The 1st Hammer to Fall pt 4.

Moses turned the handle and gave the door a decent push to open it without it bouncing off the wall and hitting her as she went in.  The knob hit with a thump.

Curio was inside the house in an instant, marching in looking like some imperious movie diva trying to fake out paparazzi and fans.  Her eyes swept from side to side as rehearsed.

The room’s décor was taken straight from some NASCAR fan’s notion of domestic nirvana.  She watched as Shannon gave his woman a push to roll her over behind the couch.  She was leaned over him; her arms on his shoulders…a gleam of lust in her eye Curio knew when she saw it.  There was a big automatic pistol on the cluttered table in front of him but it was way too far for him to get to before she had Barry White singing to him.

She never heard Moses’ feet moving behind her.  She never heard the television as it went from a commercial for next weekend’s showdown between Kentucky and Vanderbilt to right in the middle of a random Family Ties rerun.  Curio never heard the screams of the girlfriend nor the shattering of a statue the girlfriend knocked over- a cheap ceramic bust of two lovers embracing each other.  All she heard was her own gasp of surprise when she realized playtime was done when that door opened.

The tiny gun roared.  The jolt was more mental than physical.  The smell of gunpowder filled her nose in an instant.  Her panties were either wet from the excitement or she had just started.  Curio had no idea what the pad would look like when she changed.

Shannon Chambles took a load of ten U.S. Mint dimes in the chest from barely six feet away.  Most of his insides were shredded and then jettisoned through his back, where they mixed with the shredded filling of the couch cushion behind him.  An impossibly inhuman gurgle came from him as he tried to scream.  Gore instead of sound flew out of his mouth and tumbled in clotty chunks down the front of his t-shirt.  He seized up and tried to hold his torso together tightly with his arms.  His eyes were wide with horror as he looked down and saw what had happened to him.

Tammie, the skanky girlfriend, was running crouched-over, screaming as she dove out of the rear door.  Moses followed her with his rifle.  Shannon kicked convulsively with a jerking leg.  His eyes rolled back in his head as he shuddered.  His breaths only brought blood into his lungs and a horrid gurgle began to rumble from his nose and mouth immediately.

“Cock the other barrel and finish him!” Moses thundered behind her.  He could see Curio was staring at what she had done.  Her mouth, with those pouting lips pursed as if in deep contemplation, was not a good indicator of what she had going inside.  She snapped her head in his direction as if she forgot he was there.

Fuck… She fumbled with the other hammer.  Moses heard the moving truck crank up outside.

Curio finally got both hammers cocked.  Shannon was making a sickly wheezing sound through his chest.  His hands twitched.  His eyes drooped as he looked at his killer.  Curio aimed the shotgun one-handed and gave him the other barrel in the face.  She winced at the sight of the shattered head for only an instant before Moses grabbed her arm.

“Come on!  We’re done here.” The U-haul’s engine roared as Tammie stomped on the gas and made a tight u-turn to get pointed down the driveway.

“What about her?  We ain’t supposed to kill her but we let her drive off with all that weed?” Curio bitched as Moses swept the area for other witnesses or enemies.

“Fuck her!  Go!  Go! Go!” He pushed her toward the hill as he shouldered Cletus.  Quickly he pulled two one-quart water bottles from his pockets and opened them.  They were full of kerosene.  He sloshed the body and the couch with one and flung the contents of the other in a wide swath around the walls and furniture.  Standing back at the doorway, he looked around for some stupid bit of evidence he or she may have dropped on the porch.  Aside from their footprints, he saw nothing.  Moses flipped the flame of his Zippo a book of matches and tossed it on the couch. 

He took off at a dead run away from the blaze, leaving the door open for aeration.  She was waiting for him at the foot of the mountain. 

“I said go!”  He ran past her and disappeared into the brush.  Carrying the shotgun like a handbag, she followed.  They crashed through the brush.  Aloof and surprisingly fleet of foot despite the ascent grade up the ridge, they made it to the waiting horses in short order.  The adrenaline was flowing.  Their breaths were shallow and rapid.  She was wired, not exhausted, by the race away from the scene of her first capital crime.

Moses took off his balaclava.  When she came up the ridge and approached him with the sly grin of one who finally is in the know of an evil secret few dare to explore, he pulled off the shades and her scarf.  He kissed her hard and she pushed her own mouth back to his.  She could feel him, hard and pressed tightly against her pelvis.

“You did good…” A swoon came over her as the serotonin flowed freely. “Shit!” He caught her quickly in his taunt arms.  “Wake up there, cheri!  We got ridin’ to do now!  We ain’t done yet.  Time to move our asses.” He lifted her chin with his fingers and stared into her eyes.  They were watering.  She widened them and blinked it out a couple of times. 

Then she giggled.

“Shit.  I got a head rush all of a sudden.  My eyes went red.  I got goose bumps.”

“You okay?” He pulled her to him.  She buried her face in his chest.

“I did it, Moses.  I fucking did it.  I shot a man dead.  Right in the face, man.  I shot him.  I mean, no way he’s alive if I shot him with a shotgun in the face, right?”

“He’s dead as they get, Curio.” Moses said simply.

“What now?”

“Now we try not to get caught and get the fuck outta’ here.  Now comes the hard part.”

“Okay.” She hugged him. “I love you.  I don’t think thank you is what I should say for bringing me in with you, but a holy shit don’t seem to cut it either.  You still love me?”

“Of course.  I’m just wonderin’ what kinda’ man does what I do and then lets the love of his life participate in it.  I’m getting soft…” He breathed out slowly. “and you’re getting hard.”

He stroked her hair softly as they stood in the forest around Paducah, Kentucky.  Early morning sunshine cut bright swaths through holes in the foliage. 

There were no longer any animals stirring, however.  A new predator was casting a shadow in their forest and they paid heed.

         “Tell me what you’re thinking.” He asked her, low and soothing in her ear.  He could feel the heat coming off of it on his lips. “Right now.  First thing out your head.  Quickly!”

“I’m hungry and I think I’m starting my period.” She mounted the horse.  “And I hate these shoes.  Can we get the hell out of here before someone sees me in them?”

“My thoughts exactly.” Moses stepped up in the stirrup and swung his lean frame over the saddle.

         He looks the part, thought Curio.  Long, lean, sinewy.  All hard cock and balls.  But with those eyes that wink just that little bit when he sees me and smiles.  He does it to me every time he sees me.  It’s almost like when people see something religious, his eyes.  He exults in me.  Lucky ass me!  God, I love his old Texas ass.  Look at them tough hands gripping the reins.  And off we go!

Moses gave a little nudge of the foot and the horse walked carefully down the trail.  Curio followed, her ride dutifully following behind the lead horse.

She watched him lazily in the morning sun as they descended the trail and opened the horses to a trot as the grade leveled out.  Soon the hay field where they were parked emerged from the woods.  His head turned side to side, always looking for danger.  He urged the horse faster into a canter when they saw his Bronco parked just in the cover of the forest on the far side of the field.

“Wait here while I clear it.”  He called to her.  Curio halted her mount.  She watched him as he galloped to the Bronco, got off cautiously and had a look around.  He waved back to her when he was done.  She trotted down and arrived just as he pulled the Bronco out from the woods and got it turned around to expose the cattle trailer for the horses.  He had his gear stowed before she made it.  As he worked, she could see his .45 jammed in the small of his back.

“Moses, my ass hurts.” Curio crawled carefully from the saddle and handed him her guns.

“I'll rub it in Tennessee if you want.  Rub it all kids of goodly.”

“Promise?”

“You ever known me to break that kinda' promise?” He winked at her and walked her horse up the ramp.  “Good girl.  Damn good horses we got for this.”

“Not so far.  But we've been at it a while.  You sure you ain't getting' tired of me?  I gotta’ be getting on your nerves by now.”

“If you was on my nerves,” He got the horse settled and stomped down the rusty ramp. “don't you think I would have left you out of that whole shotgunning-a-sumbitch thing?  You ain't on my nerves, baby doll.  Just on my mind.  I just hate Kentucky for some reason.  I’d rather us not die here.”

He led his horse in and closed the ramp.  “The quicker I get gone from here, the better.  You did good back there.  I expected you to piss yourself and tell me you changed your mind and then I woulda’ had to done them both.  Witnesses hear a voice on a person shooting at them, they remember it, trust me.”

“It was surreal.  I actually got serious fuckin’ tingly when I did it.”  She got in and buckled up.  “I didn't know if I was bleeding or just wet right after it.”

He walked around and put the idling Ford in gear. “I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a really bad thing.  You go to having to shoot a man to get off, where's that leave me eventually?”  He winked at her.

“That leaves you as the beneficiary of my misdirected passions.” She reached over and rubbed his crotch.  “You do still like my misdirected passions, don't you?”  She bit her lip and smiled that mischievously sexy smile he loved to see on her.

The Bronco bounced up over the cattle guard and onto County Road 1324.  Turning right to head back to Hwy 65 and then later a turn to I-65 headed southbound and toward the relative safety of the state line, he looked down at his burgeoning crotch with her demure hands and her sultry gaze paying dues in inches gained.  He reckoned her soul’s ledger was firmly in the black by her reckoning.

“You really asking me if I still like your misdirected passions?”

She nodded and rubbed him some more. “Yes.”

He looked at her and winked.  “Does a wild girl shoot in the woods?”