Renewal 3 - Your Basic Swiss Family by Jf Perkins Page A

next to him, and said through a clenched jaw, “Kill this arrogant motherfucker.”
    The Judge’s man went for his own revolver, but never even touched it. Kirk moved so fast that it was not clear what he actually did. Only the results were clear. Within the first second, blood sprayed out of the man’s neck onto the Judge, who was blinded by the red deluge, and Kirk’s knife paused, buried in the man’s chest. The Judge’s men froze, shocked into inaction by the incredible display of violence. But only for an instant; then they panicked. The line of men were bringing their guns to bear on Kirk, all of them at once. His show of force made them momentarily forget that there were 120 other guns trained on them. A stunning blast of near-simultaneous gunfire dropped the Judge’s not-so-well-trained men before they fired a single shot, unless one death spasm shot into the sky counted for anything.
    Terry and Dusty lifted their heads over the edge of the ditch. They had seen Kirk’s blinding attack, and had run like hell. Terry’s biggest impression of the aftermath was that Bill and Kirk were still standing, as if nothing unusual had happened, side by side.
    The Judge was untouched, as was planned. He finished wiping the blood from his eyes, and squinting and blinking, he attempted to absorb the scene. Not a single one of his men was alive, his trucks were gone, and in all likelihood, he was about to die.
    “We’re not going to kill you, Judge,” Bill said. “Although I’d say you deserve it, and worse.”
    “You son of a bitch. You killed my men!” the Judge screamed the last part, tears running down his cheeks, leaving trails in the drying blood.
    “No, Judge. You killed your men. You ordered an attack in a situation where any fool would have walked away. You let your huge ego kill your men.”
    “I’ll kill you.”
    “Maybe it’s been too long since you had to fight fair. You don’t seem to understand the concept.”
    The Judge was looking around, trying to see past the line of armed Teeny Town residents who had stopped aiming in his direction.
    Bill watched him search and then said, “Oh, the men you sent out here last night? We took them. Seven men.”
    Bill could see from the change in the Judge’s face, that he had crushed the last hope from the man. He was wrong. The Judge’s expression changed again, screwed tight into a mask of fury, and he yanked the gun from his holster. Kirk moved again. The bystanders saw the first hint of movement, a curving blur, and then the gun was in Kirk’s hand, pointed at the Judge’s chest.
    That was it. Kirk lifted the Judge’s other polished revolver from its holster, and handed it to Bill. Kirk patted the Judge down, took his belt knife, and the little .25 automatic from the small of his back. Jerry Doan Jenkins sat on the ground like a little boy throwing a tantrum.
    He looked up at Bill and said, “What are you going to do to me?”
    “Why, we’re going to turn you over to the state, in accordance with the law.”
     
    Chapter 3 - 6
    Terry discovered that the Teeny Town community had a prison. This knowledge set him a bit off balance, since the whole of the community seemed far too idyllic to require a lockup. It was located away from the settlement, across the main road to the south, and apparently in the woods. Bill and Kirk and a select few of Kirk’s elite team were walking the judge across a giant expanse of open field, in the direction of a line of tall trees. The Judge was trudging slowly, and Bill occasionally reminded the man that he should pick up the pace, since the county helicopter was not likely to spot him. The county helicopter, of course, was a burnt pile of scrap by then.
    “It’s not just the prison,” Bill was saying quietly to Terry as they trailed Kirk’s group. “It’s mostly our training ground. About ninety-nine percent of the time, training; one percent, prison. You’ll see. We’ve only used it that way a half dozen times,