Nathan grabbed the horse’s tail and, with a sudden burst of strength brought on by desperately not wanting Steamspell to murder him, pulled himself up. He scooted to the center of the horse’s back and tugged on its mane. “
The horse did not move.
“
“It’s all over for you!” shouted Mongrel, also emerging from the theatre. Kleft was right behind him, holding a revolver.
How could the horse not realize the urgency of the situation? Three different men were trying to kill him! Nathan dug his feet into the horse’s sides. “Go, go, go!”
“Shoot him!” said Mongrel.
Kleft extended the revolver and took aim. Nathan had a brief, odd moment where he worried more that Kleft might accidentally shoot the horse. Then, as the bullet nicked his ear, he decided that it was equally valid to focus on the hope that his own body would not get hit.
It goes without saying that when Kleft fired the revolver, he did not have Nathan’s best interests in mind. He wasn’t necessarily trying to shoot him in the back of the head, but nor was he aiming the gun in such a way that shooting Nathan in the back of the head was entirely out of the question. In fact, had his arm not quivered just a bit, it’s safe to assume that he would indeed have shot him there, and Nathan almost certainly would not have survived the experience of the back of his skull being pierced and possibly shattered by a bullet, and the tale of Fangboy would have come to a premature, unsatisfying conclusion. He would never have become a legend. He merely would have been a minor footnote in the saga of mankind: the boy with odd teeth who got shot in the head.
But what Kleft did not anticipate is that though his gunshot had the negative impact of making Nathan’s ear hurt, it also startled the horse, causing the stallion to run.
Nathan raced away, thinking how pleasant it would be if Mongrel, Kleft, and Steamspell all decided to cut their losses and not pursue him.
Though it would be unkind to reveal the secrets of this tale to those reading it, it spoils nothing to say that Mongrel, Kleft, and Steamspell did not decide to cut their losses.
NINETEEN
Nathan decided to name his horse Lightning Bolt of Supersonic Speed. Its nickname would be Pursuer Evader. Other horses would hopefully know it as The Stallion Who Effortlessly Saved Nathan Pepper.
“Faster, please,” said Nathan, tugging on the horse’s mane. “Much, much faster!”
He didn’t look back to see what his enemies were doing. He feared that if he did, he might wet himself, and he was having a difficult enough time staying on the horse without the extra lubrication.
The horse galloped down the path. Cars sped past, but the drivers and their passengers seemed more concerned with fleeing the inferno than trying to kill Nathan, which he appreciated.
Many, many thoughts went through Nathan’s mind as he rode down the path, thoughts that one would normally express in all capital letters, italics, and perhaps even boldface. But he kept himself focused. All he had to do was hold on to the horse and he’d be free.
He stopped focusing for a moment as he realized that there was now a car on each side of him. The car to the right contained a very-burnt Steamspell, while the car to the left contained an unburnt but nevertheless irate Mongrel and Kleft.
“Leave me alone!” Nathan shouted.
Kleft was driving, allowing Mongrel to lean out the window. “We shall not!”
“Your theatre is gone! There’s nowhere to perform! Just let me go!”
“You’ll still perform the show…in hell!”
“Then you’d have to go to hell yourself to see the performance! Find something else to do!”
Nathan realized that Mongrel was pointing a gun at him. He fired six bullets, one after the other, but his aim was abysmal due to a combination of the bumpy road and his blind fury, and none of the bullets successfully punctured their target.
“Quit shooting at me!” Nathan shouted.
“We’ll do no such thing!”
Nathan wanted to explain that he’d spent several days in jail merely for biting another child on the arm, an infraction that was much less serious than shooting a little boy off a horse. From a strict “not spending the rest of their lives in prison” scenario, it made much more sense for Mongrel and Kleft to turn their car around and let him go.
Mongrel began to reload.
Nathan looked over at Steamspell. His hair and clothes were still billowing. He’d rolled down the windows to let the smoke escape.
Nathan pressed himself down against the horse as tightly as he could, and whispered into its ear. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me so far. You’ve been outstanding; I’ve no complaints. And I don’t know if you understand me, but if you do, when I give the signal I ask that you leap into the air as high as you can.”
Mongrel finished reloading the gun, and pointed it at Nathan again.
Nathan tugged on the horse’s mane. “Jump! Leap high into the air!”
Did the horse understand his words? Did it somehow sense his command? Or did it simply feel like jumping at that particular moment? The answer to this will be forever unknown, but the horse leapt into the air, higher than perhaps any horse had ever leapt, and Nathan let out a victorious cheer as they soared through the air, almost as if they were flying.
The bullet sailed directly underneath the mighty steed.
Through Steamspell’s open window.
Past his nose.
And harmlessly out the other window.
Mongrel fired a second shot, but this one was wildly off target and wouldn’t have hit Nathan or the horse even if they hadn’t been in majestic flight.
Though the bullet did not strike Bernard Steamspell, the jumping horse incident did cause him to recall his youth. As a young boy, he’d wanted nothing more than a horse of his own. He’d ridden branches and broomsticks and anything he could find that was remotely horse-shaped, and he’d make the appropriate neighs and whinnies, and he’d pretend that his horse—Thunder—could leap all the way over the sun. But his parents would never buy him a horse. The closest he ever came was when his uncle said “Hey, Bernard, guess what Fido is eating?” So as he watched the horse, his eyes filled with tears at these long-dormant memories, and he felt almost as if he were riding the steed along with Nathan, both of them shouting happily, urging their horse on to greater and greater heights.
And, thus, he was not paying attention to the road.
Had he driven off the left side of the road, he would have crashed into some trees and perhaps lost a limb or two. Not an optimal scenario for him, but something he would have survived and from which his screams of terror and agony would have eventually subsided. Unfortunately, going off the right side of the road involved a much steeper incline. He cried out, said a terrible, terrible word, and then plummeted over the side of the hill, striking the rocky bottom with such impact that the vehicle was crushed all around him.
Were any physicians present, they would have been astounded to see the vast number of body parts it is possible to smash, pierce, twist, remove, and otherwise destroy while remaining very much alive and conscious. Even the most reckless gambler would not have bet upon Steamspell receiving injury to so many different places without dying instantly. Those less experienced with medical matters might even have expressed surprise by how many parts were available to mutilate.
The pain was not insignificant.
As a reminder to those who set this tale aside and returned much later without full memory of the incidents that transpired before, Bernard Steamspell had been burnt head to toe, meaning that his plethora of injuries, which would have been excruciating even on healthy skin, hurt even more.
