SADLIER

    

    He crested the hill where their camp lay and saw them in the glow of the fire, Dulac on one side and Ruth on the other. Ruth strummed the battered old guitar and they passed a bottle of wine. From the way Dulac thrust the wine at him Sadlier knew he was drunk.

    “Finish it,” he said. The voice was slurred. “We have another.”

    Sadlier accepted the bottle, tilted it back, drained it and tossed it away. He stood behind Dulac and watched him uncork the bottle of red.

    Ruth continued strumming. She was a horrible guitar player. Sadlier rolled up his sleeves.

    There was little point in waiting.

    “Adieu mes amis,” he said.

    His hands moved down to the sides of Dulac’s head. His knees bent forward to brace the body. His powerful arms and shoulders flexed and twisted, snapping the head around to the side with a sound like green wood breaking. He released the body and Dulac fell toward the fire.

    Ruth’s guitar chord hung in the air. She opened her mouth to scream. He reached through the fire and pulled her toward him facedown into it and held her there until her legs stopped twitching and he could no longer stand the billowing smoke. He pushed her aside.

    Her hair was almost gone. The eyes boiled in their sockets. A small twig poked through the blackened upper lip.

    His hands were badly burned. In his excitement he barely felt them.

    Dulac was bleeding from the eyes, nose and mouth. Sadlier hoisted him up on his shoulder. He dropped to one knee and threw Ruth’s body over the other shoulder. They weren’t particularly heavy. Like starved children. Unmindful that someone might see him from another campsite he walked down the hill.

    For Sadlier their bodies were sacks of gold, jewels, precious metals.

    His purchase into eternity.