The Prairie Chicken Kill

by Bill Crider

  By the time I'd taken five steps, my sweatshirt and jeans had absorbed so much water that they felt as if they weighed twenty pounds.

  I didn't mind. The rain was shielding me, and with the darkness that had come along with it there wasn't much chance that anyone glancing out a window of the little house would see anything other than a moving shadow.

  I had to be careful not to fall. The grass was thin, and the rain was making the ground slick and treacherous. Water ran out of my hair and into my eyes.

  When I reached the metal building I checked the sliding door. I hadn't seen a lock, but the door had been quite a distance from the truck.

  There was no lock, just a hasp pushed over an iron loop. I pulled the hasp back and pushed the door. It moved a couple of inches along its track with a shrill squealing noise. The rain was beating so hard on the metal roof that no one was going to hear the squeal more than a few feet away, however, so I pushed the door wide enough to allow me to slip inside the building.

  It was dark inside, and the darkness smelled of dirt and spider webs. I wiped water out of my eyes and listened to the rain drumming on the metal roof.

  The plane was there, all right. Or a plane was there, a white monoplane that looked like the cropduster that had strafed us. It was more than likely the same one.

  As I stood there looking at the plane, I heard the squeal of the door above the static of the rain on the roof. Instead of turning to see who was coming in, I ducked down and ran toward a pile of boxes in a shadowy corner.

  There was a series of phhhhhttttts behind me as I ran, and the boxes twitched as if they were alive.

  I made a sharp left turn, hit the dirt, and slid ten feet, the pistol grinding into my belly. Bullets flew over my head and spanged through the metal walls.

  I rolled over and clawed at my soaking sweatshirt, trying to get to the .38. When I got it out of my waist band, I fired once into the air just to let whoever was shooting at me know I had a gun, too. My eyes had adjusted somewhat to the lack of light, and I looked around to see what I could see.

  I'd managed to get the bi-plane between me and the shooter, so I could see only his legs in the dimness. They were thick as tree stumps, and I knew it must be Gar. I snapped off a shot at his combat boots, but the bullet missed him ricocheted off the floor and into the wall.

  I didn't shoot again. The revolver didn't hold quite as many rounds as whatever Gar was using, and I hadn't brought any spare cartridges. They were all in the truck where they would do me no good at all, and I couldn't afford to waste any more.

  I rolled toward the wall as quietly as I could, hoping there might be some way out of the building other than the door, maybe a window, although I hadn't seen one.

  Gar still hadn't said a word, not that I'd expected him too. He didn't seem fond of conversation even in social situations more relaxed than this one.

  I looked for his feet again. They were moving toward the tail of the plane. He was going to get me for sure, though I might have time for one shot.

  I sat up slowly, my back pressed against the cold metal of the wall, and steadied the .38 with both hands. As big as he was, even if I hit him I probably wouldn't bring him down, not unless I could hit him in the knee or the shin. Even then, he might be able to fire off a whole clip while he was falling. A head shot would be better, but in the dim light, with a gun I'd fired only twice before, a head shot didn't seem practical.

  I wouldn't have given a lot at that moment for my chances of getting out of the hangar alive, but I tried not to dwell on that thought. It wouldn't improve my aim.

  I had the pistol pointed at about where I figured Gar's legs would be when he came around the tail of the plane. One chance was all I was going to get. Water was running out of my hair and down my forehead into my face. Or maybe it was sweat. I wiped it away and gripped the pistol again. My finger tightened on the trigger.

  Before I could shoot, a booming noise echoed off all four walls and made me jump straight up off the ground. It was as if the thunder from outside had come into the building with me. Something that seemed about the size of a cannonball tore a hole through the metal wall at one end of the building.

  "All right, Gar," Red yelled. "Put down that rifle and turn around."

  I didn't know Gar intimately, but he didn't seem like the type to be afraid of a little thing like a .357 magnum. I had to do something to help Red out, so I stood up and said, "Give it up, Gar. We've got you surrounded."

  The Durango Kid would have been proud of me.

  Gar probably didn't know who The Durango Kid was. And if he'd known, he wouldn't have cared. Most likely, he would have shot him.

  Red knew that, and he didn't give Gar a chance to shoot. He fired the magnum again.

  I suspect that he was thinking about Paul and that he was trying to kill Gar, but it didn't work out that way. The bullet hit Gar's automatic rifle and ripped it out of his hands.

  I moved with the shot and got around the plane in time to see what happened next. Gar ran straight at Red, who was balancing himself on his crutches and firing the magnum with both hands.

  If Gar had been charging me, I would have been nervous, and Red was no better than me. He fired three shots, all of which missed, and then Gar slammed into him like a linebacker trying to tackle Emmitt Smith.

  Red was no Emmitt. He flew backward at least six feet, and hit the ground hard, dropping the pistol.

  Gar pounced on the gun and picked it up. Then he whirled to face me.

  "It's empty, Gar," I said. "But mine's not."

  He still didn't say a word. Instead, with that incredible quickness of his, he threw the pistol at me, a trick I'd seen tried in dozens of old movies.

  It never worked in the movies, but it worked for Gar. He had an arm like Nolan Ryan. I tried to duck out of the way, but the pistol butt hit me on the temple. The pain shot from my head to my spine and then travelled all the way down to my toes. I looked for Gar, but I couldn't see him. I couldn't see anything at all.

  The next thing I heard was the sound of the rain on the metal roof and above that the sound of the plane's engine revving. The vibrations nearly shook my skull apart.

  I looked up at the plane. Gar was in the cockpit, and he didn't look the least bit airsick. I pushed myself to my knees and picked up my pistol as the plane began to roll out the open door.

  I was determined not to let Gar escape, so I got to my feet and staggered after him. Red lay on the dirt, either unconscious or dead. I didn't have time to check.

  I got myself into a kind of shambling run with each step sending shockwaves of pain through my head. I put my hand on my damp hair and pressed down to keep the top of my skull where it belonged.

  I caught up with the plane just as it passed through the door. The rain had slowed considerably, and the wind had died down. Gar gunned the plane's engine and pulled away from me, out onto the runway.

  I didn't know much about flying, but I'd always heard that a plane was supposed to take off with its nose pointed into the wind. If I was right, Gar had to taxi to the end of the open area, turn around, and come back in my direction. I stumbled along behind him, my feet slipping in the mud, and tried to remember how many shots I'd fired.

  Two? Three? I had no idea.

  Gar reached the end of the runway and turned the plane slowly. Then he headed back toward me, gradually picking up speed. I thought I could see him grinning in the cockpit, but I knew I was just imagining it.

  I stopped running and brought up the pistol, gripping it with both hands. I was none too steady, and it shook more than a little. There was no help for that, however, and I squeezed off a shot.

  Nothing happened, and I fired again and then again. After that the hammer clicked on an empty cylinder, and that was all the shooting I could do. I either had to get out of the way or get chopped in two by the propeller.

  I got out of the way.

  I dived to the slick ground and slid forward, and then I had another bad idea. I flip
ped over on my back. When the plane passed over me, I reached up to grab one of the struts that braced the left wheel.

  I'm not sure what I planned to do. Maybe I was thinking about some old movie I'd seen, where the hero climbed aboard the plane and gracefully walked along the wing, then grabbed the villain's silk flying scarf, yanked him out of the cockpit, and tossed him to the earth before taking over the plane and steering it for a perfect three-point landing.

  While there isn't much doubt that Gar was a first-class villain, I wasn't exactly graceful, and I wasn't much of a hero. So things didn't work the way they did in old movies.

  My arms were almost jerked from their sockets, and suddenly I was bouncing over the ground a lot faster than I would have thought possible. Every time my back hit, I yelled. I don't think Gar could hear me. I don't think he would have cared if he'd heard.

  He must have known I was there, though. He would have felt the drag, and he would have known that he couldn't get the altitude he needed as quickly as he needed it.

  He had to give it a try, though, and he almost made it. I found myself dangling in the air, only my toes dragging, and we were rushing straight at a huge mound of dirt that marked the end of the runway.

  He probably thought he could gain enough altitude to get over the mound or, failing that, get high enough so that I would be mashed against the mound like a bug against a windshield.

  I didn't much like that idea of being flattened, but I wasn't about to let go and let Gar get away. I pumped my arms, swung my legs, and bounced up and down as hard as I could.

  The unexpected pitching and swaying pulled the left wing down suddenly and dangerously. Gar tried to correct, but it was too late. He wasn't going to get airborne.

  Now I was willing to let go. I dropped to the ground just before the plane crashed into the hillock.

  The fall almost jarred my head off my neck, and my bad knee gave way beneath me. I rolled over two or three times before I came to a stop. I heard the crash but didn't see it. I lay like a rock for several seconds before I was able to stand and look around.

  The plane had hit hard to cause severe damage to the front end, but it didn't hit hard enough: Gar wasn't dead. He didn't even seem to be hurt badly as he pulled himself out of the cockpit.

  He was, however, really pissed off, and he headed straight for me. He slipped twice, falling almost to his knees before he caught himself. The falls didn't cheer him up any. They just made him angrier.

  There was a thin string of smoke rising from the plane's engine, and I hoped it might explode into one of those spectacular fireballs you see in the movies sometimes, sending debris flying everywhere, maybe even sending a chunk of it right into the head of the survivor.

  There was no explosion, of course. Instead there was a noise that sounded like fifty pounds of bacon frying, but that was all, and Gar kept right on coming.

  It's not exactly manly to admit it, but I think I would have run from him if I could have. The trouble was that I couldn't. I wasn't even sure I could walk. So I just stood there, waiting for Gar.

  The rain had almost completely stopped, and when Gar got a little closer, I could see that he wasn't in quite as good a shape as I'd first thought.

  He'd lost his cap, and his little ponytail had come loose. His hair was wet and hanging around his face, his left eye was half closed, and there was a long scratch down his cheek. Blood oozed from the scratch. It didn't improve his looks any.

  I thought he might say something, curse me, scream at me, call me a name, but of course he didn't. When he got close enough, he just swung at me with a long, impossibly quick right arm and knocked the crap out of me.

  I'd just thought my head hurt before. Now it really hurt, and I was pretty sure that he'd dislocated my jaw.

  After a second or two I realized that I was sitting down. I didn't even remember falling. Gar came over and reached for me. He grabbed my sweatshirt, squeezing about a quart of water out of it as he dragged me to my feet. He held me at arm's length as he prepared to club me again with his big fist.

  I didn't think I could stand another one of those blows. I grabbed the arm that held me, bent down, and sank my teeth into the soft webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

  Gar screamed. It was nice to know that he could make a sound if given the right incentive. The scream encouraged me, and I didn't let go. I just clamped down harder.

  Truman Smith, pit bull.

  Gar's face turned red and swelled with rage. He took hold of my hair and yanked my head backward, while he jerked his hand up and away from me.

  I kept my teeth clenched shut, but if his aim was to tear himself loose, it worked. However, he lost a pound of flesh in the process. My mouth filled with skin and blood and slickery gristle.

  I was trying to spit the foul mess out when he hit me again, not hard because he slipped as he swung and almost missed me. It was worse than being hit hard, though, because his fist glanced off my chin and made me swallow involuntarily. Part of his thumb webbing went right down my throat.

  Truman Smith, cannibal.

  I staggered back, gagged, and tried not to think about what I'd swallowed. I had to concentrate on staying alive. I couldn't run, but maybe I could stop Gar by going for his knee. I didn't have the gun, so I couldn't shoot the knee, but if I got lucky, I could kick it.

  I kept backing up, and Gar kept coming after me. Blood was streaming from his hand, though he didn't seem to notice. It had started to rain hard again, and the blood was washing right off and disappearing on the ground. Gar kept his eyes fixed on my face as if visualizing how it would look after he crushed my nose and broke out all my teeth.

  I let him get as close as I dared, and when he planted his right knee to take another step, I aimed a swift kick at the kneecap.

  Actually, swift is a slight exaggeration, maybe even a wild exaggeration, but I did the best I could do at the time, and it's hard to say who was more surprised when the kick connected, me or Gar.

  He yelped and collapsed on both knees, so I stepped forward and hit him with a solid right/left combination before he could get back up. I might as well have been hitting a fence post for all the good I did.

  Gar glared at me and popped to his feet. I didn't think he'd let me get away with kicking him again, so I decided to try another punch or two before he gathered his wits.

  I'd forgotten one thing. Gar didn't live by his wits. He lived by speed and instinct and reaction time, and his reaction time was something to behold. He hit me again, and this time I didn't even see it coming, probably with good reason. It landed so hard that it must have come by way of Antarctica.

  I felt my brain come loose behind my eyes and bounce around in my head like a Nerf ball in a coffee can.

  He hit me one more time, and I went down and out.

  Truman Smith, dead man.

  Nineteen

  I wasn't dead, however. If I were dead, I would have been feeling much better than I was. And if I were dead, there wouldn't be someone poking me in the left side with a muddy crutch.

  I opened my eyes and looked up.

  "You gonna be all right?" Red asked.

  "I don't think so," I said, closing my eyes again.

  I didn't try to sit up. I just lay there and let the rain fall on me. It wasn't falling very hard. I let a little of in run in my mouth to wash out the lingering taste of Gar's blood.

  Red poked me with the crutch. "You're gonna catch pneumonia if you don't get some dry clothes on."

  I didn't move. I didn't open my eyes, either. "What about Gar?"

  "He's gone. Got in his truck and took off."

  "Did you see him go?"

  "Yeah. I was comin' out of the hangar."

  "How'd he look?"

  "A hell of a lot better than you do."

  I wasn't surprised. I must have looked like a stunt double on the set of Son of the Slime Monster -- a stunt double whose big gag had just gone very wrong.

  "We found the airplane, though, didn'
t we?" I said.

  "Yeah. And we kept Gar from gettin' it away from here and hidin' it someplace else." Red looked over at the wrecked crop duster. "I don't think anybody'll be movin' it now."

  I opened my eyes and tried to sit up. I did, and it didn't hurt quite as much as I'd thought it would, not any more than getting run over by a buffalo stampede, so I tried to go farther and stand. I found I could even do that, though I was a little wobbly. I put a hand on Red's shoulder to steady myself.

  "How did you get out here on those crutches?" I asked.

  "It wasn't easy," Red said, looking down where the rubber tips were sunk a half inch into the mud. "You think the two of us can make it to the truck without fallin' down and breakin' our necks?"

  I looked toward the mound where I'd parked the truck. It wasn't much more than a hundred yards. It looked like a hundred miles.

  "We might as well give it a try," I said.

  We got to the truck after what seemed like an eternity. My feet kept slipping, and Red's crutches sank into the mud so that he had to pull them out with a wet sucking sound at every step.

  It was dry inside the cab when we finally got there, but our clothes were drenched. I started the engine and turned on the heater.

  "You got any money with you?" Red asked.

  "In my billfold. It's probably wet."

  "It'll do. We gotta find us a Wal-Mart and buy some clothes. Maybe a towel, too."

  "I have a towel behind the seat," I said.

  I got out, and Red leaned forward. I pulled the seat-back over and got out the towel. It was dusty and had a few oil stains on it, but it would do. I got back in the cab and dried my face and hair, cleaning off most of the mud. There wasn't much I could do about my clothes. When I was finished, I handed the towel to Red.

  "I have to do something else before we leave," I said.

  "What?"

  "Find our pistols."

  "Yeah," Red said, rubbing his thinning hair with the towel. "You better do that. Prob'ly got our fingerprints all over 'em. Wouldn't do to leave 'em lyin' around. Somebody might get the idea that we were dangerous."