camper. After the long, tall, if narrow semi trailer, and the vast expanse of the desert, featureless save for distant mountains, the vehicle felt cramped, its dark wood veneered surfaces and clashing short, blue curtains pressing in on us. The rear-most section, clearly meant to hold a bed, had been gutted to make room for a make-shift office: maps, drawn in pencil in a wispy hand, fought with pages of indecipherable notes of varying handwriting, some looking antique-level old, to clutter a small, cheap desk, the surface of which we found to have rambling lunacies carved into it . I caught a few words as we shifted the mass of papers around, in the off chance that anything revealing would leap out at us. I saw 'huge' and 'I must' and 'too much' before a sharp bang from outside brought both of our guns up.
I peaked out a window that faced in the direction the sudden sound had come from, nudging the curtain aside with the barrel of my revolver. The wooden shack wasn't too much further; other than that, the view was unremarkable. I was about to pull away, suggest to Rist, as quietly as I could, that we check out the other windows, when the door of the shack opened, slowly, and slammed closed again, flapping uselessly in a rising wind that flicked minute particles against the sides of the camper, producing small dings and pops. I breathed out a sigh of relief, but we were still careful to make sure we could see no one else outside before we let our guards down. In inspecting the driver and passenger seats at the front of the mobile home, we saw a blanket and pillow on the reclined passenger side.
“Probably only one person, then,” Rist whispered. I had to wonder if that was good news or not. Did I want to face a group of deranged cannibals, or a single lunatic who was capable of accomplishing so much violence on his own? Neither prospect was very appealing.
We exited, crept up on the shack. The wind had died back down, left the door closed. We circled the outside of it first, to make sure no one was hiding behind it, waiting to lock us in the second we entered the weather-beaten structure. Rist went around to the right, me to the left. We met at the rear, finding only each other to point our guns at, and had to postpone clearing the shack to inspect what was waiting for us there.
Five rough loops, made of rusted metal bars, each about as think as a thumb, jutted out of the dust, their ends buried, forming a pentagon maybe four feet across. But what made the scene sinister was the darker irregularly-edged circle the pentagon circumscribed: the brown clay was stained almost black, and didn't look as parched. While I was crouched down next to it, Rist scuffed the toe of a boot through the muck – he was that sort of guy - catching a clump of moist soil. I reached over, picked a lump carefully off and rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger. It stained my skin red, a deep red, a shade I was too familiar with, one that pooled dark, bringing my fingerprints into sharp relief.
I stood, reached out and wiped the congealed blood off of my digits against the side of the little shack. Rist was immobile, seemed to be contemplating the low metal loops jutting out of the dirt. I nudged him, and he was himself again, all business. As we circled back around to check within, we heard sound from inside the shack. We slowed at it, simultaneously, shared a glance, and brought our weapons up. I remembered the trailer, filled with bits and pieces, thought of the little killing spot we'd just left, and used it to push any nervous energy down to turn to a steel ball in my stomach. It took a conscious effort, but I parted my lips. Everyone does something to get ready for the manic intensity, and, according to Rist, at least, I ground my teeth without realizing it. He'd had a great time busting my balls about giving us away at the dock, blowing our chance to get the jump on those poor bastards; I wasn't about to give him something to laugh about on the way home.
We came around to the door, but whoever was inside was having trouble with it, like they had their hands full. Finally, the stranger gave up on holding open the door while coming through, encumbered as he must have been, and began to back out, pushing open the door with his ass. The door opened a few inches, sounded like he had to drag something out, and he'd had to pause to regather his strength. Rist looked at me, smiled at my frown and moved back to provide cover as I took a few quick steps up and kicked the door shut, knocking our suspect over whatever he was hauling.
Sounds of shock and, I was gratified to hear, pain were muffled incoherent, letting us know his face was in the ground. I went to pop the door open, when a metallic click stopped me in my tracks. Preferring a revolver myself, the sound of one cocking had become difficult to mistake over the years. I looked down at the one in my hand.
“Don't.”
I cursed myself, my dumb luck, and slowly turned to face were the noise had come from to see the madman holding a piece to the back of my partner's head. I knew he was a madman, because he had all the distinguishing features: the long, greasy hair, the asymmetrical beard, the grubby undershirt and jeans combo, so popular with the derelict. His wiry frame had that lean quality you only got with obsession. But while the rings around his deep set eyes said everything that could ever be said about long nights without blinking, the gaze he leveled at me was unflinching, maybe dangerous, but sane.
“Toss yer gun on the ground.” Alright, maybe not sane, but stable. Aware. He knew what he was doing, what he planned on doing. I dropped my revolver with a sigh, put my hands in the air, wiggling my fingers. My gallows humor, Rist often told me, would get me hung up one of these days. Sure, Rist, sure. And your bad puns are gonna get you shot.
“Both of ya.” The vagrant stressed the word 'both', poking his barrel against Rist's dome. My partner swore, let his shotgun be yanked out of his hand. “Angus!” long-hair called, a skinny kid fumbling out of the wood shack at his shout.
“Yes, Mr. Osmond. I got him, Mr. Osmond.” Angus couldn't have been more than fifteen. Pimples on his damn face, and spoke hurriedly. He tried to grab my arm, assert his dominance over me to please his precious Mr. Osmond, but his little jostle was honestly so weak, it shook him instead.
“You alright, boy?” Osmond had the twinge of a southern accent, which meant he wasn't local. That made it harder. With someone from the area, you knew what level of violence they would be roughly comfortable with, how much slack they'd give you if you played dumb or didn't do quite what they demanded. Couldn't say what to expect as much from an outsider. He'd recruited Angus; hiring on pimply teens wasn't common among nutjobs in the city, as far as I knew, but I knew very few nutjobs.
“Yeah, I'm okay,” Angus said, brushing roughly at a streak of dirt that ran down his temple. I couldn't suppress my smirk.
“Well, grab his gun there, boy, and pat him down, like I showed you.” Mr. Osmond began to pat down Rist, finding the .45 he had on his ankle quick enough, and tucking it into his belt. Giving lessons on searching captives to young Angus, were you, Mr. Osmond? I would've liked to have seen that.
I looked down as the stringy teen pointedly avoided going near my groin. I frowned. No, I wouldn't have liked to see that, I suppose. Liked seeing the people these two had cut up and eaten even less. Only one sleeping spot in the camper. I'm guessing Angus didn't deserve a blanket. Or else they slept in shifts. I tried to convince myself two people couldn't fit stacked on top of each other in the space afforded the passenger seat. However their arrangement had scarred this little shit, it made me wish I'd taped my backup piece to my inner thigh instead of the small of my back.
Angus yanked it off of me, tried to jam it in his belt like Osmond had, but the weight made his pants droop, so he tossed it down into the dust by the shack door, away from us. He kept my own revolver trained on me the whole time, clutched in a wobbly mitt, but the barrel invariably pointed at my anatomy. We were ushered back to the metal bars behind the little wood shack. Osmond moved Rist to the center of the pentagon they formed.
“What about this one?” Angus asked as the nut took red stained chains from the burlap sack Angus had been dragging and shackled my partner to the bars, a foot to one side, a wrist to the other, but with plenty of slack, allowing him to remain standing.
; “We'll let him dig a little. Experience the rich satisfaction of manual labor,” drawled Osmond, grinning at the kid.
The idea made Angus giggle. “Yeah, let him work for a while. While- while we get a little snack?” Mr. Osmond nodded, and the teen leveled his revolver – my revolver – at my partner.
“No, no, no,” admonished the older man, “You need more practice with the rifle.” He went into the burlap sack again, this time producing a shovel and pickax. “Here, start him going while I go get it.” I breathed out, hadn't realized I was holding my breath. “And do not let them get the drop on you.” Mr. Osmond walked off toward the camper.
Angus and I stared at each other. “Well, dig!” He pitched his voice low, tried to bellow, sound menacing, but some trick of the wind swallowed his shout, made him sound every bit the child desperate for respect. I repressed a scoff, remembering the gun he held. My gun.
I looked around myself, put on an air of theatrical bewilderment. “Dig? Where? How? This ground is sunbaked clay;