Southern Cross Read Free

Swamp.
    Static.
    “. . . Loraine . . .” Bubba’s fractured voice was back. “. . . At old pumps . . . cut engine . . . headlights off so don’t wake . . .”
    Static, and the cell cleared.
    “Chief Hammer?” West said. “Chief Hammer? Are you still there?”
    “Bubba . . .” the second stranger crackled again. “Somebody’s on . . .”
    Static, scratch, blare, blip.
    “Goddamn it,” West muttered when her phone went dead.
     
    Bubba’s real name was Butner Fluck IV. Unlike so many fearless men devoted to pickup trucks, guns, topless bars and the Southern Cross, he had not been born into the tribe of Bubbas, but rather had grown up the son of a theologian in the Northside neighborhood of Ginter Park, where old mansions were in disrepair and Civil War cannonballs on porches were popular. Butner came from a long line of Butners who always went by the nickname “But,” and it was lost on his erudite father, Dr. But Fluck III, that callinghis son But in this day and age set the child up for problems.
    By the time little But had entered the first grade, the slurs, the slander and the derision were on every tongue. They were whispered in class, shouted on buses and playing fields, and drawn on sheets of notebook paper slipped from desk to desk or left inside little But’s locker. When he wrote his name it was But Fluck. In the teacher’s grade books he was Fluck, But.
    Any way he looked at it, he was screwed, really, and of course his peers came up with any number of other renditions. Mother-But-Flucker, Butter-Flucker, But-Flucking-Boy, Buttock-Fluck, and so on. When he retreated into his studies and went to the head of the class, new pet names were added to the list. But-Head, Fluck-Head, Mother-Flucking-But-Head, Head-But-Head, et al.
    For But’s ninth birthday he requested camouflage and several toy guns. He became a compulsive eater. He spent a lot of time in the woods hunting imaginary prey. He immersed himself in a growing stash of magazines featuring mercenary soldiers, anarchists, trucks, assault weapons, Civil War battlefields and women in swimsuits. He collected manuals on simple car care and repair, automotive tools and wiring, wilderness survival, fishing, and hiking in bear country. He sneaked cigarettes and was rude. His tenth year he changed his name to Bubba and was feared by all.
    This early Monday morning Bubba was driving home from third shift at Philip Morris, his CB and two-way radios turned on, his portable phone plugged into the cigarette lighter, Eric Clapton on the CD player. His stainless steel Colt Anaconda .44 with its eight-inch barrel and Bushnell Holo sight on a B-Square base was tucked under his seat within quick reach.
    Multiple antennas bobbed on his red 1990 Jeep Cherokee, which Bubba did not realize had been listed in the Used Car Buying Guide as a used car to avoid, or that it had been wrecked and had a hundred thousand more miles on it than the odometer showed. Bubba had no reason todoubt his good buddy, Joe “Smudge” Bruffy, who last year had sold the Jeep to Bubba for only three thousand dollars more than the Blue Book value.
    In fact, it was Smudge who Bubba had been talking to on the portable phone moments earlier when two other voices broke in. Bubba hadn’t been able to make out what the two women were saying, but the name “Chief Hammer” had been unmistakable. He knew it meant something.
    Bubba had been raised in a Presbyterian atmosphere of predestination, God’s will, inclusive language, exegesis and colorful stoles. He had rebelled. In college he had studied Far Eastern religions to spite his father, but none of Bubba’s acting out had eradicated the essence of his early indoctrination. Bubba believed there was purpose. Despite all setbacks and personal flaws, he had faith that if he accumulated enough good karma, or perhaps if yin and yang ever got along, he would discover the reason for his existence.
    So when he heard Chief