Sturm shouted, “Fifteen minutes ‘til the betting window closes!”
Frank stepped into the cage and watched as Girdler came in the front door and made his way up the steps to the office window.
Girdler slapped both bricks of cash on the ledge. Frank didn’t have to hear the conversation to know he was putting all of his money on the cats.
“Twelve minutes,” Sturm hollered. He went up to the office and stepped inside. Girdler followed him before Sturm could shut the door. Frank took a long look around, making sure none of the shit that the men had been throwing at the cage at slipped through the chicken wire, then walked up the chute.
He let himself out of the cage and into the back aisle and took a long look at the bear. Bo-Bo was fast asleep, flat on his back, legs splayed, leather footpads the color of milk chocolate in the light cast from a string of sparse bare bulbs. Frank gave Pine a hard look.
Pine shrugged. He was sitting on a rickety office chair with wheels that he’d carried down from the office earlier. “Watch,” he said, jabbing at the bear with one of the long cattle prods. Bo-Bo just lazily slapped it away. “I been shocking him for the past half hour, solid. Got it cranked up to the max. See? See? Shit. Too much fucking hard work.” Pine sank back into the chair and the bear’s breathing evened out and it wasn’t long before he started snoring. “Didn’t want to go any farther, you know? Didn’t want to get carried away, not before the fight.”
Frank said, “It’s time to get carried away.”
“Fuck yes!” Pine said, clapping his hands together like it was Christmas. He yanked a bowling ball from a storage locker across the aisle and lobbed it into the cage. The ball bounced, thunked into the side of the bear, and settled against the fence on the right. The bear jerked away from the blow and shook the sleep out of his head making a surprised, barking cough.
“Time to play, Mr. Bear,” Pine said.
Bo-Bo snorted and rocked back and forth, keeping a careful eye on the ball. Now that he had the bear’s attention, Pine reached into a small cooler next to his office chair and pulled out a ball of ground mutton the size of a softball. He held it up, making sure Bo-Bo was paying attention. Pine kicked the door open and tossed the ball into the cage. The meat had been laced with all five pills, ground down into a powder finer than talcum.
Bo-Bo ambled over and ate it without hesitation.
* * * * *
“Ten minutes!” Sturm’s voice echoed throughout the entire auction yard, amplified a thousand times over the loudspeakers. For a moment, everyone heard Girdler’s voice, high and thin, “This ain’t—” and there a brief, ear-splitting whine of feedback, then a solid click. The loudspeaker system went quiet.
The back door to the office upstairs banged open and Sturm stomped out. Girdler was right behind him. “You’ve got to listen to me,” Girdler begged. “Please. Please don’t do this.”
Halfway down the stairs, Sturm spun and grabbed Girdler’s beard and jerked the bigger man over the railing. Girdler went over sideways, legs kicking, arms flailing. He only managed to knock Sturm’s cowboy hat off before slipping over completely. A few feet down, he hit the storage locker, rolled off and landed heavily on his back in the aisle. Sensing a fight, the remaining dogs began barking.
Sturm followed his hat down the stairs. “Warned you once, hippy.” He dusted the hat off, put it back on. “You keep pushing, you’re just gonna get hurt worse.”
Girdler grabbed hold of one of the cages and pulled himself up. He laughed, but it sounded desperate. “I’ve been watching you, little man. Little bantam rooster, strutting around. You like to hit people when they ain’t ready. Then you step back and let your boys finish the job.”
“You saying I don’t fight my own battles?” Sturm asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, you little turd. Come on. You got the balls, come on then.” Girdler pointed at Pine. “Tell this asswipe to step back and let’s see just how tough you really are.”
Frank knew it wasn’t that Girdler had questioned Sturm’s ability to fight that made Sturm slowly take his hat back off and hang it on a nail. No, it was because Girdler had called him “little.” “Pine, you keep out of this. Frank, you too. Dumbshit here thinks he’s a big shot, won’t listen to sense when he was warned fair and square, well then, guess he needs a lesson.” And without any more words, Sturm launched himself at Girdler.
His abnormally large fists popped through the air like a pair of sledgehammers. Girdler had just enough time to get his forearms up and in the way; all he could really do was focus on blocking Sturm’s punches.
Sturm slipped one past and his left fist caught Girdler in the throat.
Girdler made an urking sound and fell back against the bear cage.
Sturm immediately slammed his left fist into Girdler’s solar plexus.
Vomit spewed out of Girdler like a water balloon full of green bile and meatloaf landing on a thorn bush. Several gobs spattered across Sturm’s skull. This just made him more pissed off and he hit Girdler hard enough in the chest that Frank heard something crack.
Girdler lurched off to Sturm’s right and stumbled over the office chair. Both of them went down. “Treehugger,” Sturm hissed and stomped on Girdler’s hand.
Girdler screamed, but Sturm kicked him in the face a couple of times, breaking the scream off like a violin string snapping in mid-note. Girdler tried to roll over, gagging blood. Several of his front teeth had broken off and were imbedded in his bottom lip.
Bo-Bo ignored all of this and settled back onto the pallet, yawning and pawing at himself, scratching at his belly.
Sweat and vomit glistened on Sturm’s skin under the naked bulbs. But he wasn’t even breathing hard. “Some folks, you tell ’em something, they listen. But other folks, you talk ‘til your blue in the face, telling ’em what’s what, and they still just don’t get it.”
Girdler crawled toward the bear cage.
Sturm pointed to the office chair and told Pine, “Set that up right here. I want this dumbshit to have a front row seat. Frank, there’s some duct tape in that locker over there.”
Pine and Sturm grabbed Girdler’s shoulders and threw him onto the chair. Sturm took the roll from Frank and slapped the end across Girdler’s chest and wrapped it around his back, again and again, taping him to the chair. Pine duct taped Girdler’s feet to the chair base, so they could roll him around easily.
The sound of the tape ripping away from itself reminded Frank of tearing the baggie out from under the sink. He checked the clock. The pills should be working by now. But Bo-Bo was still lolling on his back and looked like he might doze off any minute. Frank patted his chest, feeling for the sixth and final blue pill in his shirt pocket. If the bear didn’t start to show signs soon, Frank would have to somehow slip him the last pill, but he sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Girdler whimpered something, but it was hard to tell what he was trying to say through a mouthful of broken teeth.
Sturm patted Girdler’s shoulder affectionately. “That’s right. Glad you see things my way now.” The fight didn’t seem to have taken anything out of Sturm; it just fired him up even more. He checked his watch. “Holy shit. Time’s up.” He gestured towards the cage. “He gonna be ready?”
Frank shrugged.
“We’re counting on you, son. That bear dies out there tonight, it’s on your head.”
* * * * *
Sturm’s voice came booming out of the loudspeakers. “Two minute warning, gentlemen! Get your bets in now!”
Pine was bored and idly spun Girdler in circles as he appraised the bear. “I dunno, Frank. I don’t think your pills did shit.”