The Savage

by Frank Bill

  Looking to the rear of the basement, where outdoor light sprayed from double doors, he saw a vehicle sat on blocks. A Ford Explorer stripped of its tires. Doors open. Angus walked toward it, glanced inside. The gas gauge was half-full. Inside, garments strung. A map spread on the passenger’s side. Routes outlined. The smell of cigarettes from a tray of stubbed-out butts. Empties, wadded and thrown about the floor.

  “Please—”

  The female’s voice behind him, Angus ignored it. Searched the area.

  In the back corners of the basement, buckets were stacked. Blue plastic drums lined the walls. More than likely, rainwater collected from eaves, then boiled and cooled, Angus thought. Shelves on the walls held bags of dried beans and brown rice. Several sealed drums were labeled fruit.

  Angus thought of the storms raging and tearing the Midwest a new asshole. Fu taking stock of what was about to transpire, Angus knew there would be a price tag upon the head of the man who’d murdered McGill but also upon those who robbed the ’Brook. But once the surrounding world began to crumble and bake with the loss of work, Angus believed all would fade to a myth. Fade to little importance. Be forgotten. But seeing this female, and the so-called prophet sacrificed from the tree … maybe nothing would be forgotten.

  “Please … help me.”

  Angus turned. Face-to-face, he tasted the cankerous air that wafted from the female. Felt the ache of his forearm. He needed fuel and medicine. Approached what had once been a workbench where sharpened blades, pistols, and shotguns had possibly been cleaned, wooden shelving constructed, Angus slid the pistol into his holster. Unsnapped his Buck knife from its holder. Cut the leather from the female’s outspread wrists and ankles that’d been looped and knotted through U-shaped nails. Placed the knife back in its case. Took in her features, reminded him of damaged fruit. Matted hair. Eyeliner was smeared watercolors. Crust that rimmed her nostrils. He knew she’d become a piece of meat for sampling and resampling. Amusement for those without a moral compass. But there was something more. She was familiar and she asked, “David, Daddy? We have to find them. Help them.”

  Angus kneeled, grabbed her clothing. Laid the garments beside her, hands twitched as she snatched up the clothes as if an orphan who’d never owned clothing.

  Angus turned his back for her to dress. Walked out into the daylight. Listened to her sob. “Bastards!” she screamed through pouting lips of gritted teeth. “Fucking bastards!” Dignity, Angus thought to himself, stripped of what she once had. He tried to ignore her tone. Felt the drama of her words glide through him.

  Grass grazed Angus’s knees as he stepped out into the daylight; tan and wild, the property appeared unkempt with the passing of months. He thought of those evenings after logging timber, sweat-soaked and dusted by wood chips. Sipping the custard-like foam from a cold Pabst. Watching other workers he employed, some staying on long enough to collect a week’s wage, move on. Others stayed for an entire job and a few were regular labor. Studying them each and every: they were all people that time was passing by. Men whose minds were full of bad things ’cause of what they’d seen or have to entertain to get by another day or for what they wanted but could not afford. Angus’d take a swig of that beer, knowing if he wanted to survive in this canker sore of a life, he’d need to get the hell out while the gettin’ was good. It was one thing to earn your keep by an hourly wage, but if you live long enough, you have to ask yourself, was it really worth all the renting of yourself, of your time for another man’s riches? Angus went from logging and bare-knuckle boxing to cooking meth and then belly-up.

  A strong breeze rattled the leaves off in the distance. The land sunk, then rose and flattened to where a wilted barn sat. Chipped paint with discolored wood. Decorating its front was a man, arms outstretched as if he were offering a gigantic hug to the surrounding acres. Bullet holes centered each palm. And from behind, a quaking hand grabbed Angus’s shoulder.

  Reaching, he turned and pinned the palm to his shoulder. Removed his pistol, twisted, pressed the .45 into the female’s right eye. Her orbs glistened like jewels. Angus released her. Lowered the pistol. “My apologies. It’s instinct.” The girl sagged, her energy lagging as she shook and cried, “David, we gotta search out David.”

  Angus holstered his pistol, thought about what was behind him, off in the distance, hoped to place a wall between her vision and what he’d just seen, knowing he needed answers. Asked, “What is your identity, your namesake?”

  She blinked her one good eye. The other was mashed potatoes. “My husband and me, only persons I knew I’d acquire safety with was Daddy,” she said. “Savages came, Daddy told us all things’d be okay but they separated me from David, from my daddy and—”

  “Us all?” Angus interrupted.

  The girl paused. “They was a woman and her children. Zeek and Caleb. A man whose moniker was Jarhead.”

  Jarhead was a charred torso out front, Angus thought, his prophet noosed from a tree.

  “Where are they? These savages, did they remove them?”

  The lady was having problems forming speech. Angus clutched her left and right arms. Dug his thumbs into the thin aerobic meat of each bicep. “The woman and children, they took them, how long ago?”

  She jerked from Angus’s grip, and shotgunned a catatonic intensity of rambling.

  “A beast tortured Daddy, could hear the strain of his pain from down here. They was looking for a man whose moniker was Angus, told us if we survived, to give him a message, to tell he had a hand in taking something from him and now he’d hunt him. When he discovered him he’d know pain, then death.”

  She crimped her lid shut. Moisture dripped down her cheeks, hardened with silence, then a switch was flipped. A paste of saliva formed in her mouth and she spit, “The savage tortured my father! Forced us to eavesdrop. Left us tied like feral hogs to be butchered. Left me and David until—”

  “The savage, did he carry a name?”

  “They referenced him as…”

  “What?”

  “Cotto, goddamn it, Cotto Ramos.”

  “Your father, he’s—”

  “He’s what?”

  Linked by his neck from a tree limb out in the yard, that’s what he wanted to say. But he did not. She’d see his rotted outline when he drove them both out of this rural hell.

  “Dead.”

  “No!” she screamed. “No!” repeating the same word, over and over.

  Cotto Ramos. The name swiveled through his thoughts; he floated off for a split second, thought of the words carved into the prophet’s chest. Then came back, realized he’d no time for that now, he needed to get this crazed female someplace safer. And she held a frantic madness in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Angus told her.

  “You, who the fuck are you?!”

  “Angus.”

  She spoke like a lunatic. “My father’s pain, they left us for these fuckin’ lechers to feed like vultures, to give a message to others.”

  “Gotta venture you to my truck. I’ll get you—”

  She tried to fight his grip on her arms. “No.” She jerked. “Let go! You ain’t reapin’ shit!”

  Releasing his grip, Angus raised his palms up, faced them toward her, showing he’d meant no harm. “Your mind’s not firin’ on all its plugs. Calm the fuck down, I’ll get you someplace safe. I’m only in search of fuel and medicine.”

  “Ain’t going nowhere with you. Gotta search out Daddy and David.”

  David, Angus thought, is the one I saw gutted and T-boned up on the barn. Angus had to get the female and himself outta here, knowing there’d be more of what he’d done encountered. Criminal-eyed men with a hankering for females, provisions, and whatever else they could squander. He needed the fuel. Upstairs came the slam of the screen door. The shift of weight over the floor joists. Angus pulled his pistol from his holster. The female elbowed past him. Ran out into the daylight.

  She paused, shielded her eyes against the burn of day. Screamed,
“No! No!” She was running to the barn, where the man was spread over the weathered lumber like a dead deer strung up in a cryptic greeting card for what the world was turning into, a lawless proving ground for the mad.

  Adrenalized air crystallized her lungs, caused her inhale to crash and burn. She sunk at the site of David, her husband. Several feet behind her, Angus came, pistol in his grip. Working his way through the tall grass and weeds. The barn door unhinged, out stepped a man in another orange jumper. Face scabbed and stubbled, one hand held a machete. Stains of human ran up and down each of his arms, Angus was beat and thought, So much for getting some fucking rest, fired his pistol.

  The man’s chest splintered like decaying wood. He fell backward into the barn door’s opening.

  The female tugged at her husband’s body. At the wet denim of his trousers. Thick mucus rivered from the crusted openings of her nose, tears poured down her cheekbones.

  Angus grabbed her, knowing if there were more, he’d just sent them a notification to their whereabouts. “Get a flame in your ass!” Not knowing how many more there were, he’d worn out his welcome.

  “Remove your hands from me!” she screamed.

  Angus’s heart was running a relay. Taking one hurdle after the next without passing the stick. Glancing back at the house, he could make out a face looking from the kitchen window. From the basement came two more men attired in orange jumpers. Escaped convicts. The female was wasting time, she’d either sink or swim. Angered, Angus dug his hand into her buttery hair. Dragged her up the decline toward the Tahoe, feeling her strands give. Nails scraped and dug the top of his hand. Blocking out his conscience, to feel empathy, knowing what she’d been through. Seeing her husband dead. She’d probably been raped. Add that to not knowing the man she called Daddy to be the body strung up like a cannibal tribe’s Christmas ornament from a tree along the driveway.

  Angus’s lungs ignited as he humped through the thick growth. The men came bearing tools for the land. One came with an axe, the other a rusted sickle. They were too far out of range to waste pistol ammunition on.

  Making it to his truck. Pushing her against it. She screamed. “Release your grip from me!” Opening the driver’s door, Angus gritted, “Get your ass in there.”

  The female’s knee came up from the ground, trying to knee Angus in the crotch. Angus palmed it hard with one hand. Brought the pistol butt down like a sword, parted her forehead. Her single eye went golf-ball white. She went lax. He shouldered her. Took her weight. Dumped her across the front seat. Heard the squeak of the screen door behind him. Felt a presence on his heels. Turned to a man grunting. Two other men met him from the side of the house. If not for the weeds they’d be feasting on his ass like a pack of starved hyenas.

  Angus segmented the first man’s face with gunfire. The second man came with an axe, swung, Angus sidestepped, watched it jag into the driver’s door. Pressed the pistol to the side of the man’s temple. Indexed the trigger. The man’s head sprayed the truck’s fender with brain matter.

  The third man held a sickle, only he’d turned and ran. Angus saved his ammunition.

  Two men now lay in the weeds, wetting the yard with self. Turning to get into the truck, Angus felt the thud of a rifle butt across his complexion. Everything spun. He staggered. Reached for the door to balance himself. Tried to pull his world back together. His breathing sped up. He dropped the pistol. His vision somersaulted. Turned the image over and over, trying to focus. He grabbed at the rifle, felt the tension give. Then release. He fingered a forearm. Then another. Heard the rush of air fast expanding the lungs within the body attached to the arms he gripped. Eyes focused on the female. Drool lathered from her lips. One crazed bitch, he thought.

  Bringing his crown forward, Angus met her face. Once, twice. Stunned her, released his grip. Punched her below the nose, hit a pressure point, knocked her the fuck out. She fell from the truck, hit the ground. Angus grabbed his pistol. Took in the bloody mess of abrasions. Scooped the female up again, dumped her across the seat, face-first. Reached for the rifle, laid it across the backseat. Walked to the other side of the Tahoe to restrain and fasten her in when he heard the explosion of noise from the barn.

  A lime-colored Scout truck with an assembly of motley shapes rumbled. BBs from shell shot dinged the roof of the Tahoe. A man was mounted out the passenger’s side. Pointing a shotgun at Angus.

  COTTO

  What he remembered was how blood dripped from Raúl’s hand as though it were wax being heated. Perspiration peppered his lips and eyes. His back pressed into the chair. Hands cuffed behind him. Discomfort was his posture.

  Cotton cleaved tight over his chest with spots of wet. Manny had kicked the table out of the way. Stood before Raúl. Service revolver down his front. Cotto fanned off to the side, holding the wallet in his left, weight of the antique Colt in his right, watching his father.

  Paling in his face and arms, the puddle from his missing thumb behind him, Raúl tells Manny, “You … you’re making a mistake, señor.”

  Like Manny, Cotto would never conceive, why? Why had Kabeza left before Cotto and his father to meet this piece of filth without them? Excitement? Some unknown surprise for them? He’d never know, and his father told Raúl, “You made one the second you forced your will upon my wife.”

  Raúl laughed. “It was not me.”

  “Then who?”

  “I left her with the other coyotes waiting for you and your boy to show up. To transport you across the border. To the drop, then to a safe house.”

  Manny palmed the revolver from his waist. Stepped toward Raúl, parted his lips with the barrel that scuffed against the upper enamel. Asked, “How do I find these men who’ve wronged me?”

  Trying to speak into the bored-steel opening, Raúl told him, “It’s not that simple, he—”

  Manny thumbed the hammer back. The cylinder revolved. Raúl’s eyes veered to the lead shapes. And stammered, “He … he … they…”

  Cotto watched his father smirk. Saw a glare prism in Manny’s vision. His father had crossed over to his old trade of being. Of survival. Manny stepped back. Smiled. “He? They? What? What? Speak or I shall remove that soft muscle you use for tasting.”

  Raúl’s complexion wrinkled. “They.” He hesitated again.

  “They what, are on their way to here for a pickup?” Manny pointed the pistol at Raúl’s left knee. “Tell me, Raúl, or I let one of our friends free.”

  Raúl shook his head. “No. No.”

  Indexing the trigger, Manny pierced everyone’s ears. Laced the air with gun smoke. Cotto dropped the wallet and pistol. Pressed his hands to his ears. Watched the denim of Raúl’s leg cauliflower. Knee cartilage and blood flinted and dispersed. Raúl screamed, “Son of a bitch! Okay. Okay. His name … his name … it is the Ox. He … he.”

  “He what, you piece of shit?” Manny demanded.

  “… will be here tonight with his men. He is the one.”

  “The one what?”

  “That did to your wife the awful that you speak of.”

  Pressing the pistol barrel into the splayed wound, Manny demanded, “And he and his men have walkers to transport from here?”

  Cotto shook. Lowered his hands. Kneeled to the floor. Grabbed the pistol. Stood up. Looked at Raúl, who was gritting with perspiration and answered, “Sí, sí. From here, from here.”

  “Where are you hiding them?” Cotto questioned as he glared down at the planks of floor. Then back to Raúl. His eyes locked hard on Manny’s. Hesitated once more. Manny’s eyes were harder. Spooned Raúl’s out, scattered them beneath their footing as if they were a muddy trail of thumbs he’d removed. And Raúl glared at the foundation of the house. “Locked beneath the rug, under our boots.”

  Manny bit down on his rage. “You try and play me for a fool. Give my wife to this maniac, the Ox, and his men. Bring others here but not me, my son, or my wife?”

  Fear baked Raúl’s lips and the words that fell from them were, “No
, no. Was different. Larger groups come here, I have to keep them safe. You, your wife and boy, I could do in town. You’re not a fool, se—”

  Manny brought the pistol across Raúl’s face. Mucus, spittle, and a few teeth dotted the floor like red flung from a brush to a white canvas. “I’ve heard enough. Letting my wife be defiled. Treated as though she were a piece of mutton.” Glancing at the shelf where the wallet and revolver lay, Manny caught the shape of José. Motioned to Cotto. “Grab that tequila. Give him a swig to lube the lies from his tongue.”

  Raúl twisted his head from side to side. “Señor, you will need that when the Ox comes with his men. He’s a monster. He’ll bury me deep and you just above the ceiling to hell.”

  Cotto reached for the bottle. Took the cap from its opening. Turned to Raúl. Placed the bottle on his lips and lifted it. Raúl’s throat muscles elevatored up and down as he took a large swallow. Cotto stepped away from him, holding the bottle.

  “Only if I let him,” Manny says. “Tell me, how many does he travel with?”

  “T-t-th-three, three men,” Raúl stuttered.

  “Counting himself?”

  “Sí, sí. H-h-he is the driver. One rides shotgun. One rides center. They drive an old cattle truck, load the walkers with hay sometimes, then they get you to the border.”

  “And?”

  “And they get you to the pickup point and make the call.”

  “How do they call?”

  “By cell phone.”

  “Whose cell phone?”