“Where are you going?” she asked, but her husband did not respond.
Alexis franticly waved to Robert downstream. Robert saw Alexis’s flailing arms and began to paddle back. Then, when he saw Kyle’s empty raft, he hurried back upstream as fast as he could.
Kyle strode to where Bull and his men had piled the bodies. Feral dogs had found the corpses. Limbs were ripped from bodies and their flesh was shredded. Kyle removed a red bandana from the carnage and placed it on his arm. He chambered a round in his pistol, dropped it into his deep front pocket, and began to walk toward the two men. He walked slowly, still calculating what he wanted to do. Was it Cyrus? They had not found him that night. Maybe he escaped and came back? There was no way to tell because the men had their backs turned to Kyle as he slowly approached them. As Kyle got close, they finally saw him. They turned around and were startled to see anyone in their proximity. The man with a red bandana on his arm was older; he had plenty of gray hair, and was the taller of the two. He also had a shotgun and partially raised it on Kyle’s approach. The other man was wearing a large brimmed hat. The shadow from the hat obscured the shorter man’s face.
Kyle stopped about twenty yards away from the two men.
“I don’t recognize you,” said the taller man with gray hair. “Who are you?” He raised the shotgun further.
Kyle removed the red armband. He held it up and said, “I can leave. Do you want it back?”
The man did not reply and lowered his shotgun. Kyle put the bandana deep into his front pocket, and gripped the concealed pistol tightly.
The other man held his hat brim down across his face to block the sun. It also blocked his face from Kyle. The shorter man asked, as he pointed back to the smoldering wreckage, “Were you here last night?”
Kyle nodded.
“You sure don’t say much,” said the taller man, as he flipped the shotgun over his shoulder, “Come over here and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do.”
Kyle moved toward them again. His hand was deep in his pocket holding the pistol, ready to draw and ready to kill.
“What’s your name, boy?” asked the shorter man condescendingly, as he removed his hat and squinted from the sunlight.
Finally, Kyle saw the man’s face. He was an ugly man with cratered skin. The broad-brimmed hat had covered a red bandana on his head.
“You’re Cyrus,” said Kyle, stoically.
“Well, no shit. Who are you?”
Kyle smiled. “You can call me the angel of death.”
Cyrus and the other man sadistically laughed for a moment. Kyle’s humor was interrupted when the pistol in his right hand cleared his front pocket. He shot the older man two times in the chest. The tall man fell backwards and began to writhe on the ground, gasping for air and grabbing at his bloody torso.
Cyrus dropped to his knees and, with wide-eyed desperation, put his hands together as if he was going to pray. He then began to beg for his life, pleading desperately with Kyle.
“Please don’t shoot me! You have the wrong man, I don’t know you. I’ll leave… I’ll leave and you will never see me again… I promise!” Cyrus now had his hands in front of his face as if he was trying to block a bullet to his head.
Kyle dropped the pistol and grabbed the bandana that he had buried deep in his pocket and held it tightly. He lunged forward at Cyrus, knocking him backward and down to the ground. Kyle dug his knees into Cyrus’s flailing arms and pounded his face with calloused bare knuckles, while still gripping the red bandana tightly in his hand. Kyle then quickly grabbed the red bandana by opposite corners and wrapped it around Cyrus’s throat. He was going to choke the life out of him and watch the expression on his face as he died. Before Kyle pulled on the bandana, he leaned close to Cyrus’s ear and whispered, “Don’t fight back so hard. It’s bad for your health.” He then gripped the bandana so tight, and pulled so hard, that his knuckles blanched. Cyrus’s face went from a dark red to deep purple as his blood-shot eyes rolled back in his head. Cyrus’s body went limp.
Kyle took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He had done it. He had found the son of a bitch and killed him. When he stood up from getting his pistol off the ground, he saw Alexis and Robert running toward him. He stood there, took a few deep breaths, and tried to regain his composure.
“What the hell, Kyle! I heard the gun shots and came running,” said Robert, bent at the waist and gasping for breath.
Alexis walked over to Cyrus’s strangled body. She recognized him. Alexis did not say anything. She was glad he was dead and glad that it had been her husband who did it. Alexis turned to look at her husband, but he was already watching her. He looked into her eyes and tilted his head back toward the river. She nodded, and not a word was spoken or needed to be said.
As they neared the riverbank, a noise far behind them caught their attention. They looked back and saw that a pack of dogs had already found the two bodies. They were ripping at the carcasses and fighting over the dead flesh.
Robert laughed to himself.
“What’s funny?” asked Kyle.
“You were right.”
“About what?”
“Remember the pack of dogs by your apartment? They were chasing the rabbit.
“Yes.”
“You doubted yourself about what we helped do earlier that night, so I asked you if you would prefer to be the dog or the rabbit. You chose to be a dog, with a conscience. After this, I would say that you’re more like a dog with a vengeance.”
“Well, I guess you’re right.”
Chapter Sixteen
In the several weeks since they had left Omaha, Alexis seamlessly integrated herself into the group. Initially, they had tethered Alexis’s raft to one of their rafts, taking turns, and rowed her along so the group could stay together. Now she was taking the initiative, occasionally even leading the threesome on the float down the river. The additional dry food that they had brought with them had reduced the need to search for food on the riverbank and therefore, freed up more time on the water moving downstream towards their new home. They still fished when camping on the riverbank, because it was easy enough to throw a line in the water, and then collect firewood while fish took the bait. Also, in the time since they started this leg of their journey, Kyle had been rowing with less enthusiasm and tended to drift to the rear of the flotilla of rafts. Robert noticed that Kyle seemed to be guarding the left side of his face, trying to conceal a pain or irritation. Kyle would row for a while, and then touch his jaw lightly with his fingertips, producing an immediate scowl. Robert suspected that Kyle had a toothache, but had not confronted Kyle about it; however, now that Alexis was in front of the pack and Kyle in the rear, it was obvious that something was slowing Kyle down.
Robert ceased rowing to close the gap between himself and Kyle. He noticed that Kyle was holding his jaw again. “Hey, Kyle, are you okay?”
Kyle gripped both oars by the handles and turned the raft around. “No problem here. Why’d you ask?”
Robert glanced quickly at Alexis. She was rowing close to the riverbank and out of the range of conversation. “I’ve seen you holding your left jaw and you’re slowing down. Just look, even your wife has been staying way ahead of you. Is it a tooth?”
Kyle took a deep breath and began to row a slow stroke. He looked up and away from Robert, not ignoring him, but contemplating what should be a simple answer. He exhaled and stopped rowing, with Robert right at his side. He glanced downward at the water and lightly touched his jaw. “Yeah, it’s my tooth. About a year ago, I was going to get a molar worked on. I got busy and forgot about it. My tooth hurts, and today it’s just throbbing.”
“Bad?”