The Outlaw Stinky Joe (Baer Creighton Book 4), page 14
Joe pressed through the back room opening into the larger cave, now bright with morning light. He stretched—but stopped when torn muscles complained. As if two legs were hobbled, he maneuvered to the edge of the cave. He approached with narrow eyes and sniffed into the breeze, detecting the far-off scent of the mountain lion from the night before. Maybe it was still there, waiting to eat its fill.
The scent of the she-coyote was closer than the lion. Fresher. She didn’t have the same acidic coldness as when he found her lair.
Motion caught his eye.
A dozen yards off, a gray squirrel raced across a fallen log and bounded to a tree trunk. Behind it followed a second flash of gray. The first stopped. The second tumbled into it, knocking it from the trunk. They both flopped in the air and landed in a full sprint.
Grays.
He’d killed many over the winter. They were always an exercise in frustration. Killing them demanded infinite patience, stalking into their territory, waiting for them to play nearby—then explosive speed. As Joe lay in the outer cave, his ambition flagged. He could barely walk, let alone bound after a gray. Besides, grays were frustrating to eat. Just guts and hair.
He curled at the edge of the cave and tucked his nose into his paws. The effort of moving from the back room left him exhausted. His body seemed cold, but also hot, and his perception of the world was different than before, as if both he and the world suffered from vertigo.
Joe closed his eyes but the unsteadiness continued.
He shivered and slept.
Leaves rustled quick like feet splashing close. Joe opened his eyes and tensed for battle.
He stood—and his shredded chest pressed a whimper from his chest. The motion was more than his fevered and beaten body could endure.
Still—Joe turned the whimper into a growl.
The she-coyote leaped toward him, full speed, then cut away before tumbling them both deep into the cave. She whirled. Bounded again, and this time, inches from Joe’s face, dropped both paws to the ground before him and lunged. She danced sideways. Withdrew. Yipped.
Play?
Joe smelled her. Interesting.
Maybe another day.
Joe lay back down.
The she-coyote stood a few feet off, sniffing. After a moment she stepped to him with her head low, her forelegs extended, propelled forward with a submissive wriggling motion. Arriving at him, she sniffed his nose, and he inhaled her scent, an intoxicating femininity that triggered his lust but failed to fuel it. Joe lifted his head, licked her nose, and placed his head on his paws. He sighed.
In all the conditions he’d survived, he’d never before been existentially weak. He’d felt terror and hunger. Murder lust. Ambition. But never had he felt like a companion of the cold ground and leaves.
The she-coyote lay beside him and nudged him partly to his side. She licked the wounds on his chest. He looked at her a moment, then lowered his head to the dirt. Breathed in the scent of dried oak leaves. She stopped after a while and sniffed over his body, and again nudged him with her nose. He ignored her. She insisted. He flopped, and she now licked the sore and seeping tear caused by the other she-coyote who’d attacked his flank and partly ripped open the tendon.
He snuggled his face into the fluff of her tail but the soothing abrasiveness of her tongue and the succor of her ministrations did nothing for the vertigo and growing sickness in his stomach, the feeling his body was at war with itself.
Joe’s throat rumbled. Enough.
The she-coyote lifted herself. She nosed his face, and bounded into the leaves.
Joe closed his eyes and dreamed of mountain lion.
Dead coyotes. Dead pups.
Dead Joe.
Again, the sound of leaves warned Joe awake. The sun had moved across the sky, and now when Joe opened his eyes, the feeling of oneness with the chilly dirt disappeared. He was cold; his body trembled beneath his coat. The sun rays that had warmed him were gone, and volition swelled within him. He desired motion.
She came quickly into the entrance, and Joe perked at the vision: she carried a limp rabbit in her jaws. She dropped it before him, and Joe brought his nose in quick for a ceremonial sniff and then gnashed into the hind quarter the she-coyote had already torn open.
The meat ripped easy and still dripped with freshness. Only moments ago the animal leaped in terror, and the flesh still bled with vibrancy. Joe tore and swallowed. Here was wholesome food. The flavors maddened his senses. Joe held the corpse in his paws and pulled sinew. Spat hair. What a game. The excitement pressed out a tiny fart. He saw one last easily available morsel and ripped it from the carcass, then—his belly heavy with meat—nosed the remaining rabbit aside.
The she-coyote growled low and friendly, mannerly, and dragged the remainder to the other side of the cave. She placed it between her paws and fed.
Joe stretched muscles that now, for their agony, felt alive. Easing one paw before the other, he exited the cave.
The sun was low and cut through naked trees that bristled defiant against winter. Joe lifted his leg and emptied his bladder on a rock. As he stood, the recent meal created a pressure in his bowels that urged a different release. He circled the boulder and keeping nose high, cautious, he scented the wind and found it harmless. Each step an exercise in overcoming pain—yet feeling the better for it—Joe moved away until he was far enough, and squatted.
It was tense work, holding the position, and at its conclusion when he attempted to kick dirt and leaves behind him, he instead provoked a new suffering in his ripped rear leg. The vertigo returned. His belly was full, and he fought a gagging sensation. Stumbling and weary, Joe fought back to the cavern. He ignored the she-coyote’s growly yips, and pressed into the back room. Again he curled.
After a moment the entrance blocked. In the total dark, he smelled her close, and a tingle of fear passed through him.
But the she-coyote wriggled beside him, wrapped her tail around him on one end and nestled her nose on the other, and together they slept.
Chapter 30
They got some uncanny gizmos. Technology. Only way that FBI thug tracked me with the tinfoil body hat. Got to get away from Graves’ place. Altogether away—where there’s so many people they can’t know who is who.
I need wheels.
I’m half down the back side of Luke Graves’ mountain, and with early spring the buds are green in the trees, but there’s no leaf cover. I can see a mile but a mile can see me. Spot a road at the bottom, and a black pickup truck easing along, like they do in the west.
A truck would be real nice.
Downhill, my punji-stuck calf slows me. Feel the juice inside. I grab a tree and that recalls how I got snookered the first time. So I step slow and easy and take peace from the idea I’m protected above, ‘cause Stinky Joe’s a good pup and the Big Man wants him saved. Holed up in the mountain, I read some of Graves’ Bible. God made wisdom come out the mouth of a jackass, so it ain’t beyond belief he might make good come out of me.
But even thinking it, I don’t feel it. Walk like I carry thirty dead men on my shoulders.
Slope levels to flat. Somewhere before me the forest road cuts the vale. I get there it might be another day before a vehicle comes along. I ready my soul to be a little more abrupt asking a lift.
Map says the next turn is a mile ahead. Then cross the bridge and grab the highway.
Tromp along. Easy to get a good lope rolling on the flat. Clothes a little loose in the posterior. Ain’t but mid-morning and the air got a nip to it. Feels good. Burns like wood smoke deep in the lungs. I’ll be dead someday but now I’m alive. Air’s clean; sun’s bright. Motion lubricates the joints.
When it’s just the wilderness and your body, the mind sits separate. Regards the both.
Don’t want to brood—can’t really, with the sun bright.
After a mile or so I think on my pace. If I don’t steal a lift from the first somebody that drives by, that’s bad news for Joe. And I need a lift on the back road. Won’t work to stand on Interstate 40 waving a Glock.
Come to the first turn.
March on, Baer Creighton. If you need to march all night, you will.
I think on Stinky Joe, how I always compare him to Fred. Maybe Joe compares me to all the bastards he knew first. Longer I walk, more my belly gnaws my ribs. If I was to stumble on a jug of liquor out here, that’d be a barrel a titties. And thinking on titties, as a feller is wont, I’m a mere man. Tat’s got the right proportions. She looks skinny but the jugs are deceptive.
Ain’t the most difficult thing in the world for a gal like that to seduce a man in his sleep.
Now that I’m in the sunshine I’ll fess it straight up: I’d enjoy waking like that every morning, if I thought my back could hold.
Make a man ask, just whose morals are in my head?
Take them back. I’ve no use for them.
Car!
I wave high and wide.
He doesn’t slow.
All right.
Fetch Glock. Step center-road. Point. The car’s nose drops. Dust at the wheels. Skids on dirt.
I make the rolly-motion. Window down.
“I need a lift.”
Lotta hair inside the car. Can’t see for nothing with the glass glare. Maybe there’s a gun at me already.
I step to the side.
Woman. Youngish.
I lower the pistol, as all women are good, kind, and virtuous.
“Need a ride. Apologize on the gun. Just wanted your attention.”
She stomps the gas. Back tires spit dirt. I swing Glock at the wheel and blast it.
“Stop the car, Miss!”
She keeps full on the gas. Both rear tires spin but the one’s blown and the other ain’t. This girl didn’t grow up on NASCAR. She cuts the wheel hard left and hard right, each time too late, and instead of correcting she makes the cattywampus worse. Runs in the ditch and stops with a thunk.
She escaped twenty yards. I don’t want her running off, so I keep the gun level at her. Walk up careful. A fair proportion of young women is plumb nuts.
“Miss, I need your wheels. I’m after my dog. Just need a little help.”
I get to the window and peek inside. Put Glock down in the holster.
“So here’s what we do. You got a spare tire?”
Her face is red like a monkey slapped it twice. She nods.
“Okay. See here?”
I reach to my back. Open the money bag and fetch a gold coin. Zip it closed with the same hand. Give it to her. She recoils, even seeing it sparkle. She holds it away like I give her cooties.
“That’s a maple leaf. Canadian gold. It’ll fetch about eight hundred bucks, last I looked. So here’s the deal—”
“You’re that killer—”
“Well—you see—”
“You’re going to murder me—”
“No … Well—only if—”
She holds up a small can with a nozzle. Presses it.
I back away and the spray makes me sneeze. Breeze carries off the mist. Meanwhile she puts the shifter in reverse.
I lift Glock.
“Aw shit, woman! Just keep your damn head is all. Listen. I’ll swap your tire with the spare. Give you enough gold to pay the rent maybe once or twice. Get you some more hair spray, whatever that was.”
“Bear repellent.”
I’d laugh if she wasn’t so pitiful. “I give you the money. For exchange, I get a ride to Flag. That’s it. No killing, fornicating, whatever else you dreamed up. You drive off with a gold coin for your trouble.”
“Oh my god, I’m gonna die! You’ll kill me like the others!”
“Easy, lady. They had it coming, and so far you don’t. I just need a favor. Slow down and listen.”
Her head goes up and down. Pan-eyed. Mouth pouty.
“Okay. Step one. Take the keys out the ignition. Hand them over.”
She does.
“Step two, pop your trunk.”
“Oh God.”
“Not for you. I got to get the spare.”
Trunk pops.
“You got a telephone?”
Head shake.
“You ain’t but twenty-five, if. You got a phone. Gimme.”
She pulls a cell out her purse. Swipes it and starts pressing numbers.
I reach through the window, grab the phone out her hands. Drop it to the road and stomp with the heel. Fetch her another coin.
“I see the trouble. You got a coat or something? Grab it. Get out the vehicle. Go. Run out there in the woods where you’ll feel safe, and I’ll leave the car in Flagstaff for you. Sound good?”
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“Godamighty woman. Just leave, right? Slide across the seat. Slip out the other side. Good to go.”
“But we’re in the woods.”
I had an extra life, I’d kill myself. Start over.
Instead I point Glock at her head. “Get out the car. This door that door I don’t care. Just get out. And walk. I don’t care where you walk. Just stop talking. Make your escape. Gimme peace. Let me fix the tire.”
She slides across the seat best she can with a big ass and her hands up in the air. Out the other door. Now she runs girly-girly, hands at her hips and feet skittering.
“Call the police tomorrow. They’ll tell you where to find your car.”
She crosses the road and heads through the trees.
Open the door, pull the brake. Fetch the jack out the trunk. Lift the car like I work at the Indy track, swap the full size for the donut spare. If there’s one man needs strung up by his nuts on a cactus, it’s the man who thought up the donut spare. Throw the jack in the trunk and the shot tire too, slam the lid, and done inside five minutes.
Back the car out the ditch and consult the map. Look up and, sure as hellfire, she’s come back. Right there, other side the road.
“Can I have a ride?”
“What?”
“I need to go to work. I’ll be late without a ride.”
Last thing I need is a woman won’t shut up, tangle my mind. Lure me off my plan. It’s her car and technically, it’s almost like I’m a thief. But the self preservation instinct is strong and I’d ‘ruther set her up for failure than me.
“You promise, I give you a ride, you never tell a soul? Not a single person in the whole world?”
She nods. Vigorous. “I promise. Not a soul.”
Sparks. Red. Shocks from twenty feet.
I stomp the gas.
Girl can walk.
Do those hips a favor.
Chapter 31
Shirley thought about washing her feet, but reaching them for very long hurt her hamstrings, and Lorell Higgins, CPA had been pretty thorough licking the bacon grease. If he missed any, it’d be a moisturizer.
Shirley pushed her feet into a sloppy fitting pair of wool socks and then into heavy duty slippers, designed for dual indoor/outdoor use.
She thought about what connected Clyde Munsinger, Lester Toungate, and Betsy Peck.
Betsy had been cheating the books on behalf of Lester Toungate, and hating it. Shirley had heard rumors about how Betsy’s son died, and the Toungates were involved. All those years she lived like Shirley, choking on man’s evil, one way or another. Finally she saw an opportunity to avenge her son’s death, if only in a passive form. She hadn’t taken a machete to his gonads, as Shirley would to the poor soul that ever harmed her precious son Brass.
Betsy had been more clever.
Sinister.
History said men kill with swords and women with poison. Men prefer brute strength and butchery. Women—the ability to strike from afar, over a period of time, with plausible deniability. It suited a woman’s strengths. Well, Betsy chose to kill Lester Toungate with poison. She sold the trailer park to a whippersnapper bent on causing problems, and then bolted. The poison worked its magic, and the result: Lester Toungate was frantic to hunt down the information that would soon destroy his business. He needed the thumb drive.
The antidote.
And best of all: no one knew where Betsy hid.
Hats off to sister Betsy Peck.
Enter Clyde Munsinger. If the misdeeds in the ledgers were as obvious as Lorell said, then Clyde didn’t buy the joint unaware. He bought two businesses at one time: a trailer resort and a money laundering service. Business? Enterprise? Fiefdom? What do you call a half-ass, skirt-the-law operation that deals in millions?
Probably just a regular old business.
Ergo—she loved that word, kept it in a mental file under Pretentious—Clyde Munsinger compiled evidence and, after getting his face half ripped off, threatened to expose Lester Toungate’s misdeeds with Betsy.
For an old man like Lester, any prison time at all probably meant ending his life behind bars. No criminal wanted to go to jail. But Lester’s age raised his stakes.
So Lester and El Jay shredded Shirley’s place looking for the evidence.
And all of that suggested Lester already killed Clyde, and didn’t find the thumb drive.
Eventually Lester would come back to her. Whether he found the dog or not, he’d return. Just to be thorough.
No.
Nah.
This is ... This is a bad movie at two a.m.
Clyde—this very minute—was in his office pulling his pud. Lester might talk with hard edges, but he was ancient.
Uh ... yeah. Ancient is when people killed even more people.
She’d settle it right now.
Dressed for April weather—colder than a reasonable person would prefer—she departed for Clyde’s place. The trailer park’s office was the front room of a small farm house that had been modified by adding two extra windows. So Betsy had said.
Shirley prepared to find Clyde scowling over a computer. Wouldn’t even need to go inside. Just out for a stroll.
She approached. Her knees hurt. Walking ought to be outlawed. Ain’t right or natural. The office was dark. Still, lots of folks save energy by leaving the lights off in the afternoon.
She’d feign a reason to stop by. Nice thing about Clyde, soon as you saw him, you thought of a reason to cuss him.
