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.He scrambled to his feet, holding his ribs with one hand and reaching for the dropped bat with the other.“Son of a bitch,” he gasped.The bird stepped into the garage and Broker lowered himself eye-level with the top of the door.Popeye’s ominous grace was an optical illusion.His long legs seemed to be moving in slow-motion when in fact they weren’t.They were lining up on Earl again.Less bellicose now, Earl’s face was working overtime on the proposition that a mere bird could kill a man.He gripped the bat and assessed the distance to the open garage door.Instinctively, he tried to go around the high-stepping bird.“No, no,” Broker yelled, safe behind his thick gate.“Stay in front of him.They kick to the side.”Wide-eyed, shaken, Earl changed direction.Dumb shit.This time Popeye hit Earl squarely in the left upper arm.Earl screamed as he smashed against the concrete.The kick shredded the trench coat sleeve.Dots of blood stippled the floor.Earl’s ragged shoulder flopped like a rag doll’s.Serves you right.Then someone turned his name into a high-pitched, infuriated indictment: “Bro-KER!”Amy stood in the doorway waving her arms to distract Popeye.“Do something, he’s gonna to get killed!” Amy hollered.Popeye’s tiny head rotated on his long neck, big-eyed and comic in contrast to his lethal feet, which shifted on the cement.Amy continued to wave her arms.Earl, his left arm useless, lay collapsed against the tractor tire like the statue of the Dying Gaul.Broker would have liked to see Popeye get in a few more licks.But now, worried that Amy would get within Popeye’s kicking radius, he scrambled from the shelter of his plywood gate and saw the long-handled bar shovel leaning against the wall of the pen.“Please.” Earl moaned.“Get behind that tractor,” Broker shouted at Amy.“What about.?” she shouted back as she took cover.Broker sprang for the shovel, grabbed it, and thrust it at the bird.J.T.had told him that male ostriches were territorial.No way Popeye would just walk away.He shouted to Amy, “I’m going to distract him.You gotta come under the tractor and pull Earl out of range, get him outside, and close the door.Do it.”Amy darted under the big John Deere.“Crawl toward me,” she shouted at Earl.“Huh?” Earl shook his head, confused.Broker advanced with the shovel extended.Popeye gauged this new intruder’s approach, shifted his stance, and stepped back into a tangle of loose wire that lay on the floor.The bird kicked to free his foot from the coils.Old tin cans threaded in the rusty wire made a racket when Popeye snarled his leg.Tangled in the rattle wire, Popeye’s demeanor totally changed.Spooked, he bolted for the open door.Broker watched the bird accelerate across the yard in bounds so powerful, they looked like special effects.Zero to forty in three seconds, J.T.had told him.Trailing tin cans, Popeye tore around a tree line and vanished.Back in the barn, Amy was already stooped over Earl.“Get me a knife.Something to cut the coat with.”“First I want to talk to my buddy Earl, here,” Broker said.“Christ’s sake, man,” Earl grimaced in pain, hunching away.“Broker,” Amy ordered, “I have to see this arm.If it’s compound and has bone sticking out we could sever an artery moving him.”“Move him?” Broker feigned laughter.“Fuck him, leave him where he’s at.” He tugged Amy to her feet, took a firm grip on her arm, walked her outside.She pulled away, furious.“That guy.”Broker cut her off.“He’s not critical.He’s got a broken arm.So I’m going to mess with him a little.He’s the boyfriend, and he just tried to brain me with a bat and he brought some help.”Amy’s eyes flashed, she licked her lips.“I saw the other one run.” More eager than cautious, she asked, “Are there more of them?”She was back in her element; she liked the action and she liked being in it with him.Broker got the powerful impression the ruckus cleared the decks between them.“Why’d the other one take off?” she asked.And the answer to that, Broker didn’t know.He shrugged and said, “Because he came to break a leg and got a full, frontal view of a charging male ostrich.”“Why break your leg?”Broker grinned.“To chase me away from Jolene.”Amy grinned with him.Earl moaned in the barn, “Jesus Christ, will somebody call nine-one-one?”“Hey, Earl, look out for the rats, there’s these big barn rats in there.I think they got rabies,” Broker yelled, then he turned back to Amy.“Okay, J.T.keeps a first-aid kit on the mud porch.Do not call nine-one-one.We’ll run him over to Timberry Emergency after I have a little talk.”“You know what you’re doing?”“Sure, Earl and I are both doing the same thing: trying to scare each other off.He blew his shot.I won’t.”“Okay,” she squinted at him.“But no more rough stuff.That’s a bad arm.”Broker held up his hands, palms out—an innocent.“Amy, I never touched the guy.”She evaluated the look in his eyes.“You would have let that bird kill him,” she said evenly.“Nah,” Broker grinned.“Not kill him, maybe kick him a few more times, though.”She turned and jogged to the house.Broker went back in the barn, searched for a moment, and found the bat.To announce himself he swung the bat viscously against the tractor fender.Every time the bat landed, Earl cringed on the floor.He extended the bat and poked Earl in the ribs.Earl moaned and gritted his teeth.Broker shook his head.“For some reason, Jolene doesn’t want you hurt too bad, so it can end right here.If we can understand each other.”“I need to go to a hospital,” Earl said between clenched teeth.“Listen carefully,” Broker said.“I copied your hard drive.Jolene assures me there’s enough on there to interest the feds.Credit unions are federal, Earl.You with me so far?”“Okay, okay.”“Jolene’s lawyer guarantees you’ll get every cent she owes you—if you back off.You can be friends, but she gets a chance to live her life.That’s the deal.”Earl’s left cheek and eye were starting to puff black and blue.Shock turned his skin sticky gray.With a face full of blood and dirt, he didn’t look so pretty anymore.“What about all this?” he said.Broker smiled.“This was just testosterone gone awry.”“I mean, what are you going to tell them at the hospital?”Broker shrugged.“I’m watching my buddy’s farm for him, I know you, you wanted to see the birds, you came out and there was an accident.”Earl sighed in resignation.“Friends with Jolene.”“But no manipulation.No games,” Broker said.“Okay,” Earl said.His eyes stayed fixed on the door.Amy came jogging back in with J.T.’s first-aid kit, a knife, and a bedsheet.He asked, “Who’s the chick?”“Friend of mine.Lucky for you, she’s a nurse.”Amy quickly cut open Earl’s jacket sleeve and assessed the lacerated shoulder.“Looks worse than it is, superficial muscle damage.” She applied gauze pads to the bleeding and felt around.“The left humerus is snapped, at least once, but it hasn’t poked through the skin.He probably has some cracked ribs.”Amy decided to immobilize the arm against his chest with the sheet.Broker helped her sit Earl up and tie the makeshift restraint [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]