Read Online Prometheus Road by Bruce Balfour - Free Book Online Page B

the corner of his eye, he saw Butterbean step into the fiery glow from downhill, and turned just in time to see a shovel close to his face. Tom ducked and raised an arm, deflecting the shovel’s path but feeling intense pain in his arm as he stumbled backward and fell on top of Humboldt, who grunted under his weight, then tried to grab Tom’s arms and hold his back flat against his chest. Seeing another opening, Butterbean moved in with his shovel and took another swing, and Tom remembered what his father had taught him about turning the other cheek—just long enough to surprise an attacker and fight back. Now his father was dead along with the rest of his family, and people like this were responsible for it, and that made him angry.
    Tom took the blow from the shovel in his ribs, then he saw popping lights in his vision, but he managed to roll over Humboldt’s head and swing upward with his pipe, catching Butterbean under the jaw. Butterbean nearly flew over the granite outcropping. Humboldt rotated and kicked Tom in the side of the head, then Tom glimpsed the rest of the group running toward him as he rolled a few times over broken sticks and rocks that cut his arms and face.
    Helix had been watching the entire fight from a safe perch on top of a log, which was fine with Tom because he didn’t want the little dog to get hurt. However, Helix had only been biding his time, waiting for an opening. With Humboldt off-balance, Helix ran forward, bit him on the leg, rolled his eyes happily when Humboldt screamed, then released his prey and darted back to his log before the big man could hit him. With Helix running back and forth, several of the men stumbled against each other to avoid tripping over the dog, leaving only three to swing pipes at Tom from different directions. Tom blocked two of them with his own pipe when he jumped up out of the dirt, but the third caught him on his left side, knocking him back against a tree. The rough bark ripped open the back of his shirt.
    Then Tom remembered his family again, his anger submerged the pain, and the steel pipe he carried became an extension of his arm, whistling back and forth in wild arcs, cutting through the clusters of men in the flickering light as if they were stalks of wheat waiting to be harvested. And they fell like wheat, except for the yelling and screaming. Then he had no more attackers, which was good since he was perched on the edge of a granite ledge jutting out over a long, rocky slope in the darkness. Helix cocked his head in Tom’s direction, then snapped to attention again and growled.
    That was when Humboldt hit Tom with an oak branch that snapped across his shoulders. It wasn’t as hard as one of the pipes or shovels, but it was heavy, and it was enough to knock Tom off the ledge.
    He landed on his feet, hurting one ankle, then rolled down the steep slope, slamming into logs, bouncing off rocks, filling his boots and his mouth with loose dirt as he spun through the darkness, desperately trying to flail his arms and legs enough to stop his descent, feeling every part of his body that had been damaged in the fight along with the new pains he was collecting on the way down. It was a welcome relief to smash into a large bush that halted his flight.
    Helix bounded down the slope and slid to a stop next to Tom’s head before sniffing his hair and finally licking the side of his face. Tom groaned and raised two fingers to scratch Helix’s chest, and that seemed to satisfy the dog’s curiosity, because he sat down to lick his front paws.
    Tom heard moaning and voices at the top of the slope high overhead. “Did you kill him, then?” someone asked. It sounded like Butterbean, but Tom wasn’t sure at that distance.
    “Think so,” Humboldt said. “Not sure. But I’m not climbing down there in the dark to find out. We can check in the morning. Let’s collect the lads and drag them home.”
    “What if he gets away?”
    “After a fall like that, and the