By Bizarre Hands Read Online Free PDF Page B

stretched Sapphire out on the ground on her back and was trying to blow air into her mouth. Occasionally he'd lift his head and say in tearful supplication, "Breathe for me, Sapphire, breathe for me."
    Each time Preacher blew a blast into the snake, its white underbelly would swell and then settle down, like a leaky balloon that just wouldn't hold air.
    George and Harry came together. Softly. They had their arms on each others shoulders and they leaned against one another, breathed each others breath.
    Above, the silence of the crowd was broken when a heckler yelled, "Start some music, the fuckers want to dance."
    "It's nothing personal," George said.
    "Not at all," Harry said.
    They managed to separate, reluctantly, like two lovers who had just copulated to the greatest orgasm of their lives.
    George bent slightly and put up his hands. The eye dangling on his cheek looked like some tentacled creature trying to crawl up and into the socket. Harry knew that he would have to work on that eye.
    Preacher screamed. Harry afforded him a sideways glance. Sapphire was awake. And now she was dangling from Preacher's face. She had bitten through his top lip and was hung there by her fangs. Preacher was saying something about the power to tread on serpents and stumbling about the pit. Finally his back struck the pit wall and he slid down to his butt and just sat there, legs sticking out in front of him, Sapphire dangling off his lip like some sort of malignant growth. Gradually, building momentum, the snake began to thrash.
    Harry and George met again in the center of the pit. A second wind had washed in on them and they were ready. Harry hurt wonderfully. He was no longer afraid. Both men were smiling, showing the teeth they had left. They began to hit each other.
    Harry worked on the eye. Twice he felt it beneath his fists, a grape-like thing that cushioned his knuckles and made them wet. Harry's entire body felt on fire—twin fires, ecstasy and pain.
    George and Harry leaned together, held each other, waltzed about.
    "You done good," George said, "make it quick."
    The black man's legs went out from under him and he fell to his knees, head bent. Harry took the man's head in his hands and kneed him in the face with all his might. George went limp. Harry grasped George's chin and the back of his head and gave a violent twist. The neck bone snapped and George fell back, dead.
    The copperhead, which had been poking its head out of Preacher's pocket, took this moment to slither away into a crack in the pit's wall.
    Out of nowhere came weakness. Harry fell to his knees. He touched George's ruined face with his fingers.
    Suddenly hands had him. The ramp was lowered. The crowd cheered. Preacher—Sapphire dislodged from his lip—came forward to help Sheriff Jimmy with him. They lifted him up.
    Harry looked at Preacher. His lip was greenish. His head looked like a sun-swollen watermelon, yet, he seemed well enough. Sapphire was wrapped around his neck again. They were still buddies. The snake looked tired. Harry no longer felt afraid of it. He reached out and touched its head. It did not try to bite him. He felt its feathery tongue brush his bloody hand.
    They carried him up the ramp and the crowd took him, lifted him high above their heads. He could see the moon and the stars now. For some odd reason they did not look familiar. Even the nature of the sky seemed different.
    He turned and looked down. The terriers were being herded into the pit. They ran down the ramp like rats. Below, he could hear them begin to feed, to fight for choice morsels. But there were so many dogs, and they were so hungry, this only went on for a few minutes. After a while they came back up the ramp followed by Sheriff Jimmy closing a big lock-bladed knife and by Preacher who held George's head in his outstretched hands. George's eyes were gone. Little of the face remained. Only that slick, bald pate had been left undamaged by the terriers.
    A pole came out