Bad Juju: A Novel of Raw Terror (15 page)

He got to his feet, ignoring his
pain, and hobbled over to the ladder at the edge of the loft. He looked at the
boy hanging on the chain and considered pumping his belly full of buckshot, but
decided not to because the noise would tip his hand. All that mattered now was
getting close enough to Campbell to unload this shotgun on him. And on whoever
it was that rode up in the truck with horn a’ blowing. Looked like Luke
Chaney’s truck. Fate hoped it was. He’d wanted to kill that self-righteous son
of a bitch for a long damn time.

He dropped his shotgun to the barn
floor and started climbing down the ladder. It was slow going, but he made it
without falling off. He picked up the shotgun and walked, bent over with belly
pain, toward the doorway. He had no qualms about dying now. It was better this
way than waiting for the cancer to take him. And now that all his sons were
gone, he had nothing to live for. There was Maw, but her time was about up,
too. She could spend her last days on the government dole in some Old Folks’
Home if the Porches in Vidalia didn’t take her in.
Just let me live long
enough to kill this here demon. That’s all I ask.

Fate jacked a shell into the
chamber, then straightened up and walked out of the barn, holding the shotgun
down by his right leg and out of sight. His head was swimming rough seas and
darkness was crowding his vision, but he willed himself onward and walked a
crooked line toward the spot where Luke Chaney and the Campbell boy were
squared off and pointing pistols at one another.

I don’t care if they shoot each
other, so long as I get to finish ’em off. A close-range shotgun blast to their
faces will suit me just fine. Mighty goddamn fine.

***

Luke was aiming his Rossi .357 at
Joe Rob Campbell’s chest and looking hard into the boy’s eyes, trying to read
Joe Rob’s next move. The boy was pointing two pistols at him like some Wild
West gunslinger, and his eyes seemed to glow with dark fire. He had just gunned
down two men and he looked like he wanted to go for more.

“Easy now, Joe Rob,” Luke said,
trying to keep the tremble out of his voice. “It’s over. You got ’em.”

Joe Rob didn’t speak. He didn’t
drop his two-fisted aim. His lips were curled back in a grimace that might have
been a wicked grin.

“Let your guns down,” Luke said in
a voice that was soft yet firm. “I’m not your enemy.”

Some of the wildness seemed to go
out of his eyes, but his gun hands didn’t waver. The muzzles were still trained
on Luke’s chest.

“Come on, son. I can’t have you
pointing those guns at me. Talk to me.”

Finally Joe Rob spoke. He licked
his lips and said, “You ain’t the law.”

“No, I’m not. You’re not either.”
Now was not the time to explain that he was an auxiliary officer.

“But you’ll try to hold me till the
cops come, won’t you?”

“I can help you,” Luke told him.
“But you have to tell me what happened. Where’s Skeeter?”

“They said he’s in the barn.”

“Then we have to go get him.”

“Old Man Porch is in there too.
He’s hit but I don’t think I killed him. He tried to shoot me. He’s got a
shotgun.”

“Self defense, sounds like,” Luke
said, wanting to put the boy at ease as best he could. “Okay, now listen to me.
I want you to put those pistols away and wait here while I go see what’s up in
the barn.”

“Skeeter might be dead already,”
Joe Rob said without emotion. “I don’t know. They already cut off his finger.”

“He needs medical attention. I can
call for help on my radio. But I can’t do anything as long as you keep pointing
those guns at me. You hear? The longer we stand here like this, the worse it is
for Skeeter. “

”I ain’t giving up my guns.”

Luke decided the best he could do
to end this standoff was to bargain with the boy. He would worry about getting
the guns away from him after he’d seen what the situation was in the barn. For
now, he just had to be sure Joe Rob wasn’t going to shoot him. “I ain’t asking
you to,” he said. “I just want you to stop pointing ’em at me, that’s all. I
have to go see about Skeeter and Porch, but I can’t do that with you drawn down
on me. Chief Keller’s on his way here and I don’t want you to get in a shootout
with him either. That’s why you got to put them guns away. Okay?”

Over Joe Rob’s shoulder Luke saw
Fate Porch coming out of the barn. The crotch of his denim overalls glistened
with blood, and he was unsteady on his feet as he plodded toward them. Luke
looked away from the old man, not wanting his eyes to alert Joe Rob that Porch
was approaching. The situation was already volatile, to say the least, and he
didn’t know how Joe Rob would react to Fate’s lame, determined approach, though
he had the feeling that the boy would gun down the old man without hesitation.
The way he’d shot Luther full of holes...

Luke shivered in the heat of the
day. Fate was getting close. Any second now Joe Rob would hear his shuffling
feet and turn around and see him. Luke knew he had to take charge of the
situation, and quickly, but he didn’t know how to do it without setting off
more gunplay.

Porch was less than ten yards away
now.

Joe Rob’s pistols were still aimed
at Luke’s chest.

And Luke had no more time for
figuring out what the hell to do.

Without further deliberation, he
acted. He relinquished his aim, letting his gun hand hang by his leg and said,
“Wait here,” then walked past Joe Rob, wanting to put himself between the boy
and the old man. He could only hope Joe Rob wouldn’t shoot him in the back in
his zeal to shoot Fate Porch.

Out of the corner of his eye, Luke
saw Joe Rob turning to see where he was going. That was the bad news. The good
was that the boy had let his aim drop some, so that his guns were no longer
trained on Luke’s torso.

“Hold up, Fate,” Luke said to the
wounded old man. “Stop right there.”

Fate didn’t stop right away. He
took two, three more pained steps, then brought up a shotgun from behind the
baggy leg of his overalls and pointed it at Luke’s belly. The old man’s face
was scrunched up in a look of hate, but the look in his eyes was one of
serenity—as if he thought he’d just said his last goodbyes to the world. It was
the look in his eyes that scared the living hell out of Luke and told him the
old man was going to squeeze the shotgun’s trigger and give him a bellyful of
buckshot.

“Son of a bitch,” Joe Rob said when
he saw Porch.

 “No!” Luke shouted as he raised
his pistol. He fired.
Pop. Pop-pop.
Three .357 rounds blew into Fate’s
chest, picking him up off the ground and knocking him backward. The shotgun
separated from him and he landed on his back, raising a little puff of dust. He
lifted his head and looked around like a man just waking up in a strange place,
trying to get his bearings, then he gave Luke a nod of his head, closed his
eyes and let his head back down.

Luke turned back to Joe Rob and
said, “Stay back.” Then he knelt beside Porch and touched his fingers to the
bleeding man’s neck. No pulse. “He’s gone,” Luke said.

He stood up. “You okay?”

Joe Rob nodded. He was no longer
pointing his pistols at Luke.

“Let’s go see about Skeeter.”

***

In fact, Joe Rob was a long way
from okay, but there was no way he could explain what he was feeling to Chaney.
He couldn’t explain it to himself. The sunlit world had taken on an extra
dimension of blushing darkness, every visible thing haloed with dark
luminescence and pulsing with otherworldly energy that was nevertheless in this
world—whether by accident or by design,
who knew
? Not Joe Rob. Nor did
he care. It didn’t matter now. Nothing did. If he raised his guns and shot Luke
Chaney in the back...so what? Chaney had a dark halo, too. Dead or alive, that
halo would remain. It was
really there
. It was a little like the time he
and Skeeter had dropped acid and tripped all night and half the next day,
seeing all kinds of strange sights and shit floating in the air like purplish
electricity. Once the shit kicked in, all you could do was hold on and ride it
out to wherever it wanted to take you. And that was all he could do now:
Go
where the shit takes you.

He hop-skipped and caught up with
Chaney. “Can you see that dark shit?”

Chaney looked at him sideways.
“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Never mind.”

“This was a damn foolish thing you
did, son,” Chaney said as they entered the barn. “You’re lucky you’re not
dead.”

Joe Rob hawked a laugh. “Wasn’t
luck. I knew I could take ’em.”

“Why the hell didn’t you go to the
police?”

“They would’ve killed Skeeter. They
were watching me. Those two back there followed me here. Way I see it, I had no
choice.”

Chaney grudgingly nodded. He looked
down at the floor of the barn and saw the blood trail Fate Porch had left on
his way to his death. Then he called out: “Skeeter!”

Joe Rob looked up at the barn loft
and said, “I think he’s up there. That’s where the old man was when he took a
shot at me.”

Chaney went straight to the ladder
and scaled it. Joe Rob holstered his .357 and stuck the .45 in his belt and
followed him up.

Wearing nothing but his boxer
shorts, Skeeter was hanging from a rafter by a thick, rusty chain. His eyes
were closed, his chin resting on his skinny chest. There was a nasty-looking
gash in his side and a stab wound in his thigh, both encrusted with dried
blood. The stump of his ring finger was blackened like a link of sausage left
too long on a grill.

Chaney patted Skeeter’s knee and
called his name again. Skeeter’s eyelids fluttered, then opened. There was no
recognition in his eyes.

“Unhook that chain,” Chaney said.

Chaney wrapped his arms around
Skeeter’s hips, taking the weight off the chain, and Joe Rob unhooked it.
Chaney lowered Skeeter to the floor of the loft and put him in a sitting
position.

“Skeeter,” said Chaney. “It’s all
over. You’re safe now. You hear me?”

Skeeter nodded. Joe Rob saw the
dark halo around Skeeter’s head flare up like a circle of fire atop a gas
stove. “We got ’em, buddy,” he said. “We killed those motherfuckers dead.”

Chaney said, “Shut up, goddammit.”

“Well, we did. He needs to know it.
Look what they did to ’im.”

“Can you stand up?” Chaney asked
Skeeter.

Still dazed by the trauma inflicted
upon him by the Porches, Skeeter nevertheless got to his feet and swayed
precariously, but managed to keep his balance. The far-away look in his eyes
was beginning to fade.

“Okay,” said Chaney. “I’m gonna
carry you down the ladder, then we’ll get you to the hospital.” He bent down
and draped Skeeter over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, then took him down
the ladder.

Joe Rob followed. When he heard the
siren in the distance, he saw himself handcuffed in the back of a police car,
on his way to jail.
No fucking way. I’m not going to jail.

After Chaney put Skeeter in the cab
of his pickup, Joe Rob drew his .45 and pointed it at Chaney. “Sorry, man, but
I can’t go to jail. I got to take your guns.”

Chaney sighed and shook his head.
“Don’t do this, Joe Rob. This won’t help your case.”

“Got no choice. You can’t hold me.
You’re not a cop anymore. I gotta borrow your truck. My car’s got a flat and I
ain’t got time to change a damn tire.” He reached out and yanked the pistol
from Chaney’s holster and tossed it into the back of the truck, then he pulled
the pistol stuck in Chaney’s belt and did the same with it. “Get Skeeter out
and wait for the cops.”

He saw that Chaney had left his key
in the ignition. The wailing whoop of the approaching siren was getting too
damn close. He had to get the hell out of there if he was going to avoid a gun
battle with Chief Keller. Not that he didn’t think he could take him; he just
didn’t want to have to shoot a cop. But he would if he had to. “Move it!” he
told Chaney.

The police-band radio in the truck
crackled to life. Keller’s voice came out tinny and punctuated with static,
nearly drowned out by the sound of the siren.  “Chieftain, this is One. What’s
the situation? Luke, talk to me, dammit. What’s going on?”

“Tell him everything’s under
control,” Joe Rob told Chaney. “Tell him he can slow down.”

Chaney reached past Skeeter’s
knees, picked up the handset and said, “One, this is Chieftain. Everything’s
under control. Slow down before you kill yourself. I’ll explain when you get
here. Out.”

Skeeter looked at Joe Rob and said,
“The fuck’re you doin’?”

“Gotta book, man. They wanna take
me to jail for this shit.”

“They were gonna kills us,” Skeeter
said, a wounded look in his face. “You didn’t do nothing wrong. They can’t put
you in jail.”

“He’s right, Joe Rob,” said Chaney.
“You acted in self-defense. You’ll have to give a statement, explain exactly
what happened, why you did what you did. I don’t see that they’ve got any
reason to jail you.”

“I killed Odell Porch, too,” he
said. “Shot him in the head.”

“He went at you with a knife!”
Skeeter raised his voice. “He was gonna rape that girl! I was
there
.”

“Come on, son,” said Chaney. “Use
your head. You take my truck at gunpoint, that’s armed robbery. You
will
do serious jail-time for that.”

Skeeter said, “That’s right, man.
Don’t be stupid. You got this knocked. Hell, you’re a goddamn hero.”

Joe Rob looked at Skeeter, then at
Luke Chaney. Their halos were starting to fade a little. “Y’all don’t
understand,” he said. “I
liked
it. I enjoyed killing those
sons-o’-bitches. I wish I could do it again. I don’t think that’s how a hero’s
s’pose to feel.”

“You did what you thought you had
to,” Chaney said. “It was a combat situation. You can sort out your feelings
about it later. But right now, you need to give me your guns. Chief Keller’s
gonna be here in about sixty seconds.”