David strode on fortitude and frazzled nerves, making sure the former was on display for all to see. He would keep his wits about him, tried not to think the worst about Jessica and Randy. Had to. He’d left this morning with every intention of killing a man. And now, it seemed like he just might get that chance.
“Well howdy,” said the man wearing the cowboy hat. His hands dangled at his sides, and David noted the hand cannon holstered on the stranger’s right thigh.
David acknowledged him with only a silent glower.
A burly fellow also stood on the porch, his thick arms laced over his chest. David noticed he also had a gun belt, but saw no guns, no holsters. But he did see a rather large knife on the Mexican’s hip.
As he approached the porch, he replayed the description Bryan had given as best he could remember. Cowboy hat, check. Scraggly goatee, check. Two guns on his hip, well … not quite, but two out of three worked for him. He raised his pistol.
The sighted man quickly showed his palms. “Whoa! Hang on there, Tex!” Terror streaked across his face.
The stout Latino near him stiffened, uncrossed his arms, splayed hands starting to reach behind him for two guns David could not see.
“Don’t,” David said, his placid tone belying his own distress. He quickly trained the gun back on its original target.
Jessica burst through the door. “David!”
A wave of relief crashed through his core, and David let the barrel dip, but only slightly.
She pressed past the two strangers on the porch, bounded down the steps, and ran to David.
“Jess.” Pistol still in his grasp, he wrapped her up with one arm, his gaze never leaving the porch.
“Oh, god, David.” Her shoulders racked against him as she sobbed something about thinking he was dead or some nonsense, but he couldn’t be sure.
Later. Right now, business.
“Get behind the truck,” he commanded, sweeping her behind him.
Still in attack/protect mode, he churned forward, Jess clawing at him from behind. Desperate sounds spilled from her lips, but he did not hear her, his mind racing down a single, impetuous track. His features were hard, tense, the barrel back on target.
The man in his sights said, “Easy, now—”
The click of David cocking back the hammer cracked the air.
He swore both men flinched.
The man in the hat said, “I’m telling you—”
“And I’m telling you,” David countered.
The heavily tattooed man chimed in. “Drop it, pendejo, before I—”
“All of you stop it!” Jess screamed through a sob.
She yanked on David’s arm, unsteadying his aim, and he slowly brought down his weapon.
“Don’t,” she said in a near whisper.
David glared at the men on the porch as Jessica pulled closer, her arms wrapped around him.
After a sarcastic sigh of relief, the man in the cowboy hat glanced over at his buddy, and David thought he saw the ghost of a smile.
The screen door creaked open, and Randy stepped out.
The cowboy pointed at David’s hand and said, “You gonna put away that pea shooter and act like a sane person?”
David’s teeth clenched behind closed lips as Jessica trembled against him. She was okay. Frighted and upset, but okay. Randy seemed unharmed, too.
Finally, he uncocked his gun, whispered to Jessica, “I’ve got to be sure Bryan’s okay,” and he started pulling away.
She looked up at him, nonplussed. “Bryan? Where … where’s Mitch, David? Where is Mitch?” she asked, hysterics winding up again. “The man on the radio—”
He eyed the two strangers before holstering his pistol. He grabbed her shoulder and squeezed. “Jess …” He looked toward the truck, the boy obscured by the harsh reflection thrown by afternoon sun on the windshield. “Stay here. I’ve got to be sure about this.”
“But—”
“Ain’t got all day,” the man on the porch said.
Ignoring everyone, David trotted to the truck and opened the passenger door. Bryan sat quietly, Charlie in his lap, asleep.
David looked up at him with a slight smile. “You doing alright, Bry?”
The boy nodded. His forehead glistened with sweat.
David glanced at the porch. “Can you see the men on the porch?”
Bryan lifted his chin, craning his neck to see over the dashboard, then shook his head. “No. The sun is making pictures all over the window.”
Nodding, David said, “Okay. That’s okay.” He put a hand on the boy’s knee. “I’m going to talk to these men. Make sure they are good guys, okay?”
Bryan looked at him, nodded.
“You’ve done great so far, Bry. Just hang tight a little bit longer. I know it’s hot in here. You’ve been tough. Just hang tight a few more minutes. Okay?”
He nodded again.
“Okay,” David said.
He shut the door and started toward the porch. He simply could not risk the boy’s safety until he had a handle on the situation.
Jessica stood where he’d left her, eyes hollow and deep from sickness and sobbing. She looked like she would pass out at any minute. He’d try to make this quick.
As David crossed the yard, countless thoughts raced around his buzzing skull, like stunt motorcycles in a metal sphere, no two thoughts ever colliding, just dangerously zipping past one another.
His first order of business was to figure out Doc: who he was, why he was here. David didn’t view their temporary stand down as a truce, just a pause in the action. He was prepared to kill Doc. And his sidekick. Two men. Factor in Old Man Bartlett, and he’d have three kills in one day. It was turning out to be some day.
He let his left hand fall to the butt of the gun, resting it there as he strolled toward the porch. Jessica fell in beside him, badgering him about Mitch and trying to explain something else. He tuned her out, his only focus right now wore a cowboy hat and was headed his way.
The man met him in the weed-strangled yard, Randy and the other man not far behind.
“Hell of a way to introduce yourself.” The man’s lumber-mill voice sounded torn and shredded.
“So you get a kick out of scaring little kids? Slinking around the woods, pretending to be someone you ain’t?”
The cowboy traded glances with his sidekick. “Scaring little kids?” He glanced behind him, thumb at Randy like a hitchhiker. “Oh, you mean Sally back there?” He chuckled.
“No … Doc … scaring little kids.” David jabbed his thumb toward the truck.
His chuckle subsiding, confusion crossed the man’s face. “I don’t know what your beef is, mister—why you’d introduce yourself by pointing a gun in my face—but I couldn’t give two shits about you. I’m here to talk to Mitch.” He leaned in close, forefinger finding David’s chest, pressing it like a button with every word. “And you … ain’t … him.” A frown adorned his granite chin, his hands to his hips.
A sarcastic smile landed on David’s lips and he mimicked the man’s stance. “I get it. You get to be Doc Holliday, Mitch is Wyatt, and he’s …”—he pointed at the burly Latino—“wait, let me guess … Tonto?” He crossed his arms. “No, because that would make you the Lone Ranger, not Doc Holliday. Different story.”
Impatience ignited Jessica. “David, what are you talking about? Doc Holliday? Lone Ranger?” She sounded stuffy from crying. And aggravated. Shaking her head, she upturned a palm and motioned to the men. “This is Mitch’s brother, Sammy, and his friend, Gills. They’re looking for Mitch.”
David furrowed his brow, seemingly unconvinced.
Twirling his finger near his temple, Sammy said, “Sun scrambling your brain in there, David?” Turning to Guillermo, he added, “I don’t think our friend Dave’s quite all there. What do you say, Gills?”
“Loco.”
Sammy crossed his arms. “Yep. Got us a crazy one, here.” He whistled.
This time, it was David’s tu
rn to lean in close. “I want to know why you were out snooping around the truck, bothering the kid. Calling yourself, ‘Doc Holliday.’”
“What kid? I don’t see any kid.” His head pivoted. Then to Guillermo, “You see a kid, Gills?”
Gills shook his head, his mouth a perennial frown.
“And I don’t call myself, ‘Doc Holliday.’” Sammy recrossed his arms. “Seems I remember things didn’t exactly go well for him.” Another chuckle spilled over his lips. “Now, you gonna tell me where my brother is? Or we gonna have to settle this O.K. Corral-style? Since you’re all obsessed with Doc Holliday.”
David tensed, and Jessica pushed herself between the two men, shoving them. “Enough already!” She threw her hands to her face. “Please, just … stop.”
She turned to David, dropping her arms to her sides, clenching her hands over and over. “Listen. There was a man on the radio. He said you were dead. Said Mitch was dead.” She pulled in a deep breath. “Where’s Mitch?”
David looked into her eyes, premeditated words eluding him. “He … I couldn’t find …”
Her chin trembled, her emerald dams breaking.
He pulled her into him. “Jess, I’m sorry.”
The conversation David had mentally practiced so many times was finally here. And he wasn’t ready for it. Because it was for real.
Her voice was muffled in his chest. “Is he … is he dead?”
“I don’t know. I found his bike. Looked for him.” He shot a flashing glare at Sammy.
She stepped back, looked up, studying his face. “But he left in the truck. You were on the bike.” Her brows dropped, eyes darting over his face. “Did you …?” More tears escaped.
“No, no, of course not.”
I was planning to, but I didn’t.
“You know something about my brother?”
David felt the anger mounting his heart. His neck burned, still aching and stiff from yesterday. He was hot, drenched. Tired. Aggravated and irritable. And now he had to deal with another man cut from the same mold as Mitch. Two of them. Fucking swell.
“You wanna go look for him,” David said, “be my guest. I’ve got better things to do.”
David took Jessica’s hand into his own and started towing her toward the truck. Sammy, he decided, was just an asshole. His buddy, a clown. His gut told him Sammy was not the man purporting to be Doc Holliday. This both relieved and worried David. He’d have to be on the lookout for some other lunatic.
But just to be sure …
“Got someone I want you to meet,” David said to Jess, popping the lock on the truck. He swung open the door. “How you doing, Bry?”
“Okay.”
“Bryan, this is Jessica. Jessica, Bryan and his friend, Charlie.”
Jessica rubbed her cheeks vigorously, trying to dry them, make herself more presentable. “Hi, there,” she said through a forced smile. She reached out her hand and gently petted Charlie on the head. He yawned.
David said, “Bryan, there’s another man here. I’m going to bring him over, and you tell me if it’s Doc, okay? Can you do that for me?”
He dipped his chin over and over, eyes never leaving David’s.
“Okay.” David stepped to the side, waving. “Sammy, c’mere a sec.”
Sammy shook his head slowly, muttering something David could not hear, but assumed was an obscenity-laced tirade. Gills fell in step beside him.
“Just Sammy,” David said. If this guy was Doc, then he wanted him separated from Gills, in case things went south.
Sammy held out his arm, nodding and giving the okay to Guillermo. Sammy moved forward. More muttering. He rounded the door, where Bryan could see him, stood there with a stoic stare.
“This the man you saw?”
Bryan looked at Sammy sheepishly, then shook his head.
“You sure?”
Another sheepish glance, another quick head shake. “No. That’s not Doc.”
David rubbed his own stubbly chin, feeling immediate relief. But now he knew they’d have to be extra careful. This Doc Holliday wannabe was still out there, and possibly dangerous.
“Alright,” David said, giving Bryan a smile, tousling his hair.
Sammy said flatly, “Ya see? So can I get out of the lineup now?”
David gave a brisk nod, and Sammy stomped away toward the porch, bumping Randy as he brushed past him. Gills fell in behind, following Sammy to the porch. David noticed for the first time the two pistols holstered on Guillermo’s lower back. Chrome with pearl grips, they were redolent of angel wings. Had a gunfight erupted, David would have been in some serious trouble.
Randy joined the rest of the group by the truck as David helped the boy and his dog out, along with the boy’s backpack.
David said to Randy in a low voice, “Do you trust them?” and nodded toward the porch. He wasn’t quite ready to turn Bryan and Jessica loose just yet.
Randy gave a thoughtful glance at the two men on the porch and said, “I wouldn’t use the word trust, per se, but I don’t think they’re going to kill us in our sleep.”
David exhaled deeply, a plan coming together in his mind.
Then, Randy added, “They helped kill a shitload of shufflers.”
David’s brow creased, his face a question mark.
Elaborating, Randy said, “In the back, behind the trailer. About fifteen or so, like a pack. A couple of them made it around the front. Sammy and Gills tore through them like they were pro assassins.” He pulled out his handkerchief, wiped down his face. “Don’t think it took sixty seconds.”
“They use guns?”
The big man nodded. “Yeah. It was the only way.”
David pursed his lips, shook his head. “That many rounds going off …” He thought of the .357 on Sammy’s hip and the two 1911s on Guillermo’s back. “Shufflers from miles around could have heard that. May as well have rung the dinner bell.”
Randy tried to defend their actions. “I only got a few shots off, but those things were coming so fast. Well, I mean, they weren’t running, but with so many of them—”
“I know, I know. You just did what you had to do. It’s okay. You kept Jessica safe. Good work, Randy.”
A smile carved his beard.
“Take Bryan inside, would you? Jess and I will meet you in a sec and you can show me this … pack.”
He nodded. “Sure.”
David introduced Randy and Bryan, tried to make the boy feel at ease. Afterwards, Randy and Bryan, along with Charlie, headed for the trailer.
Jessica’s complexion had grown worse, more pallid. Her eyes seemed sunk into her head and she swayed slightly. Even her speech had slowed.
David held her at arm’s length. “Jess, I mean this in the kindest way, but you look like absolute shit.”
She waved him off. “I’ll live.”
“Let’s get you back in the house, get your IV back in you.”
“Why would that man tell me you and Mitch were dead? Why would someone do that?”
He regarded her carefully, then started slowly guiding her by her arm to the trailer. Lowering his voice, he said, “I don’t know, Jess, but it doesn’t matter. I’m alive. And Mitch is tough. He’ll be fine.”
She stumbled, but caught her balance. “I was worried about you, and what this psychopath had done to you.” Her toe caught a rock, and she almost fell again. “It’s bad enough we have to deal with … shufflers … or whatever you call them, but to deal with some crazy asshole …”
“We need to leave, Jess. Tonight.”
She stopped, looked up at him. She was fading, and he needed to get her into bed, get her antibiotics started again.
“Do think you can handle that, Jess? Think you’d be strong enough to make a trip?”
She regarded him a moment, then nodded. “Where will we go? And what about those two?” She dipped her chin toward the unwelcome visitors. “They ain’t leaving without Mitch. And they won’t say what it’s about.”
But David didn’t care. He decided right then and there that if he ever saw Mitch again, dead or alive, it would be too soon. And Mitch’s asshole brother and friend could rot with him.
Chapter 10
David stared at the heap of decay drugging the backyard air. He brushed away flies from his face, then hooked his hands back on his hips, but only for a moment. The shooing was never-ending and irksome. Eventually he resorted to blowing puffs of breath to discourage them, though it worked poorly for clearing the buzzing critters. They just quit landing on his face as much, opting instead for his ears and neck, which was somehow worse.
He badly wanted a cigarette or cigar—something to taste and smell other than the unappetizing goulash of ghouls slow-cooking in the July rays behind the double-wide. Plus maybe the smoke would help keep the buzzers at bay.
Bringing a hand to his brow, he looked up at the sky. The vultures had already started circling, anticipating. He noticed them more and more these days, filling the beautiful blue above or perched on useless power poles, dead trees and fences, waiting. He thought about going back inside so they could do their thing, clean up the mess for him.
Heavy footsteps signaled Randy’s approach. David turned, happy to give his eyes a break from the grisly scene.
“How is she?”
Randy nodded. “She’ll be okay. I’ve got her IV going again. And I slipped a little something extra in her water to help her sleep for a while. The antibiotics work quick, but she just needs to give them time to do their thing.”
David nodded, turned back to the tangled bodies. After another minute or so, he said, “Hard to get used to.” He dipped his chin. “The bodies.”
“Yeah.” Randy scratched his glistening beard. “Don’t know that I ever will.”
“They did this?”
Through steamy glasses, Randy shot David a quizzical glance, then understood. “Oh, yeah. They took most of them out.” He held a finger to his head, cocked his thumb, mimicked a gun going off. “I got a few of them, myself.”
David scanned the property, his head pivoting like a lighthouse beacon. “Surprised more of them ain’t shambling out of the woodworks, all that noise. How long ago?”
Dead South Rising: Book 1 Page 9
