Demon Box

Betsy and I were instantly on our feet.

“Who in the world?”

“Not Buddy,” I said, dancing into my pants. “That’s for sure.”

Still unzipped I reached the front door. Through the open window I saw a shiny black bus parked in the gravel of our drive, still smoking. I heard another shout and another string of curses, then I saw a big brown man in a skimpy white loincloth come hopping out of the exhaust fumes at the rear end of the bus. He had a Mexican huarachi on one foot and was trying to put the mate on as he hopped. After a wild-eyed look behind him he paused at the bus door and started banging with the sandal.

“Open the door, God damn your bastard ass—open this door!”

“It’s M’kehla,” I called back toward our bedroom. “M’kehla, and here comes Killer after him.”

The goat rounded the rear of the bus and skidded to a spread-legged stop in the gravel, looking this way and that. His lone eye was so inflamed with hate that he was having trouble seeing. His ribs pumped and his lips foamed. He looked more like an animation than a live animal; you could almost hear him muttering in his cartoon chin whiskers as he swung his gaze back and forth in search of his quarry.

M’kehla kept banging and cursing at somebody inside the bus. I glimpsed a face at a side window but the door did not open. Suddenly, the banging was cut short by a bleat of triumph. Killer had found his mark. The horn lowered and the hooves scratched for ramming speed. M’kehla threw the sandal hard at the onrushing animal, then sprinted away around the front fender, cursing. You could hear him all the way down the back stretch, heaping curses on the bearded demon at his heels, on the bastard ass behind the bus door, on the very stones underfoot. When he appeared again at the rear of the bus I swung open our door.

“In here!”

He covered the twenty yards across our drive in a tenderfooted stumble, Killer gaining with every leap. I slammed the door behind him just as the goat clattered onto the porch and piled against the doorframe. The whole house shook. M’kehla rolled his eyes in relief.

“Lubba mussy, Cap’n,” he finally gasped in a high Stepin Fetchit voice, “where you git a watchdog so mean? Selma Alibama?”

“Little Rock. Orville been developing this strain to guard melon fields.”

“Orville Faubus?” he wheezed, rolling his eyes again, bobbing in a foolish stoop. “Orville allus did have a knaick!”

I grinned at him and waited. Betsy called from the bedroom—Everything alright?—and he instantly dropped the fieldhand facade and straightened up to his full six-foot-plus.

“Hello, Home,” he said in his natural voice, holding out his hand. “Good to see you.”

“You too, man. Been a while.” I put my palm to his, hooking thumbs. “How’ve you been?”

“Still keepin ahead,” he said, holding the grip while we studied each other’s faces.

Since we last saw each other I had wasted ten foolish months playing the fugitive in Mexico, then another six behind bars. He had lost one younger brother in Laos and another in a 7-Eleven shootout with the Oakland police, and an ailing mother as a resultof the first two losses. Enough to mark any man. Yet his features were still as unmarred as a polished idol’s, his eyes as unwavering.

“… still movin still groovin and still keepin at least one step ahead.”

There had always been a hint of powers recondite behind that diamond-eyed gaze, I remembered. Then, as if he had read my thoughts, the expression changed. The eyes dialed back to gentle, the lips loosened into a grin and, before I could duck free, he hauled me close and kissed me full on the mouth. He was slick all over from his scrimmage with the goat.

“Not to mention still sweatin and stinkin.” I wriggled free. “No wonder Charity wouldn’t let you back on the bus.”

“Isn’t Charity, Dev; she kicked me out last month. I can’t imagine why…”

He gave me a glance of wicked innocence and went on.

“All’s I said was ‘Get up and get me some breakfast, bitch, I don’t care if you are pregnant.’ For that she tells me ‘No, you get up, get up and get out and get gone. Just like that. So I been going.”

He nodded toward the bus.

“That’s Heliotrope’s pup, Percy,” he said. “My complete crew this trip—cabin boy, navigator, and shotgun.” Then he leaned down to holler out the open window: “And he better quit dickin with me, he ever expect to see his mama again!”

The face at the bus window paid no attention; there were closer things to worry about. Killer had returned to the bus door and was working the hinges with his single horn. The whole bus was rocking. M’kehla straightened up from the window and chuckled fondly.

“Stuck out there, that billygoat between him and his breakfast cereal heh heh heh.”