2 cobra 25 cliffie bonus 1

 

Chapter 25 Don’t mess with Sir

 

“So, are you all from that posh school?” asked one of the gunmen. He was a lantern-jawed fellow, badly shaved, and as like a rough cow poke as in any western as you could imagine. His companion wasn’t any more prepossessing; only he was faintly greasy. 

“These are just kids,” I said. “What beef can you have with them? They’re not even fifteen; what’s this about?”

“Shut your mouth, schoolma’am,” said the one my side. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”

I didn’t think I could take both out before the other had a chance to fire on Miss Shenfield.

Miss Shenfield, however, had other ideas.

“He may be a coward, but I’m not,” she said, leaping at the one her side.

She died with a slug in her.

No great loss, but nonetheless....

“That was uncalled for,” I said, mildly. “What do you want? The kids don’t have much pocket money.”

“No, but their daddies do,” sneered the gunman near me. “We came for Henry J. Wenlow the third, but I wager the other daddies will pay, as well. We don’t need the schoolma’am, though.”

He fired, and I dived as he did. Pain shot through my ribs, but it did not feel as though he had hit anything vital.

I let my eyes go dead – being able to change the look in them is useful -  and stopped breathing, shifting to the oxygen feed of my internal tank.

It satisfied the gunman.

Ruth screamed, and leaped at him; and he backhanded her.

“You kids, get your coats, and come along,” he said.

Even the boys were sobbing now in terror.

I noticed Ruth slip her quilt around her waist under her anorak, and took from Paul the rather nice knife he had bought in a tooled leather sheath, which she stuck down her cleavage. Good girl, she was learning well. They filed off the bus; Kershaw stumbled and tripped beside me.

“You bully! You pushed her!” said Ruth, shrilly.

Kershaw was shoving something into my hand; her pocket box. I opened my eyes, and winked at her. She gasped.

“Never mind the corpse of the schoolma’am,” said the gunman, roughly. “Hurry up, you clumsy girl.”

“I... I can’t hurry. It’s that time for me,” said Kershaw.

“Whaddya mean?”

“It’s that time!” whispered Kershaw.

“She’s on her period, you dick-for-brains,” said Ruth.

She was backhanded again.

“Well, you look after her and make sure she keeps up,” said the man.

 

 

I waited for them to hustle the kids into the bushes, and staying low, I exited the bus in a hurry. The sun had set, but there was light in the sky, and I had to move fast to get out of sight.

I was glad I had done so. I had just merged my shadow with one of the bushes at the side of the road when there was a fusillade of shots into the gas tank; and the bus went up like a candle. Must have been incendiary rounds to start a fire so fast.

I followed, like a black panther, having dug out my first aid kit and slammed a patch on my bleeding body. No lung problems, there was a bullet somewhere inside, though, and it felt as if it had turned and gone up towards the scapula. It had not nicked my liver or any major arteries, and I’d live.

I had a quick look at Kershaw’s pocket box; she’d taken a photo of both of them. I took the time to transfer this to mine, plugged in, and uploaded it to the net, to Willow, with the news that we had been kidnapped, with an approximate location. Willow would get drones out here and would notify Tarquin, who was a better member of the authorities to get to than anyone else.

And Kershaw had done the right thing; those damned thugs, and there were now four of them, were demanding the pocket boxes of the kids, and threw them in the bushes. At least they didn’t break them; I could pick them up so at least the kids could do their homework when we got back.

Damn, I was getting into the role of schoolmaster.

Kershaw claimed to have left hers on the bus. She was roughly frisked.

It was the same one who had hit Ruth; and called me a schoolma’am. He had many things to pay for.

“Damn stupid kid, well, it’s burned now,” said the one I was calling Dead Meat. The kids were hustled on.

 “Well, Tiber might say he worked out with Jay Silverheels, but he really was a wimp,” said Sausage Clinton.

“And what could he have done?” said Ruth, scornfully. “He couldn’t have taken both from where he was, and his duty was to stop them shooting us. He died trying to help us, and he probably knew he was going to be shot,” she added, with a hiccup.

“What, you sweet on sir?” sneered Clinton.

I did not like that boy.

“He’s my brother, you lame-brain,” hissed Ruth.

Clinton subsided.

He did not apologise.

But then, he was not the sort of boy who ever apologised.

The kids were shoved and harried, and Kershaw seemed to be even clumsier than usual until I figured out what she was doing; she was marking a trail.

How could anyone say that kid was stupid?

Ruth did not know I was behind in order to mark a trail, and Kershaw had not dared tell her; Ruth at least was thinking about survival. We came at last to a steep hill down to another road, and there they had a truck of the army kind, with canvas back to it, over a frame, waiting for them.

That meant at least five of them; they would not leave it without a driver. The kids were hustled down, not an easy feat in the rapidly encroaching darkness. If they hesitated they were whacked with the pistol butt; even Clinton had had his bravado and condescension knocked out of him.

I was glad; I had felt that if any made a break for it, he was the one most likely; and my chances of stopping him being killed were slim to none, and Slim was buried on Boot Hill long since. What I was most grateful for was that I wouldn’t actually grieve overmuch for the little snot so my conscience did not have to be tried on whether I would make an effort to save him.

He had shown some more respect when he found a lot to moan about in a course with which I showed I had no trouble, but he kept harping back to Jay Silverheels.

If he only knew.

I shuffled along as they got the kids in, following them, and got onto an overhanging branch. I could see where the main supports were, and as the truck started and went under my branch, I dropped, spread-eagled, to land with my hands on the main supports. There are crossmembers as well to stop the roof leaking in heavy rain, but I did not want to advertise my presence, so I had to put up with an uncomfortable – well, yes, a somewhat painful – landing to do so with stealth.

At least I did not have to use a bullwhip to catch round an axle and be dragged behind it until I clawed my way up the whip.  Oh, you won’t know the old flat screen movie, improbable but fun adventures of a dashing archaeologist. Go and look it up if you care.

We drove for about an hour, and then we turned into the drive of a ranch. They were driven to a bunkhouse, where the truck stopped.

I flexed my numbed hands; holding on had been hard. And whilst they were getting the kids out, I jumped onto the roof of the bunk house, using my momentum to go up its slope, and over the ridge. Kershaw was making a song and dance about her belly hurting and feeling sick and I was pretty sure she was covering for me getting off the truck. She had a lot of faith in me to assume that I was on it; and I was glad I was not letting that faith down. She had been reasoning from the moment she realised I was alive, and that she was not leaving evidence on a dead body.

“There’s a pump for water and to wash, and a toilet, all the mod cons,” said Dead Meat. “Don’t even think about trying to escape; there’ll be one of us out front, and one out back. Last thing is to give me your names so that I can get the ransom from your dear daddies.”

They all gave their names with voices that shook more or less.

“I’m an orphan,” said Ruth. “But my sister-in-law will get what she can.”

“Oh, well, we can kill you first if we have to make an example,” said Dead Meat.

Unfortunately he was one to get back in the truck to drive off to some main ranch building. I did not, however, think it would be far.

I could hear Ruth down the chimney, suggesting a tripwire and jumping them when they changed guard, or after a while to call one of the men in demanding a doctor.

Clinton sneered.

“Ruth,” said Kershaw, “Come into the toilet with me, I need help.”

Ruth did so.

I had to assume that Kershaw was explaining to her that I was alive.

I spent a little time waiting for the watchers to get bored by making a rough and ready guess as to where we were.  We did not want to be going along the road; even if I went and killed all I could find, there might be others who would go to the road. But I was pretty sure there was a town to the east. There was a faint glow on the horizon, and it wasn’t likely to be dawn.

Well, time to make a move.

I moved down the roof, and jumped on top of the one whose cigarette end was glowing enough to suggest that he had just started inhaling. When I landed on him, he continued inhaling in an involuntary gasp and was unable to scream for a mouth full of burning cigarette. The smell of burning flesh slightly offset the smell of stale sweat and underwear that could have done with washing to remove other bodily odours.

He was not in pain long; I broke his neck.

I slid round the side of the block house, and came up to the other, who was spoiling his night sight with a lantern to read a dirty magazine. At least, from the position of his hand I assumed it was a dirty magazine.

I broke his neck before he realised I was there.

Neither of them had a key, so I tapped on the window.

Kershaw opened it.

“Sir!” she said.

“You’ll have to climb out,” I said. “Dead Meat kept the key.”

“Sir? We thought you were dead,” said Paul.

“Yes, that was the idea,” I said. “That way they ignored me so I was able to follow you. Now get a move on, we don’t have all night. Fill any bottles you have, and there should be canteens hung on the walls as well for water; you don’t know how much you may need. Bring any blankets there are and put them round your waists, folded, under your coats, it will keep you warmer. I have your pocket boxes, so there will be no excuse not to turn in good projects about this trip.”

“Oh Rick!” cried Ruth.

“There, sis, there,” I said, patting her on the back.

“There are two guards,” said Clinton.

“There were two guards,” I said.

“But where are they? They might come back,” said Clinton.

“Not without Divine intervention,” I said.

“Huh?” he didn’t get it.

“I killed them,” I said.

He stared at me, in sudden terror.

I suppose it was the casual way I said it.

“Right,” I said. “Keep on with the pole star directly to your left – make for city lights when they become visible; I could just see them from the roof, over there. I’ll be along shortly.”

“What... what are you going to do?” asked Paul.

“Kill the rest,” I said. “You don’t want them in pursuit, do you? Well get going, then.”

“We can do this, it’s not as tough as Jay Silverheels’s night hike,” said Ruth. “Come along, and stop being such a little girl over my brother killing bad men, Sausage.”

To be fair, Ruth had had time to assimilate me being a killer for hire, and that I only now took jobs I felt needed doing, so she could afford to be blasé.

“He’s Jay Silverheels in person, isn’t he?” said Kershaw. “He was wearing a disguise to kill that Yakuza who won last year.”

She really is a bright spark.

“We don’t talk about it,” said Ruth.

“And we all vow now that we don’t talk about it,” said Paul. “And slit thumbs to make it a blood oath not just a pinky promise some people might think they can wriggle out of.”

And it took valuable time, but I don’t say he was wrong.

I divested my late victims of any guns and knives they might have been wearing, slapped my hands in some black mud to put a palm print on each face, and discovered a yellow crayon in my pocket which I used to put the yellow of a death ride across my  nose.

Then I slid into the blackness of the night, following where the truck had gone by the smell of its diesel engine. I love my expensive nose.

I was right; it had not gone far, less than a mile to a sprawling ranch house.

It was possible that this kidnap had been done without the owner’s consent.

Unlikely, but possible.

I let myself in the back door. There was a room from which the trid blared; and a room which had a single voice.

The single, rather plummy, voice was saying, “I assure you that you will get your son back when....’

By this time, I had the door open, and the pudgy man had time to look surprised before I double-tapped him in the forehead. He was better dressed than his minions, and better shaved, neither of which was hard, but he had squeezed his bulk into a suit a size and a half too small, and the buttons strained rather. However, he was beyond my sartorial commentary, and doubtless being fitted for a boiler suit for stoking.

The trid show was a cowboy movie, and I doubted a couple of shots would be heard.

I walked in on the four who had done the kidnapping and a fifth who was probably the driver.

Dead Meat recognised me, despite the war paint.

“Shit, it’s the schoolma’am!” he wailed.

I shot him in the belly before double-tapping each of the rest before they had a chance to get into a position to get their guns. Most of the gun belts lay on coffee tables.

Then, and only then, I turned to Dead Meat.

“You hit my sister,” I said.

Then I double tapped him.