The Ravaged, page 1
Copyright © 2022 by No. 5 Productions Ltd.
E-book published in 2022 by Blackstone Publishing
Cover design by Zena Kanes
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Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-0941-6682-7
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-0941-6681-0
Fiction / General
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To Mingus. I love you like the ocean.
—Norman Reedus
In memory of my uncle John H. “Jack” Bill, 1944–2021
—Frank Bill
HUNTER
One minute, Hunter is coming into work—he’s what you call a gearhead, repairing and rebuilding motorcycles—the next, he’s acquainting his boss, Ox, with the bike shop’s oil-stained concrete, rattling the wrenches that hang from the pegboard walls in Ox’s area, where pinup biker chicks in leather bikinis sprawl across custom Harleys and Indians. Entering the shop, Hunter had heard a yelp and a whimper from Ruby, Ox’s ex-girlfriend’s black-and-tan Walker hound, a dog Ox kept out of spite for her stepping out on him. Hunter had walked in just as Ox’s steel-toed boot caught the hound in the ribs.
Next thing Hunter knows, Ox is on the floor, holding his jaw. He wipes blood from his cigarette-stained teeth, spits and coughs, struggles to find air, and tries to stand. “You rotten son of a bitch,” he huffs, “you’re done. Hear me? Done!”
Hunter lets him get up onto his knees, then serves the obese slob with a solid left boot to the chin, knocking at least one tooth into the leather bandanna knotted around his neck.
“No. You’re done.”
Before he can make good on his words, hands are pulling him from behind. He’s still pumped with anger. Hunter jerks free and turns to a tall man with a Brillo-pad goatee and black dreadlocks, arms graffitied with skulls, pistons, eight balls, and serpents. Nothing more than a skeleton covered in skin, it’s Slade, one of the other mechanics who work for Ox, holding his palms out to Hunter.
“Take a chill, brother. Just your old friend Slade.”
Hunter eyes him, nods in acknowledgment, and pushes his long locks back from his face. “We’re cool.” Reaching down toward the floor, he takes Ruby by her studded black leather collar. Slade steps aside, and Hunter leads Ruby through the shop, past the grease- and fuel-scented parts of starters, plugs, motors, and exhaust pipes. Smells of Lucas Heavy Duty bearing grease and synthetic motor oil and WD-40 as they walk out the large bay door opening, across the parking area, to the passenger door of his primer-gray ’68 Chevy pickup.
Back in the garage, Ox’s voice rings up into the black sandblasted rafters: “You’re a piece of military-grade shit. You’re done. Never work in this fuckin’ town again. Hear me?”
Hunter hears him loud and clear, wants to go back to Ox’s area and shut him down.
He had served two years in hell, a.k.a. Iraq, after acquiring a special skill on the GI Bill. That tour was money meant to pay for learning a trade, to reimburse him for the time he gave to Uncle Sam. Forty grand. Uncle Sam never paid. Hunter became a helicopter mechanic, gave his time to the Army Reserve—two weekends a month for two years. He landed a job at the Indianapolis airport, working on planes, only to be called up when the USA invaded Iraq. Four weeks of brush-up basic training in Jersey, then off to Iraq. Being flown out to repair Apaches, Bells, Pumas—you name it, he fixed it. Flying over the burial sites of locals who had died over the years, he saw mounds and mounds of graves, of unknown histories. They soon became a symbol of an unwinnable war, of Saddam’s atrocities on the innocent. Other times, he would serve as a team leader, riding as fast as the Humvee could carry him and his team. Every bump and jar of the vehicle’s frame made his butt clench tighter, rattled his nerves. Never knowing when they might hit an IED and go boom! kept him on high alert, nerves constantly frazzled, wondering whether he and his men would become like those mounds—casualties of an unending war.
Arriving in a town, he and his team of soldiers swept the clay-dirt-sand homes in search of insurgents and intel. With their lost expressions of hope, kids approached them, filthy faced, begging for help. They had torn clothing and busted bare feet. He never gave them candy—why rot their teeth out even faster than normal? So he offered them a tool for learning, always giving them pens and small pads of paper. He showed them how to write the nicknames the soldiers gave them. They loved it, pushing a stick of plastic over paper or skin and watching lines and shapes appear. He always carried several fresh packages of Paper Mate and Mead ballpoints. Those were Hunter’s gift.
After giving his time to Uncle Sam, he came back to what he loved. Not the Indianapolis airport. Motorcycles. He told his father he was moving, and took a job at a small Harley dealership in North Carolina. Discovered he could make more on his own, so he began repairing motorcycles out of his garage. He started building them and riding more and more as he piled up more and more of the legal tender. Years passed and word of mouth traveled, and Ox offered him a job. He could do his own thing for more money, with wider recognition, more eyes seeing his work.
Working there for a decade or better, Hunter had come to discover that Ox was a hothead with a thriving business. He let notoriety flood his brain and fatten his ego. It turned out that the more money he made, the more he turned into a self-centered jackass that shat on everyone and everything. He started to take others and their talents for granted, talking down and threatening everyone behind the scenes, never cutting any slack.
Add to that “animal abuser.” Hunter always had a deep affinity for animals, especially hound dogs. Back in Indiana, when he was a kid, his father was always on the road, rolling in late on Saturday or Sunday, road worn and beat, then back on the road by Monday. Hunter spent many summers with his grandfather, who bred, raised, and hunted coonhounds.
Wanting to head home, he gathers his tools. His knuckles are scraped, wet with his and Ox’s blood. Walking to his area, rattling the steel tool chest as he locks up all sixteen drawers, he stands like a specimen: round shoulders, wide back, tattoos etched up and down his athletic arms (his favorite being the rabbit on his right inner arm—an homage to his grandfather and the beagles they hunted rabbits with), muscles flexing as he wheels the black tool chest over the cold concrete floor, from the garage and out across the parking lot to his truck. Ruby colors the passenger’s-side glass with her nose butter.
Lowering the tailgate, Hunter turns back to the garage’s open bay door and yells, “Slade?”
Coming from the garage opening. Pulling a red rag from his hip pocket, he wipes something from his silver-ringed fingers, walks toward Hunter, and says, “You fucked him up good, brother.”
“Why I’m leaving on my own terms, or it’ll be Johnny Law taking me in on his.”
“Guess you need a hand?”
Hunter tells him, “It’d be appreciated.”
Stuffing the rag back into his pocket, Slade tells Hunter, “No problem. I got no beefs with you. Always had mad respect for you. Serving in Iraq. And you’re a damn good mechanic. Just can’t believe you’re done.” He bends down to grab the tool chest and brace it from the bottom.
Hunter does the same thing, and the men tilt the chest against the truck’s tailgate. Hunter attaches a winch from the front of the bed, starts cranking it. Slade pushes. Red-faced and grunting, they muscle it flat into the truck bed. “Can’t work for that heart-attack-waiting-to-happen no damn more. Not after this. He finds his feet, confronts me, it won’t be in his favor. I’ll finish what I started.”
“I hear you. I’d join you, but I need the cheddar. Least you’re taking Ruby. Good on you, brother.”
“Got two rules my dad and granddad taught me: don’t wrong a woman and don’t mistreat an animal, no matter the circumstances.”
Being a traveling salesman, Hunter’s dad was on the road full-time. He was good. Could read people. Had a knack for judging character. Was always obsessed with how good he was at selling and at understanding others. Helping them when they were down on their luck. Hunter’s mother had run off when he was three or four. Wandering soul, a stripper. Dad told him she wanted to be a model, wasn’t ready to be a mother. He was left under the guidance of his grandfather Monday through Friday, and his father on the weekends. When his father came home, he would make time for Hunter—what little there was. Tried to teach him things, telling him stories from the road. Things that Hunter made little sense of. He was more interested in dogs and minibikes. Granddad bought him a Yamaha YZ80 to ride on the farm trails when he wasn’t teaching him about breeding, training, and hunting hound dogs. Or sighting in a rifle.
Slade tells Hunter, “Fair enough.” Offers his hand, and they shake. “Been an honor knowing you, brother. Don’t be a stranger.”
Pressing the clutch with his left foot, Hunter shifts into reverse, easing the clutch out and pressing the gas. Ruby sits lapping Hunter’s shifting hand with her coarse pink tongue. “I k
Scents change from breakfast food to country air, trees, pollen, and new-mown grass. Navigating past a kid pushing a mower, mulching the bright green lawn of a chocolate-brown A-frame, he recalls his father, living in their small rural town in Indiana, teaching him how to mow their yard. They had a nice split-level brick home and a two-car garage that contained every tool imaginable—a nice perk of being a rep for Snap-on. It was one of his many traveling sales jobs when he stayed closer to home, when Granddad was suffering from dementia.
Tools, Bibles, encyclopedias, home alarms, and cable TV.
Hunter’s father taught him to keep the height setting of the Briggs & Stratton mower on a three. Keep from killing the grass—don’t wanna mow it too short. Go back over spots you miss. Take a little pride in what you’re doing. He always took his time with Hunter, making sure he understood his instructions, never rushing him. Taught him how to sharpen the mower blade—start by removing the plug wire from the spark plug just in case the damn thing decided to fire on you, then prop the mower on the air-filter end, making sure it was low on fuel to keep it from spilling out and keep it from being top-heavy and tipping all the way over; use a stick of wood to block the blade from moving; using a half-inch socket, turn the retaining bolt counterclockwise, breaking it loose from the shaft; place the blade into the scratched and dented vise on the garage’s nicked and stained workbench, add a bit of 3-In-One oil to a ten-inch mill bastard file, and use about forty to fifty strokes in the same direction until each end was a shiny razored silver. Then place the blade back onto the shaft, add some oil to the threads, block the blade in the opposite direction, and tighten the bolt back down just shy of a final turn. He had taught the boy how to change the oil by laying the mower on its side, removing the threaded plug from the bottom of the frame. Lowering it over an old dishpan to catch the oil. Screw the threaded plug back in once it was empty. Add back twelve ounces of thirty-weight oil. He changed the plug every couple of years. Kept the air filter clean by blowing it out with an air hose. Scraped the undercarriage free of wet grass that collected after every mowing. Keeping the mower from rusting and breaking down the metal frame as quickly. What he never realized then, but did now: his dad was teaching him responsibility. Improving his mechanical skills. Teaching him how to take care of something. Be self-sufficient. Same as he did now with his truck and his motorcycles.
He and his father talked only a handful of times a year these days. Not for lack of love. All they had kept was distance. One coast to the next. Divided by time zones. His father wanted a warmer climate on the West Coast. After his time overseas, Hunter had moved to North Carolina because of his buddy Nugget. They had been stationed together in Iraq. Became good friends with a love for motorcycles, small towns, hound dogs, and pumping iron. Hunter’s visit turned into a change of zip code.
Turning down a dead-end road, home is a three-bedroom ranch, single-car garage, and well-kept yard of about five acres, plenty of shade from red maples. Along the back property line is farmland. Several hundred acres—plenty of manured air and unfiltered quiet.
The garage door is open. Inside, bike motors, exhaust pipes, chain-and-sprocket kits, master links, axle blocks, camshafts, crankcase covers, and guards lie scattered over workbenches. Wrenches hang from pegboard walls like those in the bike shop where he used to work.
The blacktop drive needs a fresh coat of sealer. Cracks created by the weight of trespass, time, and summer heat. Killing the engine. Opening the door. Out of the truck, Ruby follows, her nails ticking on the hard surface, tongue lapping on Hunter’s red-stained fist. They cross green patches of yard, a combination of wild clover and red fescue grass. When the white aluminum storm door swings wide, Olivia comes out, her brunette locks all one length and paintbrushing her toned, sun-bronzed shoulders, where crazed gargoyle tattoos are lighting fires upon the demons that ride ink down her biceps and forearms, ending at her wrists. Braless in a wifebeater and loose pink sweatpants, on bare feet with chipped black toenail polish, she steps over the red brick sidewalk that leads to Hunter, who shakes his head.
“Baby, put on some clothes. You’re getting me worked up too damn early in the day,” he tells her as he wraps an arm around her waist and squeezes an ass as firm as a helium-filled balloon.
Mashing her lips to his, she takes a breath and says, “Your uncle David called.”
Her shape is that of an angel. She tastes of cinnamon and coffee as Hunter tongues his lips and asks, “Hell he want? Haven’t heard from him in a year or better.”
“Didn’t say. Just asked for Hunter. Told him you was working. He left a number, needs you to call him. A-sap.” Glancing down at Ruby, Olivia changes the subject. “What’s with the petite bitch?”
She breaks from Hunter’s embrace, kneels to Ruby, who’s all shaking ass and wagging tail and bubble-gum-colored tongue lapping Olivia’s face.
Hesitating. Almost forgetting why he was home. Hunter tells her, “Name’s Ruby. Purebred Treeing Walker. I caught Ox booting her in the ribs.”
Hugging her and rubbing her ears, Olivia says, “Aww, that fat fuckin’ degenerate. How could he mistreat such a pretty bitch?” As she is rubbing Ruby’s sagging jowlss, it hits Olivia. “Wait. What the shit you doing back already?”
“Handed Ox his ass for mistreating Ruby.”
Reaching for Hunter’s busted-knuckle hand, she says, “Lost your fuckin’ job for a dog?”
“Ain’t just a dog. She’s purebred. Worth every bit of a grand. Comes from a champion bloodline of coonhounds.” Olivia rolls her blue eyes. Hunter tells her, “Look, animals don’t deserve to be mistreated no more than a woman needs to be abused. You know my rules. So did Ox. They only know what we teach them.” He hesitates. “The dogs know what we teach them—not the women.”
Reaching back down, running Ruby’s velvety hanging ears between her fingers, Olivia shakes her head, asks, “So now you’re gonna be a goddamned coon hunter?”
“Look, I can get a job at the feed store. Go back to doing bike work on my own from here. Makes no difference to me. The whole Ox gig was wearing on me. Lost sight of why I’s even working there. He was cutting into more and more of what I was earning any damn way. I got money put back. And you got your tattoo studio. We’re good. I’m kinda at a crossroads.”
He walks away from Olivia, up the sidewalk and into the house, Olivia and Ruby following behind.
“Where’s the bitch gonna sleep?”
“With us. And she’s housebroken. Just need to get her some kibble. Oh, and I need to call Itch and Nugget, get them to give me a hand unloading the toolbox. ’Bout broke my dick with Slade’s wormy little ass and us two muscling that damn thing into the truck. Easier with a third set of hands.”
Hunter’s booted feet clomp over the scuffed pine floor to the marred black leather couch, where he drops down, grabs the cordless phone from the coffee table, where motorcycle magazines lie scattered. Picking up the phone, he asks Olivia, “Where’s David’s number? I don’t got my cell on me.”
“On the board in the kitchen. I’ll read it off to you.”
Hunter eyes Ruby, pats the leather space beside him. Ruby is all feet and uncoordinated happiness, but she curls up beside him, warms his thigh with her head. Exhales through her nose and makes slopping sounds with her tongue and loose jowls. Olivia yells David’s phone number from the kitchen; Hunter thumbs the digits on the phone and presses Talk. Listens to the ring tone until someone picks up.
