Forty Tales Presents: The Bastards of Blue Duck
Sight was found in every burst of gunfire, firefly flickers in the mine shaft. In the firefly light Mint could see the motionless canary and wished it was the gunfight that claimed the creature’s life—but he knew better; Mint’s gamble was simple—outlast the six gunmen in the poisonous gas until they decided to turn tail.
Mint had wrapped his shirt around his face, peering through two tiny holes like some mummified pharaoh. "Would be a damn fine tomb to fit the reason…" He thought to himself.
*Crunch*, Mint heard them trying to move closer as they stepped on a broken bottle of whiskey he had purposely shattered and returned gunfire. Earlier one of the miners had tried to clean a path in the narrow passage that was littered with the glass and Mint shot the man in both hands. If he had killed the man they could have used him as a shield to advance, Mint wasn’t sure if they would have thought of that but he wasn’t taking any more chances than he already had to.
“Damn you Sheriff! *Cough, cough, wheeze* you gotta run outta bullets eventually!”
"It’s starting to take effect, good." Thought Mint as he touched the soft wet of his shirt underneath his mouth and fired another shot while looking at his fingers. "Blood…damn."
***
I was never young, never naïve; before I became Sheriff Mint I already had what it took—some men are just born with grit, I was one of those men.
Every town has its superstitions, an innocent campfire tale given to the flame like an offering and reflected in the eyes of its students as a legend. The town of Blue Duck believed crossing the Diamond Boys would be the last thing they would ever do, I aimed to prove them wrong.
***
“Cut the wick without ringing the bell and I’ll give you a dollar.” Mark’s smile was wet paint, running down to the sides of his square jaw as the boy took his knife and furled his brow in concentration.
From within Mark’s hand he held a candle with a dead still bell hanging from its wick above the boy’s head.
The boy looked up at the mine owner in the darkness of the bedroom, his pupils dilated to size of poker chips and reddened at the edges from the heat. “It’s a trick.”
Mark smiled.
The boy nodded, slowly placing his fingers underneath the lip of the bell, he grabbed the tiny metal ball and chain that would have rung the bell and then cut the string.
“Good lad.” Said Mark, “Now then, your dollar is in that there drawer son.” Mark pointed one of his hairy fingers over to an ornate oak desk beside the bed. As the boy searched within the drawer, "THWACK!" Mark hit him over the head with the handle of his Colt Dragoon. “Old Tom!” the bedroom door opened and a gnarled husk of a man walked in.
“Yessir…” Droned Old Tom in his toothless voice.
“I’m done testin the boy, throw him in the mine.”
“I always wondered, why you desd em?”
“Hell Tom, haven’t ye ever seen a farmer test a hen’s eggs before he lets it stay in the house?”
“Wha ya mean, if dey do id or nod ye send em…”
“Heck Old Tom, ye got me! I just want to see if they’ll try
killin me with the knife I hand em, haw, haw, haw!”
“Da so…”
“Dammit you old timer, not a funny bone in your body; just throw him in there and get.”
“Yessir…” Old Tom picked up the boy in his long spider like arms and threw him over his hunchback.
“Oh and that was our last bastard, we’re gonna need to start adoptin more soon.”
“Sould I gadder up de boys and sdard lookin?”
“Nah, we still got ten in there, they should be good for another week. Tell the boys to help themselves to whatever they want in the town tonight, we gotta keep their moral up.”
“Yessir.”
As Old Tom left the room Mark moved to the window and pulled aside the curtains, what he wanted to see was the town he had in the palm of his hands; what he saw was the tall grimace of a man, a small peppermint stick poking out of his lips surrounded by a red five o clock shadow, wearing a long black duster and starry badge, aiming a rifle right at him.
Mark’s vision went black, he felt the floor resting upon his back and through the tunnel of his hearing he followed the last words he would ever know.
***
“I’m appointing myself as the new Sheriff to this town and I’m calling out the Diamond Boys!” A gunshot puffed up the dirt by Mint’s feet, he ignored it.
“Are you out of yur mind?!” Cried a voice.
Mint opened a sack hanging at his side and out rolled four heads.
“By Jesus! Them be the night shift at the mine!” Cried another voice.
“If’n you boys have any sense left in ye, I suggest given thought to that latest shipment of diamonds that I hid.
Earlier I took the liberty of visiting your operation at the mine for a little game of hide and seek and if’n you want to get that delivery to your buyers which made this here town so prosperous, then I suggest coming out ere for a chat.” Sheriff Mint locked his eyes on Old Tom hobbling out of a beautiful mansion. “And I’d be dropping that there boy if I were you…”
Old Tom dropped the boy upon his head. “You shun o a-dere aind noddin you gonna do ere bud die!”
“That man dies or I won’t be speaking a word about your hidden diamonds.”
Three men walking out of different parts from the town each fired bullets into Old Tom.
“Good, this here will be a game of co-operation, I won’t tolerate any rudeness from any of you and I expect you will all play by the rules.” Smiled Mint.
There were twelve men in the street and each one of them held a gunmen’s holster—Mint turned his back to them and began walking towards the mine, they followed.
***
Greed will swallow any man whole, morals, intelligence, passion and fore-sight. I knew they weren’t going to take any chances and if one of them did another man near him would kill him. They were afraid of one another but even more afraid of what would happen if their shipment didn’t reach the men they worked for. But I couldn’t play at this hand for too long or they would try to force it out of me—it wouldn’t work, but they didn’t know that and taking a gamble would waste too much time; I had this planned on the day before their shipment goes out just to make sure of it.
The mine sat cold and barren with the headless bodies of the four men who used to guard it; sunlight hung below the falling moon overhead in calm yellow, pinkish sky as a breeze cooled the air.
“Now where is it?” Grumbled one of the gunmen, irritated.
“He aint gonna just show us, he’s gonna buy time—he knows what’s next once we find it dag nabbit!”
Mint pointed to a gravesite near the mine, a place where the gunmen would crudely bury the bodies of the children. “It’s in the third grave from the left, fifth down.”
One of the gunmen smiled and pulled his revolver, another one next to him slapped his hand. “No Joey, we need to make sure!”
A group of eight gunmen pulled their guns on Mint while the others dug up the grave. Inside of the grave beneath the rocks and dirt was a crude wooden coffin and within the cracks glittering lights from the reflection of the sky could be seen. “WHOOOO DOGGIE!” Cried one of the gunmen as he quickly pried the coffin open.
*FWOOOOSH!* was the sound before the deafening of the bomb. Body parts and diamonds littered the sky as Mint head shot two of the startled gunmen in front of him, the others covered their eyes from the dust, diamonds and gore and fired in Mint’s direction, two of them managing to hit him, but only grazing his skin before he had jumped into the mine.
***
The canary was their way of a sick joke; they had it in the mine just to terrify the children. Mint’s bullets were running dry and out of anger he threw the dead bird at the gunmen. The poison was thickest here, he had led the gunmen too far into the mine, both so they wouldn’t know their way back out incase they bested him and so they didn’t just wait outside for him to exit—he decided at the point of entering the mine that he had to gamble on their bloodlust to follow him this far, the gamble was in his favor but the poison was narrowing the odds of his survival.
The gunmen realized Mint’s gamble when it was too late, they knew there was no turning back anymore, they had to outlast Mint in the mine or be shot down by him trying to make their way from rock to rock in an escape.
The prolonged exposure to the thick poisonous gasses had begun having a queer effect upon their minds, rocks seemed to shift, the cave seemed to become smaller and as they fought the feverish thoughts they sweat till their clothes became soggy sponges; one of the gunmen sucked upon the wet of his shirt out of thirst an cringed at the taste.
“Why do you care so much about the bastards anyhow Sheriff? I reckon that’s why you’re risking it all in this darn hell hole!”
Mint ignored them, "let them waste more breath on the fumes. Bastards…they’ll call anything a bastard as if it was an insult. In this world a bastard got more life in them than any other, it’s the hardships that give a man the will to survive and these low lives spent a long time of leisure on the pain of those kids. It’s their beast of burden that gave those ‘bastards’ every long day in this here mine." Thought Mint.
“You thinkin that it’s still worth it Sheriff? Even if’n you do survive, there’s a whole world of trouble coming when our shipment don’t arrive. What do you think will happen? They’ll just be a sendin more men to replace us! And those men will be ready for ya!”
"I reckon I’ll be ready for them too." Gathered Mint in his thoughts.
While the gunmen were shouting at Mint they didn’t see the small boy approaching them from behind. The boy held Mark’s Colt Dragoon in his hands and fired two giant holes into two of the six gunmen.
Mint didn’t waste the opportunity, as the gunmen were startled he rushed forward behind a new point of cover while the boy fired from behind a rock—Mint cross fired his shots with the boys.
The boy lit something and rolled it just out of reach from the gunmen’s position, they saw the short wick on the lit brown stick and instantly scattered. “You’ll kill us all!” one of them shouted.
Mint and the boy gunned each one of them down as they tried to find shelter from the assumed blast.
Nothing happened when the wick ran to the end of the brown stick and Mint grabbed the candle. “Smart kid, what’s your name son?”
“Nick.”
“Reckon you wanna be a deputy Nick?”
“I reckon.”
Looking into the hard determined eyes of the child Nick, a smirk slightly rose upon his own mirrored image; "Some men are just born with grit." He mused. nt�M iy�� � ","sans-serif";color:#333333'>The site of the monkeys made one of the Generals instantly shit himself; Adolf began to weep.
“Please have mercy!” Begged Adolf upon his knees, (which he was already on).
The monkeys surrounded them wielding knives and guns, David began to laugh in a guttural shake, Yigol stopped himself from vomiting.
Yigol bit back the sickness in his belly climbed down from David and booted Adolf right in the jaw. “Look what your leaders do in your time of need.”
“I don’t want to die! I don’t even want to be the Fuehrer if there’s fighting; I just wanted to have fun! This isn’t fun anymore, I want my mommy!”
Peter crawled over to Adolf’s side but one of the monkeys jumped in front of him, “My Fuehrer, take hold of yourself please!”
Yigol looked down at the pudgy mustachioed man that led all the problems he ever had in his entire life. He was bitten by astonishment at that moment, how could a man like this be leading the world? Adolf shook and wept and begged and screamed for help while Yigol just stood there and watched him in disbelief.
“You only have a bruised jaw there Adolf, don’t you think you should save all this for when we start feeding your insides to the monkeys?” Suddenly chuckled Yigol.
At that moment Adolf fainted.
***
The world watched as Yigol gave Adolf’s Generals the choice to fight the monkeys for the Third Reich or to jump out of the window. They watched as each one of Adolf’s Generals landed with a ‘SPLAT’; some jumped and some where just too scared and cried before being thrown like barrels by David. They watched as Adolf himself was fed to the monkeys and they all watched and held each others hands when Yigol told them they would be next.
***
As Yigol and the monkeys left the Gestapo Ball they weren’t surprised to see that the streets were still empty.
Yigol was riding upon David’s shoulders once again, on his way out he had grabbed a bowl of soup for himself that he was now eating and in his mind everything seemed like it was going to be okay. Then he saw Heidi.
She came running out of an alleyway, her little pig tails caught in the wind. “Where’s my Daddy you poop head?!”
Yigol stepped down from David’s back and walked over to her, a look of sorrow on his face. “I-“ he didn’t know what to say.
How can I feel this way? He was a piggish bastard that tried to kill me…no it’s not for him; it’s for this little girl. This innocent little five year old that doesn’t know any better…who just wants her father.”
Heidi pulled out a Kraut Magnum then, though before she had pulled the trigger David crushed her little body under his massive foot. Yigol dropped his bowl of soup.
***
So that’s the story of how I got to where I am now…Nazi America is falling now because of my army but at what cost…the kids are just kids but the monkeys can’t see that—to them they are just another threat to me. While we were in the Gestapo Ball murdering all those men and women, how many children died there too? I was too blind with rage and adrenaline to see the full picture then.
It looks like the Holocaust never ended; it just took another form of hate.
David has been getting more and more malevolent lately and as I’ve told you in the beginning of my story he’s started making a game out of the Nazis deaths. This woman on the floor before me right now was one of our captives, she was making a cake for me and got too close with the knife, she was actually a nice woman, her and I stayed up and talked together last night—she had asked me what I thought the world was going to become now that America was almost free again, I told her I didn’t know and she said that I should calm my nerves because it’s all in God’s hands now. Maybe God favors the animals I said to her. Hey do you think Moses was a giraffe? She laughed.
