Saint Oswald by Jay Bonansinga (always you kirsty moseley .txt) 📗

behind the wheel is fresh-scrubbed and earnest and glaring under the brim of a Stetson.

“NO!”

Oswald makes a lurching dive for the shithead right as the man is leaping off the ledge. At the last possible instant, Oswald’s meat-hook hand grabs the back of the guy’s belt and holds on with the strength of a grappling hook.

Kornblum screams a tormented yawp and hangs there for a single awkward moment, kicking and wriggling like a pig at slaughter, staring down at the blessed relief of the Mississippi.

The river might as well be a million miles away, because the adrenaline is flowing through Oswald now—mingling with the psychotic anger—fueling the thick muscles in his left arm and shoulder. He yanks back on the scrawny Kornblum with countless foot-pounds of energy, nearly ripping the seat clean off the Dockers.

The two of them tumble backward. Kornblum flails, and Oswald loses his balance.

The chicken truck arrives just as the two men are unexpectedly careening backward into its path. The old man slams on the brakes, swerving to avoid the melee. The poultry wagon is old and loose and corroded, and the force of the sudden stop nearly rips the spindles off the side braces. It goes into a skid.

Half the chicken crates go launching into the air.

Trooper Ganz hits the brakes. The prowler screeches, and the g-forces shove him into the dash.

He bangs his forehead on the visor. It’s not a bad smack but enough of a thump to knock him senseless for a brief instant while chicken crates tumble and topple across the span twenty yards ahead of him.

Some of the crates have broken open on impact, a flock of dirty, nervous fowls now flapping and clucking madly across the bridge—a rainbow of different breeds, including dark Brahmas and big Jersey Giants. Some of them scatter. Others flutter and flap furiously into the air, feathers flying every which way, the younger ones trying in vain to wing themselves to freedom. It looks like a storm of fluff.

Ganz loses his cool. All the training—the countless hours of study at the Academy, the years of ride-alongs and apprenticeship—it all fails him. He claws at the door. He claws for his 12-gauge.

In the back of his mind Ganz knows that procedure dictates he should call in the ten code, get some backup, take this step by step, but his forehead is throbbing and there’s a guy out there with a gun and chickens are landing on the Crown Victoria’s roof.

He shoves the driver’s door open and sticks the 12-gauge out like an umbrella.

“ILLINOIS STATE POLICE!”

Ganz fires a single warning blast up into the sky, the boom cracking the air like thunder.

The heavy-grain load tears through an errant chicken flapping overhead.

12.

Feathers erupt everywhere. Ganz staggers backward, engulfed in a blizzard of filthy, smelly chicken feathers, blood, and offal. He inhales some of the rancid fluff, then spits, and wipes his face. He can barely see, and his ears ring from the concussion blast. Squawking chickens engulf him.

Ahead of him, poultry pours frantically out of the crates like a wave of mangy pastel dander. The smell is tremendous, horrible, pervasive.

Ganz coughs and crouches back down behind the open door of the prowler.

His heart races as he scrambles for the radio mike, a terrible feeling washing over him. His sidearm is still snapped, the safety still on. Goddamn it, the safety’s still on!

He thumbs the SEND button: “Twenty-four! Come in! This is Baker-nineteen!”

The radio sizzles and crackles: “Copy that, nineteen, go ahead.”

Ganz tries to reply but he’s got chicken detritus in his mouth. He spits out feathers. “Got a ten-thirty-one on Derleth Bridge! You copy that twenty-four?!”

“Copy—”

A spurt of static piercing the transmission: “Wayne, this is Smitty—”

Ganz squeezes the mike. “Smitty, I need some backup! What’s your twenty?”

“We’re in the area, over on Pike’s Mill, whattya got going?”

“Got a subject armed on the bridge, hostage type situation looks like!”

The voice crackles: “On our way!”

Oswald crouches down behind the rear of the chicken truck, a flapping Rhode Island hen on his shoulder, indignantly shitting on him. He barks into the Bluetooth. “GERBIL! GERBIL—!! YOU STILL THERE?!”

“You don’t have to do this!” Kornblum, on his knees, all crumpled up, looks like he’s praying. “Really! It’s not necessary—”

Oswald tightens his grip on the wussy’s nape. “HOLD STILL, KORNBLUTH!”

The Bluetooth fizzes. “Whattya want me to do?”

“Okay, listen. I want you to—

BOOM!

Another warning shot, thirty feet away, rattles up into the sky, sending feathers like a fragment bomb in all directions. Oswald flinches, coughing feathers, spitting into the wind. He thumbs the hammer back on the .44 and drags Kornblum around the side of the idling truck.

The air is filled with feathers and chicken spoor and rising sirens—more county Mounties coming, from somewhere in the vicinity, roaring toward the scene—and it all makes Oswald’s scalp crawl.

He slams Kornblum against the truck’s rear wheel and peers around the corner.

The trooper’s Crown Victoria—lights spinning—is canted across the bridge-way, maybe forty feet away, engulfed in chickens. The trooper crouches behind his open driver’s door. The top of his 12-gauge is visible like a stovepipe sticking out above the shattered window.

Suddenly the trooper’s amplified voice pierces the din of chickens and sirens: “SIR, I’M GOING TO ASK YOU TO PUT THE GUN DOWN!”

Kornblum wriggles against the truck, trying to extricate himself. “My wife hired you, didn’t she—my wife put you up to this!”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Oswald’s iron grip tightens. “AND HOLD STILL, GODDAMNIT!”

Gerbil’s voice: “Got another bogey coming up fast on the Iowa side!”

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do—” Oswald quickly scans the length of bridge behind him, weighing his options. “—we’re gonna make a break for the quarry side!”

The amplified voice: “SIR, I’M GONNA RECOMMEND YOU GO AHEAD AND COMPLY—OR THINGS ARE GOING TO GET VERY UNPLEASANT AROUND HERE!”

Oswald glances over his shoulder and hisses into the Bluetooth. “Gerbil, listen to me, listen, get to the S-10, get to the truck!”

“I’m way ahead of you,” the reply crackles, “I’m halfway there!”

“Then