Lay Your Armour Down

19

Burdean marched up and down the sidewalk in front of the flophouse, chainsmoking and swearing that if he ever laid eyes on Keal again he would beat him into a puddle. Not shoot him or kill him but beat the everlivingdogshit out of him and leave him laid out in the middle of nowhere for the vultures to peck on because he was certain that Keal was thinking the same thing Burdean was thinking. That girl is important and important things are worth something and with each cigarette Burdean became more convinced that Keal had suckered him and had carried her off in search of a payday. With who he didn't know and if Keal had such a connection he was sure as hell more savvy than he'd given him credit for being. He had been hustled and in his outlaw mind that was the worst thing you could be. It was the only way he knew how to think. That little shit.

Burdean started walking. The railroad tracks divided the small town that was made up of bricked streets and weathered facades and old buildings that clung to their charm against age and apathy. The sidewalks were empty and only the random car was parked along the street. He came to a bank that was boarded up, all but the teller window and a spraypainted arrow along the side of the building directed customers to it. A one-show cinema announced dbl featr aturday on the marquee. Crepe myrtles grew from whiskey barrels on the corner of each block. He walked and nodded when the random townfolk passed by.

He went inside a smoke store and bought a pack of cigarettes and spent a minute trying to process all the new and different things to smoke and all the new and different devices to smoke them with and he wondered what was wrong with the simplicity of a lighter and a cigarette. He headed back toward the flophouse but paused at his favorite building. An old gin distillery with a collapsed roof. The equipment had rusted and fallen through the rotted floor and vines had climbed into the building from somewhere and twisted through the wreckage as if trying to wrap it up and keep it from descending further into ruin. Burdean thought it looked something like a shipwreck illustration from a book he had read as a boy. He smoked and watched a swarm of gnats appear from a hole beneath the broken floorplanks and then he heard the big car coming and he walked back along the street and stood in front of the pawn shop door with his arms crossed in aggravation.

When the big car turned the corner a block away, Burdean saw the bullet holes in the windshield and the cracked headlight. He mumbled to himself in both disgust and surprise and then he saw the little girl sitting between Keal and some woman as the car stopped in front of him. Keal got out and Burdean met him at the front of the car and cracked him right in the nose. Keal's knees buckled and he backpedaled and then landed smackflat on his ass. The blood spit from his nostril and he winced and squeezed his eyes shut and he opened them to see Burdean coming on. He reached down and grabbed Keal by the collar of his coat and he raised him to his feet and then he hit him again, a hard fist against his forehead and Keal staggered back but stayed upright and he started moving around the side of the car to get away from him.

'Damn it,' he said and he wiped the blood from his nose as he moved to put the car between them. 'We got enough to contend with.'

'Disappear on me one more time.'

Burdean stalked him. The men shuffling around the car. Keal trying to explain and Burdean interrupting him with promises of what he was about to do to him and when they had made a full circle around the car, Cara and the girl climbed out and Cara held her hand and they started walking down the sidewalk. It stopped both men from what they were doing.

'Where the hell do you think you're going?' Burdean said.

They kept walking.

'Hey. Hey!'

'Play your stupid game,' Cara said.

Keal held his nose pinched between his fingers and he hurried over to Cara and the girl and said I told you when we got here that I'd try to explain.

'You're not trying to explain anything as far as I can see.'

Burdean came around the car and met them on the sidewalk and said I don't know who you are or where you came from but that girl ain't going nowhere. You don't know nothing about nothing.

'I know when I see a kid running down a road being chased by a man she don't know that something is bad wrong.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Can we all hold on a damn second?' Keal said. He sniffed and spit and his nose had just about stopped bleeding.

'What did you do?' Burdean asked him.

'Me and her went back out to the church.'

'For what?'

'To look around.'

Burdean grabbed Keal by the arm and dragged him away from Cara and the girl. He leaned into Keal and he raised a fist and held it under Keal's chin and said in a growl don't you ever slip out on me again. You hear me? Goddamn it that's twice. We are in this shit together. I brought you on a job and not the other way around and I don't know what we've ended up in but if you make one more decision on your own without squaring it with me then your life will not end up the way you want it to. He let go of his arm and shoved him.

'Fair to say it already has.'

'I don't care about your life one way or another. Are you listening to what I'm telling you? This shit is serious.'

'I know it's serious.'

'Then act like it.'

'I will.'

'Then tell me who that woman is and what happened.'

Keal recounted it all. The bodies sat upright and then going back down into the cellar to look into the room and hearing the car horn and finding the girl with the doors locked and the men trying to get to her. And the guns coming out and the chase down the road and hitting a yellow car with the big car when he was trying to catch up to the girl and the woman had to jump in with them.

'This is becoming a thing.'

'What else was I supposed to do? I ain't actually versed in this kind of shit.'

'And them other two that showed up. They're dead?'

'One was laying in the road. She hit him with her car. The other one I thought was dead but turns out he wasn't. But I'm pretty sure he is now.'

'They have a phone?'

'I didn't ask.'

'They saw the car.'

Keal nodded. Burdean pulled out a cigarette and Keal took one.

'You didn't call anybody. Did you?' Keal asked.

'No and I turned it off. Even though I'm sure my damn phone at home is ringing off the hook. I don't guess I can go back there ever.'

Cara walked over to the men and interrupted them.

'She told me she's hungry,' she said.

'She told you?' Burdean said.

'With words?' Keal said.

'What is wrong with you two?'

'We can't get her to talk,' Keal said.

'She said she's hungry and she said to tell you she speaks English.'

The men glanced over at the girl. She looked tired. Heavy eyes grown darker in recent minutes. Like the fade of a sunset. In her hands she held the crucifix from around Cara's neck and she seemed both rigid and fragile. As if she had not quite decided which to be.

'How old do you think she is?' Burdean said.

'She said she's nine.'

'You asked her?'

'Have either of you ever had a conversation with another person before?'

'I told you she won't talk to us.'

Burdean took out a lighter and lit the cigarettes. Cara held out her hand and he gave her one.

'Now it's your turn,' Cara said.

'For what?'

'I'm about thirty seconds from taking her to some form of law unless you can convince me otherwise. And you got your own thirty seconds to do that because to say that I'm scared to death right now would shortchange it. I could probably say the same for her.'

The three of them stood there smoking and Burdean kept it concise. We had a job to do and we went to do it and didn't know exactly what we were supposed to be finding. We found that little girl down in the cellar and we weren't the only ones sent looking because there was a bunch of dead men laying around when we got there. So we don't know who brought her there or why and we didn't exactly have no choice but to take her with us. Like you apparently.

'It started before that,' Keal said.

Burdean cut his eyes at him. Drew on the cigarette.

'Might as well tell it,' he said.

Keal asked her if she lived somewhere out there or if she just happened to be cutting through the county....