Cannibal Corpse, M/C

He jumped on the hardtail and blew on out of Victoria until he was eating pavement again and the wind was fresh and the sun was warm and that awful fetid stink was blown off him and the defiled atmosphere of the town was out of his head.

Chapter Eighteen

Slaughter took it slow in granny gear, trying to think and afraid to think at the same time. He thought about his brothers, the Disciples. They were probably worried sick about him by this point and he hoped they wouldn’t do anything rash like trying to take on the Red Hand on his behalf. But Apache Dan would be running the show and he was nothing if not a cool head. And as Slaughter thought about these things he wondered what in the Christ he had gotten them into here because this whole fucking thing was getting more complex by the moment, like a great jigsaw puzzle with thousands of pieces. It would come together, he knew, sooner or later and maybe that’s what he feared the most.

You had the urge to go west, man, he thought as rode along. And that brought you into conflict with the Red Hand and got Dirty Mary killed and got the Disciples out of prison which bought Irish a grave on the side of the road. Your brother’s life hangs in the balance and you still have that strong death hard-on for Coffin and Reptile of the Cannibal Corpse crew but it’s become so much more than all that now. Something very big. Something very important. Only you don’t know what because you’re too damn stupid to make sense of the senseless.

He moved on down the road, thinking he should probably turn back and see if he could retrace his route back out to the I, but that would mean cutting through Victoria again and he didn’t know if he was up to that. So he did what 1%ers did when things got bad and things got rough: he grabbed hold of the ape hangers and opened up the throttle and let the wind sort it out for him.

About an hour after he left Victoria, he saw a finger of smoke in the sky.

He slowed to a stop and contemplated the significance of it. It could mean a Red Hand camp or some other crazies, or it could have been some citizens having a wienie roast. Could have been a lot of things.

“Fuck it,” he said under his breath. “Let’s find out.”

At worst he’d do some killing or go down dead and at best he might get some directions back to the I.

He followed the pavement through the trees until he was so close to that plume of smoke he could smell the burning wood. A dirt road led up into the hills and at its end was where the fire would be. He pulled in and followed it until the trees parted and he saw a simple plank cabin with a pickup truck parked before it. An old guy in a red-and-black checked lumberjack shirt was feeding hickory chips into a firepit. He had a long white ponytail and looked to be an Indian with his seamed brown face and that unreadable look in his gray eyes. He paid absolutely no attention to the hog rolling in or Slaughter stepping off the bike.

His only interest was the fire and the joint of meat roasting above the licking flames on a spit. It was his world and it truly seemed that he knew no other. Slaughter stood there. Waiting. Wanting to speak but not allowing himself to, as if it would be a bad thing to break the old man’s concentration. The smell of the meat was tantalizing. No, more than that…for the breeze was flavored by it. It carried the succulent, juicy smell of smoked meat and it practically owned Slaughter at that moment, reminding him of the terrible hollow in his belly. He could not remember ever being so hungry before. He felt giddy with it. Absolutely giddy, like one of those characters in an old cartoon that are so hungry that the odor of food becomes a physical presence, one that taps them on the shoulder and draws them in.

Slaughter went over to him, figuring it was time.

“Sit,” the old Indian said. “Might as well.”

Slaughter sat on a stump and watched his host.

“Name’s Frank,” the guy said. “Frank Feathers.”

“John Slaughter.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Same here.”

Slaughter lit a cigarette, mainly because he had to push the odor of the meat out of his head before he passed right out. He was hungry, starving, yet there was a special smell to this meat…honey and hickory, brown sugar and mesquite…a special blend that made him feel ravenous.

You feel like you been drugged. Ain’t that funny? Maybe the old guy’s working magic on you.