Donnybrook: A Novel (13 page)

Fu’s eyelids fluttered. Blood ran from his nose, mouth, a gash on the left side of his skull. His glasses hung down his nose, right and left sides cracked.

The lighter popped. Angus fingered it out. Bent his wrist, turning the heated end into the plastic twist ties that bound him. Singed skin and plastic. Smelt the burn. Felt his hands free.

Fu shook his head. Turned to Angus, dazed. Angus loaded Fu’s vision with knuckles. Reached across him. Opened the driver’s side door. Pushed him out. Fu hit the heated grass flat on his face, tried to crawl away, get his senses. Angus stepped out, stiff. Walked to Fu, bent down. Punched him in the back of the head. Pressed a knee into his spine, took Fu’s wallet. Old habits die hard.

Angus turned back to the idling Tahoe. Pulled a wad of bills from the wallet. Pushed them into his front pocket. Dropped the wallet. Felt pain pelt his right kidney. Then his spine. Dropped to his knee. Felt hands reaching for his head of hair. Turned left and right-hooked Fu’s left inner thigh. Shot a left uppercut into his crotch. Fu backpedaled. Angus stood up, met a left elbow. Right knee. Took it, felt the slice of blood across his skull. Returned a blur of jabs and hooks with Fu deflecting them on his arms. Angus kicked low. His shin met Fu’s. He threw a cross that softened Fu’s face. Knocked him backward. Made his body twitch and convulse.

Angus stepped back, panting, his hands raised. Winded. Gunshot wound aching.

He started to laugh. Fu had fallen into a barbed-wire fence and gotten tangled. His every movement made the barbs cut deeper into his flesh.

Angus limped to the idling truck. Got in. Put it into drive.

*   *   *

Whalen had less than thirty-six hours before his hearing in Sellersburg. Less than thirty-six hours to find this Angus and Liz. But he’d neglected the farm. He needed to check on his nephew, as he did every couple weeks.

He took a detour down the valley road, recollecting the call that had come over the radio that day nearly five years ago. First to arrive on the scene, seeing the old Ford in the distance, frayed outline in the road. He’d rushed from his vehicle. Found Doddy, her beauty splintered and spilled about the pavement. Skull scattered. Flies buzzing in the heat. The unborn hump inside of her, dead or suffocating. Ten feet from her sat the still-warm Ford. What was left of Reese dotted over the driver’s side fender. Up across the hood. Barrel of his 16-gauge rested on his shoulder. Hands crimped about the trigger and stock.

His brother-in-law Reese had shot Doddy, then himself, because the truth was too much.

Now Whalen pulled down the weeded drive to the farmhouse left to him in the will along with the five hundred acres it sat upon. He parked his Jeep. Got out. The warm country air carried something rancid. Whalen walked up toward the house, like he had that day. Taking in the apple tree where his sister, Azell, and her daughter Tate sat slumped. Arms above their heads. Nailed into the old tree trunk, crucified for his sacrifice. What was left of their beauty matched the hue of ripe apple rind. Same as Doddy and Reese, features removed by 16-gauge slugs.

Whalen stood on the rock surface, his back to the house, knowing that no one else knew why Reese had gone mad that day. No one knew about Whalen’s conversation with the man the previous night. The can of kraut he’d opened by confronting Reese because he was tired of watching his own grow up from a distance. A conversation that had killed the entire family. All except the boy, Gravel.

Gravel had made the call. Ross had found him in the one place he always hid, a cave up by the barn. Face swelled wet. Two of his digits gone. The boy explained best he could. Finding Reese in the kitchen after he’d been squirrel hunting. Reese standing over the kitchen sink. Madness in his eyes. The screams coming from the bathroom. Gravel finding his mother and sisters bound. Reese attacking him from behind. Beating him unconscious. Gravel playing possum when he awoke. Waiting till the house was silent. Calling 911. Running from the house. Hiding in the cave.

Whalen had kept the boy that way all these years. Letting the local law and people of Harrison County believe Gravel was dead. Buried somewhere unknown by Reese. It’s what he and Gravel wanted. To be left alone. To forget that day. Their little secret.

Now, Whalen started to walk toward the barn, noticed the wash tub of water. The weeds that had been leveled by the sickle that leaned against the apple tree. The generator on the other side of the house. Extension cords roped from it to the farmhouse. He glanced at the door, open behind the screen. Removed his pistol from his waist, knowing Gravel rarely went into the house. Whalen opened the screen door, raised his tone. “Gravel?”

Inside the kitchen, windows were blacked over by spray paint and duct-taped garbage bags. The table was littered with household chemicals. Baggies, hot plates, mason jars. Gas lanterns on the counter. There was the scent of burning fused with coagulated blood. Chemical rot.

Glancing down at the floor, he took in the insects trailing the body. Whalen’s Gravel.

Whalen kneeled down next to the boy, his fingertips brushing leaflets of hair. Bone-cold cheek. Dead. He’d been that way for a while. Bullet holes lined his chest. A 9-mm brass lay on the worn linoleum. Whalen inhaled. Bit his lip. His bloodline ended here, but he kept it together.

Standing up, he took in the distorted details. Someone had squatted in the house. Been cooking meth. In the sink lay three rabbits, their hides skinned. As though Gravel had been preparing them for someone. Still holding his gun, Whalen searched the rest of the house. In the back bedroom, he found a sleeping bag. No clothing. But a wallet lay on the floor. He opened it up. Could hardly believe the name on the license inside.

*   *   *

Two acne-scarred men in body-stained short sleeves sat at an upturned wire-spool table next to the entrance, hunting knives sheathed on their sides. Mason jars sweated in front of them. Angus walked through the door, his head and gunshot wound pulsing in unison. He followed the hum of ceiling fans past the empty tables to the bar on his right. Where two more men sat to his left sipping shots of bourbon, cigarette smoke forming the air around them. Each wore a yellow shirt. Across the backs, black lettering scribed the tavern’s name:
CUR’S WATERING HOLE
.

The bartender turned around, towel tossed over his shoulder. Handlebar mustache, shade of tanned hide. Matching hair slicked back. Knuckle-sized holes in each ear. He pushed his hands onto the bar, nodded. “What’ll it be?”

Angus felt everyone’s eyes branding his flesh. “Poe sent me. Said to ask for a man named Lang.”

The bartender looked to his right, nodded at the two men to Angus’s left. Then over Angus’s shoulder at the door where the two acne-scarred men sat. His eyes came back to Angus, and he said, “He called. Must be Angus.”

Barstools and chairs screeched like a loose belt on a car’s engine. The men to Angus’s left stood up. Shadows poked Angus’s peripheral. He gritted without hesitation, “Poe said you could point me in the direction of a man goes by Ned. Running with a female named Liz. Said they’s headed to the Donnybrook.”

Lang chuckled. “I know where they at. But it’ll cost you.”

Visions of a dog being thrown into a wood chipper that spit out every shade of red turned Angus’s gut. He felt the two men from the table by the door break the ceiling fan’s air behind him. Slow, cautious steps approaching. He wrinkled his eyes, asked, “Cost me? Sons a bitches left me for dead. Took off with my crank. I’d say they’s already cost me plenty.”

Lang nodded to the men on Angus’s left, said, “You want them, gonna have to get in line with all the people Ned done bent over the wash basin. And tickets for the line ain’t free. You’ll be payin’ me.”

Angus glanced to his left. Outlines covered his view. He reached into his pocket with his right. Took in the thick glass ashtray of crunched cigarette butts on the bar to his left. Barstool in front of him. Pulled out a wad. Lifted it up. Held it for Lang to grab. Counted the two men’s slow steps from the door as they smothered in from behind.

Lang said, “Now you’re talking my language. I’ll take that.” Reached for the money. Angus dropped it on the bar. Lang leaned forward. Quick as a finger pulls a gun’s trigger, Angus sent his right elbow across Lang’s face. His left hand swiped the ashtray. He brought it across the other side of Lang’s face, then knocked him back behind the bar with a right cross.

Angus hooked the barstool in front of him with his right foot. Lifted it up, grabbed it with both hands. Turned, threw it into one of the yellow-shirted men on his left. It tripped him and bent him forward. Angus stepped into him. Planted a right uppercut into his mouth. Spun around to the other yellow shirt, who’d circled to Angus’s left and now cut the air with a stiff jab. Angus ducked his head. Jammed the man’s punch with the top of his skull. Metacarpals and carpals shattered. The man gasped.

Angus drove a left hook into his jaw. Then a right hook to his kidney. Locked his arm, palmed, spun, and threw him into the two acne-scarred men from the door. Knocked them into a table.

From behind, Angus felt a boot heel knife his right calf muscle. Drive him down to one knee. Felt a fist knuckle the back of his skull. Angus raised his left arm to his head. Covered. Pivoted on his left foot. Turned his right fist into the man’s groin. Doubled him forward. Fired a left elbow into the man’s temple. Pushed to his feet and palmed the man’s head up with him. Then dropped the man with a right cross.

Angus’s lungs felt the frostbite of being winded. He turned, grabbed a barstool. Smashed it down into the other yellow-shirted man trying to get up behind him. Fought the huff that blocked his lungs.

The other acne-scarred man from the door got to his feet. Angus lined him with a jab to the face. Rocked his skull back. Closed his swallowing with a cross to the throat. The man’s larynx shattered like porcelain. His hands grasped his throat for air that wouldn’t enter, and he dropped to his knees.

The other man from the door brought a right cross. Nicked Angus’s left cheek. Angus kicked him just below his navel. Took his center of gravity. Angus stepped to the man’s side, drove five knuckles into the soft meat just below his armpit. Lung point. The man hugged himself and hit the floor.

Angus turned to the bar. Two-handed the surface, heaved himself over it. Felt his shoulder spotting with ache. Lang lay at the other end of the bar on his ass, hiding, blood about his nose and right eye and his left hand fumbling for the handle of a sawed-off double-barrel stuck into the bar above his head. He pulled it out. Thumbed back the triggers of both barrels. Angus’s left arm followed his legs forward, raking the bottles of whiskey and vodka that sat lined up behind the bar down onto the floor as he heard the explosion of the sawed-off.

16

They circled and bumped one another like predators. Men with talcum teeth, skin cleaved by scars. Hair braided, slicked, or stringy. Short or shaved. Bearded or stubbled. Tall. Short. Lean, hard, or fat-bellied. They came in all demeanors. Donning bibs or jeans ragged as the boots laced around their feet. These were the backwoods bare-knuckle fighters.

Some punctured stolen canisters of freon. Dropped them into black plastic bags. Closed them up. Took turns meeting the openings with their faces. Huffing. Holding in the gas till the dizziness dented their perceptions, made surrounding voices echo, outlines wobble. Others snorted and shot meth. Felt the dopamine rush root through their minds like a bullet.

The circus of men spread out in front of the platform, waiting for a man to step up onto the graying wood and announce the first twenty numbers so the first of six free-for-all bare-knuckle fights could begin.

In the frays of field grass there were enough dented, dirty, and rusted vehicles to fill ten football fields, maybe more. From them, onlookers got out with lawn chairs and provisions. Set up camp. Their forest fires scented the air with smoke and the whole chickens or slabs of venison, goat, squirrel, rabbit, or coon they grilled. It’s what they’d do for the next three days. Sell their food to others. Sit chasing pills and crank with swigs of bourbon or home brew. Watch twenty men enter a thirty-by-thirty barbed-wire ring, fight till one man was left standing. Then another twenty numbers were called for the next free-for-all. Till Sunday, when the winning men were left to fight till one man stood bloody and toothless waiting for his cash prize.

There was one way in, one way out, of the bare-knuckle festival: a gravel road, near a mile long, lined by pine trees on each side. A steel-slatted gate cut the road in half. Beside the gate was a tin-roof wooden shack painted black with gray trim. From inside stepped four men with long hair greased to their shoulders. Thick beards. Mirrored wraparound sunglasses covering their eyes. They dressed in faded T-shirts, aged denim, boots. Their flesh was tattooed with hearts—
MOM
knifing their centers—or
MIGHTY MOUSE
or
WHITE PRIDE
. Each man was armed with a shotgun. Tied outside the shack were two tan curs. Two brown-and-black Walkers. Two walnut bloodhounds.

The four men wanted to know if you were a fighter or an onlooker. They took your entrance fee if you were fighting, gave you a plastic number. Told you and your trainer to sleep in the horse stables up by Bellmont McGill’s barn that overlooked the barbed ring. Separate from the onlookers, who paid one hundred bucks to watch, wager, camp, and sell food, booze, or drugs all weekend.

No one left till the fighting was finished. This was the rule of Mr. McGill. To cross him was to become part of the thousand acres of wild, unknown land he owned. To be seeded into the soil. Walked upon by the next group of men trying their luck the following year at Donnybrook.

After paying his fighter’s fee at the entrance, Ned got his number. Liz would be an onlooker. They parked in the field lined and spread with trucks and cars, all makes and models. Saw men and women in their camps with raised bottles of booze. Their tents pitched. Fire pits blazing or grills smoldering. Voices humming like bees in a swarm. Liz sat rearranging herself, bitching, “Never let no man feel up my shit like they did.”