Foodchain

by Jeff Jacobson

  “This horse is going to take me to my family’s cabin where I am going to die.” Sturm spoke evenly, giving each word careful consideration, but without emotion. “It’s an eleven mile ride, due west, straight into the mountains,” he indicated with a nod of his bald head, “and I want to make sure she can make it back. See,” he turned his attention from the horse and focused his frozen eyes on Frank, “I plan on dying in that cabin. I know I don’t have much time. I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to die in some hospital. No. To hell with that. I’m going to die on the land of my forefathers, like a man. Not like a…a failed lab experiment. And what I want to know is, is she sound enough to make the trip back? She’s damn near twenty. It’s bad enough that one of us has to die on this trip. I don’t want to be responsible for her death as well.”

  “Eleven miles? What kind of terrain?” Frank knelt. Under his breath, he whispered soothing words to the horse as he gently curled his hand around the slim bones just above the right ankle.

  “Mountains. Soft dirt. Logs. Rocks. It ain’t pasture, or racetrack, if that’s what you mean.”

  Frank carefully prodded the protruding bones just above the hoof, then repeated the movements with the left leg. He stood, bent over, and slowly coaxed Sarah into lifting her front right leg, gently flexing it.

  Frank tested the other leg. “She’s flexing a little sore, but nothing major. Rub her down with some DMSO, wrap her legs at night. Got any magnetic boots?”

  “No. No new age bullshit around this barn.”

  “Then just wrap her at night. Keep these ankles warm.” Frank stepped back. “It’s hard to say. I’d have to see her move.”

  “Then let’s take her for a walk.” Sturm clipped a lead line onto Sarah’s halter and said, “C’mon girl. Let’s see how you walk.” Frank followed the stocky horse and the short man out of the stall, into the aisle, and outside into a large paddock. He watched closely for any hitches, any hesitation, any signs that the horse was reluctant to put weight on any of her legs. Sarah moved stiffly, but without any apparent pain.

  “She looks good, but to be absolutely sure, I’m gonna have to do a flex test,” Frank said. “You know how it works?”

  Sturm nodded, then said, “I ain’t feelin’ up to run today.” He hollered at the house. “Theo! You got three seconds. One! Two!” The back door banged open and Theo came sprinting out.

  “You mind watching the clock?” Frank asked Sturm as he pulled Sarah’s front right leg up, curling it against itself, cradling it between his chest and thigh. Sturm counted off sixty seconds, Frank released the leg, and Theo took the lead line and trotted the horse straight across the paddock. Frank watched with a critical eye. Then they repeated the procedure with the three remaining legs.

  Afterwards, Frank said, “She’s old, she’s stiff, and yeah, she’s a little sore. But she shouldn’t have a problem. Up there and back, not really. Not if she takes it easy.”

  Sturm nodded and almost smiled.

  * * * * *

  Sturm made Frank point out where exactly where he though the zoo was on a map before he made his decision. Frank leaned over crisp folds of the highway map, laid over a well-oiled butcher block, and traced until he hit the third rest stop, then followed the next highway south. “Somewhere in here.”

  Sturm said, “Okay. But understand this, and understand it well. You fuck with me, I will kill you quick. I got nothing to lose.”

  Frank said, “Yeah.”

  * * * * *

  Sturm didn’t pack much. A rifle, some beef jerky, an old milk jug full of water left in the freezer, a pair of binoculars, and a pair of walkie-talkies. Theo loaded everything except the rifle into a small black backpack.

  They didn’t talk at all during the drive. Sturm didn’t even turn on the radio. Frank had to sit with his knees spread wide, wedged up against the dashboard, since Sturm had the bench seat moved all the way forward so his feet could reach the pedals.

  It was nearly dusk when they reached the zoo. Sturm drove slowly, eyeballing the place. Frank felt a squirming, itching panic surge through his chest as he wondered if the quiet gentlemen waited on the other side. The place looked dead, not much different than three nights ago. Now, in the daylight, he could see the garish paintings splashed haphazardly across the rippled metal. Bright slashes of blood dripped off oversize teeth and claws, massive snakes curled around buxom, silently screaming women, alligators ripped and tore at pith helmeted white explorers. The front gate had been wired back into place and locked. A small “Closed” sign was slung over the top.

  “I can’t see shit,” Sturm said and goosed the pickup back up to seventy. A mile west of the zoo, they spotted a dirt road, nothing more than an old logging trail really, but Sturm shifted into four-wheel-drive without slowing down and they lurched and bounced through the brush along a low ridge.

  “There’s a pair of binoculars in the glove box,” Sturm said. He took his foot off the gas, letting the pickup slowly roll to a stop on its own. “Don’t need a goddamn cloud of dust against the sun advertising us,” he explained.

  Frank handed Sturm the binoculars and they climbed out. Sturm came around to the passenger side and settled his elbows on the softly ticking hood, forming a steady tripod as he peered into the binoculars.

  Frank watched the zoo with his naked eyes, hands in his pockets, as the desert wind billowed the suit against his frame like hanging sheets in a hurricane. He couldn’t see a whole lot of detail. The huge compound, maybe fifteen or twenty acres, was spread out like a prickly fungus in the desert. Thin roads meandered through piles of scrap metal. They were too far away to even hear the animal cries. “See anything?” he finally broke down and asked.

  Sturm took his time before answering. “Nothing moving. Lots of cages, though. Can’t tell if anything’s in ’em.”

  Frank glanced back at the setting sun. He figured he had maybe a half-hour of daylight left. He grabbed one of the walkie-talkies and some beef jerky off the front seat. “Give me an hour.”

  Sturm nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Frank eased himself down the shifting, sliding slope of shale. He heard the pickup door open and shut. Sturm’s dry voice floated down. “Hey, son.”

  Frank looked back up at the short silhouette. Sturm said, “You get yourself into trouble, you best get yourself out of it, understand? Don’t look to me for help. I won’t be here.”

  “Yeah.” Frank kept going down the slope.

  * * * * *

  He reached the chain link fence just as the sun sank below the mountains. The fence was bound tightly to heavy steel poles, sunk deep in the dirt and anchored in concrete. There were no gaps. Above him, the piss yellow lights flickered sporadically to life, and Frank hoped that they were light sensitive, and someone hadn’t turned them on. They provided enough light for Frank to follow the fence east to the far corner, then south.

  Once out of the line of sight of Sturm’s binoculars, Frank felt a little better. He kept following the fence until the monkeys’ screeching sounded the loudest, then he used the wire cutters he’d stolen from Sturm’s toolbox. After snipping a four-foot gash in the chain links, he peeled it back and slipped inside. He tucked the heavy tool into the small of his back and double-checked the tire iron was carefully secured in his right sleeve.

  He moved slowly through the deepening shadows. He didn’t have a plan. Part of him wanted to wait until the zookeeper opened one of the lion or tiger cages for feeding, and then shove the sonofabitch inside and lock the door. But the zookeeper was too cautious; he never opened any of the doors.

  So Frank crouched in the gloom under an empty flatbed truck and waited.

  Twenty minutes later, he knew the zookeeper was on his way because the animals started in with their symphony of savage hunger. And before long, he saw the swinging light and the waddling zookeeper carrying a bucket full of pieces of dead greyhounds. Frank squatted lower, curling his fingers around the tire iron, but strangely, he felt no fear. He jus
t felt tired. The zookeeper shuffled past, wheezing like a gutshot tractor.

  Frank still didn’t have a plan. He’d thought about maybe skirting ahead of the zookeeper and opening one of the big cat cages, but figured he’d never able to open it far enough in advance. The cats would almost certainly stalk Frank instead. He followed at a distance, waiting for some kind of opportunity to present itself. The zookeeper shambled down through the lanes, never getting close to the cages, flinging chunks of meat at the animals. Soon the bucket was empty. Frank’s fist got tighter and tighter around the tire iron, but he never moved from the shadows until the zookeeper was a long ways down the roads.

  He followed him back to a small house trailer sitting at the edge of a quarter-acre clearing. A dusty La-z-boy recliner waited next to a fire pit as if waiting for its turn to be burned. The fire was lit, cracking and snapping happily at an iron bar erected over the pit as a makeshift spit. Thick wooden tables flanked the trailer. Frank realized that if the zookeeper made it back into the trailer, that was it. He’d never be able to get inside and keep the man from making a phone call. And Frank had no way of knowing what kind of weapons were stashed inside the trailer.

  The zookeeper dropped the empty bucket near one of the tables. He bent over, opened a battered red and white ice chest under the table, and pulled out a cut of meat wrapped in white butcher paper.

  Frank circled around the clearing, then dropped to his knees and wriggled under the trailer. He had to pick his way over tangles of barbed wire, fence posts, and rolls of chain link fence. The only thing he could think to try was to maybe get close enough to the zookeeper while the man’s back was turned and crack him across the skull with the tire iron. It had worked for the truck driver.

  As Frank crawled closer, holding his breath, watching the trunks of the zookeeper’s legs walk back forth from the table to the fire pit, his left hand came down on something heavy. In the flickering glow of the pale yellow light and the flames from the fire pit, Frank saw that it was a T-square fence post, a thick red steel one, six feet tall, with raised notches along the length for wrapping wire, and two flat blades two feet from the bottom for anchoring it into the earth.

  Frank waited for a moment, watching the shuffling legs kick up dust as they approached the table. He tucked the tire iron back into his sleeve, and gently slid the fence post forward. He rose a little, waiting to see if his knees would crack. They didn’t, and he watched the wide legs amble back to the fire pit. Frank burst smoothly and silently from under the trailer like a white shark snatching a sea lion from the surface, whipping the fence post up and over his head.

  As the zookeeper stood facing the fire, squeezing ketchup onto a plate of steaming lion steak, Frank brought the fencepost down like he was splitting open a stubborn chunk of firewood. He buried the blade three inches into the man’s skull, driving the jawbone into the collarbone, blowing out all of those chins like an underripe zit.

  The zookeeper wobbled a moment. The lion steak landed in the dust. The paper plate drifted into the flames. The zookeeper dropped to his knees and fell face first into the fire. Blood boiled and popped.

  The body shivered and twitched for a while. Frank left the fencepost stuck in the head and collapsed into the La-z-boy. He knew he needed to drag the body out of the fire; the smell of burning flesh would get the animals’ attention, and Frank didn’t want any of them getting loose like last time. The zookeeper’s ears were burning now and creamy blue smoke curled around the fencepost as it rose.

  Frank left the burning man behind and went into the trailer. When he came out, he was holding a bottle.

  “Hell, son.” Sturm’s voice came from the shadows. “I’d say that you killing horses is understatement. You got yourself a genuine talent for killing damn near anything alive to start with.”

  “Yeah.” Frank wasn’t surprised to hear Sturm. He tilted the bottle and drank for a solid fifteen seconds, then sat down heavily on the trailer’s steps. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, sweet and rotten at the same time, reminding Frank of a can of frozen orange juice concentrate about a year on the wrong side of the expiration date.

  * * * * *

  It was Sturm’s idea to feed the zookeeper to the animals.

  They dragged the burnt corpse out of the fire and hoisted it onto one of the tables. The clothes and the rubber boots went into the fire. The butchering didn’t take long, only about half an hour to chop the zookeeper into pieces no bigger than a football. It helped that the tools had been well maintained, kept sharp. They dumped the pieces into the five gallon buckets; the fatty meat filled seven of them.

  When they were finished, Sturm handed Frank two buckets and said, “Here. Go feed them animals. They could use it. I got a call to make.”

  * * * * *

  Frank took it slow. He’d ease up to a cage, talking in a relaxed, low voice. “Easy, that’s it, easy does it. Easy girl.” He called all the animals “girl” whether they were female or not.

  The big cats watched him warily from a distance, but their flicking tails and attentive noses gave away their hunger. Frank would spear pieces with a long BBQ fork and gently flick the meat through the bars and watch as the cats snatched at it with scary speed and accuracy. Then they’d settle into the darkest corner of the cages and rip at their chunk.

  When Frank got back to the trailer, he found Sturm in the La-z-boy, talking on the cell phone. Frank wondered if he was the only person in the west without a cell phone. He kind of wished he hadn’t tossed out the one he found in the car.

  Sturm looked up. “Any suggestions for a tranquilizer?”

  Frank thought for a moment. “We used Acepromezene at the track. If it’ll calm down a goddamn thoroughbred, it should work here. Ketamine, too, if you can get it.”

  “How much?”

  Frank shrugged. “As much as you can get.”

  * * * * *

  Frank returned for the last bucket. Sturm was waiting. The cell phone had disappeared. “Have a seat.”

  Frank tossed the bucket under the table, but remained standing. Sturm leaned back, folded one leg over the other, adjusted his jeans, and clasped his hands across his groin. It looked awful prim and proper coming from a guy in a black Stetson. “So. What should I call you? Mr. Winter? Or maybe Mr. Winchester?”

  “Call me Frank.”

  “And how am I supposed to know what’s true here?”

  “The name I gave you is my real name.”

  “Is that so.”

  “Look, there’s some…people after me. Some connected people, if you follow. Men with friends. Powerful friends. A lion, from here, killed one. Another went into the alligator tank. I don’t know what happened to him. And this,” he nodded at the last bucket, “is the rest of the men who knew I was here. When I was at the fight, at the time, I didn’t think it was smart to give my real name.”

  “Hell son, you can call yourself Mary fucking Poppins for all I give a shit. When someone makes money off me—I don’t give a flying shit how much it is, twenty bucks or twenty thousand—I’m going to know how. And why. I make it my business. All I really want to know right now is why you bet against me and my son.”

  Using the fencepost, Frank arranged the logs in the firepit into a pyramid shape, then jammed the end of the post into the center of the fire. “Well. You have to understand that it was nothing personal. I’m not exactly from around here.”

  Sturm waited patiently.

  As he talked, Frank heaped more wood, solid chunks of oak, onto the fire, keeping the fence post in the very heart of the fire. “Your son, he looked liked he worked hard, that’s for damn sure. But it looked like he’d spent a lot of hours in the gym, instead of…” Frank took a deep breath, and shoved the end deeper into the fire. “That other kid, he looked like he’d spent a lot of time getting the shit kicked out of him.” He twisted the fencepost slowly, and deep in the fire, the blades slowly broke away. “You have to understand, when I got to the fight, I didn’t know anyt
hing about you, anything about this town. Didn’t know any history.”

  Sturm nodded and glanced over his shoulder at the animal cages. “So all that time you were drinking and driving all over God’s creation, them boys never said anything. Okay. Fine. So all I want to know is why.”

  Frank shrugged. “It looked like the other kid knew how to fight.”

  Sturm looked pained, as if each word was a tooth being pulled out slowly with a pair of pliers. “So what you’re saying is, if I’m understanding this right, from an outsider’s point of view, it looked as if that little Glouk pissant was tougher than my boy.”

  “I don’t know about tougher. It looked like he’d been in more fights, yeah.”

  Sturm looked like he might throw up. “Jesus humping Christ.”

  Frank kept twisting the fencepost, sinking it deeper and deeper into the fire, ignoring the heat that seared his face. The fire burned hotter and the silence grew, stretched thin. But neither said anything else.

  * * * * *

  Sturm walked with Frank to empty the last bucket. When the meat was gone, they stopped for a while, watching two lionesses gulp it down. Sturm took off his hat and held it at his side as he crept slowly up to the cage. He breathed out long and slow, letting the cat smell his breath. Her ears flicked. “Whoooeeeee,” he said, a low, awed voice. “Look at her. Just look at her. You know the thing about lions? The females? They’re the ones that hunt. Males don’t do shit. They just sleep and fuck. The females, they’re the tough ones. They’re the ones that deserve respect, the ones to watch out for.” Sturm reached out, put his hand flat against the bars. The lioness snarled, suddenly vicious, ears flattened, head low.