Bonus
“You mean it wasn’t ugly enough already?” She was scandalized.
“Not even close.” Alvin shuddered “That old man got down and dirty. He had a knife or something sharp........... waaaaay sharp.”
“And?” she said.
“And that was about it.” he said “He cut em to shreds.”
“Bout then the posse showed up. They were upset because they’d missed all the fun. Some of them boarded the plane. They were going to tell the crew what for.” Alvin said “They said that old man had taken the crew of that airplane apart like a Sunday chickens and that the inside of that airplane looked like it’d been spray painted in blood. So’d the old man when he crawled out. The first guys that looked inside the plane puked their guts out.”
“‘Looks like you got em’, I told him.” Alvin said “OverKill much?”
“No such thing” that old man told me. “It’s just ‘open fire’ and ‘reload’.”
“Anyway. About that time the Sheriff walked up to me. Me, the Sheriff and that old man talked awhile. The Sheriff gave some orders to his deputies and the rest of us all went and got beers.” he finished.
“Not before the old man took a dip in a pond. He really, really was covered with blood.” Alvin finished.
Julie didn’t say much. She was trying to suppress a memory and it wasn’t working.
“Oh yeah” He said casually. TOO casually she thought. “Here”
He plopped about a zillion dollars worth of diamonds and a couple of gizmo’s onto the table beside the ammo.
That did it. The memory surfaced. Now she understood everything.
“Wha....wha....what the fresh hell is this?” she finally managed to say.
“The Old Man kept emphasizing that these things are NOT diamonds. He said they were something else. I forgot what he said exactly.Something about ‘feedstock’ and ‘crystal smoke’ or some such thing. They sure look like diamonds to me.” Alvin said.
Alvin looked a Julie. “I remembered too. I never forgot actually. My folks were agnostic...I never went to church.”
“ BUT, moving on. It’s A payment, a downpayment and a bonus.” Alvin was smug. It wasn’t every day he could surprise her like that.
“They sure look like diamonds. Oh my yes. What ELSE could they be? Payment on What? Downpayment on WHAT?” she said “We don’t own anything worth near that much. That would include the farm, the grove, the house and all the vehicles!”
“Part of the payment’s for Ivan. It got all dripped on by a few gallons of blood and he felt responsible. You know how much they charge at the truck-wash to wash him.” Alvin said
“No THAT much” she muttered. He ignored her.
“The rest of the payment is for food.” Alvin said “The man wants him some pecans, but he wants anything that we have enough extra of to sell. Onions, Squash, Watermelon, beans, peas, all of it. Everything that’s ripe. He especially want seeds, particularly for trees.” Alvin told her.
“The DOWN payment. How much does he expect the crop to be worth?” she was awed.
“A lot I reckon.” Alvin said “To him, it’s worth a lot. He said something about their farms all being wiped out during the earthquakes and needing to stock up.”
“Dare I ask what the payment is for?” she asked him
“It’s for, and I quote” anything and everything that we have on the farm that we don’t want that has carbon in it. That would include junk tires, used crankcase oil, oily dirt, plastic sacks, cow dung, horse manure and bush hog clippings. He’ll be here for a week or maybe longer depending on business.” Alvin said. “He called it carbon feedstock and he wants as much of it as he can get.”
“He’s going to have to come to the Mesa for that. I can’t see us swimming Ivan that many times back and forth with that kind of cargo.” Julie said “It’ll take some doing getting all that done and loaded in a week anyway. ” she said “what was the bonus for?”
“Oh that.” he said “It seems that when I shot the pilot and opened up the windshield of that plane it made it a lot easier to get inside and kill them all. He might have been cut otherwise. He was very appreciative. If he hadn’t killed them they might have got that plane in the air and then they’d have killed us. Likely strafed the town too. Vindictive bastards. Like I said, the plane had door mounted mini-guns.”
Alvin pushed the little gizmo toward her” It’s pretty cute. He said it makes ammo. All kinds of ammo and as much as we want"
Julie looked at him and said “Good...we were getting low...we only have about a Fifty thousand rounds in the safe”
To Be Continued
Yarn
.
If you are just now discovering this story and want to read more
it begins here
Perhaps you might also enjoy
Other Books
that I have written.
.
AND
.
Follow me
.
So Come on Down!
Sit a spell.
I got the Coffee on.
Disclaimer
The Hobo Picture is a Public Domain image from
Samantha at the Worlds Fair
by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
Illustrated by
Baron C. De Grimm published by
Funk and Wagnall's Company 1893
.
The Badges are graciously provided by
.
Unless otherwise noted
All other Illustrations are from
Pixabay