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New Hampton: Snake-Handlers’ Commune
Jerry felt as if he’d gone a couple of rounds with Marciano in his prime or maybe Jake LaMotta, like in Raging Bull. He grimly held on to his consciousness and just as grimly tried not to puke on his shoes as Witness’s man worked him over with a sap loaded with lead pellets, stopping every now and then to ask questions about John Fortune that he couldn’t answer.
The sudden appearance of Billy Ray was like the arrival of an angel on Earth. His captors stopped beating him. Ray was a blur of motion as he charged heedlessly into a fight against impossible odds, but after a moment or two Jerry had the sudden hope that perhaps the odds weren’t all that impossible as Ray cut through his foes like, appropriately enough, an ace through nats.
His hope, however, was short-lived as Witness and the last of his otherwise unoccupied henchmen got the drop on Ray. Everyone was watching the drama, Jerry realized, even the thug who’d been holding him while his pal sapped him down. He went limp, sagging forward with all his weight, and his right arm broke free of his captor’s grip.
“Hey!” the man exclaimed, yanking on Jerry’s left arm and turning him half around.
Jerry concentrated and held his right hand out, rigid as a knife. The additional pain barely registered on his consciousness as the bones of his middle three fingers lengthened and tore through the flesh of his fingertips. He didn’t have time to get fancy. He just punched out with a knife-hand and caught the man in the throat. His fingers penetrated flesh and the man gurgled, released Jerry, and grabbed his throat.
Jerry fell. His fingers slipped out of the man’s throat, and blood spurted from the wound, big time. It looked as if he’d hit the carotid artery. His tormentor collapsed, gagging and choking into the bloodstained dust at his feet. Jerry fought down a wave of nausea as arcing gobbets of blood splattered his shoes. He’d seen death close up before, but it was never easy to take. Death entailed real pain and suffering and even though these guys were assholes who hadn’t thought twice about beating him to a pulp, Jerry wouldn’t, couldn’t, descend to their level. He still felt bad about having to kill.
But only for a moment. He had other things to worry about.
The other thug lifted his sap and took a step toward Jerry. He froze suddenly when an arrow came out of nowhere and bulls-eyed the gunman holding down on Ray. The thug with the sap looked around frantically, but there was no sign of the archer.
I owe him again, Jerry thought, and he kicked the thug in the knee. There was a satisfyingly loud crack, and he went down screaming. Jerry turned towards Mushroom Daddy with the thought of freeing him, as there was a mad scramble for the fallen rifle. Witness grabbed it.
“Hold it,” he screamed, waving it from Ray to Jerry to Mushroom Daddy and the man restraining him. “Come out of the woods, you murdering bastard! Come out or they all get it! Now!”
“You even look like you’re going to start shooting,” a calm voice said from the forest, “and I’ll put you down like a mad dog.”
“I’m an ace!” Witness screamed. “A frigging ace! A fucking arrow can’t take me out! I’ll hang on long enough to hose down all your friends. Depend on it!”
Yeoman came into the clearing without making a sound, an arrow strung to his bow, the string pulled back to his cheek.
Witness laughed. “What we have here is the classic Mexican stand-off.”
“We can take him, Yeoman,” Ray panted, bleeding from at least four wounds that Jerry could see.
The man holding Daddy’s arms looked worried. He let the hippie go, and started to move backward. Witness glanced at him. Jerry could see that his eyes were crazed with fear.
“Don’t move! Any of you!”
“I’m on your side,” the man said.
“I SAID NOBODY MOVE!” Witness screamed.
Mushroom Daddy looked at his captor. “That’s what happens when you side with fascists. Bummer for you, man.”
“Shut up,” Witness shouted. “Let me think.”
“Why don’t you just back up, get in one of those cars, and get out of here,” Jerry suggested.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Witness sneered. “Then your pal could shoot me in the back.”
“Why don’t we put all the weapons down,” Ray offered, “and go hand to hand? Me and you. Mano a mano.”
“You think I’m stupid?” Witness asked. “You think I don’t know that you’d all jump on me? You think—“
Spittle flew from Witness’s mouth as he raged on, and Jerry was about to shout “Look out!” when there was a strange popping noise in the air, near Witness. Jerry heard a familiar voice mutter, “Shit!”
Ackroyd was at the edge of the parking lot, carrying Kitty Cat piggyback, the joker’s tiny arms entwined around his neck. Ackroyd was heaving great shuddering breaths, like he’d just run a marathon, which was close enough to the truth. His right hand was pointing towards Witness, but it was shaking with Ackroyd’s effort to control his fatigue. Suddenly, simultaneously, Witness vanished as in-rushing air made another “POP!” as he disappeared, and another, louder noise exploded as one of the thugs nailed Ackroyd with a slug from his automatic.
Ackroyd whirled, spilling Kitty Cat, and fell heavily over a log marking the parking lot’s boundary. Jerry spied the shooter, who was kneeling and still aiming at Ackroyd. No one was near him. Jerry shouted “NO!” as the thug started to squeeze off another shot at his helpless target, but the gun went off harmlessly into the air as Yeoman’s arrow hit him squarely in the chest and knocked him right on his ass. Jerry ran toward Ackroyd. Ray reached his side first and kneeled down by him.
“Ah, Jesus,” Ackroyd panted. “M-missed the bastard,” he paused to take a deep breath. “Missed him with my first try.”
“You okay?” Jerry asked anxiously.
“Bullet wound doesn’t look too bad,” Ray said. “Just a flesh wound to the thigh.”
“Yeah,” Ackroyd said, “but I think I broke my ankle when I fell over that damn log.”
Jerry looked at Ackroyd’s leg, and nodded. It was an easy diagnosis to confirm. A jagged splinter of bone was sticking out through Ackroyd’s sock.
Ray nodded. “It’s broke all right. Though,” he added as Yeoman joined them, “could have been worse. The shooter was about to pump another slug into you before our pal here bullseyed him.”
“Thanks,” Ackroyd said through clenched teeth.
Yeoman smiled thinly. “You’re welcome. I appreciate the effort that took.”
Ackroyd grunted. “I’m out of my head with pain.”
“Where’d you send Witness?” Jerry asked him.
“Top of the Statue of Liberty,” Ackroyd said.
Jerry frowned. “That’s closed for repairs, isn’t it?”
Ackroyd nodded. “It’s the only place I could think to send him where he couldn’t shoot any innocent bystanders.”
“Hope he falls down the stairs and breaks his frigging neck,” Ray said.
Jerry looked up and glanced around the parking lot. It resembled a bloody war zone with wounded men lying all around. Back up the hill, a semi-circle of stunned snake-handlers looked on. A couple of the thugs had gotten back on their feet and were edging off into the woods.
“Freeze, you dirty rats,” Jerry said in his best Cagney imitation.
And they did.