Rumble Tumble

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “You missed,” Brett said.

  “No, he didn’t,” Leonard said. The jeep left the man far behind us, a little fleshy dot against the great landscape of the desert. “Shit, Hap, what did that horse ever do to you? I can’t believe you spared that fucker’s life and shot the horse. You are some kind of work, brother.”

  I dropped the Winchester and lay back against the side of the jeep, my head tilted upward. I held my bleeding shoulder and watched the stars bound and bob to the jerks and surges of the ride. Dust came up from the desert and lashed about us and filled my nose. I thought I could still smell blood and gunpowder. The roar of gunfire was in my ears. My legs were starting to shake. I felt as if I might suddenly burst out crying. My ass hurt. I reached around and pulled out the Winchester shells and the revolver that were riding in my back pocket, dropped them on the floor of the jeep. I lay back again and felt weak, so goddamn weak.

  Leonard took off his jacket, then his shirt. He gave the shirt to Tillie, who just looked at it. Brett took it and slipped Tillie into it, buttoned it as if she were dressing a small child. It was large enough to make Tillie a short dress.

  “Are we going somewhere?” Tillie said.

  Brett patted her. The jeep bounced us painfully over rough terrain. I was growing colder. Leonard moved over next to me and turned his coat over and tore out the lining on one side. He stuffed the lining under my shirt, into the shoulder wound. He tied his belt around my leg and pulled it tight by winding the barrel of my revolver in it. He slipped his coat over me, sat with his arm around my shoulders.

  “You gonna be all right, Hap,” he said.

  “Rumble tumble,” I said, remembering what Red had called a bad fight. “Rumble tumble.”

  26

  We came to a little road that seemed oddly placed out in the middle of the desert. We drove down the road a ways and came to a little town that looked to be out of an old Western movie. It was at least sixty or seventy years back in time. There were very few lights and there was only one place open, a cantina.

  “You sure this is it?” Brett asked.

  “Yeah,” Herman said. “The airstrip is on the other side of town. It’s used for smuggling. Lot of drugs are run from here. The town isn’t much, but it’s what’s out here and it’s reasonably close to the border.”

  Herman drove over to the cantina and parked.

  “What are you doin’?” Leonard asked.

  “I know Bill and Red,” Herman said. “They’re more likely to be here than sitting out at the airplane. I got a feeling Irvin isn’t far different. They aren’t here, it’s a short trip to where the plane’s supposed to be.”

  “Make it quick,” Leonard said.

  Herman went inside. Leonard adjusted the belt on my leg. “Guess it wasn’t a major artery,” he said. “Stopped bleeding for the most part. I think we can take this off.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “All the blood’s on the floor of the jeep.”

  “How you feelin’?”

  “Not good,” I said. “I had some moments there where I drifted off. Didn’t think I was coming back.”

  “I knew you were comin’ back,” Leonard said. “You still gotta get all your shit out of my house.”

  I turned my head and looked at Brett. The movement was incredibly draining. “Brett?”

  She had her arm around Tillie, who had fallen asleep. Tillie had her thumb stuck in her mouth like a baby.

  “I’m all right, hon,” Brett said. “I’m never gonna forget what you two done for me. Never.”

  “Ain’t over yet,” Leonard said. “Hand me that shotgun, just in case there’s someone in there got a different plan than the one we made.”

  Brett handed him the gun. Leonard reached in the coat draped over me, took out a box of shells, carefully loaded the shotgun.

  “One thing is,” Leonard said, “we can’t sit around here. Them people gonna know where we’re goin’. Ain’t no other place to go south other than this. We put a dent in them ’cause we had surprise on our side and they were fucked up. But when they get straight, ain’t gonna be so easy. ’Specially Hap here havin’ holes in him.”

  “Can’t believe these shits are hanging out in a saloon,” Brett said.

  “Irvin and Bill didn’t think we’d be coming back, that’s why they wanted far away as they could get,” Leonard said. “Red, he didn’t give a shit. I don’t know he cares all that much about Herman, even. I think his mouth could say all kinds of things he doesn’t mean. I may kill all of ’em on general principles.”

  “Been enough killing,” I said. “I don’t want no more of it.”

  “You don’t always get to choose, Hap.”

  Herman came out. He had Bill with him. Herman leaned on the jeep, said, “You won’t be flying out tonight. Irvin is so stoned he’s passed out on the floor next to a jukebox. He got in some kind of fight with a Mexican and got his block knocked off pretty good too.”

  “Shit,” Leonard said.

  “What about Red?” Brett asked.

  “He’s pretty drunk himself,” Bill said.

  “I was just hoping he was dead,” Brett said.

  “Hap needs a doctor,” Leonard said. “Got any ideas?”

  “I can ask around,” Bill said. “I think I can find enough Spanish in my memory to do that.”

  “You do that,” Leonard said. “And that doesn’t mean drink more first. I want Hap with a doctor. I want him with one pronto. I don’t hear from you quick, you’re gonna need a doctor. Comprende, amigo?”

  “I don’t like to be threatened, black man,” Bill said.

  “It ain’t no threat, red man, it’s a promise.”

  Herman got in behind the wheel, started up the Jeep. “We’ll be out at the plane,” he said.

  I passed out somewhere between the little town and the plane, and when I awoke I was lying across the plane’s seats, stripped down to my underwear. A little Mexican man with a wart on his cheek about the size of a doorknob and a hairdo that looked to be about three-fourths Wesson oil was poking at me with a pair of long bloody tweezers. There was blood all over the tweezers. He was dropping pellets from my side into a coffee can. When he saw I was awake, he nodded, smiled, poked the tweezers into my side, pulled out another pellet.

  He carefully rolled me on my back and started probing at my shoulder and thigh wound with his fingertips, which didn’t look all that clean.

  “You have to do that?” I said.

  “He doesn’t speak English,” Herman said.

  I turned my head. Sitting nearby were Leonard, Brett, and Herman. Bill was standing up, smoking a cigarette. I didn’t see Tillie, Red, or Irvin.

  The Mexican turned and spoke to Herman. Herman nodded, said to me, “He says you’re not too messed up. Lead went through your shoulder. There’s a piece in your thigh that’ll take more work than he’s willing to do. He’s stuffed some gauze in the wound, and he’s picked out all the buckshot you got in your side. None of it went in straight on. Just the pellets from the shotgun, and you caught the far edge of the spray. Still, you need blood.”

  “Then let’s get him some blood,” Leonard said.

  “This guy, he does abortions mostly,” Herman said. “Delivers babies. He’s not a real doctor.”

  “Me and Hap had a veterinarian work on us once,” Leonard said. “We’re not proud.”

  “He doesn’t have access to blood,” Herman said. “He’s just telling you so you’ll know.”

  “Shit,” Leonard said. “I could have told him that.”

  “What we got to do is sober Irvin up,” Brett said.

  Bill shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’re not talking a little drunk, we’re talking about being so fuckin’ drunk he’ll wake up speaking in tongues. Thing we got to do is let him sleep it off, lay around tomorrow, fly out when it’s solid dark. Then, if the Border Patrol doesn’t catch us, and my guess is they won’t because they never have, we end up back at the hangar. You folks go your way, and I go min
e, and we never do business again.”

  “But we can send you a Christmas card?” I said.

  “A little candy on Valentine’s would be all right too,” Bill said.

  “All this sounds like a lot of waiting for blood,” Leonard said.

  “I can make it,” I said. “Leonard’s just scared I’m going to die and leave my dirty underwear under his couch. Where is Irvin?”

  “He’s outside under the plane,” Bill said. “Me and Herman went and got him. He was still passed out, so we stretched him out there.”

  “And Red?”

  “He was at the cantina, pretty drunk. Doing handstands and stuff. He was trying to make the Mexican drunks in there understand he wanted a big dog to ride and he was showing them his dick, dipping it into a glass of tequila. He passed out on the way here. We left him in the jeep.”

  “This sitting around bothers me,” Leonard said. “Those assholes will change tires on the other jeep, and someone in town will talk.”

  “They might change tires,” Herman said, “but they’re going to have hell going anywhere with all the dirt I put in the gas tank. Pissed in it too. And it won’t do them a lot of good with the wires ripped out from under the hood and the gear shift bent.”

  “Good for you, Herman,” I said.

  “They could come by horse or mule,” Leonard said.

  “They could,” Herman said. “I think they’re so stoned they’ll do good to stand up, let alone saddle and ride a horse. My guess is they got to wait about as long as Irvin’s got to wait.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear,” Brett said.

  “Where’s Tillie?” I asked.

  “At the back of the plane, sleeping,” Brett said. “They had her on something strong. Or she had herself on it. She’s really wiped out.”

  “I think we take turns at watch,” Leonard said. “I don’t like being surprised.”

  “Very well,” Bill said. “I’ll go first.”

  The Mexican held out his hand, said something to Herman. Herman said, “He wants money.”

  Brett picked up her purse, opened it, gave him a ten dollar bill. “That’s pretty close to tapping me out,” she said.

  “Gracias,” said the little Mexican, then fired off something very fast in Spanish, got up, and left.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He hopes you don’t die,” Herman said.

  It was late at night when I awoke, hurting like holy hell. Brett was sitting on the floor with her head next to the seat where I lay. When I turned to look at her, I saw she was awake.

  “How you feeling?” she said.

  “Shitty.”

  “I’ve got some aspirin. I can get you some water.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Brett disappeared for a moment, came back with aspirin and a canteen. She had to hold my head up. I took ten aspirin and a sip of water.

  “I owe you, Hap Collins,” Brett said.

  “Hope you don’t think so,” I said. “Except in sexual favors, of course.”

  “I’d give you a blow job, but frankly my guess is your dick stinks and you’ve bled all over it from your thigh. On top of that, you haven’t had a bath in a while.”

  “Neither have you,” I said.

  “Yes, but I brought perfume and I never soil my underwear.”

  “Not even when I make you hot?”

  “I guess that’s an exception.”

  “How’s Tillie?”

  “She’s still out. I think she’ll be all right, though. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “I feel weak, but all right. I get something to eat, a big glass of ice tea, and I’ll be ready to rock and roll. After a month of bed rest.”

  “Soon as you get better, what you’ll be doing in bed won’t pass for rest.”

  “You’re going to have your work cut out for you with Tillie, Brett.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t just come out of a life like that and take up choir practice and run supermarket errands.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Tillie would love that sort of thing now. Maybe she’s through rebelling.”

  “At her age, she’s not rebelling, Brett. She’s living a lifestyle.”

  “Don’t depress me. Not after all we’ve accomplished.”

  “Sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to.”

  27

  I slept painfully, but the next morning, just before daylight, I was a little stronger. Out of the pack Bill had brought he produced some tins of sardines. We opened the cans and ate the fish with our fingers. I found that I not only had an appetite, but was feeling better. Not strong enough to jerk my dick, maybe, but at least strong enough to hold it and think about the motions.

  After I had eaten, Leonard helped me get into my clothes and shoes. I tried to stand, but couldn’t. Leonard went outside and came back carrying Irvin in a fireman’s carry. He put Irvin in one of the seats, propped him up and started slapping him.

  Not too hard at first, but he picked up the pace.

  “Easy,” I said.

  “You just relax,” Leonard said, “and leave the slapping to me.”

  He slapped Irvin some more. Irvin opened one eye and tried to grab Leonard’s wrist, but Leonard grabbed his, bent Irvin’s arm at the elbow, and put a reverse gooseneck on his wrist. It was enough to make Irvin sober for a moment.

  “Goddamn!” Irvin said. “You’re hurtin’ me.”

  “Man, I hate that,” Leonard said. “You done had you a good night’s sleep, so what we want for you to do is fly us out of here.”

  “Fly you out,” Irvin said. “I can’t even see!”

  “What I want,” Leonard said, “is for your vision to improve dramatically.”

  “I’m sick,” Irvin said.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Leonard said. “Fly us out.”

  “In broad daylight!” Irvin said. “You can’t do it in broad daylight.”

  “Is there another place we can park for the day?” Herman asked. “Some place away from this village?”

  “I know one or two,” Irvin said. “But we’re not that well fueled. We’d be stretching it.”

  “Is it possible?” Leonard asked.

  “Yeah, it’s possible,” Irvin said, “but we might have to fart in the tank to finish out the ride. We make it, it’ll be by a cunt hair.”

  “Where is this place?” Herman asked.

  “It’s not a landing strip,” Irvin said. “It’s not even a field like this. It’s just a place. I put down there once because I had to. Ground’s flat enough, I suppose. It’s south of here. But it’s stretching the fuel, I’m tellin’ you.”

  “Sittin’ here is stretching our odds,” Leonard said. Then he called to the back. “Any sardines left?”

  “Yeah,” Bill said.

  “Feed this asshole, and let’s go.”

  “Fuck the sardines,” Irvin said. “Don’t talk to me about sardines. I can’t eat that shit, way I been drinkin’. I don’t eat that shit when I’m sober.”

  “Then you do whatever you need to do short of another drink,” Leonard said. “Lift us out of here. Go where you need to go. And come dark, you fly our asses back to Texas. Herman, you want that midget, I’d load him on board now, and get all his little cowboy suit accessories too. And let’s keep things like they been. Meanin’ people got guns keep guns, and those don’t got guns don’t get guns. And Herman, I don’t much like the fact you got a gun.”

  Herman didn’t respond. He was still carrying the Winchester we had given him. He put it down on the seat next to Leonard, went outside to get Red out of the jeep.

  We flew to the spot Irvin had told us about. It was a short and scary flight. Bolts in the plane rattled and we jerked about a lot in the wind. When we landed the day turned very hot and by afternoon I was covered in sweat and sick to my stomach and could only sip water. Inside the plane was like being inside a heated pottery kiln, but I was too weak to go outside, and Leonard assured me it
was worse out there.

  Red had come out of his drunk talkative as ever. He spent a lot of time complaining about how he felt and what we had done to him and how we had messed up his plans.

  Tillie hadn’t moved, and if it weren’t for Brett checking on her from time to time, I would have thought she was dead.

  I propped myself up in the seat, and Brett sat down beside me. “She’s really out,” she said. “I think I get her home, I got to start her with rehab. I just hope to hell I got money to do rehab.”

  “Just keep your spirits up,” I said.

  “Honey, my spirits are so far down they got to look up to see my socks. And then they need binoculars.”

  * * *

  As nightfall came I began to get a chill. Leonard put his coat on me again, and Brett sat close, holding me. When it was dark enough, Leonard gave Irvin a little encouragement. “Let’s go, shitwipe.”

  “Leonard missed his calling,” Brett said. “He should have been in the diplomatic corps.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s got a way with words.”

  Irvin groaned, got up, and wandered into the open cabin. He sat down behind the controls. Leonard sat in the navigator’s seat. Irvin said back to us, “Remember, we don’t make it, it’s ’cause this bully made me fly without enough fuel.”

  “We don’t make it,” Brett said, “it’s because your ass was drunk last night when we should have flown out.”

  Irvin threw up his hands, shifted in his seat to face the controls. “All right,” he said. “Contact.”

  The plane clanked across the rough ground, and when it lifted off it went up fast and at an angle so sharp I thought we were on our way to the moon. The windshield clattered like cold teeth rattling. The engines sounded like a chef chopping cucumbers into slices. The sides of the plane warped and waved.

  The air had turned cooler, and up there it was cooler yet. I got the impression the wind was coming in through places that hadn’t been there when we left. As we climbed up, so did my sardines, but I fought them down just below my jawline, and when we finally leveled, I looked out my little window and saw the great blackness that was space and the fine white spots that were the stars.