Tweakers
Noticing a man bent over the bed of a Nissan rust-bucket 4x4, DNR Officer Moon pulled off the potholed back road. Stepping from his Expedition with cold gray air biting his inhale, he hollered, "Hit a deer?"
This time of year someone always hit a deer.
The man turned from the bed of the Nissan. Peppered the Expedition's passenger-side fender with pheasant shot from a .12-gauge. Moon kneeled for cover on the driver's side with his .40-cal. Glock un-holstered mumbling, "Guess it ain't no fuckin' deer."
With pissed off warming his insides Moon lay flat on the cold earth, watched four legs from beneath his Expedition pushing distance through the field of dead grass on the other side. Moon stood up. Aimed and fired double shots.
The two unknowns disappeared into the five hundred and some acres owned by Rusty Yates. Who'd moved out west years ago, leaving his property unattended. Pulling the tarp from the Nissan's truck bed, it was lined with sealed ten-gallon white buckets. Moon broke a lid open.
Seen why they'd shot at him. Fled on foot.
Moon radioed dispatch.
"Earleen?"
"Go ahead Moon."
"Pursuing two armed suspects on foot. They opened fire. I returned fire. They fled into the back part of the Yates property. Abandoned their Nissan full of meth. Send a K9 unit, Hazmat and any available state boys."
Following in the suspects' direction, Moon crossed a thick mess of blood painting sections of dead field grass. Two fingers swiped it for freshness. It smeared warm. He'd hit one of them. He trailed the blood uphill into a pine thicket. Dank. Silent. Trees scattered out every so many feet. One hand held the Glock. The other supported it. His boots cracked the foliage of yellow pine needles splotched by blood.
Moon stopped. Inhaled. Glanced around the deaf woods. The scent of heated bleach wafted thicker than cold lard. He noticed a hint of smoke in the distance from a break of daylight. Took two steps. Didn't know if he heard it or felt it first. But it stung his shoulder worse than a hornet.
Adrenaline took over. He hit the ground like a bushel of potatoes. Rolled to a tree. Pushed hard against pine. Taking away his chances of getting a slug in the back. Lungs elbowed his ribs to find air. Red ran warm from his now-torn jacket. Weighed down his left arm. He'd been hit by a shotgun slug. Different from what sprayed his truck fender. He pulled his radio off the side of his already stiffening arm. Keyed it.
"Earleen?"
"Go head Moon."
"I been fuckin' shot. Bout one mile from where I's parked off Rothrocks Mill Road. Takin' cover in a pine thicket on Yates' property."
"Sit tight Moon. DNR unit, County K9 and state police should be there any minute."
Adrenaline turned to panic. Eyes glanced about trees. Cold open silence. Moon wondered from what direction the shot had come. Footsteps crunched closer. Moon's heart crushed limestone with a 50-pound mull against the inner lining of his skull. He searched through the cloudiness of his mind for some sense of control. Two shapes peeked from behind a tree. A shotgun barrel poked out.
"Come trespassin' where you've no business, squirrel cop."
Moon closed one eye. Glock lifted. He squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice.
A shotgun blast gripped the air. A voice rattled, "Fuck! Fuck!"
Moon couldn't distinguish the screaming voice from the voice echoing in his head. His hearing flat-lined. The surrounding woods lost its color.
Moon sat in a wooden chair. His body quaked with cold. Boiled chemical lined his inhale. A knotted pulse punched his left eye open. The right eye clouded as though squinting at first light. It'd been scraped by BB shot. His one arm was heavy with pain. The other lighter than driftwood. Each twisted behind his back. Bound by metal. Burs cutting into wrist with any movement.
A circled fluorescent glow outlined the skeleton-thin man dressed in military pants with possum-colored curls. Digging a knife into a man's body. Who sat grunting. His frame supported by an oak chair. He'd almond chest hair mossed in wads across his lice-white skull. Purple lips textured like glazed donuts. His t-shirt was dope-sick art. Cherry reds with onion sweat stains. Smeared by whatever passed for nourishment over the past few weeks.
Moon had shot him in the leg when fleeing. Then in the shoulder when he peeked from behind the tree. The wounded man glass-eyed the knife wielder, "Why the fuck you stop the truck?"
"Cause the damn tarp come loose, you can't tie a knot fur shit, Ray."
"Should've killed the squirrel cop."
"I was goin' tuh. Decided he's our receipt to keep us out the county jail's layaway."
Moon coughed, "Jail? You two mange infested shit birds'll be OJ's bitches. Your product's bein' confiscated as we speak."
From Moon's shoulder radio static cracked.
"Moon? Moon? Where are you?"
Moon chuckled. "Only a matter of time. They'll find me."
The knife wielder foamed, "Shut your maggot hole squirrel pig. Tryin' tuh get in our heads."
Turned back to wounded Ray, "Thought you took his gun and radio?"
Wounded Ray replied, "I took his gun."
The knife wielder dropped the blade on the wooden table next to a bottle of rubbing alcohol. A rag blotted by Ray's wounds. Turned with hands stained by Ray's insides and ripped the radio from Moon's shoulder. Opened the door behind Moon. The distant sound of a generator motor chugged. The knife wielder threw the radio out into the yard. Slammed the door.
Moon single-eyed what he believed to be the kitchen. Garden-brown circles stained the ceiling and walls. Dead insect shells lined window sills. Empty feed sacks sheathed the floor. Pots and mason jars with tubing littered a gas stove. Fuel filled cylinders and homemade beakers filled a counter top. It was a homemade meth lab.
An old man came into the kitchen, hair raised like puppets on unseen wire. Face cracked like dry rotted bike tires. Dressed in a hunter green button-up. Wrinkled jeans and unlaced boots. He glanced at Moon, "Why'd you two not tell me we's havin' company?"
The knife wielder said, "He ain't company. He's law. Caught his ass trespassin'. He shot Ray Ray, Pop."
Pop looked at Moon like he'd dug up his daisy-pushing parents. Raped each of their corpses. Made Pop watch. With one eye wide, the other squinted, he asked. "Hell you shoot my youngest fur?"
With identical eyes, Moon told Pop, "I'm a DNR Officer. Your inbred boy Ray, he shot at me. I returned—"
The blade wielder hammer-fisted Moon's BB sprayed eye with the butt of his knife. "Told you tuh shut your maggot hole squirrel pig."
Pop shook his head. "Law or no law. Shootin' any one of my boys absolves any standin' you got."
Pop turned to the knife wielder, "You got my coffee brewin'?"
Offering the blade to Pop, the knife wielder said, "It's done. You finish diggin' this lead out'a Ray Ray. I fix you a jar."
Pop took the blade. Glanced down on Ray's wounds. Shook his head. "Boy I seen skinned venison better shape than you."
Ray Ray's head rested on his right shoulder. His chest no longer rising. The knife wielder poured coffee into a mason jar.
"Be sure tuh put that special sugar you two make in there." Pop said.
Unscrewing the rusted lid of another jar half-filled with crystal chunks, the knife wielder said, "Got it Pop." Dropped a few into the steaming jar of coffee. Watched them dissolve. Glancing out the window into the yard of dead grass and tree limbs, the knife wielder turned. Handed the jar of coffee to Pop, who laid the blade down. Took the jar. The knife wielder told Pop, "Gotta get my gun. Stay here. Don't let no one in but me."
Confused Pop asked, "Who put fire ants up yur ass?"
"Our company's company is trespassin' up toward the house."
From the loss of blood, Moon felt the cold chapping his veins. Fighting it he said, "Told you they'd come for me."
Holding his .12-gauge the knife wielder shook his head, "They ain't got you yet."
The door opened behind Moon. Cold air slammed against his back. A generator hummed. The door shut.
Pop sipped his jar of coffee. Told Moon, "My two boys lost good factory jobs in town. Ray Ray's wife found warmth in another man's bed. Unsupportive whore she was run off. Took the grandson. Now my boys are self-employed makin' they own sugar. I can't complain. They's been nothin' but good to me since they mother drowned when we's fishin' in the Ohio. Them two put this roof here over my head."
Working his hands behind his back. Trying to create space, fluid coated Moon's hands like paint to wall primer. Fighting the cold in his veins he told Pop, "You're squatting on private land. Your boys are cookin' methamphetamine. Shit'll rot your insides out."
Pop's laugh was an un-tuned banjo telling Moon, "Say what you like. Ain't no one lived here in years, not hurtin' no one." Holding the jar of coffee up, "What's in this here gets the blood pumpin'. My age not much left that ain't rotted."
Before Moon worked his hands free, gunshots opened the violent soundtrack outside the kitchen. A barking dog followed. The familiar voice of the knife wielder being mauled. Ray Ray slumped more and more till he met the floor. Pop started to kneel down when the kitchen door burst open. Radio static crackled codes. Cold air added to the cold in Moon's veins. Coiled barbed wire fell from Moon's wrists. Hit the floor. His hands were free. An officer palmed his wounded shoulder. Steadied him. "Hold on Moon, hold on."
-END-
