Rumble Tumble

24

We hadn’t gone very far when we heard the plane lift off. We looked back and saw it make a half circle and head south, a great shadow against the night sky, a couple of weak red lights burning.

“We won’t see them again, will we?” Brett said.

“Probably not,” I said. “We just got to do this as best we can.”

“Bill will make Irvin wait the allotted time,” Herman said.

“Your brother?” Leonard asked. “He going to make him wait?”

“Red … I can’t say,” Herman said. “Red has feelings for me when I’m present, but I suspicion out of sight out of mind to some extent.”

We walked for a long time, eventually began to notice there was more foliage. It was sparse at first, like a few pimples on a teenager’s face, then it became thick as acne, dark and full in the moonlight. Finally there were scrubby trees. We came to a slight rise, and just before topping it, I took the pack and canteen from Leonard, who had been carrying it, and we all shared water. Satisfied, we started over the rise and stopped suddenly.

Down below in a place not deep enough to be a valley, but lower than the land we had crossed, there was a very green expanse and there was a log cabin built ranch style. The logs had obviously been hauled in. There wasn’t a tree anywhere big enough to hollow out into a canoe, let alone build a house.

The cabin was brightly lit and there was a lot of activity inside. We could hear someone singing. Badly. And there was laughter and loud talk.

Off to the right of the cabin was a great pool of water and in the middle of the pool was a huge water pump under an open shed. There was a bridge that ran from the shed to the cabin. The water looked like ink in the moonlight. To the left of the cabin was a corral, and in it were horses and mules; the mules easily distinguished by their tall ears.

Further left was a huge tank, heating fuel most likely, and beyond that a satellite dish, and further left a barn like you would expect to find somewhere in Iowa. There were two jeeps parked out front.

To prevent being outlined in the moonlight, we all hit the dirt and lay on top of the rise. Leonard said, “This has to be it.”

“This is it,” Herman said. “I’ve been here. I came by plane and was driven in by jeep by a slightly different route. I remember it well. It’s kind of a country club, if what you like to do instead of golf is drink, pill, and screw. You’d be amazed how well equipped it is. Television. Movies. Horseback riding.”

“We put one of the vehicles out of commission, take the other,” Leonard said.

“What we do first,” Herman said, “is slide down there and see what’s happening. Try and locate Tillie. There’s a chance she might not even be here. If she isn’t, we slide right on back, head to the plane on foot, and they never know we’ve been here.”

“He has a point,” I said.

“I’ll snoop down there, see if I can locate Tillie,” Leonard said. “I see her, I’ll come back and report. Then you disable one of the rides, Herman, hot-wire the other. Being a former career criminal, I assume you know how to do that.”

“I can manage,” Herman said.

“Then it’s you and me, Hap,” Leonard said. “We go down there and open up a can of blazing whup ass with a lava chaser.”

“You and Hap and me,” Brett said.

“If you insist on being modern,” Leonard said. “Me and Hap and you. One thing though, I go down there and you hear gunfire, don’t think I want to do the noble thing. You know, like have you leave my ass so you can escape. You come down there with guns blazing.”

“They’ll think it’s the Battle of the Bulge,” I said.

“I’ll take the honky spreader,” Leonard said.

I had been carrying it. I traded it for the standard pump shotgun. Brett was carrying one of the modified Winchesters. We had given Herman the other one. With some reluctance I gave him ammunition to put in it. I gave Leonard shotgun shells, fixed me and Brett up with loads.

“I’m so goddamn scared I’m shaking,” I said.

“I get scared,” Leonard said, “my dick gets hard.”

Leonard slipped the strap of the shotgun over his shoulder, went quietly and quickly over the rise on his stomach and began to crawl toward the ranch house.

Herman said, “I hope he knows what he’s doing.”

“Trust me,” I said. “He did this in Vietnam. He’s got a houseful of medals to prove it. He’s forgot more about stalking than you and me and Natty Bumppo ever knew.”

“Yeah, well,” Herman said, “let’s hope the stuff he’s forgotten isn’t the important stuff.”

The ground was pretty flat, but the brush grew thick now and was full of shadow. Leonard used this as his protection, crawling close to the ground.

I was starting to get giddy. Perhaps I needed a nap. A long vacation. Maybe Tillie was better off where she was and I was better off back at the house with Brett. I began to hanker for my bouncing job. I began to view working in the rose fields as a good time. I tried not to think too much about what I was doing. I didn’t want to shoot anybody, but I didn’t want to get Brett, Leonard, or myself killed by not shooting anyone.

I tried not to think about it. Trying not to think about it turned out to be a lot like thinking about it. I looked at Brett. She was peeking over the rise, watching Leonard slither down there. The moonlight fell across her face, and normally moonlight softened it, but now, without makeup, it looked hard and harsh, almost corpse pale. Her eyes were narrowed and her mouth, normally full and inviting, was a thin line. Her hair was bound back severely with a black ribbon. She held the Winchester like someone who wanted to use it and might be disappointed if she didn’t get to.

I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

“He’s up to the house,” Herman said.

“Someone comes out of the house, points him out, we got to start shooting right then,” I said. “Maybe we should trade guns, Brett. Modesty aside, I can shoot the ass off a fly at a hundred yards.”

“I’m a good shot myself,” Brett said.

“Yeah, but I’m going to venture I’m better,” I said. “Leonard says I’m the best there is.”

“Like he knows everything,” Brett said.

“Don’t let him hear you say I said it, but about some things he knows more than anyone has a right to. Like how well I shoot. You get inside, maybe you should have the shotgun. Easy to handle, spreads people all over the place. It’s alternately loaded with buckshot and slugs.”

Brett thought a moment, traded weapons with me.

“You start getting heated up,” Herman said to Brett, “mind where you’re firing that thing.”

I eased up slightly on the rise, lay the dark-barreled Winchester on the dirt mound, and pointed it down there. I saw a man come outside lighting a cigarette. Behind him, through the open door, came the sound of music and laughing. I saw a woman in a red dress walk by. She was long and lean with big breasts and reddish hair. I couldn’t see her face.

Tillie?

I drew a bead on the man. He closed the door, clung close to the wall, finally fell away from it, staggered into the foliage, shook his head, slapped the back of his neck as if to wake himself. He opened his fly and started pissing while he smoked.

A shadow came off the ground and fell down on him and the cigarette shot out of the man’s mouth and the man went down. A moment later he was dragged into the foliage.

“Leonard must have knifed him,” Herman said.

“Strangled him,” I said. “Leonard can constrict those arteries, crush your windpipe while you’re still trying to decide what’s happening. That’s one down.”

“But the question is,” Brett said, “one of how many?”

“I don’t think there’s a lot,” Herman said. “You can’t judge by the transportation, ’cause a lot of people get dropped off here. They hang out two or three days, then back to work. Kind of like a company picnic. Except for the whores. A lot of them get on the wrong side of these guys while they’re drinking and boozing. Throw in sex and the fact these people don’t have to pay for anything they do … Bad combination.”

“These people?” Brett said.

“Yeah,” Herman said. “I was one of them. But not now.”

I saw Leonard move out of the brush and over to a window, then away from it. He peeked in another, went around the side of the house and past the corral. The horses and mules rumbled about, then he was behind the house and out of sight.

We waited and watched a long time.

No Leonard.

I was beginning to get worried when I heard him speak softly behind us. “It’s me,” he said. “Don’t anybody shoot.”

“Goddamn, Leonard!” Brett said. “I damn near threw a turd.”

“Sorry,” Leonard said, squatting on the ground.

“You’re good,” Herman said.

“Yeah,” Leonard said. “I know.”

“What’s it like?” I said.

“Bad,” Leonard said. “In the front room I counted ten. It’s a big house. I went all around it. The windows at the back are covered. I could hear activity in the back room. Sex.”

“Did you see Tillie?” Brett asked.

“I think so,” Leonard said. “I saw three women. There’s one looks something like Tillie’s picture, but I think maybe she’s had some work done.”

“Work?” Brett said.

“I think she … or they … had her lips filled with collagen, or whatever that stuff is makes women look like they just got punched in the mouth. She’s got red hair. A red dress on.”

“I saw her pass the doorway,” I said.

Leonard nodded. “I think maybe she’s had something done to her nose and cheeks too. Sort of Barbie-dolled up. But I’m pretty sure it’s her.”

“Maybe we wait awhile till everyone’s good and drunk or drugged,” I said.

“You never know when a new group comes in,” Herman said. “The girls down there, they don’t get much rest. Truth is, they keep ’em so hyped on pills, they lose a lot of ’em. They keep ’em fired up because the traffic is constant. But one of ’em keels over, there’s plenty of sand to put them under out there, and there’s always a new one to bring in.”

“I don’t need to hear any more,” Brett said.

“I take the front,” I said. “Leonard, you take the back. I assume there’s a back door?”

“Yeah, but the hot action is up front,” Leonard said. “You and me ought to go in together. It’ll take both of us. We maybe can surprise them and take Tillie out without having to get too active. In the meantime, Herman has to put one of the vehicles out of whack, and hot-wire the other. Unless you can do that, Brett.”

Brett shook her head.

“Then you got to go in the back, Brett,” Leonard said. “You got to go in there meaner than a junkyard dog with a hot poker up its ass. What you see that ain’t Tillie, ain’t one of the working girls, you may have to shoot.”

“And you have to watch the working girls,” Herman said. “They have odd loyalties sometimes.”

“You got to grab Tillie if you see her and take her out whichever way is out,” Leonard said. “You got to try and grab the ride Herman’s wiring. And Herman, you got to protect that ride and cover our asses when we come out.”

“Done,” Herman said. “I’ll go down now. When I wave, one jeep’s dead and the other is hot-wired. Get the woman, and we’re out of here.”

“When Herman waves,” I said, “you go first, Brett. Go wide and around back. You don’t enter. You don’t do shit until you hear us up front. When we let loose, you count to three. Slowly. Then you go in the back. If it’s locked, blow off the lock and kick your way in. Remember, when you crank down on that baby the first shot will cover half the room. The second, the slug, will knock a hole in someone about the size of your fist.”

Leonard gave Herman his lock-blade knife.

“Luck to us all,” Herman said, and he went over the rise and down.