Foodchain (17 page)

“Fuck this,” Chuck said, panting and blinking sweat from his eyes. “Wait here.” He climbed back up the tree and a minute later, a rope came tumbling over the edge of the cliff. Chuck’s wide face appeared at the top. “Tie that around his ankles or something. Something that won’t come off. Not that I give a fuck, but I suppose it would be better if we didn’t have to drag him up twice.”

Frank knotted the rope around Bronson’s expensive boots, then climbed back up to Chuck. The other end of the rope had been tied the other end to the trailer hitch. They opened a fresh beer, and Chuck simply put the truck in first gear and drove slowly straight out into the field. Frank kept an eye on the side mirror, and when he saw Bronson’s flopping, rolling body, Chuck circled back around.

* * * * *

When they got back to the ranch, Sturm had just finished wrapping the dead Lab in a white sheet. Theo, Jack, and Pine stood back at a respectful distance, heads down, giving the man some time to say goodbye to his dog. Fairfax was on his knees, streaks of dried tears slashing through the dirt on his cheeks. Every once in a while, his back would hitch and shudder, but he’d force the sob back down. The man was probably counting the seconds until he could get the hell back to Sacramento.

But when Chuck dropped the tailgate and Fairfax got a look at Bronson’s body, Fairfax’s face looked like he’d just jumped in a tub of ice water. He popped up, jowls quivering, eyes blinking furiously.

Sturm stood as well, wiping his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

“Oh my god. What happened to him?” Fairfax pointed at Bronson, in case anyone was confused. “Do you stupid fucking hicks have any idea who this man is?”

“Watch your mouth,” Sturm warned in a low voice. “That man was a friend of mine, that’s who he is. Me and Bob been drinking and shooting since before you sucked on your mommy’s teat.”

But Fairfax wasn’t listening. “You ignorant goddamn hillbillies. I cannot believe you let this happen.”

“His own goddamn fault,” Jack pointed out. “Should’ve paid more attention. He had a rifle. Wasn’t like he was hunting ducks or something.” Pine and Chuck nodded.

Fairfax blinked even harder, as if Jack had just unzipped his jeans and pissed all over Bronson’s corpse. “You…You have no idea how much trouble you are in. All of you.”

And then, faster than Fairfax could blink, Sturm snatched the shovel off the ground and in one savage jab, thrust its blade into Fairfax’s throat. Everyone flinched. The pitted blade sliced cleanly through Fairfax’s heavy jowls and scraped along his jawbone with a sound like a claw hammer striking ice. Sturm didn’t stop until the shovel hit the artery; bright, thick blood squirted out, coating the blade, the handle, and the lawn. Fairfax’s knees wobbled and he waved his arms around like a toddler learning to walk. Sturm guided Fairfax sideways about five feet, until Fairfax fell into the dog’s grave. The blade came free with a wet, squelching sound and Fairfax hit the dirt at the bottom with a solid thud. He feebly waved his hands around like a potato bug on its back for a few more seconds, but the movement gradually subsided as more blood soaked into the black dirt under his head.

The men gathered around the grave and watched his final movements. Sturm stabbed the shovel into the pile of dirt and flung the soft dirt onto Fairfax’s face. Dirt filled the gaping wound, wide open mouth, and unblinking eyes. When the body was covered, they carefully lowered the dog’s body into the grave, then each took a shovelful and gently sifted dirt onto the white sheet.

They finished filling the grave as the sun slid past the mountains to the west. Sturm left the shovel standing upright in the freshly turned dirt. “We’ll make a cross later. For the dog,” he explained, and looked to the darkening sky.

“Lord,” he began. The others lowered their heads. “Please watch over this animal. She was a damn fine dog. Best hunting companion a man could ask for. All I ask is that you let her play in your fields, chasing rabbits and sniffing for pheasant. Try not to mind if she takes a dump near the back steps of your palace, as she was known to do from time to time. All in all, she was a good girl.” Sturm swallowed, wiped at his eyes again. “She didn’t deserve to go this soon. So please take care of her until I get there. I promise I’ll look after her then.” Sturm turned his head and spit. “And if it’s not too much to ask, drop kick the sonofabitch who sent her to you all the way down to hell. I’m not trying to be sacrilegious here or anything, but I want to hear him screaming when I meet you. Amen.”

Everyone else chimed in with an “Amen.”

Sturm met their eyes. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid this ain’t the only one we have to bury this evening.” He nodded at Bronson’s broken body. “Dumb as he was, Fairfax was right about one thing. We can’t exactly take him back to Sacramento like this. He was a good friend, and we’re gonna send him off into the beyond proper.”

* * * * *

A few hours later, they were ready. Jack had filled the back seat of the Hummer with ammunition and black powder. They propped Bronson up in the passenger seat, with a hat over his face in case anyone on the road got curious. Jack drove the Hummer, following Sturm and Theo in the Jeep. Chuck, Frank, and Pine came up the rear in Chuck’s truck. They headed south, winding their way up into the steep Sierra Nevada mountains. A hundred miles south of Whitewood, Sturm turned off the main highway onto a crumbling logging trail that zig-zagged up a ridge. By now, it was nearing ten or eleven o’clock, so Frank couldn’t see anything. He had to keep swallowing to equalize the pressure in his ears, and realized the altitude must be very high.

Eventually, Sturm angled the Jeep at a right angle to the logging road, headlights fading away into nothingness. They joined Sturm at the edge of the cliff. Jack and Chuck dragged Bronson into the driver’s seat of his Hummer and seatbelted him into place. Pine poured black powder over the shattered corpse, and left two full gas cans in the passenger seat for good measure. They duct-taped a fresh, unlit cigar in Bronson’s mouth and propped his rifle at his side. Pine pulled a bottle of whiskey out of Chuck’s pickup and they all gathered in a tight semi-circle and passed the bottle around for a while.

Chuck shoved a cassette tape into the player in his truck and a second later, the first strains of Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” drifted out of the open doors.

Sturm opened a tattered, leatherbound Bible and, using the glow from the headlights, and read aloud, throwing his words off the mountain and into the darkness. “And I saw, and look, behold a pale horse; and the one seated upon it was Death. And Hell followed close behind him. And authority was given them over the fourth part of the Earth, to kill with a long sword and with food shortage and with deadly plague and by the wild beasts of the earth. Amen.” Sturm snapped the book shut. “Goodbye, my friend. I’ll be seeing you soon enough. Save a drink for me.” He poured a bit of whiskey over Bronson’s ruined face, screwed the cap on tight, and put it between Bronson’s legs.

Sturm stepped back so Jack could start the Hummer. He left it in park, but jammed the rifle butt against the gas pedal, wedging the muzzle against the dead man’s stomach. The engine rose into a whining snarl, anxious and upset at being held in check. Then, mindful of the flakes of black powder scattered across Bronson like ash, he lit the cigar. Without air being pulled through the cigar, it took a while, but the leaves finally caught. With a nod from Sturm, Jack jerked the stick into ‘Drive.’ The Hummer shot forward into the night. The headlights tilted down, bounced, disappeared, and as they came back up, from underneath and behind this time, shining back up at the men gathered at the road, the Hummer’s interior exploded. Blue flames curled out of the shattered windows and a second later, the gas cans went. The Hummer kept rolling end over end, a snowball of fire, now hundreds of feet down the rock-covered mountain. The temperature inside finally got hot enough to spark off the ammunition. Gunfire crackled into the night, temporarily overshadowing the music.

Everyone took a few steps back from the edge, wary of stray bullets. “Dust in the Wind” kept playing, echoed by the distant explosions below. All in all, Frank thought it was a nice sendoff, a genuine modern Viking funeral. It was kind of cool, really. Still, as he watched the lunatic grinning scar carved into the back of Sturm’s head, bathed in the backwash of the headlights, he felt as if the hunts had been a failure. Two men were dead. Sturm’s dog had been shot.

Sturm turned around.“Gentlemen, that was the finest goddamn funeral I ever attended. When it’s time, I’ve decided I want to go out the same way. Same spot. Put me in my truck and send me down the mountain. Goddamn right. And hell, same music, whatever long-haired hippy band that was. But use more ammunition. I want God to hear me coming.”

DAY EIGHTEEN

Sturm stopped by the vet hospital around noon. Theo was driving, but Sturm made him stay in the pickup for some reason. Frank opened the front door and watched Sturm slowly shuffle up the walk. Something was wrong. Sturm moved as if he couldn’t trust his legs.

“I need to seem them cats,” he said.

Frank nodded, Sturm stumbled and Frank caught his arm. It felt like grabbing a piece of petrified wood. “Dammit,” Sturm said. He seemed ashamed. Frank led him to the back where Sturm leaned against the chain-link cage.

“I think …” Sturm began, looking at the concrete. He brought his gaze up to stare at the lioness curled in the far corner. She ignored the men. “No. No. I don’t have the luxury of thinking anymore. I don’t have the time. I don’t know if this is it or what the hell is happening to me. But I do know this. My boy needs me to teach him before I go. He needs some straightening out, that’s for goddamn sure. All I got left is instinct.”

Frank wondered what the hell Sturm was talking about.

“So I’ve made up my mind,” Sturm continued. And I need your help. I’m gonna go on instinct. You being a vet, you should understand instinct. The way an animal doesn’t have to think, understand?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not running off like some whipped dog to die by myself. That’s no way to die for anybody. I’m gonna go out like a man and teach my boy how to live his life right.”

Frank waited, still unsure where Sturm was headed with all this.

Sturm turned and stared Frank full in the face. His face cracked into a brief, thin smile. “You did well here son. This was a hell of thing.” He faced the cage again. “This one, I don’t want her fed today. I want her hungry. I want her mean.” He licked his dry lips. “This’ll be something folks will remember for the rest of their lives. You were right. This will be my legacy.”

He pushed off the cage and headed for the office. “Jack and Pine’ll be by later. Take that lioness to the auction yard and wait for me.” He slammed the door behind him.

* * * * *

Men started arriving at sundown. It looked like the same crowd from the fights. Frank wondered how the word had gotten out. Maybe everybody carried cell phones. However they got the news, everyone seemed to know that something serious was up. There was no laughing, no yelling; the men acted as if they were at a funeral, talking in low, somber tones, keeping their eyes down. Frank couldn’t shake the feeling that he had missed something, something big, this morning; like he’d slept right through whatever Sturm had been trying to tell him.

And since he didn’t want anyone to know that he was in the dark, he kept his mouth shut and pretended to know exactly what was happening.

No one went inside the auction yard. Men clustered in small groups around pickups, once in a while casting a few sidewise glances up at the trailer on the hill. The clowns didn’t move either, except to get more beer, although once in a while Frank caught Jack watching the highway towards town.

Soon enough, he saw a pair of headlights getting closer and closer until they flooded the parking lot in high beams. Without saying anything, the clowns rose to their feet. By that point, men had lined the driveway. A few of them removed their hats as the Sturm’s black pickup rolled past. Theo was driving. He parked right near the front doors and let his father out. Sturm climbed out. The tentative shuffle was gone. He moved like he expected the air itself to get the hell out of the way. He nodded at the men once, then again at the clowns on the hill. When Theo came around the pickup and joined his father, they walked into the building together.

The clowns chugged the rest of their warm beers, tossed the cans on the ground. “It’s time,” Jack said, almost whispered really, and rubbed at his eyes. His thumb and forefinger came away wet. Pine leaned into the trailer and grabbed the rifle Chuck had nearly used at the rest stop. Then they walked down the hill and joined the rest of the men flowing into the auction yard.

* * * * *

Inside, a tunnel had been built out of hog panels, leading from the livestock pens in the back right into the center ring. Frank and the clowns marched down to it. The men filled the place, quiet, respectable.

Pine took up a position in the front, chest against the fence, rifle butt on his hip. “Stick close,” he murmured to Frank. Chuck stepped up to the ring on the other side of Frank, working his unlit cigarette back and forth across his mouth. No one sat. No one moved. No one breathed.

Until Sturm appeared in the doorway to his office, moving purposefully down to the ring. Frank heard the men exhale as one. Sturm climbed the gate and strode to the center. He was wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and nothing else except for a knife scabbard on his belt that held a Hibben Iron Mistress. The knife, a replica of the mythical Jim Bowie blade supposedly forged using ore from a meteorite, was over sixteen inches long, with a ten and half-inch blade that tapered down into a vicious point. The white, milky skin of his chest and arms stopped abruptly at his wrists, giving way to hands tanned as brown as dirt, as if he was wearing gloves.

Sturm slowly turned, meeting the eyes of every man in the room. When his eyes locked with Frank, Frank felt the impact reverberate down into his bones. Sturm went back to the edge of the ring and grabbed Theo by the shoulders in a fierce grip. He kissed his son on the forehead. Then he leaned back, staring into Theo’s eyes. “Be strong. Be a man,” he whispered through clenched teeth, then abruptly let go, and stalked slowly back into the center of the ring, shoulders back, head high.

He drew the Iron Mistress and tossed the leather sheath to Chuck. Out of the corner of his eye, Frank saw Pine crying. Silently. Motionlessly. Tears slowly rolled down the side of his nose. He refused to wipe them away, as if acknowledging his weakness would make it real somehow. If he simply ignored the tears, then it wasn’t happening.

Jack had now come back and was standing next to the tunnel, hand on the gate. “Are you ready?” His voice cracked as he called to Sturm.

Sturm took a deep breath, lips tight, frozen eyes clear. He slowly brought the knife up in front of his chest, blade down and away, widening his stance, crouching down, ready. He faced the darkness of the tunnel. “Do it.”

“It was an honor, sir. We’ll never forget,” Jack said as he swung the gate open.

The starving lioness padded silently and smoothly out of the tunnel. She stopped, pawed anxiously at the sawdust. But her eyes were on Sturm and her nose expanded, contracted. Frank knew the cat was hungry; she hadn’t eaten fresh meat in nearly twenty-four hours.

“Go get it, Horace! Kill it!” someone shouted in a broken voice, but that was all.

The lioness growled low, circling Sturm to the right. She never took her eyes off him. Sturm bared his teeth. The crowd seemed to recoil; this unexpected, brazen display of emotion from the man scared them.

Pine tracked the lioness with the .30-06, tears still rolling down his cheeks, collecting in the groove between his cheek and the top of the stock. Frank understood that Pine wanted to shoot the lioness more than anything in the world, but if he did, then Sturm was liable to shoot him.

The lioness leapt. Sturm leaped forward, meeting the cat, slashing wildly with the knife. The cat swung one massive paw and opened Sturm’s skin from his left shoulder across his chest.

Sturm grunted and slammed the blade between the lioness’ ribs and they both went down in a cloud of sawdust. There was some kicking, twitching. Dust billowed out and hung in the air like early morning fog on the river.

Pine leaned forward, finger tight on the trigger, eyes blinking away the tears.

Sturm rose out of the dust, blood sheeting his torso. Dust stuck to the blood.

The lioness stayed down. It kicked. Rolled. Sturm crouched immediately, swiftly reversing the knife with one hand, whirling the blade under his forearm, and slit the big cat’s throat. Blood squirted out of the wound and soaked into the sawdust.

It was over.

Sturm faced the silent, shocked men. He raised his knife. Then the applause began, slow at first, but it didn’t take long before the men were stomping and whistling, screaming his name. Frank was surprised to find himself clutching the top bar, shouting, screaming really, no real words, just a pure release.

Sturm took a hesitant step towards his son, and dropped to his knees. Instantly, Jack scrambled over the bars and knelt next to him. Sturm’s white chest was now coated in scarlet dust. Blood sheeted the front of his jeans, down to his knees. It didn’t look like it was stopping. Sturm shot his left arm out and landed heavily on his flat palm, but he refused to drop the knife in his right hand.

Jack’s eyes found Frank, and Frank understood. He climbed into the ring and rushed to Sturm’s side, carefully rolling him onto his back. Frank realized they should have been ready, should have been prepared with bandages, some kind of first aid. But no one had expected Sturm to live.

And still the men had not let up; the screaming and shouting was deafening, shaking the auction yard, filling it with an almost palpable force that squeezed Frank’s head and doubled his vision as he looked down at Sturm’s white face, his lips pulled back, baring clenched teeth under wild eyes that glowed with a feverish light.

Deep down, Frank realized something had shifted, reversed. Sturm could not be allowed to die, not now, not ever. And if Frank didn’t save him, he’d find himself buried in a shallow grave somewhere out in the mountains that surrounded the town. So he placed both palms flat, pressing down hard, over the rip in Sturm’s chest. Direct pressure, his mind kept repeating, direct pressure. Frank shouted over the mindless screaming of the men at Theo and the clowns, “First aid kit, now! We need bandages, lots of gauze, and a needle and thread! Now!”

Throughout it all, Sturm wouldn’t let go of the Iron Mistress. He watched Frank with twitching, shivering eyes, but never said a word. Frank tried to move slowly, calmly; he was afraid that if he caused too much pain, moved too quickly and sharply, Sturm might bring that blade up and sink it in Frank’s neck.

But in the end, Frank stopped the bleeding.