4
Thorn was up with the dawn. He made a breakfast out of the leftover coffee and cornbread from last night. The coffee was cold but he didn’t want to take the time to make a fire to reheat it. Thorn didn’t particularly care for cold coffee, but he didn’t hate it either. And when he had more pressing matters on his mind, like taking down an incredibly strong and chaotic maniac, cold coffee was just fine.
As he was sipping from his tin cup he climbed to the top of the rock sheltering his camp and peered through a pair of leather binoculars in the direction of Crooked Crag. This land was close to the Old Foss and was easy to irrigate with man-made ditches that carried the river water to the crops. Thorn saw a lot of farms over the plain, crisscrossed with irrigation trenches and pipes. The town itself was small: a collection of buildings rising in the middle of the farmland.
Thorn began feeling the excitement building from the pit of his stomach. He cleaned his campground quickly then ran through some stretches and calisthenics. He knew that once he finally confronted Keech that the excitement would fade and he’d be awash with the adrenaline of the moment but for now, several miles out and with the impending challenge to come, he could barely contain his excitement. This was the rush that had first hooked him when he took up bounty hunting, and it was that adrenaline rush that kept him coming back. The money wasn’t exactly bad either. Two hundred dollars for Keech’s capture was more than most people saw in a year.
Once he had worked through the stiffness and gotten his blood pumping he jumped in the buggy, fired it up and took off.
As Thorn drew nearer to the town the signs of Arnold Keech’s destructive swath became more apparent. Farm houses were torn down. One of them still had the chain and hook trailing from it which Keech had used to pull it over. Thorn again found himself wondering what kind of motorcycle Keech had stolen that was powerful enough to do something like that. Crops were destroyed where Keech had rampaged through them, riding and carving donuts in the fertile soil. Houses had been burned to the ground. The destruction became greater the closer Thorn got to the town, and some of it looked very fresh. One of the houses he passed was still smoking, as though it had just been burned last night. That meant there was a very good chance that Keech was still in town. If he was having this much fun every night, there wasn’t much reason for him to move on yet.
About the only good thing that Thorn could say about Arnold Keech was that he was easy to find. Most of Thorn’s bounties went into hiding and he had to employ some detective work in hunting them down. Not so with Keech. He welcomed the challenge and the rush of combat as much as Thorn did. To Keech it was all a big game. He was out for a good time and did not care one whit who got in the way or what got destroyed. He and Thorn had tangled several times over the years with mixed results. The only thing that Thorn could count on when it came to a fight with Arnold Keech was that it was going to be brutal.
Thorn passed a family that was working in the morning sun to fix some of the damage that had been done overnight. Keech had pulled half of their barn down and trashed their irrigation system. Water had flooded one of the fields and it was torn up with deep ruts. To Thorn it looked like Keech had made himself a mud field to play in. The family was attempting to mend the broken irrigation pipes to stop the flow of water from destroying more of their crops. They looked up as Thorn passed and he locked eyes with the father. His eyes were filled with sadness, but also a great deal of resolve. He would rebuild just as if his farmland had been destroyed by a tornado or other force of nature, because in a way that’s what Arnold Keech was: a destructive force of nature without cause or purpose. These people were used to suffering at the whims of nature. They had long-since given up on the notion that cosmic justice would always favor them. The only thing to do was pick up and start over.
Thorn followed the well-kept dirt road that led straight as an arrow through the farmland into Crooked Crag. What had looked like a small collection of buildings from further away turned out to be a densely-packed rural town comprised of buildings made from wood and yellow brick. Thorn slowed as he rode into town, passing by shopkeepers opening their shops for the day. Thorn didn’t have to worry about finding his way as Crooked Crag was laid out in practical rectangles. He knew that if he drove into the heart of town he’d find the most important buildings like the sheriff’s office or the town hall or, probably the most important building in a small town, the saloon.
Thorn was not disappointed as he pulled in front of the town hall. The saloon was directly across the road and a gaggle of anxious-looking people were standing out front. A wooden sign depicting a carving of a stag with bells hanging from its antlers proclaimed that the saloon was called the Stag’s Bells.
A small man with a waxed moustache and more expensive clothing than the others strode over saying, “You can’t park that here!”
“From what I hear you’ve got bigger problems than illegal parking,” Thorn said as he got out of the buggy.
Thorn eyed the other vehicles along the road. Most were slop engines, rusty and caked with dirt, as he expected from a farming community like this. None of them were parked in front of the Stag’s Bells. The only vehicle in front of the saloon was a huge, nasty-looking motorcycle with a beast of an engine and chrome exhaust curling down the sides. It was covered in mud from the previous night’s outing and was parked half on the porch and half on the road. The motorcycle boasted the biggest engine Thorn had ever seen. In fact, it didn’t look like a motorcycle at all; it looked like an engine with a little seat on it and a pair of handlebars for steering.
The other people standing behind the little man with the moustache looked like a sampling of farmers, shop owners, and volunteer police. These latter were the worse for wear, sporting black eyes and bruises. One of them had an arm in a sling.
“Who—who are you?” the little man with the moustache asked.
“Pest control,” Thorn said with a smirk. He reached behind the seat of his buggy and drew out a steel cudgel. He gave it a few swings, loosening up his arm.
“Are you a bounty hunter?” asked someone standing in the crowd.
The sounds of breaking bottles and music wafted from inside the saloon and everyone cringed.
“Are you a bounty hunter?” the man with the moustache asked.
“That’s right,” Thorn answered him.
The little man’s face lit up and the corners of his moustache leapt upward over his smile. He took Thorn’s hand and shook it vigorously between both of his, peering up into Thorn’s face like a beaming child. “My name is Mayor Haversham and we are so glad you’re here. We’ve sent for help from Bradenfield but they said they were too understaffed to aid us. But they said they would put a bounty on him so someone would be by to take care of the problem. Did you hear that everyone? He’s a bounty hunter. He’s here to help!”
A few of the people applauded nervously.
The man who had asked if Thorn was a bounty hunter extended his hand and introduced himself as Tyler Cates, owner of the Stag’s Bells. “He’s got my people in there,” he said. “Those are good people he’s holding hostage.”
Mayor Haversham put up a hand for quiet and began talking rapidly. “He came into town two days ago. We had no warning. I rallied our volunteer police force but he routed them pretty quickly and we’ve been unable to do anything since. Yesterday he was in the fields destroying property and burning down farmhouses. When he’s not doing that he’s in the saloon drinking and challenging people to fight. We tried to get the hostages out but he threatened to tear down our town hall if he didn’t have someone to serve him drinks and someone to play music for him. It’s been terrible. I understand that you’ll be receiving a bounty for the capture of this man, which will be paid by the county, however we of Crooked Crag would like to express our gratitude as well. We cannot express how much your aid means to us, and as such I will be taking up a collection in order to recompense you for your services here today, pending capture of that man.”
> Thorn smiled. Mayor Haversham certainly spoke like a politician.
“Sure,” Thorn said, “but don’t get ahead of yourself. I’ve still got to catch the bad guy first.”
“If you need any help, we’d like to offer our services as well,” said the young man with his arm in a sling. The other members of the volunteer police force nodded.
“I’ve tangled with this guy before. I think the best thing you can do is keep out of our way. It’s going to get ugly. In fact, if you fellows could keep everyone back, or maybe if you could go inside somewhere that would be just fine. Arnold Keech does not like to go down quietly.”
They nodded, but Thorn had no expectation that anyone would heed his advice and go inside. They weren’t going to miss the fight of the decade right here in their own home town. And he didn’t blame them. He wouldn’t want to miss this either. But he had warned them and what they did with that advice was their own business. Thorn did not feel responsible for them if they put themselves in harm’s way and got hurt. He had enough to worry about.
Thorn turned to Tyler Cates. “You said he had your people in there? How many?”
“Two of my barmaids and my guitar player.”
Thorn nodded and slung the steel cudgel over his shoulder. “Ok, don’t worry about a thing. I’ll have this wrapped up in no time.”
Then he walked towards the saloon.
The sounds of breaking bottles, splintering wood, and music became more distinct as Thorn edged closer to the door. One sound carried above them all and that was the deep and boisterous peals of Arnold Keech’s laughter. Thorn knew the sound very well.
Thorn crouched against the wall and peered through one of the windows. It was smoked to keep out the glare of the sun, but Thorn could see through it well enough. Almost all the furniture had been broken. Splinters of tables and chairs were scattered among glittering pieces of broken glass. The music was being provided by a guitar player who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. Thorn saw the two barmaids dancing on the bar. They were wearing fishnets and corsets. At the center of it all was Arnold Keech. He was drinking and smashing bottles while singing off-key and laughing deeply. His large frame and barrel chest looked ridiculous bouncing up and down as he danced a jig completely out of tune from the music. His messy red hair and beard bounced and swayed around his head like they had a mind of their own.
Despite what Tyler Cates had said about their being held hostage Thorn had to prepare for the possibility that those barmaids weren’t being held by force. The allure of a bad boy representing unbridled and destructive freedom had ensnared many impressionable young women before. It was entirely possible that they would fight against Thorn when he went in there. They looked to be having a good time as they danced on the bar. On the other hand they could be good actors and were merely appeasing Arnold Keech for their own survival.
Other than that there didn’t look to be any surprises. Thorn stepped next to the door and took a deep breath. Time to start this.
He threw open the door so hard it banged loudly against the wall. The stench of stale beer blasted him in the face. The music stopped at once, as did Keech. A lock of red hair was standing straight up on his head as he turned, a smile curling the corner of his lips.
“I was hoping they’d send you,” he said. Keech grabbed a bottle from the bar and drank deeply from it, sloshing whiskey over his red beard. The barmaids cowered from him as he reached over the bar. They looked relieved to see Thorn, but apprehensive of their captor. Thorn never took his eyes from Arnold Keech as he watched their reaction out of his peripheral vision.
“I’m the only guy thick-headed enough to accept the job,” Thorn said. “But at least the pay is good.”
Keech threw the half-full bottle at Thorn and it smashed just over his shoulder against the door frame. Thorn didn’t flinch, even as he felt broken pieces of glass bouncing off his back.
“The pay!” Keech sneered.
Thorn balanced his weight evenly between his feet. He tightened his grip on the steel cudgel. Keech was chaotic. Unpredictable. His moods could swing wildly from jocose to irate in the blink of an eye. Thorn had to be ready for anything.
“These little people,” Keech bellowed as he grabbed one of the women and pulled her off the bar. She screamed and tried to fight but he was much too powerful for her. “These little people you’re working for, look at them! They can barely even take care of themselves.”
He threw the woman to the beer-and-whiskey-soaked floor. She let out a terse sob. No, Thorn thought to himself, they were definitely not attracted to Keech’s unique charm. He needed to get them out of here before things exploded, but he dared not take his eyes from Arnold Keech. The attack could come at any moment.
“You could be out there taking what you want, as I do. No one could stop you. You want some food? You take it. You want some drink? You take it. You want this girl? You take her.”
“Are you done?” Thorn asked. His heart was pounding in anticipation of the coming fight.
Keech swayed on his feet. “I’m just getting started!”
He was drunk. He was so drunk he could barely stand. But that only made him more dangerous. More unpredictable.
“You’re the only one who’s ever been able to get one over on me, even if you did have to cheat to do it. And look at you now! Big man hiding behind your little club.”
Keech’s face was becoming redder and redder, as if he were filling with fire from the inside out. His nose looked like a red doorknob. The other woman knelt to help the one that Keech had thrown to the ground. Her movement caught Keech’s eye and he turned on her with his arm raised to strike.
“Stop!” Thorn yelled.
Keech paused. Then he grabbed her by the hair, nearly ripping it out as he yanked her to her feet. He held her in front of him as he stumbled into the middle of the saloon, kicking over part of a table that was in his way. He snarled as he said, “You could never win a fair fight against me. Lose the club or I’ll tear her head off. Now.”
Thorn licked his lips, weighing his options. He didn’t want to face Keech without the cudgel because Keech was right: he couldn’t win a fair fight against him. Thorn glanced at the woman’s frightened eyes. He couldn’t let her get harmed either. He looked back into Arnold Keech’s crazed baby blues and knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to do it.
“We’ll do it your way,” Thorn said. He lowered the steel cudgel to the floor, keeping it near so he could kick it up the moment the girl was released. “Now let her go.”
Keech laughed, his snarling face transformed into a mask of joviality in an instant. “I was never going to hurt her.” He pulled her against himself and kissed her while she squealed and struggled. “And Thorn, when are you ever going to learn that there’s no such thing as a fair fight?”
He threw the woman at Thorn and charged, picking up a piece of broken table as he let out an inhuman bellow from deep in his barrel chest. Even though Thorn was ready the suddenness of the attack took him off-guard. He caught the girl with both arms and rolled out of the way with her. Keech swung the broken table and smashed against the doorframe where Thorn had been standing.
“Run,” Thorn said between breaths. The woman didn’t have to be told twice. She collected the other barmaid and joined the guitar player, the three of them running as quickly as they could through the back door.
Thorn turned just in time to see the broken table coming down on him from above. He rolled but it clipped him hard on the shoulder. The rest of the broken table smashed against the floor and shattered from the leg that Keech was holding. He tossed it aside and picked up Thorn’s steel cudgel.
“So much for your notion of a fair fight,” Thorn said under his breath as he tried to decide on the best course of action. Usually for Thorn that meant charging straight in, consequences be damned. Against someone like Arnold Keech, though, that may not be the best strategy. He was even more thick-headed and stubborn than Thorn ever was.
Keech leapt, brandishing the cudgel wildly, his hair and beard flowing behind him. Thorn went with his instinctual response anyway and charged, meeting Keech halfway and knocking his knees out from under him. Keech landed face-first and the cudgel clattered away.
Thorn went for the cudgel. As he crouched near the door he saw over a dozen faces plastered against the smoked windows watching the fight. One of the faces right up front was the young woman he’d saved from Keech. Thorn wanted to wave, or grin, or do something funny, but he didn’t have the time. Keech was already back on his feet. He already had selected another weapon from the broken furniture all over the floor, this one a chair leg that still had the seat attached to it.
Thorn brought the cudgel up while Keech swung the chair leg down. The two weapons met with a clash. The chair seat ripped away from the leg. Both men felt the reverberations from the clash go up their arms and down their spines.
Thorn was quicker to recover. He spun the cudgel from one hand to the other and landed a solid blow against the side of Arnold Keech’s head, and he continued his momentum around to land another even harder blow on the other side.
An ordinary man would have been laid out from two such blows. An extraordinary man would have been knocked senseless, allowing Thorn the opportunity to apply one of his choke holds to finish him off. Arnold Keech, however, spat a mouthful of blood on the floor and grinned.
He lunged forward and answered Thorn’s blow with one of his own, connecting with the chair leg under Thorn’s chin. Thorn was lifted off his feet and flew heels over head backwards. He felt like his head had been ripped clean off. He couldn’t see anything when he landed save for the stars that blinked in and out of existence in his field of vision. The entire world threatened to go black. He was able to focus through the haze and the stars to make out the blurry form of a monster bearing down on him as his field of vision filled with red.
Keech was dripping blood from his beard as he squatted over Thorn and began pummeling him with his massive fists. Each blow fell with a sickening thud against Thorn’s head as Keech’s fists fired like pistons.
Thorn blacked out for a moment only to awaken as another fist found his face. Arnold Keech had seized the advantage and he was relentless in exploiting it.
Thorn couldn’t see. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t win. He had only one option left open to him.
He went limp.
Arnold Keech landed two more blows against Thorn’s swelling face before he stopped. He shook Thorn’s lifeless form once to make sure he was really out, then wiped his bloodied knuckles across his bloodied whiskers. Most of that blood was Thorn’s. Keech went back to the bar and reached over it for a bottle.
“Potato mash,” he said, shaking his head at the label. “Who in their right mind drinks this?” He threw the bottle, smashing it against the far wall before reaching over the bar for another one. This time he came back with whiskey, which brought a smile to his face. “Now that’s more like it.”
He uncorked it with his teeth and spat the cork at Thorn’s body. Thorn groaned and sputtered blood as he made a feeble attempt to roll over on his side. His eye was so swollen he could barely see. And what he could see was through a red filter of blood. His face was too numb to feel any pain yet. He didn’t want to think about how badly this would hurt in a few hours.
Keech leaned against the bar sipping from the whiskey bottle as he watched Thorn struggle to move. “It’s no fun when you don’t fight back, Thorn.” He pushed off from the bar and took another swig before turning the bottle upside down over Thorn, pouring whiskey all over him. “Here, maybe this will put some pep in your step,” he said laughing.
Thorn managed to stagger to his feet as the liquor dripped from his clothing and face. Through the bloody red haze of his swollen eye he could see three Keeches laughing in front of him.
The smile began to fade from Keech’s face and the laughter dried up. “What’s happened to you, Thorn? You used to be able to go toe-to-toe with me like it was nothing. You used to be able to take me to the limit like no one else could. Now look at you. You can barely stand.”
Thorn squinted to get the three Keeches to merge into one. They finally did, but it was a very blurry Keech. He noticed that Keech’s eye and cheek were swelling from where he’d struck him with the steel cudgel. Keech was too drunk to feel any pain. He was a tough man to begin with, but once he was in the full grip of a bender he was almost invulnerable. Sure he might have a headache in a day or two when he finally crashed, but that didn’t help Thorn with the here and now not one little bit.
“You’ve become too civilized,” Keech said. He took another drink. He was slurring his speech badly and seemed to be swaying on his feet until Thorn realized that he was the one doing the swaying. “Hanging out with that marshal. Respecting the law. Doing the bidding of these politicians. Working for these little people. How much were they offering you to bring me in?”
Thorn swallowed. “Two hundred.”
Arnold Keech shook his head. He fished around in his clothes and produced a wad of bills leftover from the money in the safe. “Here you go if this is all that’s important to you.” He threw the money at Thorn and it fluttered to the ground around his feet. There was quite a bit more than two hundred dollars. “It means nothing to me.”
Keech took another swig from the whiskey bottle before he continued. “You used to fight like you had nothing to lose. Nothing to live for. That was after you came out of that city, wasn’t it? Crimson City? That was back when you used to be more fun. What did they do to you in there?”
As Keech was talking Thorn’s mind was working. He realized he couldn’t beat him in a straight fight. Not like this. He could connect with his strongest blow and Keech wouldn’t even feel it for days. And in the meantime Thorn was about to black out. He had absorbed more damage than it would have taken to kill an ordinary man, but that wasn’t enough. He couldn’t go another round. He needed another plan.
Keech slapped a massive hand on Thorn’s shoulder and offered him the bottle. Thorn was a tall man himself but he was dwarfed standing next to Arnold Keech. He swallowed a shot before passing the bottle back. His face was so numb he couldn’t feel his lips against the mouth of the bottle. The whiskey felt good though. It helped to put a little fire in his belly.
“I remember the first time I met you,” Keech was saying. “I was in . . . well, I don’t remember where I was.”
“Level Shore,” Thorn said.
“Level Shore,” Keech echoed thoughtfully, scratching his beard. “The Tight Bonnet. Now that’s a fun town. I had a hundred dollar bill on the bar for anyone that could take it. I’d been drinking for at least three days straight. Had a pile of challengers by the door waiting to be taken out with the trash. And then you walked in. Put me down faster’n I could say how do you do.”
Keech doubled over from laughing so hard.
“I never got that hundred dollars, either,” Thorn said.
“That’s because you cheated. Started before I was ready. But I tore it up, didn’t I? Rather than admit defeat. That’s when you lose, Thorn, is when you stop running. When you admit defeat. That’s when it takes you and it grabs you and pulls you under. And you don’t get back up. Thorn, I could keep going forever as long as I never stop. But I saw it in you, just now. I saw you give up. I saw you admit defeat.”
Keech passed the bottle to Thorn and Thorn drank before passing it back. Keech tipped the bottle to his lips but he didn’t drink from it. Instead he bellowed from deep within his chest and threw the bottle against the front wall. All of the faces plastered against the glass jumped back before returning a moment later.
“I’ll be moving on now,” Keech said. “This town’s no fun anymore. Can’t stop running. Can’t stop moving. See you round, Thorn.”
He gave Thorn another hard slap on the back and left him standing alone in the saloon.