Memphis Run

Chapter Seventeen

Chastity lost her grip on Hickok’s hand and fell on her buttocks.

“Daddy!” she cried.

Nose Ring and his companions laughed as they brushed past the gunman, but they only took one step before his enraged voice stopped them in their tracks.

“That’s far enough!”

The hardcases turned slowly, confident in themselves, smirking. All four wore handguns. All four radiated a palpable air of menace.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Hickok demanded, his hands hovering next to his Pythons.

“What’s it to you?” Nose Ring replied contemptuously. He saw a woman with an automatic rifle come around and pick up the blonde girl.

Hickok glanced at Chastity and Bonnie, then, incredibly, hooked his thumbs in his gunbelt and grinned. “What a wit. You must be the brains in your family.”

Nose Ring bristled. “I wouldn’t push it, if I were you.”

“Thank the Spirit you’re not me,” Hickok mocked him. “I wouldn’t want to look that ugly and smell that bad if I could help it.”

“Do you know who you’re talking to?”

“Four medical marvels.”

“What?”

“Four livin’, breathin’ dead men.”

Nose Ring looked at the other hardcases. “We’re not dead yet.”

The nearest pedestrians were discreetly trying to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the altercation.

“You can count the minutes you have left on one hand,” Hickok declared.

Nose Ring scrutinized the guy in the buckskins, noting the pearl-handled revolvers and the M-16 over the guy’s left shoulder. He experienced a fleeting sensation of dread, but shook it off by thinking of all the saps he’d wasted in his travels. No one had ever beaten him, and no one ever would.

“We don’t want any trouble,” said someone to their rear.

The four hardcases looked behind them to find a giant in a black leather vest.

“You don’t want any trouble?” Nose Ring repeated.

“No,” the giant stated, looking at the guy in buckskins. “We don’t want to get in trouble with the Hounds, do we?”

“Did you see what these cow chips did?” Hickok demanded.

“I saw,” Blade said.

“Are you sayin’ I can’t teach them manners?”

“We don’t want to attract the Hounds,” Blade reiterated.

“Nobody treats Chastity that way,” Hickok remarked angrily.

“We don’t want trouble,” Blade said yet again.

“What’s the big deal?” Nose Ring interjected. “So what if the little cunt got knocked on her ass?”

Blade sighed and put his hands on his hips. “Did you eat radioactive waste when you were younger?”

“What kind of dumb-ass question is that?” Nose Ring rejoined.

“I just thought there might be a logical explanation for your suicide complex,” Blade said.

“Suicide?” Nose Ring snorted. “I don’t want to kill myself, you jerk.”

Blade walked to the left, out of the line of fire, and grinned. “You just did, you jerk.”

“I’ll make this fair,” Hickok declared. “You can go for your irons first.”

“Do you think you can take all four of us?” Nose Ring demanded.

“In my sleep.”

Nose Ring gazed at each of the other hardcases, then chuckled. “Let’s show this windbag.”

Pedestrians were now running in every direction.

“Whenever you coyotes get the notion,” Hickok said. “But I don’t have all day for you to get up the nerve.”

“Screw you!” Nose Ring snapped, and went for his gun, his companions doing likewise.

Hickok seemed to be frozen in place. He stayed immobile as their hands streaked to their handguns, and he was motionless as those handguns began to rise and clear leather. Not until Nose Ring was leveling a revolver did the gunfighter move, his draw a literal blur, both Colts blasting.

Nose Ring and the hardcase to his left were struck in the forehead, and both of them rocked on their heels and toppled over. The last two hardcases fared no better. They were struck down before they could bring their revolvers into play, one shot through the left eye, the other the right.

Hickok stared at the four corpses for a moment. “I wonder how they managed to put on their pants without help,” he quipped. Then he started reloading the spent rounds in his Colts.

Blade surveyed the sea of stunned expressions surrounding them. “The Hounds will investigate, won’t they?” he asked Bonnie.

“At the most, we have five minutes,” she replied.

“Let’s get out of here,” Blade said.

“Do you still want to lay low for an hour?” Bonnie queried.

“No,” Blade answered. “Laying low wouldn’t accomplish anything now.

Take us directly to the King’s estate.”

“About time,” Hickok interjected. “I’m tired of this pussy-footin’ around.”

Bonnie headed northward. “Stay close to me.” She smiled at Chastity.

“Are you okay?”

Snug in Bonnie’s arms, Chastity nodded. “My daddy taught them a lesson.”

“I’ve never seen anyone as fast as your daddy,” Bonnie commented.

Chastity beamed. “Yeah. Daddy is real good at shooting people. He shoots them all the time.”

“Remind me to never get your daddy mad at me,” Bonnie said.

“I wouldn’t let him shoot you,” Chastity declared. “I like you.”

“Gee, thanks,” Bonnie responded.

“Unless you got him real mad,” Chastity added. “Then it might be okay for him to shoot you in the foot.”

Bonnie grinned. “I’m beginning to understand why the two of you are so close.”

“Are we two peas in a pod?”

“Yeah. I’d say so. Where did you hear that?”

“Uncle Rikki said so,” Chastity replied.

“I haven’t met your Uncle Rikki yet. Is he nice?”

“Real nice. He teases Daddy a lot.”

“Does Uncle Rikki have a woman?”

“Yep. A lady named Lexine. She lives at their Home.”

“Figures,” Bonnie said wistfully.

The Warriors came abreast of them.

“Do you want me to hold you, princess?” Hickok asked.

“I don’t mind,” Bonnie said.

“I’m fine,” Chastity stated. “You’d better be ready in case more bad men show up.”

“How many people have you shot?” Bonnie inquired.

“I never counted ’em,” Hickok said.

“A few? A lot?”

“What difference does it make?” Hickok retorted.

“I was just curious,” Bonnie explained. “Have you ever shot anyone in the foot?”

“Once or twice. Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” Bonnie commented, and laughed.

The gunman looked at Blade. “Why are women so blamed weird?”

“I never noticed they were,” Blade replied.

“I keep forgettin’. Your missus has the wool pulled over your eyes,” Hickok declared.

“She does not.”

“And you don’t think that womenfolk are a teensy-weensy bit on the strange side?”

“No.”

“I rest my case.”

They hurried along the avenue. The farther they went, the less attention was directed their way. After four blocks no one was gawking at them.

Hickok looked over his right shoulder. “Looks like we hood-winked those varmints.”

“You spoke too soon,” Blade said, nodding to the north.

A Hound patrol was approaching down the middle of the boulevard, pushing through the crowd, the sergeant in the lead barking for everyone to stand aside.

“Quick,” Blade declared, angling to the right-hand curb. He halted at a rickety wooden booth manned by a grizzled proprietor with a toothless smirk, who was wearing a bedraggled wool coat even in the August heat.

“Can I help you?” the man asked. “Honest Ike is my name.”

Blade rested his hands on his knees and pretended to inspect the wares in the stand, casually regarding a collection of rusted pots and pans, dog-eared books, faded clothes, various utensils, and assorted odds and ends.

“Everything is ten percent off today,” Ike informed them. “I’m having a clearance sale.”

“You make a living sellin’ this stuff?” Hickok queried, fingering a glass unicorn with three legs and a broken horn.

“Yep. And don’t touch the merchandise, sonny. You break it, you pay for it.”

“Where do you find this junk?” Hickok asked.

Honest Ike glared at the gunman. “I’ll thank you not to call my quality merchandise junk. Folks come from miles around to trade with me.”

Blade gazed at the avenue, watching the Hound patrol as they hastened to the south.

“What’s that?” Hickok inquired, pointing at a battered paperback in the corner of a shelf. Displayed on the cover was a snarling hound in a gold Egyptian headdress.

“It’s a book, dummy.”

“I know that,” Hickok said. “Is it any good?”

“Why don’t you read it and find out.”

“How much?”

“For you, I’ll let it go for eight bullets.”

Hickok glanced at the old-timer. “Eight rounds of ammo for a book?”

“We don’t need anything.” Blade said, straightening. The Hound patrol was out of sight.

“Seven bullets,” Ike said.

“Is it a horror book?” Hickok asked.

“It’s a scary one, all right,” Ike confirmed. “Lots of blood and gore. It’s about this plague—”

“No, thanks,” Hickok said.

“Six bullets.”

“No,” Hickok responded, turning away.

“Five.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m partial to Westerns.”

“It has sex in it.”

Hickok halted and stared at the book. “It does?”

“Forget the book,” Blade directed, nudging the gunman’s left shoulder.

“We have important business to attend to. Remember?”

“A little literary culture never hurt anyone,” Hickok remarked.

They resumed their trek in a northerly direction, on the alert for Hounds.

“Say, Daddy?” Chastity spoke up two blocks later.

“What, missy?”

“What did that man mean?”

“About what?”

“That word he used,” Chastity said.

“Which word?”

“Sex. What’s sex?”

Hickok did a double take. “Sex?” he blurted out.

“What is it?” Chastity inquired earnestly.

“Yeah, Daddy. I’d like to hear this myself. What is sex?” Blade queried impishly.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you about sex?” Hickok asked.

“No.”

“She’s only six, for crying out loud,” Blade noted.

“How about the birds and the bees?” Hickok questioned.

“I know about them,” Chastity said. “Birds have feathers and wings and fly. Bees have wings and stingers.”

“You sure know your birds and bees,” Hickok muttered.

“So what’s sex?” Chastity persisted inquisitively.

“Uhhhh,” Hickok stalled, keenly conscious of the amused gazes of Blade and Bonnie. “Sex is what happens when a man’s hormones are all agitated and a woman is feelin’ generous.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Have you ever noticed that men and women are different?”

“Yep,” Chastity responded.

“You have?”

“Women are smarter.”

“Says who?”

“My mom said that all the time.”

“Do you know about kissin’?”

Chastity scrunched her nose. “Kissing is yucky stuff.”

“You’ll like it better when you grow up.”

“Never,” Chastity declared. “I’ve seen people kissing and hugging. Once I saw this guy and girl in the park, and they were kissing and hugging and wrestling all at the same time.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Hickok said. “When you finally decide that kissin’ isn’t yucky, you should ask your new mommy about sex.”

“Will she know?”

“She’s a fair hand at it,” Hickok acknowledged.

“I’ll ask my new mommy when we get to the Home,” Chastity promised.

“And I’ll ask her why she’s fair at it.”

“Uh-oh,” Hickok said.

Laughing quietly, Bonnie looked at Blade. “Does he always stick his foot in his mouth?”

“Only when his mouth is open,” Blade replied.

They traveled another three blocks without incident.

“We take a right,” Bonnie instructed as they neared an intersection.

“How far to the estate?” Blade asked.

“Three miles, give or take,” Bonnie told him.

They bore to the right along a narrow street. Few of the barter booths were in evidence, and the number of pedestrians had dwindled.

“We’ll make better time,” Bonnie said.

Although they were able to increase their speed without arousing any undue glances or suspicion, Blade chafed at the pace. He was eager to locate Rikki and leave Memphis far behind. All he could think of was the stashed jeep and the likelihood of being with his loved ones in another week. After such a prolonged separation, such a reaction was natural.

And costly.

Engrossed in his reflection. Blade was not devoting his full attention to the road and sidewalks. His acute hearing vaguely registered a jumble of subdued noises from a junction ahead, but he was absently wondering if they would be able to rescue Rikki before nightfall.

“Take a left,” Bonnie mentioned.

“Are your arms gettin’ tired?” Hickok inquired.

Bonnie glanced at the gunman and smiled. “No. But thanks. I can carry her for a mile yet.”

They started to round the corner.

“You won’t need to carry the child that far, my dear,” stated someone arrogantly. “We wouldn’t want you to strain yourself.”

“You!” Bonnie exclaimed in horror.

A lone figure stood in the center of the street 20 feet away, his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a black uniform glittering with gold medals. His hair, mustache, and beard were all black. “Yes, vixen. It is I.”

He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers. “But I didn’t come alone.”

Dozens of Hounds materialized, training their weapons on the Warriors and the woman. They were stationed on the rooftops and positioned at upper-story windows. They poured from doorways, forming two rows across the street behind the man with the medals. A pair of jeeps roared from an alley farther down and raced almost to the two rows before braking. A Hound stood in the rear of each vehicle, manning a swivel-mounted machine gun.

“Have you missed me, Bonnie?” the man said with a sneer.

Bonnie uttered a plaintive groan. “We’re dead!”