by Frank Bill
Poe’s Colonel Sanders skin was wrinkled. One sleep-crusted eye was open, one closed. His pasty lips rattled, “Ross?”
Whalen brought the empty bottle down. Exploded it over Poe’s forehead. Pulled him out of the doorway, onto the wooden deck. Bare feet over broken glass. Whalen gripped and twisted one of Poe’s arms behind his back. Pressed his throat down over the wooden deck rail. Kicked his bare, boxer-short legs apart, taking Poe’s movement from him.
Whalen said, “Gonna ask this one more time, Poe. What do you know about the people ran with Flat and Beatle?”
Slobbering awake, Poe arched his neck, tried to look up. Blood crowned his head and ran down into his eyes. He opened his parched lips and said, “A woman. Name’s Liz. And her brother, name’s Angus. He’s scarred up on one side of his face. Long hair, wears it in a braid, like a Indian. Names and vines tattooed all up on his body. Liz got a build made of sin, hair all matted into clumps. She run off with Ned.”
Whalen yelled, “That jack-o’-lanterned, fist-swapping fuck?”
Poe said, “Yeah, Ned. Liz come in the other night. They hooked up. She made a deal with Ned. Kill Angus, split his crank. Head down to the Donnybrook. Angus is headed that way too, looking for blood.”
Whalen repeated, confused, “Looking for blood? Angus?”
Poe said, “He ain’t dead. Ain’t the dyin’ type. He’s alive and pissed off. Come in the bar the other night asking about Ned and Liz.”
Whalen was shaking with anger. “Motherfucker!” He released Poe. “Always liked you. River-rat bar-back bastard! Caused a helluva mess. Put my badge on the line.”
Poe rubbed his head and belched, “Why you have to bust that bottle over my damn head?”
Whalen yelled, “’Cause I needed answers! Something I didn’t get last time!”
* * *
Fu dialed Mr. Zhong on his cell while navigating the back roads of Orange County, the signal fading as he drove. Angus rode shotgun, hands twist-tied behind him, nodding directions when needed.
From the cell phone, Mr. Zhong asked Fu if he’d found the man and woman.
Fu told him he’d found the man.
Mr. Zhong wanted to know about the money. Fu told him he hadn’t gotten the money, but he and the man were going to find the girl. That she’d left the man for dead and taken the money. Before the cell signal faded completely, Mr. Zhong asked where the girl was and Fu told him something called the Donnybrook.
He closed his cell phone. Placed it in his shirt pocket.
Beside him, Angus sat stiff from sleeping in the wooden chair. He broke the hushed AC hum. “Your boss?”
“You could say that. It’s the man I am loyal to, yes.”
The cold air clawed Angus’s face. His bound arms goose-bumped as he watched the road. Wondered how much of the meth Liz and Ned had snorted. How much they’d sold. Wondered what the shit Fu had hanging in them leather bags. Wasn’t about to give Fu a chance to show him. Angus knew out here on the back roads of Orange County, even with his hands tied, he’d an edge. The slant was on his own, a hound without a scent.
Angus needed to free his hands. Knuckle his left fist into the slant’s temple. Then put his right fist behind it. Pound his face into mushy skin and bone.
Fu pulled a smoke from his other breast pocket. Pushed in the lighter on the dash. The lighter popped out. Fu lit his cigarette. Inhaled an orange bur on its end. Smoke trailed from his lips as he spoke. “What you did to that man in the parking lot, he was blind to. Most American fighters, their movements are easy to read. Unless they have been trained by an Asian.”
Angus saw his opening. “I’s trained by my father. He’s no Asian. But he boxed when he was in the army. Trained with a Thai boxer in Thailand. Filipino arts in the Philippines.”
Fu pulled on the cigarette. “Your father understands discipline of training. Where the power of a strike originates. But also pressure point attacks. Your father, he knows honor in combat. Taught it to you very well.”
Behind his back, Angus clenched and unclenched his fist. Open, closed. Open, closed. Thought of a time when all seemed balanced. Said, “He was an honorable man. Till I dishonored him.”
Fu grinned, asked, “How so?”
Nodding to a stop sign in the distance, Angus pushed forward a bit. Created slack within the seat belt. Space between himself and the seat. Timed Fu’s movements in his peripheral. “Hang a right at the stop. Follow the road about ten miles back.” He paused. Asked, “Think you can light me one of them cancer sticks?” Fu hesitated, then nodded. Let his smoke hang from his lips. Fished out another. Lit it off his own. Laid it on Angus’s lips without looking. Angus pulled on it. Mushroom clouds of smoke rounded from his mouth.
“Father taught me how to fight soon as I could stand. Banana punching bag in the barn. Speedball. No gloves, so I’d condition my hands. Mirror for hand-weighted shadow boxing. Rope for rhythm. He had his own logging business. Small operation. Made a good living. Taught the trade to me. Let me run it. Retired. I used to fight other loggers for money after work. Passed the time. Till I had me an accident with a saw. Kicked back into my face. No insurance. Found an under-the-counter plastic surgeon who butchered my appearance worse than it already was. I fell into a kind of darkness. Economy crapped out, lumber and building stalled. Sister got me hooked on meth. Perked me up. But it was too late. I lost the business. Started cooking the shit to sell for a living.”
Fu interrupted, “And this is how you met Mr. Eldon.”
Angus said, “Right, how I met Eldon. And that’s how I disgraced my father.”
Fu said, “Most Americans do not have any discipline. My country is all about discipline. Here in the United States, it is all about choice. You made the wrong one.”
Angus bit down on the smoke, turned to Fu, and lunged forward, guiding the orange marbled glow into the flesh of Fu’s right cheek. Cigarette tobacco and ash erupted. Tires barked. Fu jerked, kept one hand on the wheel. Angus twisted his upper body and shoulders up out of the seat, drove the side of his head into Fu’s head. Over and over. Knocked Fu’s head into the driver’s side window. Fu tried to palm him away. Angus fell back. The seat belt caught. Jerked. His neck gave. His head met the passenger’s side window. He dug down into the side of the seat, found where the seat belt locked. Worked and fumbled with the button to unlock the belt. The Tahoe slowed down, ran off the side of the road. The seat belt released.
The car sat idling, half off the road, next to a barbed-wire fence that enclosed a pasture of old hay. Angus pushed his back into the passenger door. Pulled his knees to his chest. Drove his boots into the side of Fu’s head. Busted it through the driver’s side window. Glass rainbowed out the door. Blood poured from Fu’s head. Angus kicked him again. Took in where the lighter was located. Turned his back to the console. Pushed against it. His fingers found the lighter. Pushed it in.
Fu’s eyelids fluttered. Blood ran from his nose, mouth, a gash on the left side of his skull. His glasses hung down his nose, right and left sides cracked.
The lighter popped. Angus fingered it out. Bent his wrist, turning the heated end into the plastic twist ties that bound him. Singed skin and plastic. Smelt the burn. Felt his hands free.
Fu shook his head. Turned to Angus, dazed. Angus loaded Fu’s vision with knuckles. Reached across him. Opened the driver’s side door. Pushed him out. Fu hit the heated grass flat on his face, tried to crawl away, get his senses. Angus stepped out, stiff. Walked to Fu, bent down. Punched him in the back of the head. Pressed a knee into his spine, took Fu’s wallet. Old habits die hard.
Angus turned back to the idling Tahoe. Pulled a wad of bills from the wallet. Pushed them into his front pocket. Dropped the wallet. Felt pain pelt his right kidney. Then his spine. Dropped to his knee. Felt hands reaching for his head of hair. Turned left and right-hooked Fu’s left inner thigh. Shot a left uppercut into his crotch. Fu backpedaled. Angus stood up, met a left elbow. Right knee. Took it, felt the slice of blood across his skull
. Returned a blur of jabs and hooks with Fu deflecting them on his arms. Angus kicked low. His shin met Fu’s. He threw a cross that softened Fu’s face. Knocked him backward. Made his body twitch and convulse.
Angus stepped back, panting, his hands raised. Winded. Gunshot wound aching.
He started to laugh. Fu had fallen into a barbed-wire fence and gotten tangled. His every movement made the barbs cut deeper into his flesh.
Angus limped to the idling truck. Got in. Put it into drive.
* * *
Whalen had less than thirty-six hours before his hearing in Sellersburg. Less than thirty-six hours to find this Angus and Liz. But he’d neglected the farm. He needed to check on his nephew, as he did every couple weeks.
He took a detour down the valley road, recollecting the call that had come over the radio that day nearly five years ago. First to arrive on the scene, seeing the old Ford in the distance, frayed outline in the road. He’d rushed from his vehicle. Found Doddy, her beauty splintered and spilled about the pavement. Skull scattered. Flies buzzing in the heat. The unborn hump inside of her, dead or suffocating. Ten feet from her sat the still-warm Ford. What was left of Reese dotted over the driver’s side fender. Up across the hood. Barrel of his 16-gauge rested on his shoulder. Hands crimped about the trigger and stock.
His brother-in-law Reese had shot Doddy, then himself, because the truth was too much.
Now Whalen pulled down the weeded drive to the farmhouse left to him in the will along with the five hundred acres it sat upon. He parked his Jeep. Got out. The warm country air carried something rancid. Whalen walked up toward the house, like he had that day. Taking in the apple tree where his sister, Azell, and her daughter Tate sat slumped. Arms above their heads. Nailed into the old tree trunk, crucified for his sacrifice. What was left of their beauty matched the hue of ripe apple rind. Same as Doddy and Reese, features removed by 16-gauge slugs.
Whalen stood on the rock surface, his back to the house, knowing that no one else knew why Reese had gone mad that day. No one knew about Whalen’s conversation with the man the previous night. The can of kraut he’d opened by confronting Reese because he was tired of watching his own grow up from a distance. A conversation that had killed the entire family. All except the boy, Gravel.
Gravel had made the call. Ross had found him in the one place he always hid, a cave up by the barn. Face swelled wet. Two of his digits gone. The boy explained best he could. Finding Reese in the kitchen after he’d been squirrel hunting. Reese standing over the kitchen sink. Madness in his eyes. The screams coming from the bathroom. Gravel finding his mother and sisters bound. Reese attacking him from behind. Beating him unconscious. Gravel playing possum when he awoke. Waiting till the house was silent. Calling 911. Running from the house. Hiding in the cave.
Whalen had kept the boy that way all these years. Letting the local law and people of Harrison County believe Gravel was dead. Buried somewhere unknown by Reese. It’s what he and Gravel wanted. To be left alone. To forget that day. Their little secret.
Now, Whalen started to walk toward the barn, noticed the wash tub of water. The weeds that had been leveled by the sickle that leaned against the apple tree. The generator on the other side of the house. Extension cords roped from it to the farmhouse. He glanced at the door, open behind the screen. Removed his pistol from his waist, knowing Gravel rarely went into the house. Whalen opened the screen door, raised his tone. “Gravel?”
Inside the kitchen, windows were blacked over by spray paint and duct-taped garbage bags. The table was littered with household chemicals. Baggies, hot plates, mason jars. Gas lanterns on the counter. There was the scent of burning fused with coagulated blood. Chemical rot.
Glancing down at the floor, he took in the insects trailing the body. Whalen’s Gravel.
Whalen kneeled down next to the boy, his fingertips brushing leaflets of hair. Bone-cold cheek. Dead. He’d been that way for a while. Bullet holes lined his chest. A 9-mm brass lay on the worn linoleum. Whalen inhaled. Bit his lip. His bloodline ended here, but he kept it together.
Standing up, he took in the distorted details. Someone had squatted in the house. Been cooking meth. In the sink lay three rabbits, their hides skinned. As though Gravel had been preparing them for someone. Still holding his gun, Whalen searched the rest of the house. In the back bedroom, he found a sleeping bag. No clothing. But a wallet lay on the floor. He opened it up. Could hardly believe the name on the license inside.
* * *
Two acne-scarred men in body-stained short sleeves sat at an upturned wire-spool table next to the entrance, hunting knives sheathed on their sides. Mason jars sweated in front of them. Angus walked through the door, his head and gunshot wound pulsing in unison. He followed the hum of ceiling fans past the empty tables to the bar on his right. Where two more men sat to his left sipping shots of bourbon, cigarette smoke forming the air around them. Each wore a yellow shirt. Across the backs, black lettering scribed the tavern’s name: CUR’S WATERING HOLE.
The bartender turned around, towel tossed over his shoulder. Handlebar mustache, shade of tanned hide. Matching hair slicked back. Knuckle-sized holes in each ear. He pushed his hands onto the bar, nodded. “What’ll it be?”
Angus felt everyone’s eyes branding his flesh. “Poe sent me. Said to ask for a man named Lang.”
The bartender looked to his right, nodded at the two men to Angus’s left. Then over Angus’s shoulder at the door where the two acne-scarred men sat. His eyes came back to Angus, and he said, “He called. Must be Angus.”
Barstools and chairs screeched like a loose belt on a car’s engine. The men to Angus’s left stood up. Shadows poked Angus’s peripheral. He gritted without hesitation, “Poe said you could point me in the direction of a man goes by Ned. Running with a female named Liz. Said they’s headed to the Donnybrook.”
Lang chuckled. “I know where they at. But it’ll cost you.”
Visions of a dog being thrown into a wood chipper that spit out every shade of red turned Angus’s gut. He felt the two men from the table by the door break the ceiling fan’s air behind him. Slow, cautious steps approaching. He wrinkled his eyes, asked, “Cost me? Sons a bitches left me for dead. Took off with my crank. I’d say they’s already cost me plenty.”
Lang nodded to the men on Angus’s left, said, “You want them, gonna have to get in line with all the people Ned done bent over the wash basin. And tickets for the line ain’t free. You’ll be payin’ me.”
Angus glanced to his left. Outlines covered his view. He reached into his pocket with his right. Took in the thick glass ashtray of crunched cigarette butts on the bar to his left. Barstool in front of him. Pulled out a wad. Lifted it up. Held it for Lang to grab. Counted the two men’s slow steps from the door as they smothered in from behind.
Lang said, “Now you’re talking my language. I’ll take that.” Reached for the money. Angus dropped it on the bar. Lang leaned forward. Quick as a finger pulls a gun’s trigger, Angus sent his right elbow across Lang’s face. His left hand swiped the ashtray. He brought it across the other side of Lang’s face, then knocked him back behind the bar with a right cross.
Angus hooked the barstool in front of him with his right foot. Lifted it up, grabbed it with both hands. Turned, threw it into one of the yellow-shirted men on his left. It tripped him and bent him forward. Angus stepped into him. Planted a right uppercut into his mouth. Spun around to the other yellow shirt, who’d circled to Angus’s left and now cut the air with a stiff jab. Angus ducked his head. Jammed the man’s punch with the top of his skull. Metacarpals and carpals shattered. The man gasped.
Angus drove a left hook into his jaw. Then a right hook to his kidney. Locked his arm, palmed, spun, and threw him into the two acne-scarred men from the door. Knocked them into a table.
From behind, Angus felt a boot heel knife his right calf muscle. Drive him down to one knee. Felt a fist knuckle the back of his skull. Angus raised his left arm to his head. Covered
. Pivoted on his left foot. Turned his right fist into the man’s groin. Doubled him forward. Fired a left elbow into the man’s temple. Pushed to his feet and palmed the man’s head up with him. Then dropped the man with a right cross.
Angus’s lungs felt the frostbite of being winded. He turned, grabbed a barstool. Smashed it down into the other yellow-shirted man trying to get up behind him. Fought the huff that blocked his lungs.
The other acne-scarred man from the door got to his feet. Angus lined him with a jab to the face. Rocked his skull back. Closed his swallowing with a cross to the throat. The man’s larynx shattered like porcelain. His hands grasped his throat for air that wouldn’t enter, and he dropped to his knees.
The other man from the door brought a right cross. Nicked Angus’s left cheek. Angus kicked him just below his navel. Took his center of gravity. Angus stepped to the man’s side, drove five knuckles into the soft meat just below his armpit. Lung point. The man hugged himself and hit the floor.
Angus turned to the bar. Two-handed the surface, heaved himself over it. Felt his shoulder spotting with ache. Lang lay at the other end of the bar on his ass, hiding, blood about his nose and right eye and his left hand fumbling for the handle of a sawed-off double-barrel stuck into the bar above his head. He pulled it out. Thumbed back the triggers of both barrels. Angus’s left arm followed his legs forward, raking the bottles of whiskey and vodka that sat lined up behind the bar down onto the floor as he heard the explosion of the sawed-off.
16
They circled and bumped one another like predators. Men with talcum teeth, skin cleaved by scars. Hair braided, slicked, or stringy. Short or shaved. Bearded or stubbled. Tall. Short. Lean, hard, or fat-bellied. They came in all demeanors. Donning bibs or jeans ragged as the boots laced around their feet. These were the backwoods bare-knuckle fighters.
