Donnybrook: A Novel (6 page)

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When Jarhead saw a light come on inside the house, he cursed under his breath. He stood out in the country road by Tig’s truck with the cloak of night all around, the truck running with the lights off. This was the fifth and final house.

A full moon guided Jarhead’s quick jaunt up the drive. He watched each room of the house come to life with light, the shadow inside bouncing from room to room. Jarhead’s heart raced, him hoping he’d make it to Tig before the shadow did.

Out back of the house a dog barked. Sounded like it weighed two hundred pounds.

Tig lay under the rear of the truck. Gas container. Small hose. Handheld, battery-powered drill. Maglite. Gas being siphoned from the tank and into the red container. Tig and his cousin would sell it for a cheaper price than was paid at the pump.

The creak of the door went unheard. Light footsteps across the wooden deck. Down the steps. Into the dew-covered grass. A single-barrel 20-gauge lifted the same time Tig stood up. He heard the click and then the voice. “You thieving piece of—”

From behind, Jarhead wrapped a sleeper choke on the man with the shotgun. But not quick enough. An explosion lit up the dark, hollowed everyone’s eardrums. Lead dinged against the truck. Shattered the driver’s side window.

The barking dog went psychotic behind the house, whining and howling.

The man dropped the gun. Tried to stomp Jarhead’s boot with a bare foot. Reached for the arms around his neck. Scratched and dug into Jarhead’s forearms. Jarhead held tight. The fight slowed. The man went limp. Jarhead let him fall to the ground. Stepped across the yard over to the truck. Found Tig pushed up against the back tire. Moonlight beat down on his shaking body. “Goddamn that was a rush,” Tig huffed.

Dark moisture ran from Tig’s leg. Jarhead sucked air, said, “Looks like you got hit.”

“Can’t feel shit,” Tig grunted, offering a hand to Jarhead. “Pull me up. Let’s push some back road ’fore the shit gets too deep for wading.”

Behind Jarhead, the house door opened. A woman’s voice screamed back into the house, “Sarah! Sarah! Dial the county police. They’s men out here done shot your daddy! They stealing his truck!”

“Fuck!” Jarhead shouted. “Fuck!” Took Tig’s hand and pulled him to his feet. Reached for the gas containers. Tig said, “Give me one them sons a bitches, boy.” Jarhead helped Tig across the yard, each weighted down with a container in tow, half running toward the road where the truck sat idling. Tig laughed. “Ain’t this fun?”

The lady barefooted across the deck. Down into the yard. Found her husband while her daughter rang the police. “No!” the lady screamed. Started off behind the house. Kneeled down at the maniac dog. Said, “Grim, calm your ass down.” Unlatched the heavy chain. Said, “Now these sons a bitches gonna get theirs.”

At the truck, Tig slung the gas into the rear. Out of breath, he told Jarhead, “You gotta drive. My leg is fucking burgered.”

Jarhead said, “All right.” Opened the passenger’s side door. Heard steps pushing through the damp yard. Then a low growl followed by the lightning-fast roar.

Tig hollered, “Fuck!” Fell against the truck’s bed. Tried to kick. Punched and pushed at the black German shepherd that came up on its hinds. Laid its fronts on his chest, its mouth gnawing into his right arm.

“Get this bastard off me!” He shrieked like a teething child.

With no gun, knife, or makeshift billy club, Jarhead did the only thing he knew to do. Balled his fist and punched the mauling shepherd in its head. Once. Twice. Then its ribs. Grim yelped, fell, and ran.

Tig lay against the truck, breathing heavily. Moisture running now from his leg and arm, smearing the side of the truck. He panted, “You about a mean son of a buck. Gonna have to buy you a few rounds.”

Jarhead helped Tig into the passenger’s side. Told him, “Don’t owe me shit.” Slammed the truck’s door. Heard the sirens coming from afar. “Shit!” Got in on the driver’s side.

Asked Tig, “The hell you want me to go?”

Fuel rimmed Tig’s hands and clothing, combined with the red that seeped from his peppered wounds. He laughed. “Get me to my cousin’s. He take care of me. Pay you good.”

“Just give me some damn directions. Got no idea where I’s at.”

Tig said, “Keep going down this road heading west till you see the signs for Brandenburg. Follow them.”

Jarhead stomped the gas just as the road behind him lit up.

*   *   *

Liz stumbled through the kitchen door. Three lanterns glowed from the counter, shadowed the packs of smokes she threw onto the table littered with jars, bottles of Heat, coffee filters, rock salt, and Ziplocs. She grabbed a lantern, went into the dining room, picked up the two ten-gallon buckets that held the baggies of meth. Took them into the kitchen. Sat down in a chair, broke the lid open on one of the buckets, pulled out one of the baggies. Fingernailed a snort into her nose. Felt the jolt kick the booze buzz in the ass, pushed the baggie into her pants. Sealed the bucket and waited.

From the back bedroom through the dining room his voice was a fist in the mouth. “The shit you doing?”

He’d become too predictable. Her eyes were two faded stars looking at him. She said, “Got us a buyer. Wants it all.”

“Buyer?”

“Name’s Ned.” She smiled.

Lantern light bounced shadows over the uneven meat of his eye, highlighted Angus’s disgust. “Who vouched for him?”

“I did. Showed me a fat wad of dough.”

Angus’s words sparked with anger. “Showed you his fat prick, probably. Don’t know that many around this county. Could be he’s a narc. We deal with people that’ve been vouched for.”

Liz played dumb, said, “We deal at the factories.”

Angus could ignore Liz’s poor choices in the sack but not to whom they sold meth. He didn’t flinch. Gave her a quick palm to the mouth. Knocked her backward in the chair. Her head rattled against the floor. Angus said, “You wanna be a stubborn bitch hound, I treat you like one.” He spat on her. Stepped back. Pulled a smoke from his T-shirt pocket, a lighter from the table, fired up a glow. Said, “I make the deals. Done let you and them two brothers front that shit at the tavern. Now they’s dead.”

Liz pressed two hands onto the floor, pushed herself up. Blood rivered from her lip. She laughed. “Ned’s gonna get it and you gonna get what you gave, fucker.”

When the screen door cracked open, Angus squinted, noticed the barrel too late. Felt the fire that filled his ears with combustion, his inhale with burnt gunpowder. He hit the kitchen counter, dropped to the floor quivering, eyes rolled into mothball whites.

Liz stood up. “Bastard!”

Ned pushed into the kitchen. Stepped over, nudged Angus’s leg with his boot, leveled the barrel between his eyes. Liz pushed the barrel away. “Let his ass suffer, let him bleed out. Looks like you about got his heart anyway.”

Ned asked, “Got the shit?”

“Right there.” Untrusting, Liz grabbed the buckets of meth. Said, “Let me get somethin’.” Walked through the dark house to the back bedroom. Set the buckets down. Rummaged through the moonlit room. Picked up some of her clothing, pushed it into her rucksack. Saw the outline of Angus’s pistol on his sleeping bag. Pushed it in with her clothing, along with a box of shells. Zipped up the pack. Slung it over her shoulder. Grabbed the buckets. Walked back into the kitchen. Asked Ned, “Where to?”

Ned held the shotgun in one hand, reached his other down onto Liz’s ass, squeezed, and said, “My place, get the rest of this deal going.”

8

Touching the screen door’s handle, the slanted figure inhaled sharply. The musty burn from inside the house couldn’t cloak the memory of what had taken place years ago. He pulled the door open with his big hand while his smaller hand, missing halves of the last two digits, wrapped around a long-edged piece of steel.

From the barn, he’d heard the blast. Remembered hearing several of them that day his family was murdered. But tonight he’d watched two outlines walk from the house after the gunshot. Listened to the rumble of their separate engines. Lights, one after the other, drove down the road. Turned out into the valley and disappeared.

Inside the kitchen, lantern light revealed a table of scattered objects. Car keys. Packs of cigarettes. Coffee filters. Mason jars and shapes the figure didn’t recognize. On the floor below the sink, his head propped against the metal cabinets, lay an array of carnage. The man he’d seen arrive with the woman a week ago, now reamed about the left side of his chest.

The man lay in the exact spot he remembered his father standing when he’d startled him that day long ago, coming in from the woods after hunting squirrel. Creak of the screen door. His father’s face twisted to meet his own. Red beaten with damp. Short of breath. Hair in disarray. Talking in a string of unfamiliar syllables. Then he’d followed the female screams that bounced from the bathroom. Where he discovered his mother, Azell, his sisters—Doddy, who was pregnant, and Tate, slow-minded but beautiful—each bound by twine. Approaching them, he’d felt his father’s hands clamp around his neck from behind.

He shook the memory turned to blemish from his thoughts. Stepped down on the man’s chest. Didn’t see a gun tucked anywhere on the man’s frame. Pressed the piece of steel into his neck. Wanted to see if he’d any fight in him or if it was freckled about the floor and cabinets.

He bore down into the man’s face. One side smooth. The other gnawed. Uneven. His eyes followed the wet scattered about the man’s neck and shirt. It ran from the left shoulder, an explosion of skin, vein, muscle, and bone.

The figure felt the rise and fall of the man’s chest beneath his boot. Turned his attention to the tic of the man’s left hand.

Angus shuddered through the pain. The voices gone. His mouth tasted of desiccated soil and slug shot. The name Ned hammered heavy in his mind like the weight on his chest, the festering ache in his left shoulder.

What the fuck! Angus made out the towering shape pressed down on his chest with unmanaged husks of hair, one arm of length grasping a machete, the other hanging small, malproportioned from its socket. The shape appeared muscled like the bare roots of an oak tree. Wore a crimped white dress. It was staring at Angus’s left hand.

Angus’s nerve endings tensed, his heartbeat thrusting as though he’d had a few bumps of crank. The shadow turned back to him. In one motion, Angus bit through the pain. His right hand grabbed the shadow’s left leg. Shifted his left hip with his own left leg. Knocked the shadow to his right. Got from beneath the shadow’s weight.

The figure fell into the counter. Lantern light in his eyes. Unfazed, he turned around blinking. Watched Angus push his back against the wall, using it to stand up. Appeared all of the man’s fight wasn’t shed about the floor and cabinets, least not yet.

The rush of blood loss and tic of pain wobbled Angus. Taking in the shadow, he gasped through clinched teeth, “The hell are you?”

The shadow stuttered, “Gr-gr-gravel.”

Taking in the machete that Gravel held, Angus feared its use on him and rushed the beast, shouldered and clutched the shadow. Squeezed and inhaled the scent of a musty rodent bathed in lye. Cut off any chance of a swing or swipe of the machete. Suffocated his one arm. Gravel elbowed his free arm into Angus’s shoulder. Pain chipped Angus’s insides.

Angus looked into the shadow’s face, two angered eyes beneath dead strands of hair. The shadow grunted. “St-st-stop.” Angus ignored his word. Reared his head back. Drove his forehead forward repeatedly. Cartilage separated from red. Lips blued.

The shadow wailed. Let go of Angus. The machete clanged to the linoleum. The ache of Angus’s shoulder dropped him to his knees. He twisted his body. Felt the burn of a rubber-soled boot indenting the side of his face. Then the knot of bone flailing his temple, causing his eyes to dart and his vision to blur, when a hand crimped his wound, his mind went south from the pain and his thoughts ceased.

The shadow who called himself Gravel sat winded, looked upon this man who lay in a home that had been unoccupied for years because of the onslaught that had taken the innocent, innocent that had once been his family. He watched the ooze expand from the man’s busted ball of fiber and thought enough blood had been spilt for tonight. He would mend the wounded man.

PART II

REAPING THE FLAMES

9

Deputy Sheriff Whalen handed the sheet of paper to Detective Thurman. “The shit’s this?”

Whalen replied, “APB on Johnny Earl from a few days back. He robbed a gun shop way down in Hazard, Kentucky. Beat a county cop on a back road outside of Frankfort, Kentucky. Ditched him and his car in the woods. Ain’t been seen since. Could be coming our way.”

Thurman asked, “How’s the cop?”

Whalen said, “He’s breathing. Gave a full description. Johnny Earl said he was on his way to visit kin in Orange County. It didn’t check out. Just passing it along. So what you got on Eldon?”

Detective Thurman told Whalen, “Toxicology from Eldon’s body matched the contents of the glass in his kitchen sink.”

Whalen sat behind his desk and asked, “So he was drinking and—”

“And maybe had a disagreement.”

The two men looked to be in their late forties. But Thurman—unlike Whalen, who was light-heavyweight hard—was power-lifter big. Each had grown up on farm labor, football in their teens. Law enforcement from their twenties into their forties. Both used the police gym in the basement of the station three days a week. Thurman lifted heavy to maintain his Michelin Man physique, keep up with a county-fair-queen wife, two kids, while Whalen lifted medium to light, keeping his striated appearance, looked in his early forties but held the age of fifty and held it well. His ex-wife had remarried a state trooper years ago. They’d no kids.

Thurman’s chest flexed between the cotton of his tan T-shirt and crossed arms, said, “Be the logical guess.”

Whalen sipped the coffee remaining in his mug and asked, “What about the brass casing?”

“Same as those found at the house fire down in Amsterdam. Same prints but no hits in the criminal data base.”