Sunday 28 February 2016

Chapter 5 - Shit Gets Real

Duguid didn't so much stand up as unfold, one set of joints at a time. He had a casual way about him, like he wasn't gonna hurry for no man, regardless of the circumstances. His legs were long enough that he could have stepped over me without so much as realising I was there. His nose and chin were pointed in a way the photo hadn't captured. The sharp edges they created just made him look all the more dangerous. The handgun holstered on his hip looked powerful enough to punch a hole in a tank.

'Taser is a hunter's weapon,' he said. His voice was rich, echoed around the space above me with all the inherent threat of storm clouds.

'As God is my witness, I'm not here for bounty,' I said. 'I want to talk about someone from your past, someone you knew once a long time ago.'

Muscles rippled under his vest. 'I'm listening,' he said.

'Years ago when I was a kid, you used to come to Twelve. After the services, you used to stay behind sometimes and talk to my mother. Tall woman, long hair, leather boots. Maybe you remember her.'

'Maybe I remember her. Why do you care?'

'She went missing after you left,' I said. 'I want to find her.'

His handsome face twisted then, like one of those demons they tell you about in stories. 'Are you accusing me of something?'

'No. I got no evidence that you were involved. Be honest, I ain't got nothing at all. I want a lead, some new information, something I haven't heard before. I guess...I want to know if you can help me.'

'So you say you want help, but you sneak up on a man while he's praying and point a taser at him.'

'Yeah, well, maybe you'll forgive me for that. I thought if maybe I came in the front door, you might not give me a chance to talk at all.'

Duguid squared onto me but made no attempt to approach. For my part, I lowered the taser maybe an inch, but I wanted something there that at least gave me a fighting chance if he changed his mind.

'This woman...your mother...yes, I remember her. Very pretty girl. The bluest eyes. But she had a troubled mind. She was a hunter, and she was looking out in the desert.'

'For what? What was she was looking for?'

'For who. She'd heard a story about a group of women holed up in an oasis a hundred miles or more out of town. She thought the person she wanted might be with them, and wanted to know if I could verify the stories.'

'And could you?'

'I hear things all the time. But who's to say what's true? The Sands are forever shifting. What's there today ain't always gonna be there tomorrow.'

My hands were trembling now. 'Who was the person, and where was the oasis?'

He scowled at me, and I got a sense that his patience was wearing thin. 'Boy, we're talking conversations that are ten years old. You're lucky your mother was so fine, else I don't reckon I'd remember her at all.'

'Can you give me a direction for this oasis?' I said.

He snorted with laughter. 'A direction. You gonna go out there and pick up her trail?'

I levelled the taser. 'If you give me the direction, I'll go now and get out of your face forever.'

'Ten years it's been and more,' Duguid said, turning away from me. 'Trail is cold, and so is she. Go on. You go runnin', now.'

I was so furious right there to see my mom's life written off in that way that I was all set to drop my taser and pull out my pistol. I never got a chance 'cause at the same time, a dark blur moved across the stained glass windows to my right. Duguid saw it too. A harsh female voice that I recognized only too well rang out from outside.

'Emmanuel Duguid, you're wanted for crimes against the state of Arizona. Get your ass out here now!'

Duguid's gaze flicked back to me, and his face curled into a snarl. 'Oh, I see. Keep me occupied and pen me in. So much for God being your witness.'

I pointed to the blur outside. 'Now, she ain't nothing to do with me.' But he wasn't buying it, and in his shoes, I wouldn't have either.

For a big man, Duguid could move. I fired the taser but he dodged it with ease, and his gun was in his hand in the same movement. I ducked as he stood up and his round shredded the pew to my left, turning it to matchwood.

I rolled, laser tight now in my hands, but if I shot this man, I was risking losing any chance of finding my mom. The cold metal grip was just another reminder of her.

A second round crashed over my head and tore an effigy of Jesus off the wall. A third shattered one of the stained glass windows. I popped a candy jack. Duguid's absolution was going to have to wait a while.

'Taking your time getting out here,' Jayci Clemence called. 'Hurry on up, now.'

For a moment, all was silence and I lay still as the dead, straining my ears to hear movement. From Duguid's direction there was nothing, but from behind me, I heard three soft thumps, like baseballs hitting a glove.

In slow-motion, I looked round to see the small, ball-shaped devices that had followed my route down from the bell tower. Nestled in the dust, they might have been goose eggs, except for the trigger and handle on the top of each that told a different story.

Jayci Clemence most definitely had a plan. She was gonna flush the bad out.

I ran then, and there was only one way to go.

The explosion took out the wall, the tower, half the roof and it also forced me through all of the pews left in the building. When I came to, I was looking up at the sky, turned crazy grey by the dust, and then when my eyes refocused, I was staring down the barrel of my own gun. Duguid's weapon might have been lost to him, but it was clear he wasn't a man to turn down an opportunity.

I said, 'Wait a minute here. You don't want to be doing that.'

'No trigger on this chigger. I'm guessing you just squeeze this little plastic bit here?'

'Emmanuel, believe me, you don't wanna go pressing that.'

'I don't think you can go telling me to do anything,' he snarled.

'Tell me which direction the oasis was,' I begged. 'I need to know.'

'Oh, enough of that shit.' He pulled me up only as a precursor to throwing me down again, and then kicked me in the midriff.

Doubled up, I looked past him at the crumbling masonry overhead, and then glanced to the side where the wall had been five minutes before.

'You can still get out of here,' I said. 'We can still get out of here. I'll come with you. We can talk. But do not, do not squeeze that trigger.'

'You got a funny way of begging for your life.'

'This isn't about me.'

'Not for much longer, anyhow.'  Duguid slammed me down again and again.  Fury set his eyes hard, like cut gems from the heart of the earth. I could see him now, the man that could slaughter an entire family, kids and dogs and all, just for breaking a promise.

'Please.' One last try.

'Any last words, momma's boy?'

It was hopeless. 'Ain't none you're gonna listen to, are there?'

'True, that.'

Duguid squeezed the panel that released the laser bolt. Green lights ran the length of the barrel, and something in the gun began to sizzle, like meat on a skillet. His head jerked upwards, and his limbs spasmed out, like he was dancing to music only he could hear. The gun fell from his grip, and he dropped to the floor beside it.  He lay there, perfectly still, smoke rising from his hair, mouth and eyes.

The candy jack must have kicked in at some point, but I wasn't feeling it.  Instead, I laid back down, my eyes watering, and willed the whole damn place to fall in on me.

(GO TO CHAPTER SIX) > > >

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