Jack’s voice went low when the Plunkett City Limit sign came into view. “When we pull in to the driveway, just sit tight. If anything funny happens, get the insurance from the glove box and cover me.”
“Don’t you mean the deposit slip?”
“Yeah, yeah whatever, it’s all just a figure of speech, kid,” the man wiped his nose with his left hand and then tucked it into his jacket pocket.
Fat Jack checked the safety on his concealed pistol with his thumb. Jack spun the steering wheel with his right hand and veered onto the narrow rural highway. The two passengers leaned with the truck as the vehicle banked around a long curve. Sparky drew in his coat and hat. He reviewed the driver’s face, which was now blank. Jack never looked off the road.
After another minute of driving, Jack nodded his chin over to the right. He started speaking with his head still raised. “There it is.”
Sparky was almost shaken loose from his seat as they drove onto the gravel driveway. Ahead his eyes focused on the flat aluminum wall of a warehouse. The front door was illuminated by a single blue light that hung over it. The building sat on a clear lot in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere in the small hamlet. There were no other structures in sight.
The truck squealed to a stop. Jack slid the column shift to park.
“Wait here.”
Fat jack hopped out of the truck. He walked up the drive turning to give Sparky a dubious smile. Sparky watched from his seat as the man knocked on the door. The door sprung open. Fat Jack slipped away into the darkness.
Sparky turned the truck handle, but it didn’t budge. He put his shoulder into the door and tried again. Stuck! Sparky looked to the warehouse, chewing at his lip. He positioned himself to ram the door a third time and accidentally triggered the release on the glove box. His eyes went wide.
Sparky had seen a gun only once before, and it was not like this. Oliver’s rifle was large and clunky. This was small, menacing. The goat held in his panic. Slamming the door again it dislodged. Sparky sprang out and his hooves clopped down onto the gravel. His eyes went back to the truck. The moonlight glinted off the gun. It could bring no good at the hands of Fat Jack. He seized the weapon. The warehouse door flew open. Fat Jack stumbled out grumbling. Sparky covertly shoved the pistol into his pocket. The narrow man called over to him. He could have got away. He should have run.
“Look, kid, we have a situation. I need you for a few more minutes.”
“I really should be..”
“It’s no biggie. I just need you to help me carry in this box,” Jack leaned into him.
Sparky could see little detail of the man’s face in the moonlight. “Well I have to...”
“You’re not thinking about turning me in, right?”
“For what?”
“That’s right.” Jack peeked over his shoulder at the warehouse door. “Look, here’s the cash. There’s an extra two hundred,” he pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and counted off three of them.
“That’s three-hundred.”
Sparky tucked the money into his coat without hesitation. One last errand to complete and he would be on his way. It was better than risking the man’s wrath, which from the tales he had heard was rather painful.
Sparky followed Jack to the rear of the pickup. The truck carried only one crate. The large wooden box took up half of the truck bed. The two lifted the package by its built-in handles and headed to the warehouse.
“Easy with this through the door.” Jack called out as they reached the warehouse. “Don’t bang it.”
A shadowy figure held the door open as they passed through.
“On the table,” Jack’s voice strained. The two eased the sturdy box onto a slate metal table along the wall. The door to the outside slammed closed. A small halogen lamp switched on. Two men emerged from the shadows and looked over the delivery. The three men were plainly dressed in dirty cloths.
Midas was dressed in a white leather cowboy hat with a silver buckle on the front. “You two want to see the operation?”
Jack hesitated, he looked at the box and then to the Midas. “Sure.”
The three warehouse caretakers went through another door with Midas in the lead. Jack followed, with Sparky at the rear. Sparky was momentarily blind as he entered the brightly lit room. The sounds and smell overwhelmed the goat; it was the sweet aroma of home. He could hear his companions chattering along the hillside. It was a moment of unexpected ecstasy.
“This is the front for our operation,” Midas’s proud tone shattered the goat’s daydream.
Ahead of him, a least fifty cages were situated on the warehouse floor. They were packed with goats. The tiny crates held two and three goats each. The cages were unkempt. The goats were emaciated. The animals were too weak to stir. Once in a while a weak cry erupted, breaking their silence.
Sparky’s eyes darted from prison to prison. A pain grew in his chest. If one single old man could care for so many goats so well how could these men not? Sparky’s gaze fell upon a fragile nanny goat. The mother lifted her weak frame on her legs only to collapse to the ground in front of her still children.
“We have been operating as an organic milk plant. We even got some milking machinery on a discount. You’d be shocked at what you can get out here with a few threats.”
Sparky wasn’t listening to them. His mind was on his tortured kin.
“These look pretty mangy for goats, have you ever been inspected?” Fat Jack asked.
“Yeah, once or twice. When they come through asking why they all look this way, we just respond, what do you want? They’re organically fed!” Midas slapped one of his cohorts on the back.
The group chuckled.
Sparky hunted from one sad set of eyes to the next. His body trembled underneath his coat. His instincts called to him. His rear hooves set against the dusty floor for the charge. His thoughts boiled. His forelegs dropped to his sides as he prepared to attack. His hoof clicked against his pocket. The gun. Sparky gripped the pistol awkwardly and withdrew the weapon. None of the men noticed.
“You’re going to open those cages,” his voice was shaky, but his tone firm.
Blank stares greeted the cold muzzle. Fat Jack responded; deep from his stomach he started laughing. The other men started laughing with him. Their amusement only strengthened Sparky’s resolve.
“I’m not kidding, open those cages!”
Sparky fired. Shrieks erupted from the imprisoned animals.
Chapter 29
“Look, buddy, you don’t have a chance. There is four of us and only one of you,” Paul, to Midas’s right, spoke to Sparky with an even tone. The wild shot had done nothing to intimidate him.
“I don’t see those cages being opened.” Sparky waived the gun at them, staring at each man in turn. None of the men moved.
“Look, Sparky, I think you need to calm down.” Jack said. He took a step toward the goat.
Sparky jumped back. He pointed the gun at Fat Jack. His hands leveled and the gun steadied. “Don’t take another step. I won’t shoot as long as you listen.”
The three strangers held their feet. Fat Jack took a step back and nodded at Sparky. “Hey, Midas, you got a key, right?”
“What key?”
“The key to open these cages up?” Fat Jack’s voice wavered as he spoke.
Midas kept his eyes on Sparky, then slowly he nodded. “Yeah, yeah sure.”
Midas hand fumbled across his chest and into his jacket. “I got it,” he reached around to his backside. “I got it right here!”
As Midas drew, Sparky saw the barrel of the man’s pistol gleam. The goat squeezed the trigger, but the gun slipped out of his slick hoof. Sparky hit all fours and charged Midas. Midas fired. The other men watched the wild man in the coat whip past as Sparky charged Midas. Sparky bowled over the large man. Midas fell to the ground. Sparky dashed into the maze of cages. The other men drew and fired round after round. Shots echoed off the metal ca
ges and splintered the thick beams, but missed their target. Terrified cries spilled out from the caged animals. Sparky had managed to drop out of sight.
Fat Jack and Paul both scanned the warehouse from where they stood. The bright overhead lights were obscured by the heavy beams, casting trenches of shadow through the cages. The animals stirred restlessly.
“On my mother’s grave!” Paul said. “Nobody is that fast!”
Louis, Midas’s other henchman, helped him up from the floor. Behind them lay Sparky’s fedora hat. Through the center was a small round bullet hole.
Sparky panted with his back to a cage. This spot was far from the men's view. He clung to the metal, buried in shadow. The goat slipped off his coat and his shirt and threw them under the hay. Through the bars he watched.
He could see the men scanning the room from nearby the door in. Sparky looked up at the large panels of lights across the ceiling. The room was too bright for him to simply rush in and fight them all. His clumsy hooves could not wield a gun. His eyes prowled the open warehouse.
A small brown and white goat hopped up and propped her forelegs against her cage. The young female stared at him with dim copper eyes. Her ears drooped down and her white powder puff tail swayed slowly.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“Sparky, where’d you go?” Midas’s call brought the goat’s attention away from the kid.
Sparky bolted farther down the line of cages away from the men. He came to the rear of the warehouse. On the back wall he could see a series of switches. He hoped they were for the lights. Without thinking it through, he darted to the wall and flipped each of them, one by one. The grinding of metal echoed in the chamber. The cage doors swung open in groups as he triggered the releases.
The emancipated goats evacuated their cells. They poured out into the warehouse floor and started mingling and chowing down on the hay that lined it. Delighted chatter filled the air. Sparky put all four hooves on the ground and mingled over.
All the while the men had fanned out to search, but had not seen the clandestine goat’s maneuver. Midas pushed through the herd towards the releases, but the man was already gone. “He’s not here!”
“Over here! He stripped his clothes?” Louis turned over the loose garments he had found, nothing else of interest.
“Why the hell would he do that?” Sparky could barely hear Fat Jack’s question above the cacophony of goat chewing.
“I don’t see him. We need to get these animals put away!” Paul kicked his way through the herd as he walked toward the main release panel on the back wall. “Damn, stupid goats!”
Sparky was waiting. When Paul passed by him he pounced as soon as he saw the man’s backside. Sparky hammered the man’s head with his clinched hoof. The hard knock made an audible clack. Paul fell to the cement floor face first, his nose impacted the ground. Paul's injured cry hardly escaped the throng of busy goat legs around him. Sparky threw a second punch. Paul’s head slammed into the solid stone floor. The man went limp, breathing lightly.
“Paul!” Midas called out to him. “Paul, where’d you go?”
No one had seen Sparky’s attack. Paul’s unconscious body was obscured by the swarm of goats.
Jack was nearest the door having stayed out of the goat throng. Dirty creatures. “Careful, he could be anywhere!”
The floor had become a sea of goats complete with its own tides and currents. Midas and Louis struggled to keep on their feet. The hungry goats nipped at Midas’s cloths as he pushed through down a line of cages.
In another row, Louis twirled around and around looking for the escaped man. His eyes bounced with each moving goat. The man pointed the gun at one of the animals as it raised up. The creature settled back on all fours. Louis took a deep breath.
“I don’t see him. Where could he go?” Louis asked.
Sparky shuffled his way close behind the man. Fat Jack was watching from a distance as Sparky stood. Unlike the other animals the motions were eerily balanced. As he watched, Sparky delivered a clean one-two punch to the back of Louis’ Skull.
Fat Jack held his weapon out to fire. “Look out!” He couldn’t shoot, Louis was in the way.
Sparky’s third punch launched his target to the floor. Sparky dropped down into the herd. Louis had fallen to his hands, his head ached. Louis rolled over looking for the man who had attacked him.
“Very funny! Throwing animals!” He pulled up to a sit. Goats surrounded him everywhere he turned.
“Who’s throwing animals?” Sparky was face to face with Louis. Louis's heart skipped a beat having watched the creature’s lips form the words. Sparky butted, Louis was out cold.
“Louis!” Fat Jack couldn’t see Sparky now. The goat’s black and white coat had no clear markings to tell him apart from the others. And now he had dissolved into the flow of quadrupeds. Jack struggled to yell, his shock thick and intense. “Hey, it’s a goat. The god damned thing’s a goat!”
“What?” The two men were separated by the width of the room and a chattering racket of goats, Midas simply couldn’t hear Jack’s words.
“It is one of the goats!” Fat Jack screamed.
Midas was not amused. Somehow this Sparky had taken down both of his men and now that he and Fat Jack were the only two still standing Jack was making jokes.
“One of the goats is trying to kill us!”
Fat Jack still stood by the entrance. Midas struggled to make his way through the goats. He was coming straight up the central row of cages towards Jack.
Sparky hovered over his second victim. He raised his head above the goats and watched the two men regroup near the entrance. Keeping all four legs on the ground Sparky started toward the front doors. Before he got close, the two men split up. Each man took a side and was rounding the outside of the open room. Sparky would have to leave the anonymity provided by the other goats to reach them.
“Anything?” Midas called.
Jack shook his head, watching the herd closely for the goat to emerge.
Sparky went after Midas. The man was too far away to risk charging. Sparky slid over to the wall and crept in the shadow as Midas made his way along ahead of him. Sparky's hard feet tapped gently across the straw covered slab floor, closing in.
Jack’s eyes were moving everywhere. Through the cages he saw the shadow creeping along the far wall. He fired. His bullet ricocheted in the distance. Jack dashed forward to get a clear shot on that goat.
Midas wheeled around. Bastard! He didn’t see the goat along the wall and presumed that Jack was shooting at him. Midas realized it must all have been a play to make off with the money and the drugs. Fat Jack had double crossed him. He steadied his aim on the rushing man.
“What are you doing?” Jack was almost around the last row of cages. “He’s there! He’s there!” Jack extended his pointer finger at the animal as he ran.
Midas turned around and saw the goat was standing on all fours rolling straw in his mouth. Midas maintained his bead on Fat Jack, having had his fill of the man’s treachery.
Jack edged around the cages, clearing a shot. Midas squeezed the trigger and fired on him.
Jack dropped back behind the metal cage. “What are you doing? You idiot!”
“You’re not taking us out. I knew you were dirty Jack!” Midas stood and angled the gun, targeting Jack through the bars.
“What?”
Midas fired again. Fat Jack went prone, falling below the goats around him. He tilted up, eye to eye with a runt goat.
“Mahh,” Sparky snickered behind Midas.
“Mahh,” Midas barked back at him with a mock tone.
“It’s not what you think! That’s the goat! He’s not normal!” Jack called from his cover.
Midas extended his hand and petted the creature’s head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He kept the gun held out towards Fat Jack. “Why don’t you come over here and we’ll check together?”
“Mahh” Sparky sa
id looking up to the man; Midas's eyes honing in on his target down the way.
“I watched him get Louis, he’ll get you too!”
“Sure, Jack.” Midas didn’t even look at Sparky. “You got to the count of three to show yourself before I kill your boss!”
Sparky reared up and slapped the gun from the man’s hand. On his hind legs Sparky matched the man for height. Midas drew away looking for his handgun. Midas’s mind couldn’t keep pace with the scene as the goat glared at him. Sparky seized the man’s shoulders and butted his head.
Fat Jack climbed to his feet. Weapon in hand, he rounded the line of cages. He fired as he walked, unloading three rounds. Sparky ducked to the side behind the dazed Midas.
Midas reached for this chest, feeling a deep burning pain cinching his torso. “Jesus! You shot me!”
Jack’s gun clicked. Empty. Midas collapsed on the floor. Sparky shot off. He darted into the herd of goats that were scattering away from the gun fire.
Jack kept his eye on the animals as he stepped up to the fallen man. Midas shook on the floor. He was grasping at his wound, breathing lightly. A second wound had passed clean through the meat of his shoulder. Midas tried to lift his piece but his arm collapsed, the gun spilled out of his hand. His head went limp against the floor.
The goats moved apart revealing the other men’s bodies. Fat Jack saw Louis and Paul, still unconscious or dead on the floor. He couldn’t be sure. Fat Jack loaded in his spare clip. Studying the goats, he couldn’t discern one from the next, and he didn’t have enough bullets for all of them.
Jack hustled for the door. The mass of goats separated him from the entrance, but he wouldn't wait. He waded through the flock, kicking at the stubborn goats, finding it more of a struggle to keep his feet than he expected.
Jack broke free. He ran for the exit. A kid darted across his path. He crashed to the ground. Jack dropped the gun to use his hands catch himself as he fell. The gun slid across the cement into the dark entry room. He tilted his head up, keeping his body prone. The goats circled around him. He fought to keep the panic from his face. Jack leaned up further to see over them. The door was only a few feet away.