The Savage

by Frank Bill

  “Sad to view others doing to another as they are. Like the well water has been tainted by rabies. Making everyone rabid.”

  Light shadowed onto the lumpy ceiling, where bats hung amongst the cordite of caramel grit. Water formed moist nipples, damp ran pasty down walls, and Dorn told Sheldon, “Like my father always told, some folk is like sketch lines, just black and white, never know a person’s true shade till shit hits the fan, only then is they true colors scratched between them lines for all to see.”

  “Like a coloring book?”

  Dorn shrugged. “They’s things he used to offer to me that never rang no sense until now, and all these barrels of shit has came rolling down the decline and ain’t stopped yet.”

  “He’d a wealth of experiences. Knew what people was about. He was a good man. Though he always scared me, ’cause he rarely smiled.”

  “Wasn’t much for him to smile about once Mother panned out on us, he seen the writing on the wall after that. Knew of the world and all of what it wasn’t. Taught me best he could till he’s poisoned by Dillard Alcorn and his gift of home brew.”

  “How you know he’s poisoned?”

  “’Cause he said he was after receiving them bottles delivered by Bellmont McGill from Alcorn years and years later, he’d let it sit and sit, holding out for who knows what, a special occasion.”

  “How you know it wasn’t McGill? Some says he was a crook of man not to be crossed.”

  Sheldon’s phrasing lit a matchbook beneath Dorn’s demeanor. “My father never done no wrong to McGill and McGill never done no ill to my father. Was no reasoning. They’d a mountain of respect for one another. He visited often. Shared conversations and brew to the wee hours of morning. The stories those two told. Naw, it was that fuckin’ Alcorn.”

  The light before Dorn jerked violent. Squeak of swiveling lantern. The trek of footing halted. Sheldon raised her tone with “Don’t move.” She paused, extended her arm above her height. “They’s a mess of something shifting about our feet.”

  Dorn looked down. His eyes searched for the adjustment of pitch-black. From behind came a rush of sound and flapping air. Sheldon said, “Serpents is all about the cavern’s floor.”

  The mangy hound growled. Dorn watched the slither of reptile muscle scale over his boots. Some lay outstretched. Others coiled. Their tongues forked in and out. Their colors of black and gold. “Rat snakes is all they are.”

  “Why the hell they gathering at your feet?”

  “Wish I knew. Won’t none fang you. ’Sides, they ain’t venomous. Keep moving.”

  Sounds from the rear grew and grew. Similar to an oncoming locomotive and Sheldon said, “You hear that?”

  Screeches and the clap of veiny wing turned the decibel knob of sound and Dorn shouted, “Run!”

  The slither of serpent stayed grounded. At a halt. Didn’t follow the trek of feet and paw that pushed forward with the hail of bats coming overhead. Snakes sensed and waited on nourishment that could not be seen within the dark but only heard or radared by the split tongues. The pat of rats’ feet trundled and squealed at the squirm and entrance into each of the serpent’s mouths. Dorn slapped at the air above his head with his good hand. His rifle jarred against his back, he tried to keep the winged creatures from his hair. The Sheldon girl did the same while holding the lantern light that bounced and bounced as they ran and ran. Moments and moments passed. Lungs burned. Mouths huffed and the air of light began to open more and more. From the mouth they came that opened into the forest of trees. Dorn grabbed Sheldon by the arm, jerked her to the outside wall of vegetation and small stones. Smothered her face into his chest. A hint of pain willed in his shoulder and the bats passed out into the day, the dog crouched down beside him.

  From inside the cave came the sound of carbine. Shouts of a child’s youth. Dorn released Sheldon. Looked into her eyes. No hint of fear, only the rush of his heart. He told her, “They’s close. Must’ve interrupted those that mill in the stagnation.”

  “You mean they come across the serpents?”

  Dorn nodded. Still in Dorn’s clasp, unblinking, the Sheldon girl waited for something more. Never got it and she pulled from him.

  Dorn pointed. “Straight downward is the church.”

  And the Sheldon girl engulfed huge rungs of air through her nostrils, told him, “That it is, but they’s much noise and scents of nourishment that I’m digesting.”

  “Let’s take a gander at what we may or may not wanna cross.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Lead the way.”

  * * *

  When he was training in his past, Angus’s arms were marbled with purple bruises, knuckles swelled and flat. Until Fu brought him lemons. Cut them in halves, had Angus press and rub the pulp and juice over his hurt, letting it dry and tighten and heal the flesh each night during sleep.

  All of it was repetition. Building one’s strength through external training in order to discover the internal. But these who surrounded him now had no idea what he was capable of. All he could think of was Fu. If he’d live long enough, if he’d be able to maintain until Angus’s return.

  The boys sat pressing their hatchet edges and knife blades to oiled stones. Scraping and working one side, then the next. Honing their weapons of weight to fine tools for cutting, chopping, and splitting. Some sat behind Alcorn, Hershal, and Withers. Others stood beside the Methodist. Several boys cut healthy portions from the monstrous tarnished silver plate of pork meat that lay upon a scathed wooden table in the room’s center with jacketed potatoes and carrots. Masons were being passed with a ruby-colored wine and the Methodist spoke: “Angus beat my best. Nearly twenty hides of men he battered and carved.”

  Molded around the heat of wood flaming within an open-faced woodstove, Angus was leashed, sweating, with hands bound before him, chain anchored from hardwood floor to his neck. He ate and listened to the foolish words of a man acting as a prophet but nothing more than a rural grift.

  Chewing the fatty meat, the Aryan replied to the Methodist, “That he did.”

  Hershal and Withers sat slurping food. Grease smacking from their lips about the mushy carrots and meat while the pale-faced boys watched. Unsmiling; their fingers were stained by oil and stone sharpenings. Their vision was unclasped walls of madness and twitch.

  The Methodist took a sip of wine and told Alcorn, “I can’t let you keep Angus. I will barter you provisions for his skills. Can keep shelter with me and the congregation, have your ten acres of territory to do as you wish. Maybe capture another fighter. Win more territory.”

  Alcorn and Hershal looked up, each with food pieces about his lips. Chewed piece of potato fell from Alcorn’s lips and he said, “Horseshit!”

  The Methodist shook his head. “This is not a query nor a plea, it’s a direct telling of what you will do.”

  Withers came from sitting, was about halfway erect when the Methodist nodded. His boys restrained Alcorn. Slapped and pounded Hershal and Withers while Alcorn was forced to watch the swift onslaught of what took place quicker than a lost breath, as six young men dropped their sharpening stones. Cut the air. Testing their edges. Driving them into limbs, backs of legs, sections of back, beating and creating fault-line cracks that spit blood from skulls. The boys did not waver nor stop until Alcorn’s men were thuds on the floor in a mess that appeared like spilt paint, but it was human fluid and scalp, teeth, and death.

  The only sound heard was Angus’s jaw moving with the swoosh of tater. The Methodist broke the silence with “Never say I didn’t offer. Remove the slugs from my sight. You now align me, Alcorn.”

  The boys were outlined by their red-specked cheeks and cottas. Arms and hands moist. They dragged Hershal and Wither’s battered and bleeding bodies from the room. Angus kept eating the meat, carrots, and potatoes with the Methodist eyeing him.

  “Do right by me, you’ll have food and women at your leisure. Used to be the Pentecost was more willing to share the offerings of his daughters until he found h
is last breath from a man believed to be one Cotto Ramos.”

  Alcorn was stricken with silence. Angus set his plate down before him. Swallowed his food. Forearmed his mouth to remove particles of nourishment from his lips. “I’ve little use for females as they’ve no loyalty. And food, I’ve had plenty. What I desire is medicine for a friend who fell to illness.” Angus paused, chose his words carefully. “There’s nothing to be gained from this. Eventually someone smarter and stronger will arrive. All you’re doing is waiting to have that torch taken and turned into a gavel.”

  “I do God’s bidding. Like others, I’m building something to take the torch from another and then another and another. I fear no man.”

  “I get it, whoever has the most toys wins.”

  “No, it’s the survivalists. Those who’ve lost everything have nothing more to lose. As of now, whoever has the most followers can amass an army to protect his territory, create new laws, a new regime to fight this rumor of a man called Cotto, a foreigner who’s killing men, enslaving our women and children.”

  “And why would a person of foreign means have an interest in slaughtering men in the Midwest?” Angus asked. “What would he have to gain?”

  “What does any man have to gain by invading another’s territory? When there are no more rules to be enforced, fear delivers power, things turn tribal, much like those in prison. It’s not the government who runs the prison, it’s the prisoners, the government is only sheltering the weak from the barbaric. But to answer your question, rumor in the whisper mill of derelicts and other congregations says Cotto’s reaping vengeance to rule the land, for what, power, because you murdered his father, Manny, or because he can.”

  Alcorn sat listening as Angus steel-eyed the Methodist. “You saying the world went to shit and now it’s gonna be rekindled by a mean-ass Mexican, a man not much different than you and me?”

  “No, you and I are plenty different, I am a Christian man, your beliefs are uncertain to me, but what I know is the world became unshelved with the help of the devil and his adversaries banking too many lies, and too many hardworking folk put up with this leprosy until it was too late.”

  “Bandages can be changed, wounds can heal. Unless the wound isn’t cared for, then it’ll find infection and rot is soon to follow.”

  The Methodist nodded. “Shit rolls downhill. But what I am saying is, this man is a hunter. He’s murdering everyone that’s not part of his network. Cotto was on his way here when the fall of the dollar and the loss of power came; those were coincidental to his plan. My belief is he’d pay a hefty sum to have your head placed on a halberd.”

  A rain of disgust cloaked Angus as he told the Methodist, “That it, you’re gonna trade my being for unknown salvation? Very Christian of you.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve no intentions of bartering you to any man. I’ve seen this devil’s work. Where I’ve amassed many of my children from Cotto, my adolescent soldiers, I’ve rehabilitated them to do God’s work.”

  Angus felt anger bubble inside him. “I was minding my own when those three fucks who followed the creed of we’re-killing-in-the-name-of-Jesus attacked me for wanting to rest my eyes. I want no part of what you’re creating. You can either let me go or pay the price when I find my opening.”

  “Watch your tongue. I could place a bullet between your eyes as we speak.”

  “But you will not or you’ll lose whatever it is you’ve pyramided here thanks to men like me.”

  Smirking, the Methodist said to Angus, “Truth falls from your tongue, and that’s why you’ll fight for me, that is how men now earn real salvation for other men.”

  “Through enslavement, battle, bloodshed, and biblical words twisted into end-time prophecies? Sounds like terrorism to me. You got a wall of virgins hidden beneath that robe. Funny how you take the laws of the land away from men and they forget where they came from, forget everything it took for their ancestors to build something that they always seem to destroy.”

  “You seem awfully wise for a man who once cooked crank to earn his way.”

  “I have my moments.”

  Angus wanted to wrap the chains that bound him to the flooring around the Methodist’s neck. Watch his lookers bat. His mouth froth and his throat snap. Angus needed his hands free. The chains removed from his neck. But what would he gain by murdering this man, what did the removal of another person’s life really accomplish in the end? Other than quiet, nothing. He inhaled deep and pondered on a saying, Assist people, but do not attempt to control them. Teachings of Lao Tzu, principles taught to Angus by Fu. Question is, was old Lao Tzu ever taken prisoner and forced to fight to earn another day’s breath? The Methodist paused, then continued with “You speak like you fight, not a wasted movement nor word. I shall help you find God.”

  It’d be interesting to watch you gasp your final breath, Angus thought, and he asked the Methodist, “Who says I ain’t already found Him?”

  “You speak as though—”

  “I speak as I speak. Never said I’d a loss of faith in a higher power. Only testing your beliefs of your placing words in another’s mouth.”

  Slapping his knee, the Methodist said, “It shall be entertaining to see you battle again. What do you think, Alcorn, has your tongue been swallowed?”

  Alcorn’s posture was silent.

  Angus postured a question. “And when would that be?”

  The Methodist grinned. “Within the hour, we meet another clan who travels to here, my reconnaissance tells me their fighter is strong-willed and eager.”

  * * *

  Hunkered down behind outgrowth. The denting pulse of shoulder pain, the buzz and hum of fly and gnat that swarmed about Dorn’s blackening wound. A hint of rot was not far from the thorn and honeysuckle from which he and Sheldon sat hidden. The squawk of blue jay fell with the sweat from humidity that moistened their bodies as the hound panted.

  They’d watched the encampment around the church. Men and women, armed with rifles or shotguns. Some sat sharpening knives. Cleaning their weapons. Others read from hymns. Looking up every so often, keeping eyes peeled for movement. Sometimes the blast of gunfire rimmed through the surrounding forest from an odd direction. Moments would pass. Then came the tread of foot. Crunch of vegetation, an outline of human gripping the weight of muscle covered by pelt, the killing of wild game for feeding.

  Dorn dozed and tremored in his sleep off and on until evening. The Sheldon girl whispered, “We must get that wound cleansed. Bandaged ’fore infection sets in.”

  Dorn waved a hand. “Soon.”

  In his mind things were sporadic. Mad. The ache of fiber. Feverish visions of Cotto hunting him with his tribe of doped-up killer kids. His chest tightened. Nose ran with mucus. Thoughts of roller-coastering down an unending decline and he awoke. Sheldon stared at him. He rolled to his stomach. Leaves mashed. He glanced to the church. Lights were flamed around the encampment of campers, outbuildings, and the road lit up when the rumble of sound came from engines. Tires knobbed and the jaunt of men armed to the teeth with automatic weapons came slow. One was leading by poke and butt of rifle to a man bound by rope. From stomach to knees Dorn came. Reaching. From his pack he pulled binoculars. The Sheldon girl queried, “What is it you view?”

  Taking in each shape, Van Dorn looked at complexions. Searched for the familiar. The bound man was of color. Skin dark as a walnut. Lean. Muscular. A fighter, Dorn thought. Then came rage. The pulse of anger infernoed his veins. Crystallized the arteries with a melding of hatred; twisting the knob on the magnification of glasses, he saw the dome of shaven scalp. Rounded shoulders, veiny arms of ink that cloned one racist symbol after another into a collage of shapes and braids. And Dorn whispered with disgust, “A murdering racist.”

  “Who would that be?” the Sheldon girl asked.

  “Alcorn.”

  They treaded on by foot to the church’s door. People came one by one from campers. Fires. Outbuildings. Turning into a maddening crowd. That
began to chant as Alcorn and his followers led their slave to the church’s entrance, where they stopped. Passed words with several men guarding the entrance. Then they entered. Moments passed. The ringing of the large bell housed within the church’s foyer rang loud and piles of people filed in. Dorn lowered his glasses and Sheldon asked, “And he is—”

  Dorn pressed to standing. The hound sat looking up at Dorn. Waited. “The man I believe to have ended my father.”

  * * *

  Pain was nothing more than a word that would come and go like teeth being pliered from gums, filled back in with partials by a dentist, it was something that one could replace. Meaning each was temporary. Those final months of training, that’s all Angus could think, when will this end? When would he be replaced? When will one test after another be the final?

  But it never ended. He was never replaced. Training became tougher. Demanded more mentally and physically. And the tests pushed him to dig deeper within his skill set. But he endured. Became a hardened human being.

  Fu used liniment to soak Angus’s hands nightly, pulled from Fu’s refrigerator along with his needles that were submerged in alcohol. His fine-tuning of each, twisting the pin-needle lengths of steel into meridians about Angus’s hands. Offering the release of tension. Meditations and breathing were guided by Fu. The clearing of the mind. Keeping the positive flow of energy throughout the body. The mental aspects of strengthening Angus’s insides. Creating and building his iron palm training.

  Angus sat with Fu in his kitchen one evening after training, sharing sips of black tea, and Fu explained, “As strength and confidence in one’s ability are built, they are tested, time and time again, to demonstrate the use of what they’ve built, created.”

  Wanting a beer or some rice wine, Angus said, “Like your internal and external strengths?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have I not demonstrated that, over and over? Busting concrete blocks? Snapping dow rods and two-by-sixes?” Angus questioned.