Free The Scarred Man by Basil Heatter Page A

army of cyclists began to move through the village in the wake of the sheriff's car.
        

ELEVEN
        
        We ate dirt all the way to Moon Lake. The place was strictly low rent, the usual assortment of shacks, Moore's combination general store and snack shop featuring frozen pizza and hero sandwiches. A short stout man in his sixties was out in front guarding the store. He wore a webbed pistol belt and on it a .45. He was talking to one of the deputies as I passed by, and I heard him declare loudly, "The first one of those bastards gets out of line, I'll plug him right in the belly button." Probably Mr. Moore had been seeing too many reruns of "Gunsmoke." I could only hope for his sake and that of the town that he would have no occasion to use his weapon. The deputy-a pimply-faced youth with a pool hall complexion patted his own low-slung piece and said with an air of bravado, "They won't try nothin' with us, Mr. Moore."
        Two teen-age girls in shorts and halters came out from behind the store to watch us pass. They were heavy-legged and big-busted, and their appearance drew cheers and obscene comments from the riders. Moore angrily ordered the girls back into the house, and they gave him sullen glances before retreating.
        The sheriff had stopped his car at the head of the so-called campground. It wasn't much, simply a cleared patch of raw earth that had been bulldozed out of the forest. If there were any sanitary facilities, they were not apparent. The resentment created among the riders by their first sight of this ravaged landscape was immediate.
        "What kind of fucking dump is this? No water, no crappers, nothin'."
        The sheriff did not attempt to answer these comments, instead he put his prowl car into gear and ground off in a cloud of gravel. His last words were, "Take it easy, boys. The beer will be along pretty soon."
        We milled about uncertainly, some of the riders laying out their bedrolls while others passed joints from hand to hand. No one was happy about the campground, but on the other hand, no one seemed quite sure of what we ought to do about it. At that moment Moore's pickup truck, loaded with several dozen cases of beer, groaned up the slope.
        Moore, still wearing his .45, stopped the truck and called out, "Com'n get it, boys."
        The giant redhead who had exchanged words with me at the roadblock shouted back, "You expect us to drink that piss warm?"
        "You can drink it any way you like," the storekeeper answered. "But this is the way you get it. C.O.D."
        The giant got up from his bedroll and walked over to the truck. Without a word to the storekeeper, he reached into the back of the pickup, heaved out one of the cases of beer, and threw it down with a crash onto the rocks fronting the beach. There were shouts of acclaim from all over the campground.
        "That's the way, Tiny! Show that mother what he can do with his mothering beer!"
        Moore might still have got out of the situation by trying to laugh it off. Instead he reached for his gun. The pistol was half out of its holster when the next case of beer caught him straight in the belly. He went over backwards with the gun still in his hand. Tiny came down hard on the storekeeper's wrist, and the man squealed with pain. The giant picked up the pistol and heaved it into the lake. Then he gave the storekeeper a mighty kick in the ribs.
        Moore groaned. The kick had been brutal enough to snap a couple of ribs. Tiny was getting ready for another when I said, "Hold it!"
        I got up and walked toward them.
        "He's an old man. One more like that, and you're liable to bust his spleen or stop his heart. Do you want to spend the next twenty years behind bars because of a lousy can of beer?"
        "What fucking business is it of yours?"
        "If you kill him, there will be hell to pay for all of us."
        "Not unless some mother talks, there