Page 3 of Gerard
With his gaze pinned to the light shining on the corner of the barn, he moved one foot after the other. Each step was harder than the last as he waded through thick vines, trying to avoid tripping over fat watermelons all around him.
Halfway to the barn, his knees buckled. He fell forward, his face slamming into a fat, ripe melon, cracking it open. His face slipped into the wet flesh of the melon, the sweet juice touching his lips.
He tried to push himself up from the ground, but his good arm wouldn’t move. He’d lost too much blood. The thumping pulse in his ears steadily slowed.
“Dude,” a male voice, thick with a Cajun accent, sounded close. “Do he be dead?”
“Don’t know,” a guy with a deeper voice said.
Not dead, he thought. Yet. Unable to move, he tried to force air past his vocal cords.
A booted foot pushed into his hip.
“What’s he got in da bag?” Cajun Man leaned down, pulled the bag from his shoulder and unzipped it. “Fils de pute! Is dat what I tink dat is?”
“Gimme that,” the man with the deep voice said. A second later, he whistled softly. “That’s a shit-ton of money in there.” His feet moved. “Holy, fuckin’ shit. Git down.” The men dropped to the ground.
“Dude. You dead?” A hand touched his injured shoulder and jerked back. “Merde! He’s covered in blood.”
“Whoever shot this motherfucker will be lookin’ for him,” deep voice man said, “and this bag of money.”
“Tink it be counterfeit?” Cajun Man asked softly.
“Not if it’s worth killin’ fer. It’s gotta be the real deal. Come on. Let’s get outta here.”
“What about da melons?” Cajun Man said.
“Fuck the melons.” Deep Voice man zipped the bag. “Don’t need no stinkin’ melons when we got a sack o’ cash.”
“But we promised Ol’ Man Beaufoy we’d bring him da melons for tomorrow’s farmer’s market.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the old man’s melons. We need to get rid of this body so whoever’ lookin’ fer him don’t look ’round these parts.”
“De man’s not a goner yet,” Cajun Man said.
No. I’m alive. But for how much longer?
“Help me drag him to the bayou.” A meaty hand gripped his injured arm.
Pain ripped through him, and he blacked out.
When he came to, he was being dragged across the vines and watermelons. A smell so intense it nearly choked him filled his nostrils.
“What if da ’gators don’t clean him up?” Cajun Man asked. “Da remains will come to da surface.”
The two men stopped and dropped him to the ground.
The haze of semi-consciousness ebbed and flowed over him as the two men discussed how to get rid of his body.
“We could weigh him down.” Deep Voice coughed. “God damn pigs.”
“Putein!” Cajun man swore. “Dem hogs smell like death.”
“No fuckin’ kiddin’,” said Deep Voice. “We gotta get rid of him so those lookin’ fer him’ll never find him.”
“Yesiree,” the other man said. “Dat way we keep da cash with no one da wiser.”
He didn’t have the energy to tell them that the men he’d taken the bag of cash from would stop at nothing to get the money back.