Hid Wounded Reb

by J. L. Salter

  “What is that?” Blondie was obviously surprised by the huge size of the cat more than its sudden entry. “I told you to check all the rooms back there!”

  “Didn’t see it. Must’ve been hidin’.” Cheech was a mumbler. “What’cha want me to do, Damon? Shoot it?”

  Blondie thought for a second. “Naw. Go open the door and throw it out. Looks like a bobcat or something.”

  As Cheech approached the hallway, Gato hissed loudly and moaned with an ominous, strangled sound Kelly had never heard before. She was familiar with the big cat’s guttural warnings — which were scary enough — but he sounded more like protective panther than housecat. Gato actually seemed to understand what was going on.

  Cheech angled behind Gato, whose next lengthy, sinister hiss made the creep jump. He reached forward tentatively with his revolver.

  “C’mon, you big baby! Git that thing outta here!” Being much farther away, Blondie was braver.

  Cheech turned to acknowledge. He obviously had little experience with Maine Coon panthers. Don’t wave a gun at a big cat and turn your head. Gato lashed out at his revolver with a broad left hook, fully catching the back of his right hand. Cheech screeched like a scalded hyena and jumped back, staring at the four deep claw marks already showing bright strings of drugged blood. “This crazy bobcat clawed me bloody!”

  “So kick it out then!”

  Cheech dabbed the back of his right hand on the side of his thigh, winced, and then examined his wounds. “Gashed me down to the bone, Damon!” He poked his foot out tentatively, and Gato gave it a right cross. No damage to Cheech’s denim-covered boot, but it startled him.

  The cat hissed and crouched low, his back no longer arched. Cheech kicked at him and finally made minor contact. Cheech jumped back as the cat finally moved, leaping into the living room. Gato stayed on the perimeter, away from Blondie, and continued to growl as he watched Cheech closely.

  “Enough screwin’ around with the cat! Open the door, Cheech!” Blondie was evidently a micromanager. Give a man a task, but insist on telling him how to do it.

  Cheech gave a wide berth to the hissing feline and moved toward the front of the cabin. Just as he approached the door, his heavy boots crunching the broken glass, a loud female voice called from outside. Everybody jumped, including Gato. But Cheech leaped highest.

  All eyes turned toward the porch.

  Diane!

  Oh no! Now Diane’s going to walk into the middle of this nightmare!

  “Kelly! Kelly! It’s Diane. I’ve brought that novel you wanted to borrow.” Her voice sounded different. She knew.

  “What the…?” Blondie frowned toward the vehicle, where the third creep was stationed. “Dude! Where did she come from and why’d you let her up here?” Then he turned to Cheech. “Dude’s out there laying on the hood of your car with a stupid expression, just waving and staring toward the porch. He won’t even answer me.” Then he pointed an accusatory finger at his inside colleague. “Did you give him any of my special stash?”

  Cheech shook his head hurriedly with a look of panic on his face.

  Blondie resumed control. “Never mind. Get her in here!”

  Checking both ways through the remaining glass, Cheech hustled the rest of the way to the front and opened the door. Then he grabbed Diane by the shoulder and flung her inside. She knocked over the chair Blondie had left near the recliner and went sprawling to the floor beyond it.

  “You see anybody else?”

  “Just that idiot wavin’ at me. What’d you give him before we got here, Damon?”

  “Never mind!” Blondie licked his lips quickly. “Shut the door and git the old witch on the couch!”

  Despite the fear of the past several minutes, Kelly had to stifle an involuntary laugh. “Shouldn’t have said old.” It was scarcely a whisper.

  “What’d you say?”

  The arrival of Diane had broken the tension slightly. For reasons she couldn’t explain, certainly not at that moment, Kelly felt better. It may be a short-lived feeling, she realized; still she had to grasp whatever came her way. Right now Kelly’s only edge was one new ally against three drug-crazed psychos. Not really much edge, after all.

  “Where did you come from?” Blondie screamed at Diane. “Lemme see that book!”

  Diane had managed to keep the volume in her hands even when she fell to the floor. She now clutched it tightly, glared at Blondie, and shook her head. “I brought it for Kelly, and I doubt you can read anyhow.”

  “Git it!” yelled Blondie.

  Cheech complied efficiently, poking his revolver between Diane’s eyes as he snatched the book with his free hand. He handed it back toward Blondie without taking his eyes off the woman on the floor. “Git over to the couch!” Cheech waved with his gun as small droplets of blood flew from the back of his hand.

  Blondie used the novel to knock the dish and keys from the small table by the door. With his foot he pushed the table farther into the room. He slammed the book down on the table and put his hand on top.

  “Now, I know you stupid sluts think the stuff you see on TV works in real life, but I’m here to tell you it don’t.”

  It took Kelly a minute to understand what he was talking about. Evidently Blondie figured Diane had hidden something inside the novel — maybe a razor blade or even a thin knife. Kelly shivered, not sure if it would be better or worse to have a small cutting weapon. Anything she tried to use on the attackers could just as easily be turned on her if she failed to neutralize them. She hated to imagine what Blondie could do with a sharp implement.

  Blondie lifted the book by one of its covers and shook it violently. A bookmark popped out and drifted to the floor. He threw down the novel, which landed with its open pages faced down, both covers straddling the floor. Blondie started cackling loudly, though his eyes weren’t laughing at all. He stopped abruptly. “You actually had me fooled for a minute. I thought you showed up with something hid in there. But you don’t even have the guts. You came here with a stinkin’…” He scowled again at the cover. “A stinkin’ romance book!” Obviously he had different tastes in literature.

  On the loveseat, Diane shrugged. As she did, her hands fell to her sides, and she hurriedly shoved something beneath Kelly’s butt.

  Kelly was startled at first, but quickly realized she couldn’t let Blondie see her surprise, so she coughed a few times. As she put one hand to her mouth, she reached beneath her bottom with the other hand and felt a small cylinder shape. Diane brought me breath spray? No, couldn’t be. It had to be something which gave them an edge. What comes in small cylinders? Touchup paint for the Jeep? Shaving cream in travel size? No. She couldn’t think. The fear and tension had also frozen her brain. Whatever it was, it must be an edge, so she slid it into her rear jeans pocket and then stopped her fake coughing.

  Blondie shook his head briefly as if trying to clear out cobwebs. He and the others likely had dosed with something quite strong just before they arrived at the cabin.

  Kelly wondered which drug, and what its effects were. It’d be marvelous if the narcotic caused extreme drowsiness. But she feared whatever it was just made them more crazy, with even fewer inhibitions.

  “Where was I?” Blondie glared again at Ginny. She had been relatively quiet in those few minutes since he’d stopped torturing her ankle. His face contorted as he screamed, “Where is it, slut?” When he backhanded her face, Ginny shrieked horribly and nearly fell out of the recliner.

  Kelly started up from the couch again, but Cheech pushed her back with his gun.

  In the bathroom, Perra was still yelping. “Okay, that’s it for your dog!” Blondie walked, or nearly trotted, in a strange stiff-legged fashion down the short hall and stood outside the bathroom door.

  Kelly shouted, “No!” Immediately, Cheech struck her face with the revolver and stumbled slightly to get in front of both women on the couch. When she fell back to the couch, Diane cradled Kelly’s injured face in her arms. Kelly’s right han
d reached back to her rear pocket for the small cylinder.

  Blondie opened the bathroom door, his gun pointed low. But Perra jumped high, bit him on the hand and then ran for the guy at the couch. Too startled to think straight, Cheech instinctively headed for the door, but Diane stretched out a leg and tripped him. He went flying for several feet, landed in the broken glass just inside the doorway, scrambled briefly, and then tumbled out onto the porch.

  From inside, they could hear him crash down past the steps with a loud thud. Then they heard another solid noise and a truncated shriek.

  Inside the cabin — a gunshot. The dog yelped and then lay still on the floor, blood forming quickly below her hindquarters. Kelly ran to Perra and crouched next to her. Her left hand reached out, but Kelly was afraid to touch the dog, not knowing where she’d been hit.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Damon Scrod, with a name as ugly as his stringy blonde hair, felt even more manic than before. He quickly took stock and realized his left hand was bleeding from Perra’s bite, and his inside partner was somewhere outside. He pointed his revolver toward Kelly again.

  Diane, already up from the couch, stood near Ginny and checked her face. Then she quickly moved away from the recliner and got behind Scrod.

  With a double take, Scrod realized Diane and Kelly had him in the middle of a squeeze maneuver. His eyes were round and he smiled thinly. Their ploy showed more savvy than he’d given these women credit for. He wasn’t worried about the crippled girl in the chair, but these two older biddies might take a few extra minutes to handle.

  He cackled again the loud, fake laugh while his eyes were wide and super alert. His head turned back and forth, checking first on Kelly and then Diane.

  They kept moving slowly around him, obviously taking care to keep him directly between them.

  Scrod knew if he went for either one of them, the other would jump him. If he went after Kelly, he wasn’t worried too much. How hard could it be to get the old witch off my back? On the other hand, if he went for the older one, what damage could Kelly do to him? Maybe she’d go for his eyes, or his privates. Ouch. Better shoot the younger one first and take his chances fighting the older one.

  As those drug-distorted thoughts cranked through Scrod’s lunatic brain cells, he realized the women had also been thinking.

  ****

  Neither Kelly nor Diane had the luxury of knowing each other’s thoughts, but both understood what had to be done. Whichever one was moved against first, brought the second woman in on Blondie — hard and fast.

  Kelly still didn’t know what was in her own hand, so she stole a quick peek while Blondie’s head was flipped behind him… nearly like a drug-crazed owl. Pepper spray! Great choice, Diane.

  From Diane’s side of the room, she noticed Kelly’s hand move toward her face and believed she spotted a glimmer of a smile. When Blondie turned back to face Kelly, Diane held up her own small cylinder. Kelly couldn’t really see it — too brief a glimpse. But she figured it was pepper spray as well.

  This could be interesting. A drug-crazed creep with five cartridges remaining in his revolver, against two determined women armed only with pepper spray. Kelly took a half step closer to Blondie.

  He backed up, likely before he realized he’d done it, then quickly checked behind him. Diane also took a half step. He could obviously see each woman was holding something. Blondie whirled around and, for the first time, Kelly could see panic in his face. He might squeeze off one round, she thought, but his chances of killing me are pretty slim. He might not even be able to hit me in his drugged condition, jumping around like that. Looking dizzy as he does. “Did I tell you what I had for breakfast today?” Kelly called over to Diane.

  “What the…?” Blondie whirled back and front, as each woman took another small step closer.

  It took Diane a second to catch on, but she also remembered the old gag. “No, you forgot to tell me about your breakfast.” Her voice was shaky.

  “Listen, you sluts!” Blondie looked panicked.

  “Yeah, well, first I made me some toast.” Kelly took another half step.

  “Then I bet you went hunting for some butter.” Diane moved behind Blondie and he whirled around again.

  “Forgit about breakfast. You’re gonna both be dead in about two seconds!”

  Kelly planted her feet. “Yep, and finally I found my… jam.”

  At the final word, Diane released a blast from her miniature air horn. Blondie whirled around toward her, stumbled a bit, and then quickly turned back toward Kelly. At that moment, Kelly loosed a steady stream of pepper spray into his face and then kicked his crotch as hard as she could.

  He fell to the floor, clawing at his eyes with one hand and clutching his groin with the other. The gun tumbled to the floor and skidded toward the recliner, way out of his reach.

  Kelly saw he was momentarily out of commission and went quickly back over to Perra. The puppy was still breathing but had lost a lot of blood. Looking for something to press against the wound in Perra’s matted black fur, Kelly grabbed one of the armrest covers from the love seat.

  Diane retrieved her book from across the floor and then walked, rather calmly under the circumstances, back over to Blondie and suddenly whacked the book’s stiff spine into his crotch. It was a solid connection and he screamed in agony. “That’s for all the romance readers.”

  Kelly wasn’t sure why she observed the recliner right then, but she noticed Ginny had picked up the revolver and had it pointed at Blondie. Something in Ginny’s eyes revealed she was not merely guarding him. Something in the tension of Ginny’s fingers suggested she was contemplating using the weapon.

  “Ginny, you don’t want to do that.” Kelly spoke as calmly as she could, while rising slowly from her crouch near the dog. “Everything that’s happened here is on them. You leave it that way and you’ve got a future. You do something stupid — your life is over.”

  Ginny cried and shook her head.

  Diane edged toward the recliner while keeping her eyes mostly on Blondie.

  “Ginny, listen to me.” Kelly sounded firm and relatively calm. “We call the cops. They come get these drug freaks out of here. Then we’re okay. We clean up, we move forward. Give me the gun.” She stood and moved slowly toward the recliner.

  Ginny briefly pointed the firearm toward Kelly as her head turned that direction before she re-aimed at Blondie on the floor moaning and rubbing at his eyes.

  Kelly moved slowly, closer to the recliner. Ginny used both thumbs to cock back the stiff hammer of the large revolver. “Ginny, don’t… do… this.” Kelly spoke as softly as she could while still being heard.

  “I’ve been running from him for nearly two and a half years.” Ginny sobbed. “The only way I’ll ever be safe is him dead.”

  “Not true, Ginny.” Kelly moved slightly closer. “Drugs, weapons, assault. They’ll lock him up for so long he’ll go straight to the nursing home, if he gets out at all. He can’t bother you ever again.”

  “I need to be… safe.” Then Ginny closed her eyes.

  With only a split second before Ginny pulled the trigger back far enough, Kelly lunged. Her left hand went for the barrel, to deflect it upward, and her other went for the hammer. Her right thumb absorbed the impact of the hammer, pinching it like heavy pliers. Kelly wrenched the gun from Ginny’s hands and collapsed on the floor beside the recliner.

  Ginny sobbed, Diane took her first breath in nearly two minutes, and Ellie strode calmly through the front door. “Well, this is a Bless George meh-uss!”

  And tears flowed everywhere.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Kelly carefully extracted her thumb from the revolver and softly lowered the hammer on the live round in the top chamber. Ginny’s complete trigger movement had caused the gun’s hand to fully advance the cylinder. Only Kelly’s thumb prevented impact of the hammer to the transfer bar, and the transfer bar to the primer of the cartridge. She exhaled loudly, kept the gun aimed t
oward Blondie, and went back over to Perra.

  “I’ll stay here with Ginny. You go ahead to the vet.” Diane undid Blondie’s belt, giving him additional moments of terror, and then rolled him over like a duffle bag of soiled diapers. After she tied his wrists behind him, he remained face-down on the floor, apparently glad he was still alive and intact.

  “C’mon with me.” Ellie got the Jeep keys from the floor. “I’ll drive.”

  Kelly handed the revolver to Diane, then gently scooped up Perra who whined pitifully.

  Ellie spoke over her shoulder. “Diane, call Doc Core’s emergency number. Tell him Miss Ellie’s coming and to get himself over at his clinic. He knows me.”

  Diane expected Dr. Core did know Ellie, and was just as sure he’d obey without question. Small towns. She found Kelly’s cell phone in the big carryall and called the vet first, to get him moving. Then Diane called the 9-1-1 dispatcher. “Three armed and drugged felons just attacked some defenseless women. I figure all these punks might need EMT medics. We’re up at the only cabin on Butler Cemetery Road. You know where it is?”

  It soundly slightly comical as she verbalized it.

  Then she phoned Mitch.

  Situated in the Jeep with Ellie behind the wheel, Kelly slumped in her seat, overcome by a mixture of weakness and relief. She was still terrified about Perra, of course. But it was comforting to have someone capable and strong to take charge in an emergency. Usually that was Kelly herself. But it felt good to be able to just collapse and go with the flow, especially since she trusted the driver.

  “Ellie, what on earth were you doing out here?” Kelly welcomed the rescue assistance but was also glad for something to take her mind off little Perra.