Sail Cat Road
Below are the first two chapters of Sail Cat Road, the Twitter novel sequel to No Good End. As with No Good End, Sail Cat Road is written one tweet at a time on the fly at http://twitter.com/ttaylordude
NOTE: In the South, a sail cat is a feline that has been run over several times, flattened on the pavement and dried to jerky in the sun. Kids used to throw sail cats like Frisbees.
Chapter 1
“Look up there on the left next to that fencepost,” said Reverend Theo Poppis. “What is that in the weeds?”
“Is that a body?” asked the bus driver, slowing to get a better look. “Maybe we should stop, what do you say, Reverend?”
“What are you, insane?” said the Reverend’s wife from a second row seat. “People get robbed out there. We did our ministering already.”
“Clarise, we still got some ministering to do,” said Revered Poppis. “Pull over Harvey. Let’s see what the Lord has delivered in our path.”
Harvey drove the bus onto the gravel beside the road. No traffic either way. Reverend Poppis walked across and looked into the ditch.
The body was female, beaten and bloody. Reverend Poppis figured she was twenty years old. He squatted beside her, examining her condition.
A kidnapping, maybe; a drug deal gone bad, probably; a hooker, likely. She probably just wanted to get paid for sin and got this, instead.
He had seen bodies before when he worked the border ministry. Mexicans sometimes didn’t make it across. This one was blonde and fresh.
The pulse on the woman’s neck surprised him. “Get some water over here,” he said to Harvey. “She’s alive, but roughed up bad.”
Harvey brought a water bottle to the reverend. He poured the water over the Jolene’s face. She coughed dust through dried bloody lips.
Poppis thumped a scorpion off Jolene’s shoulder. “Can you hear me?” he said, leaning in close to her swollen face. “Can you move?”
“Dear God Almighty, Reverend,” said Harvey. “What kind of person would beat the hell out of such a pretty girl?”
“Few people get all the hell beat completely out of them,” said the Reverend. “But somebody tried pretty hard right here with this one.”
Chapter 2
Jolene squinted into the Reverend’s face. Only his shape was visible, silhouetted against the sun, his features blurry.
“Give her some water and let’s go,” yelled Clarise from the bus window. “I’m sure someone more medically qualified can help her.”
“Clarise, be quiet and read your Bible, or come help,” said Reverend Poppis. “Either way, shut up.”
“There is no cell phone service here, ma’am,” said Harvey. “If we don’t help her, she’s going to die and get eat by the buzzards.”
“She deserves it, no doubt,” said Clarise. “Only a prostitute dresses like that.”
“Ignore her, Harvey,” said Poppis. “You and I can be good Samaritans – even if Clarise is a bitch.”
Harvey looked shocked to hear such language from the Reverend, however, he agreed with the opinion. Clarise glared at them both.
“Take some of this if you can,” said Reverend Poppis, cupping his hand under Jolene’s chin and pouring water around her split mouth.
Three other members of the congregation got out of the bus and walked over to see what was happening without getting too close.
“Reverend, the agreement was just to go to that little Mexican church and read scripture,’ said Grace Ordmore. “We didn’t sign on for this.”
“That girl is far past gone and we will be too if we hang out here,” said Ben Rye, the youth minister, staring at Jolene’s tight shirt.
“Satan’s minions drive this road looking for victims,” said Deacon Blech LaRoche. “We’re starting too look like good candidates.”
“So we’re supposed to leave this woman laying in a ditch and do nothing?” asked Harvey. “That what Jesus would do?”
“Jesus would have kept on driving because we have choir practice in three hours and God’s people are waiting,” said Deacon LaRoche.
Harvey shook his head. “I know you’re a deacon and all, and I’m just a sinner, but that’s wrong, sir.”
Reverend Poppis poured more water in Jolene’s mouth. She choked it down. He stood and looked both ways down the long, straight road.
Jolene pushed up on her elbows, took the bottle and emptied it. “Got anything stronger than water?” she asked. “Any of that Bible wine?”
“Got peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” said Harvey. “Heavy on the jelly, too. I made them this morning.”
Heat rippled the parched landscape for miles. It was dangerous country, thought Poppis, conflicted and torn about what to do.
He knew the deputy who patrolled this stretch. It was about time for him to come by.
“We don’t partake in spirits,” said Poppis. “We keep out bodies pure for the Lord’s work.”
“How about that woman in the bus?” said Jolene looking at Clarise pouting through the bus window. “How pure is she?”
Poppis cracked his neck and wiped sweat on a handkerchief. “The Lord is still working on her.”
“You are not a child of God, are you?” Poppis asked Jolene. “That’s how you ended up in this fix. The wages of sin are death.”
“I’m not dead,” said Jolene. “And me and God are alright. Me and several people seem to have some issues, though. You a preacher?”
“Yes, I am a minister near Houston. We went down to scripturize a small congregation, mostly Hispanics.”
“You’re evangelizing Hispanics?” said Jolene. “Didn’t they bring the church to America to start with, back in the day?”
“I believe the Spanish did bring God to the savages in these parts,” said Poppis.
“Then maybe the Hispanics are evangelizing you,” said Jolene. “When you get down to it, preacher, we all savages. I’ve seen that firsthand.”
The water cleared her mind, but her head still throbbed and her body ached. She felt of her face, imagining how bad it looked.
“Sons of bitches,” she said. “I won’t be turning the other cheek.”
“What is your name?” asked Poppis.
“Jolene,” she said. “They took me from a diner in Dallas. Beat me and took my money.”
“Why didn’t they kill you?” he said.
“They should have,” she said. “There’s going to be hell to pay, and I’m good at making payments.”
Jolene gained more energy. “Bring her another water,” said the reverend to Harvey, motioning toward the bus.
Clarise complained. Her bitching echoed inside the bus. “We’re dying from heat out here, Theo. Leave that harlot to the vultures. Let’s go.”
Harvey brought two more water bottles, ignoring the venom of Clarise’s gaze. But he could feel it. She wanted religion on her terms.
Her terms were slanted away from others. She worshipped a personal God, and kept him on a short leash.
“That’s great,” said Clarise. “Give the whore all our water, maybe God will pin a little ribbon on you when we all die out here.”
“Don’t assume you’re going to heaven,” mumbled Poppis under his breath as he gave Jolene more water. “Excuse Clarise’s passion, miss.”
“Not the word I would use to describe that woman,” said Jolene, sipping water. “The Lord punishing you through her?”
He nodded. Admitting it was to hard to say. In the distance a car was coming. Poppis watched it. It was gray with something on the roof.
“That Deputy Labew?” asked Harvey. “About time for him to do his run down here.”
“Maybe he’s out looking for illegal aliens to evangelized at the county jail?” said Jolene.
“That’s likely the law and they will best be able to take care of what you need,” said Reverend Poppis. “So we’ll be on our way.”
With that pronouncement, he said a short prayer making sure God gave him credit for the good deed before walking back to the bus.
Harvey stayed with Jolene. He had been a petty criminal in Houston years ago, before a brain injury slowed him down.
The injury took the criminal part from him and left an honorable, decent man with a limp and a speech impediment.
“Ma’am, should have said this earlier; my name is Harvey. Got you a PBJ and something else you’re going to need out here by your lonesome.”
With the sandwich was a snub nosed .38 Smith & Wesson. “Hide it but use it if you need to. Untracable. I used to be in the business.”
Jolene looked at his face. It was once mean and hard, but had been softened by unfortunate events. “Thank you, Harvey,” she said.
“I figured that was better than a prayer for you right now,” he smiled. “Be careful. Dangerous road. People die out here.”
Harvey walked across the road and tipped his hat to the oncoming car. It accelerated as he walked into the lane.
Jolene shielded her eyes from the sun. The gray car with a ski rack on the roof slowed as it came near. Reverend Poppis waved.
It was not a sheriff’s deputy. Jolene called to Harvey, trying to get him to stop. He turned and smiled. The car’s engine roared.
The front bumper caught him in the left knee and doubled his body into a V. Both legs broke instantly. His face exploded on the hood.
200 yards down the road, he skidded and rolled to a stop, skinned from the asphalt. The car lurched to a stop, straddling the meaty smear.
Clarise wailed. Reverend Poppis tried to calm her and the others. Deacon LaRoche cursed at the car and waved his arms. Jolene lay still.
Everyone poured out of the bus and stood in a line, gasping and pointing. Clarise yelled about the devil and the girl in the ditch.
As the car backed up, methodical machinery that operates the internal parts of an Uzi began to churn from the back window.
Bullets rattled, chattered glass and dinged through the bus, rocking it gently against the metal barrage.
A zipper of rounds opened Deacon LaRoche in a gush. Ben Rye, the youth minister jerked and collapsed face down, splattering the ground.
Four other women fell around the bus, their heads bouncing off the tires and fenders. The Uzi paused, re-clipped and burped to life again.
Reverend Poppis held up his right hand and closed his eyes. Above him the sky ignored the carnage as if this was just another day on earth.
Why was this violence so mundane? he thought. In a world where humans were God’s special creatures, how could they be so expendable?
He prayed as the Uzi worked; his prayer cut short by a spurt of red splotches across his chest. He stood for a second, then dropped.
Clarise was the last to go. She tried to run across the field. A burst caught her across the shoulders and peeled off the back of her head.
Her body plunged into the field, her dress flowering up over her head, her nakedness exposed in a way that would have shocked her in life.
When the car rolled back to Jolene, she was face down in the ditch, stained with dried blood. Frank Izzo stepped out of the car.
“Jolene, you still with us, baby?” said Izzo. “The Good Samaritans didn’t make it.” He walked down into the ditch to check her pulse.
She had curled the .38 under her body so the barrel protruded backwards from under her armpit, facing anyone who approached.
She curled the .38 under her body so the barrel protruded backwards from under her armpit, facing anyone who approached. Izzo approached.
The hollow point hit him in the center of the chest, blowing a burger-sized chunk of his heart and lungs behind him onto the road.
Izzo stumbled, laid down and ripped the buttons of his shirt open, staring at the sky. His words were lost in his last breath.
The driver shifted the gear forward, smoking the tires, skidding sideways straining to gain purchase. Jolene had four shots left.
She rolled and staggered up, weak-kneed and vomiting water. Never blinking, she emptied the revolver into the retreating vehicle.
She missed three times but one of the four shots punched out the rear window and hit the driver in the neck through the headrest.
Steering went haywire. The car swerved and bottomed out in a field at full speed. It flipped and gouged the earth in a cascade of dirt.
Five hundred feet south of the perforated bus, the assassins’ car ached and moaned as biology met physics and wheels spun in the dusty air.
Smoked rubber, gasoline and moist death filled Jolene’s nostrils. It was a smell she hated, but understood. A buzzard was already circling.
One of the passengers in the wrinkled car had been thrown as it spun. He lay broken in half backwards against a creosote electric pole.
There was no explosion like in the movies. The car hugged the ground at the end of its own burrow and crackled from settling destruction.
Jolene checked Izzo’s body, pulled his wallet, keys, a 9 mm and an extra clip, then kicked part of his insides off the road into the grass.
Nothing moved around her. The bus engine idled as she pulled a canvas bag from under one of the seats and emptied the contents onto the floor.
She took the bag and walked past the church-goers’ bodies lying beside the highway in contorted poses like they had fallen from the sky.
Reverend Poppis was smiling into the sun. Ahead, Harvey lay crumpled in a crimson ball of ripped flesh. Two more buzzards joined the first.
Jolene stopped and touched his disfigured arm. “Harvey, I know you are in heaven, even if the preacher and the rest didn’t make it.”
Jolene came up behind the wreck, cautiously pointing Izzo’s 9mm in the direction of a thumping sound inside the overturned car.
A licorice, torn-leather smell mixed with a wet cigar odor near the car. Silty loam was still settling on the underside of the vehicle.
A man in the backseat was bleeding badly from his mouth, digging at the roof liner with his boots, trying to get out.
He heaved to catch a breath, mumbling disfigured words that sounded like cursing. Four fingers were missing from his left hand. He did not seem to notice.
Jolene leaned down, scanning his face. “I remember you,” she said. “When y’all took me.” His bloodshot eyes blinked with fear and resignation.
A pallor settled over his movements as he was unable to speak because he had bitten off half of his tongue.
She patted his head, then put a bullet through it. The driver was dead and obviously the broken man beside the pole.
Her wounded face reflected from a piece of cracked rearview mirror. She touched it gently, incensed at the beating they had given her.
Another bullet itched to leave her gun, but she kicked the corpse instead. Now there were a dozen buzzards roaming the sky.
“Tell that church bitch back there I said hello when you all get to hell,” she said.
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