When the Devil Dances

Papa O’Neal held up the bottle of homebrewed beer and peered through it. “I’m raising jailbait in a valley full of horny soldiers; it is never too early to start drinking.”

“Well, they’re going to have a hard time getting in here,” Mueller admitted. “We were wandering around checking out the defenses; I’ve seen firebases with worse killzones than these.”

Elgars wandered up behind the two soldiers then walked over to the barbeque. She looked at the pig, which had been butterflied onto a large grill and was slowly grilling over hickory.

“This is a pig, right?” she asked with a sniff. “Like you have in the cells.”

“Pens,” Papa O’Neal said with a smile. “Yes.”

“And we’re going to eat it?” she asked. “They are… very dirty.”

“I cleaned it up before I threw it on the grill,” O’Neal answered. “And you can feel free to refrain. But I’m, personally, planning on, pardon the expression, pigging out.”

Elgars nodded and pulled off a piece of half burned meat. She juggled the piece of pork for a second, blowing on it until it cooled enough to pop in her mouth. She chewed on it for a moment and then nodded. “It’s good,” she said.

“Why thanks,” O’Neal said with a snort. “I try. Just wait until the skin gets to cracklin’ stage.”

“This won’t be ready until this evening, right?” Mueller asked.

“Right,” Papa O’Neal said, pouring a little of the beer on the fire to cool it. The hickory hissed and spat, making a succulent smoke. “It’ll probably be ready a little before dark. But I don’t have to stay here the whole time; Cally can watch it to make sure it doesn’t flame up too far. I was thinking of taking y’all up on the hill. I’ve got a couple of caches that might come in handy if it drops in the pot and there’s a couple of trails for coming over the ridges, places you’d be surprised about, that you might be able to use some time.”

“Works for me,” Mosovich said. “Would you care to accompany us, Captain?”

Elgars looked up at the steep-sided hills. “I think I would like that very much. I have been interested in wandering around here, but I was unsure of the protocol. And there was some mention of mechanical defenses.”

“I can’t leave anything live,” O’Neal pointed out. “Too many large animals. We’ve got sensors and we get the occasional feral Posleen, but we only turn on the automatics for an attack.”

“You know,” Mueller said. “I feel like a real idiot. Here we are wandering around and there’s ferals in these woods. We’ve run into ’em before. And without a gun, we might as well be walking larders.”

“He doesn’t have a gun,” Elgars said, pointing at Papa O’Neal. “And he lives here.”

“O ye of little faith,” O’Neal answered, reaching up and behind him. What he pulled out looked like a hand cannon.

“Desert Eagle?” Mueller asked, holding out his hand.

“One up the spout,” Papa O’Neal answered, handing it over by flipping it around and offering it butt first. “Desert Eagle chambered for .50 Action Express.”

“Cool,” the master sergeant said. He dropped the magazine and jacked out the round up the spout. The brass and steel cartridge was as big around as his thumb. “Jesus! That’s a big goddamned round!”

“You can lose a .45 cartridge in the shell casing,” Papa O’Neal said with a laugh. “I did that one time reloading. And the bullet’s the new Winchester Black Rhino .50. It’ll put a Posleen down with one shot almost anywhere you hit it. And there are seven. I got tired of carting around a rifle all the damned time.”

Elgars took the weapon and handled it carefully then lined up a shot with a perfect two-handed grip. “I love it, but the grip’s too large for my hands.”

“There is that,” Papa O’Neal said. He slathered some more barbecue sauce on the meat then reloaded and reholstered the gun. “And the recoil is a stone bitch. But it’s got authority, by God!” He finished the beer, rinsed out the bottle in the outdoor tap and set it upside down in a rack that was clearly intended for the purpose. Then he burped and looked up at the sun.

“If we take off now, we can get up to the caves and be back by lunchtime. That gives us all afternoon to drink beer, lie about our exploits over the years and act as if we’re not tired old farts.”

“Works for me,” said Mosovich with a grin.

“Then let’s go load up,” O’Neal said. “You don’t walk these hills armed with a pistol. Even one this big.”

* * *

Wendy smiled as Shari and Cally entered the kitchen.

“I see you took my advice,” she said. “Nice job. Very understated.”

“Ah…” Cally said.

“We had to do a little revising,” Shari admitted.

“Granpa said I had raccoon eyes,” Cally said bitterly.

“You did have raccoon eyes,” Shari said. “And later Wendy can show you how to do raccoon eyes the right way; I’ve seen Wendy do the ‘Britney Spears look’ and it’s a very good similarity.”

Wendy stuck her tongue out, but otherwise forbore to comment.