Chapter Five

“Rodney? Rodney?” A gentle hand tapped his arm. “Where you been? You looked like you went into a trance or something. You got real pale.”

“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing. I was just remembering when I got inducted into the Red Wattle Clan. Got into a barfight defending this little waitress. At least, I thought I was doing good… turns out the fellas giving her a hard time were her brothers. She didn’t take too kindly when I knocked out a couple of her brother’s teeth, and she walloped me over the head with a pitcher of beer for my trouble. Gave me a concussion, and I had to have surgery. Anyways, I got saved from the lot of them by a group of men who said they was members of the Red Wattle Clan. Made me one too, once I got out of the hospital. Daniel Riggs was the leader’s name.”

This time, it was Gideon’s skin that blanched as white as cream. He sat back in his chair and started to shake. “That name… was he a big man? Tall, and older, like maybe seventy? Had a scar on his face?”

Rodney sat up straighter, suddenly wide awake and interested. “Yeah, that sounds like him. Scar barely missed his right eye. He would be about seventy today. Do you know him?”

“I think… I think he may be the one who sent me here. I don’t know for sure.” He banged his fist on the table. “I can’t remember! Goddamn it, why can’t I remember?”

“Take a breath. It’ll come back to you. Think hard. Daniel Riggs. His friends were Jim, Buck, Ranch, Duke, and Buzz. Any of them sound familiar?”

Gideon shook his head. “I wish I could remember, but there’s just a big black hole in my head when I try, and then my head hurts.” He gestured toward the patch sitting in the little black velvet box on the table. “You still a member of the Red Wattles? How come you don’t wear your patch no more?”

“I stopped wearing that damn thing when I found out what miserable monsters Daniel Riggs and the rest of them were,” Rodney growled. He swept the small box off the table and stood up, then went into the bedroom to return it to its hiding place. He returned empty-handed and sat across from Gideon again.

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I think I said enough. You come in here wearing their colors and expect me to tell you why I think they’re monsters?”

“I don’t even remember being a member! I don’t know who the Red Wattle Clan are or why I’m wearing their patch!” Gideon countered. “All I know is I’m scared. I don’t know anything except my name. Daniel Riggs sounds familiar, and I have a dim picture in my head of what he looks like, but that don’t mean we’re best friends.”

“Don’t mean you’re not, neither.”

For the second time since Rodney had met him, Gideon showed a hint of anger. His pinched expression and grimly set mouth told Rodney a button had been pushed, setting off Gideon’s temper. “You calling me a liar?”

Rodney couldn’t help but chuckle. “You said yourself you don’t know nothing ’cept your name. How do you know what’s the truth and what ain’t?”

Gideon deflated like an old tire. “I guess that’s true. I don’t know. And that’s what’s driving me crazy.”

“Look, let’s go take a walk around the rodeo. Maybe something will spark another memory. If it turns out you was sent here by Daniel Riggs, well… we’ll figure out things then. Are you hungry?”

“Now that you mention it, yeah, I could eat.” Gideon’s stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly, as if in agreement. He stood up and turned toward the door.

“Whoa, wait a minute. Can’t just go out there and expect a handout. I ain’t got any money—do you?”

Gideon felt his pockets, then shook his head. “Not a cent.”

“Okay, no problem. We’ll do this old-school. Shift into your turkey, and I’ll shift into my rooster. We’ll scrounge over by the food tents. Always something decent to be found there, and it’s just after lunchtime. Pickings will be good.” Rodney paused before leading Gideon outside the trailer. “Just a warning—I ain’t too pretty as a rooster.”

Outside, they hid in the shadows between trailers and shifted. Rodney noted that Gideon made as fine turkey as he did a man—plump, with fluffy black, white, and brown feathers, thick thighs, and a bright red wattle. His tail fanned out in a perfect semicircle behind him, each feather standing proud and unbroken.

Rodney was almost ashamed to shift next to him. He was scraggly, having been in too many fights to remain handsome. His feathers were limp or broken, his tail, ratty. He was missing an eye, and his comb was faded and had seen better days. To his relief—and Gideon’s credit—Gideon didn’t remark on Rodney’s appearance even though Rodney knew he looked as if he belonged in a house of horror instead of running around a rodeo.

Rodney led Gideon back to the food trucks using his usual route—scooting from under one trailer to the next, then squeezing between tents and generally staying out of sight. He led them to a space between the arepas tent and the frybread tent, where they were sure to find crumbs and kernels of corn on the ground. Finding an empty picnic table where the ground was rich in dropped food bits, they happily pecked until their bellies were full.

Suddenly, Rodney forgot all about his stomach and food when he heard a pair of voices speaking in low tones nearby. He hid under the table and motioned for Gideon to keep still.

“He’s got to be here somewhere. Daniel said this is where he’d probably come since it was the last place they talked about before the accident.” The voice was gruff and growly, and completely unfamiliar to Rodney.

“He can’t possibly know that. Gideon could be anywhere by now. Besides, why does Daniel care?” a second voice chimed in, complaining.

“He cares because Gideon is a member, that’s why, and he knows all our secrets. He knows about what we’ve got planned for next month.”

“Shh! You want somebody to hear you?” the second voice, not as deep as the first, hissed.

“I didn’t say nothing. Look, I’m going back. I’m tired already.”

“You’ll go back when we find Gideon and not before! You do, Daniel will have you made into soup for your trouble.”

The two men wandered off down the midway, looking carefully into each tent as they passed. One was taller than the other, broader through the shoulders, and had dark hair. The other was a redhead, shorter but stocky. Rodney didn’t recognize either one.

But Gideon certainly did. One look at Gideon was all Rodney needed to understand that was a fact. If turkeys could look frightened, Gideon would have looked positively terrified.

Clucking softly, Rodney urged Gideon back the way they’d come, keeping to the shadows and out of sight until they reached Rodney’s trailer. Then they both shifted forms and slipped inside.

Gideon was as pale as milk and shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. Rodney hurried to pour them both a shot of whiskey. Gideon tossed his back without saying a word, then reached for Rodney’s and drank that one too.

“You ready to talk about who those men were?” Rodney asked. He poured them both another shot and drank his before Gideon could reach for it. Then he put the bottle up, figuring it wouldn’t do either of them any good to get wasted. Something told him he needed to keep his wits about him.

“The big one is called Rambo. After the character in that action movie. You know it? The one with Sylvester Stallone?”

Rodney nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I know it. And the other?”

“The short one is Goze. ’Member me telling you about him? He hates the name, but he’s stuck with it. Nobody will call him anything else.”

Rodney nodded. “So, you were in an accident, at least according to them. Do you remember anything else about it? Why are they looking for you?”

“I have a picture in my mind of playing pool with them in a bar. A memory, maybe? I don’t know why Riggs sent them after me.” Gideon looked as if he wanted another drink or at least to lick the shot glasses clean. At least he’d stopped shaking and a little of his color had returned.

“They said you were in an accident,” Rodney pressed. “Do you remember any of that?”

Gideon shook his head, then shrugged. “No… maybe. I don’t know. I seem to remember flashing red lights, and the taste of blood in my mouth. Like I told Doc McCready. That’s all, though.”

“It must be how you got the head injury, and lost your memory,” Rodney said. “That’s one mystery solved. What did they mean when they said you know about their plans for next month?”

“I have no idea about that, I swear.”

Rodney looked at Gideon long and hard, then finally nodded his head. “I believe you.” He thought about taking the bottle of booze out of the cabinet again, but silently talked himself out of it. Drinking wouldn’t solve anything right now. “We need to find out more.”

“How?”

“By following them. Eavesdropping on their conversation.”

“How are we supposed to do that without them seeing us?”

Rodney grinned. “Oh, they’ll probably see us… but they don’t know me, and they won’t recognize you.” He stood up. “Come on, hurry before we lose their trail.”

He motioned for Gideon to follow him out of the trailer again. Then Rodney turned on a hose attached to the side of his trailer and made a nice, wet mud puddle on the ground. “Shift into your turkey form.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it. You want to get your memory back, don’t you?”

“Well… yeah.”

“So shift.”

Gideon did as he was told. He made a fine form of a tom turkey, plump with lovely plumage. Rodney almost felt sorry for what he was going to do to Gideon.

“Okay, now roll around in the mud.”

“Gobble? Gobble gobble.” Gideon’s head lifted and his eyes popped wide.

“I don’t care. You have to. This is the only way those two men won’t recognize you if they spot us.”

“Gobble, gobble, gobble!”

“Swearing at me isn’t going to change anything. And I don’t need the mud bath. They’ve never seen me before, and I’m ugly enough anyway.”

“Gobble. Gobble.”

Rodney chuckled. “Thanks, but I know what I look like. I’m not a handsome bird. Not anymore, anyway.” He smiled as he watched Gideon roll around in the mud, squatting and squirming and bouncing. Within a few minutes, Gideon was a muddy, bedraggled mess. “And now you ain’t, neither.”

He shifted into his rooster and clucked low in his throat. Then he led Gideon back toward where they’d last seen the two men. He picked up the trail quickly, after only a few minutes of pecking and scratching the ground. Then he took off at a trot, with Gideon hurrying behind him.

People jumped out of their way when they saw them coming, most commenting on the ugliness of the rooster and the muddy condition of the turkey and wondering why the rodeo allowed the fowl to run amuck on the fairgrounds. Rodney ignored them all, not even taking the time to peck at any of them.

Soon he spotted the men near the corral where the demon bulls were kept. He signaled Gideon to slow down and led him into the shadows cast by a tent. Cautiously, he crept closer to where the two men stood, talking, until he and Gideon were close enough to overhear the conversation. He began pecking at the ground in a typical rooster fashion, encouraging Gideon to do the same, while he listened.

“Daniel says we have to find him and bring him back,” Rambo said. “Gideon was always a good guy, but Daniel says it’s too dangerous to the mission to have him running around. He has to be brought back to the clan.”

“Wonder why he didn’t come back to the Red Wattle hangout after he crashed and burned his bike? He just wandered off. It’s weird, ain’t it?” Goze mused.

“Daniel says maybe the crash wasn’t an accident. He says Gideon was never keen on blowing up the turkey farm. Too much collateral damage, Gideon said. Daniel thinks maybe Gideon tried to fake his own death or something.”

“How do you fake your own death without leaving a body?”

“You don’t. He thought Daniel would think his body burnt up in the fire. Everybody knows that don’t happen. We watch Bones and CSI, for God’s sake. Takes a hotter fire than that to leave nothing but ashes. But Gideon didn’t know that, I guess.”

“Gobble, gobble, gobble!” Gideon huffed and puffed out his chest, rustling his tail feathers aggressively.

“Bwack.” Rodney hushed him. Now was not the time to get angry. They had to keep their heads while they were in bird form. They were too vulnerable to attack.

“Man, Goze, look at these two ugly-ass birds! Not exactly Red Wattle material, huh?”

“I never seen a turkey so filthy. I can smell them from here. Don’t this place take care of its poultry?” Rambo sniffed. He swung a foot toward Rodney, kicking up dust. “Go on, you piece of shit. Get out of here!”

“You don’t think that might be Gideon, do you?” Goze wanted to know.

“Are you kidding? Gideon would slit his own throat before he let himself look like that Thanksgiving reject!” Rambo said and laughed. “Besides, what would he be doing with a one-eyed rooster?” He kicked more dirt at Rodney and Gideon, trying to shoo them away.

Exactly how many turkeys did they think could be running around free at a rodeo? What was Daniel thinking to send these two idiots after Gideon? Surely, he knew how stupid they were. Did he think Gideon would be so easy to take down that these two nitwits could do it? Rodney just stared at them with an open beak, utterly gobsmacked by their stupidity.

“Go on! Get, before I get my granny to bake you into Sunday dinner!” Goze yelled. He joined Rambo in kicking dirt at the two birds.

It took everything Rodney had not to shift and plow his fist into Goze and Rambo’s faces, but they needed more information first. They needed to find out where the target turkey farm was for one thing, and the rest of Gideon’s story for another. But then, he promised himself, all bets were off. He was going to peck this guy’s balls off.

He squawked and ran in to peck at the men’s legs, getting a few good jabs in before he herded a very angry Gideon away from the men and behind a tent. They shifted, and Rodney held a finger to his lips, signally Gideon to remain silent, as difficult as it was. He needed to hear what the men had to say.

“Goddamn! That fucking bird drew blood!” Goze’s voice carried to them.

“Yeah, me, too. I’m pecked up and scratched. I ought to go find them and wring their fucking necks!” Rambo said. “Listen, I’m getting really tired of this fucking place. We looked. Gideon ain’t here. If he was, we would’ve found him already. We need to get back. The attack goes down next month and that’s only a couple of weeks away, and we still need to recon the Haversham Turkey Farm again and help wire the explosives.”

“Daniel will be pissed if we don’t find Gideon.”

“Hey, I have an idea. Maybe what Daniel don’t know won’t hurt him,” Rambo said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we tell Daniel Gideon offed himself. Oh! Better yet, say he was in turkey-form, got caught, and got thrown into the fryer at the deep-fried turkey leg place. Who’s gonna tell Daniel different? Gideon sure as shit ain’t coming back. If he was, he would’ve already.”

Rodney could hear the smile in Goze’s voice. “Perfect! I want out of here, too. There’s a bottle of whiskey with my name on it waiting at the bar. Let’s go!”

Rodney peeked around the corner of the tent, and watched Goze and Rambo walk away toward the exit. He puffed out a sigh of relief, then turned to Gideon. “Okay. They’re leaving. Haversham Turkey Farm. Does that ring a bell?”

Gideon nodded. “I remember there being a farm not too far from the bar. It must be the one they’re talking about. I remember they kept their birds in awful conditions, and Daniel wanted to do something about it. I guess blowing it up was his solution.”

“But you were worried too many innocent birds and people might die.”

Gideon bit his lip. “I guess so. I wish I could remember!”

Rodney patted his shoulder. “It’s okay. I don’t suppose you remember what bar they were talking about, do you? It’s not the same one I met them at—that’s way back in Gasper. But, let’s not worry on it just yet. It’s coming back to you, in bits and pieces. Let’s go back to the trailer and talk about it. Maybe you’ll remember more.”