The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Brother Lazarus’s nose had changed however; there were two pearl onions nestled in it now.

  Sister Worth, looking only a little more animated than yesterday, stood nearby. She was holding the tray with the instruments. This time the tray was full of scalpels. The light caught their edges and made them wink.

  Brother Fred was standing behind Calhoun, and Brother Mold Fuzz was behind Wayne. They must have felt pretty confident today. They had dispensed with the dead folks.

  Wayne looked at Sister Worth and thought maybe things were not good. Maybe she had lied to him in her slow talking way. Only wanted a little dick and wanted to keep it quiet. To do that, she might have promised anything. She might not care what Brother Lazarus did to them.

  If it looked like a double cross, Wayne was going to go for it. If he had to jump right into the mouth of Brother Fred’s shotgun. That was a better way to go than having the hide peeled from your body. The idea of Brother Lazarus and his ugly nose leaning over him did not appeal at all.

  “It’s so nice to see you,” Brother Lazarus said. “I hope we’ll have none of the unpleasantness of yesterday. Now, on the tables.”

  Wayne looked at Sister Worth. Her expression showed nothing. The only thing about her that looked alive was the bent wings of the bird birthmark on her cheek.

  All right, Wayne thought, I’ll go as far as the table, then I’m going to do something. Even if it’s wrong.

  He took a step forward, and Sister Worth flipped the contents of the tray into Brother Lazarus’s face. A scalpel went into his nose and hung there. The tray and the rest of its contents hit the floor.

  Before Brother Lazarus could yelp, Calhoun dropped and wheeled. He was under Brother Fred’s shotgun and he used his forearm to drive the barrel upwards. The gun went off and peppered the ceiling. Plaster sprinkled down.

  Calhoun had concealed the little knife in the palm of his hand and he brought it up and into Brother Fred’s groin. The blade went through the robe and buried to the hilt.

  The instant Calhoun made his move, Wayne brought his forearm back and around into Brother Mold Fuzz’s throat, then turned and caught his head and jerked that down and kneed him a couple of times. He floored him by driving an elbow into the back of his neck.

  Calhoun had the shotgun now, and Brother Fred was on the floor trying to pull the knife out of his balls. Calhoun blew Brother Fred’s head off, then did the same for Brother Mold Fuzz.

  Brother Lazarus, the scalpel hanging from his nose, tried to run for it, but he stepped on the tray and that sent him flying. He landed on his stomach. Calhoun took two deep steps and kicked him in the throat. Brother Lazarus made a sound like he was gargling and tried to get up.

  Wayne helped him. He grabbed Brother Lazarus by the back of his robe and pulled him up, slammed him back against a table. The scalpel still dangled from the monk’s nose. Wayne grabbed it and jerked, taking away a chunk of nose as he did. Brother Lazarus screamed.

  Calhoun put the shotgun in Brother Lazarus’s mouth and that made him stop screaming. Calhoun pumped the shotgun. He said, “Eat it,” and pulled the trigger. Brother Lazarus’s brains went out the back of his head riding on a chunk of skull. The brains and skull hit the table and sailed onto the floor like a plate of scrambled eggs pushed the length of a cafe counter.

  Sister Worth had not moved. Wayne figured she had used all of her concentration to hit Brother Lazarus with the tray.

  “You said you’d have guns,” Wayne said to her.

  She turned her back to him and lifted her habit. In a belt above her panties were two .38 revolvers. Wayne pulled them out and held one in each hand. “Two-Gun Wayne,” he said.

  “What about the ultralight?” Calhoun said. “We’ve made enough noise for a prison riot. We need to move.”

  Sister Worth turned to the door at the back of the room, and before she could say anything or lead, Wayne and Calhoun snapped to it and grabbed her and pushed her toward it.

  There were stairs on the other side of the door and they took them two at a time. They went through a trap door and onto the roof and there, tied down with bungee straps to metal hoops, was the ultralight. It was blue-and-white canvas and metal rods, and strapped to either side of it was a twelve gauge pump and a bag of food and a canteen of water.

  They unsnapped the roof straps and got in the two-seater and used the straps to fasten Sister Worth between them. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was a ride.

  They sat there. After a moment, Calhoun said, “Well?”

  “Shit,” Wayne said. “I can’t fly this thing.”

  They looked at Sister Worth. She was staring at the controls.

  “Say something, damn it,” Wayne said.

  “That’s the switch,” she said. “That stick…forward is up, back brings the nose down…side to side…”

  “Got it.”

  “Well, shoot this bastard over the side,” Calhoun said. Wayne cranked it, gave it the throttle. The machine rolled forward, wobbled.

  “Too much weight,” Wayne said.

  “Throw the cunt over the side,” Calhoun said.

  “It’s all or nothing,” Wayne said. The ultralight continued to swing its tail left and right, but leveled off as they went over the edge.

  They sailed for a hundred yards, made a mean curve Wayne couldn’t fight, and fell straight away into the statue of Jesus, striking it in the head, right in the midst of the barbed wire crown. Spot lights shattered, metal groaned, the wire tangled in the nylon wings of the craft and held it. The head of Jesus nodded forward, popped off, and shot out on the electric cables inside like a jack-in-the-box. The cables pulled tight a hundred feet from the ground and worked the head and the craft like a yo-yo. Then the barbed wire crown unraveled and dropped the craft the rest of the way. It hit the ground with a crunch and a rip and a cloud of dust.

  The head of Jesus bobbed above the shattered ultralight like a bird preparing to peck a worm.

  11

  Wayne crawled out of the wreckage and tried his legs. They worked.

  Calhoun was on his feet cussing, unstrapping the shotguns and supplies.

  Sister Worth lay in the midst of the wreck, the nylon and aluminum supports folded around her like butterfly wings.

  Wayne started pulling the mess off of her. He saw that her leg was broken. A bone punched out of her thigh like a sharpened stick. There was no blood.

  “Here comes the church social,” Calhoun said.

  The word was out about Brother Lazarus and the others. A horde of monks, nuns and dead folks were rushing over the drawbridge. Some of the nuns and monks had guns. All of the dead folks had clubs. The clergy was yelling.

  Wayne nodded toward the bus barn, “Let’s get a bus.” Wayne picked up Sister Worth, cradled her in his arms, and made a run for it. Calhoun, carrying the guns and the supplies, passed them. He jumped through the open doorway of a bus and dropped out of sight. Wayne knew he was jerking wires loose, trying to hotwire them a ride. Wayne hoped he was good at it and fast.

  When Wayne got to the bus, he laid Sister Worth down beside it and pulled the .38s and stood in front of her. If he was going down he wanted to go like Wild Bill Hickok: A blazing gun in either fist and a woman to protect.

  Actually, he’d prefer the bus to start.

  It did.

  Calhoun jerked it in gear, backed it out and around in front of Wayne and Sister Worth. The monks and nuns had started firing and their rounds bounced off the side of the armored bus.

  From inside Calhoun yelled, “Get the hell on.”

  Wayne stuck the guns in his belt, grabbed up Sister Worth and leapt inside. Calhoun jerked the bus forward and Wayne and Sister Worth went flying over a seat and into another.

  “I thought you were leaving,” Wayne said.

  “I wanted to. But I gave my word.”

  Wayne stretched Sister Worth out on the seat and looked at her leg. After that tossing Calhoun had given them, the break was sticking out even more.
r />   Calhoun closed the bus door and checked his wing-mirror. Nuns and monks and dead folks had piled into a couple of buses, and now the buses were pursuing them. One of them moved very fast, as if souped up.

  “I probably got the granny of the bunch,” Calhoun said. They climbed over a ridge of sand, then they were on the narrow road that wound itself upwards. Behind them, one of the buses had fallen back, maybe some kind of mechanical trouble. The other was gaining.

  The road widened and Calhoun yelled, “I think this is what the fucker’s been waiting for.”

  Even as Calhoun spoke, their pursuer put on a burst of speed and swung left and came up beside them, tried to swerve over and push them off the road, down into the deepening valley. But Calhoun fought the curves and didn’t budge.

  The other bus swung its door open and a nun, the very one who had been on the bus that brought them to Jesus Land, stood there with her legs spread wide, showing the black-pantied mound of her crotch. She had one arm bent around a seat post and was holding in both hands the ever-popular clergy tool, the twelve-gauge pump.

  As they made a curve, the nun fired a round into the window next to Calhoun. The window made a cracking noise and thin, crooked lines spread in all directions, but the glass held.

  She pumped a round into the chamber and fired again. Bullet proof or not, this time the front sheet of glass fell away. Another well-placed round and the rest of the glass would go and Calhoun could wave his head goodbye.

  Wayne put his knees in a seat and got the window down. The nun saw him, whirled and fired. The shot was low and hit the bottom part of the window and starred it and pelleted the chassis.

  Wayne stuck a .38 out of the window and fired as the nun was jacking another load into position. His shot hit her in the head and her right eye went big and wet, and she swung around on the pole and lost the shotgun. It went out the door. She clung there by the bend of her elbow for a moment, then her arm straightened and she fell outside. The bus ran over her and she popped red and juicy at both ends like a stomped jelly roll.

  “Waste of good pussy,” Calhoun said. He edged into the other bus, and it pushed back. But Calhoun pushed harder and made it hit the wall with a screech like a panther.

  The bus came back and shoved Calhoun to the side of the cliff and honked twice for Jesus.

  Calhoun down-shifted, let off the gas, allowed the other bus to soar past by half a length. Then he jerked the wheel so that he caught the rear of it and knocked it across the road. He speared it in the side with the nose of his bus and the other started to spin. It clipped the front of Calhoun’s bus and peeled the bumper back. Calhoun braked and the other bus kept spinning. It spun off the road and down into the valley amidst a chorus of cries.

  Thirty minutes later they reached the top of the canyon and were in the desert. The bus began to throw up smoke from the front and make a noise like a dog strangling on a chicken bone. Calhoun pulled over.

  12

  “Goddamn bumper got twisted under there and it’s shredded the tire some,” Calhoun said. “I think if we can peel the bumper off, there’s enough of that tire to run on.”

  Wayne and Calhoun got hold of the bumper and pulled but it wouldn’t come off. Not completely. Part of it had been creased, and that part finally gave way and broke off from the rest of it.

  “That ought to be enough to keep from rubbing the tire,” Calhoun said.

  Sister Worth called from inside the bus. Wayne went to check on her. “Take me off the bus,” she said. “…I want to feel free air and sun.”

  “There doesn’t feel like there’s any air out there,” Wayne said. “And the sun feels just like it always does. Hot.”

  “Please.”

  He picked her up and carried her outside and found a ridge of sand and laid her down so her head was propped against it.

  “I…I need batteries,” she said.

  “Say what?” Wayne said.

  She lay looking straight into the sun. “Brother Lazarus’s greatest work…a dead folk that can think…has memory of the past…Was a scientist too…” Her hand came up in stages, finally got hold of her head gear and pushed it off.

  Gleaming from the center of her tangled blond hair was a silver knob.

  “He…was not a good man… I am a good woman. I want to feel alive…like before…batteries going…brought others.”

  Her hand fumbled at a snap pocket on her habit. Wayne opened it for her and got out what was inside. Four batteries.

  “Uses two…simple.”

  Calhoun was standing over them now. “That explains some things,” he said.

  “Don’t look at me like that…” Sister Worth said, and Wayne realized he had never told her his name and she had never asked. “Unscrew…put the batteries in… Without them I’ll be an eater… Can’t wait too long.”

  “All right,” Wayne said. He went behind her and propped her up on the sand drift and unscrewed the metal shaft from her skull. He thought about when she had fucked him on the wheel and how desperate she had been to feel something, and how she had been cold as flint and lustless. He remembered how she had looked in the mirror hoping to see something that wasn’t there.

  He dropped the batteries in the sand and took out one of the revolvers and put it close to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. Her body jerked slightly and fell over, her face turning toward him.

  The bullet had come out where the bird had been on her cheek and had taken it completely away, leaving a bloodless hole.

  “Best thing,” Calhoun said. “There’s enough live pussy in the world without you pulling this broken-legged dead thing around after you on a board.”

  “Shut up,” Wayne said.

  “When a man gets sentimental over women and kids, he can count himself out.”

  Wayne stood up.

  “Well boy,” Calhoun said. “I reckon it’s time.”

  “Reckon so,” Wayne said.

  “How about we do this with some class? Give me one of your pistols and we’ll get back-to-back and I’ll count to ten, and when I get there, we’ll turn and shoot.”

  Wayne gave Calhoun one of the pistols. Calhoun checked the chambers, said, “I’ve got four loads.”

  Wayne took two out of his pistol and tossed them on the ground. “Even Steven,” he said.

  They got back-to-back and held the guns by their legs.

  “Guess if you kill me you’ll take me in,” Calhoun said. “So that means you’ll put a bullet through my head if I need it. I don’t want to come back as one of the dead folks. Got your word on that?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll do the same for you. Give my word. You know that’s worth something.”

  “We gonna shoot or talk?”

  “You know, boy, under different circumstances, I could have liked you. We might have been friends.”

  “Not likely.”

  Calhoun started counting, and they started stepping. When he got to ten, they turned.

  Calhoun’s pistol barked first, and Wayne felt the bullet punch him low in the right side of his chest, spinning him slightly. He lifted his revolver and took his time and shot just as Calhoun fired again.

  Calhoun’s second bullet whizzed by Wayne’s head. Wayne’s shot hit Calhoun in the stomach.

  Calhoun went to his knees and had trouble drawing a breath. He tried to lift his revolver but couldn’t; it was as if it had turned into an anvil.

  Wayne shot him again. Hitting him in the middle of the chest this time and knocking him back so that his legs were curled beneath him.

  Wayne walked over to Calhoun, dropped to one knee and took the revolver from him.

  “Shit,” Calhoun said. “I wouldn’t have thought that for nothing. You hit?” “Scratched.” “Shit.”

  Wayne put the revolver to Calhoun’s forehead and Calhoun closed his eyes and Wayne pulled the trigger.

  13

  The wound wasn’t a scratch. Wayne knew he should leave Sister Worth where she was and
load Calhoun on the bus and haul him in for bounty. But he didn’t care about the bounty anymore.

  He used the ragged piece of bumper to dig them a shallow side-by-side grave. When he finished, he stuck the fender fragment up between them and used the sight of one of the revolvers to scratch into it: HERE LIES SISTER WORTH AND CALHOUN WHO KEPT HIS WORD.

  You couldn’t really read it good and he knew the first real wind would keel it over, but it made him feel better about something, even if he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  His wound had opened up and the sun was very hot now, and since he had lost his hat he could feel his brain cooking in his skull like meat boiling in a pot.

  He got on the bus, started it and drove through the day and the night and it was near morning when he came to the Cadillacs and turned down between them and drove until he came to the ‘57.

  When he stopped and tried to get off the bus, he found he could hardly move. The revolvers in his belt were stuck to his shirt and stomach because of the blood from his wound.

  He pulled himself up with the steering wheel, got one of the shotguns and used it for a crutch. He got the food and water and went out to inspect the ‘57.

  It was for shit. It had not only lost its windshield, the front end was mashed way back and one of the big sand tires was twisted at such an angle he knew the axle was shot.

  He leaned against the Chevy and tried to think. The bus was okay and there was still some gas in it, and he could get the hose out of the trunk of the ‘57 and siphon gas out of its tanks and put it in the bus. That would give him a few miles.

  Miles.

  He didn’t feel as if he could walk twenty feet, let alone concentrate on driving.

  He let go of the shotgun, the food and water. He scooted onto the hood of the Chevy and managed himself to the roof. He lay there on his back and looked at the sky.

  It was a clear night and the stars were sharp with no fuzz around them. He felt cold. In a couple of hours the stars would fade and the sun would come up and the cool would give way to heat.

  He turned his head and looked at one of the Cadillacs and a skeleton face pressed to its windshield, forever looking down at the sand.