The Magnificent Bastards

ANK & WILLIAMS-5

BY THE TIME EVERYONE gathered at the downed gates to see Ank and Williams off, there were three new graves out at Serpent’s Butte and the worst of the rain had passed.

“See?” said Williams, showing someone the hidden compartment beneath the guitar façade in his case for the millionth time. “I don’t play. I never have. At least, I don’t think I did.”

“But how’d you come to be so good with that rifle?” asked Someone Else. “Ain’t never seen anything like that in my whole life.”

Williams stroked Ank between the eyes. “That’s something I hope to find out ...” He glanced at Katrina and smiled. “When I get to Tanelorn.”

She approached him slowly and looked up into his eyes, then kissed him softly on the cheek. “You know where we’re at, cowboy, if you don’t find what you’re looking for. Or even if you do.”

He smiled down at her, as inexplicably drawn to her as he had been from the beginning. “I will. Take care of yourself, okay?” He looked at Decker, who was wearing a bigger badge than he had before. “Marshal.”

And then they were on their way, north toward Montana and a city called Mirabeau Park, leaving Devil’s Gorge to brood beneath the rain, forgotten by time, alone against its hills.

I

Williams gazed down the long, overgrown slope at what had once been the East Mirabeau Drive-in Theater. “That’s a pretty steep decline, Ank. You sure you can handle it?”

He was doing it again. Responding to the imaginary voice.

The armored dinosaur examined the slope, flies buzzing about his eyes.

Williams gripped his rifle and looked behind them: Sure enough, the marauders were coming, the wheels of their trucks and ATVs and motorcycles kicking up great plumes of dust as they motored across the plain. He quickly joined Ank who was already descending, his great hooves sinking into the earth like anvils, the water containers and camping gear and boxes of ammo strapped to his shell sloshing and clanking.

“Those prints are going to be a problem,” said Williams, falling back to rub them out.

Your sanity is going to be a problem, he thought to himself, if you keep this lunacy up.

“It’s been the time for this since I started hearing your voice in my head. My voice, I mean. I mean—”

“Yes, sir, Mr. talking dinosaur!” He ascended Ank’s tail using its spikes for hand grips until he’d gained the crest of his shell, then tore open a box of ammo.

Williams sighed, giving into the hallucination and its comforts as he had done so many times before. “Yes, I know. We’re searching for Tanelorn, where my great lost love awaits and they’ll be fields of green, supple plants for you to eat and all this, this Flashback, will be explained. I know, Ank. I haven’t forgotten. It’s just easier to believe sometimes than others.”

A shot rang out suddenly and Williams jolted as the bullet ricocheted off Ank’s armor. He peered at the top of the hill. The marauders had arrived and dismounted their vehicles, and were even now sighting them with an array of rifles and pistols. There was a pronounced c***k! ka-c***k! as more rounds bounced off Ank’s shell.

He did so, rolling onto the beast’s great, horned skull and coming up firing, his elbows resting on the edge of the shell. c***k! (Ka-c***k). c***k! (Ka-c***k).

The marauders began to fall as he pumped and fired again and again.

And then they were down and into the towering overgrowth, and Williams thought he saw a were- raptor flit past before a hail of gunfire forced him to crouch lower beneath the shell.

“We’re not alone here, Ank. Were-raptors, two o’clock.” He could tell by their unmistakable pale coloring. He pumped and fired as one of the marauders clutched his chest and tumbled down the slope. “How close are we?”

Williams jerked his head left and right as the predators began pouring past them on both sides, snarling and gnashing their teeth. And then they were there, they were behind the snack bar, which was dilapidated and covered in creeper-vines, and he scrambled over Ank’s shell and dove onto its roof.

Williams shimmied forward on his elbows and braced his rifle against the building’s cornice. The brigands were working their way down the slope, completely ignorant of what was coming—until the raptors began leaping from the overgrowth and knocking them down, tearing out their throats, gutting them with their sickle-claws.

“They’ll come for us when they’ve finished,” shouted Williams, scrambling to his feet. “What’s the plan?”

He skittered to a stop at the edge of the building and saw Ank preparing to strike the rear wall with his club tail.

“Is that a good—”

But it was too late, and the cinderblock wall collapsed at the impact as though it had been struck by a wrecking ball, after which Ank lifted his tail so that Williams could climb on and lowered him to the ground.

Williams peered into the gaping hole. The ‘50s-themed interior was mostly intact, it would make a good campsite if they could find a way to stop up the ingress. He moved forward, stepping over the rubble, his rifle at the ready. Ank lumbered in after him, the spikes of his shell scraping the edges of the hole and making it still wider.

“The pizza oven,” he said, scanning the kitchen. “And that refrigerator. What do you think?”

Ank looked at the big, commercial appliances, a bass grumble rattling his throat.

There was a crash upstairs followed by a scratchy shuffling and Williams froze, staring at the ceiling.

“God knows there’s someone or something up there.”

“Don’t say it,” snapped Williams, and pointed at him. “I’m not going to be bossed around by a figment of my imagination. And so long as I’ve got even a little sanity left, that’s exactly what you’ll remain.”

Ank only stared at him, his big, dark eyes impossible to read.

“Now move this ... this s**t, and I’ll be right back.”

And then he was shuffling up the stairs—and the only sounds were those of the marauders screaming as the raptors tore them limb from limb; and the rumble of storm clouds as they collided high above.

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