Moss’s scream reverberates throughout the valley. Even the birds are so frightened they take flight from their nests. But just as quickly, Moss slaps the palm of his hand over his mouth. He knows if someone hears the scream, their position will be compromised, and the show will be over before it begins.
Overhead, black clouds fill the sky, and already he can feel raindrops on his face. Hesitantly, he removes the hand from his mouth and looks down at his leg. The metal teeth that ridge the interior of the old steel trap clamps have buried themselves into his shin bone through the skin and flesh surrounding it. A piece of the shattered white bone is sticking out of the bloody, hamburger-like flesh. Just looking at it makes Moss so sick he immediately upchucks a combination of bile and mucous.
“Oh Christ,” he whispers to himself. “Get me out of here.”
What he knows so far, besides the fact that his leg and his mission to get to Mexico is now totally fucked: somebody had to have planted that antique, untagged, and very illegal trap, like the old-time trappers used to do in the fall, where they did not plan on trapping a bear, but instead to catch a man. A man in the form of he and/or Sweet, to be precise. The man-poachers, whoever the fuck they are, could, in fact, be watching him right now, working up the cojones needed to pounce on his sorry ass.
Then, coming from behind, a rustling through the thick brush.
Sweet.
The tall, skinny con stops suddenly, takes in the scene, his face assuming the expression of a man who just swallowed a live spider.
“What the fuck happened to you, Picasso?”
“What’s it look like?” Moss bellows, tears in his eyes, a tremor in his voice. “I fucking stepped into a fucking bear trap. A fucking outlawed trap with fucking teeth.”
Sweet feels his heart pick up speed inside his chest. His throat constricts, and his stomach grows tight. He’s never seen anything like this. Not even after he ran over the cop nearly two dozen times with the pickup, and the lawman’s flesh resembled raw hamburger.
“What the fuck do I do?” Sweet says, his words exiting his mouth with a tremble. “What the fuck, fuck, fuck do I do? How do I fix you, man?”
A flash of jagged lightning strikes the valley center. Thunder follows, making the earth tremble.
“Jesus, that was close,” Sweet adds while peering up at the darkening sky.
“Listen to me,” Moss says through clenched teeth. “You gotta open this thing up so I can free my leg.”
“How you expect me to do that? I weigh a buck thirty. I’ve got weak arms that belong to a computer geek.”
“You gotta find a stick. A strong stick that you can use to pry it open just long enough for me to pull the leg out. Understand?”
The rain starts coming down. Hard now.
“Okay, okay,” Sweet says, his beady eyes already looking around the woods and the clearing. “I’ll find something. Stay here.”
“I’m not going anywhere, dipshit.”
Sweet doubles back, wiping rainwater from eyes that are on the lookout for a stick. Something sturdy. Of course, the forest is full of sticks and branches. But he needs something that will fit the bill. Then, once more wiping the rain from his eyes, he sees something on the forest floor. A stick that looks sturdier than most. But also one narrow enough to fit into the small space between Picasso’s mangled leg and the steel trap clamps. Grabbing the stick, he goes to Moss, takes a knee beside him.
“Fuck, dude,” Sweet swallows, “I can hardly look at it; it’s so fucking gross.”
“Will you just please open the trap up already?” Moss grouses. But he’s gotta watch his mouth. The volume. It can carry, even in the woods. Even in the midst of a thunderstorm.
“Okay, okay,” Sweet says, positioning the stick between the two cleats. “You ready?”
“Just fucking do it. Open it.”
Sweet’s seen this situation before. On old Lassie reruns. Lassie finds a dude stuck in a trap and goes for help. When she finds Timmy, she barks and trots anxiously in a circle. Timmy’s just a kid, but he knows something’s up.
“What’s the matter, girl?” Timmy says.
“Bark, bark, bark,” says Lassie.
Timmy’s eyes go wide because he can translate those barks as easily as Han Solo can translate Chewbacca’s groans and grunts.
“What’s that?” Timmy says. “A man caught in a bear trap? Well, let’s go save him.”
“Okay, partner,” Sweet says, looking down at an agonized Moss. “Here we go.”
Standing, he presses both work-booted feet down on the two steel plates connected to the trap clamps. He then yanks the stick sideways, separating the clamps. The jagged teeth are yanked out of Moss’s bone and flesh, blood spurting and spraying in the falling rain. Moss screams like a girl but somehow manages to pull his foot out from between the open clamps.
But the stick is now covered with blood and rain, making it oil-slick slippery. Physics kicks in, and Sweet’s left hand slides south at the very instant the stick snaps in two and the clamps snap shut against his thumb, severing it at the knuckle. Now, it’s Sweet’s turn to scream while blood spurts out of an exposed red vein. The two of them are screaming and crying and bleeding and holding their wounds like their lives depend upon it.
“You fucking, fuck, fuck, fucking asshole, Picasso. That fucking thing took my thumb off. You fuck, fuck, fucker, I will get you for this.”
“How’s it my fault? Huh? How is it my fault? I’m just as fucked as you. More fucked because they’re gonna have to amputate my leg if I don’t get to a hospital. And right now, I can’t possibly go to a hospital, never mind Mexico. You got it?”
Lightning strikes again. It’s the devil’s way of laughing at them. Thunder follows along with a sheet of rain. For a moment, they both retreat into their pain and misery until a noise not associated with the forest captures their attention. It’s quiet at first but distinctive enough to raise the hairs on the back of Moss’s neck.
“You hear that, asshole?”
“What?” Sweet grouses, holding his damaged hand tightly by the wrist. “The thunder?”
“No.”
“Hear what, then?”
Moss sits up, fast. “Help me up, asshole. Help. Me. Up. Now.”
“Why, what’s going on? What do you hear?”
“Dogs, asshole. Whoever set up that ancient hillbilly trap is coming after us with his goddamned hillbilly dogs.”