by Blake Banner
Jesse shook his head to clear it, then snarled. He rushed at me, swinging his right fist in a big arc. I could have written War and Peace in the time it took to reach where my head should have been. I weaved back and let it pass, then laughed.
“Man, you are not telegraphing, you are sending me a letter. C’mon! You can do better than that.”
He charged again.
It takes a fist the same time to travel a full yard, as it does for your core and your shoulder to travel an inch. I planted my feet, flicked my hips and my shoulder and smashed my fist into his nose with the combined force of my two hundred and twenty pounds and his mammoth charge.
He went up on his toes and his knees did a little in and out dance as he staggered back with blood streaming down over his mouth. I could see his pupils were dilated and he had a dull, stupid look on his face. I didn’t waste time. I took two steps toward him and drove my fist straight into his solar plexus. He went down vomiting.
I looked at his six friends. They weren’t sure what to do. The three who’d come in with him looked like they just wanted to get back to drinking beer. But there was one guy, bigger than the rest, whose face said he had a mean disposition and he’d decided he didn’t like me. Jesse was getting to his feet, holding his belly, and he didn’t look to me like he was out either. I guess men in New Mexico are made of hard stuff. I pointed at the big guy. I was grinning.
“What’s your name, son?”
He didn’t like me calling him son. He said, “My name’s Billy, and I’m gonna whip your ass till you bleed.”
I shook my finger in the negative. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. I’ll take you both, and a third if anybody wants to join the party. And whoever goes down buys a round of drinks for the bar. You too chicken for that, Billy?”
There was a cheer. One of Billy’s friends, a Mexican in a blue shirt and a cowboy hat, decided he felt like buying a round that night. He pulled off his hat and rolled up his sleeves. I was wondering what the hell I was doing, but I told myself this was living Zen. Don’t think. Just do.
Jesse looked very pale, but he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and moved toward me. Billy and the Mexican started to circle, Billy on my left and the Mexican on my right. They were going to grab me and let Jesse have his revenge. That was their plan.
I laughed again and said to Jesse, “Third time lucky, huh, Jesse?” It wasn’t subtle. An experienced fighter would have seen it coming. But these guys were used to wrestling bulls, not professional killers. I’d spoken to Jesse, so their attention was on him. They didn’t expect the charging side kick at the Mexican. It caught him in the floating ribs, lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing through the ring of watchers and into a table, sending the four chairs flying. He didn’t get up.
But by the time he’d hit the floor, I was already closing on Billy. I knew Jesse was basically the walking dead, and the crowd was looking forward to their beers. The only man I had to worry about now was Billy.
I figured a bit of boxing would be fun. I run at least five miles every morning at about five AM and I have near zero body fat. I’ve also learned to develop a kind of trance-state, where I can just keep going for hours without getting tired.
Billy must have weighed in at two hundred and seventy pounds. He was muscle strong and I was pretty sure if he landed a punch it would be lights out for anyone. But I didn’t think he had staying power, and every punch he threw was using up precious energy. I leered at him and got in close.
“C’mon, Billy. What’s troubling you? You afraid of spoiling your looks for your boyfriend?”
That did it. He powered in, swinging right and left with massive crosses and hooks. I ducked and weaved and stayed a few inches out of range while Jesse followed along, trying to get his wind back. Billy’s breathing was getting heavy and his face was flushed. He threw another right hook and as it went past, I leaned forward and flicked a nasty left jab at his right eye. He backed up a step and winked a few times. I stepped forward and as he threw his right again, I crouched and drove both fists into his floating ribs, one after another. He doubled up.
As I came upright, Jesse was charging me. I snatched Billy’s right wrist, pulled and twisted savagely and palmed his elbow, so he stumbled and collided with Jesse. Jesse staggered back. Billy was still doubled over and I had a firm grip on his wrist. It was time to buy a round. I drove my right boot into his belly and he went down.
Jesse was gaping at me. I stepped forward and jabbed the tip of his chin. He went straight over backward.
I was surrounded by a ring of very silent men. I knew some of them were thinking about it. I gave them a couple of seconds. Nobody moved. I said, “Looks like these boys owe you gentlemen a drink.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then somebody laughed. Then they were all laughing and Gastank was pulling beers and looking relieved. Several guys went to drag the fallen to their feet. Gastank called over to me, “What about Billy and Jesse, and Nestor?”
“They look to me like they could use a drink. Give me one too, will you?”
And that was when the door opened and the sheriff walked in.
“What the hell is goin’ on in here?” He looked around, saw me and said, “Oh, I might have guessed. You again!”
TWO
“What is wrong with you, Walker?”
The sheriff was sitting on the edge of his desk beside his hat, looking down at me where I was sitting in a bentwood chair. He was big, his eyes were narrowed and his arms were crossed. He looked more like an angry barn than a man. He was wearing a gray uniform shirt with a star, but he had on blue jeans and boots. He was everything you wanted your sheriff to be. I decided I liked him.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Sheriff.”
“You’ve been in my county for almost a month. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing here, but you’ve busted up three bars in as many weeks.”
“I didn’t start any of those fights, Sheriff. And I paid for all the damage that was caused, even though I didn’t start the trouble.”
“Which is the only reason you’re still in my county. You say you don’t start these things, but look how you always find your way to the roughest joint in whatever town you’re in! Can’t you spend your leisure time at Ma Bennett’s coffee shop, or the Blueberry Family Restaurant, instead of Gastank’s Hog Bar?”
“Mrs. Bennett makes damn fine pie, Sheriff, and the steak at the Blueberry is second to none I’ve ever eaten, but they don’t sell whiskey, and they don’t sell beer. So if a man wants to sit and have a quiet drink in your county, there are not many places he can choose from.”
He sighed. “Well, no offense, Mr. Walker—and I do take your point—but perhaps you’d be more comfortable in another county where the local population take a more relaxed view of alcohol.” He stood, walked around behind his desk and dropped into his chair. “What are you doin’ here, anyhow? I know you ain’t short of money, and I know for a fact you ain’t lookin’ for work!”
“I don’t know, Sheriff. Maybe I’m looking for the answer to that very question.”
He stared at me for a moment like he didn’t know whether to backhand me or buy me a drink.
“I don’t know what personal baggage you’re carrying, Walker. I do know that it’s my responsibility to keep the peace in my county. Twice I’ve cautioned you because it genuinely did seem you hadn’t started things, and you made handsome reparation without being asked. But this is the third time you’ve managed to find yourself in a fight. You may not look for trouble, Walker, but you sure as hell find it.”
I nodded. “I can’t deny that, Sheriff.”
He frowned. “You got a home somewhere?”
“Yeah, yes I have.”
“Go there. Sort out whatever it is that’s causing all…” He gestured at me. “This!” Then for good measure he wagged a finger in my direction. “If a man goes through life getting into fights that he ain’t lookin’ for, that means he’s sendin
’ out some kind of bad message. You go home, Walker, and sort yourself out. I don’t want to see you in my county tomorrow. You understand me?”
“I understand you, Sheriff. Is there a fine I need to pay…?”
“You just pay Gastank for the damage to his bar. Then get out of Cottontown.”
I stepped out into the cold night and the door banged closed behind me. The sheriff’s office was on the edge of town, set in a large lot that had been fenced off but not asphalted, so you had the feeling you were out in the desert. Up above, there was an astonishing number of stars, the moon was rising fat and orange in the east, and you could hear the coyotes howling at it, away in the distance.
I stopped outside the perimeter fence, by the municipal museum building, and paused to pull a Camel from my pack and light up. The sheriff had advised me to go home and sort out my problems. He had probably assumed my problems were wife-related. But all my wife-related problems had solved themselves, when my wife and my potential wife had walked away. My problem was a deeper one than that. My problem was that Omega lived on, either out there in the world, or inside me, in my mind, and I had to find the way to kill it, for once and for all.
I started walking the mile or so to the Hampton Motel, where I had a room and where I had left my car. As I walked, I called Jim. He sounded pleased to hear from me.
“Lacklan. I am just enjoying a glass of Bushmills on the terrace. I was wondering how long it would be before you called. Where are you?”
“Cottontown, New Mexico. I just got thrown out of the only bar in town, and the sheriff told me he wanted me out of his county by sunrise.”
I heard the weathered rasp he used for a laugh. “Nice to know there are still places like that left. What’s on your mind?”
“Omicron.”
He grunted. “General Francisco Ochoa, supreme commander of the Brigada de Operaciones Especiales, second only to the Secretario de Defensa Nacional. Or at least, that’s what the Secretary of National Defense thinks.”
I turned into 2nd Street and started walking south. The road was long and straight, and there was no lighting except from the stars, the moon that was creeping over the horizon, and what little light filtered out through the closed drapes of the sparse, one story houses that flanked the road. The silence was heavy, like a palpable thing that made the echo of my footsteps loud, almost startling in the stillness.
“You been doing your homework?” I asked.
“I had a feeling you’d be calling soon to discuss the Greek alphabet.”
“You going to tell me what the Sheriff of Hidalgo County told me, to go home and sort out my problems?”
“That’s good advice.”
“Yeah, only my problems aren’t at home.”
“How far are you? Six, seven hundred miles?”
“About that.”
“In that electric monster of yours, you could be here in five or six hours. Spend a few days here, swim in the ocean, enjoy some time with Mioko. We’ll eat and drink and talk about Omicron.”
On an impulse, I turned and looked behind me. There was nobody there, just the long, lonely road I had already walked, and beyond it the desert. Ahead of me the same long, dark road with no end in sight, flanked by the silent, dark houses.
“Sounds like a plan, Jim. Will Njal be there?”
“He’s away on business at the moment. But we can call him back if we decide it’s necessary.”
“Yeah, good.”
“I’ll expect you for an early breakfast then.”
“See you, Jim.”
I arrived at the motel parking lot shortly before ten. The monster Jim had referred to was a matte black 1968 Mustang Fastback. Only, under the hood it had something different. This was a modified Zombie 222, from Bloodshed Motors in Texas. There was no roar when you fired her up, no thunder, no sound at all. But its twin engines delivered eight hundred bhp and one thousand eight-hundred foot-pounds of torque, instantly, directly to the back wheels. The acceleration was insane: from 0-60 in one and a half seconds, with a top speed of 200 MPH. And she was totally silent.
I opened the trunk and checked my kit bag. I hadn’t replenished it since the affair in Freeport. I had my two Sig Sauer p226s, the Smith & Wesson 500, my Fairbairn & Sykes fighting knife, the suppressed Maxim 9 and my take down bow, but there was little else. If I decided to go after Omicron I’d need to replenish my arsenal.
I closed the trunk and went to pack my bag and check out. For the first time in six months, I felt suddenly cheerful again.
* * *
I took the I-10 via Tucson and Phoenix and drove through the night. It was just over six hundred miles and though there were places where I had to go slow, from Phoenix to Riverside, the road was straight and mostly desert, and I was able to hit speeds of 120 MPH, and peaked outside Blythe at 150. I guess it averaged out at around a hundred and ten, because I left the motel at midnight and pulled up outside Jim Redbeard’s house on Paseo de la Playa, in Malaga Cove, at fifteen minutes before six. The sun was rising over the San Gabriel mountains in the east, turning the pale blue sky slightly pink and washing the ochre walls of his house with bronze light. I grabbed my bag from the trunk and made my way to the door. It was already open and he was waiting for me on the step.
He embraced me, took my bag and asked, “How long can you stay?”
The smell of coffee and freshly baked bread was strong on the air. Through the large, open space that was his living room, I could see the glass doors open onto his terrace. Before I could answer, he leaned into the kitchen, gave some instructions and led me out to the terrace with his hand on my shoulder. Out there, he had a huge, old wooden table set in the shade of some palms above a garden that sloped down, threaded by a winding path, toward the edge of the cliff overlooking the cove. The ocean was vast and dark, reflecting the early sun in a winking sheen of broken light. He sat at the head of the table and I sat facing the ocean.
“I don’t know,” I said in answer to his earlier question. “That’s kind of why I am here.”
“You are feeling lost. You brought down Omega, and now you don’t know what to do with yourself. All you know is warfare, and fighting.”
Two young girls who might have been Filipino came out with two pots of coffee and several baskets of hot bread and croissants, creamery butter and cold pressed honey. They deposited them on the table and left. I helped myself to a hot roll and broke it open while he poured the strong, pungent black brew.
“That’s just it, Jim. I am not sure that I have brought down Omega.”
He grunted. I spread butter on the roll and watched it melt, spooned on thick, waxy, aromatic honey and bit into it. While I chewed, he gazed out at the ocean.
“Do you know,” he asked without looking at me, “how William the Conqueror defeated the Saxons at the battle of Hastings?”
I wiped my mouth and sipped coffee. “The legend is that a Norman archer shot King Harold in the eye with an arrow.”
He shrugged and turned his attention to a hot roll. “That may or may not have happened. Harold had formed an impenetrable wall of shields and spears, a common tactic of the time. The Normans, who were, as I am sure you know, Danes and Norwegians, not Frenchmen, charged again and again, with infantry and cavalry, but they were unable to break the Saxons’ wall.”
He bit into the soft, crusty bread and chewed thoughtfully for a while. Eventually he drained his cup and refilled it, and I began to wonder if he was going to finish his story. But he started speaking again.
“Harold’s men were exhausted. They had just, only recently, defeated Harald Hardrada at the battle of Stamford Bridge, less than three weeks earlier, and had had to march almost three hundred miles to confront William’s forces, where they had formed a beachhead at Hastings, on the south coast of England. Harold had about seven thousand men, many of whom he had recruited during the march. They were practically all infantry, with very few archers.
“William, a true Danish tactician, like his
great grandfather, Ganger Rolf, had a well balanced army. He had about ten thousand men, barely half were infantry, and the rest were divided between cavalry and archers.
“Battle was joined on October 14th, some miles from Hastings, near the village of Battle. It lasted all day, from nine in the morning until dusk with, as I say, wave after wave of Norman attacks being repulsed by this impenetrable wall of exhausted, but determined Saxons.
“Finally, after what seemed to be one final, desperate attack, as dusk was falling, the Normans turned in disarray, and fled. Fresh from defeating Hardrada, exhausted from the march and the day-long battle, the Saxons were exultant, and they made a mistake which was to shape the history of the entire planet for the next thousand years.”
Now he turned to look at me and said: “They broke ranks and they charged, pursuing their enemy. But it had been a ruse. The fleeing cavalry promptly turned and charged. The impenetrable wall had been broken, not by Norman attack, but by the Saxon decision to pursue their enemy. The Saxons were decimated, Harold was killed, William marched on London and, despite pockets of resistance, he soon subjected the country and sowed the first seeds for what would become the British Empire.”
I sat in silence, staring at the gleaming ocean, chewing hot bread and sipping strong black coffee. Eventually, I said, “I am not sure what you’re trying to tell me, Jim.”
“It would be presumptuous of me to tell you anything, Lacklan. You have proved yourself to be a supremely capable warrior. What I am doing is illustrating a fact which you already know: that sometimes it is advantageous for your enemy to think you are stronger than you are, sometimes it is an advantage for your enemy to think you are weaker than you are. What you never want is for your enemy to know your actual strength.
“Harold lost the battle of Hastings because he went after William, having underestimated his strength. Are you sure you are not at risk of making that same mistake?”
I shook my head. “No, I am not sure.” I thought a moment longer and added, “I’m not sure of anything, Jim. I left the SAS because I was tired of killing, and all I’ve done since I set up in my house and my workshop in Wyoming is get rich and kill people. Is this all I am capable of? Do I feel lost because there is nobody left for me to kill?”
