Everything Sucks #6, Easy., Page 2

his brain worked compared to the average person as he walked Bitsie through the logic. "If I close 'em down, the streets flood with drunks. A smart cop'd pinch one of 'em and squeeze until something good popped out. It's what I'd do. If anything, the bars should hold onto their crowd as long as possible. That's what I told the other two."

  Bitsie ran the message back to Stitch, and took off with Porky and mother.

  There was no deliberation necessary when they arrived at the barn. Norman already had a few buddies working on building a four-bale-deep wall of hay around the barrels, and no one was a better shot than Ma, so everyone took up the smaller arms while Ma stood guard at the peephole with a rifle at the ready.

  A shoot out was the last resort, only to happen if the feds caught a whiff and kept on sniffing until they found something.

  The standard cover was the stacked hay wall, more cows brought over from the other barn, the rickety canvas tent pitched, and the boys bedded down like ordinary hired hands before the feds showed up. The spitting image of your average, everyday cattle farm, hardly worth the effort of tearing apart.

  Meanwhile, Bitsie and her man hitched up the wagon and raced to fetch their medium-sized copper stills from their hideout near the river. Some operations used the bigger stills for higher yield, but the big ones don't hide so easy, and profits go way down if you're sitting in jail.

  When they'd gone as far as the wagon could go, they tied off the horses and wound their way down the carefully concealed path to the stills.

  Norman had a rifle tucked under his right arm and carried a lantern in his other hand. Bitsie manned the empty handcart, her lantern slung over the right handle. The cart was a bulky, unwieldy thing with a tendency to skew left. She wasn't looking forward to the next few hours.

  They were about a dozen yards shy of their destination; a bramble covered alcove in a hill near the river; when Bitsie spotted the lurker.

  "Hey!" she shouted as she dropped the cart handle and ran toward the guy. She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him toward Norman, berating him the whole way. "Just what are you about, mister? Huh? You a poacher? Cause we don't take kindly to 'shine poachers around here!"

  "I was just curious!" He replied angrily. "Thought I saw something and wanted to check it out is all! So you got stills hid in there?"

  Norman set down his lantern and drew up alongside Bitsie, rifle at the ready. "Do we look like fools to you?"

  The stranger sighed, truly annoyed. He couldn't have just followed the river to the bridge and gone back to town, no, no, he had to see what was stowed in the little alcove.

  He'd already had a long night, and could technically kill both these people before they knew what hit 'em, but he really didn't want to. He liked moonshiners. They kept him in beer and whiskey.

  "It's two in the morning, mister," said Bitsie's man, poking the stranger's chest with his rifle. "Not exactly walkabout hours for anyone 'cept poachers or cops. So which are ya?"

  The Stranger’s hand blurred, easily snatching the rifle from his accuser's grasp, and cracked him over the head with the butt. "Neither."

  Norman grabbed his head and fell to the ground with a pained yelp.

  Bitsie pulled a pocket revolver from her jacket and took aim at the stranger without so much as a quiver. "Drop it now!" she yelled, thinking for the thousandth time in her life, Pity I can't be a lawman. Bet I'd make Sheriff in a heartbeat.

  The stranger scoffed. "That thing looks like a toy!"

  Bitsie pulled back on the hammer. "Well it ain't! Neither are the bullets. And it'd be a mistake to think I'm trigger shy, pal, so how’s about you tell us what you're doing in the woods at this hour?"

  I hate gettin' shot, thought the stranger. Maybe I should just kill them. But he was starting to like the lady. He'd thought the big guy with the rifle was in charge at first, but he now had a growing suspicion it was her.

  He decided to gamble and tell 'em the truth--well, the partial truth. If they still wanted to shoot him, he supposed he'd go along with it. It would be, literally a headache, but the thought of ending the night with a double kill was about as appealing as a bad case of measles. Nah. Better to take the bullets.

  He put his hands up with a sigh. "Me and some . . . associates of mine . . . we uh . . . well, see, it's like this--"

  "Before the sun comes up, please!" The lady demanded as rifle man crawled to a nearby tree and tried to pull himself up.

  "We came out here to kill someone--but I swear she needed killing! I ain't out for blood on a normal day, and I got no interest in your affairs. Can I maybe get the same courtesy?"

  "You killed a woman?" the man spat as he leaned against a tree trunk. "How bad could she have been?"

  "The worst, believe me. She was a black widow. Y'know? Woman who gets married, kills her husband for money, then skips town and does it again? The crazy cat we offed tonight was one'a those. Killed a small army of clueless suckers, and we stopped her. It took us ages to hunt her down, too."

  "Oh yeah?" said Rifle Man. "Sounds like a tall tale to me."

  The lady side-eyed him. "Where's the body?"

  "About a quarter mile that way," he pointed into the woods to his right.

  She turned to face her man. "You get to work tearing down. Shifty here's gonna take me to see this body, and we'll load up when I get back."

  "Bitsie, no!"

  "Can it, Norman! We gotta get a move on, you know your way around the stills better than I do, and I wanna know if this guy's telling the truth! If I see a body, we got somethin' on him, he's got somethin' on us. Even Steven." She picked up a lantern and waved her pistol at the stranger. "Let's go."

  It wasn't a long walk. Within minutes they arrived at a body, just like he'd promised they would.

  Bitsie bent down and swept her lantern over the dead woman, examining carefully. There was a single clean wound in her chest, and she had long dark hair matted around her face like a macabre wreath.

  She stood up, brushed the dirt off her knees, and fixed the man with a serious gaze. "I suppose this is that Kate lunatic you've all been so hot to catch?"

  His eyes bulged with surprise. He even stumbled back a few steps, as though she posed a real threat to him.

  The reaction did not escape her notice. She went on without pause. "Not to come off hostile, but I got a sharp piece of wood in my pocket, and I've had a bothersome night. I'm in a bit of a mood."

  "Meaning?" he asked as he pulled himself together, slightly embarrassed.

  "Meaning a small town can only take so many Vampires before folks catch a notion of something strange, and I don't need the bother. Me and mine blend in best when no one looks at anything too close."

  "You're a Vampire?" he asked dubiously.

  Bitsie shook her head. "No Sir. But I am acquainted with a handful. It's hard to be in the 'shine business without bumping into a few, but I'm sure you know that. Most folks don't put the pieces together, of course, but I had a buddy years back who suddenly changed his habits. So I tailed him one night, and saw for myself. Point is, people pay extra attention to dead bodies. Sure, we got a Sheriff in our pocket, but that ain't a bullet-proof shield, and a sudden body count in a small town like this? Next thing you know the place will be crawling with feds. So no hard feelings, but I'll thank you to clear out before you get an urge to snack."

  He marveled at her. Tough enough to talk this way to a guy she knew full well could take her out in a second. Pure brass.

  "Don't get too cocky," she warned. "You wouldn't be the first one I staked."

  He was almost certain she was bluffing, but unwilling to test the theory. Instead, he held out his hand for a truce shake, and to his relief, she took it. "I'll skedaddle tomorrow night," he promised. "Got some things to button up here, but then I'm gone."

  By the time Bitsie got back to Norman, he had the gear mostly broken down and ready to move.

  "We squared?"

  She smiled. "Yeah, we're squared."

  He stopped what he w
as doing to give her a warm squeeze. "Y'know you're my brave lil' gal, right?"

  Bitsie knew he only meant to be sweet to her when he said things like that, so she tried not to hate it. She had friends who tolerated far worse from their men, and at the end of the day Norman appreciated things about her a lotta guys wouldn't tolerate from their women. The need for danger. The tendency to back-talk. Some ladies earned themselves a black eye for that kinda thing. Norman might sometimes talk to her like she was doll, but he never beat her down, literally or otherwise.

  She gave him a peck on the cheek and pitched in finishing the tear-down.

  Getting their spot completely cleaned out took several more arduous hours. She gave the Baby Jesus and Holy Mother a silent thank you, after they loaded up the last of it.

  I sure hope I don't gotta chase off a mess of Vampires, she thought as they headed for back to the barn. It'll be the third time this year.

  Still, for better or worse, she knew she'd take her dangerous, and oftentimes difficult life, over an easy one any day. Easy was far too boring.

  *********************************

  Books and Series by R. Smith

  Pop Culture Sucks, Manifesto Of A Vampire

  Everything Sucks Series

  Knights Of Albion

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