Free Republic of the Living (Novella): Vengeance by Taz Gallaher

to the stanchion on
the wall.
    “ Goddam, Tilt,” he screamed
over his shoulder.  “Get a knife.  They’re taking the horses.”
    Parker’s body slumped on the ground before the
gate in a slowly expanding puddle of black.

 
    ******

 
    She raced up to Chewy, who stood waiting for her
at the far corner of the brick building.  He jammed her pack into her arms
and began jogging up the street.  She wrestled the pack straps onto her
shoulder as she caught up with him.  He snapped his eyes toward her and
nodded.
    “Horses go away,” he huffed.   “Let’s go.”
    “ Wait,” she grabbed at his
jacket sleeve.  “Hold on.”
    He stopped, his chest heaving up and down.
    “ I know a better way.”  
    She tugged him to the left and down a street of
auto repair shops and ancient bungalows.  Ahead, the concrete bed of the
elevated train tracks loomed over the dark street.  She pointed to the
tracks as she jogged forward.
    They halted next to a massive pillar that anchored
the track bed.  She slipped around the pillar and returned from the other
side.
    “ Over there.”  She
jabbed a finger at another pillar across the street.  “I know it’s there.”
    They hustled across the street and hurried around
the pillar’s twin.   
    “ There.”  Her head
craned upward.
    A maintenance ladder was bolted onto the side of
the concrete tower, its lower rungs encased in a tube of metal.  Chewy
stumbled forward.  A simple padlock fixed a metal cylinder to the end of
the tube.  He raised the rifle like a baseball bat and swung.  The
stock of the rifle cracked and splintered, but the lock remained in place.
    “ Again,” she wheezed.
“Hurry.”
    He swung harder and a long shard of wood flew away
from the rifle butt.  The lock sprang open.  He dropped the rifle and
hoisted her up.  She fiddled with the lock and the cylinder fell away.
 Her pink shoes vanished up the ladder rungs.  He backed up, ran
toward the pillar, and kick jumped upward.  His fingers found the first
rung and he pulled himself up just as a pair of boots rattled down the ladder
and bounced off his shoulder.  
    She waited for him at the top, leaning over her
knees to catch her breath.  He crawled onto the concrete floor of the
track bad and flopped onto his back next to the outer rail.
    “ I fucked up with the
horses,” he gasped.  “And . . .should have taken that guy out with the
rifle.”
    She shook her head.  “I got him.”
    He nodded slowly.  “You did.  And
they’re pissed off now.  Real pissed off.”
    She stood and gazed up the tracks.  
    “We can use this,” she said.  “Leads right to
the tunnel and then into the valley.  Come on.”  
    She leaned down and offered her hand.  He looked
up at her and she grimaced.
    “ Get your hustle on, old
man,” she muttered as she wrapped her fingers around his and yanked.
    Somewhere up ahead, the darker void of a station
etched its silhouette across the black night.  He sighed and stepped
forward, following her up along the edge of the rail ties.

8. Friday Afternoon

 
 
    He observed the hole in the side of the hill and
grunted.  The horses were tied off below in the high-ceilinged living room
of the abandoned house.  The wide second-story picture window showed him
another house in front and a fenced-off plot of bare ground beyond the house’s
backyard.  The tracks ran over the fence, which protected the entrance to
the tunnel.
    Pearly was sure he’d beat them.  After
burying Hanrahan and leading the horses out of the golf course, he’d ridden
like hell toward the ochre face of the mountains.  By the time he found
the house, the sun had crested the middle of the sky and Ace was covered in a
thin sheen of sweat.  He busted down the front door with a few kicks of
his heavy boots, tied off the horses, and collected a couple of armfuls of
grass and weeds from the overgrown yard.  The horses were munching on
their fodder below as he studied the place where he