American Crow (16 page)

When
I tentatively opened my eyes again, it was sunshine not headlights that greeted
my awakening. I eyed my immediate surroundings warily. I was still alone...I
licked my cracked lips desperate for water, then felt a sizeable water droplet
land on my head as if to goad me.

I looked up and stretched out my tongue,
waiting an age for another that didn’t come as the chatter of the dawn chorus
broke all around. Cursing, I lowered my head, then stared out into the forest,
annoyed and dehydrated.

Wherever I had been taken was pretty
remote, otherwise they would have risked me being discovered by some passing
hiker or hunter. And it looked pretty damned wild judging by the groundcover.
The only signs of human interference were the sets of footprints my captors had
made when they’d walked in, and those they’d made when they’d left...

I drifted for a while in an uncomfortable
haze, until a bird squawking in the distance heralded the return of yet another
vehicle. This time I hoped the pricks would cut me down at the very least, or
put me out of my misery. I’d reached my limit...

A few seconds later the engine fell
silent, then a door slammed ominously. I stiffened. Finally, a solitary figure
broke from the trees and headed straight for me. As the person got closer I
realized it wasn’t one of the original guys who’d tortured me previously. It
was Tony Lutz, the gunman from the barn. I looked him up and down. His face was
a mess, but he was looking mightily pleased with himself.

‘Hey, how ya doing?’ he said casually, as
if we’d just met in the supermarket.

I stared at his bandaged hand, then at
his black eyes and tried to suppress my amusement, then realized I probably
looked worse.

‘I’m great...How are you?’ 

‘Thought I’d better check on you, buddy,’
he said with a smirk. ‘God, you look a bit rough...’

He unzipped his jacket and stuck a thumb
in his belt like some smug cowboy.

‘That’s real kind of you, Tony. Did you
bring me some water?’ I asked, knowing my request futile.

‘Sure. It’s in the truck.’

‘Can I have some?’

‘If you’re good?’

I felt my nerves tighten like piano wire.

‘What does that mean?’ I said, watching
his hand snake its way into his jacket.

‘Exactly what it sounds like…’ he said
revealing a knife, which he opened up with a deft flick.

I tensed as he placed the blade
underneath my crutch.

‘You like that, boy?’

‘Not really.’

‘I think you do. You sure do look like some
Limey fag to me.’

I didn’t reply, trying not to look
intimidated.

‘And you know what we do with your type
down here…boy?’

‘No.’

‘We cut off their queer dicks and shove
them into their queer mouths.’

‘You want to play with my dick, is that
it?’ I replied smartly, unable to hold my tongue.     

He pulled away laughing, the sort of
laugh that always pre-empts a physical response, then in what seemed slow
motion, turned, spun around, and landed a hard right in my face with everything
he had.

 My head whiplashed to one side as I
took the full impact. I spat out some blood and stared at him blankly as if
unaffected. He was going to have to do a lot better than that to rough me up.
He stepped closer again and slid the knife back under my genitals.

‘Think you’re tough, boy, do
you?’   

I didn’t answer.

‘Do you?’

I felt the knife press tightly up under
my testicles, the blade paring through the fabric. 

‘Where’s the girl?’

‘I want to know the same thing.’

‘Why are you trying to find her?’ he
pushed, sounding more agitated. ‘Does she have something to give to you? A
package?’

‘I don’t know what in the hell you’re
talking about, Tony...’

‘Sure you do…’

‘Can I have some water at least, while we
talk about this?’

He eyed me for a second, then turned and walked
back to the truck. A moment later he returned with a canteen, which he then
drank in front of me, intermittingly spitting water out in my face before
throwing the half-empty bottle at my feet after he’d finished.

I watched the contents glug out onto the
ground then felt even thirstier.

‘When you’re prepared to tell us the
truth, you’ll get some, boy,’ he said kicking the empty bottle away. ‘For the
final time, where’s the girl, and why are you trying to find her?’

‘You can cut my balls off and wear them
as earrings, Tony, but you won’t hear anything different, okay, because I’m
telling you the truth.’

He stared at me for a while blankly, as
if debating how he would kill me, then walked behind me out of view. I tensed,
waiting for the knife to slash across my wrists.

‘If you’re going to kill me, I’d rather
you stuck the knife in my guts while you looked me in the face, like a fucking
man,’ I said defiantly.

Lutz didn’t respond. I held my breath for
what I thought was going to be the last time then felt the blade saw its way
through the rope. As the last strands were severed I fell to my knees and felt
the circulation pump its way back through the deep creases in my wrists and
ankles.

‘Jesus...’

‘Next time it won’t be just the one
fingernail we’ll pull if we find out that you’re lying,’ he said, replacing his
knife with a gun.

‘Where in the hell am I anyway?’ I said,
looking up at him as I rubbed my numb wrists back into life.

‘In a forest a long way away from home,
buddy’ he said, offering another smirk.

I stared at the barrel of his semi,
wondering if he was the sort who enjoyed playing with someone first before he
pumped a bullet into them.

‘You got any more of that water, Tony?’ I
said hauling myself up, trying to get the circulation going in my legs.

‘There are plenty of rivers around here,
boy. You’ll find some sooner enough,’ he said, taking a step back so that I
remained at a safe distance. ‘Now, when you find civilisation, you just get on
the nearest train, plane bus or camel and never come back you hear...or we’ll
hunt you down and take you apart one piece at a time. And I don’t mean your
damned fingernails.’

I didn’t answer him and lowered myself
onto my haunches trying to shift some of the painful cramp still gripping my
lower legs. Lutz turned as if to walk away, then spun around suddenly and
kicked me hard in the face.

‘You hear me, boy!’ he yelled as I hauled
myself up from the forest floor, groaning, ‘I asked you a question...’

‘Fuck you, Tony,’ I muttered, spitting
out some blood over his expensive-looking shoes.

He pulled his leg back and swung again,
but this time I was ready for him and caught his boot with my hand just before
it made contact. Quickly I yanked him around sharply sending him spinning to
the floor in a violent twist.

He went for his gun, which had been
thrown a good few metres away in the undergrowth. I leapt at him knowing I had
a second at most before he reached it and pulled the trigger. He got to it
first. I grabbed his arm desperately. He swung it around towards me. I ducked
as the shot fired over my shoulder and held on tighter.

In a surprising show of strength he then
managed to push me off. I scrambled up and leapt at him again as a second round
fired over my head. Then we grappled like snakes until finally I got on top and
pinned him down.

‘Fuck you!’ he yelled desperately.

I smashed his wounded hand against a rock
releasing the gun, then dodged a lame sideways punch and released one of my
own, hard into his face with every last ounce of energy I had. The contact was
sweet. He slumped back in a daze like he’d been bayoneted in the guts. I
scrambled up and stood over him triumphant, then picked up the automatic.

‘Please, mother of mercy, don’t…I have
kids,’ he said groaning.

‘Who you working for? And why are you guys
trying to scare people off?’ I pushed, racking the slide.

He shook his head. I cursed and pressed
the gun against his forehead.

‘Okay, okay...don’t shoot!’ he whimpered,
a man shrunken to a boy.

‘Who are you working for, Tony?’ I
growled.

‘If I tell you, then I’m as good as dead
myself,’ he replied terrified.

‘Sure you can, Tony, if you want to
remain alive. I’ll ask you one more time, just once...Who are you working for?’

‘Lyle, Lyle Corrigan,’ he said
eventually.

‘Who?’ I said sharply.

‘He owns half of Kentucky, mister.
Everyone knows Lyle Corrigan.’

I shrugged.

‘Not everyone it seems.’

‘And if I don’t return soon, he’s going
to have all the other guys, the local Sheriff, the State Police and the whole of
the damned National Guard out looking for me, you can bet on it.’

I listened with amusement.

‘And what does this Mr Corrigan do, to
have so much control over everyone?’

‘He owns the god damn Corrigan Mining
Corporation, that’s what he does, Limey. Haven’t you heard of it?’

‘And what do they mine exactly?’

‘Coal...’ he replied as if I was stupid.

Gradually Lutz edged himself up onto his
elbows then tentatively felt his nose.

‘Jesus, I think you busted it…’

I ignored his moaning, trying to resist
shooting him there and then.

‘So how did my friend Mr Corrigan know I
was in Minneapolis?’ I pushed.

He dabbed his bloody nose on his sleeve.

‘Mr Corrigan doesn’t like people snooping
around his concerns so he had the gallery watched as the girl once worked there.
There’s been a lot of prying around recently and he doesn’t like it at-all.’

‘Why the interest in the girl?’

‘You tell me. We just do what we’re told.
And don’t even ask me where she is, cus I don’t know. We’ve been looking for
her too. Corrigan just wants to talk to her about something.’

Interesting…I let him continue.

‘All I do know is that she’s come to the
wrong place if she wants to stir up trouble, pal.’

‘What sort of trouble?’ I pressed.

‘I don’t know. Mr Corrigan wouldn’t say.
I just work for him alright.’

‘When was the last time you saw her?’ I
said, lifting the gun away.

He winced in pain as he righted himself.

‘I aint never seen her, but some of the
other guys have, maybe two or three weeks back. I’m not sure where. And you can
kill me here and now, mister, but that’s the truth.’

‘I believe you,’ I said, seeing the
resignation in his swollen face. ‘And what about the other investigators, what
did they tell you?’

‘Not much. The first guy got the hint pretty
quickly and went back to Minneapolis when he knew who he was dealing with. The
other we had to get a little bit rougher with...Mr Corrigan is a man of
influence you see, in this state and beyond. If he wants people to disappear,
then they disappear, right. So people generally back off when they find out who
they’ve come up against.’

‘Go on…’ I said ignoring the threat.

‘The second guy who was down here a
couple of weeks, took a little more persuasion to leave. He told us about the
gallery where the girl was supposed to have worked. We thought that she might
have gone back there after the recent protests, so Corrigan sent me up there to
watch the place in case she did...’

Lutz felt his nose tentatively and
grimaced.

‘Think you busted it…’

‘I’ll break your legs too if you don’t
continue…’ I said getting impatient.

‘Look, if I was you, mister, I would fly
back to England and forget that you ever came down here, okay. Forget about the
girl.’ Lutz paused for a moment as if thinking about how much he was going to
reveal. ‘Head back while you still got the chance...’

‘All the threats are getting very boring
you know, Tony. Us English don’t take kindly to threats.’

He looked at me bewildered.

‘Where are we? And how far is the nearest
town?’ I pushed.

This time he offered the information
easily.

‘We’re in the Daniel Boone Forest, a good
hundred miles or so, south west of Lexington. Bear’s Rock is the nearest town
here, around ten miles away to the south east.’

‘Which is what direction exactly?’

He pointed gingerly over his head with
his thumb.

‘Not much but creek and forest in between
though…and tough road.’

I eyed him suspiciously.

‘And the girl was involved in some of the
mining protests?’

‘That’s what I heard.’

‘Whereabouts?’