by Jim Heskett
“Sorry, but you came at me last night. You started it.”
Paul flashed his eyes for a second, but it quickly dissipated. He looked back down at his finger, lips pressed tightly together.
“Things have been… tough lately,” Paul said. “Not a lot of work. I have to get it where I can, you know? I tried to get on at the BCS, but they won’t even hire me.”
“The what?”
“The WCSBCS. The big cat place north of town.”
Layne’s eyes instinctively flicked in that direction. “Never heard of it. Is it new?”
“They built it a few years ago. Four, or five, I don’t remember. Bunch of assholes work there, if you ask me. Maybe it was a blessing they turned down my application.”
“Maybe so.” Layne pulled out his wallet and plucked five twenty-dollar bills. He held up the cash, fanning it out so all five bills were visible. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to answer some questions for me. Five minutes in that alley, then you get the cash.”
Paul looked at the money, then he looked at the alley with a hesitant frown on his face and hands on his hips.
“We’re both going to keep all our clothes on the whole time,” Layne said, “so it’s not like that. Just questions.”
Paul nodded and stood. Layne rose to his feet and took a step back, but Paul held up his hands in a calming gesture. “No more punching. I’m sorry about all that. Sometimes I just wake up angry, you know?”
“I know exactly what that feels like.”
“Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you.”
Layne tilted head into the alley and Paul followed. They came to a stop halfway down and faced each other. It wasn’t a glum and dank alley like a big city might have. This was two buildings smushed close together, with an open path to a creek down on the other side. Still, they had to stand close enough to a dumpster that Layne’s nostrils curled from the stink.
“I’m ready,” Paul said.
“Why were you giving my dad a ride home from the bar last night?”
Paul appeared confused for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected this line of questioning. “George has trouble driving, with his stroke. We both go to the bar in the evenings, and we have a beer, or sometimes two. I mean, he has one or two, and I usually have four or five. If I’m sober enough to drive him up the mountain to his cabin, I do.”
“You been friends long?”
Paul smirked. “I wouldn’t say I’m friends with your dad. Drinking buddies is more appropriate. No offense, but he’s a prickly son of a bitch.”
“None taken. A couple weeks ago, someone who was probably from out of town parked a truck at the hardware store. The guy disappeared, but the car stayed. A few days later, my dad drove the car somewhere.”
Paul hesitated, and Layne turned the fan of cash in his hand so it would catch the light. Paul glanced down at it.
“I don’t know anything about George taking a truck somewhere. He never said anything about it to me. We don’t usually do a lot of small talk beyond baseball, and he sometimes tells me stories about the glory days of Shotgun. You know, typical old grandpa stuff that I’m sure is half made-up.”
“But nothing about the car?”
Paul shook his head, a flat expression on his face.
“You’re sure?”
“Look, Layne, I know what you’re asking. Is George involved in something bad? Look around. No one in Shotgun is innocent.”
“Okay, I need less philosophy and more specifics.”
Paul shrugged. “He’s just an old man grumbling all around town about how much gas costs or whatever. Your dad’s not what you should be worried about.”
“What does that mean?”
Paul’s eyes hunted around, glancing back toward the open ends of the alley. Paul’s anxiety made Layne feel a bit on edge, too. He took a few breaths to steady himself, so he could pay close attention to Paul’s facial tics.
“There have been a lot of new faces in town, over the last year or two. Most of them don’t stay long, but a few have become regulars.”
“Do these new faces have tattoos? Eagles tattoos on their necks?”
Paul nodded. “Sometimes, yeah. I know they’re called the Disciples.”
“Disciples of the True America. They’re white supremacists and probably should also be labeled terrorists. What are they doing here in some boring mountain town?”
“I don’t know, Layne. I really don’t. But there were a couple at the diner the other day, and I heard part of a conversation. They were talking about some place named 'Shotgun Mine.' They’ve been asking around about it. Like, looking for it the way people used to stop by in town all the time, looking for the big cat place."
He narrowed his eyes and searched Paul’s face. When normalizing for the nervous energy of his anxiety, Layne thought this former high school peer was telling the truth.
But it made no sense. The town of Shotgun had two mines, and they were known only as East and West. They were named for the eastern and western mountains forming the peaks crowding the town. But there was no mine named “Shotgun” in Shotgun.
“Is Shotgun Mine new?”
“Not as far as I know. I mean, it could be. I'd never heard of it.”
“You’re sure they said that? They weren’t just talking generally about the two mines in town?”
Paul shook his head. “No, they specifically said this mine was named Shotgun Mine. I don’t know what it means. I never heard of it before recently.”
Layne didn’t know, either. But he had something else to go on, at least. He held the money out to Paul, who took it and shoved it in his pocket.
“Sorry about last night and this morning,” Paul said.
“Sorry about your finger.”
He looked down at it, then turned up his palms. “I’m still going to Denver. Maybe they can put me on clean-up crew. Something that doesn’t need two hands.”
Layne reached out to shake, and Paul adopted a grave look in his eyes. “Something is messed up in Shotgun. If you find out what it is, good luck stopping it.”
Layne nodded as the rising sun reached into the alley, warming his face.
9
Layne stood outside Keegan’s house, waiting in the cold. When his old friend opened the door, his jaw dropped, and he cocked his head.
“Why are you wearing shorts?” Keegan asked. “You do know it’s about fifteen degrees out there, right?”
“I was jogging. On my way back up the mountain now, but I wanted to stop by for a second.”
“Okay, that makes more sense than if you’d told me you just planned to freeze to death this morning. You want to come in? I’m eating eggs.”
Layne peeked past him, toward the kitchen. “Did you make them?”
Keegan rolled his eyes. “I live by myself, asshole. Of course I made the eggs.”
Layne snickered and entered the house, then he stopped in the living room and turned in a circle, examining the room. The same one Keegan had lived in since they’d been best friends in high school, but it felt different.
“Why?” Layne asked.
“Why what?”
“Why do you live alone in Shotgun? Why are you still here? I thought we’d unofficially decided our senior motto was 'get the hell out of Shotgun as fast as possible.'”
Keegan closed the door and leaned against it, across the room from Layne. “It’s complicated. You want to make God laugh? Show Him your plan.”
Layne smiled politely, waiting for Keegan to continue. A few uncomfortable seconds blossomed in the quiet living room. Somewhere, a clock ticked.
“Okay,” Keegan said. “I don’t know why I’m being coy about it. Who cares? I was married for a bit, and we have a teenage daughter. But she hated Colorado so our marriage quietly slipped down the drain. She lives in New York, I see our daughter on holidays, and that’s that. I own this house and—aside from the gravestones—all of my work is online, so it’s just as easy to stay here.”
Layne noted Keegan’s guarded position, with his arms firmly across his chest. There had to be more to the story, but Layne didn’t want to pry. He seemed so different now. Guarded and closed off, like a secret document.
“Is this place different?”
“This room and the master bedroom had some bad fire damage from an electrical thing. Only way I could afford to redo the place was with the insurance money. I was pretty fortunate that my ex got a new policy on the house a few years before the fire. I’m worthless with that sort of stuff. You know, filing insurance forms and all that.”
Layne noted a tray on the living room table with rolling papers and clumps of fluffy marijuana. Keegan had been an active pot smoker back in high school, too. Some things changed, and some things never did.
“I’m sorry to hear about the family drama. I know I get an ache whenever I’m away from my daughter for long. That can’t be fun.”
Keegan nodded, eyes on the floor. “Thanks for that. I’m glad I was there for her early years, because it’s different when they’re older and don’t need you as much. Or, at least, they act like they don’t need you as much. And yeah, watching her school plays online is about as heartbreaking as you’re picturing.”
“I’ll bet. Have you considered moving closer so you can see her more often?”
Keegan’s lips jittered for a second, then his nose wrinkled and he shrugged. “No more sad talk about me. Let’s talk about you. What are you going to get up to today? It’s supposed to be sunny this afternoon, so we could do the waterfall hike.”
“I don’t think I have time for that. I went to the diner to talk to the sheriff, but he’s gone for the day.”
Keegan gave a rueful chuckle. “Yeah, that’s pretty typical. When I first moved back, I actually worked for Sheriff Bob.”
“Doing what?”
Keegan’s face softened a little as he walked past Layne, beckoning him to follow. They entered the kitchen where Keegan sat and resumed eating his eggs. “Social media and content marketing stuff for the department and for the diner, too. I eventually quit.”
“Why’s that?”
Keegan pursed his lips. “I hate to talk trash about anyone, but the sheriff is not playing with a full deck. If you’re asking about Bob to involve him in an investigation of some kind, I wouldn’t hold out hope. Half the time he’s fishing and doesn’t bring his phone with him.”
“But he’s been reelected more than once, right?”
“Yeah. Nothing important has happened in this town for fifty years, so no one cares about who the sheriff is. If a dumbass tourist gets trapped in one of the mines, he’ll call the forest service people, anyway. No one wants to see roly-poly Bob trying to rescue some idiot from a mine or a random cave. Then we’d have two bodies to fish out of a hole.”
Layne nodded. “Understood. I’ll cross him off my list of allies.”
“Probably for the best.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Proceed,” Keegan said through a mouthful of yellow. A couple minutes removed from talking about his ex-wife and daughter, and Keegan’s outlook appeared to be improving. Layne reminded himself not to wallow in that touchy subject again.
“Do you know about Shotgun Mine?”
Keegan raised an eyebrow. “Uh, obviously. Do you mean East or West?”
“No, not a mine named east or west. A mine actually named Shotgun.”
Keegan chewed a little slower as his eyes unfocused, deep in thought. Eventually, he burped. “That’s bullshit. The mines are named East and West. It goes all the way back to the beginning. You can see framed pictures at Shotgun Tavern from sixty or seventy years ago with those names.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Keegan gathered up a forkful of eggs, then he paused with the fork halfway to his mouth. “I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this yet.”
“Thought of what?”
“Speaking of hanging around Shotgun, you know another potential ally who might have the answer to your riddle?”
Layne scooted forward in his chair. “Who?”
“Molly Waffles.”
The name being uttered out loud felt like a slap in the face, but Layne didn’t know why. “Molly Waffles?”
“Yep, she moved back to town about five years ago. As far as I know, it’s just me and her from our class who still live here. We tried to escape, but the mountains sucked us both back in, I guess.”
Paul Clausing was also in town, but he’d been a year ahead of them in school. Layne lowered his eyes for a moment to process the information. He hadn’t seen her in twenty-five years, but he had thought about her this morning as he’d been jogging. That old shortcut path to her house in the foothills.
Lots of things in town reminded Layne Parrish of Molly Waffles. His experience with Shotgun was closely intertwined with her.
“Do you know where I could find her at this time of the morning?”
Keegan glanced at the wall clock and then said, “I do. But I should probably warn you. She’s not going to be exactly like you remember her.”
10
Beckett closed one eye and aimed at the target. He slowed his breaths and pressed the trigger one time. A single bullet left the end of the Ruger, and the SilencerCo noise suppressor attached made it sound somewhere between the screech of a wounded bird and the slam of a flimsy wooden door.
“Damn it,” he said as he unthreaded the suppressor. It wasn’t the level of volume he couldn’t abide, it was the whistling. It sounded too unnatural. This was his first attempt to use a suppressor with his pistol. He knew better than to assume it would make it sound as quiet as it did in video games, but he wanted something better than a screechy whistle.
He also didn’t like the added weight to the front end of the weapon, but he figured he would get used to the difference eventually.
A mile north of town, he and others used this hill for target practice or to conduct business. There were plenty of flat tree stumps to house bottles or other targets, and you could see any car coming from the north or the south. Roscoe had questioned why Beckett wouldn’t use the indoor shooting range in town, but Beckett didn’t like others seeing him train. He had a certain image he liked to uphold, to make himself mysterious to his men and inoffensive to the townspeople. Inserting himself into daily life in Shotgun had been a slow and careful process so far. He didn’t want to be seen as a dangerous, gun-toting threat.
People in this tiny town knew him. Not well, but they knew his face, for sure. He received friendly nods and sincere waves at the diner and the tavern, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Plus, from here, he could see both the Big Cat Sanctuary and Shotgun. There were so many pointy mountains everywhere, this was the only place to see both valleys. Another reason he liked the idea of using rural Colorado as the nucleus of his empire: it’s easy to conceal large objects behind larger objects, like hiding tanks and trucks behind boulders.
Behind him, a car door opened. Stocky little Roscoe left the passenger seat of the vehicle, engaged in a heated argument with someone on the phone. Beckett watched the exchange as he threaded the Silent-SR noise suppressor onto his 9mm pistol.
Roscoe stormed toward Beckett, his round glasses steamy in the cold air. “You listen to me, you son of a bitch,” Roscoe said into the phone, his face red and heated, “if those trucks aren’t here by tomorrow, there will be heads rolling down there. I’m serious.”
When the words sank in, Beckett could feel pressure behind his eyes. “Wait. What?” He reached out a hand. “Give me the phone.”
Roscoe grunted in frustration as he handed the phone over, and Beckett put it up to his ear. He opened his mouth to speak, but then the phone beeped and the screen went black. They’d hung up on him.
He closed his eyes to push a cleansing breath through his lungs. People hanging up on him had to be one of his top-rated pet peeves. Something that made him want to add their digits to his finger bone collection.
He passed the phone back to Roscoe. “What’s going on here?”
“The trucks, sir. There’s ice on the roads in Montana, and it’s causing problems. They won’t be here tomorrow.”
“That’s not acceptable. Those trucks can’t be late. Everything else is ready to go, and if we have to delay, that sets us back more than a day or two.”
Roscoe nodded, looking worried. “I know, sir. I’ll call them back and work something out.”
He turned to walk back to the car, but Beckett stopped him. “Wait. Do you have anything on Layne Parrish?”
“Not yet. I’ll have background info and that sort of stuff on him soon. But, he’s been making the rounds in town, that’s for sure. He’s talked with multiple people already.”
“This isn’t what I wanted to hear. What is he asking them about?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Beckett flexed his jaw as he checked the suppressor. He pivoted and fired four shots toward the target, the severed head sitting on the stump. Three hit, one through his former employee’s left eye. Each shot had no whistle, but it was much louder than the previous one. And he couldn’t honestly say which one was better. Neither had been good enough. He removed the second suppressor and dropped it on the table, and then he picked up option number three, the Griffin Revolution model.
Shooting a lifeless head was admittedly gruesome, but Beckett wanted to test the sound a bullet made when hitting a target. You can’t replicate that with a watermelon or a sack of potatoes.
And to his credit, Roscoe hadn’t flinched at the shots.
“He stopped by Bob’s Diner this morning, so maybe he’s looking for the sheriff.”
“Don’t worry about that waste of space. I’d be more concerned if he manages to get an audience with the mayor or city council.”
Or if he tried to bring in outside help. The more Beckett considered this new element, the less he liked it. Whatever Layne Parrish was doing in town, Beckett needed to put a stop to it. Maybe permanently.
If Layne was hunting for Shotgun mine, then that presented a serious problem.
