When These Mountains Burn

by David Joy

  “You’re going to need to watch how you talk about my son, now. I’m going to let it slide, but just the once.” Ray pinched the crown of his hat and resituated it onto his head. He brushed his beard down his chest with the palm of his hand. “Now, do you know that campground they call the Fort off 441?”

  “What about it?”

  “They found my son dead in one of them cabins.” Ray stared through the windshield at what was coming. “That’s been a week and a half ago.”

  “What’s that have to do with me?”

  “I’d say what that has to do with you is sitting right there on that seat beside you.” Ray nodded down to the pile of drugs and cash laid between them. “Whether you was the one put it in his hand or not, me and you had a deal. There was a debt owed and I paid it. I kept up my end.”

  “So it’s about the money?”

  “No, it ain’t about money,” Ray said. “Square’s square. He owed what he owed and I paid it.”

  “If it’s not about the money, then what is it about?”

  “This is about consequences. This is about a deal we made and you not holding up your end of the bargain,” Ray explained. “I’d say that campground’s ten miles as the crow flies from your front door. Things being what they are in these mountains, what do you reckon the odds are the dope that killed my boy come from anyplace else?”

  “You’re the one in Jackson County who talked to the police.”

  “What?”

  “There’s not a conversation that happens off the Boundary that doesn’t reach my ears. It makes sense now. I figured it was some junkie trying to talk his way out of jail time, but even they’re not that stupid. This makes more sense. Your son dies and you look to get even by telling the law what you know. Once again, Mr. Mathis, whether your junkie son got that dope from—”

  Ray reached clean across the cab and settled his right hand around the man’s throat. He clenched down on the man’s windpipe and squeezed until his eyes bulged from their sockets. “It’s taking every bit of constraint I have to keep from strangling the life out of you, boy. Now, I’ve told you once and I’ve told you twice and I will not tell you again. You’re going to choose your words carefully or the next thing you say will be the last thing out of your mouth.”

  Ray bounced the man’s head off the side glass and the man choked for breath. He coughed and spit until he found air.

  “I’m telling you now, old man. You two have bitten off a lot more than you can chew.” His head hung to his chest and a line of drool ran from the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m perfectly fine with the bed I’ve made. What about you, Prelo? You all right up there?”

  Prelo glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to the road. “I’m good,” he said.

  They were coming through the village now. Cars were lined up in the Dairy Queen drive-thru. A family was gathered around a picnic table outside washing chili dogs down with Misty Slushes. One of the kids was crawling around under the table scraping his Dilly Bar off the concrete. Past the restaurant, a big sign for Smoky Mountain Gold and Ruby Mine jutted out over the road. There was a picture of a white-bearded mountain man with a gold tooth in his mouth and a pickax in his hand. Seeing that sign right then hit Ray strangely, because maybe the way mountain culture had been sold off for tourist dollars had marked the beginning. They all played along, and Ray was just as guilty as everyone else. Money in your hand will make you turn a blind eye and pretty soon you quit caring enough about where you came from to say anything at all. He looked down at the drugs on the seat. Maybe this was the final nail in the coffin.

  “Consequences,” Ray said. “Everything in this world carries consequences.” He picked up the crystal and the cash and put them back into the satchel. Grabbing the brick of heroin, Ray held the package up for the man to get a good look. “This shit right here. This shit’s poison. And you think you’re not responsible because you’re not the one putting it in their veins. You think it’s just supply and demand, is that right?” Ray shoved the dope in the bag.

  “If it wasn’t me, it’d be someone else. Whether you like it or not, that’s how the world works. I’ve seen them stumble down that road all ages, but that son of yours, he was a grown man, Mr. Mathis. So I don’t think you can make much of an argument for peer pressure. Addicts are addicts and there’s not a thing me or you or anybody else can do about that.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Ray said. “What do you think this ride is, all this that’s gone on here tonight? I’m sick and tired of sitting back and letting you get away with murder. So you might be right. They might find it somewhere, but they won’t find it from you. And if that gets a little bit off this mountain, I’m all right with that.”

  “And what does that get you? You trade murder for murder. You think if you kill me this is over? Because if that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong, old man. This here is bigger than me or you or that boy of yours. What you’ve got in that bag right there keeps a whole lot of people fed. You’re taking bread out of more mouths than you can imagine and that’s something they’re going to look to rectify. There are important people that I answer to. I’m nobody. They’ll bury the two of you off in the park somewhere and then they’ll get right back to business. It doesn’t matter if you kill me or not.”

  “I ain’t going to kill you,” Ray said. He looked forward and met Prelo’s eyes in the rearview. Lowering his chin to his chest, he stared at the gun in his hand, thumbing the safety up and down like he was clicking a pen. “In my younger years, I’d have slit your throat like a lamb’s, but I’m too old,” he said. “I’m too old and too close to dying to carry one more thing on my conscience, Walter.”

  “Watty,” the man said. “I told you. My name’s Watty.”

  “I ain’t calling you that.” Ray tapped the slide of the pistol against the top of his knee. “That’s the stupidest fucking name I ever heard.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The night of the explosion, Denny Rattler was in the trailer at the Outlet Mall trying to trade twenty Roxis for a fifty bag of brown. Jonah Rathbone was sitting around in a pair of maroon basketball shorts and no shirt. He was bird-chested with a little tuft of hair centered on his chest, the letters ᏣᎳᎽ ᎽᎬ tattooed over his heart. With one foot propped on the coffee table, he clipped his toenails onto a folded newspaper. There was a dark pink scar running straight down his shinbone that he’d picked up at the skate park and for some reason Denny couldn’t quit staring at it.

  Two boys Denny’d never seen before were hanging out with Jonah that night. All three of them seemed wired out of their minds on crank. A stereo on the bar that separated the singlewide’s dining room from the kitchen was blaring American Aquarium’s Burn.Flicker.Die.

  The two boys at the dining room table were playing a game of bishop with a fat-bladed folding knife. The one holding the knife looked like a Mexican fellow and he had his free hand flat on the table palm down. Wide-eyed and holding his breath, he stabbed the point into each gap between his fingers as fast as he could. The man watching was a white guy with spiky hair and he was holding his hands together in front of his face like he was praying. He watched the game without blinking and when his partner finished he laughed and threw a crumpled dollar bill into a messy pile in the center of the table.

  “There’s twenty Roxis there,” Denny said. “That’s got to be at least fifty dollars.”

  “This is that Iver Johnson shotgun all over, ain’t it? They’re five fucking milligrams, Denny. What the hell am I going to get out of that? Two bucks apiece?”

  “Then that’s forty. So give me four stamps and we’ll call it square.”

  “Denny.” Jonah folded the clippers closed and tapped them on the newspaper for emphasis. He kicked his other foot up on the table and crossed his ankles, leaning back into the couch to where his body was almost flat. “I ain’t in the busine
ss of breaking even. I’ll give you two. And you ought to thank me for that.”

  Out of nowhere, the spiky-haired fellow at the table howled. Denny turned and saw him cupping his hands in front of his chest like he was cradling a baby bird. There was blood running out of his hands and dripping onto the floor.

  “You lose,” the other fellow crowed with a funny-sounding accent. Deep shadows circled his eyes. He swept the dollars off the table into his lap and a few floated to the floor. He doubled over and snatched them up quickly.

  “Goddamn, Rudolph, you’re getting blood all over the carpet!” Jonah yelled. “Go to the bathroom already! Get a towel or something!”

  The spiky-headed kid limped toward the back of the trailer.

  “And turn that shit down. I can’t hear myself think.” Jonah motioned for the other guy to move, but he wasn’t paying any attention. He was too busy slapping bills onto the tabletop and screaming out numbers like he was counting down a new year.

  All of a sudden there was a loud explosion outside that rattled the windowpanes of the trailer. Denny felt the blast shake the floor through the soles of his shoes. Everyone in the room turned their eyes toward the door. Jonah slipped his right hand between the couch cushions and pulled out a shiny revolver. His arm shook as he raised the barrel, muzzle aimed at the entrance as if someone was about to barge inside. Spike Head scrambled into the room with a beach towel wrapped around his hand. He was holding his bandaged fist up next to his face so that it looked like the head of a matchstick. Everyone in the trailer watched speechlessly as he jerked open the door and tripped out onto the porch.

  A second explosion erupted and Spike Head shielded his face. The sound was different this time. Whereas the first blast had been sharp and violent and left Denny’s ears ringing, the second was something he felt more in his chest, a bassy whoomp like a bucket of gas being tossed onto a pallet fire. Spike Head’s face glowed orange and his mouth hung open in awe. There were people out in the yard screaming and finally Jonah went onto the porch.

  “Place is on fire,” he yelled, but the music was still so loud inside the trailer that Denny had a hard time piecing together what Jonah had said.

  The other fellow from the table stumbled past, and in the commotion Denny had forgotten he was there. He looked around the room and realized he was alone. The bundle of dope was still on the coffee table. Lifting the cuff of his britches leg, he slid the cellophane bag of pills he’d been trying to negotiate back into his sock. He snatched the dope from the table and tucked the stack of stamps into the waistband of his underwear.

  Outside was chaos. An abandoned car burned where the gravel drive opened into a dirt yard between the trailers. Patches of weeds went up in wisps and singed away into nothing. Burning debris riddled the tops of the singlewides and some of the flames had already reached the high grass. There was a faint wind threatening the mountain. The woods and field were bone dry. Half-naked addicts were running and screaming for no other reason than running and screaming because the drugs had long since melted away any sense that they’d ever had.

  Jonah was untangling a knotted section of garden hose where the underpinning of the trailer was peeled back. The guy with dark circles around his eyes scuttled under the trailer on hands and knees to get the spigot turned on. Some people might’ve offered a helping hand but Spike Head only had the one to give and Denny Rattler was already coasting down the drive on the saddle of his Suzuki. The tires rattled over an old cattle grid, and when he was almost to the trees, he fired that puppy up.

  Denny rode hard for the first mile or so, then swung into a church parking lot to have a taste now that the coast was clear. A loud electric light on the side of the building shined a circle of blacktop blue, and he walked the scooter into the light so he could see what he was doing. When he lost the car, he lost his kit—his cooker, all of his clean needles, everything. Pulling the bundle from his waistband, he slipped one of the stamps out and pinched open the bag. He took the key out of the ignition and used the tip of the key to spoon a small mound of dope to his nose.

  The second he snorted, his nose burned and his eyes watered. A few seconds later that bitter vinegar taste dripped down his throat. The feeling was muted at first, but he knew the high would come gradually over the next ten or fifteen minutes, a slow onset like a ball dribbling down a flight of stairs one step at a time. He scooped one more bump onto the key to quicken the pace.

  There was a loud wailing in the distance and at first he thought it was just in his head, but then red lights flashed the mountains and a fire truck shot by through the dark. Denny cranked the scooter and lit out as the first wave crept over his body like sunshine.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Rodriguez didn’t make it back to the slimy motel where he was staying until almost four in the morning. There was no chance in hell he was going to sleep. He’d spent the last three hours riding in circles with Rudolph because Rudy was too paranoid to go through town. He swore he knew some back way out of Big Cove that topped out on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but if he did he never found the right road and they wound up driving out the same way they’d come in.

  When that second explosion went off, the flames scorched a girl named Sheila. Rod knew that was her name because Jonah kept squawking, “Sheila’s on fire! Shitpot Sheila’s on fire!” at the top of his lungs like a parrot. From the looks of it she had second- and third-degree burns from the waist up. The worst of it was on her forearms and hands from how she’d shielded her face. She’d rolled around on the ground, kicking and flailing for a few seconds when it first happened. Someone ran out of one of the trailers and started whapping her with a doormat, but by the time they beat down the flames she’d blacked out from pain.

  The garden hose coiled up by Jonah’s trailer wasn’t fit to rinse out a beer cooler. Besides that, the ground was too dry. By the time the fire reached the field grass, a wind coming off the mountain was pushing the flames toward the tree line. About that time, two boys carrying assault rifles came trotting up the driveway. Rod was just about to pull a pistol from an ankle holster when Rudolph grabbed him by the back of the shirt and led him to the car. The explosion would bring fire trucks and the fire trucks would bring patrol cars and Rudolph didn’t want to be anywhere close to Big Cove when the law started asking questions.

  Rod tossed Rudolph the keys to let him drive, which looking back was one of the dumbest things he’d ever done. A week into a crank binge, Rudy was yanking back and forth on that steering wheel like he was driving an arcade machine. As they came around a sharp curve and the rear tires let loose, Rod was absolutely certain he was going to die.

  Back at the hotel, he called twice before Holland picked up.

  “You better be dead,” Holland said.

  “We need to move on the Outlet Mall now.”

  “Like right now? Like four-thirty in the goddamn morning now? Like this phone call couldn’t have waited a couple hours now?”

  “There was an explosion there tonight and a woman got burned up bad. Fire got away and spread up the mountain. Two boys came running up with ARs and I don’t know what the fuck happened after that.”

  “What kind of explosion?”

  “Like ‘blew a fucking car sky-high’ kind of explosion.”

  “But are we talking about explosives or a meth lab?”

  “It didn’t smell like a lab.”

  “Then what did it smell like, Rod? You’re a goddamn trained K9 all of a sudden . . .”

  For the next five minutes Holland chewed Rodriguez up one side and down the other. After the first thirty seconds or so Rod just set the phone down in his lap. He was months undercover, rode hard and hung up wet. In all that time he hadn’t gotten so much as an attaboy. For whatever reason, the people who rose up the ranks always seemed to forget where they came from. It was like Holland hadn’t ever worked a street-level case in his life. Rodriguez was sick of it
.

  The mumbling from the receiver died off and he picked up the phone.

  “You there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” Rod said.

  “Then answer me.”

  “I didn’t catch that last part.”

  “I said was anybody killed?”

  “Not that I know of,” Rod said.

  “Then work the case, Rodriguez, and let me do my fucking job. I’ll tell you when we move. We’re sitting on what could potentially be one of the biggest interstate cases we’ve had in years and the crux of that case is thanks to the work you’ve done. That said, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you shit all over it because you’re impatient.”

  “It’s not a matter of patience, sir. It’s a matter of people getting hurt and us just standing by letting it happen. A week ago you were telling me to make something happen after those kids died in Madison County.”

  “We move now and they’ll change channels and people will keep dropping dead with needles in their arms all over those mountains. The top players get away. Now, if you want to go chase low-level dope dealers, that’s fine. There’s a million police departments all over this country that would love to have somebody like you working for them. But that’s not what we do here. We take our time and we build top-tier cases. If you don’t agree with that, then I can find you another assignment. I can get this done with or without you, Rod. But I can’t make that decision for you.”

  Rodriguez didn’t know what to say.