Battle Read online

  The rude man sneered and looked around the table for validation. “Kill him yourself. What kind of person asks someone else to do his killing for him?”

  The others grumbled their agreement. The bearded man did not. He tilted his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. He stared at Junior and tilted his head in the other direction. He was expressionless even when he finally spoke.

  “Just one man?” he asked.

  Junior nodded. “Not any man,” he explained. “He’s charmed or cursed, I don’t know which. But a single man can’t kill him.”

  The others at the table laughed.

  The rude man, who clearly hadn’t taken the hint from the bearded man, playfully punched him in the shoulder as he mocked Junior. “What is he, a ghost?” He laughed, then feigned Junior’s tone. “A single man can’t kill him?”

  The bearded man wiped the grin from his cohort’s face. “You’re not funny,” he said. “You’re drunk. You’re belligerent when you’re drunk, and that means you’re not funny.”

  The bearded man then offered his hand to Junior. “I’d like to apologize for my friend’s rude behavior. We’re not animals here.”

  Junior shook the man’s hand. “I’m not interested in what he has to say anyhow,” he said. “I’m talking to you. I’m called Junior.”

  “I’m Bumppo,” said the bearded man. “Have a seat.”

  Junior looked across the room to Grissom, who was still at the bar with an empty glass, nodded reassuringly at him, and took the lone remaining chair at the table.

  Bumppo poured a shot of mash into an empty glass and slid it across the table to Junior. “It’s on me.”

  Junior shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “That’s fifty dollars.”

  Bumppo laughed and the rest of the table, save the drunk bully, laughed with him. “Fifty dollars?” he asked. “Who told you that? I paid a hundred for the bottle.”

  Junior gritted his teeth but didn’t admit to being taken by the barkeep. He took the shot and downed it. The sting of it burned his tongue and throat on the way down, but he relished it. He hadn’t had a drink in weeks.

  Bumppo raised his glass toward Junior and then slung it down his throat. “It’s lousy,” he said, wincing, “but it’s what we have.”

  “Thank you,” said Junior.

  “Tell me more about this immortal man you can’t handle on your own,” said Bumppo. “The prospect intrigues me.”

  “You’ve done this sort of work before?” asked Junior.

  From beneath Bumppo’s beard, a sly smile spread across his face. His eyes shrank to slits. “Yeah,” he said, drawing chuckles from the others at the table, “we’ve worked the entire color wheel, if you know what I mean. What’s the pay?”

  “Ten thousand.”

  “That ain’t a lot,” said Bumppo. “We’d usually take three times that for a job as precarious as the one you appear to be offering.”

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “Where is it?” asked Bumppo. “And who is it?”

  “He’s in a town called Baird,” said Junior. “His name is—”

  The smile disappeared from Bumppo’s face. “Marcus Battle.”

  Junior swallowed hard. “How did you—”

  Bumppo’s eyes were wide. He rubbed his head with both hands. “Everybody knows who Marcus Battle is. Plenty of people have tried to off that man. Back when we were in the Cartel, we heard stories about him. He could kill twenty men with a switchblade and a lit match.”

  The obnoxious man pointed his finger at Junior. “He wouldn’t even need the match, I bet. He’s one bad hombre.”

  Junior wasn’t surprised by their reaction. He’d have been more shocked had they never heard of Battle. “He’s getting old,” he said. “He’s not what he used to be.”

  “That’s like saying the sun doesn’t burn as hot as it used to,” said Bumppo. “It’ll still fry you if you get too close.”

  “If we kill him, we’ll be legends. We become the men who killed Mad Max.”

  Bumppo poured himself another shot and downed it. His fingers were wrapped around the glass, which he tapped gently on the table.

  Junior sighed. He pushed back from the table. “So you’re not interested,” he said. “I get it. I’ll find someone else.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Bumppo countered. He eyed the bar. “Give us a minute though.”

  Junior smiled with one corner of his mouth and nodded confidently. “All right. Come see me when you’re ready.”

  He stood and meandered through the crowd back to Grissom. The musician still strummed her guitar, but it was more aggressive. Her fingers moved quickly and she sang with an anger Junior hadn’t previously noticed. Resisting the urge to look over his shoulder at her or toward Bumppo’s table, he eased up to the bar. He reached across the polished wood and snatched the uncorked bottle of mash. He wrapped his fingers around the long neck and emptied a healthy pour into Grissom’s glass.

  “You have the money for that?” asked Grissom.

  “We’re not paying for it,” said Junior. “Drink it.”

  Grissom swallowed the mash and whistled. “Whew,” he said. “Okay. What’s up with you? Are those men gonna help us?”

  “They’re gonna help,” said Junior. “They just haven’t figured it out yet.”

  Grissom inched closer and lowered his voice. “How do you know? What did they say? Did you tell them who we’re after? Did you say how much the job pays?

  Junior swayed with the rhythm of the music that filled the room. “That guitarist is good,” he said. “She plays with emotion. I like that.”

  “Junior,” Grissom pressed, “what is—”

  Junior put his finger to his lips. “Shhh. Listen.”

  He caught each pluck of the strings, the resonance of them as they vibrated against the musician’s finger. One note melted into the next. Her voice blended perfectly as she sang the song.

  “They’ll do the job because they need the money,” he said to Grissom after a moment. “They haven’t cleaned themselves in weeks. The leader’s head is unshaven. Their hands are filthy. Their boots and shoes are worn through. And they’re desperate.”

  “Desperate?”

  “Only the desperate come to the Alamo,” said Junior. “It’s why we’re here, right? We’re desperate to find men to help us. We’ve exhausted every other reasonable possibility, so we’re left with the ones nobody else would have.”

  “You told them the job only pays twenty?”

  “I told them it pays ten.”

  Grissom’s eyes popped and he bit his lower lip, trying to contain his glee. “You’re a smart man. Your father would be proud.”

  The music stopped. “He would be,” Junior said with a nod. He sucked in a deep breath of the stale air and the bartender emerged from the darkened doorway through which he’d disappeared minutes ago.

  “I need another glass,” said Junior. “We’re going to finish the bottle here.”

  The bartender dropped his meat-hook hands onto the polished wood. “That’s gonna cost you. Looking at the bottle, you already owe me for another glass.”

  Junior shook his head. “You already charged us for the bottle,” he said firmly, “so I don’t owe you anything.”

  The bartender growled and slid his hefty frame across the bar, his finger an inch from Junior’s face. “You’re gonna pay me for—”

  Without warning, Junior grabbed the man’s finger with his hand and bent it backwards, snapping it with one quick move. The man eked out a high-pitched squeal and tried to free his broken finger from Junior’s grip but couldn’t.

  Junior used the finger to yank the man toward him with one hand while he slid his other around the bartender’s neck and pushed downward rapidly, slamming the man’s forehead onto the wood. Junior gripped a handful of the bartender’s hair and held him down, leaning close to the man’s ear. “No. I’m. Not.”

  He let go of the barkeep and the man stumbled backward, hol
ding his injured hand at the wrist. His eyes jittered with fear and he banged into the shelf that held several bottles of mash. One of them teetered and fell to the floor with a smash. The bartender stood there, dazed, mumbling to himself. He’d gone from what he thought was the upper hand to a simpering victim in a matter of seconds.

  Junior pulled a Colt from its holster and set it on the bar, his fingers draped across the grip. “I’m going to need that second glass.”

  The bartender eyed the gun, obliged, and used his good hand to gently deliver it at arm’s length. He shakily rested the bottle on the wood and stepped back to cradle his wounded hand.

  “Ain’t you afraid he’s gonna come back and shoot you?” asked Grissom.

  Junior raised his glass and motioned for Grissom to raise his. “That’s his shooting hand that’s all mangled,” he said and slammed the mash against the back of his throat. “He’s not coming back to do squat.”

  “I think we’re in,” Bumppo said from behind the pair. “It’s gonna have to be fifteen grand though. Can’t do it for less than that.”

  Junior scratched his temple and shrugged. “No can do.”

  Grissom stepped back with surprise, cocking his head like a clucking bird, and eyed Junior warily. He didn’t say anything. Junior ignored him.

  Bumppo grumbled under his breath and moved to the bar, squeezing his frame between Grissom and Junior. He leaned on his forearms and clasped his hands. He looked to Junior like a Catholic resting on the pew in front of him, about to pray.

  “You came to me,” he said with a sardonic chuckle. “I’m guessing you can’t find anyone else to help you or you wouldn’t be here getting into finger fights with the bartender.”

  Junior’s lips were pressed tight and curled into his mouth between his teeth. He looked straight ahead at the wall of grain alcohol varietals held captive in bottles on wooden shelving. He could taste the remains of the mash in his throat. He wasn’t budging. Ten thousand dollars was all he was paying and that was all Bumppo was going to get.

  “Marcus Battle ain’t one to mess with,” said the bald, bearded, would-be assassin. “You need us more than we need you. It’s gotta be fifteen.”

  Junior inhaled quickly through his nostrils, pulling a gob of snot-laced spit into his mouth. He drew it forward with his tongue and spat the nasty wad of it at the liquor wall behind the bar, where it splattered and snaked down the limestone.

  “I’m guessing you need the money more than I do,” said Junior. “Anybody willing to do it for less than twenty will do it for ten.”

  Bumppo squeezed his laced fingers together until they were white. “I’ll do ten if you give us the money up front.”

  A smile crept along the edges of Junior’s mouth. He’d won. “Five up front. Five when Battle is dead.”

  Bumppo glanced over his shoulder at the men he’d left at his table. He exhaled with histrionic resignation. “Okay,” he said. “That’s a thousand per man now and another thousand when the job is finished.”

  Junior reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of cash. He casually handed it to Bumppo without looking at him. “It’s all there,” he said. “Five grand in hundred-dollar bills.”

  Bumppo snatched the roll of money and shook it at Junior. “Best money you ever spent,” he said. “Consider Marcus Battle dead. We leave for Baird in the morning.”

  “Two hundred fifty miles to Baird,” said Junior. “That’s a three-day ride, easy. We’ll stop in San Angelo along the way. So let’s make it early in the morning. We’ll meet you out front in the plaza at sunup.”

  “Done,” said Bumppo.

  Junior shook the man’s hand, sealing the deal. He hoped he’d found the right kind of desperate man.

  CHAPTER 7

  FEBRUARY 7, 2044, 8:00 AM

  SCOURGE + 11 YEARS, 4 MONTHS

  MUSCADINE, ALABAMA

  Taskar knuckled the sleep from his eyes and yawned, thumping a rhythm on the steering wheel with his thumbs. Coupled with the warbling hum of the tires against the interstate asphalt, and the rattle of his water bottle against the edge of the cup holder, the thumping complemented a nice melody. It was almost musical.

  “Welcome To Georgia,” a bent blue sign announced in bold white lettering. “We’re Glad Georgia’s On Your Mind.” At the bottom of the sign was the name of the governor at the time of the Scourge a decade earlier.

  “Christopher Bridges,” Taskar said to himself. “Gonna guess he’s no longer in office.”

  He reached to the center console, found the water bottle, and flipped its top to take a drink. Finally, after a long night of driving, he was in his destination state. A green mileage sign told him Atlanta was only fifty-three miles away.

  Taskar took his foot off the accelerator for a second and rolled his ankle around in a circle. The ache had stretched from the top of his foot, up his leg, and to his knee.

  The hearse lurched and slowed until he reapplied pressure to the gas pedal. The vehicle sputtered for a moment and then jerked into gear. The speedometer read forty-five miles per hour.

  “Not far now,” he muttered. “Not far at all.”

  Taskar closed the cap on the water bottle and set it back into the cup holder. He twisted it until it made the familiar rattle and then thumped the wheel with his thumbs. Humming along with the tires, he improvised a tune with the cup, his thumb furnishing the instrumentals.

  Taskar would like to have been a musician. That was the plan, in fact, until the Scourge changed everything.

  He’d been working at the Korisko Larkin Staskiewicz Funeral Home in Omaha as a funeral bugler and stand-in pallbearer. It had been a good after-school job for a sixteen-year-old.

  His mother, a florist who’d done a lot of work for the home, had gotten him the job. She’d been proud of her Boy Scout and his musical abilities.

  “He plays alto sax, the piano, and the guitar,” she’d told the funeral director. “He’s such a good boy.”

  “Can he play the bugle?” the man had asked. “We don’t want to resort to a digital recording of ‘Taps’. It’s an insult to our veterans, I think. We much prefer a live performance.”

  She blinked but nodded. “Of course,” she’d told them, and Taskar had been hired at twenty dollars per service, even though he couldn’t play the valveless brass instrument.

  Instead of panicking, Taskar had bought himself a secondhand instrument at a pawnshop and taught himself to play it. After a few months, he’d been promoted and got an extra five dollars for helping carry caskets if needed.

  One afternoon, after the burial of an Air Force veteran, the funeral director had turned to Taskar as the boy was slipping his bugle back into its case. He’d wiped his sweaty brow and whistled.

  “You sure are a good musician,” he’d said. “I mean, for never having played the bugle, you certainly have a talent.”

  Taskar had snapped the lid shut and blushed. “How did you know that?” he asked. “Did my mom tell you?”

  The director had picked up a folding chair and loaded it onto a cart. “No,” he’d said with a smile. “I knew when I hired you.”

  “How?”

  “Your mother mentioned that you played a woodwind and two stringed instruments. She never mentioned a brass,” the director had said. “Still, I figured, here’s a mother who loves her son and believes in him. So, I believed in you.”

  Taskar was a talented musician. He played by ear and could compose melodies on the fly. He was an improviser who understood the language of music. He’d wanted to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston and hoped to one day play professionally as a session musician or in a band.

  That had ended with the Scourge. His mother had been among the first in Omaha to contract the illness. She’d given it to his twin sisters, and then his father had succumbed. Taskar had been alone. He’d sought help and refuge at the funeral home. For weeks he’d managed there. Then, predictably, everyone affiliated with it had also contracted the ampicillin- and tetr
acycline-resistant viral pneumonia. The director had collapsed in Taskar’s arms as the boy tried to cool his fever in the shower. Within hours Taskar had been orphaned again.

  Unsure of what to do, he had taken a bag full of food from the cupboard and bottled water from the break room refrigerator, plucked the keys to the hearse from a pegboard by the back door, and climbed into the driver’s seat. He’d no clue where to go or what he was doing.

  A block from the funeral home, at the corner of F Street and South Fiftieth, he’d slowed to a stop. He’d gripped the wheel, considering his options. North or south? Or east until he could merge onto Interstate 80?

  Despite the relative lack of vehicles still on the roads, he’d heard horror stories of impassable pileups on highways through the Midwest and heartland and decided south was the best choice. When he’d swung the wheel and tentatively pressed the accelerator, a woman had appeared at his window. She’d been wild-eyed, her red cheeks glistening with tears, and her hair had sprayed across her head as if she’d played with a light socket.

  Her rapping knuckles and unintelligible pleas had startled Taskar, but he’d stopped the hearse and cracked the window. The woman had plied her fingers through the narrow opening and stuck her face to it like someone gasping for air before drowning. Her fingernails had been chipped and the red polish was missing in spots.

  “Pleeaase!” she’d wailed. “Help me. I need to go to Kansas City. My parents are in Kansas City.”

  Taskar had taken his hands from the wheel and held them up in surrender, trying to calm the woman.

  “Pleeaase!” she’d repeated amidst raspy gasps for air. “I can pay you. I can give you money.”

  “Are your parents alive?” he’d asked.

  The woman had bitten her lip, her chin quivering, and she’d nodded loosely. “Yes, but my mother’s sick. I have to get there.”

  Taskar had studied the woman. She’d seemed sincere. Like so many people at that time, she’d been at her wit’s end, and her mania was to be expected. He hadn’t considered whether she was a thief playing him or something more sinister. Still naive in those early days after the Scourge, he’d given in to the guilt.