The Vile Village (16 page)

The three men were called to the line: Stone; One-armed Carter, the best marksman of the Strathers; and Bronson, who had won
the coverted award the year before, and in fact, had it tied to the front of his motorcycle. The three let their hands dangle
loosely at their sides as fresh cow bodies were brought in. When they had totally stopped swinging, one of the judges screamed
out, “Head!” And the butcher shop of slugs was on.

Stone had opted for the .44 Mag. The Uzi was really for taking out bunches of men, not cows. But Stone knew that the .44,
when placed just right, could do the trick. While the other two opened up fast, as if trying to impress the judges with the
rapidity of their fire, Stone slowly took out his Redhawk, raised it in a smooth arc, and sighted up the cow, dead center
between its eyes. It was the Major’s method: Better to take aim and hit something in two seconds than to get five shots off
in one and miss every damn one. By the time the others had already squeezed their trigger five or six times, Stone pulled
lightly on the hair action of the .44. The skull of Stone’s cow snapped back like a cannon shell had hit it as the slug entered
the big head just two inches down from the eyes and dead center.

It was as if the stress point of the entire skull had been shattered, for the whole center of the big brown-and-white hided
face just sort of disappeared, and stuff bubbled out all over the place. Not even wasting a second shot on the thing, as there
wasn’t a hell of a lot left to hit, Stone looked to see what the judges were doing. But they just scribbled away without looking
his way.

“Chest,” the judge screamed out. Stone sighted up carefully with the red-dot floating sight system down the long chromed barrel
of the Ruger. He pulled the trigger, then moved the .44 to the right and down and fired again, then fired a third shot, making
a triangular shot pattern. The slugs tore through the air, whistling like teakettles about to explode. They slammed into the
chest bones about a foot apart and seemed to rip the whole center section of the cow right out of it. It was as if a saw blade
had just been drawn in a jagged circle about a yard wide as the bones erupted out, opening the floodgates for everything wet
within to come gushing out onto the street, creating an instant sea, yards wide, of cow intestine and organs. Again Stone
stopped firing. He slammed a quickload into the Ruger and had it all loaded up again before the judges yelled, “Legs.”

This time Stone was extra careful, sighting up right at the juncture of thigh and body, while the other two were blazing away
madly, like the gunfight at the OK Corral. Stone pulled once, and the lower right leg fell from the huge, swinging carcass.
He swung the Ruger to the other side and fired twice in six-inch spacing. The left one erupted in a rain of gristle and bone
fragments, hung for a second or two by a few big arteries, and then dropped down to the street below, where it splattered
hard against the ground.

Stone raised the .44 up to the upper legs of the huge, blood-spattered beast and fired twice more. Both of them flew down
to the broken concrete street as well, like tap dancers looking for work. Stone slid the monstrous pistol back in his hip
holster and stood back waiting as the two gangers continued to blast away like they were reenacting the St. Valentine’s Day
Massacre.

It didn’t take long after the firing had ceased for the judges to make their decision. Stone’s cow was a limbless parody of
a creature, without legs, without a chest, without even a face anymore. It just hung there, a huge piece of red protoplasm,
turning slowly in the hot breeze. It was just what the judges were Looking for, after all. Total and complete annihilation
through firepower. No, there was no choice at all—the trophy went to Martin “Preacher Boy” Stone.

J
ust about everyone was pissed off at Stone—Bronson, One armed Carter, all the gang members from both clans. Who was this scumbag
to come out of nowhere and claim what was rightfully theirs? The only people who seemed genuinely pleased by the whole turn
of events were the three Strathers brothers themselves, who saw that Preacher Boy’s winning, and the fact that he worked for
them, was already starting to swing the balance toward the Strathers. Not having his men blast Stone to death on the spot
back at the Get Drunk was one of the best things Vorstel Strathers had ever done, or so he kept mumbling to himself all afternoon
as he got drunker and drunker.

But the cow target practice was only the half of it. According to the Strathers brothers, the big fun would be that night.
They wouldn’t tell Stone exactly what the fun would be, they just encouraged him to come, bring some betting money, and watch
the sport of a lifetime. Stone hung out until he couldn’t hide the fact that he wasn’t drinking any of the green or brown,
so he split, not wanting them to think he wasn’t carrying out his hard-drinking Preacher Boy charade.

He walked around sampling some of the evening’s culinary wares. ’Dough all the cooking pots of the peasants who had come to
sell their particular recipes were stained and bent, many of their dishes were actually quite tasty. Stone got stuck on fried
rattlesnake tail dipped in batter, deep-fried, then rolled in white sugar. It was like nothing he’d ever had before. He wasn’t
even sure if he liked them or hated them, but he quaffed three down before he moved on.

His intestines started to do their own snaking around as the afternoon’s food
intake
hit him like a ton of bricks. He walked with a strange expression on his face through the crowds, seeing an occasional fistfight
here and there, but no killings or severed arteries. Such was the law. Any gang member that broke it was subject to death.
Just the year before, Bronson had shot one of his men on the spot right on Main Street for slitting the throat of a lower-echelon
Strathers man who had spit on his boot.

Back at the whorehouse, the night madam gave him an extremely bizarre look the moment he opened the door.

“You,” she said, staring at him like he had just turned Jesus in to the Romans.

“Me?” Stone said, looking back at her as he walked across the blue-carpeted floor with its erotic images of men and women
doing extremely obscene things beneath his feet. “What did ‘he’ do now?” Stone asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

“You mean, what didn’t that damn demon dog do,” the woman replied, shaking her head from side to side like she thought she
had seen it all, but she hadn’t until today. “Do you mean the girl he bit on the hand who tried to give him his food? Do you
mean the sounds that emanated from u p stairs all day, scaring half our customers out the door? It’s hard to screw when a
dog is eating all the furniture and howling continuously as he gallops around pulling a whole goddamn bed behind him. I don’t
know if there’s anything left in that room. No one’s been in there all day. Mr. Reacher Boy, isn’t it?” She smirked skeptically,
and Stone knew she was on to him in some way. Something in her eyes told him to be real careful around her.

“Look, here’s another ten,” he said, shoveling out a bunch of silver dollars that rolled around on the countertop. Again the
money seemed to help, as the woman’s eyes lit up like a wino who’d been handed the keys to a liquor store.

“How long you planning to stay?” the madam asked, trying to smile but not really able to.

“Not more than two or three days,” Stone said, trying to look mean at her, make her think he just might shoot her if she messed
with him too much. After all, he was a hard, bloodless killer.

“Let’s say two days, Preacher Boy, at the most. We’re letting you stay here’ cause you’re a personal recommendation of Vorstel.
But even that only goes so far. Two days at tops—and you’ve got to chain that animal and muzzle it, or shoot it, or some goddamn
thing. You hear me? That psycho hound’s gonna drive me out a business.”

“Chain ’em up—absolutely,” Stone said with a smile as he headed up the stairs on the trot. “Absolutely.” He reached the second
floor and threw open the door to his room—and held his breath. It actually wasn’t that much worse than the previous day. But
then everything had pretty much already been decimated the day before, anyway. Today the pitbull had been mostly working on
truly grinding down what it had ripped apart into wet splinters and odd-shaped little pieces of chair legs, lampposts, and
couch arms. Feathers from pillow stuffing were spread out over the entire room like a duck graveyard, and Stone sneezed even
as he walked in. The animal had even managed to bend a few of the vertical two-inch-thick bars that formed the backboard of
the huge king-size brass bed.

“All right, pal, I get the message,” Stone said as the bed started heading through the debris like the fin of a shark circling
its prey. “You don’t like being locked up. Well, I can’t blame you.” He spoke softly, suddenly seeing the whole thing in a
different light, from the dog’s point of view. “When I found you, you were locked up inside a Plexiglas cage and you didn’t
like that, did you, dog? In fact, I think that’s what I actually admire about you, you homicidal maniac, that you fight to
be free—right through the walls if you have to.” As he glanced around the room, Stone saw that indeed the pitbull had taken
a few big bites right out of one of the walls, so that huge gouged holes sat there, wood lathing all cracked and bent in and
plaster hanging off in clumps.

“All right, dog, get your dancing shoes on, ’cause we’re going partying tonight. But this was easier said than done. Undoing
the dog from the bed, Stone wrapped the leash securely around his wrist five times. If the canine took off, it would have
to drag him along behind it. He headed down-stairs, and Excaliber strained wildly at the leash, dying to get into the real
world, real air, and out the perfumed chamber where he had been slowly going mad. The night madam shrank back in horror as
the pitbull came charging down the stairs, snorting and drooling like it was a bull heading for the ring.

“Get him—get him—out of here!” She gasped, putting her hand to her throat, but Excaliber was already out the door, gasping
for the outside air as he pulled Stone forward like a sled dog. Outside, the animal immediately did a series of leaping, bucking
high jumps right up into the air. It was as if he had been so confined that now he had to completely release all the pent-up
energy in the wild leaps. Some of the people walking by slowed down, keeping their distance, watching the mad dog as it twisted
and flipped into the air like a dolphin out of water trying to flop its way all the way back to the ocean.

“Come on, pal,” Stone said after a minute or so, “we’re drawing a crowd.” He pulled the dog hard and nearly had to half choke
the damn creature to get it to pay attention and follow along. Stone saw another dog about a block ahead, walking behind a
man on horseback. He pulled hard on Excaliber’s leash just as the pitbull charged forward with its teeth bared and a loud
snarl. The other dog, a collie, shrank back in horror and ran to the other side of the horse, figuring it would have to get
him first.

“Jesus Christ,” Stone spat out, pulling the animal hard so he had it walking right alongside his hip. He spoke down in a harsh
whisper to it. “Listen, mister, I said I’d take you to check things out if you behaved. We haven’t gone one block, and you’re
attacking everything with fur in the fucking neighborhood. Now come on!” He stared hard into the animal’s eyes, and it seemed
to comprehend, snorting out an unhappy compliance with the rules. But it did seem to calm down after that, and trotted happily
along next to Stone, its tongue hanging out in the sticky night air. Ah, sweet freedom.

Stone followed the street around to the Strathers’ headquarters and then to the back. The closer he got, the louder it got.
By the time he actually turned the corner of the building, he heard what sounded like the bloodthirsty crowd for a bare-knuckles
boxing match. There must have been three, four hundred men all standing around a huge pit dug in the earth about twenty by
twenty feet square and perhaps ten deep. Stone could see that the bikers were on the far side, and the Strathers gang on the
near, all glaring at each other and throwing curses and insults back and forth like balls at a tennis game. In the flickering
flames of numerous torches and lamps set up on stakes in the ground, the scene was quite primeval, and filled with the promise
of blood.

Stone made his way over toward the pit, not having much trouble getting through the crowd once they saw the pointed-face cannonball
of chiseled dog hide coming toward them, his muscles rippling up along his thighs and back with every step. Stone walked to
the edge of the pit, looked down—and gasped. It was the lion. The creature he had seen sitting in the Strathers’ office. The
damn thing was a lot more awake tonight, and it looked pissed off as hell, since the crowd of spectators had been taunting
the meat-eater for nearly an hour. It clawed up at the air with its huge paws spread wide, the needlelike claws coming out
a good six inches, ready to rip the guts of anything that came near it. It was both a beautiful and fearsome beast, a big
male, weighing, Stone estimated, a good six hundred pounds plus. Its teeth glistened in the sharp, dancing light of the flames,
like daggers snapping open and shut, open and shut, the king roaring out his displeasure at having to deal with such fools.

Stone suddenly realized he had Excaliber with him, and a bolt of adrenaline braced through him as he expected to be pulled
forward. But when he glanced down, he saw that the pitbull was as hypnotized by the sight as him. It was set in its hunting
point, the tip of its now lining up with its back, and a low growl escaped from its throat like the purr of a tank motor.
But it didn’t jump. It wouldn’t voluntarily jump—not into that.

Suddenly there were cheers on the far side as Bronson came to the front of his people, leading three dogs. He led them right
up to the side, pulling back hard on the heavily muzzled beasts. They were huge—mastiffs—just about the biggest canines Stone
had ever seen, with thick, muscular bodies and jaws the size of paper cutters. They stared down at the lion, and all three
pulled forward, wanting to jump into the fray, wanting to take on the tough boy. It took all of Bronson’s rippling strength
to hold them back.