“Yes, right now, Goddamn it. We got to get this shit back on the rails.”
The Mexican mumbled one more time and walked back toward the door I’d just come through. I watched his steps under the truck and recognized the boots. I’d seen one of them up close, standing square on my chest. I was-n’t eager for a replay of that situation.
The door slammed shut, and the Mexican was gone.
Billy shuffled his feet and said, “Shit.”
Okay, time for me to back the fuck out of there and call in the Marines.
I backed right into a stack of oil cans. They tumbled and clattered across the cement. Son of a bitch! Just like some dumb shit in a Three Stooges movie.
“Who’s there?” Billy came around the truck.
I stood up quick, tried and failed to look casual.
“Toby.” Billy’s face got hard like I’d never seen before. “How long you been there? What did you hear?”
“Just saw the light on, thought I’d better check it out.” I tried to play it cool but couldn’t stop my head from looking around for an escape route. “But I guess you got everything under control here.”
He took two real slow steps toward me. “I told you to go home, Toby.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re … uh … hiring some guys to fix up the firehouse,” Billy said.
“That Mexican and two of his buddies just kicked my ass.”
Billy shook his head. “No, not this guy. You’re thinking of somebody else.”
“No I’m not.”
“I said you’re thinking of somebody else,” Billy said. “You need to trust me on this.”
“I
“Jesus, Toby, you’re not making this easy. You could play along, you know.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“It’s a shame. A damn crying shame, but there’s a whole lot of shit going on here that isn’t any of your business, and you’ll mess it up if I let you blab it around.”
I forced a laugh. It sounded scared. “Blab what, man? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I won’t blab.”
“Uh-huh.” He reached for the fire axe hanging on the wall, hefted it, testing the weight.
I thought this real quick: Billy wasn’t wearing his gun. I was.
My hand fell to my holster, but it was a bad play. Billy was already on me, the axe coming down fast. I threw up my hands to catch the handle as Billy barreled into me. We tumbled back into the oil cans and tools, something hard digging into my back, but I didn’t let go of the axe.
He sat on my chest, put all his weight into the axe. The blade hovered over my nose and edged closer. I cocked my head to the side and lifted up, opened my mouth wide as I could and bit into his knuckles. He hollered. Blood sprayed hot and salty into my mouth. He hung onto the axe, so I bit harder, grinding the teeth in until I hit bone.
Billy howled into a screech and let go, blood splashing over the two of us like an exploded ketchup packet. I spit out a wad of flesh then shoved the axe. The flat of the blade caught him good on the chin, and he tumbled off me.
I stood and ran, still clutching the axe to my chest.
A hand grabbed my ankle. I went flying, landing hard on the floor.
I scrambled to one knee, turned in time to see Billy coming at me again, full-blown murder in his eyes. I swept out one handed, the axe biting into Billy’s shin. He grunted and went down right in front of me. I stood, swung the axe over my head. Billy looked up, his eyes blinking wide with terror a split-second before the axe bounced off his skull, the strike vibrating up through my arms, a shock of pain in my wrists.
A slash down his forehead fountained blood. He screamed and screamed and screamed. I swung the axe again, and it lodged deep in the side of his neck. More blood. I’d never seen so much.
Billy sprawled flat on his back, his whole body twitching like he was being electrocuted. It seemed to go on forever, his legs kicking out, hands shaking. Finally he settled down, eyes wide open to nothing.
I flung myself on the garage door, fumbled with the latch. My face was burning up. I couldn’t breathe. I got it open, raised it and stumbled out to the street, gulping air. I went to my knees and puked. Cold sweat blossomed on my forehead, and I started shivering.
My head swam. I gave myself a moment, breathed in through the nose and out through the mouth. I didn’t want to see or hear anything, didn’t want to think. I just wanted to kneel there with my eyes closed until the world stopped spinning. When I felt settled enough, I went back inside the firehouse.
I went through Billy’s pockets and retrieved Roy’s keys. Then I fished another set out of my pocket, not my own keys but those belonging to the late Luke Jordan. The back of the truck was locked with a padlock. I tried three keys and the fourth one fit.
This time I planned to be ready. I pulled my revolver.
I slowly lifted the latch. I took a deep breath, mentally counted one, two, three, and threw the truck door open.
A swarm of Mexicans ran over me. The sudden silence erupted with yelling and shouts in Spanish. I yelled too, backed away, panicked. I jerked the trigger at the mass of bodies coming at me.
I hadn’t loaded the gun.
They bumped and shoved as they ran past. I screamed. But they went around me, flooding through the open garage door, and they were all out on Main Street now, maybe forty of them. Mostly men, but some women too, and I think I saw a child. The night was alive with the chatter of Spanish in the air. I got caught up, found myself standing in front of the firehouse, the Mexicans melting into the night like a fistful of brown pebbles tossed into a dark river.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The racket of fleeing Mexicans faded, and I stood again in the hot still night. I blinked into the darkness, forcing my heartbeat down to something human. They’d gone off in every direction. I wouldn’t have known how to start rounding them up even if I’d wanted to. I went back in, looked at Billy’s corpse. I pulled out my Winstons with shaking hands, lit one and smoked.
I always wondered if I’d have to kill somebody one day, but I never thought it would be Billy, or anyone I knew, anyone I worked with. Once, I was in this fight in a little shithole lounge outside Amarillo. The place got out of hand, and we tried to stay out of it, but some of these motherfuckers got up on the stage and this big biker got a hold on our drummer. The drummer was a little scrawny guy, and I could see that biker was about to break him into a dozen pieces.
I swung my guitar as hard as I could, and the crack on the biker’s skull was so loud, it stopped the rest of the fight, everybody looking up to the stage as this beefy son of a bitch went flopping off the stage, blood pouring into his eyes. I was scared then, worried I’d killed the guy. I checked the hospital three days in a row until I heard he was going to be okay, and then I hauled my ass out of town.
But there wasn’t any power on Earth going to bring Billy back. There was an axe lodged in his neck, and I’d put it there. Billy’s wife was a red-haired woman with freckles named Cindy. She taught fifth grade. I tried to remember if they had a kid or not and then very quickly stopped trying to remember.
Don’t think about it.
I heard somebody clear his throat, and I spun quickly, my hands going to the revolver on my belt. Never mind it didn’t have any bullets.
The Mexican loitering in the frame of the garage door was short and dark, broad flat nose. Black hair down past his neck. He wore dirty jeans and a stained undershirt. Sandals. He held up his hands like
