He who laughs last, laughs best.
Just hope it really is your last.
Just hope it really is your last.
Unloaded by Mark Westmoreland
Rusty Bohannon kicked the ass of my Levis and I tumbled into
a creek. It was dry from a summer full of drought. I tripped over some
driftwood and banged my knee on a rock.
He dragged me up by a rope that tied my wrists together and
led me along so I barely kept up.
“Better hope like hell Boyd’s dead,” I said. “That’s a tough
sumbitch you shot.”
“Boyd’s a pussy.” Rusty spoke over his shoulder. “I’ve
knowed him long as I have you, don’t take long to figure that out.”
We walked through the creek bed until Rusty decided to lead
me out.
I stumbled up the embankment as he yanked on the rope, and
tripped when my foot caught on a root. While I struggled back to my feet, he
scratched his cheek with the barrel of his gun. It didn’t do me the favor of
misfiring and blowing off his head.
“Try’n keep up,” he said.
“Sure, asshole.”
The woods grew thick the deeper we trekked. Tree branches
grabbed at me and kudzu vines tangled around my feet. Gnats annoyed my ears and
mosquitoes gnawed on my arms.
Rusty sweat through his shirt and breathed like an asthmatic missing his inhaler.
It seemed like all we did was walk uphill. My thighs burned.
Rusty sweat through his shirt and breathed like an asthmatic missing his inhaler.
It seemed like all we did was walk uphill. My thighs burned.
“Be damned if I’m takin you all the way to The Devil’s
Mouth,” he said.
“That where Peanut told you to take me?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, he oughta known your fat ass wouldn’t make it out
that far.”
“Peanut ain’t gone know no difference if I shoot you here or
there.”
“Shoot me here then. It’s too damn hot,” I said.
“Naw, just a little further.”
Further meant we walked until we came to an old pecan tree
where us kids used to play. There were still two-by-fours and rotten plywood
left from where we’d built a tree house. It was the same place Peanut brought
my daddy when he wanted him dead. I guess this was some way of bringing things
full circle for Rusty.
He threw my rope over the closest hanging limb and pulled it
until my arms stretched over my head and I stood on my tiptoes. “What were you thinkin?” His jowls were slick
and sweaty and he used the back of his hairy arm to wipe his forehead. He
squinted into the sun when he looked at me.
My toes tingled from dangling like I was. I’d stopped
feeling my fingers a long time ago. “Bout what?”
“Stealin from Peanut, fucker.”
“I’s thinkin I needed the damn money.” I couldn’t keep from
grinning.
Rusty did the same. He may have been in the employ of Peanut
but he hated his cousin more than the rest of us ever would.
“And you stayed in Confederate County?” He waved his fat arms
around. The pits of his shirt were stained with sweat. The rope went slack when he
did it and it gave my wrists a moment’s relief.
“Figured I’d hide in plain sight.”
“You could’ve went anywhere in Georgia. Athens, Atlanta, St.
Simons. Hell, Mack, you could’ve went anywhere you damn well pleased.” His eyes
were bugged out and his cheeks puffed up. He looked like a damn cartoon. I knew
I could’ve gone where I wanted but I damn sure wasn’t going to run.
I shrugged.
Rusty sighed. His belly dropped and all the air went out of
his chest. His shoulders tightened and his index finger flicked against the
trigger guard. “Any last words?”
“Really?”
“It’s the Christian thing.”
“Sure you ain’t tryin to stall?”
Rusty aimed the gun between my eyes.
“All right,”
He brought the gun down.
I didn’t believe in an afterlife, and if there was one
waiting for me, it wasn’t a place I’d want to spend eternity. I’d never liked
Rusty so I figured I’d go out pissing him off. “I fucked your sister in the
eleventh grade. Three times.”
He snarled like a pit fighter, put the gun in my face, and
pulled the trigger.
