TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1) (31 page)

When Sunny got to the barn doors, she saw that one stood ajar a couple of feet. She pressed her back against the door opposite the open one, and listened. She could definitely hear whispering, but couldn’t identify the voices. Sunny was pretty sure, though, they didn’t belong to Hayward and Soc... that left only one possibility.

Sunny felt both angry and gleeful at the same time—angry because those two idiots, Punch and White, had decided, on this Halloween night, to try to play another “Hill Man” trick on her. Her glee came because she had the upper hand and could turn the tables; that is, scare the bejabbers out of them, instead. She transferred the flashlight from her right to her left hand, and as quietly as possible, pulled her pistol from its holster. She stood there for a few seconds mentally preparing herself for her next move. Sunny held the flashlight and pistol, one in each hand, next to her face, both pointed skyward. She whirled through the open door and shouted in as stern and commanding voice as she could summon, “Hold it right there!” Then she switched on the flashlight.

The two surprised faces Sunny saw staring back at her in the beam of the flashlight so startled and terrified her that she dropped the pistol. The men stared frozen in the shaft of light like deer in headlights. She beheld the demons from her dreams, hell-shades from her worst nightmare. In her seconds long paralyzed state, the two rushed toward her. She regained her senses and fell to her knees pointing the flashlight to the barn floor to find where she had dropped her gun. The beam crossed the pistol’s handle and she reached for it, but before she could close her hand around it, a booted foot came down upon her fingers, then a rough hand grabbed the flashlight and tore it from her grip. Another pair of arms slipped around her from behind, clasping under her arms and behind her head in a headlock. Still held that way, the man pulled her to her feet.

The flashlight shone in her face, as a deep menacing voice said, “Well, look what we got here, Three. And she brought us a flashlight, too. We appreciate that, girlie. We thought you was supposed to be gone.”

Sunny struggled in the hold of the other man, but couldn’t break it. “Easy, easy, sweet cheeks,” the man who held her said. She could feel and smell his hot, rancid breath on the back of her neck and cheek.

“Let me go, you little bastard!” Sunny said as she continued struggling.

The guy holding her laughed and squeezed her tighter. “You tougher’n your old man,” he said. “And a damn sight better looking.”

“Now what were you going to do with this,” the big one said. Sunny could see him holding the gun up turning it this way and that while he looked at it. “Pretty slick piece,” he added. “Maybe we can put it to use later.”

“What’re you doing here?” Sunny asked. She had stopped her fighting because every time she tried to twist loose, the guy holding her squeezed tighter and pushed her head painfully forward onto her chest.

“Well, we’re looking for something,” the big one said. “Just kind of minding our own business, until you came along. But that sort of changes things now, don’t it. We were just going to get what we were looking for and get out. But now... I don’t know. Whadda you think we should do, Three?”

“I think we should take her with us,” the little guy said. He nuzzled his whiskered face against the back of her cheek, and licked it.

Sunny pulled her head away to the side as much as she could, making a disgusted sound.

“Well, yeah, we could do that,” the big one said. “But keeping a woman around can cause you a lot of grief. After a while, they just start to drag you down. Naw, I don’t think taking her with us would be such a good idea. We’re going to have to think of something else.” He pointed the gun at her head and squinted down the sights above the barrel.

“Why don’t you just get whatever it is you’re looking for and leave?” Sunny said amid hot, angry tears. “What is it you’re looking for, anyway?”

“Whoa, I’m having one of them
déjà vu
things,” the big one said. He lowered the barrel of the gun. “That’s the same question that old farmer asked me when we come out here looking for stuff a few years back.”

Sunny looked at the big guy with hatred, “You killed Buck, didn’t you.”

“Was that his name?” the big one asked with a sinister smile. Then he had another thought, and lost his smile. “Is that what your daddy told you? Did Goat tell you what happened?” He stepped forward grabbing a handful of her hair and pulled her head back. When Sunny was forced to look into his eyes from four inches away, all she saw was a bottomless pit of evil.

“Yes.” Sunny didn’t know why she said that, because Goat hadn’t told her anything.

“Yeah?” he asked. “Well, the old guy asked for it. If he’d told us what we wanted to know, and if he hadn’t come at me with a crowbar, we maybe wouldn’t have cracked his skull.”

“You piece of dung,” Sunny said.

The big guy laughed without humor. “I think after we find what we come for, we better do to you what we did to that old man.” He once again pointed the pistol at her head. “Have to make yours look like an accident, too; mebbe a suicide.”

The big one turned and shined the flashlight into the barn. “Ain’t you supposed to have an old wagon in here somewhere?” Then when the beam found the wagon in the corner of the barn, he said, “Ah, there it is, just like it’s supposed to be. I bet what we’re looking for is in there, too.”

The big guy walked over to the wagon and threw the dusty tarp back to reveal several items lying beneath it in the wagon bed. He pushed them around until he spied the rusty old toolbox in the corner under the wagon seat. Snapping open the latches, he lifted the lid and pulled out the shallow tray inside. The flashlight exposed a gunnysack sitting in the interior of the box. He lifted it out, and set the flashlight on the bed of the wagon. Reaching inside the gunnysack, he pulled out a piece of buckskin and unfolded it, laid it on the wagon bed and picked up the flashlight, scanning the red words written on the skin.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

“Is that it?” the little guy asked as he relaxed his hold on Sunny a bit. Sunny had waited for just that opportunity. With a downward thrust of her left arm she broke the handclasp at the back of her neck, and continued downward and back with her elbow until it struck the guy square in the left side of his ribcage. He let out a “Hummph,” and doubled over slightly. Sunny spun her body counter-clockwise and outward, and while holding onto the guy’s right arm with both of hers, kicked him squarely, and with all her might, in the crotch.

“Hooo,” Threebuck exhaled and continued doubling over, falling face first onto the barn floor, and immediately curling into a fetal position.

Sunny turned and sprinted out the barn door. She cut right, once outside, and headed toward the root cellar. She knew the first place they would look would be the house, and thought hiding in the root cellar would buy her a little time. Once she saw them go inside the house, she would run around the barn to Hayward’s RV, wake them up and drive away across the pasture.

* * *

From his concealed position in the trees across the pasture, the creature could hear a commotion going on inside the large structure. As he watched, the female Other ran from the front of the structure heading for the small cave... the Cave of The Food, then disappeared inside it. The bigger of the male Others, who had gone into the structure, came out and looked around, then headed for the smaller shelter from which the female had first come. The creature squinted. He thought the big male Other carried a small power thing. He squeaked and took a step backward. He did not like it when Others held the power things.

He watched as the small male Other came out of the large structure, yelled something and pointed toward the Cave of the Food. The big one returned to where the small one stood; the little one went back to the big structure, and the big one walked slowly toward the cave. The creature became enraged. Power thing or no power thing, he could not let those male Others take The Food. He snorted, ranted and spun, his anger building. He uttered, “Errraph!” and heaved the rock in his hand at the small shiny shelter sitting behind the big structure. The rock arced the hundred or so yards through the still night air, landing with a “whump” squarely atop the shiny shelter.

The creature, his eyes glowing with fury, broke from the shelter of the moonlight dappled trees, and loped toward the Cave of The Food with a determined stride.

* * *

Randy had set the pistol down in the wagon bed as he pulled the old tool chest out from under the seat and opened it. When he removed the folded hide from the gunnysack, and turned the flashlight on the inscribed words, it thrilled and amazed him. He read those blood-red words and said, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Threebuck asked him something, but it didn’t register with Randy as he looked incredulously at the inscribed buckskin laid out on the wagon bed. After all the months they’d chased this treasure, he’d begun to doubt they would ever find it, or that it even existed. He just couldn’t unravel the meaning of the “treasure letter” they had gotten from Goat. But now... finding this old piece of deerskin with words written on it, words that coincided and further described the clues in the letter, it appeared he’d found the key to the location of the treasure.

Scuffling noises broke Randy’s reverie, and sounds came from Threebuck like a mewling calf. Turning the flashlight in that direction, he saw Threebuck rolled up in a ball on the barn floor gasping. He caught a glimpse of the woman’s baby blue robe going out the barn door. Randy fumbled for the gun on the wagon bed, and took out after her. Stopping, after a few feet, Randy returned to the wagon and shoved the buckskin back into the gunny sack. Dropping it on the dirt floor next to Threebuck as he passed him, he said, “Hold onto that.”

Once outside, Randy stopped. The Griggs woman had disappeared into the night. He turned completely around looking for any sign of her. His next thought was that she must have returned to the house, and he took off running toward it.

Just as he reached the back door of the house and opened it, Randy heard Threebuck call to him in a pain-racked voice, “Randy! Back here! She went in the cellar!”

Randy turned and looked at the hump of moonlight painted earth thirty yards to the left of the barn. He trotted slowly back to where his partner stood. Threebuck walked gingerly in circles, still bent over, and uttering tortured sounds.

“You sure she’s in there?” Randy asked in a totally unsympathetic voice.

Threebuck sucked in some air and said, “Yeah, she... oh crap... she come out of there, I guess to make a break for it and... oh man... unh... son-of-a-bitch... then she seen me and ducked back in... hooo... oh damn... Randy, you got to let me be the one to kill that woman.”

Randy looked at Threebuck with disdain. “Where’s that gunnysack I gave you?” he asked.

“What gunnysack?” Threebuck returned.

“You idiot, the gunnysack that holds the buckskin that tells where the treasure is. I told you to hang onto it.”

“Hnnng,” Threebuck said.

“I’m going over to that cellar to take care of the woman,” Randy said. “You go back in the barn and get that sack.”

* * *

Despite White Oxley trying to reason with Punch, the idiot seemed determined to carry out his plan to play his ghillie-suited Halloween trick on Sunny.

“Well, now, just hold on, Punch. At least let me drive you out there. As drunk as you are, you’d probably drive right off into Cowbird Creek. And with that outfit on, I don’t think you could swim very far.”

White decided if he couldn’t stop Punch, he at least had better go along with him to maybe defuse the situation before anyone got shot and killed. He’d totally forgotten about Hayward’s and Soc’s plan to rendezvous with those two uglies out at Sunny’s place that very night. Driving along, White looked over at Punch and started snickering. He had to admit this was one of the funnier pranks Punch had pulled. It wasn’t very smart, but it was funny. White made a turn at the mile section before going to Sunny’s place.

“Where the hell you going?” Punch asked. His beer polluted brain didn’t blur his knowledge of their whereabouts.

“I need to run by the house to get my video camera,” White said. “Ain’t nobody’s going believe this in the telling. I want to record it for prosterior. ’Sides, Sunny’s going to need some proof in a court of law that shooting you was justifiable.”

White gathered up his video camera at his house, and when they pulled into Sunny’s long gravel drive, he shut off the lights, cut the engine, and coasted the last hundred feet to a stop, steering the pickup into the moonlight shade of the big elm at the side of the house.

“Well, what’s your plan?” he asked Punch.

Punch opened his door and got out, dragging the wooly and shaggy headpiece with him. “I’m going to head on out to the barn, then I’m going to knock around out there, rouse the chickens and goats. Once I see Sunny come outside to investigate, I’ll come out of the barn and scare the crap out of her.”

Standing at the side of the truck, Punch put on the ghillie hood, taking some seconds to adjust it onto his head.

“You sure you can see out of that thing?” White asked in a whisper. He raised his video camera and hit the record button.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Punch responded, and took off in the direction of the barn. His restricted vision, plus his beer-impaired balance, sent him on a weaving route.

White stayed at the truck where he had a clear field of view of the back portion of the farmstead, from house to barn to root cellar. And he started recording Punch’s journey.

* * *

“What’s taking you so dang long?” Soc asked in an exasperated whisper from the doorway of the RV. He had gone out to investigate what had made the thump on top of the vehicle, and had come back in.

“Just hold your durn horses,” Hayward said. “I told you I had to pee, and I ain’t as quick at it as I used to be.”

“There’s something going on out here. You better hurry up. And don’t forget your shotgun.”

Hayward came toward Soc from the RV’s bathroom, zipping his fly. “Did you find out what hit the top of the RV?” he asked.