The Ape Man's Brother by Joe R. Lansdale Page B

opened on the sides of the wheelhouse, allowing the warmer outside air to stir about. Great leathery lizards flew about, and for a moment there was some consternation that one of them might attack our ship, but we glided down, easy, unmolested. There was a gap in the forest, a savanna, and we coasted toward it. As we did, we saw a herd of large, feathered lizards running on their hind legs, their heads leaning forward as if to show the way. We slowed to observe them continue their path until they were out of sight, then we stopped hovering and headed in for a landing.
    Instantly, things went wrong.
     
    …
     
    I have thought about this a lot, and I don’t know that I have an exact answer, but I have a strong speculation. At first I thought it was just because he had hidden so long, waited so long, was so goddamn angry, he couldn’t wait anymore. Instead of waiting until we landed, he came out of hiding and rampaged into the wheelhouse where everyone on board had gathered. He was carrying a revolver. He looked crazy. His red hair was standing up on his head like a blaze of fire. His face was near red as his hair. His eyes were wide and there was saliva drooling from the corners of his mouth. He looked like a man about to blow a major hose, and in that moment I knew his hatred of The Big Guy had driven him somewhat mad.
    You have probably guessed by now that Red had stowed on board, and that he had been the one who had been at the crackers and sardines, pissed all over he place, and when I pushed that wine rack back in place, all I did was help conceal him better, hiding back there behind it, probably on some makeshift bed. I curse myself for not being observant enough to have noticed.
    Red came storming into the wheelhouse carrying a revolver, calling The Big Guy a goddamn whoremonger, and calling The Woman a whore and a shit poke, and to top it off, he called me a fucking, chattering monkey. I will admit that I am sensitive to the comparison. The ape comparison is bothersome, but a monkey is a much more annoying association, perhaps because I do chatter a bit. I was a talker in my own language, but the English language opened up all manner of possibilities, and I have most likely taken advantage of all of them multiple times.
    That said, even I should know it’s bad storytelling to stop a story in the midst of momentum when someone enters into the wheelhouse with a gun, and especially since I’m trying to describe true events and let you know how things went. But there’s that chattering problem I just told you about. I may go off on a tangent at any moment; I think all the coffee I drink adds to it.
    I would like to say there was a big heroic moment that occurred, an immediate battle for the gun, but to be honest, we were all as stunned as if we had awakened to see the sunrise was blue. Red pointed the gun and fired. The shot hit The Big Guy in the stomach. The Big Guy dropped like a pig in the slaughterhouse. Red fired again, at me, but I was moving and the shot tore through the windshield. The Woman dropped to her knee, grabbed The Big Guy’s head, lifted it up. Everyone else hit the floor. It sounded like a wash woman had dropped wet laundry in there.
    As I said, I was moving. I went crazy. In that moment everything about me that was civilized went out that hole in the windshield, same as the bullet that blew it open. I sprang forward and grabbed Red as he fired. I felt a pain like a hot iron against my side, and then I had Red by the head with both hands, lifting him off his feet. I threw him toward the side windows, one of those that wasn’t open. He hit with such force the glass shattered into thousands of sun-winked stars; he went right through the opening his body made, out into the wind, the revolver flying from his hand as if it had gone to roost.
    I jumped to the window, looked down.
    He had fallen onto the top wing of one of the biplanes below, and was swinging himself to the lower wing on the port side