My Brother's Destroyer

by Clayton Lindemuth

  Crack! Smith jumps in my hand and dipshit’s dancing.

  “Shit! Shoot him! He shot me! Shoot him!”

  I hit the ground and crawl. Bullets smack branches and leaves. Splinters in my back. Movin-movin! I spy a depression maybe six-inch deep and half as big as me—I slide the good parts in and leave my legs up and out.

  Now they’s two guns firing. Dirt kicks in my face. Finally one stops, then the other. Hear a lever-action rifle go click twice.

  I come out the brush. Gun in the air, steady silver in the shot man’s face.

  “Howdy.”

  He holds his rifle sideways, lever open. Empty breech thirsty for one bullet. I gander at the fella on my left, got his rifle trained on me. Eyes got a tinge but I want some electric.

  He says, “I got one left, asshole.”

  “If you did I’d say you better make it count. But I think you’s fulla shit.” I swing Smith. “Let’s trade off and see who’s left standing.”

  He drags his front foot back an inch. I pull the hammer.

  He pulls his hammer.

  Got electric up and down my arms. Nape of my neck.

  “This son of a bitch shot me! Shoot him, Reed!”

  “Nah—Reed? That it? Reed? Like blows in the wind, this way and that? Like a pussy willow—that kind of reed? Pull that trigger for me, Reed.”

  “I will, you keep jawing.”

  “I don’t think so. Take Hopalong with you back to the garage, and when your master gets home, you tell him Baer Creighton was along, and brought his bullets.”

  He glances sideways. Shot man’s got his hands wrapped around his leg and blood soaks his pant. Reed lowers his rifle.

  Awkward. You got a gun on a man, it’s hard to put it down.

  “I didn’t come to shoot you.” I wave Reed over to the other. “I was sitting in that tree minding Stipe’s business, and you boys come out raising hell. More I think, more it torques my ass. Move out ’fore things get ugly.”

  Reed takes the other fella’s shoulder, and keeping an eye on me, they forge through undergrowth.

  Wonder where that fella at the garage is.

  Well, he ain’t behind me—they ain’t been noise. Them other two bust through the brush, and with them in the field, it’s all quiet. I could sit here by the tree trunk and wait on em to come back, but I got an itchy idea about them dogs in Stipe’s crates.

  Sun floats on the horizon like it won’t ever dip under, but that’s my pulse, my nerves.

  I trek back the way I come. Get out this neck of woods where it wouldn’t take but six men to flush me out for a turkey shoot. Headed east the forest opens up big, just woods and hills, on and on. Nothing safer. I got a half-mile between me and Stipe and my heart settles; got a comfortable sweat on my neck. Find a beech on a side hill with a view of the garage, way the hell off, and drop my haggard ass to the dirt. Lean back and probe the slice on top my shoulder from the mechanic’s bullet.

  Didn’t lose much at all in that scrape.

  Birds flutter and red squirrels bark orders at somebody. Not me. Eventually a hawk circles way the hell over the trees, floating down on a dying thermal. Getting shot don’t feel too awful good, but the likker helps.

  I reckon I won that skirmish. Yessir.

  Chapter Seven

  Wake with a chill rippling through my back and dark all around. Lights down the hill—Stipe’s operation. Got the purple glow of security lights, and men working in the garage. Prob’ly keep guns handy.

  I suspect a guard roams the premises. If it was my operation they would be, after a shootout. But the boys I met earlier didn’t have any sense and I got the feeling if Stipe don’t give the order, neither of these boys got the gumption to pick his nose.

  I’ll keep my eyes open. But either way they’s dogs in that compound waiting on freedom.

  From way off comes the sound of truck motors, that low rumble that lopes through the trees like a cold wind. Engine shuts off and the noise don’t end so much as steal into shadows and black.

  I got to shiver but not ‘til I listen to the woods.

  Just like them booby traps at the Hun nest: enemy sends a sniper to harangue you in your own damned house, you strike back. Once you got the advantage, you press him back on his heels.

  If I cut them dogs loose, Stipe’s cash flow takes the hit. He’s got to be fighting some of his own animals every week. He wants new dogs, them cost money. And if I make him shut down his fight circle, maybe them cowards that bet money on his animals will start looking other ways to satisfy they habits. Fight chickens. They ain’t got souls—not like dogs.

  I get up a little giddy. Brain’s like a razor. I’ll slip down the hill, circle back of Stipe’s joint, ease up on them sad-assed dogs. They’s got to be itching for liberty. Hell, they want to come home with me, I’ll feed em. Let Stipe wonder where they at, whether they’s dead or wandering the hills with a chewed-off foot.

  Creep along like they’s people nearby, though I’d see they deceitful eyes in the dark.

  I find the field a few hundred yards off where we had the showdown and head to the back of Stipe’s complex.

  The dogs is quiet. I come up slow. Wind picks up at my back and the dogs grumble. Pen’s set off thirty yards from Stipe’s house. Inside the window they’s a chandelier set low. I bet Stipe’s at the garage or the headquarters trailer between. I take a slosh out the flask to settle the stomach flutters.

  “Hey puppydogs. You take it easy, now.”

  One snarls and another joins. Now the whole batch is pissed and snooting. Noses bang the chain link and teeth flash white in the purple glow. I glance back to the garage—sound of wrenches on concrete. No alarm.

  Up close the pen I try and reason with a brute. “Hey you. Your name Killer, something? Easy now. I’m cutting you some slack, you hear?”

  Put my hand flat on the mesh. He gnashes at it. I seen buck-toothed women could eat corn on the cob through a fence like this, but Killer can’t pull it off. He gets to sniffing—maybe whiffs Fred—and his tongue wets my hand. Rest of the dogs growl. I poke a finger through the mesh and he licks it. All right. We at peace.

  I pull the latch.

  Killer pops out like his legs was coiled springs. Lands six feet off, spins. His back is bristled like a wire brush and a snarl pulls his lips back so his face is all teeth and eyes. Voice is low like that truck in the bay.

  Well shit.

  “Don’t you go back on your word.”

  Other dog barks; now the whole crew’s at it. Killer steps closer. Head’s low, shoulders like a dozer blade ready to plow me flat. I pull Smith, though I damn sure don’t want to use it.

  Killer don’t know what a gun’ll do—he don’t even blink. He takes another step and his voice pitches higher.

  “Hey! That’s a six-time champ, you son of a bitch!”

  It’s someone from the garage, standing with a tire tool in his hand. I skirt sideways along the kennel. Dogs bang the wire. Killer pivots. I get past him and turn. Killer launches. Knocks me agin the wire. Got my arm in a vise with nails. Shaking my bones even as he falls back to earth.

  Don’t go down, Baer. That’s death for one of us. But Killer’s heavy and I’m sporting a buzz. I drop to my knees and he rears hard and topples me to my back.

  I’m fucked and I know it.

  “Damn you! I thought we was cool.”

  We struggle.

  Out the corner my eye I see that mechanic coming at me with a tool in the air. Killer’s let go my arm and he’s at my neck. Can’t breath, and them teeth feel like knives.

  He snarls. Eases a tiny bit and snaps a better hold on my throat. I get a breath and his mouth smells like mud and old cowshit. He’s clamped tight again—if I don’t get air quick, I’m Alpo. He shakes like to snap my neck. Lowers me and jerks back and I feel every bone in my spine pop. I open my mouth and can’t speak. I got terror in my blood, shooting fast through me. Can’t breathe!

  I’m sorry Killer I’m truly sorry�
�

  I shove Smith agin his head and pull the trigger.

  Got blood all on me, and a dog letting out his last air, his last piss. I roll him off and wiggle to the side, get my feet under me. Feel my neck all slippy with dog drool and blood. Man with the wrench stands off twenty yards, stopped cold by the pistol shot. I cough. I bet that’s Norm, tried to shoot me in the tree.

  I point Smith. Step back. Another.

  He drops the tire tool and lifts his hands head-high. I step back again.

  Stipe’s at the edge of his trailer, hand at his brow to cut the glare from one his security lights. The glow don’t reach me, this far out.

  “Lou,” Stipe says. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “That’s your boy Creighton out there. And that’s Achilles by the crates. Shot.”

  “Shot? Creighton shot Achilles?”

  “He’s right there!”

  Stipe raises his arm and orange explodes from his hand. He can’t see me but he come close for guessing. He fires again, and again. He points one way, then another, random. Bullets smack the kennel. He’s shooting his own dogs, the dumb shit.

  That pistol sounds like a forty-five, big heavy bullets come by so slow you could almost run along beside em and have a conversation. But they’s so heavy, one hits you, you’re a chock block in front of a downhill freight train.

  “I’m going to hunt you down, Creighton! I’m going to crush you!” He’s walking toward me, into the darkness. Fires again and again. He pauses and I figure he’s out of bullets, but in ten seconds he’s firing again.

  I’m backing away at a full clip. “Go to hell, Stipe. That’s an eye for an eye.”

  I turn tail and ain’t gone three steps before I see I opened up a whole new war. I killed Stipe’s champ. Wonder what kind of hell I got coming now.

  Chapter Eight

  Bank’s fulla assholes and I’m in no mood. Teller’s a kid with lawn mowed hair and Mount Rainier zits. He studies the scarf I wrapped over the bites on my neck. He collects his thoughts and prepares his pitch. He’s one step removed from cashiering at McDonald’s but thinks he knows all about the central bank and the history of money.

  A year ago I was foolish enough to explain my gold strategy to a fella didn’t give off any juice. Now every one of em smiles at me. But when it’s all done I know my money’s safe; whether they lock me up the rest of my life or not, nobody’ll get they claws on my dough.

  “It’s good to see you again, Mister Creighton. We’ve got a new checking account you might be interested in—”

  “Promise I’m not.” And why don’t you pop that cussed thing on your forehead?

  “Why is that, Mister Creighton? Regular money not good enough for you? You know the price of gold keeps going down? You keep pulling funds away from us, but how much are you losing by avoiding paper?”

  “I wish you folks sold gold. You wouldn’t be so damned afraid of it.”

  “We’re not in the commodities business.”

  “Since Nixon dropped the gold standard, you ain’t in the money business either.”

  I take all my cash but a few dollars—a hair shy of seventeen hundred.

  With the fiat paper already in my pocket, I got eighteen hundred and forty-eight dollars. I head down the street nervous and suspicious of everyone I see, but nobody minds me. A couple turns and a couple blocks later I’m in Millany’s Coin Collectory, a shop that feels academic and conspiratorial at the same time. Millany’s got numismatic gems—coins pulled from a dozen shipwrecks, bullion from Africa and Canada, silver from all over. He’s got collector guns, memorabilia from every army ever lost a war, and his walls is papered in Confederate bills and the equally debauched Union Greenback.

  “Thought you was due,” he says. “What’d you do to your neck?”

  “I was sucking face with a rattlesnake and goosed her. I need out of some paper cash.”

  “I can help.”

  His’s been the only place in town to buy gold since 1974.

  “I got seventeen hundred.” I take the stack of fiat paper from my pocket and rest it on the counter.

  “Two maple leafs’ll put you at sixteen fifty.”

  “Two it is.”

  “Surprised you ain’t a seller at these numbers.”

  “Why’s that? Trend’s down.”

  “You been buying since, what? Buck ninety-five, thereabouts?”

  “Gold’s going to twenty thousand. People’ll trade corn and wheat before they give up food for a stack of government paper. Mark my words.”

  “Not this genetically modified shit. They’ll use cod in Boston and tobacco here.” He exits to a back room and closes the door. He’s gone a few minutes and I don’t know if he’s got to find his way down a few flights to a vault deep in the ground, or whether he sits behind the door a long time so no one thinks the real money’s one wall away. He comes back and I’ve got a bayonet in my hands that was sitting on a cardboard box.

  “Austrian,” he says. “See the OEWG on the ricasso? Fits an 1895 Mannlicher. In the market?”

  “Got all the edge tools I need.”

  He passes the coins. They gleam through plastic. He counts the stack of bills on the counter and stops at sixteen fifty, and passes the rest back.

  “Pull a seat,” he says. “How goes the country commerce?”

  I stay standing. “I got a helluva walk.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Generally do.”

  I nod and he grins and that ends it. Got one more stop.

  Mae’s house sits on the low side of town. I cut a field by the pond and pick up the road. She lives in a weathered wood tinderbox with a door got a hole you could pitch a horseshoe through.

  I knock. She don’t answer right off. The kids inside yell like animals and for a second I think if she’d turn the television off for a year she’d have the money to move out. I rap the door again and hold back so I don’t bust it. Then I push it open.

  Bree stares at me. Her hair is like straw with winter frost; she smiles and rushes to me on feet ain’t used to taking orders. Her sister Morgan comes from the other room and hollers, “Uncle Baaaaaaaar!” Joseph wails.

  “Baer?”

  “Yeah, honey?”

  “Uncle Baer, that you?”

  I lift Morgan in one arm and Bree in the other. Shoulder aches like shit. I got to steady myself before turning the corner. Mae looks so much like Ruth I can hardly stand to see her—got the same eyes and nose—they’s a dimple on her nose you could almost fall into—and her cheeks is high. I used to tease Ruth she was part Cherokee, and Ruth always hushed me on account of her asshole father. Wouldn’t do for a rich man of considerable social standing to ’fess Injun blood. Mae looks like her mother except her mouth, and the streak of hair she’s dyed black so she looks like an inside-out skunk. Her mouth is all Creighton.

  “What are you doing? Come in. Sit down.” She lifts Joseph and smooches him ‘til he giggles. “So cold you have to wear a scarf?”

  “Started shaving sober and damn near cut off my head. So I quit.”

  “Quit drinking?”

  “Shaving.”

  I carry Morgan and Bree and drop into a sofa built for people like to feel like they furniture’s got emotions or something. Sink so low my eyes is level with my knees. The girls wriggle from my arms and start climbing me.

  “So how’s Fred?”

  “He eats and shits, and that’s two-thirds what a dog’s for.”

  “What’s the other third?”

  “Conversation.”

  She smirks.

  I say, “Anyway, I was in town.”

  “Buying more coins?”

  Her face is all smile without a hint of red, and the only thing uncomfortable is the kids clawing my hair, and the couch that kind of mopes.

  “I come in town for a little business is all.”

  “Stay for supper?” She mutes the television with a remote.

  “Got supper in my back pocket.�
� I take her in without letting my eyes wander up and down. She’s wearing pink sweatpants with a hole in one knee, and a baseball jersey that don’t hide her mams worth a damns. Flip-flop shoes and painted toenails. A crucifix on a choker.

  Morgan has a fistful of my hair. She pulls ‘til I look at her, and she meets my look with wide eyes and a wider grin, and the baby powder smell—and baby skin—is too much. She points. “Whiskers.” I crane my neck and scratch her with my cheek. She giggles and Mae watches.

  “Wanted to give you something.”

  “Oh, Uncle Baer, you don’t—”

  “I know it, and that’s half why I do it.” I pull an arm free from Bree and dredge fifty dollars from my pocket. I put it on the end table. “Hell, I don’t need it.”

  Mae unfolds her legs, and with Joseph in one arm comes to me on the sofa and stoops and wraps her other arm around my neck. She smells like watermelon hard candy and when her soft arm is around my neck and her boobs press my shoulder and her hair is up in my face, I don’t feel as easy as I might in the woods staring at a campfire.

  She pulls back and they’s water in her eyes. She smiles like they’s good tears but she’s fulla shit and she knows I know.

  “Where’s Cory?”

  Her eyes roll. “We aren’t together.”

  “He know, this time?”

  “I told him not ten minutes ago. He just left, all pissed off.”

  “Did it take? Or you want me to tell him?”

  “No. I’ll handle Cory.”

  I try another direction. “So who’s buying the food?”

  She glances at the fifty dollars and back to me. “Food stamps.”

  “Where the hell’s your grandpap? Rich old Preston Forsyth Jackass?”

  “You know all about that.”

  She sits on the couch and the hug never happened.

  “None of my business,” I say.

  “I don’t even see him. It’s been two years since I tried to visit the Baptist home. You know how he is.”

  I know how he is. Preston Forsyth Jackson, one of those sons a bitches with three names so blue he’s got to use em all.

  “I don’t care,” she says. “I’ll make my fortune on my own. You have to let me tell you about my MBA program. The Jacksons can keep their money.”