Robert Adams - The Clan of the Cats

Milo’s friendly smile suddenly became a mocking grin as he asked, “Or did she actually have sex with you at all, Bubba? I, for one, would doubt it. Things like you usually have three kinds of sex: what you buy from cheap whores, what you think about and what you talk about, generally out of the whole cloth, the lies that lead others to think you far more of a man than you really are or will ever be.

“So, isn’t that it, Bubba? Didn’t you lie about this little gal in D.C.? Or was it really a little boy, eh? The men who talk the most about their vast and varied female conquests amazingly often turn out to be closet faggots. Is that what you are, Bubba? Do you get your jollies going to dark moviehouses on Saturday afternoons to jerk off little boys in the dark? Isn’t that the—”

With a roar of pure rage from a wide-open mouth in a livid face that also now contained eyes filled with bloodlust, the huge man swung a big, knobby fist at Milo’s mocking face. Milo easily ducked the roundhouse swing and, as the man’s own force spun him half about, gave him the toe of one shoe in the right kidney.

The roar abruptly became a gasping whine of agony, and that was when the man who had disabled the telephone slipped behind Milo and held him with a full nelson, crowing, “I got the fucker now, Bubba. You and Abner paste him good.”

The one called Abner, almost as big as the still-suffering Bubba, made to do as bid, but Milo—using the support of the man who was holding him—slammed both feet with all his force into the midriff of the advancing attacker, sending him tumbling back onto one of the tables, which collapsed under his weight. An elbow in his erstwhile captor’s ribs quickly freed him of any restraint and left him ready to eagerly meet the recovered Bubba with enough of his best antique, bare-knuckle boxing blows to send him back bloody and reeling until he tripped over the still-retching Abner and crashed down atop both him and the wrecked table.

“ Gawdam you, you muthafuckuh !” yelled the man who had been trying to hold him for a beating. “I’ll fix yo’ ass!”

Milo whirled to find the man holding a barstool above his head. Reaching up with both hands, he caught and held the unwieldy weapon while stepping close enough to knee-lift the man. Gurgling, his eyes looked to pop from out their sockets, the man let go the barstool to sink down onto the floor, holding his crotch and gagging.

Seeing this, the three locals still seated up the bar all stood and turned purposefully toward Milo, looks of grim determination on their unshaven faces.

Turning his head toward the scarred man, Milo said hurriedly, “Gyrene, get to hell out of here. Go next door and tell them to get the cops here before I have to kill somebody.”

The scarred man shook his head. “You the one better get out of here, buddy. And you don’t want any part of no cops, either, not around here, leastways. That bastid whose balls you just rearranged, he’s the sher’ff’s younger brother. It’s Sher’ff Chamberlin owns thishere bar, you know.”

Then there was no time for talking. Having been witness to all that had so quickly befallen their friends, the three men spread out as widely as the space permitted, to come at Milo from three directions but more or less concerted.

“Field expedients.” Milo muttered as he picked up the double shot still untasted and flung the strong whisky accurately into the eyes of the closest attacker, then hurled the thick-bottomed glass at the one farthest away. The middlemost man came in at an uncertain crouch, chin tucked behind left shoulder, fists held low … and Milo savate-kicked him long before he could reach jabbing distance, following the left foot to the belly with a right foot to the face that sent the man stumbling for a moment before he sprawled backward, his head hitting the floor with a solid, painful-sounding thump.

The splash of whisky had rendered its target entirely hors de combat , he was leaning against the bar rubbing at his eyes and alternately moaning and shrieking that he was blinded.

But the third and largest man, despite a heavily bleeding cut under one eye from the hurled glass, had brought out from someplace about his person a big jackknife, opened it and was coming toward Milo at a knife fighter’s crouch, muttering under his breath something concerning “damn-yankee chit’lins all over the floor.”

“I just may have to hurt this one seriously,” thought Milo. “The fucker looks like he knows what he’s doing, has done it all before.” Stepping away from the bar, he glanced down to be sure of his footing. He knew of old just how much knife wounds hurt, and he did not care for another.

The fat bartender had disappeared, at least Milo could not see him anywhere, though he could not have gotten out the only visible door without having been seen.

Both moving cautiously on flexed legs, Milo and the knifeman circled each other warily, slowly drawing incrementally closer one to the other. The man held his empty left hand out, ready to strike or grab or claw, but the right fist holding the shiny honed blade stayed safely down just below his hip level, winking now and again as it reflected errant beams of light. Although his lips moved from time to time, he made no threats, and this worried Milo, for he well knew the implicit dangers of silent fighters.

Both rapt in the deadly dance, neither man’s mind registered the shrieking of tires in the parking lot or even the stomping of heavy feet up to the door, not even the opening of that door with some force. But only a deaf man could have ignored the baritone roar of unquestioned authority from the doorway.

“Damn your ass, Doug, you drop that knife this minnit or I’ll crease your thick skull again like I done last time. You hear me, you fucker you?”

As the knife clattered onto the floor, Milo first extended a leg to kick it from out the easy reach of its owner, then turned about to confront the man at the door.

The man in the khaki uniform was taller than Milo and big, bigger even than the now groaning Bubba. Below an iron-grey brush cut and trimmed eyebrows of a slightly darker hue, his face was craggy … and oddly familiar, though Milo could not call up a name to go with it, just then. His nose was canted and a little flattened, while the knuckles of the hand that gripped the highly polished billy club were extensively scarred. A gleaming holster was secured to an equally gleaming Sam Browne belt and held a big revolver; a five-pointed star that gleamed like pure gold was pinned over the big man’s heart.

“Who the hell are you, mister?” he demanded of Milo. “What the hell you mean comin’ into my bar in my county and beatin’ up on a bunch of my customers and friends?”

Before Milo could answer, the former Marine spoke up.

“It’s my fault, Sher’ff. Bubba and Abner and your brother, Wally, they was setting for to hurt me agin and this gentleman, he got up and took them on his own self is all.”

“Wally?” demanded the lawman, taking another long step into the room. “Where’s my brother, Wally? What’d he do to Wally?”

Hearing his name repeated, the unshaven man looked up from where he still crouched in agony, half propped against the bar, his eyes swimming and his day’s growth of stubble wet with tears, his chin still dripping vomitus onto his now soaked and filthy shirt. “Sher … Sherwood,” he gasped, sobbing, “thishere fucker, he kneed me, kneed me raht in the bawls, too … and … and I thank he done busted one my ribs, too. Bash him, bash him good.”

“Did you do whut my brother claims you done to him, mister?” demanded the lawman, slowly raising his billy, his blue eyes now cold and hard-looking as agates.