Mountain Man - 01 (33 page)

Gus sighed, almost expecting to see Scott sitting in his spot at the island, chewing and mulling. He even expected to see Roxanne. God above, he even missed her, and a biting, scorching burn where his heart had once been flared up like a dying flame being blown on.

The sound of the motorcycle got closer.

Gus reached down and picked up his motorcycle helmet. He pulled it onto his head, crying out at the rude contact against his nose. He stood and walked over to the kitchen window. Keeping his visor up, he looked out of the slot over the kitchen sinks––filled with breakfast dishes––and studied the wall and gate. The roar of the motorcycle got louder, and Gus wanted to shoot the fucker just on the principal of being an annoying cocksucker. There was no need for that, he thought, swaying slightly. No need of it.

Shit like that would get a man shot.

Or eaten.

The last thought made Gus giggle, and
that
brought a dull ache to seemingly everywhere. It was just a damn good idea all-around to get juiced up before this fight. He hoped it was over before he sobered up because that was going to be a
bitch
.

He listened. The growing racket from the nearing engines diminished within seconds. Gus picked up the Benelli and cycled a round into the chamber, noting that he didn’t have to pump it like a regular shotgun.
Different system
. He then wondered how they would deal with the gate, if they would try and ram their way through or pull it off the hinges. Sniffing and swallowing snot, he opened the kitchen window, and stuck the barrel of the shotgun out over the top plank. He had to lean over the sink a little, but at that point, leaning a little was nothing.

Gus realized he’d never test-fired the weapon. He had his other shotgun on the table and the Ruger in his boot, just for back up.

“Don’t you misfire on me, baby,” he whispered. The pistol grip of the shotgun already earned it brownie points in Gus’s book. It was a great hold. He flipped off the safety switch, or what he thought was the safety switch, and took aim with the scope. The gate swelled in his vision.

“C’mon, you cocksuckers,” Gus whispered, his words making his broken teeth ache. “Daddy’s home. And he’s fuckin’
pissed
.”

Waiting for a moment and not hearing anything, he opened his other eye––which was a wonder in itself––and saw heads popping up along the top of the wall.

“Scouts, boys,” he directed at the Captain and Uncle Jack. “What should I do?”

The bottles spoke.

“Fuckin’ A,” Gus replied. “And here I thought all you were good for was drinkin’.”

“Roxy?” someone yelled from beyond the wall. “Roxy, you in there?”

Roxy?
Stupid way to say her name.

“Roxy?” the voice shouted again. It became quiet then, the sun still bright in the sky. “If there’s anyone in there listening, you let her go, and I’ll kill you fast. I promise.”

Promises
, Gus thought.

“All I want is the woman.”

Gus supposed that was all he wanted, too. Once upon a time.

“We’re comin’ to get you, babe,” the voice hollered.

“Then come and get it,” Gus whispered.

They came.

From the kitchen, he hadn’t heard it, but Gus figured they must have parked something right next to the gate. Three men dressed in shabby clothes hoisted themselves all at the same time, swinging their legs up and over and dropping below. They all had long-barrel shotguns. They quickly started pulling away the timbers.

If Gus had been in a more stable frame of mind, he might have come up with a better plan than the one he had. His plan essentially had him firing at bodies as they came into full view. He targeted the first one through the mounted scope.

“Picked the wrong house, cocksucker,” Gus muttered, his voice sounding as if his sinus cavity was brimming.

He squeezed the trigger three times, and hell erupted from the Benelli, hitting the first man and crunching him against the wall in a bloody print. Gus lowered the gun and stared at it as if it were a thing possessed.
Semi-automatic
. Green shell casings spat from the ejector littered the floor.

The two other men whirled and brought up their guns. Shots tore into the house.

Gus took aim at a second man and shot him through the chest, flipping him up and over a beam. The recoil was difficult to control in his drunken state, but Gus had never felt calmer. He looked through the scope at the third man, who collapsed to the frozen ground and shouted something. Gus lined up his head and blew it apart in spectacular fragmented fashion.

He shifted from the window, took more green shells from his bandolier, and shoved seven of them into the breech. When he looked up, more men were climbing over the wall.

Gus aimed and squeezed the trigger, the booze no longer a hindrance, but still grounding his nerves. He fired at the men and hit three, shredding them as they topped the wall. Two bodies fell on his side, hitting the beams as they dropped to the ground. The third fell back and dropped out of sight.

More bodies swarmed over. Men fired, and shots crashed into the wood. Gus fired again, snapping off a flurry of shots and hitting nothing.

Then, he whirled away from the window and reloaded.

“You fucker!” a voice shrieked from beyond. “You fucker! I’ll fry you up and fuckin’ eat you like the dead! Just like the goddamn dead!”

“There’s only one shooter!”

“One shooter!”

“Fuck him up!”

Gus finished loading and stepped back to the window.
Relax
, he told himself.
Take your time
.

More figures flopped over the wall. They hit the ground running, moving right and left. Some carried guns, but most carried bats or knives. Some wore hockey helmets with cages; others had motorcycle helmets. Three men lay on the ground and fired as fast as they could load their guns, providing cover fire. Wood chips flew around the window.

The bottles on the island spoke.

“I hear ya,” Gus snarled. He sighted the first shooter and fired, taking off the top of the man’s head in an explosion of red cauliflower. Gus shifted to his next target, clearly seeing the fright on the man’s features through his scope.

“Missin’ some teeth,” Gus observed. He blew away the face.

“Lookin’ a little like strawberry jam out there,” Gus said to the bottles.

Captain Morgan answered.

“Huh? Oh,” Gus slurred, seeing what the Captain referred to. Two parties had split, rushing his flanks. They’d be trying to get into the house. “I hear ya,” Gus said, stooping over and feeling the increased pressure in his sinus cavity. He moved from the window, reloading the Benelli. He regarded the sliding doors leading out onto the deck, as well as the windows around the house. Heavy wood comprised the front door and the rear one was boarded. He locked both of them. Then, he heard the breaking of wood and glass coming from Scott’s bedroom.

“Oh, no, you––” Gus ran toward the bedroom and flipped around the doorframe. Two figures were coming through the ruined window, one holding an axe. The other held a shotgun and snapped off a shot, splintering the upper frame with a crunch. Gus roared and fired, emptying the Benelli in a maelstrom of sabot shot that flung the two invaders backward as if they’d been hit by a freight train.

He pulled green shells from his bandolier and reloaded. He looked about furtively.

More windows breaking.

“You fuckers.”

Shadows passed in front of Scott’s window, right across from where Gus stood in the hall. He rushed into the room, and when a hockey-helmeted head popped up, he unleashed three shells, blasting the man backward.

Wood cracking. Being forced. Gus moved back into the hallway and looked at the main door. It held. He eased ten feet forward, toward the open area. He checked the sliding doors, still covered in dark curtains. The dining room window remained boarded up on the outside.

He saw the extra shotgun and Captain Morgan and Uncle Jack on the island. The Captain had his hip cocked and a smirky grin in place.

“Likin’ the…?”

Shotgun blasts came from the opposite hall, from the direction of the garage and the second door. Gus retreated and waited. No further shots. There wasn’t any way for them to get in from below or above, unless one of them was a fucking squirrel. Or a gopher.

The sliding door blew inward with a crash, sending fragments of wooden planks and glass across the hardwood floor. Two heads peeked in from around the jagged edges. Gus placed the butt of the Benelli against his shoulder and flexed his grip.

“C’mon, you fuckers!” he shouted.
“Come meet my little friend.”

One flipped around the corner, raising a long-barrel shotgun. Gus emptied the Benelli into exposed arms that got chewed up and spun the rest of the gunman into view. The last two shots slammed the would-be attacker to the ground. Gus retreated back into the hallway and reloaded, noting he had a helluva lot less sabot shells. He kicked the spent green casings on the floor away from him and realized he should not have done that.

“All right,” he heard a voice call out. “On my count, rush him!”

That perked up Gus’s ears.

“One.”

The counting struck Gus as being a pretty stupid move. Bad tactics even. But then again, they were just ordinary people. Unless they had something else planned.

“Two.”

Gus moved further back into the hall, hiding around a corner with his back to the main door to the house.

“
Three
.”

Frightening war cries stabbed the air, and a thundering of boots and shotgun blasts ripped through the interior of the house. They unleashed hell as they came, laying down suppressing fire.

Then, it was over.

Gus wheeled around the corner and surprised about a dozen of them standing in the living room. He fired into the thickest mass, blowing two of them off their feet. He shifted and shot another road warrior though the shoulder, spinning the man around like a broken top. Screams cut the air. Shots zinged back at him. Uncle Jack exploded and simply wasn’t there anymore. The wall and doorframe splintered and flew away in bursts of destruction. Gus blew the leg off one man, but missed with his last shot. He wheeled back into the front entryway, and two shots crashed into the wall at his back. He reloaded the remainder of his sabots, wondering where the hell they had all gone. Voices cried out.

Gus eased around the corner, looking into the kitchen. The shotgun was missing from the island. Uncle Jack was also gone, blasted into pieces.

Captain Morgan grinned at him, but the smile seemed forced, uncertain.

A man popped up from behind the island, raising Gus’s shotgun. Gus shot him through the chest, punching a ragged hole in the guy and flinging him back. Another three carrying axes and bats came around the island. Gus blew apart the ankle of one man, making him howl. A sabot ripped the guts out of the second man, spraying the furniture behind him in gore. The third attacker had second thoughts and lunged outside headfirst through the wreck of the sliding door.

But more charged him.

Gus squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened.

The men closed in with axes and clubs and faces eager to take off his head.

Retreating into the hall, Gus flung the shotgun behind him, stooped, and pulled out the Ruger.

The faces went slack.

From a kneeling position, Gus fired into the mass of bodies. Four of the attackers yelled out and shuddered and shook with the impact of the Ruger’s steady coughing. The others broke away. One man went around the island. Gus got up and ran into the kitchen. He shot the man twice through the chest just as the attacker tried to bring a shotgun––Gus’s shotgun––to bear.

“I’ll kill you!” a familiar voice screamed, and a huge man, football player size, charged him with a fire axe.

Despite having more than half a bottle of rum in his system, Gus turned and blasted the man in the chest. The impact stopped the screamer in his tracks. Pain screwed up his features behind a hockey helmet face cage. Gus shot him twice more before realizing the man still stood, so he switched targets and destroyed a knee.

That elicited a cry of pain, and the behemoth dropped to his good knee. Gus shot him through his shoulders and his navel. The shots bowled the big man over onto his back, into the living room. Gus looked back toward the kitchen.

There, still standing on the island, was Captain Morgan. His beaming features appearing much more confident.

“You fucker,” a voice hissed.

Gus turned and recognized the contorted face of Knifeman. But Knifeman now had an axe. Gus aimed the Ruger at him.

“Fucker,” the now-Axeman whispered at him through a mouth full of ugly teeth. “C’mon.” He hefted the axe. “Drop the pistol and fi—”

Gus shot him in the face, whipping the man’s head back and dropping him to the hardwood floor. After Axeman fell, the house seemed a lot quieter.

Except for the groaning football player.

Gus pulled out the spent magazine and filled the Ruger with one of the spare five. Gus sniffed again, noting it didn’t hurt as much, and went on the hunt. He stepped out of the house through the shattered sliding door and spotted two men in winter coats pressed against the wall. One held a bat. The other held knives in both hands. They pleaded when Gus stepped into full view.