Anaheim Run

Chapter Seventeen

The storm struck southern California with a vengeance. Hickok, exposed to the elemental fury, was seething inwardly with an intensity equal to the storm’s. Ever since he’d arrived in California, there had been one setback after another! First, he’d missed the clown on the terminal roof at the airport. Then he’d nearly been blown to smithereens when the limo was hit. He’d almost been caught by the Gild, and to top everything off he’d gone and gotten captured by a group of illiterate cannibals!

Why did everything always happen to him!

The cannibals had taken shelter in the barracks. Driving sheets of rain pelted the ground and smacked against the fort. The gusting wind was whipping the trees surrounding the fort, bending the saplings almost in half.

Hickok swayed and rocked, soaked to the skin, vowing to get even with the varmints responsible for his latest humiliation. He glared at the barracks, wishing one of them, just one, would come outside and walk up to him so he could kick the crack-brained moron in the head!

One did.

Then another.

Hickok squinted, striving to see through the wall of rain. The landscape was plunged into a watery gloom by the combination of the storm and the twilight.

Two of the cannibals were walking his way.

Hickok tensed expectantly. What was up? Were they coming to kill him for the evening meal? He recognized the one called Tab, and he restrained an impulse to yell with delight when he spotted the pearl handles of his Colts sticking from Tab’s belt. He shifted his attention to the second cannibal, his eyes blinking in astonishment.

Was that a chicken?

The second cannibal was wearing torn, ragged jeans, a faded blue shirt with large white buttons on the front, and some kind of bizarre headgear.

He looked for all the world like a fuzzy white chicken with a yellow bill.

Only this bird was carrying an axe in his right hand.

Just when you think you’ve seen everything!

Tab and the second cannibal halted a yard from the swinging gunman, Tab with a carving knife in his left hand. He smirked at the Warrior.

“Guess what time it is?” he shouted above the wind and the rain.

“Time for your diaper to be changed?” Hickok yelled back.

Tab scowled. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

“Not as funny as your face!” Hickok retorted.

Tab didn’t appreciate the insult one bit. He brandished the carving knife menacingly. “You won’t be such a smart aleck when we’re done with you!”

“You’ll get yours!” Hickok vowed.

Tab motioned with the knife, and the chicken walked off to the left, to the post where the rope was secured.

“I hope this hurts!” Tab taunted the Warrior. He looked at the second cannibal. “Go ahead!”

The chicken raised his right arm, then arced the axe downward, slicing the rope.

Ordinarily a fall of three feet wouldn’t have fazed the gunman. But he had been hanging from the rope for hours; his shoulders were aching terribly, and his arms were numb from his elbows to his fingernails. He landed in the dirt, dropping to his knees, his shoulders lancing with pain.

Tab cackled. “You ain’t so high and mighty now, are you?”

Hickok doubled over, feigning extreme anguish, forcing his fingers to clench and unclench.

“On your feet!” Tab ordered.

Hickok stayed put, clenching and unclenching, clenching and unclenching, feeling his forearms start to tingle.

“On your feet!” Tab commanded angrily.

Hickok glanced up, careful to keep his hands hidden by his body. “I can’t! You’ll have to carry me!”

Tab laughed. “We ain’t going to carry your ass! On your feet! Now!”

The second cannibal stepped up to the Warrior.

Tab waved the carving knife in a small circle. “I’m not standing out in this rain all night! If you don’t get up, I’ll start cutting on you right here!”

Hickok pretended to rise, then slumped down again, furiously working his fingers. He couldn’t go for the Colts. Too noisy.

“Enough of this bullshit!” Tab bellowed. He looked at the duck. “Bring him!”

The second cannibal stooped over, taking hold of the Warrior’s left arm.

Hickok could feel sensation in his fingers again. He grinned, slowly rising, his blue eyes darting from the carving knife to the axe, assessing the probabilities, and he opted for the knife because Tab was holding it so carelessly, so loosely.

“Now that’s more like it!” Tab declared, the last words he was ever to utter.

Hickok lunged, his fingers closing on the top of the carving knife blade and wrenching it from Tab’s grasp even as his left leg drove up and out, catching the chicken in the midsection and sending the cannibal tumbling backwards. He slid his hands along the blade to the hilt and reversed the grip, extending the carving edge, all in a swift, smooth motion.

Tab went for the Colts.

Hickok slashed the carving knife in a vicious semicircle, and at the apex of his swing the cutting edge ripped the cannibal’s throat open from one side to the other.

Tab voiced a gurgling screech, clutching his neck, blood spurting everywhere.

There was no time to finish Tab off. Hickok whirled to confront his other opponent.

The bird had regained his balance and was hurtling toward the Warrior with his axe upraised for a death blow.

Hickok backpedaled, knowing his carving knife couldn’t withstand the axe, but as he retreated his moccasins slipped on the drenched, slippery ground and he fell to one knee. The movement saved his life.

The chicken had aimed a terrific swipe of the axe at the Warrior’s head, but the gunman’s misstep dropped him below the swinging axe.

Hickok found himself on his left knee, within arm’s reach of the chicken’s legs. He took instant advantage of the situation, stabbing the carving knife up and in, imbedding the blade in the bird’s groin.

The Second cannibal shrieked and released the axe, bending over and grabbing for his genitals.

Hickok yanked the knife out, then rose, bringing the carving knife up with the tip held vertically, savagely ramming the blade into the chicken’s neck.

The chicken squawked and frantically clawed at the Warrior’s eyes.

Hickok pulled the knife loose and sidestepped.

The chicken stumbled, almost straightened, then pitched onto his bill on the muddy turf.

Hickok twirled.

Tab was still on his feet, lurching toward the barracks, weaving and tottering, not ten feet off.

Hickok raced in pursuit and caught the cannibal by the scruff of the neck. He tugged, drawing Tab backwards, tripping the cannibal with his right leg.

Tab fell onto his back, the blood pouring from his throat, whining plaintively.

Hickok went to his knees, plunging the carving knife into Tab’s right eye.

Tab’s left eye widened and he opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. His arms flapping, he began convulsing uncontrollably.

Hickok maintained his pressure on the hilt until Tab’s spasms ceased.

He took a deep breath, then glanced at the barracks to see if more cannibals were after him.

None were in evidence.

Hickok quickly reversed his grip on the knife and applied the edge to the rope binding his wrists. Fifteen feet of rope trailed from his arms along the ground. He was lucky he hadn’t become entangled during the fight! And he was fortunate the howling wind and the pummeling rain had prevented the cannibals in the barracks from hearing the struggle!

After a minute the rope parted.

Hickok’s hands flashed to his Pythons, and he raised them aloft with a smile of exultation. The feel of the pearl grips against his palms sent a surge of adrenaline coursing through his body. He stood, the wind whipping his blond hair, the rain battering his buckskins, but he ignored the storm as he faced the barracks.

So they were going to eat him for supper, were they?

Gut him like a fish and fry his flesh in a skillet!

Hickok grinned, tingling with expectation. It was time to settle accounts, to avenge the countless nameless victims of the cannibals over the years, to teach these vermin the meaning of the word justice. He bolstered his Colts and stalked toward the barracks, calculating the odds.

Eight cannibals had jumped him at the dock, but others had been waiting at the fort when he was brought there. Fourteen all told. Four were women, four were kids. He wasn’t partial to blowing away ladyfolk and young’uns, so he’d let them live if they didn’t intervene. But the male cannibals were going to meet their Maker. Tab and the bird were dead, which left eight.

The fight would be about even.

The gunman stopped outside the barracks door and checked his Pythons. Both were loaded with five rounds in the cylinder. He replaced them in their holsters, squared his shoulders, and knocked on the door.

The barracks building was a low, squat affair with a single door on the north end. The flicker of a lantern was visible through one of the two drape-covered curtains. Laughter and boisterous gab emanated from inside.

Hickok knocked once more.

“Who’s there?” called a gruff voice.

Hickok recalled an ancient custom Plato had told him about when he was a small boy. In the prewar society, one night a year, the parents had sent their children out to collect as many bags of sweets as they could, simply so the parents could spend the next eleven months taking their youngsters to the dentist where the kids could have their sugar-corroded teeth repaired. A very strange custom.

“Who the hell is it?” the gruff voice demanded. “Tab? Is that you?”

“Trick or treat,” Hickok declared.

“What?”

“Trick or treat! Are you hard of hearing, you numbskull?”

“Tab, you and your stupid tricks…” the man began as the door opened.

“How’d you guess?” Hickok said.

The cannibal, a stocky man with unkempt hair and greasy clothing, armed with a revolver angled under his deer-hide belt, gaped at the Warrior. “You!” he blurted, trying to draw.

There was no contest.

Hickok’s arms were nearly invisible blurs as he pulled his irons, and the cannibal hadn’t even touched his firearm when the right Colt boomed and a crimson cavity blossomed in the cannibal’s forehead.

The stocky cannibal was hurled backward by the impact, crashing over a chair and smacking onto the hardwood floor.

Seven to go.

Hickok calmly stepped into the barracks, looking to the left and the right, finding cannibals on both sides.

A lean man grabbed a makeshift spear from the top of a wooden table and swept his arm back for the throw.

Hickok fired his left Python.

The spearman was hit in the nose, his head snapping backward as he was flung against the far wall.

Six left.

Pax and two other men were standing next to a row of beds aligned along the west wall. Pax’s Ruger was on the nearest bed and he made a lunge for the rifle.

One of the women was screaming.

Hickok sent a slug into Pax’s head and saw the chief cannibal drop like a plummeting rock. The gunfighter advanced toward the beds, his Pythons thundering twice more and the other two cannibals shared Pax’s fate.

Three men remaining.

Hickok felt a tug on his left sleeve as a gunshot sounded to his rear. He whirled, discovering a male cannibal with a derringer. His right Colt cracked and bucked, dispatching the man into eternity.

Two.

“Die, you bastard!” someone shouted to his right.

The gunfighter swiveled, Pythons leveled, and there were the two men charging toward him, one armed with a short sword, the other with a knife. The left Python blasted twice.

The pair of cannibals died side by side.

Hickok grinned. And that was that!

Not quite.

There was an inarticulate scream of sheer rage from behind him.

The gunfighter spun, finding a female cannibal in a grimy brown dress three paces away with a meat cleaver waving above her head. He shot her squarely between her green eyes and she pitched onto her face at his feet.

A sudden hush descended on the barracks.

Hickok surveyed the room, recounting the bodies. The four kids and the three surviving women were huddled in the southwest corner of the barracks, their features reflecting their abject fear. He took several steps in their direction. “If I were you,” he advised, “I’d stay put. Don’t leave this building. I’m going to tell tha Free State Army about you, and they’ll most likely send a squad over here to tidy up this mess. Don’t worry none. No harm will come to you. I’ll see to it, personal-like.” He paused, wondering if he was being understood. “You’ve got to stop livin’ like animals. You’ve got to stop treatin’ folks like portable munchies. The Free State people will help you. I’m sure of it. So don’t skedaddle.”

None of them said a word.

Hickok walked to the door, double-checking all the corpses as he went.

Satisfied they were dead, he halted and reloaded the spent rounds in his Pythons. He chuckled, feeling happy and content and so… so alive!

Reluctant as he was to admit the fact, the shootout had been just what he needed. Missing that sniper at the airport had rattled him, shaken his self-confidence. And subsequent events had only compounded the problem. But now he had redeemed himself in his eyes, had reaffirmed his prowess as a Warrior. Which meant he had to settle one more account, and pronto.

With the Gild.

The Colts reloaded, Hickok twirled them into their holsters, smiled and winked at the petrified cannibals in the corner, and ambled from the barracks into the blustering storm.