Роберт Уилсон - Days Since... - Thomas - Day 758

Thomas shook his head. “I’d rather not. I’m not here to make friends or enemies. I’m here to get what I want and leave.”

“I can respect that.”

The Butcher’s guards lifted the unconscious man from the street, one held him by the arms and the other by the legs. The man’s head began to sway as he worked to come back to this world. He groaned, and his eyes began to flutter as he was carried off. Thomas looked on, not necessarily feeling sorry for what occurred. The man had certainly asked for trouble.

“Where can we pick up those chits you were talking about?” James spoke up. “We got these books here too.”

The Butcher gestured over his shoulder. “Head over that way to the U-Haul up the hill.” He took out a notebook, scribbled quickly, and ripped the page from the binding. “Take this and get your chits. Enjoy yourselves.” He gave an awkward wink as he handed it over. Thomas took it and glanced over the note. “Thanks again for grabbing this fool.”

“Don’t worry about it,” James said.

The Butcher removed himself from their presence and pressed onward up the hill, following behind the doomed man that swayed within his subordinates’ grips.

“I didn’t attack her!” he yelled, clearly aware of what was happening now that he had come to. “She tried to rob me in my sleep.” The group of onlookers parted themselves from the intended path of the Butcher’s men as he continued pleading his case. “I didn’t mean to. I was asleep and—” He groaned from a few cheap shots taken by members in the crowd. “I felt someone dig— her digging through my stuff, damn it! I thought I was being robbed. It was an honest mistake!”

Thomas could hear some of the men laughing, others grumbling amongst themselves. A mixture of thoughts tangled up with what to do with the man.

“Had I known it was her I would have just reported her!” he cried.

More and more people emerged from their tents and the immediate tree line—everyone seeking out the cause of the commotion. The whispers continued—some eventually grew to shouts. A few wore blank stares as the story spread. The attention had been drawn from Thomas and James and toward the gazebo.

They used this opportunity to circumvent the crowd, slogging through the damp grass and mud behind the tents and up a steep hill toward the U-Haul and pickup trucks. Thomas caught James’s eyes bouncing from person to person within the crowd.

“They’re crazed,” James said.

“Just keep your head down and move.”

From the corner of his eye, Thomas could see them preparing the man, could hear his screams from across the park. The Butcher stood to speak and the crowd quieted.

“Keep him awake for the whole thing!” the Butcher shouted.

The man pleaded for mercy, but it fell upon deaf ears.

“Gag him and I don’t care how much he struggles, do not knock him out!” The Butcher continued with his orders, but they gradually faded as Thomas and James made their way up the hill.

“One hundred chits my good man,” James said while smiling, even though it was Thomas that slid the note over to the guard. He lifted the paper from the tabletop and read. James stood there with his arms crossed while nodding.

“And what’s in those bags there?”

They plopped their book bags onto the table and began stacking book after book in front of the man. He glanced at each one, taking a few and setting them to the side. With the others, he abruptly began to shove them back inside the bags.

“You only want those three?” James pointed to the ones the guard set aside then started to take the others from the bag, looking at their covers. “You didn’t even really touch these here.”

“The ones I took are the ones we want.” He refused the books that James had attempted to force back upon him. “Take it or leave it.”

“How much?” James sounded disappointed.

We aren’t here to actually… Thomas stopped his judgment of James, remembering that they needed to stay in character. James is slick. “Yeah, what can we get for those?”

“Five chits would be fair. That and the other hundred should get each of you a round or two with one of the average girls, or should at least.”

“That’s it?” James asked.

He grabbed ten chits from a bag, then five from a large, plastic bucket. “You’ll have to negotiate with them. I can’t guarantee the price.” He slammed the chits on the tabletop. “Enjoy!”

James snatched the flat, gold-colored chits from the table. “This will do,” he grumbled under his breath while doling out half of them to Thomas. “We aren’t lugging this crap around. Just keep them.”

“I want this one.” Thomas took the Aesop’s Fables and stuffed it back into his bag.

A collection of cheers broke through the camp as they hiked back down the hill. Thomas turned, seeing the body drop—a lawn chair tumbling off from underneath his feet. The taut rope vibrated as it snapped into place. It quivered while the man struggled, causing his body to sway violently. The knot groaned and shifted around the thick branch of the old elm tree.

One of the guard’s took to pushing the body, and the man tried to fight back. The guard played his sick game—an unnecessary display of power—to toy with a man as he took in his last moments of this world. His jaw worked to curse the guard, but nothing could escape. The path from brain to lungs was cut off, and all the man could do was gasp. All he could do was spin in place.

Thomas sat on a wooden bench within the stand of trees surrounding the camp. He kept his head down, watching his half of the chits rattle about in his hand as he shook them. That soft clanging noise couldn’t distract him from the sound of the rope creaking from several yards away—the man’s feet twisting from south to west to north and back. Most had already forgotten about the hanging. The horde gradually dispersed, and those who were a bit more cautious had left camp altogether. It was only the body and Thomas that remained on that side of the gazebo.

In the moment Thomas acted against the fleeing stranger, he never could have imagined they would have killed him so quickly or at all. There wasn’t a trial, not even an informal statement of facts. There was no one to speak for the man, to tell what little there may have been to say about his life. No one cared to hear it. His sentence had been decided the second that woman pointed her finger at him. Idiot! Why the hell’d he think he could hit her and get away with it?

He kept his head down, maintaining the pretense of mourning, knowing damn well he didn’t feel it in the slightest. It was from here he could observe the camp without interruption while James milled around the common area, discreetly brushing against people as he checked for weapons. Only occasionally did James actually stop and speak with anyone. They could never be sure that the scar was universal. It was possible that others could be present working in a covert capacity for the Butcher.

As James continued among the deviants, Thomas riffled through his bag, grabbed the book he saved, and cracked it open. The page didn’t matter. It was the letters he needed. He ran his fingertips across them, appearing to read, but in reality, he was preparing for the assault. Two guards in the front outpost. He creased the first two g’s with his fingernail, leaving a slight indentation across them. The guard by the stream. He did the same to the next ‘g’. Two women and the three kids. Two w’s and three k’s. He kept tally of weapons—crossing r’s for rifles, p’s for pistols, and s’s for shotguns. With anything noteworthy, he continued his count through the page in this same manner.