Bub watched the entire thing: Rambi's ingenious gambit with the Gargantuan chicken, Drygulch's easy enlistment of the guards' good spirits, and Juan's attempt to slip away using old Sal. He'd followed Rambi at a discreet distance as she stalked her prey. Juan spoke interminably, and Rambi grew steadily more agitated in her bearuing even as she said nothing.
Finally the comparative quiet was torn apart by one long ripping volley issuing from the Uzi. Juan jerked in the saddle, and a pattern of darker splotches appeared in his crimson flamenco shirt. Finally, the Uzi ran dry, and a thoroughly dead Juan slumped forward in the saddle.
Sal, startled awake, began to slowly move. Her huge rubbery lips and nose tasted the air, and she began a shambling walk toward the Casa.
The sudden silence was highlighted only by the long tiiiinglingling of empty 9mm casings hitting the hard dirt.
Rambi stood there, ashen and rigid, barely breathing. Her hand was convulsed around the grip of the Uzi, trigger still crushed against its stop. She was unaware of Bub, who slowly walked around to where she could see him. Then he gently closed to within two feet of her.
Rambi hadn't moved. She stood there, her entire being clenched about the exhausted subgun.
Bub looked at her averted eyes and simply said "... Sorry."
Rambi dropped the gun arm to one side, lunged at a surprised Bub, and hugged him fiercely. She buried two sobs in his shoulder.
And just as suddenly, she pushed back from him, composed herself with an act of main force, and shot a blazing look at Bub. Its content was pretty clear. This never happened.
He returned a look which said you got it.
They walked side by side, following Sal. She shuffled right through Eeemerelda's roses and zinnias, following her nose to a pit behind the garden. She dropped to her knees and slid in. Juan's corpse flopped facefirst into the mud. Sal slid down the pit's side on her knees, craning her neck toward a lump in the mud. Her prehensile lips dug up the half-consumed durian, which she ate with eyes closed in enjoyment.
The leeches founf Juan and pulled him under the mud with a small wet sound. Sal stretched herself out, chewing durian, feeling better than she had since being similarly immersed in a Jacuzzi half a world away. Buried in mud up to the top of her head, her long ears laid back, she looked positively crocodilian.
Bub finally saw fit to speak up. "Lissen, Rambi. Ah know you're sorta shook up right now - but that Medellin fella's gonna start tearin this dirt farm up real soon. His Citation is over at th'strip, all gassed up. Ah bin tole y'all got a rating fer Multi-engine Turbine. Y'all kin tell me to go **** mahse'f, and it's no hard feelings. (Xept maybe that leech deal.) I jus wanna say Ah thaink it's our opportunity ta git outta here ahead of the narcos and that big bird's p.o.'d kinfolk." |
