King of the Horseflies Read Free Page A

“He’s over here!” Bullets hit the ground, trees, the river, and his backpack. He doesn’t want to get wet, but his only option now to save himself is to get in this river. Carver dives in headfirst trying to hold on to his pack, but he loses it. The river seems to be speeding up and sucking him farther in so he can’t get out on the other end.
    He’s not a strong swimmer by any standard as he struggles to come up for air. He takes a deep breath as he goes under again. With his eyes open, he tries to paddle up but notices the water in front of him is getting brighter with daylight as if he’s coming out the other end of a train tunnel. He thinks he knows what it is, so his eyes get wide with worry. Whoosh! He takes air falling from a forty-foot water fall. He doesn’t scream on the way down; he just covers his crotch with one hand and pinches his nose with the other. Carver plunges into the cold, icy river water below.
    The hunting crew runs alongside the river. The sheriff shows up last. “Where is he?” the Sheriff asks.
    “Clarence had a shot at him and missed,” says Ricky.
    “I didn’t miss. He moved last second,” Clarence defends himself.
    “That doesn’t answer my question. Where the hell is he?” Sheriff Willy asks.
    “He was running by the river and just sort of disappeared.”
    “The hell he disappeared,” says the sheriff. “He probably dove in the creek, which means he probably went over the falls.”
    Jerry says, “Which probably means he’s dead.”
    “Well, let’s not assume, ’cause you know what happens when you assume, right? You make an ass out of you and Clarence for missing that shot. Now let’s get down there and find a body. If there ain’t no body, that means he’s still alive. Let’s go!”
    They all gather themselves and head down river.
    Carver suddenly explodes out of the water, huffing for precious air. He slicks his long black hair towards his back and begins to walk out of the water onto the rocky shoreline. He looks behind him to see if he’s been spotted while sitting out in the open, but no one watches. He searches for his bag along the rocky river and sees it jammed in between three large, grey stones in the water. He rushes over as fast as he can, looking over his shoulder to make sure he doesn’t get shot in the process. Just five feet from the bag, he hears a gun shot that strikes the ground merely inches away from him. Carver reacts by jumping to his right side away from the shot. He glances behind and sees three or so men at the edge of the waterfall. He attempts to reach for the bag again, but another shot lands almost exactly where the first did, near his left foot. “Damn it!” he screams. Carver runs into the woods out of the gunmen’s field of view.
    Sheriff Willy slowly trots up behind the three that were shooting at Carver.
    “Did ya get ’im?" he asks as he peeks over the edge of the falls.
    “ Naw, he ran off in the woods ’fore we could get a clear shot at ’im,” they replied.
    “So all three of you missed? What the hell are y’all shooting at? The damn gnats flying round his head?”
    Deputy Ricky replies, “He was reaching for something in the water, looks like a sack or something. He looked pretty intent on getting it, but he couldn’t reach it in time.”
    “Good, I want eyes on that bag until we get down there. If he comes out to get it, shoot him! Ricky, did you search that bag when we brought him into the station?”
    “N-no, no,” Ricky stutters. “I thought you searched it ’fore you got there.”
    “Dag nab it, Ricky, how many times I told you that procedure is to always double check whoever we book? He’s hiding something in that bag, and we’re gonna see what it is.”
    The whole crew treks around to a safer route to the bottom of the waterfall minus Wallace Williams. Wallace, or W2, which his friends pronounce Dub-ya 2, stays back and keeps his barrel on sight of the backpack floating in the water. He is