The afternoon sun was shining down through the browning trees as he began to kick-start his ‘Beast’ as he called it, and then his phone lit up. He slid it to his ear without checking, figuring it was Mammy Dread reminding him that he was a dead man if he wasn’t gone by now. “Hello, Eddie here.”
“Medicine-warrior Eddie, Three-Rivers over here. I need assistance called getaway. I am now a criminal—a bad hunted boy.”
“Where you at?”
“I am lurking behind the dumpster. It stinks back here. Please get me away to your Town of Burnt Men called Baltimore.”
“I’m comin’ around son.”
He fired up the Beast and spun around back to pick up Three-Rivers, who was dressed in a gray tuxedo, flashy cowboy boots and a gangster hat cocked like he should be on stage rapping. The kid also had a small briefcase which fit into Eddie’s one empty saddlebag. He strapped Dawn Star’s helmet onto the little Indian boy and helped him up behind him, and they were off toward I-95 and Baltimore.
The boy had to scream in his ear to be heard as he took a right out of the parking lot, “Thank you Eddie, you are a true warrior.”
“I wish I was son, ‘cause I jus’ picked a fight I can’t win.”
Oh snap, she tracking you fool!
Eddie pulled the Beast over next to a storm drain and threw his cell down into its echoing depths. “Well son, you want to run from Mammy you bes’ toss dat phone down dare or she’s gonna be on us like white on rice.”
Three-Rivers gave a wide grin and heaved his phone through the grate. “Take a picture Mother!”
They both laughed hard all the way to the interstate ramp. Then he shouted over his shoulder, “You want you a thunderbeast son? Try dis out!”
He gunned it and let it roar up the ramp, not even picking a spot but just tearing right onto the shoulder and blowing by the rush hour traffic toward one big mess of trouble. For the moment though he did not care. Three-Rivers was holding on tight with his tiny hands and screeching what he said was the ‘Song of the Thunderbirds’. So they were off, doing 80 MPH up I-95, and Eddie felt like a man again.
You know son that you are a dead man riding.
Hell yes to that! But Mammy Dread’s going to have to catch us first!
Yes, and let’s stop thinking about the process right there, because the rest is not going to be pleasant.
