The Skunge (24 page)

Arneson squinted at the sky, as if for rain. "Sounds a little far-fetched to me."

Sonch waggled his remaining fingers at Arneson. The bandages were stained black with old blood. "And then Maas sent someone to look for me, and I let him find me, and called up Maas. We hashed things out, and he called me back."

"Great. I'm real glad you two got it worked out. Can we expect wedding bells in the spring?"

"Funny. I'm going to cut off your fucking fingers, then your hands, then your legs," Sonch said. "And before I do the same to your girlfriend, I'm going to have her. It's gonna be real fun. And don't worry, I'll make sure you don't miss a th—"

When the shots rang out, Arneson didn't think. He dove to the left and rolled as fast as he could until he skidded to a stop in the shadow of his Jeep.

Sonch spit curses like a gypsy. The meat-heads scrambled for safety. Arneson looked back at the house.

Sugar stood at the window, lowering a smoking pistol. The glass she had blasted out of the way lay in a sparking fan across the desert landscaping. She dropped from sight just before the return fire began.

Sonch and the goons rained lead down on the
casita
. The glass of the bay windows shattered. Bullet holes stitched the stucco walls and ripped into the cacti and desert succulents out front. Shots spanged off the Jeep's body. Arneson prayed they wouldn't hit the tires.

There was a pause, and amazingly, Arneson could hear a phone ringing. Then more, then all of them rang. Even Arneson's phone buzzed in his pocket. Maas had a setup where he could call all his staff from one line; he was doing it now. From the far distance, sirens wailed. Something was going on.

Sugar popped up with Arneson's short-barreled, full-bore riot shotgun. The shotgun roared, and the SUV screamed away, spitting a rooster tail of gravel and dust.

Arneson jumped up and ran into the dust cloud, pulling his knife as he ran. There, laying in a bleeding pile, was Sonch, his white strappy t-shirt soaked through and stuck to his belly where Sugar's bullet had caught him.

Arneson took Sonch's gun from where it had fallen, then bent to examine the wound. "Should have stayed gone, Sonch."

"Fuck that noise. I'd rather die on the road than live in a cage." Sonch coughed miserably, then groaned as a fresh pulse of blood seeped through his shirt.

"Yeah, well. We're getting out of here. I suggest you don't try to follow."

"No problem. Going to stay right here and watch the sky for a bit."

"Alright. See you around, Sonch."

"Fuck you."

Arneson's jeep hit the gates topping fifty miles per hour, and Sugar poked the shotgun out to blast the camera to pieces as they passed. She gave it the finger first.

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

They drove into the night, Arneson at the wheel, jacked up on gas station coffee and a handful of amphetamines from his first aid kit. He played public radio jazz on the stereo, tapping his fingers on the wheel.

Modoc national forest is eerie at night; the radio signals bounce like ghostly voices, and the moon hangs like a frozen skull in the night sky. The muffled thrum of the wind overpowered the staccato bursts of the radio, and Arneson snapped it off after a few minutes. They rode in silence for a time. Cold emanated up from the pavement, through the Jeep's flooring. He turned up the heat, and still he was cold.

He thought Sugar was sleeping, until she spoke from the passenger side. "I knew you were hiding something," she said. He lit her a cigarette, but she tamped it out without taking a puff. "I
knew
it. But you're not a cop."

Now that he was gone, irrevocably removed from Maas and his poisonous aura, he felt strangely refreshed. Like living in a polluted city, not knowing how good it could be to breathe clean air again. He spoke slowly. "No. I'm not cop. I do a lot of different things for different people. Maas was into a lot of stuff. Heavy stuff."

"I didn't figure you were there as a courtesy call." She watched him, her eyes wary. "So what are you?"

"A guy you don't know from a group you've never heard of."

She snorted. "Thanks. Let me guess…you're Batman."

"You don't want to know."

"Try me."

He looked over at her, at the crazy light shining in her eyes, and the crooked quirk of her
dare-me
smile. He laughed out loud. Suddenly he felt good. Like maybe for once things would turn out OK. "I'll tell you, sometime. I promise. Not now."

"What girl doesn't love a good mystery?" she said, still smiling.

They drove into a town named Mainstake early the next morning.

They pulled into a gas station, and the bell dinged. Arneson tapped the glass face of a pump.

"They are shut off. I need to go in and turn them on. You want to come in with me? No road trip is complete without Funyuns."

"A man of taste." She stretched and smiled sleepily. "It's a deal."

Inside, the overhead fluorescents buzzed monotonously. Arneson cracked a beer before heading behind the counter.

A bell sounded, and three men entered through the back door. All three carried guns: two of them had shotguns slung over their shoulders, and the last a Bushmaster .223. They wore brown coveralls, like you would for oilfield or farm work. Bandannas covered the lower half of their faces.

He touched Sugar's arm, and she stayed where she was, carefully not moving. Arneson moved forward slowly, hands raised to shoulder level. "Hey boys, you must be the welcome wagon. We're on our way up to Junction City, and we're running a bit low on gas. Suppose we could have a little of yours?"

The lead man, cap tipped back on gray-tinged hair, scratched at his belly. "Don't see why not. Your money's as good as any. Just drop it on the counter over there, make sure you leave enough to cover it." He smiled at Sugar, eyes roving over her body. "Name's Stabler. This here's my place, I guess. Where you coming from?"

"Santa Colima. It's getting pretty rough down there, how about here?"

"Not so bad, yet. 'Course, we got our share of them goddamn Skungers, like everywhere else."

A chorus of guffaws and hooting arose from out back of the station, along with the wet roar of some animal. The other men chuckled and filed out of the back door. Sugar was looking at the back, head cocked to one side, like she heard something.

The noise grew in volume as the door opened, and Arneson caught a glimpse of crowd outside. His gut tightened with some intuitive hunch, and he turned to warn Sugar. He didn't know what was coming, but he felt suddenly sure it was nothing good.

"What's going on back there?" Sugar was already walking toward the back door, craning her neck to see. Stabler stepped in front of her, barring the way.

"Sorry, Miss. Private property an' all that. Can't let you go back there."

"You can't? I thought this was your place?" Sugar crossed her arms under her breasts, and Stabler's eyes drifted lower. She smiled. "It sounds like you boys are having fun back there."

Arneson tossed a fifty on the counter. That bad feeling twisted in his gut like a worm.

Stabler grinned and tipped his greasy cap further back another inch. "You could be right." He looked toward the door, and his voice took on a conspiratorial overtone. "You wanna see?"

"You bet I do."

"Well come on then, and get yourself a look." He extended an arm, and together they walked out the back door. Arneson sighed and followed.

The scene out back brought up old memories in Arneson: hot nights in desert cities, folks packed cheek to jowl, sweating and shouting and waving grubby fistfuls of money. They howled like pagans in some forgotten ceremony. The growl and snarl of the combatants, the bloodthirsty roar of the crowd before the kill came down.

"What the
fuck
?" Arneson heard the anger in Sugar's voice and stepped forward to slide a hand around her bicep.

Inside a swept circle of dirt, fenced by raw wooden posts strung with barbed wire, a huge Mastiff snapped and snarled at a cowering Skunger. Blood dripped into the khaki dust of the pit, turning black as it mixed into older stains. Curds of whitish foam flew from the dog's mouth as it circled.

Red-faced locals surged and milled, screaming into the center of the circle. The place stank of sweat, fear, and hatred. Men in sleeveless flannel shirts and logo-emblazoned caps held tight to hard-looking women with dyed hair and red, chapped faces."Get her, Caesar!"

The dog lunged, catching the Skunger's arm in its gnashing mouth. The Skunger screamed in pain. Long blond ringlets of hair peeked out from the furious growth on the Skunger's head. Her face was completely overgrown, all except for one staring China-blue eye.

"These people are sick," Sugar breathed. She yanked her arm away from Arneson's warning grip.

"Mind your own fuckin' business, bitch," a hard-faced blond woman said. Her tongue, strawberry-pink, darted out to poke at a crusted sore on her lip.

"And what about your business, huh? Who's going to mind
your
business? You and your sick fucking town."

The Skunger let out a savage cry, one hand groping against the dirt floor of the circle, and coming up with a jagged black piece of basalt. She bashed it into the dog's skull as it bit into her leg. The Skunge writhed and rustled, scrawling parabolas against her flesh, against the dirt, into the dog's mouth.

"Her Daddy did it to her!" the blond hissed. "The little slut asked for it." Now a few onlookers spoke up, murmuring their agreement.

"Pert Donaldson is a low-life son of a bitch," a fat man dressed head-to-toe in denim growled. He tipped back a sweating can of beer, eyeing them balefully. "He ruint that girl. Look at her now."

"Yes, look at her," Sugar said to the woman. "She's suffering." She turned to the rest of the crowd. "You're all animals! Imagine that's your daughter in there. Would you be cheering then?"

"She
is
my daughter." It was the hard-faced blond. She peered at Sugar. "You're another one of them, ain't you. The freaks." Several people in the crowd turned to watch them. The place had quieted, and someone yanked the dog out of the ring with a dogcatcher's noose. The Skunger girl lay gasping and bleeding in the dust. The blond leaned forward to peer at Sugar. "Yeah. Yeah, you are. Another damned freakazoid running around loose, pretending to be like a regular person." She turned to shout at the rest of the crowd. "Skungers! More of them, right here!"

Arneson settled back into his fighting stance, keeping his peripheral vision open. Standing in the crowd was like being inside a cane field when a sudden wind comes up: shifting, moving bodies everywhere. No way to back out.

CHAPTER FORTY SIX

The crowd closed in.
Hateful faces surrounded them like sneering pale balloons. Clenched oil-stained fists, faces red as their wearer's checked flannel jackets. Arneson saw several pistols appear, not pointed toward them yet, but plenty ready.

"Goddamn freaks!"

"You get the hell out of our town!"

"Get these sons-a-bitches and give them—"

A trio of burly types rushed, and Arneson stepped forward to meet them. One dropped with a harsh coughing sound, clutching at his balls. The other stopped short, eyeing his friend, and backed off. He spat a long stream of dark brown tobacco at Arneson's boots, then turned tail and ran when Arneson faked a lunge in his direction. The last guy had taken the time to pick up a rusty pry bar, and it whistled menacingly as he swung it back and forth, advancing on Arneson.

Arneson settled back, keeping his peripheral vision open in case anyone tried to sneak from behind. He kicked a cloud of dirt at Pry Bar, and used the distraction to dip into his jacket and pull out his knife.

Pry Bar lunged, swinging, and Arneson danced back, feeling the iron bar swat the ends of his leather jacket. He had a moment to decide if he should reach in to the sudden gap Pry bar had opened. One clean, shallow stick would stop him, but it was too easy to nick a lung and leave him lying in the dirt, choking on his own blood. Too late, Arneson's chance passed. He was hemmed in from the back, too close for another jump back. If Pry Bar kept coming, Arneson would have no choice but to cut him, just to back him off. And here he came. Arneson got ready.

The boom of a shotgun froze everyone in place. The only sound in the sudde quiet was the growl of the dog, the sobs of the girl in the ring, and the groan of the man on the ground.

A mountainous man in denim coveralls strode through the crowd toward Arneson like a giant walking through a cane-field. The people parted for him, whispering and murmuring.

"Cut the shit, Markey." The big man's voice was a
basso profondo
that rumbled up from somewhere in his impressive gut. Pry Bar backed off a step, glaring malevolently. "Looks like you caught one in the marbles, Bodie; go put an icepack on it." Bodie, still holding his balls, tottered to his feet and stumped off, aiming an almost childlike look of dislike at Arneson.