Snap, Crackle, Pop: Redemption

March 1927

Fog blanketed the woods as the brothers huddled together. They crouched behind a bush, directing curses toward the chill air. Remains of a snowfall three weeks prior lay around them - it was not quite warm enough to melt, but still cold enough to put a shiver in their bones. They could do little more than rub their hands together, though. They knew they'd need to keep still. Beneath the road just in front of them was five hundred pounds of black powder, and they could see lights coming around the corner.

They'd been planning this job for months. Paul, the self-appointed leader of the crew, had a nasty habit of taking things too far. They'd been under a lot of heat since he popped that guard at the last place they hit; all the newspapers said he'd get the chair if the police ever caught up with him.

Paul didn't seem worried by this–if anything, it emboldened him. And why should he be afraid? Paul was a tough boy from the old country. Came to America at age five and scrapped for every penny he'd earned - if you could truly use the word "earn" to describe his work, that is. Perhaps "scrapped" doesn't quite fit either. Most of his loot was backed more by blood than by gold. Writers kept saying the Wild West era was over: law and order had won out, and the days of every bandit in America were numbered. But Paul wasn't what you'd call well-read.

The brothers fell in with Paul's crew, the Flatheads, after a new round of layoffs at the mine where they worked. The guard on duty had been shot in a robbery and the owner hadn't thought to insure the operation. They found their names - Sam, Carl, and Pete - among two dozen others in red ink on a notice when everyone arrived for first shift. They ran into Paul that night at the tavern, and put two and two together when he accidentally flashed his Colt after buying the place a round for the third or fourth time.

If you can't beat 'em... well, the boys did need jobs.

Across the road, Paul put a finger to his lips and nodded in the direction of the approaching truck. It would be directly over the black powder in about thirty seconds.

Onboard was payroll for the mine up in Coverdale, and Pete just happened to know a boy who worked there. That boy's foreman just happened to have made a pass at his sister and bragged to the second shift that he'd gone all the way with her at the theater. That boy just happened to know exactly what time a truck would roll in, carrying bags and bags of money. And the owner of the Coverdale mine just happened to be a little smarter than the one where Sam, Carl, and Pete had worked. He had insurance.

The air was thick with more than just fog now, as the armored truck appeared slowly around the bend. A trail car followed, but they'd planned for that with another mound of explosives just behind the main one.

Paul's wild grin began to spread across his face as the front axle reached just the right spot and–

POW!

The force of the blast flipped the truck into the air, then gravity brought it down onto its roof. The eerie silence that followed the explosion came rushing back as sound waves echoed off the mountains, and it morphed into a high pitched whine that would leave everyone's ears sensitive for a week. Smoke from the engine clouded the road, and if it was difficult to see before in the fog, it was now nearly impossible.

Paul and the brothers rushed in, guns drawn, though it was clear that all the guards were either stunned or knocked out.

"On the ground!" Paul roared as the truck driver came to. He and Sam handled the truck, while Carl and Pete closed in on the trail car. They all glanced down the road to make sure they were alone, and they were, just as the boy said they would be.

The truck driver cowered. "Please, mister, I got a family!"

Paul drew back his pistol and whacked the side of the man's skull, crumpling him in a heap the ground. He stepped back, took aim at the unconscious body, but Sam grabbed his arm.

"Not this time," Sam growled. "We got enough attention on us already. Let's grab the cash and get outta here."

Reluctantly, Paul stood down, but not before firing off a menacing glare in Sam's direction. "Pop, grab the bag," he said, using Pete's code name they often employed when they were forced to leave targets alive. "Crackle, keep an eye on the other driver and make sure he don't try anything funny," he told Carl.

He turned back to Sam. "Snap," he said, "gimme a hand with this loot." And they pried open the back of the truck with a crowbar.

September 1927

Sam, Carl, and Pete huddled over a table near the back of the tavern, waiting. He should have been here by now. They'd agreed to meet at eight o'clock and it was almost eleven.

After two hours without a word, Pete finally broke the silence: "How long are we gonna stick around here?"

Carl gritted his teeth hard. "He'll come," he murmured. "He has to."

"How the hell would you know?" Pete whispered a bit louder than he meant to. "When has he ever been late? Next person who comes through the door might be him, or it might be ten cops looking for others in the gang to flip on him."

After the truck robbery, Paul had made a show of dividing up the money - more than a hundred thousand dollars in total - and taking half, explaining his plan to travel south loudly so the driver of the trail car would hear him and tip off the police. What he didn't say was that the brothers would be taking the cash, and he would take decoy bags full of rice instead. Since he was the leader (and already wanted on murder charges), they figured the police would chase after him, and they could all catch up to split the take later. But the plan went to shit when the cops tracked him down in a wooded cabin thirty miles away.

Sam, knowing how quickly these two could conjure a fight from nothing, put a hand on each brother's shoulder. "Give him another hour or so, then we're gone."

Pete's face turned so red he looked as if he might burst. "Then what? What's he going to think when he shows up to collect and we're nowhere to be found?"

A few other patrons around them had grown quiet by now, and the brothers realized they were being stared at. Pete lowered his voice back to a whisper. "He'll think we double-crossed him and then he'll come for us."

Paul had spent about five months in jail after his capture, but he was back on the run now. He and another prisoner grabbed hold of a guard's rifle and shot their way to freedom three weeks prior. Word was that he would be heading back west, and all he needed to go was his share of the money.

"Keep quiet. We wait a while longer," Sam said, although to be truthful, he wasn't sure whether Paul would show.

The hour went by without another complaint. The brothers were as afraid as they were anxious. Paul claimed a body count somewhere upwards of twenty. Sam, Carl, and Pete knew it to be almost twice that. A desperate man just out of prison was nothing they wanted to mess with, especially when that man was as dangerous as Paul. And especially when they owed him thirty thousand dollars. But as the crowd thinned out and midnight turned over into morning, they knew he wasn't coming.

Carl was the first to stand up, but just as he did– POW POW. Two bullets whizzed over his head and stuck into the wall.

The brothers had realized the rest of the patrons had cleared out, but they'd failed to notice just how much. Even the bartender was nowhere in sight. The only other inhabitant now was a grizzled old man sitting at the bar. He wore a cowboy hat and a long black coat, a puzzling choice for the damp heat of the Pennsylvania summer. In one hand he held a glass of deep amber bourbon, which he shot back as he stood up to move toward them. In his other hand, a smoking gun.

"I been huntin' you boys for damn near two weeks now. Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, though I don't guess you'll be returning the courtesy," he said, closing the space between the bar and the table with a few long strides

The man kept his gun trained on them. "Now don't you think about making any funny moves. Paul Jaworski's got a price on his head, dead or alive, but they want to talk to you boys before they fry you."

Sam, Carl, and Pete exchanged nervous glances. How stupid they'd been to sit in the corner worrying about officers storming the place, or the million hypotheticals of dealing with Paul and his money. The bounty hunter at the bar had been watching them all night and they'd been too caught up to realize it. They'd slipped.

"Suppose you just...let us go," Carl began, but the bounty hunter only laughed.

"Son, your business associate just killed a man and wounded six more on his way out of Allegheny County, no way in hell are you walking free," he said plainly. "Now come on with me. Them first two was warning shots, but my trigger finger don't like to be teased."

The brothers stood reluctantly. He had them, no way around it.

"Just tell me one thing," Sam said. He needed to be careful. "How'd you find us?"

The bounty hunter laughed. "Word gets around. Asked down the road if anyone saw three dwarfs around and I connected the dots when they said yeah." Sam winced. He had known the risks posed by coming into town all together. They'd done it anyway and they'd lost.

Gun still trained on them, the bounty hunter reached into his jacket. "Now I'll say it again, don't you boys try anything funny–"

But Pete did try something funny. As soon as the bounty hunter lowered his gaze, he lunged. Two things happened simultaneously: several pairs of handcuffs fell from the man's jacket, and his gun went off again–POW! The bounty hunter was old, but it was clear he had not lost a step with age. The back of Pete's head exploded and slowly ran down the wall behind them as Sam and Carl screamed and moved to catch him as if they thought he might have simply fainted.

"Shit!" the bounty hunter cried out, fumbling for a moment before putting both hands on the grip.

Sam and Carl fell to the floor next to their brother's body, screaming and weeping and trying in vain to wake him. The bounty hunter regained his composure quickly. "I told you boys not to make a move!" he barked, kicking the handcuffs in their direction. They paid him no mind.

"Put these on!" he ordered, but Sam and Carl in their grief either did not hear or simply did not obey. "Good lord," he muttered and fired the gun again, this time into Sam's knee.

Sam screamed in agony, Carl screamed in grief, and the bounty hunter paced back and forth, wondering how to regain control of the situation. "Put on the damn handcuffs!" he screamed, and Carl took heed, finally seeming to apprehend their situation.

Pete was dead, Sam was badly hurt, and Carl knew he was their last chance at escaping the electric chair. All he needed was a plan.

"Put them on, Sam," he urged his brother, who was now hyperventilating, gripping his ruined leg with white knuckles as blood poured from the wound. He looked back up at the man with the gun. "I'm gonna help him, don't shoot again."

"Hurry up now," the bounty hunter said, motioning toward the handcuffs with his gun. "He needs a doctor before he bleeds out, or I'm down to a third of the price on your heads."

Carl cursed the man's base calculus but knew he was right. He also knew this was an advantage for him. The quicker they got outside and on the road, the better Sam's chances of survival, and with the man occupied by driving, the better his chance of escaping. Carl composed himself and helped carry Sam out to the man's truck, as the man himself carried Pete's body.

His LaSalle darted through the forest road as swiftly as it could go. The bounty hunter knew his payday rode on getting Sam to a hospital - he'd already thrown away a third of his prize and he wasn't eager to lose out on more.

They rode in silence, except for an occasional groan from Sam, and not ten minutes went by before they heard a POP! and then the unmistakable thud of metal hitting dirt and dragging against it. The car bumbled to a stop as the situation turned from bad to worse–they'd hit something in the road, and a front tire had gone flat.

"Goddammit," the bounty hunter growled. He paused for a moment. "You just– you just stay here," he ordered from the front seat, pointing his gun backward at the two of them.

"Hurry the hell up," Carl cried out. "We gotta get him some help!"

The bounty hunter, flustered by this point, ignored him and got out to retrieve the spare from the rear fenderwell.

Sam did everything in his power to keep his heart rate low to slow the bleeding. He'd been pressing a bar towel on his knee, but it didn't seem to be doing much. Carl sat up next to him, trying to help apply pressure, though the handcuffs made this difficult. They heard the bounty hunter fiddling about just behind them, grunting with the exertion of removing the spare's hubcap to remove it from the vehicle.

POP!

A gunshot rang out through the dark forest, followed by the thump of a body hitting the ground just inches away from where Sam and Carl sat. They fell still, neither knowing where it came from, nor daring to wonder when the next one would come. An eternity passed. The sound of breathing was all they knew. Lights appeared ahead of them on the road.

As the lights drew closer, Carl realized another car was approaching, and for the first time in his life, prayed it was the police. Twenty feet away, it stopped and the driver opened the door.

Not a single atom in the two brothers' beings moved. All they could do was wait.

As the mystery driver appeared, shadow enveloping his face, Carl began to mutter incomprehensibly to himself. He'd always known it could end like this, but never seriously considered that it actually would. The driver neared, gun in hand, and opened the door.

"On the ground! Faces down in the mud–" he began to shout, then stopped. He lowered his gun. "Sam? Carl?"

It was Pete's friend, the boy from Coverdale mine.

"Chester? What in the hell are you doing out here?" Carl exclaimed. Each was as surprised as the other.

"Took a page out of you fellas' books; turns out robbing cars as they pass through is easy as– good lord, is he okay?" Chester exclaimed as he noticed Sam laying across the blood-soaked upholstery.

"No, and Pete's dead in the rear compartment," Carl replied, survival instincts overriding his surprise. Chester began to speak but Carl cut him off: "I'll explain later. Your car run okay? We gotta go. Now."

"S-sure," Chester stammered.

"Okay then, you grab Pete out the back. I'll get Sam laid down–don't worry, I'll clean up the blood–and let's get the hell out of here." The two of them began moving at once.

"Does Sam need a doctor?" Chester said, heaving Pete's body out of the broken down LaSalle.

"No doctors, no hospitals," Carl said through teeth gritted with the exertion of Sam's weight. "I know someplace else we can go." And within a few minutes, they began to drive there.

February 1929

They were almost out of wood, and even in a cabin this small, heat from the fire didn't go very far. Sam limped over to the door and reached for the axe. "I'll do it," Carl piped up, although he didn't move from the hearth right away. Responsibilities like this usually fell on him now; Sam still had bullet fragments stuck in his leg and Carl could tell this year's harsh winter was causing him more pain than usual.

On a supply run into town, Carl had discovered what became of Paul. He'd been recaptured in Cleveland in the fall and his execution was scheduled for the end of the month. He learned this in January, so Paul was most likely dead by now.

They had a small memorial service for Paul when the day came and went. There had certainly been opportunity for them to practice–they'd buried Pete under an oak tree out back, what, almost a year and a half ago now? Paying their respects to Paul was the least they could do. It was his cabin they were staying in, after all, the same cabin where he'd been arrested following the truck heist.

Paul kept a place up in the mountains as a vacation home, in his words. The police called it a hideout. They'd come looking when Paul was first recaptured, but the brothers caught wind of the raid in time to cover their tracks. The law hadn't sniffed around the place since.

The cabin was small, but they could make do. Maybe they'd go west when Sam's leg healed, they would always say, as if they really believed he'd ever walk normally again. Or maybe when people simply forgot about the price on their heads. It was nice to pretend things would go back to the way they were. For now, at least they had food. It had been well-stocked when they arrived, and the town nearby was small enough that nobody asked many questions when Carl showed up every few weeks to pick up supplies.

The fake money bags full of rice from the truck heist still piled up in one corner, although with all that had happened, the three of them felt it somehow wrong to disturb them.

Chester had stayed with the brothers ever since his inadvertent rescue. He never planned to, but in the weeks following they grew attached and by now he was almost a stand-in for Pete. Not a replacement of course, never a replacement, but Sam and Carl liked having him around. Of all the regrets they had (and there were plenty), the biggest by far was failing to protect their little brother.

They'd even taken to calling him "Pop." At first it happened by accident, but after they decided Pete wouldn't mind, it stuck.

Carl began to stand up as Sam went back to the fire with an exhausted half-smile. "Thanks," he said as he took a seat.

POW! POW! POW!

Their three hearts dropped at once as someone pounded at the door. The police hadn't been around in months, was this the day they decided to perform one last check of the property? They'd kept a fire going for weeks. If it was the law, there was no escaping this time.

POW! POW! POW!

Three more knocks. Carl grabbed his gun and looked at the other two cautiously. If it was the police they'd have broken the door down by now.

POW! POW–

Carl opened the door, rifle drawn and cocked.

"Sweet Jesus, don't shoot!" It was the postman.

"How the hell did you find us up here?" Carl demanded, not lowering his gun an inch. "This is private property. Why don't you get your ass back down the mountain where you belong?"

The postman looked ready to piss himself. "I-I-I don't want no trouble, mister, I'm just here to deliver this." Carl noticed something in one of his raised hands: a small scrap of paper, not even postcard-sized.

"Well give it here then," he said, making great effort to hide his anger. The postman could have been followed and he couldn't take any risks, not now, but–his mind flashed back to the truck heist. Paul was about ready to kill the first guard who regained consciousness after the explosion, but Sam had stopped him. Sam had never liked killing, and as he sat by the fire watching now, Carl softened up.

He lowered his gun slightly and the postman handed over the card. "Now listen up," Carl said, "don't you ever come back here no matter what. Forget what you saw. Forget you even know people are living up here. If I ever catch you in this neck of the woods again, I'll shoot your head clean off and nobody will find your bones."

The postman began backing off slowly before hitting a dead on sprint away from this awful place. It seemed they'd reached an understanding.

Carl turned back to Sam and Chester. "What'd he give you?" Sam asked.

He turned the card over in his hand and read:

To Snap, Crackle, and Pop: Sorry to be brief and cryptic but I don't have much time. Guess you already know what happened to me. Here's to better luck for you. Anyway, I sent this the only place I could think to, so I hope it reaches you. You ever need to, you can write me at 45 Hellsfire Road, 6/14 mile from Hell. Though I guess I'll see you soon enough. - Pow

Carl shivered. Paul must have sent this note just before they fried him. Of course he hadn't heard about Pete–how would he? Carl choked up as he realized he may be holding in his hands the final words Paul ever wrote to anyone. He missed his brother. He missed Paul. He missed honest work and mom's vegetable stew and not hiding out in a cabin in the dead of winter.

"What's it say?" Chester asked, beginning to stand up, but Carl didn't answer him. He felt as if he'd just spoken to a ghost. "Well?"

Sam and Chester both looked more and more concerned, but before Carl could speak, he noticed something on the card. One of the i's was dotted all wrong. It was–no, not dotted wrong, there was a separate inkblot soaking through from the back of the page.

He turned the card over and read:

P.S. That stuff isn't really rice.

"Carl, you okay?" He walked over to the pile of bags in the corner and took a deep breath.