fucker you. Hope you like Deep Purple.”

  “Fuckin’ love Deep Purple!” O’Leary’s eyes lit up, and for a brief moment he resembled a big old shaggy collie who’d just heard the rattling of treats in a can.

  The sight amazed Top Gun.

  “Well, get that shit done, son!” Jake yelled out.

  An enthusiastic O’Leary got back to work.

  Jolly Jake fired off an expression of See? at Top Gun before winking at him.

  Top Gun saw, and frankly, it both amazed and scared the living shit outta him.

  9

  The two-truck motorcade stopped ten kilometers outside of Timmins, at the last Blue Star EV charging station this side of the TCH. Half of the building’s roof had charred and collapsed, as if God himself had decided to pop a propane pimple with disastrous consequences. The main office, attached convenience store, and restaurant remained intact, however, although the smashed windows and wide-open doors indicated it had long since been gutted by looters. There were three main charging areas out front, all lined up like a regular parking lot, where each individual zone had a single charging station positioned at the end. On a lot that might service a total of fifty or more cars, there were only three mid-sized vehicles occupying the recharging zones. The chargers were white and blue, with yellow lightning streaking through a blue sun on their bulky sides. They reminded Top Gun of old-fashioned parking meters but with a few extra kilograms of armor slapped on top.

  When Jake and his crew designated the place as their rendezvous spot, Top Gun had himself a waltz through the adjoining facilities, because one never knew what looters might have missed the first dozen times through. Sadly, however, the whole facility had been picked clean.

  Not even a road map.

  Someone had tossed all the metal racks into a corner behind the counter, creating a nightmarish Jungle Jim of sorts. Broken glass, squashed plastic bottles, and an assortment of flattened juice and milk cartons littered the floor near the coolers. There had been a faint smell of piss around there, as well. The place certainly had had its share of visitors after the fall of civilization, but as of last week it had been deserted.

  O’Leary got out of Jake’s truck. He wore a Kevlar vest, which needed some stitching on one side, and a dinged-up riot helmet. The armor encased the self-proclaimed nose surgeon in a bulky, intimidating outer shell. He adjusted the helmet aggressively, as if pissed off he couldn’t jam a finger into his ear. Once that was done, he bent over and crept towards the open doors of the station.

  “Jesus,” Top Gun said. “He must’ve put that on while in the truck.”

  “Bet that was an experience,” the Jipman said on the passenger side.

  “Bet it was.”

  The two men sat in the second truck and stared.

  “Jake don’t give a fuck,” the Jipman finally said. “Probably suggested it himself.”

  “Probably.” Top Gun eyed the highways running east and west and the derelicts dotting the lanes. There were abandoned vehicles everywhere, but they usually were more of a pain in the ass around bigger cities, where the sheer volume forced a driver to reduce his speed to a crawl. Or simply turn back and find another route.

  “I tell ya,” the Jipman said, staring off in the direction O’Leary had gone. “That guy’s on a fuse.”

  “I know,” Top Gun said.

  “A short fuse.”

  “I know.”

  “One of us will haveta put him down.”

  “Probably.”

  “I could do it,” the Jipman offered. “Just pop him when he gets back. When we all sit down to eat. No trouble. I just need the go-ahead.”

  “Jake won’t like it,” Top Gun said, squinting at the aging afternoon. “He says we need him, even though the guy’s crazy. He has a point.”

  “We only need him for shock and awe. That’s it.”

  “That’s exactly it,” Top Gun agreed. “You gotta admit, when O’Leary gets it in his head to go through a door, he goes through a door. Can’t find help like that anymore.”

  “Suppose not,” the Jipman said, but he clearly was
n’t convinced.

  The conversation got quiet then, and Top Gun turned off the engine to preserve fuel. The silence thrummed in his ears, and he lowered his window. A breeze passed through the cab, cold to the face but refreshing. Someone thumped in the cargo trailer from behind, as if they’d fallen over, and Top Gun glanced at the padlocked doors. No one was going to try and escape.

  O’Leary came back into sight and waved them in.

  “All clear,” Top Gun said.

  “No one’s been here for ages,” the Jipman declared.

  “Rather be safe than sorry.”

  Under an overcast sky, they left the pickup, their sidearms holstered on their thighs. Top Gun stretched with a soft groan and focused on a clump of trees across the highway. The Jipman did the same on the passenger side. Both men wore jeans and t-shirts held in place with some tactical webbing.

  Upon sharing a look, the Jipman started walking toward the rear. “Gonna check on the cargo,” he said.

  Top Gun let him go.

  Jake stood beside his ride. The leader stretched as if he were unlocking his entire spine. He croaked happily and ran his fingers through his greasy hair. The guy loved his hair and couldn’t go five minutes without touching it, as if he had stringy gold sprouting from his scalp. Once finished, Jake sauntered along the truck, limping just a little and rubbing his belly. He slapped the cargo trailer’s length before breaking into a full-on drum solo, grinning the whole way, until he got to the end. He stopped at the rear doors, studied the upper frame, and disarmed the booby trap located there. Five seconds later he unlocked the trailer and opened the container.

  Even with the air holes and the freezing ventilation of the highway, a gym-stink of unwashed skin and shitty-ass clothing reached out and rudely invaded Top Gun’s mouth and nose, stealing his breath by the fistful. That olfactory jack-slap to the face stopped the man cold, left him wishing for a gas mask. Or a firehose.

  “Get out, you shitty-assed fuckers, get out,” Jake merrily told them, but his hand was on his Sig Saur in a don’t test me sorta way.