Lektira (3) - treći nastavak
 7 Moments later the door unlocked and a smiling monk with hair the color and texture of mold fuzz came in with Brother Fred, who still had his pump shotgun. There were two dead folks with them. A man and a woman. They wore torn clothes and the mouse-ear hats. Neither looked long dead or smelled particularly bad. Actually, the monks smelled worse. Using the barrel of the shotgun, Brother Fred poked them down the hall to a room with metal tables and medical instruments. Brother Lazarus was on the far side of one of the tables. He was smiling. His nose looked especially cancerous this morning. A white pustule the size of a thumb tip had taken up residence on the left side of his snout, and it looked like a pearl onion in a turd. Nearby stood a nun. She was short with good, if skinny, legs, and she wore the same outfit as the nun on the bus. It looked more girlish on her, perhaps because she was thin and small-breasted. She had a nice face and eyes that were all pupil. Wisps of blond hair crawled out around the edges of her headgear. She looked pale and weak, as if wearied to the bone. There was a birthmark on her right cheek that looked like a distant view of a small bird in flight. "Good morning," Brother Lazarus said. "I hope you gentlemen slept well." "What’s this about work?" Wayne said. "Work?" Brother Lazarus said. "I described it to them that way," Brother Fred said. "Perhaps an impulsive description." "I’ll say," Brother Lazarus said. "No work here, gentlemen. You have my word on that. We do all the work. Lie on these tables and we’ll take a sampling of your blood." "Why?" Wayne said. "Science," Brother Lazarus said. "I intend to find a cure for this germ that makes the dead come back to life, and to do that, I need living human beings to study. Sounds kind of mad scientist, doesn’t it? But I assure you, you’ve nothing to lose but a few drops of blood. Well, maybe more than a few drops, but nothing serious." "Use your own goddamn blood," Calhoun said. "We do. But we’re always looking for fresh specimens. Little here, little there. And if you don’t do it, we’ll kill you." Calhoun spun and hit Brother Fred on the nose. It was a solid punch and Brother Fred hit the floor on his butt, but he hung onto the shotgun and pointed it up at Calhoun. "Go on," he said, his nose streaming blood. "Try that again." Wayne flexed to help, but hesitated. He could kick Brother Fred in the head from where he was, but that might not keep him from shooting Calhoun, and there would go the extra reward money. And besides, he’d given his word to the bastard that they’d try to help each other survive until they got out of this. The other monk clasped his hands and swung them into the side of Calhoun’s head, knocking him down. Brother Fred got up, and while Calhoun was trying to rise, he hit him with the stock of the shotgun in the back of the head, hit him so hard it drove Calhoun’s forehead into the floor. Calhoun rolled over on his side and lay there, his eyes fluttering like moth wings. "Brother Fred, you must learn to turn the other cheek," Brother Lazarus said. "Now put this sack of shit on the table." Brother Fred checked Wayne to see if he looked like trouble. Wayne put his hands in his pockets and smiled. Brother Fred called the two dead folks over and had them put Calhoun on the table. Brother Lazarus strapped him down. The nun brought a tray of needles, syringes, cotton and bottles over, put it down on the table next to Calhoun’s head. Brother Lazarus rolled up Calhoun’s sleeve and fixed up a needle and stuck it in Calhoun’s arm, drew it full of blood. He stuck the needle through the rubber top of one of the bottles and shot the blood into that. He looked at Wayne and said, "I hope you’ll be less trouble." "Do I get some orange juice and a little cracker afterwards?" Wayne said. "You get to walk out without a knot on your head," Brother Lazarus said. "Guess that’ll have to do." Wayne got on the table next to Calhoun and Brother Lazarus strapped him down. The nun brought the tray over and Brother Lazarus did to him what he had done to Calhoun. The nun stood over Wayne and looked down at his face. Wayne tried to read something in her features but couldn’t find a clue. When Brother Lazarus was finished he took hold of Wayne’s chin and shook it. "My, but you two boys look healthy. But you can never be sure. We’ll have to run the blood through some tests. Meantime, Sister Worth will run a few additional tests on you, and," he nodded at the unconscious Calhoun, "I’ll see to your friend here." "He’s no friend of mine," Wayne said. They took Wayne off the table, and Sister Worth and Brother Fred, and his shotgun, directed him down the hall into another room. The room was lined with shelves that were lined with instruments and bottles. The lighting was poor, most of it coming through a slatted window, though there was an anemic yellow bulb overhead. Dust motes swam in the air. In the center of the room on its rim was a great, spoked wheel. It had two straps well spaced at the top, and two more at the bottom. Beneath the bottom straps were blocks of wood. The wheel was attached in back to an upright metal bar that had switches and buttons all over it. Brother Fred made Wayne strip and get on the wheel with his back to the hub and his feet on the blocks. Sister Worth strapped his ankles down tight, then he was made to put his hands up, and she strapped his wrists to the upper part of the wheel. "I hope this hurts a lot," Brother Fred said. "Wipe the blood off your face," Wayne said. "It makes you look silly." Brother Fred made a gesture with his middle finger that wasn’t religious and left the room. 8 Sister Worth touched a switch and the wheel began to spin, slowly at first, and the bad light came through the windows and poked through the rungs and the dust swam before his eyes and the wheel and its spokes threw twisting shadows on the wall. As he went around, Wayne closed his eyes. It kept him from feeling so dizzy, especially on the down swings. On a turn up, he opened his eyes and caught sight of Sister Worth standing in front of the wheel staring at him. He said, "Why?" and closed his eyes as the wheel dipped. "Because Brother Lazarus says so," came the answer after such a long time Wayne had almost forgotten the question. Actually, he hadn’t expected a response. He was surprised that such a thing had come out of his mouth, and he felt a little diminished for having asked. He opened his eyes on another swing up, and she was moving behind the wheel, out of his line of vision. He heard a snick like a switch being flipped and lightning jumped through him and he screamed in spite of himself. A little fork of electricity licked out of his mouth like a reptile tongue tasting air. Faster spun the wheel and the jolts came more often and he screamed less loud, and finally not at all. He was too numb. He was adrift in space wearing only his cowboy hat and boots, moving away from earth very fast. Floating all around him were wrecked cars. He looked and saw that one of them was his ‘57, and behind the steering wheel was Pop. Sitting beside the old man was a Mexican. Two more were in the back seat. They looked a little drunk. One of the whores in back pulled up her dress and cocked it high up so he could see her pussy. It looked like that needed a shave. He smiled and tried to go for it, but the ‘57 was moving away, swinging wide and turning its tail to him. He could see a face at the back window. Pop’s face. He had crawled back there and was waving slowly and sadly. A whore pulled Pop from view. The wrecked cars moved away too, as if caught in the vacuum of the ‘57’s retreat. Wayne swam with his arms, kicked with his legs, trying to pursue the ‘57 and the wrecks. But he dangled where he was, like a moth pinned to a board. The cars moved out of sight and left him there with his arms and legs stretched out, spinning amidst an infinity of cold, uncaring stars. "...how the tests are run... marks everything about you... charts it... EKG, brain waves, liver... everything... it hurts because Brother Lazarus wants it to... thinks I don’t know these things... that I’m slow... slow, not stupid... smart really... used to be scientist... before the accident... Brother Lazarus is not holy... he’s mad... made the wheel because of the Holy Inquisition... knows a lot about the Inquisition... thinks we need it again... for the likes of men you... the unholy, he says... But he just likes to hurt... I know." Wayne opened his eyes. The wheel had stopped. Sister Worth was talking in her monotone, explaining the wheel. He remembered asking her, "Why" about three thousand years ago. Sister Worth was staring at him again. She went away and he expected the wheel to start up, but when she returned, she had a long, narrow mirror under her arm. She put it against the wall across from him. She got on the wheel with him, her little feet on the wooden platfonus beside his. She hiked up the bottom of her habit and pulled down her black panties. She put her face close to his, as if searching for something. "He plans to take your body... piece by piece... blood, cells, brain, your cock... all of it... He wants to live forever." She had her panties in her hand, and she tossed them. Wayne watched them fly up and flutter to the floor like a dying bat. She took hold of his dick and pulled on it. Her palm was cold and he didn’t feel his best, but he began to get hard. She put him between her legs and rubbed his dick between her thighs. They were as cold as her hands, and dry. "I know him now... know what he’s doing... the dead germ virus... he was trying to make something that would make him live forever... it made the dead come back... didn’t keep the living alive, free of old age..." His dick was throbbing now, in spite of the coolness of her body. "He cuts up dead folks to learn... experiments on them... but the secret of eternal life is with the living... that’s why he wants you... you’re an outsider... those who live here he can test... but he must keep them alive to do his bidding... not let them know how he really is... needs your insides and the other man’s... he wants to be a God... flies high above us in a little plane and looks down... Likes to think he is the creator, I bet..." "Plane?" "Ultralight." She pushed his cock inside her, and it was cold and dry in there, like liver left overnight on a drainboard. Still, he found himself ready. At this point, he would have gouged a hole in a turnip. She kissed him on the ear and alongside the neck; cold little kisses, dry as toast. "...thinks I don’t know... But I know he doesn’t love Jesus... He loves himself, and power... He’s sad about his nose..." "I bet." "Did it in a moment of religious fervor... before he lost the belief... Now he wants to be what he was... A scientist. He wants to grow a new nose... know how... saw him grow a finger in a dish once... grew it from the skin off a knuckle of one of the brothers... He can do all kinds of things." She was moving her hips now. He could see over her shoulder into the mirror against the wall. Could see her white ass rolling, the black habit hiked up above it, threatening to drop like a curtain. He began to thrust back, slowly, firmly. She looked over her shoulder into the mirror, watching herself fuck him. There was a look more of study than rapture on her face. "Want to feel alive," she said. "Feel a good, hard dick... Been too long." "I’m doing the best I can," Wayne said. "This ain’t the most romantic of spots." "Push so I can feel it." "Nice," Wayne said. He gave it everything he had. He was beginning to lose his erection. He felt as if he were auditioning for a job and not making the best of impressions. He felt like a knothole would be dissatisfied with him. She got off of him and climbed down. "Don’t blame you," he said. She went behind the wheel and touched some things on the upright. She mounted him again, hooked her ankles behind his. The wheel began to turn. Short electrical shocks leaped through him. They weren’t as powerful as before. They were invigorating. When he kissed her it was like touching his tongue to a battery. It felt as if electricity was racing through his veins and flying out the head of his dick; he felt as if he might fill her with lightning instead of come. The wheel creaked to a stop; it must have had a timer on it. They were upside down and Wayne could see their reflection in the mirror; they looked like two lizards fucking on a window pane. He couldn’t tell if she had finished or not, so he went ahead and got it over with. Without the electricity he was losing his desire. It hadn’t been an A-one piece of ass, but hell, as Pop always said, "Worse pussy I ever had was good." "They’ll be coming back," she said. "Soon... Don’t want them to find us like this... Other tests to do yet." "Why did you do this?" "I want out of the order... Want out of this desert... I want to live... And I want you to help me." "I’m game, but the blood is rushing to my head and I’m getting dizzy. Maybe you ought to get off me." After an eon she said, "I have a plan." She untwined from him and went behind the wheel and hit a switch that turned Wayne upright. She touched another switch and he began to spin slowly, and while he spun and while lightning played inside him, she told him her plan. 9 "I think ole Brother Fred wants to fuck me," Calhoun said. "He keeps trying to get his finger up my asshole." They were back in their room. Brother Fred had brought them back, making them carry their clothes, and now they were alone again, dressing. "We’re getting out of here," Wayne said. "The nun, Sister Worth, she’s going to help." "What’s her angle?" "She hates this place and wants my dick. Mostly, she hates this place." "What’s the plan?" Wayne told him first what Brother Lazarus had planned. On the morrow he would have them brought to the room with the steel tables, and they would go on the tables, and if the tests had turned out good, they would be pronounced fit as fiddles and Brother Lazarus would strip the skin from their bodies, slowly, because according to Sister Worth he liked to do it that way, and he would drain their blood and percolate it into his formulas like coffee, cut their brains out and put them in vats and store their veins and organs in freezers. All of this would be done in the name of God and Jesus Christ (Eees num be prased) under the guise of finding a cure for the dead folks germ. But it would all instead be for Brother Lazarus who wanted to have a new nose, fly his ultralight above Jesus Land and live forever. Sister Worth’s plan was this: She would be in the dissecting room. She would have guns hidden. She would make the first move, a distraction, then it was up to them. "This time," Wayne said, "one of us has to get on top of that shotgun." "You had your finger up your ass in there today, or we’d have had them." "We’re going to have surprise on our side this time. Real surprise. They won’t be expecting Sister Worth. We can get up there on the roof and take off in that ultralight. When it runs out of gas we can walk, maybe get back to the ‘57 and hope it runs." "We’ll settle our score then. Whoever wins keeps the car and the split tail. As for tomorrow, I’ve got a little ace." Calhoun pulled on his boots. He twisted the heel of one of them. It swung out and a little knife dropped into his hand. "It’s sharp," Calhoun said. "I cut a Chinaman from gut to gill with it. It was easy as sliding a stick through fresh shit." "Been nice if you’d had that ready today." "I wanted to scout things out first. And to tell the truth, I thought one pop to Brother Fred’s mouth and he’d be out of the picture." "You hit him in the nose." "Yeah, goddamn it, but I was aiming for his mouth." 10 Dawn and the room with the metal tables looked the same. No one had brought in a vase of flowers to brighten the place. Brother Lazarus’s nose had changed however; there were two pearl onions nestled in it now. Sister Worth, looking only a little more animated than yesterday, stood nearby. She was holding the tray with the instruments. This time the tray was full of scalpels. The light caught their edges and made them wink. Brother Fred was standing behind Calhoun, and Brother Mold Fuzz was behind Wayne. They must have felt pretty confident today. They had dispensed with the dead folks. Wayne looked at Sister Worth and thought maybe things were not good. Maybe she had lied to him in her slow talking way. Only wanted a little dick and wanted to keep it quiet. To do that, she might have promised anything. She might not care what Brother Lazarus did to them. If it looked like a double cross, Wayne was going to go for it. If he had to jump right into the mouth of Brother Fred’s shotgun. That was a better way to go than having the hide peeled from your body. The idea of Brother Lazarus and his ugly nose leaning over him did not appeal at all. "It’s so nice to see you," Brother Lazarus said. "I hope we’ll have none of the unpleasantness of yesterday. Now, on the tables." Wayne looked at Sister Worth. Her expression showed nothing. The only thing about her that looked alive was the bent wings of the bird birthmark on her cheek. All right, Wayne thought, I’ll go as far as the table, then I’m going to do something. Even if it’s wrong. He took a step forward, and Sister Worth flipped the contents of the tray into Brother Lazarus’s face. A scalpel went into his nose and hung there. The tray and the rest of its contents hit the floor. Before Brother Lazarus could yelp, Calhoun dropped and wheeled. He was under Brother Fred’s shotgun and he used his forearm to drive the barrel upwards. The gun went off and peppered the ceiling. Plaster sprinkled down. Calhoun had concealed the little knife in the palm of his hand and he brought it up and into Brother Fred’s groin. The blade went through the robe and buried to the hilt. The instant Calhoun made his move, Wayne brought his forearm back and around into Brother Mold Fuzz’s throat, then turned and caught his head and jerked that down and kneed him a couple of times. He floored him by driving an elbow into the back of his neck. Calhoun had the shotgun now, and Brother Fred was on the floor trying to pull the knife out of his balls. Calhoun blew Brother Fred’s head off, then did the same for Brother Mold Fuzz. Brother Lazarus, the scalpel hanging from his nose, tried to run for it, but he stepped on the tray and that sent him flying. He landed on his stomach. Calhoun took two deep steps and kicked him in the throat. Brother Lazarus made a sound like he was gargling and tried to get up. Wayne helped him. He grabbed Brother Lazarus by the back of his robe and pulled him up, slammed him back against a table. The scalpel still dangled from the monk’s nose. Wayne grabbed it and jerked, taking away a chunk of nose as he did. Brother Lazarus screamed. Calhoun put the shotgun in Brother Lazarus’s mouth and that made him stop screaming. Calhoun pumped the shotgun. He said, "Eat it," and pulled the trigger. Brother Lazarus’s brains went out the back of his head riding on a chunk of skull. The brains and skull hit the table and sailed onto the floor like a plate of scrambled eggs pushed the length of a cafe counter. Sister Worth had not moved. Wayne figured she had used all of her concentration to hit Brother Lazarus with the tray. "You said you’d have guns," Wayne said to her. She turned her back to him and lifted her habit. In a belt above her panties were two.38 revolvers. Wayne pulled them out and held one in each hand. "Two-Gun Wayne," he said. "What about the ultralight?" Calhoun said. "We’ve made enough noise for a prison riot. We need to move." Sister Worth turned to the door at the back of the room, and before she could say anything or lead, Wayne and Calhoun snapped to it and grabbed her and pushed her toward it. There were stairs on the other side of the door and they took them two at a time. They went through a trap door and onto the roof and there, tied down with bungie straps to metal hoops, was the ultralight. It was blue-and-white canvas and metal rods, and strapped to either side of it was a twelve gauge pump and a bag of food and a canteen of water. They unsnapped the roof straps and got in the two seater and used the straps to fasten Sister Worth between them. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was a ride. They sat there. After a moment, Calhoun said, "Well?" "Shit," Wayne said. "I can’t fly this thing." They looked at Sister Worth. She was staring at the controls. "Say something, damn it," Wayne said. "That’s the switch," she said. "That stick... forward is up, back brings the nose down... side to side..." "Got it." "Well, shoot this bastard over the side," Calhoun said. Wayne cranked it, gave it the throttle. The machine rolled forward, wobbled. "Too much weight," Wayne said. "Throw the cunt over the side," Calhoun said. "It’s all or nothing," Wayne said. The ultralight continued to swing its tail left and right, but leveled off as they went over the edge. They sailed for a hundred yards, made a mean curve Wayne couldn’t fight, and fell straight away into the statue of Jesus, striking it in the head, right in the midst of the barbed wire crown. Spot lights shattered, metal groaned, the wire tangled in the nylon wings of the craft and held it. The head of Jesus nodded forward, popped off and shot out on the electric cables inside like a jack-in-the-box. The cables pulled tight a hundred feet from the ground and worked the head and the craft like a yo-yo. Then the barbed wire crown unraveled and dropped the craft the rest of the way. It hit the ground with a crunch and a rip and a cloud of dust. The head of Jesus bobbed above the shattered ultralight like a bird preparing to peck a worm. 11 Wayne crawled out of the wreckage and tried his legs. They worked. Calhoun was on his feet cussing, unstrapping the shotguns and supplies. Sister Worth lay in the midst of the wreck, the nylon and aluminum supports folded around her like butterfly wings. Wayne started pulling the mess off of her. He saw that her leg was broken. A bone punched out of her thigh like a sharpened stick. There was no blood. "Here comes the church social," Calhoun said. The word was out about Brother Lazarus and the others. A horde of monks, nuns and dead folks were rushing over the drawbridge. Some of the nuns and monks had guns. All of the dead folks had clubs. The clergy was yelling. Wayne nodded toward the bus barn, "Let’s get a bus." Wayne picked up Sister Worth, cradled her in his arms, and made a run for it. Calhoun, carrying the guns and the supplies, passed them. He jumped through the open doorway of a bus and dropped out of sight. Wayne knew he was jerking wires loose, trying to hotwire them a ride. Wayne hoped he was good at it and fast. When Wayne got to the bus, he laid Sister Worth down beside it and pulled the.38s and stood in front of her. If he was going down he wanted to go like Wild Bill Hickock: A blazing gun in either fist and a woman to protect. Actually, he’d prefer the bus to start. It did. Calhoun jerked it in gear, backed it out and around in front of Wayne and Sister Worth. The monks and nuns had started firing and their rounds bounced off the side of the armored bus. From inside Calhoun yelled, "Get the hell on." Wayne stuck the guns in his belt, grabbed up Sister Worth and leapt inside. Calhoun jerked the bus forward and Wayne and Sister Worth went flying over a seat and into another. "I thought you were leaving," Wayne said. "I wanted to. But I gave my word." Wayne stretched Sister Worth out on the seat and looked at her leg. After that tossing Calhoun had given them, the break was sticking out even more. Calhoun closed the bus door and checked his wing-mirror. Nuns and monks and dead folks had piled into a couple of buses, and now the buses were pursuing them. One of them moved very fast, as if souped up. "I probably got the granny of the bunch," Calhoun said. They climbed over a ridge of sand, then they were on the narrow road that wound itself upwards. Behind them, one of the buses had fallen back, maybe some kind of mechanical trouble. The other was gaining. The road widened and Calhoun yelled, "I think this is what the fucker’s been waiting for." Even as Calhoun spoke, their pursuer put on a burst of speed and swung left and came up beside them, tried to swerve over and push them off the road, down into the deepening valley. But Calhoun fought the curves and didn’t budge. The other bus swung its door open and a nun, the very one who had been on the bus that brought them to Jesus Land, stood there with her legs spread wide, showing the black-pantied mound of her crotch. She had one arm bent around a seat post and was holding in both hands the ever-popular clergy tool, the twelve-gauge pump. As they made a curve, the nun fired a round into the window next to Calhoun. The window made a cracking noise and thin, crooked lines spread in all directions, but the glass held. She pumped a round into the chamber and fired again. Bullet proof or not, this time the front sheet of glass fell away. Another well-placed round and the rest of the glass would go and Calhoun could wave his head goodbye. Wayne put his knees in a seat and got the window down. The nun saw him, whirled and fired. The shot was low and hit the bottom part of the window and starred it and pelleted the chassis. Wayne stuck a.38 out of the window and fired as the nun was jacking another load into position. His shot hit her in the head and her right eye went big and wet, and she swung around on the pole and lost the shotgun. It went out the door. She clung there by the bend of her elbow for a moment, then her arm straightened and she fell outside. The bus ran over her and she popped red and juicy at both ends like a stomped jelly roll. "Waste of good pussy," Calhoun said. He edged into the other bus, and it pushed back. But Calhoun pushed harder and made it hit the wall with a screech like a panther. The bus came back and shoved Calhoun to the side of the cliff and honked twice for Jesus. Calhoun down-shifted, let off the gas, allowed the other bus to soar past by half a length. Then he jerked the wheel so that he caught the rear of it and knocked it across the road. He speared it in the side with the nose of his bus and the other started to spin. It clipped the front of Calhoun’s bus and peeled the bumper back. Calhoun braked and the other bus kept spinning. It spun off the road and down into the valley amidst a chorus of cries. Thirty minutes later they reached the top of the canyon and were in the desert. The bus began to throw up smoke from the front and make a noise like a dog strangling on a chicken bone. Calhoun pulled over. 12 "Goddamn bumper got twisted under there and it’s shredded the tire some," Calhoun said. "I think if we can peel the bumper off, there’s enough of that tire to run on." Wayne and Calhoun got hold of the bumper and pulled but it wouldn’t come off. Not completely. Part of it had been creased, and that part finally gave way and broke off from the rest of it. "That ought to be enough to keep from rubbing the tire," Calhoun said. Sister Worth called from inside the bus. Wayne went to check on her. "Take me off the bus," she said. "...I want to feel free air and sun." "There doesn’t feel like there’s any air out there," Wayne said. "And the sun feels just like it always does. Hot." "Please." He picked her up and carried her outside and found a ridge of sand and laid her down so her head was propped against it. "I... I need batteries," she said. "Say what?" Wayne said. She lay looking straight into the sun. "Brother Lazarus’s greatest work... a dead folk that can think... has memory of the past... Was a scientist too..." Her hand came up in stages, finally got hold of her head gear and pushed it off. Gleaming from the center of her tangled blond hair was a silver knob. "He... was not a good man... I am a good woman. I want to feel alive... like before... batteries going... brought others." Her hand fumbled at a snap pocket on her habit. Wayne opened it for her and got out what was inside. Four batteries. "Uses two... simple." Calhoun was standing over them now. "That explains some things," he said. "Don’t look at me like that..." Sister Worth said, and Wayne realized he had never told her his name and she had never asked. "Unscrew... put the batteries in... Without them I’ll be an eater... Can’t wait too long." "All right," Wayne said. He went behind her and propped her up on the sand drift and unscrewed the metal shaft from her skull. He thought about when she had fucked him on the wheel and how desperate she had been to feel something, and how she had been cold as flint and lustless. He remembered how she had looked in the mirror hoping to see something that wasn’t there. He dropped the batteries in the sand and took out one of the revolvers and put it close to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. Her body jerked slightly and fell over, her face turning toward him. The bullet had come out where the bird had been on her cheek and had taken it completely away, leaving a bloodless hole. "Best thing," Calhoun said. "There’s enough live pussy in the world without you pulling this broken-legged dead thing around after you on a board." "Shut up," Wayne said. "When a man gets sentimental over women and kids, he can count himself out." Wayne stood up. "Well boy," Calhoun said. "I reckon it’s time." "Reckon so," Wayne said. "How about we do this with some class? Give me one of your pistols and we’ll get back-to-back and I’ll count to ten, and when I get there, we’ll turn and shoot." Wayne gave Calhoun one of the pistols. Calhoun checked the chambers, said, "I’ve got four loads." Wayne took two out of his pistol and tossed them on the ground. "Even Steven," he said. They got back-to-back and held the guns by their legs. "Guess if you kill me you’ll take me in," Calhoun said. "So that means you’ll put a bullet through my head if I need it. I don’t want to come back as one of the dead folks. Got your word on that?" "Yep." "I’ll do the same for you. Give my word. You know that’s worth something." "We gonna shoot or talk?" "You know, boy, under different circumstances, I could have liked you. We might have been friends." "Not likely." Calhoun started counting, and they started stepping. When he got to ten, they turned. Calhoun’s pistol barked first, and Wayne felt the bullet punch him low in the right side of his chest, spinning him slightly. He lifted his revolver and took his time and shot just as Calhoun fired again. Calhoun’s second bullet whizzed by Wayne’s head. Wayne’s shot hit Calhoun in the stomach. Calhoun went to his knees and had trouble drawing a breath. He tried to lift his revolver but couldn’t; it was as if it had turned into an anvil. Wayne shot him again. Hitting him in the middle of the chest this time and knocking him back so that his legs were curled beneath him. Wayne walked over to Calhoun, dropped to one knee and took the revolver from him. "Shit," Calhoun said. "I wouldn’t have thought that for nothing. You hit?" "Scratched." "Shit." Wayne put the revolver to Calhoun’s forehead and Calhoun closed his eyes and Wayne pulled the trigger. 13 The wound wasn’t a scratch. Wayne knew he should leave Sister Worth where she was and load Calhoun on the bus and haul him in for bounty. But he didn’t care about the bounty anymore. He used the ragged piece of bumper to dig them a shallow side-by-side grave. When he finished, he stuck the fender fragment up between them and used the sight of one of the revolvers to scratch into it: HERE LIES SISTER WORTH AND CALHOUN WHO KEPT HIS WORD. You couldn’t really read it good and he knew the first real wind would keel it over, but it made him feel better about something, even if he couldn’t put his finger on it. His wound had opened up and the sun was very hot now, and since he had lost his hat he could feel his brain cooking in his skull like meat boiling in a pot. He got on the bus, started it and drove through the day and the night and it was near morning when he came to the Cadillacs and turned down between them and drove until he came to the ‘57. When he stopped and tried to get off the bus, he found he could hardly move. The revolvers in his belt were stuck to his shirt and stomach because of the blood from his wound. He pulled himself up with the steering wheel, got one of the shotguns and used it for a crutch. He got the food and water and went out to inspect the ‘57. It was for shit. It had not only lost its windshield, the front end was mashed way back and one of the big sand tires was twisted at such an angle he knew the axle was shot. He leaned against the Chevy and tried to think. The bus was okay and there was still some gas in it, and he could get the hose out of the trunk of the ‘57 and siphon gas out of its tanks and put it in the bus. That would give him a few miles. Miles. He didn’t feel as if he could walk twenty feet, let alone concentrate on driving. He let go of the shotgun, the food and water. He scooted onto the hood of the Chevy and managed himself to the roof. He lay there on his back and looked at the sky. It was a clear night and the stars were sharp with no fuzz around them. He felt cold. In a couple of hours the stars would fade and the sun would come up and the cool would give way to heat. He turned his head and looked at one of the Cadillacs and a skeleton face pressed to its windshield, forever looking down at the sand. That was no way to end, looking down. He crossed his legs and stretched out his arms and studied the sky. It didn’t feel so cold now, and the pain had almost stopped. He was more numb than anything else. He pulled one of the revolvers and cocked it and put it to his temple and continued to look at the stars. Then he closed his eyes and found that he could still see them. He was once again hanging in the void between the stars wearing only his hat and cowboy boots, and floating about him were the junk cars and the ‘57, undamaged. The cars were moving toward him this time, not away. The ‘57 was in the lead, and as it grew closer he saw Pop behind the wheel and beside him was a Mexican puta, and in the back, two more. They were all smiling and Pop honked the horn and waved. The ‘57 came alongside him and the back door opened. Sitting between the whores was Sister Worth. She had not been there a moment ago, but now she was. And he had never noticed how big the back seat of the ‘57 was. Sister Worth smiled at him and the bird on her cheek lifted higher. Her hair was combed out long and straight and she looked pink-skinned and happy. On the floorboard at her feet was a chest of iced-beer. Lone Star, by God. Pop was leaning over the front seat, holding out his hand and Sister Worth and the whores were beckoning him inside. Wayne worked his hands and feet, found this time that he could move. He swam through the open door, touched Pop’s hand, and Pop said, "It’s good to see you, son," and at the moment Wayne pulled the trigger, Pop pulled him inside. © 1989 by Joe R. Lansdale Originally published in 1989 in Book of the Dead. Included in By Bizarre Hands, a collection published by Avon Books. |
