Ever Onward (32 page)

Chapter 25
: ‘ONE ARM’

Upstate New York

Lake Champlain

August
5

While Josh and his group were wending
their weary way home from their adventures in Maine, a large motor
yacht was moving steadily southward along the western shore of Lake
Champlain. On board was a motley crew of survivors, alike only in
their lust for violence and united by their common goal; take what
you want and to hell with anyone that got in their way!

Six men of varying ages and
dispositions, bound together by one man, James Phinious Tibbs,
better known as One Arm. In his checkered career Tibbs had been
everything from a logger to a pizza deliverer, a truck driver to a
night watchman. He’d driven a taxi, slung hash and shoveled shit.
Christ, ol’ One Arm had been a butcher, a baker, a fucking
candlestick maker --- and during each and every one of these
short-lived jobs he’d also been a drinker. Not just your average
liquid-lunch kind of drinker mind you. Oh no sir-eee! Not our
good-ol’ boy James Phinious Tibbs! He was the honest ta Gawd REAL
THANG! A dyed-in-the-wool, bad to the bone, good-to-the-last-drop
kind of drinker. The kind that started with his first piss in the
morning and ended with his last piss at night, driven by a never
ending dedication to stay totally pissed in between.

Such single-mindedness had been the
main reason for him having lost hi arm. Tibbs had been working at
Billing’s Sawmill in Raquette Lake, a small, nowhere little berg in
upstate New York. After every three or four pulls on the large
band-saw lever, Ol’ James Phinious had taken a pull on a bottle of
Captain Morgan’s Dark. Drunk as a skunk, however, is not advisable
while working a heavy band saw. Gravity eventually got the better
of him and he slipped. Cursing royally, he felt something like a
beesting just above his left elbow. Reaching over the swat the
little bugger, his hand came back red. Looking down he was
surprised to see his arm lying in the sawdust.

This little piece of trivia had taken
place over seven years ago. Since then James Phinious Tibbs had
been on a downhill side and picking up speed. Arrested several
times for drunken driving, he’d lost his license and drove anyway.
After the workman’s compensation ran out he turned to robbery.
Nothing big, for our boy James, though a mean son-of-a-bitch, was
not the brightest of lights. Just your average mugging and a little
B & E now and then, with a little rape and sadistic beatings
thrown in for good measure. Enough to keep him in cigarettes and
booze.

It was while doing a two year stretch
in the Utica pen that he picked up both his tattoos and his
nickname. While there he also took crash course in killing on the
side. Word was that if you wanted a fellow inmate offed, One Arm
was the man to see. He’d been out six months and was wanted for
parole violation and three counts of armed robbery when the World
took one mutherfucking turn for the worse.

In June, just before the shit really
hit the fan, he’d been hiding out with some bikers in a run down
farmhouse outside Dannemora. They were having a little party late
one night, when all the good ol’ boys suddenly started choking and
puking and turning a rather ghoulish shade of green. At first he
thought it was the shit they’d been smoking, but when the green
turned to grey and Boots McHanan crumpled in on himself like a
balloon with a hole in it, One Arm started to get the Big Picture.
The only part of Boots that was left was his fancy tooled cowboy
boots on one end of his jeans and the Golden Eagle belt buckle on
the other. There was a torn T-shirt as well, sporting the ever
popular Hallmark saying: Mother? Fuck-her!

One Arm had gone tearing round the
place looking for someone, anyone left alive. All he found was
carbon copies of Boots. Thirteen bikers and their assorted ladies
lay scattered about like last years ashes.

That’s when he’d flipped out
completely. Jumping into a pick-up, he drove through the suddenly
silent town of Dannemora, honking the horn and screaming at the top
of his lungs. In the end all he saw was one lone old dog taking a
shit in the middle of the road. On a whim he swerved and ran the
dog down, taking out a fire hydrant in the process. Somehow the
mindless violence acted like Grandma’s tonic, flushing the fear
from his veins. Without looking back, he left Dannemora and headed
on for bigger and better things.

In Plattsburg he found a number of
survivors. The first two were an old man sitting on his front porch
and a middle aged woman wandering around a park clutching a doll.
He’d beat the shit out of the old man, rapped the woman and tied
her up in the back of his pick-up.

The next day he’d come across a young
man with hair the color of moldy straw. The youth was busy smashing
store windows with a baseball bat. One Arm drove up and casually
asked the youth if he’d like a go at the woman. The look the kid
gave back had One Arm tightening his grip on the shotgun he’d
picked up at C. J. Penny’s. Then the youth’s beady eyes had shifted
to the near naked woman tied in the back of the truck. When they
flicked back, One Arm saw a baleful light burning deep within his
gaze. The youth was close to drooling.

“Go ahead, son,” One Arm smiled. “But
watch out for her nails.”

After he had finished in the back of
the truck, the straw haired youth hopped in the cab, grinning from
ear to unwashed ear. One are handed him a fifty dollar cigar.
Introductions were short and to the point: “I’m Boss, you’re The
Kid. Got it?”

“Got it, man.”

On the truck’s sound system Johnny
Cash was riding the Orange Blossom Special. One Arm cranked up the
volume, fired up their cigars with a solid gold lighter he’d helped
himself to back at the cigar shop and the two high rollers set of
to find others of their ilk.

Later that same afternoon they
happened upon a likely lad. Bruce ‘Rambo’ Chillis. Bruce was
shooting empty beer cans outside a gun shop. He’d chug a brewsky,
set it on the top of a nearby car, go back to the arsenal he had in
the back of a new, red jeep, carefully choose a weapon, and blast
away. Bruce, however, was either a lousy shot or the beers were
taking their toll, for most of the cars on the street had their
windows shattered and sported large holes in various parts of their
anatomy. Still, a hell of a lot of Coors cans had also bit the
dust.

His marksmanship aside, Mr. Chillis
looked the part of the recently late and certainly great movie-star
whose name he had taken on. He was dressed in laced combat boots,
camouflage pants held up by a belt from which hung a .45 automatic
and a knife best described as a short sword. A black sleeveless
shirt strained over bulging muscles and a red headband encased
long, curly black hair. For one mad moment One Arm thought he was
looking at the real thing. When the drunken soldier-of-fortune
fired a burst from a semi-automatic rifle in their direction, he
was even more sure of it. The bullets punched several holes in the
pick-up’s radiator. Steam hissed out like the breath from an angry
dragon.

“Holy shit!”, The Kid, (soon to be
christened Straw Hair by Rambo), half yelled, half squeaked. “That
crazy fucker nearly killed us!”

Slamming on the brakes, One Arm’s
pock-marked face stretched into a predatory smile. His gold tooth
gleamed. “Could have too, Shit Head. That ol’ boy missed us because
he wanted to.”

Getting out of the dying truck, One
Arm prudently left the shotgun on the seat. “Stay here and shut
up,” he growled at the Kid, then, flashing his golden smile, he
approached the big man with the even bigger gun.

“Getting in a little practice, I see.
Mind some company?”

The man’s eyes, and the barrel of the
long gun, tracked his approach. Back in the cab, The Kid reached
slowly for the shotgun.

“They call me One Arm,” he continued,
moving the stump that ended just above his left elbow. “The young
asswipe in the cab I call The Kid.”

Dark eyes danced from the speaker to
the youth in the truck. The gun followed. “Tell him to show his
hands or you can call him Dog Meat.”

One Arm yelled over his shoulder.
“Show your hands! And make sure they’re empty!”

The KId thrust his hands through the
open window like a demented faith healer.

“Satisfied?”, One Arm
asked.

Rambo’s clone snatched a can of beer
out of several cases piled on the curb and tossed it to One Arm.
Catching it deftly, he flashed his gold tooth and used it to pull
the tab. Warm suds foamed over his beard. “Tastes like warm piss,
but it hits the spot.”

The man joined him. “What’s with the
woman?”

One Arm glanced back at the truck.
From where he stood he could only see a head matted with tangled
brown hair. The rest of her was wrapped in an old car blanket.
“Just a little distraction,” he said, winking slyly. “You
interested?”

The stranger didn’t bother to respond,
so One Arm pressed on. “Me and The Kid were planning a little boat
trip. Thought we’d pick out one of those big mothers down at the
marina and chug over to Burlington. Maybe even cruise on down the
lake. Hell, the fucker’s over a hundred miles long! The three of us
could make a party out of it! What do you say?”

The man shrugged and nodded at the
truck. “She coming along?”

One Arm’s grin widened. The key to
getting this walking weapons factory on his side had just dropped
into his hand. “If you want, though we’ll probably pick up a dozen
better than her as we cruise around.”

“Aint interested.”

One Arm’s patience was starting to
wear a tad thin with this fucker. Laconic was not a word One Arm
was familiar with, but he sure as hell knew a stuck-up, mightier
than thou attitude when he saw one. A sudden urge to shove a knife
into this tight lipped bastard flooded through him. His good hand
even started for the Boot Knife he kept strapped to his left ankle.
‘I’ll cut this wise-ass dog turd a new smile from ear to ear!’, he
thought.

Then he felt a slight nudge in his
stomach. Looking down he saw that the tip of the man’s long knife
was already lost inside the folds of his shirt. The serrated fangs
along the top spine looked like giant fish hooks. A flick of the
wrist and One Arm’s steaming guts would spill out all over the
ground.

“Well, are you going to do it or
not?”, One Arm managed to say. To give him his due, there was only
a hint of tremor in his voice.

The man held his gaze for several
heartbeats, then smiled. The mini sword seemed to have magically
returned to its scabbard. “You might be shy an arm, but you aint
missing any balls. I like that. How about another beer?”

One Arm willed his hand not to shake.
Something told him that he’d just come a whole lot closer to dying
than he had in all his wayward years put together.

The stranger waved a beer in The Kid’s
direction. “ Hey Straw Hair? Want a brew?” The Kid was out of the
cab like a shot. It seemed he’s gained a new name as well as a new
friend.

After they’d downed a few more Coor’s,
the Rambo look-alike had Straw set the empties up on a smashed
Toyota across the street. When Straw returned, the quiet stranger
handed the youth a .45 and nodded at the cans. Straw, looking like
the kid with a new toy, grinned from ear to ear. Three shots later
the cans still sat atop the Toyota, only now the car was minus a
side window and sitting on a flat. The .45 was passed on to One
Arm, who at least hit a couple of cans before returning the empty
pistol.

“Your turn, Mister Rambo,” Straw
grinned. The half dozen beers he’d downed were starting to give him
a pleasant little buz.

The man spit, then walked over to his
jeep. When he returned, he was carrying a stubby little cannon that
made Straw think of what one of his heroes, Arnold Swatzinager, had
used in Terminator II. The bandoleer of elephant size enemas slung
over his shoulder completed the picture. The stranger snapped open
the short cannon and inserted one of the large shells. He then
raised and fired in one fluid motion. A second later the Toyota
blew up --- literally. The car seemed to leap into the air, do a
half gainer, then flopped down on its roof, flames and black smoke
pouring out the shattered windows.

“Ho-leee-fuck!”, Straw beamed,
slapping his thigh like a rube at a barn dance. “You ARE
Rambo!”

The man’s stern face creased into a
sly smile as his hard eyes washed hungrily over the excited
youth.

One Arm knew that look. During his
little sabbatical up in the Utica pen he’d seen it aplenty. Some of
the toughest, meanest cons would get that look in their eye
whenever a new, young prisoner came in. ‘Fresh meat’ they called
them. They didn’t, however, stay fresh for long.

Content that he had at last found the
key he needed to control this walking cannon, One Arm belched and
reached for another Coor’s, his gold tooth aglow in the Toyota’s
flames.

Now, a month after meeting Straw and
Rambo, One Arm’s nasty little group had more than tripled. The 35
foot yacht he’d liberated from Plattsburg Marina was now crewed by
six full-blown psychos, led by a greasy haired man missing one
quarter of his limbs and four quarters of his conscience. The Dirty
Half-Dozen he laughingly dubbed them. A carefree bunch of good ol’
boys, each and every mother’s son of them loaded for bear and, just
like the song said, ‘looking for love in all the wrong
places’.