Page 49 of Road Refugees

He spoke from the side of his mouth like me, but the impression was that he was being confidential. “You want to know about the guy in the septic tank?”

“Um,” I said, “No. Not really.” I was just taking a guess. I didn’t really want to know.

He continued, “He was a co-worker of Byron Riddlesberger. For a price, I’ll tell you where they’ve moved the dogs deeper into the woods, down the hill.”

The three of us looked at each other. It was me who reached into my wallet and handed him a twenty. “Who are you?” I asked, before letting him snatch the bill.

“Name is Darcy Bard. I own this place.” He was more candid now, rolling up the bill and sticking it in his pocket.

Heaven fumed. “How can you allow this sort of torture to go on under your watch?”

Darcy Bard jutted out his jaw, looking up at Heaven. “Everything has its price, dearie.”

“Speaking of,” said Slappy, “where are these other kennels down in the woods?”

Mr. Bard became very serious. “If you look up the perimeters of my property, you’ll see they placed them as far down this hill as possible, right above a seasonal creek so they can occasionally hand water to the poor dogs. Not often enough for my liking, if you want to know. I don’t think God smiles upon this sort of thing, no sir. Especially not when it comes to putting bodies into septic tanks. Man, that thing smells.”

Now I did want to know about the septic tank, but Heaven ploughed ahead. “God is going to punish you as well!” I’d never heard her ranting any Cornucopia stuff, but it sure did serve her purpose now. “Maybe you don’t actively have a hand in this, but being the owner and allowing it to go on . . . That’s a sin!”

Darcy shrugged. “I help with cleaning the cages.”

Open-mouthed, Heaven looked to us for help. “Cages? The only way to redeem yourself, Mr. Bard, is by rescuing all these animals to a proper dog rescue organization!”

He took a new tack now, squinting at Heaven. “When you say God, you talking existential being or anthropomorphic deity?”

“Oh!” Heaven growled in astonishment. She pointed. “This man is just as culpable—”

A screen door over by the main house slammed shut. “Bard!” yelled someone.

“Riddlesberger,” I told my accomplices. Fumbling with my wallet, I handed Bard another twenty. “Don’t let him see us. We’re about to leave. Go that way.”

We dashed back the way we’d come, not taking the path we’d created by low crawling but smashing directly through some knee-high weeds.

Darcy Bard’s last query was, “Do you want to know why all hip-hop music sounds the same? As musical styles increase in popularity, they also become more generic.”

I waved my arm to shoo him behind the barn, and I was almost too late. I caught a glimpse of that major shitbird Riddlesberger looking for the property owner. As I squatted and peered through the grass, for the first time I noted Riddlesberger had ink on his bicep that said “Kill me, I’ve never died before” with a bullet hole beneath it.

“I’d be mighty obliged,” I muttered, and hauled ass behind my friends.

The last thing I heard Riddlesberger yell was, “Who you talking to?”

“I was talking to myself. You know how I like to do that.”

“Am I gonna have to give you a twenty to get you to tell me who it was?”

“As you know, Riddlesberger, everything has its price . . . “