Authors: Peter Gent

Tags: #Sports

The Franchise (86 page)

He knew he was dying, but he didn’t care.

He watched the cattle running overhead.

“Cowboy ... change your ways,”
he groaned.

He didn’t want to look surprised dying like Dudley. Or tormented like Tommy McNamara. Or crazy like Simon.

“Or ... forever you ... will ... chase ... the Devil’s herd ...”
He was so cold, so sleepy. His shoulder didn’t hurt anymore ...
“forever ... across ... endless ... sky.”
He had gotten most of the words.

He heard the shooting inside the house as he fell into the black.

He felt himself falling upward to the endless, endless sky. Forever.

It wasn’t so terrifying.

Patch, the small man, stepped into the house from the porch just as Hymie fired the first blast into the two men on the ground. Patch could see almost the entire house from inside the front door. Except the bathroom.

The bathroom door was closed.

Patch quickly glanced at the other rooms. It seemed pretty obvious the woman and kid were in the bathroom. Patch was amazed how many people end up in the bathroom. He walked over to the bathroom door. Inside, Patch heard voices. He looked out the front window.

Hymie was hurriedly jacking his pump gun. Patch watched impatiently.

More muffled sounds in the bathroom caused Patch to look over the heavy oak door and check the knob. No lock. Deadbolt? Maybe.

Outside, the muzzle blast sounded sharper—not the heavy boom of Hymie’s shotgun, but two quick bangs. Patch looked up to see Hymie and his shotgun sailing backward; somebody had jerked the big shooter clean off the world.

Patch was stunned, taking a deadly moment deciding whether to bust into the bathroom, finish off the woman and the kid or go kill the goddam quarterback first.

It didn’t matter.

Patch didn’t own a moment.

Bob Travers owned every moment since Patch came through the door of the house.

The bodyguard was crouched cross-legged in the back bedroom closet.

All six rounds .38 Special hollow points hit Patch.

Not one slug went completely through his body, although they made an awful mess of the insides.

Taylor Jefferson Rusk fell from the endless sky after a short, romantic, painless pursuit of the Devil’s herd. He fell with much more pain and fright than he had risen.

Toby had begun the replacement of the blood as soon as he got him on the couch. He increased Taylor’s oxygen supply with a nasal cannula.

Taylor’s brain stopped its dreaming as the oxygen brought the nerve centers to full consciousness of the awful damage Hymie’s shotgun had done to his shoulder.

The pain jerked Taylor awake.

“I’m not dead?” He could see Toby over him, shaking his head.
“Anybody
dead?”

“Not on our side.”

“Hurt?”

“Nope.”

“What about me?”

“We gave you up on points at the start, then played the spread.”

Taylor looked at the bottle of whole blood and the tube leading to his arm.

“O negative,” Toby said. “Your favorite flavor, right?”

“Where’d you get it?”

“We carry everybody’s flavor. We are professionals.”

Pain shot through Taylor’s left shoulder and arm. “I liked it better dead.”

“That comes plenty soon.”

“How about something for the pain?” Taylor whispered.

“Naw. Thanks,” Toby said. “I had a couple of drinks right after all the shooting. That’s enough.”

“I mean me,” Taylor said.

“Geez, I don’t know, Taylor. You been shot. You sure you should do drugs so soon?”

Toby laughed and left the room. When he returned with the syringe, Taylor was asleep.

EPILOGUE

T
HEY LAY ON
P
ANTHER
Rock above the swimming hole.

Below, their three children splashed in the slow-running creek. It had been a dry spring and the Dead Man was low. Randall was swimming in the hole while two-year-old Matty Ellen Rusk played with Simon Taylor D’Hanis Rusk on the shallow limestone bottom.

They had adopted Simon Taylor D’Hanis just before Matty Ellen was born.

“Ginny Hendrix is bringing Billy and Bobby up in the morning. They’re going to stay the summer.” Wendy rubbed oil on the white furrowed scars on Taylor’s left shoulder. “I hope these don’t burn. They always burn.” She applied more sunscreen while he watched the children.

Wendy stopped rubbing but kept her hand on his shoulder.

He looked up at her.

She was staring off to the east, where the creek sparkled in the morning sun.

“What is it?” Taylor squinted down the creek.

“It’s at the low-water bridge,” Wendy said. “I can see the heat.”

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Frank Music Corp.: Excerpt from “Glad to See You’ve Got Religion.” Music and lyrics by Loudon Wainwright III. Copyright © 1970 by Frank Music Corp. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

cover design by Milan Bozic

978-1-4532-2455-7

This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media

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