"I don't mind, Big-," Pappy began.
"Give those knees a peaceful easy," Fat Daddy said. "Let the Groggie's pet handle it."
"I don't mind," Valentine said.
The worst part was he had to kneel down; Fat Daddy's joined bunks sagged so with the man's weight in it. Kneeling and leaning forward with the sawed-off water bottle made his bad leg hurt.
Beach Boy giggled as Fat Daddy filled the bottle. Disgusted, Valentine felt the plastic go warm in his hand.
"Give him a tap," Fat Daddy ordered.
Valentine pulled the bottle away.
"Don't you hear right, son? You're slower than a wooden Indian. I told you to tap it off. Now me sheet's all soiled."
"Ah-ah-ah," Beach Boy said, waggling his finger in Valentine's direction from behind the garden-slug form of his protector.
For a man who had taken the whole group's soap ration, his bedding was remarkably dirty. Valentine threw the contents of the warm jug into Fat Daddy's face.
For a full ten seconds Fat Daddy remained frozen, as though his brain couldn't quite absorb the splashed urine as well as the sheets and his shirtfront.
"You cunt!" Beach Boy spat.
"You'll regret that!" Fat Daddy bellowed, a rising tide of flesh coming for Valentine.
Valentine's only regret was that he didn't leave a few ounces for Beach Boy's concealer-coated face.
He backpedaled and bounced off the chest of one of the other laborers, who'd gathered to get a look at Scar's humiliation.
"Excuse me," Valentine said, but the man shoved him toward Fat Daddy.
Fat Daddy got a grip on his shirt and started slapping him, hard, back and forth. Valentine lashed out, felt his fist glance off a meaty pectoral rather than the chin he'd been aiming for.
"Oh, will you," Fat Daddy snarled. The slaps turned into closed-fist blows, hard, into the painful sweet T between nose and eyeline.
Valentine went momentarily blind. He felt more hands grabbing at him, a hot panting.
"Finish his ass-face off, Daddy," Beach Boy said, strong fingers suddenly pulling at his hair.
The smooth-chested bastard twisted his ear, hard, as though trying to tear it off. Something that must have been a brick struck him in the jaw, and through sheets of rainbow lighting Valentine saw Fat Daddy pulling back for another punch.
Then it came. The red rage. It flooded through Valentine's bloodstream from somewhere behind his liver. When it hit his chest and heart, he felt as though his hot muscles might burn through his skin. Valentine had Bear blood in him by way of his father. A lifetime of unconscious emotional training held it in check-but when some combination of pain, fear, anger, and sweat washed through him, the shadow monster slipped its leash.
He pulled the two men pinning his arms down to the ground-hard. Fingers closed on a forearm and he felt a snap, his fist tightened as though he were pinching off a flowing garden hose. With his right hand he grabbed something-anything-and got a finger. He twisted and it popped off like a banana squeezed out of its skin.
Beach Boy shrieked and hopped away, injured hand clasped between his knees.
Fat Daddy looked down in horror. Valentine saw his snarl reflected in the formerly eager eyes.
Valentine spun on his hip so his body faced opposite Fat Daddy's, got his instep across his throat, and kept a hold tight on the chunky arms.
A horrible crushing, choking sound from his windpipe: Kckchckhhh . . .
Whistles and calls of fight! Fight in the pens! sounded like the distant roaring of falls in a canyon far below.
Valentine rose, picked up Fat Daddy by the waistband and neck-hole, and threw him around like a tackling dummy. Thunk-up against the wall. Then Valentine tested the man's ability to cushion an attempt to bust through the cinder blocks. He smelled blood. The cinder blocks didn't give but something in the man did and Valentine upended him onto the floor and came down after him, leading with a hard-driving elbow as though trying to knock a new drain hole. Again, the floor resisted the blow, but a cartilaginous sound like a thick sheaf of paper tearing showed that his victim's body saved the floor from its punishment. Valentine picked him up again and saw men scattering, threw the broken body through one set of bunks and knocking down a second.
Valentine raged around an ever-widening circle of men in white scrubs. Some sane sliver of his consciousness realized he was foaming at the mouth.