Will was backing away, watching the big man but also stealing looks at his shoulder. Blood? No, there was no blood, but it hurt. What the hell had happened to his shoulder? Or maybe Buffalo-head had noticed Will favoring one side because of the broken rib. His ribs hurt.
Then Will became more confused because the older Cuban stepped into the light close enough that Will could see the man’s metallic eyes and also the revolver he was holding, dust particles illuminated by its red laser beam. The man said calmly to Buffalo-head, “Step away. I won’t miss again.”
Again? Will took another look at his shoulder. If he’d been shot, why wasn’t there blood? More likely, he’d banged the doorframe, but he didn’t dwell on the pain because Metal-eyes was now walking toward the stallion, who had calmed a little. The man was pointing the gun at the horse’s head.
“Watch the boy. I want a clear shot.”
Will was thinking, He doesn’t mean it, he’s bluffing. No man in his right mind would shoot a good horse.
But the Cuban wasn’t like most men. He had his finger on the trigger, ready to fire.
Will yelled, “No! Don’t do it!,” as he stepped toward Metal-eyes, then screamed, “You sonuvabitch, you’re after me, not the horse. The horse didn’t do nothing!,” but could barely hear his own words because of a fresh roaring in his ears.
Metal-eyes ignored him, waiting for the horse to stop moving, the gun only a few yards from Cazzio’s head.
“You old bastard-I’m talking to you!” As Will said it, he knelt to grab the pole with the hypodermic needle taped to the tip.
That got the old Cuban’s attention. He called to Buffalo-head, “Take that damn thing away from him!,” then extended the gun, squinting at the horse.
Will sensed Buffalo-head’s bulk coming at him from the side. He turned in time to jab at him with the spear but the needle missed. The Cuban was still quick.
The boy took a step back-an intentional decoy-then lunged forward as Buffalo-head moved toward him. This time, the needle glanced off a rib or something, then sunk deep into the man’s belly flesh, before he jumped back, yelling, “ Pendejo! Damn you, that hurt!”
Metal-eyes called, “What did the brat do now?,” as he watched his partner touch his stomach, then study his fingers. “You oaf, you’re bleeding again. Had I known you were helpless against a child, I would have left you to shovel shit in Havana!”
Eager to prove him wrong, Buffalo-head held his hand out, relieved. “It’s nothing. He pricked me with a pin. Only a speck of blood.” He grinned. “The little Indian thinks his toy spear can hurt a Habanaro! A spanking, that is what this little Indian puta deserves.”
Metal-eyes’s eyes warned Be careful but Buffalo-head waved him away, his swagger saying Stop worrying! as he marched toward Will, who was now taunting him, “My pecker’s bigger than your horn! I won’t look so small when you’re on the floor!”
It happened.
Buffalo-head completed three steps before he slowed to a halt, breathing heavily as he turned toward Metal-eyes, who was saying, “What is wrong? You look sick!”
Now Buffalo-head had an odd, confused expression on his face, and he was sweating. He attempted another step but almost fell. He looked from Metal-eyes to Will, as he took a big, dizzy breath and gasped, “This child is not normal. He is bad luck. We must… must-”
The man couldn’t finish. His eyes rolled back and his knees buckled. With a flesh-and-bones whump, his body hit the floor.
Suddenly, Metal-eyes didn’t care about the horse. He swung the gun’s red laser beam to Will’s chest, saying, “You’re insane.”
Will turned toward the old man, still holding the spear, and began walking toward him. “Why? ’Cause I’m gonna scalp you?”
Metal-eyes backed up a few steps. He said, “You are crazy,” sounding surprised but also suddenly interested.
“Not enough to kill a good horse, you sonuvabitch.” Will shifted the spear so that he was holding it over his shoulder, ready to throw.
Talking to himself, Metal-eyes said, “Insensitive to fear… rage compensation. I wonder if the child has abnormal pain tolerance.” The Cuban squinted through his glasses as if studying a bug. He said, “I’ll find out,” aiming the pistol at Will’s stomach, then at his pelvis, where nerve endings terminated in mass.
Will yelled, “You’re not the first man to point a gun at me!,” because that’s what came into his mind, the image of Old Man Guttersen holding a pearl-handled revolver the first time they’d laid eyes on each other.
Fast talking had saved Will back in Minnesota.
Not this time. The Cuban wasn’t chatty like Bull Guttersen. Will could see a deadness behind those silver eyes-an aloof, clinical interest-which Will didn’t understand, but he knew what was about to happen unless he could get the needle in the guy.
When the gun muzzle flashed, Will was focused on the man’s chest and already jumping to the side as he threw the spear, thinking, Just like in the westerns except real bullets.
The gun was so loud, the boy thought he’d been hit, but he’d jumped at just the right time and that saved him. But his spear missed, too… or had it?
Metal-eyes appeared to have swatted the shaft away before the needle got to him, yet now the old bastard was hunched over, crabbing fast toward one of the stalls, as Cazzio reared. The horse reared again and tried to stomp the man.
Will was hustling to retrieve his spear, yelling, “Get ’em, get ’em!,” as the stallion’s steel shoes made a coconut-popping sound on the floor, just missing the man as he pulled his legs into a stall, then reached to slam the door closed.
Spear in his right hand, Will touched his left fingers to Cazzio’s rump, not wanting to surprise the stallion, then traced his hand along Cazzio’s body until he was close enough grab the halter. The boy was hurrying, but also cooing, “Calm down… it’s okay… we’ll stomp the candy-ass later… easy…,” as he watched Metal-eyes peek through the stall bars. When Will drew his arm back to throw the spear, Metal-eyes ducked from sight.
“My spear’s tipped with deadly poison!” Will yelled in Tex-Mex Spanish, then had to switch to English to add, “One touch, that’s all she wrote!”
Buffalo-head wasn’t dead, but he was facedown in straw, making weird, drunken noises. Near him was a fifty-gallon drum of feed. Will used the drum to boost himself aboard the huge horse.
He got his fingers knotted in the braided mane, ready for the lunging acceleration, then signaled Cazzio with his boots, yelling, “Go!,” as he heard a gunshot so close that his ears rang. Metal-eyes fired three more times- whapwhap-whap -as Cazzio charged toward the blinding headlights.
Beneath the boy, the horse stumbled for an instant, then surprised Will by hurtling airborne, in a brief, arching silence, over the car’s fender, then jumped again two strides later, clearing a four-board fence, into the pasture.
Will was shaking, not only because he was scared as hell but also because he had never been aboard an animal so sure, so powerful.
“Go… Go! Yah!”
Cazzio galloped into the frozen darkness, the drumming of his hooves in synch with plumes of steam spouting from his nostrils. Will’s ears were attuned as his body matched the rhythm, hearing the countersynch snorting of the horse’s breathing, an occasional grunt and the slosh of belly water.
He risked a glance over his shoulder. The Chrysler was fishtailing down the driveway toward the road. Metal-eyes was trying to beat the horse to the overpass, where the pasture ended.
Fat chance!
The boy grinned as he leaned forward, finding Cazzio’s rhythm, once again. For a glorious minute, he felt that soaring warrior feeling, aloof, alone and free…
It didn’t last.
Cazzio stumbled… then stumbled again. The sound of his breathing was changing. Instead of snorting, the horse was wheezing, the air in his lungs making a bubbling sound as if leaking through a secondary exit.