“And?”
“He said they had a lot of bad sickness. All sorts. Plague and a raging immune-deficiency disease. And cholera. I recall he specially mentioned that they had cholera.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Look what we got here. A nigger, all on his ownsome, with a big shiny truck.”
Kyle deliberately didn’t even turn around, managing to win the battle for self-control, even succeeding in keeping his voice light and steady. “Nigger with a big shiny truck that just ran out of gas.”
“Niggers tell lies like bears shit in the woods. Figure I’ll just take me a look for myself. Move a few steps to the side, boy.”
Kyle took a chance and glanced behind him as he shuffled to his right, away from the cab. He was wondering when Steve Romero might make a move, and wondering just what the hell kind of move his friend might be able to make.
To his surprise, there was only one man standing there, holding a sawed-down scattergun, with a rifle slung over his shoulder.
He was just under average in height, skinny as a lath, with a gingery beard and deep-set eyes. His feet were tucked into enormous green rubber boots, and a long plastic raincoat drooped down below his knees.
It occurred to Kyle that the man, who looked in his late thirties, was probably mad.
“You look at me that sideways squinty way, boy, and you get to be one dead nigger real quick. You hear me?”
“Sure. Sorry. Shall I move a bit farther away from the truck?”
“Why not?” The voice belonged to someone from the South. Kyle had traveled below the Mason-Dixon line on a commission when he’d been a photographic journalist, with Leanne, just before they got engaged.
He hadn’t thought about Leanne as much as he should have since the Aquila had fallen from the sky. It had been vaguely agreed that he and Steve would try to loop back south toward Albuquerque, in New Mexico, where she had been living, after checking out Steve’s son, Sly, up in Aspen.
Nothing much had changed since he’d witnessed the South firsthand. Same good old boys drinking redneck beer in redneck bars under the Stars and Bars. Georgia rednecks and Alabama rednecks and the Mississippi rednecks. Oh, yeah, the Mississippi rednecks.
“I said to sit down, boy!”
“Sorry.”
“You educated? Can tell you are, boy. One of those uppity Northern niggers. I killed three like you last week. Camping they were, eating good fresh deer meat. Real yummy, boy. Screwed the bitch first. Cut her throat open.”
The little man was close to the cab, the twin muzzles of the scattergun gaping toward Kyle.
“Something just came to me, boy.”
“What?”
“Why bother keeping you alive? Good question, that. Answer is, I’m not no more.”
Steve was visible in the shadows of the cab, trying to wriggle silently around.
Kyle coughed. “Hey, listen, mister,” he said, trying desperately to buy himself a few more moments of precious life.
“What?” the man asked unwillingly, curious and suspicious.
“I figure you’re about as crazy as a shit-house rat, you peckerwood piece of white trash.”
The underslung jaw dropped open, and the little man stared at Kyle. “You say… Why, you stinkin’ black bastard, I’m…”
Steve took the chance while the stranger’s attention was distracted, sitting on the front seat, leveling a short-barreled pistol.
The shotgun was trembling with the man’s rage, and Kyle stared into instant obliteration, waiting for Steve to shoot.
Nothing happened. “Do it, for Christ’s sake!” Kyle yelled, terror pushing his voice way up the scale.
“I’m ’bout to,” replied the little man, recovering some tattered vestiges of what probably passed for self-control.
“Steve!”
Finally Steve Romero broke himself out of the frozen grip of horror, leveled the gun a second time and pulled the trigger.
Still no result, but now the scattergun was swiveling around toward the cab of the Volvo.
“The safety fucking catch, Steve!” screamed Kyle Lynch.
At last the handgun fired, a thin, weak sound, muffled by the surrounding cab.
“Missed me, you shithead!!” yelped the man, pulling the trigger on the shotgun.
The shot erupted into the side of the truck, taking out the windshield and the driver’s window on the far side.