Wild Blood (11 page)

The thing's grin grew even wider and sharper than before. “Thank you for confirming my faith in human nature, Perry! Your offer is most generous, but I'm afraid I don't need your permission to take the woman. Nor do the others. As for letting you go—well, I'm afraid we can't oblige you. However, I did promise you a tag-team with my sister, didn't I? Far be it from me to renege on a deal.”

Perry wailed in horror as a hairy hand with talons painted red as blood clamped onto his shoulder.

“So long!” Jag called out as he waved farewell to Perry as Jez dragged him, kicking and screaming, behind a nearby clump of bushes. “And thanks for coming out to the show!”

Chapter Twelve

“Try these on, skin. They look like they might fit you,” Creighton said, tossing a bundle of clothes at his friend's bare feet.

Skinner quickly pulled on the pair of blue jeans and shrugged into a plaid long-sleeved shirt. Both were somewhat loose on his wiry frame, but at least the pants stayed up without the aid of a belt.

“You'll have to wait before getting some boots, I'm afraid,” Creighton explained.

“Where'd you get these?”

“They were hangin' on the line in someone's back yard. Where th' hell you think I got 'em? Now we've got to get ourselves some transportation …”

“How are we going to manage that?”

“That part's easy,” Creighton laughed. “The rednecks around here always leave their front doors unlocked and the keys in the truck. A man can get himself some free pussy and a ride that way, if he has a mind to take it.”

A half-hour later they came across a shack with a battered late-Seventies pickup that had a paint job comprised of equal parts primer and rust and the keys hanging from the ignition.

“See? What'd I tell you?” asked Creighton as he slid behind the wheel.

“I don't know about this, Creighton,” Skinner said uneasily, eyeing the tarpaper shack. “It's not like the guy who owns this truck is rich …”

“He's richer'n us ain't he?” Creighton countered. “He's got a truck and a house, don't he?”

“Well … yeah,” Skinner conceded.

“And it ain't like we're taking his house, right?”

“I guess so.”

“See? You just got to look at things the right way, Skinner,” Creighton said as he turned the key in the ignition. “If you insist on lookin' at life the wrong way, you'll never end up anywhere but screwed!”

As he threw the truck into gear, the front door of the shanty flew open and a middle-age man, dressed in long johns and a pair of cowboy boots and armed with a shotgun, charged into the front yard.

“Come back with my truck, you god-damned son-of-a-bitch!” The shotgun thundered, peppering the passenger side with a spray of rock salt.

“You'll have to do better'n that, shit-kicker!” Creighton crowed, sending up a spray of dirt and gravel as they sped off in the stolen truck.

Once they were safely away, Skinner started giggling so hard he nearly slid onto the floor of the wildly bouncing cab. “Did you see the look on that guy's face?”

“He looked like he just found a turd in the punch bowl!” Creighton laughed. That one was good for five minutes of guffaws. Finally, Creighton wiped at the tears at the corners of his eyes and gestured to the glove compartment. “Check that out, why don't you? Maybe there's a map or something …?”

“There's a flashlight … what looks like half a bologna sandwich … a Texaco map … and this,” Skinner said, pulling out a pistol.

“All right!” Creighton exclaimed. “Now we're shittin' in high cotton and wipin' with the top leaf! Any spare ammo with that?”

“No, but it's loaded.”

“I'm not about to cuss my luck,” Creighton said. “Now we've got to find me some new duds. We sure as hell won't get far with me wearin' county orange.”

A few miles farther down the road, Skinner caught sight of more laundry flapping in the dry desert breeze. He hopped out of the truck and hurried across the dry, rocky ground and snatched an armload of clothes from the line.

Creighton gave him a strange look out of the corner of his eye when he returned. “You made that dash like you were walking on a shag rug! Don't your feet hurt?”

Skinner blinked and looked down at his naked feet. He'd actually forgotten that he wasn't wearing boots. “I reckon not,” he replied. He reached down and touched the soles of his feet and was surprised to discover they felt as rough and calloused as if he'd lived his entire life without shoes.

Creighton laughed and shook his head in admiration. “I've gotta hand it to you, Skin. You're really something!”

“Yeah,” he frowned. “But what?”

Creighton's original plan was to stay on the back roads and head for Texas, where an old cellmate of his owned a ranch. They could lay low out there for a few weeks before hitting the road again. Skinner didn't really care where they went, since he no longer had a home to return to or family to worry about.

They were headed east on U.S. 70, near the New Mexico border, when Creighton noticed the needle on the fuel gauge was nearing ‘E.' While both men were wearing stolen pants, neither had come equipped with a wallet.

“We're ridin' on fumes, Skin. Keep an eye out for a gas station.”

“Looks like we're in luck,” Skinner said, pointing at a faded wooden sign nailed to a telephone pole that read
LAST CHANCE FOR GAS BEFORE NEW MEXICO
. “We're shittin' in tall cotton again, Skin!” Creighton grinned. “Hand me that gun.”

Skinner's smile faltered. “You're not holding up a gas station, are you?”

“You think Big Oil is gonna give us gas for this clunker out of the goodness of their heart?”

“No …”

“I ain't gonna shoot no one, if that's what you're scared of,” Creighton assured him. “Now, hand me the gun.”

The gas station was a tiny clapboard shack with a couple of old gas pumps, the type with the globes on top, stationed out front. A weather-beaten metal sign hanging from a curved pole advertised cold drinks, maps and rest rooms. A slat- ribbed yellow dog sat in the shade of the overhang, scratching itself.

Creighton coasted up to the pumps and cut the engine. The yellow dog stopped in mid-scratch, lowered its ears and whimpered. An old man who was almost as skinny as the dog tottered out of the shack, wiping his gnarled hands with an oily bandanna.

Skinner, acting on a nod from Creighton, hopped out of the truck and moved to one of the gas pumps. The yellow dog got to its feet and began to growl.

“Hush, Sheba! What's got into you, dog?” The geezer said as he returned his to his hip pocket. “Don't bother with that pump, son; the old girl's a bit tricky. I'll get it for you.”

“That's what you think, Pops.” Creighton was suddenly out of the truck, the muzzle of the .38 pressed against the old man's head. “Take it easy and no one gets hurt.”

Before the gas station owner could respond, the yellow dog sank its teeth into Creighton's shin. The escaped prisoner swore as he kicked the animal away, and then opened fire, shooting it point-blank. The dog yelped and jumped straight up in the air, collapsing against the nearest gas pump, blood gushing from its wound.

“You shot my Sheba!” the old man wailed.

“Come on, Pops,” Creighton snarled, shoving the gas station owner ahead of him. “Let's go see what you got in the till, huh? Skin! Gas up the truck!”

As Skinner unhooked the nozzle from the pump, he found himself staring at the dying dog. The animal turned its head toward him, its eyes already glazing over, and gave a pained, low whine, which he recognized as its death song. He squatted down alongside the beast and touched its head, whimpering in sympathy. He did not know why he did it—it just seemed the natural thing to do. Sheba licked his hand, shuddered and died.

“Stop messin' with that damned critter and put some gas in the tank!” Creighton snapped as he strode back out of the station.

“Where's the old man?” Skinner asked.

“I tied him up with a length of clothesline. Don't know why he put up such a fuss, all the old coot had in the till was a couple of twenties.”

Skinner cast a nervous glance back at the office. “You didn't hurt him, did you?”

“He didn't take kindly to me shootin' his dog, so I had to use the gun butt on him. He'll have one hell of a headache when he comes to, that's for damn sure! Now let's put some gas in this jalopy and get the hell outta here before one of the locals shows up!”

Skinner finished filling the truck's tank and hopped back into the cab. He watched the gas station dwindle in the rearview mirror until it was nothing but a dot on the landscape. When he looked down at his hands he saw they were stained with dog's blood.

Once they crossed over into New Mexico, they headed east on the highway until it met up with the interstate.

“We're home free, Skinner! Once we get to the Texas Panhandle, all our worries will be behind us!”

“This guy you know from jail—what's his name again? How come you're so sure he'll be willing to let us hide out at his place?”

“Chic an' me, we go back years. We used to hop freights together. We pulled a few jobs here and there. We held up this mom-n-pop joint in some piss-ant town in South Dakota and all we got to show for it was fifty stinkin' bucks. Chic was so mad he pistol-whipped the cashier! When I asked him why he it, he says ‘that'll learn 'em to make some money!' That Chic! He's a real hoot, I tell ya …”

Skinner chewed his thumbnail as he stared out the window of the truck. He was trying hard not to look at the .38 resting on the seat between him and Creighton, but it was no use. It was as if the gun were some malign magnet, drawing his eyes to its blued-steel barrel.

It was hard to believe that less than a month ago he'd been a college student, studying city planning, and working hard to make the Dean's List. Now he was on the run with a convicted felon. Within the walls of Los Lobos, Creighton had seemed harmless, almost quaint. And compared to bad-asses like Mother and Rope, he was the absolute salt of the earth. But now that they were free, Skinner realized his companion was genuinely dangerous. But who was he to condemn Creighton? At least he wasn't a cannibal and a parricide, which was more than he could say for himself.

He squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to blot out the images rising, un- bidden, inside his skull. He was a monster. There was no other way to describe it. He would have preferred to believe himself mad, but there was no point in deluding himself. He was a werewolf. But how could that be? In all the movies he'd seen you only became one by being bit by another werewolf. But he'd never been bitten by anything larger than a squirrel.

Unless this had something to do with his birth parents.

Skinner woke up with a start. It was dark and the truck was no longer moving. As far as he could tell, they were parked at a rest area, somewhere along the interstate. Creighton was nowhere to be seen.

Skinner climbed out of the cab, stretching the muscles in his arms and legs. He scanned the parking lot, which was empty save for a large, dark-colored sedan three spaces down from the pick-up. But there was no sign of Creighton.

The pressure tugging on his bladder drew his mind away from the whereabouts of his traveling companion. He had to take a wicked piss. He headed toward the comfort station, which was made of adobe. The interior of the men's rest room smelled strongly of industrial disinfectant and stale piss. He sighed in relief as his bladder let go into the urinal. Riding in that rusty bucket of bolts had really done a number on his kidneys.

Once he was finished shaking the dew off the lily, he moved to wash his hands at the sink. Upon looking into the mirror he was startled to see that his previously dark hair was now liberally streaked with silver. Stunned, he reached up and plucked one of the strands free. It was real, all right. Before he could figure out what, if anything, it all meant, a groan came from one of the toilet stalls, followed by a muffled cry and the sound of something hard hitting something soft. A second later Creighton emerged from the stall, zipping up his pants. When he saw Skinner, he smiled and held up a set of car keys.

“We got ourselves a new ride, kid!”

Skinner walked around Creighton to peer into the stall he'd just vacated. A middle-age man dressed in a rumpled business suit, the pants of which where still around his ankles, lay unconscious on the floor of the rest room, his hands bound with what looked to be his own tie. There was a large knot on his bald spot from where Creighton had pistol-whipped him.

“He'll be okay, kid,” Creighton said reassuringly. “The cleaning staff will find him in a couple of hours. By that time we'll be long done.”

“You could have killed him!” Skinner exclaimed.

Creighton shrugged. “So? He's just a fag.”

“Oh, yeah?” Skinner scowled. “So what does that make you?”

“I only pump butt when I'm doin' time or I need something, like right now,” Creighton replied, genuinely insulted by Skinner's accusation. “When I'm on the outside, I'm a straight pussy man, and no one can say otherwise! Guys who do it because they want to—well, that's perverted! Now, c'mon, let's get goin'!”

Ten minutes later they were headed northeast in a late model Buick LeSabre with Creighton at the wheel. “Lookit this baby! This sure beats ridin' in that junk heap, don't it? It's even got cruise control!”

Skinner grunted and turned to look out the window. It was a moonless night and it should have been too dark to see anything, but his vision was proving surprisingly keen. He thought he saw a pale blue light moving at the same rate of speed as the car, along the shoulder of the road.

As he observed the light, it took the form of a wolf. No. Not a wolf. Something like a dog, but even bigger and possibly wilder. It ran alongside the car, keeping pace effortlessly, its tongue hanging from its open mouth. It was both beautiful and fearsome in its freedom, and Skinner felt a kinship with the beast that went beyond his ability to express with human things like words.