After a while, Whoops went to sleep and, laying there in the dark, finally, Danielle went to sleep, too.
Δ Δ Δ
Somewhat later, she was startled awake. Someone was fondling her.
“Who’s that?” she yelled and rolled out on the other side of the bed. She grabbed Whoops.
“It’s okay, honey.” It was Hank’s voice.
“Get out of here!” she yelled.
“Play ball with me and you’ll be all right. Otherwise, you and that kid of yours are fucked.” His voice wasn’t as friendly, now.
She grabbed a blanket and took Whoops into the kitchen and slammed the door on his fading laughter. The kitchen was empty but the weather had cleared and a full moon coming through the windows lit the kitchen. She didn’t know how long she’d slept, but it was late. Everyone else had gone to bed. She thought about just leaving, but there was nowhere to go. She wasn’t going back in the bedroom while Hank was in there. The only place to sleep in the kitchen was the stuffed chair. She drank some water then sat in the chair and curled herself up. Whoops looked around but let Danielle hold her close and after a while they both went back to sleep.
Δ Δ Δ
She was wakened in the morning by a sharp slap in her face and the old lady’s indignant voice railing, “What are you doing in my chair? No one sits in my chair but me.”
Danielle quickly got out of the chair clutching her sister. She was too weary to fight. And there was no reason to give an explanation as to why she’d left the bed. No one cared what she said.
The old lady made a production of sweeping imaginary dirt off the chair with her hands while others who had come into the kitchen watched.
Danielle began to make Whoops more Cream of Wheat. This time she made some for herself, too. Then she went back to the bedroom. Hank was gone. She sat on the edge of the bed and fed herself and Whoops.
Looking around, she found a tattered pillow case and tore it to fashion a diaper. After she changed the baby she got under the covers. She wanted to cry but she couldn’t cry anymore. She thought to herself she could never cry again. Then it became a promise. She knew she had to get away from these people. She lay on her side and stared at the wall for hours. As the sky got lighter, she fell asleep, again.
Chapter 6
August 27
Peterson lived out his last hours in a coma at the LaCroix compound. But even as he lay dying, with his wife, his brother, and most of his friends at his side, a meeting was held in the living room at the main house of the old ranch.
Louis LaCroix sat at the head of a massive dining table. He looked around the room as if making sure everyone he’d called for the meeting was there. “Who is he?” LaCroix asked softly to open the meeting. His subdued manner and soft voice were not signs of weakness. LaCroix was a large choleric man in his thirties with long black hair, a prematurely graying beard, and large, fleshy ears. He was intelligent and educated. He wore glasses that he kept pushing back on his nose when he was angry and, though he was speaking in a low voice, he was constantly adjusting them, now.
No one answered his question.
“Who’s the guy that shot Peterson and killed Anderson, Jamison, and Kyle?” he asked and removed his glasses and placed them on the table.
“His name is Zachary Amaral,” a man replied.
“And exactly who is that?” LaCroix’s tone was still restrained.
“He lives down outside of Brookings. He married Sandra Gibbons.”
LaCroix stared at the speaker. It was Billy Raymond.
“The Gibbonses are gone, aren’t they?”
“They cleared out when the going was good,” Raymond replied. “Don’t know if they ever made it all the way south.”
“Wasn’t Anderson related to them somehow?”
“Anderson’s mom was…”
“It was a yes-or-no question. So, I guess it’s yes,” LaCroix interrupted. “How do you know it was this guy Amaral?”
“I found the cover from a book with his name on it. It was torn in half and he’d put some M80s on the halves and used cigarettes for fuses.”
“M80s? Firecrackers? What the hell were they for?”
There was a long pause. Raymond had to tell how they were outsmarted. “When they went off, he wanted us to think he was still up on the ridge shooting at us. He’d already skied away.”
“So, you didn’t actually see him to know who he was. You just found a book cover with the name ‘Zachary Amaral’ on it. We don’t even know for sure it was this Amaral character or if it was somebody else who had the book with his name on it. Is that right?”
“That’s all we’ve got to go on,” Raymond said.
LaCroix looked around the room without looking at anyone, then let out a long breath.
He looked around once more. This time he looked at all the faces. Very deliberately he said, “I want to know what went wrong. How’d three of our guys get killed and another one’s dying?”
“We were chasing him, he got off into the woods, and he had clear shots at us. It was just bad luck,” Raymond said.
“No,” LaCroix said shaking his head. He picked up his glasses and waved them around. “It wasn’t bad luck. Bad luck is drawing to a four-spade flush and catching a heart. This was poor planning. When a dozen guys can’t catch one guy…one guy…it’s because you fucked up.”
“He wasn’t alone.”
LaCroix put his glasses back down and stared at Raymond in anticipation. “No one told me this. There was someone else with him?”
“He had a dog.”
There was a long silence. LaCroix suddenly slammed his hand on the table, then lifted his glasses and put them on, again. “A dog…Which one did the dog shoot?” he asked sarcastically. “Peterson? Kyle? Did the damned dog have a sniperscope on his fucking rifle?
“We’ve been doing this for over two years, with no problems—okay, once we had a problem, but that was two years ago.” He was referring to a time when another member of the compound had gotten killed when he and some others tried to ambush a man. “Then, yesterday, you go after one guy…and his dog…and you get three of yourselves killed and another guy shot, and it doesn’t look good for him. One of the dead, a twelve-year-old boy…” He put his finger to his temple like it was the barrel of a gun, then popped it away like he’d pulled the trigger “…was executed.”
“Kyle was fourteen,” Raymond said.
“It doesn’t matter,” LaCroix yelled. “What matters is that you guys fucked up. Why didn’t you get him?”
“I wanted to go after him…” Raymond said.
“Why didn’t you get him before he got you?” LaCroix asked.
No one answered.
“How’d he get away?”
“I wanted to go after him,” Raymond repeated, “but these pussies wouldn’t follow with me. Dodd and Scott did, but they kept lagging because they were afraid of the guy.”
“We had to get Peterson back,” Ted Foy said angrily.
“Lot of good that did,” Raymond yelled.
“Why’d he kill Kyle?” LaCroix asked. His voice had dropped off and all the other voices followed suit.
“He shot anybody he could,” Raymond said.
“I still don’t understand how one man got four of ours and still got away.”
A thick silence settled on the room.
“Well, we’re gonna have to assume this guy…what do you think his name is?…Amaral?…”
Raymond nodded.
“…we’re gonna have to assume he’s dangerous. And we can’t have someone that dangerous hanging around here. We’ve got women, kids, and ourselves. We’re going to have to get rid of him…” Anger began to show as it welled up in him, again. “…before he kills every one of us.
“I want to know where he lives. I want him done with. I want everyone connected with him done with. And I want to know if he has any connection with old lady Brady and her nephew, Hank. If so, I want them to pay for it, too.”
<
br /> “How are you going to find that out?” Raymond asked.
“How am I gonna find out? Me? I’m not. You are. You’re going to ask, that’s how you’re going to find out. You’re going to go there and find out what they know about him.”
“What if it’s a trap? What if he’s with them and…”
“You’re going to find that out, too” LaCroix said and took off his glasses, again.
“But…”
“My sister’s in the other room crying; she was up all night crying, because you guys got her son killed. You guys know how a mother feels when she sees most of her son’s head blown away? Now, you guys go straighten this mess out. And I want that Amaral dead. And if it wasn’t him, I want whoever it was dead.
“Is there anything else you got to tell me?”
“We got a bear,” Raymond said.
“A bear. That’s nice. That’s real nice.
“I don’t give a shit about bears!” he suddenly exploded. “Get that guy, then tell me you got him. That’s your job right now. Get this Amaral—or whoever it is that did this. Because whoever he is, he’s a menace.”
“Should we wear uniforms when we go to the Brady place?” Foy asked, meaning the police uniforms they wore to stop vehicles on the road.
“Do you think the Bradys are going to be fooled by uniforms?” LaCroix asked. “You can go naked, if you want,” he said sarcastically. “Just go. But go with a plan. I don’t want more of us dead.”
Then he sat back and tried to compose himself. “Look,” he began, “my guess is this guy’s got nothin’ to do with the Bradys. I know they’ve been pains in our asses, but none of those guys on the Brady ranch operate alone. If this guy was one of them, they’d have been out there in numbers. I don’t know if this guy’s part of a gang or if he’s some freak from the backcountry who’s down here freelancing. But we can barely deal with the Bradys so we’re not going make life harder by tolerating any freelancers.
“That’s what we were doing when we saw his tracks,” Raymond said. “We were trying to get rid of a freelancer.”
“Okay,” LaCroix said, “I want you to find that out, too—if he’s a freelancer or part of something bigger.”
“But, if we kill him first…” Webber began.
“Then kill him after you find out!” LaCroix yelled anticipating Webber’s question. He felt as though he was surrounded by idiots.
He took a moment to compose himself, again. “Is there anything else anyone wants to discuss?” he asked.
“Well, one of the things we know about him is that he uses a .30-06 rifle,” Raymond said.
LaCroix looked over his glasses. “And you know that because…?”
Raymond reached into his pocket and took out the brass cases he’d found the day before and passed them around the table to LaCroix who examined them.
“These belong to the shooter?” LaCroix asked.
“Yeah,” Raymond replied.
LaCroix got up and went to his desk. He opened a drawer and took something out.
When he returned to the table he pushed one of the cases so it slid across the table to Raymond. “That,” he said, “is one of the cases you gave me.”
He pushed a second piece of brass across the table and said, “And this is from one of the rounds that killed Woody Harris two years ago. Look familiar?”
“They’re both .30-06s,” Raymond replied.
“Look at the headstamps,” LaCroix said.
Raymond examined them and said, “They’re the same. What’s the L C and 55 mean?”
“Lake City Arsenal, 1955. They’re military surplus. The guy you were trying to get yesterday is the same guy who killed Woody. So that seals it: he’s been here for at least two years, he’s local, he’s dangerous, and we’ve got to get rid of him. You could have gotten him yesterday, but you didn’t. This time, you will.”
Raymond nodded.
Brian Peterson appeared in the doorway. With just a glance at him, LaCroix knew his brother had died.
“I’m sorry, Brian,” LaCroix said.
With that, all heads turned toward the doorway. They understood.
LaCroix turned back to Billy Raymond and addressed him. “First thing I’ll do is put together a team, and I want you to lead it out to the Brady place and find out what they know. I don’t think they’re involved. If they were, this guy wouldn’t have been alone. But I want to make sure. Then I want you to go after him.
“But before that happens, there are going to be funerals for the next few days. We’re burying Kyle in the morning. I want you guys there. As far as I’m concerned, until Amaral and whoever else involved is dead, I’m holding you guys responsible for my nephew’s death. I’m holding you responsible for all four.”
As he rose from the table he looked at Peterson and said, “Brian, I’d like to talk with you,” and he walked out of the room with Peterson following him. That left about a dozen men in the room who started to argue among themselves, blaming each other for the disaster of the previous day.
Chapter 7
August 27
“Get up,” a voice whispered and Danielle woke with a start. She looked out from under the covers and saw Joel standing beside the bed looking at her. He’d closed the door behind him. She sensed he’d been there a while. The room was cold. Whoops was still asleep. She didn’t know how long she, herself, had been sleeping.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“You’ve got to get up. They want you in the kitchen,” he said in a low voice.
She pulled the covers to hide most of her head and sighed. She needed more sleep. “Go away.”
“You’ve got to come out there,” he implored. “They want you.”
“It’s cold. I was up half the night. Let me sleep.”
“My grandmother wants you out there, now. I think you’re in trouble.”
“For what?”
He didn’t answer.
“Whatever,” she sighed. She knew if the old lady wanted her, it was only for trouble.
“Get out of here so I can get dressed,” she said.
He gave her a long, lingering look before he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. She knew he liked her.
Fuck him, she thought.
She got up slowly. Whoops was now awake and watching her.
“Hey, sleepy eyes, are we awake?”
A fleeting smile crossed her sister’s face.
She started to dress but hesitated. She put the shirt on inside out. No sense in stirring up trouble. When she finished dressing, she checked Whoops’s diaper. It was soiled. She was changing it when the door opened, again.
It was Hank. “Get out here,” he demanded.
“I’m changing the baby.”
He hesitated, then slammed the door and left her and her sister alone.
After she changed Whoops, she carried her into the kitchen. There was a crowd. Most were standing. Anne sat in a kitchen chair in the middle of the room, crying.
Hank looked at Danielle and pointed to the only chair that was empty. It was beside Anne. She understood she was supposed to sit there. Given the mood in the room, she complied.
“I don’t want no whiner,” Abby said. “I want her out.” It was clear she was referring to Anne.
Abby stood at the counter between the sink and the stove with her back to the others. She was putting together a stew for later in the day. “There’ll be better ones coming down the road.”
“What about…” Hank asked.
Abby turned a quarter-turn and Hank nodded toward Danielle.
“That baby yours?” she asked Danielle.
Danielle didn’t understand why she was asking the question, but she answered, “Yes.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“I don’t want no road sluts here, either.”
“How’s Whoops make her a slut?” Joel asked.
“If she wasn’t a road slut, she wouldn’t have no
kid at sixteen,”
“That’s not her kid, it’s her sister,” Joel said.
“Then she’s a liar, too, because I just asked her if it was hers and she said it is. I don’t truck with liars. And if she wasn’t a slut, she’d wouldn’t have had no trouble fighting you guys off the other night. I’d have been able to.”
“That’s because nobody would want to fuck you,” Danielle blurted out, and immediately wished she hadn’t.
She turned and glared at Danielle and stared at her shirt for a moment. She could read the lettering through the shirt though it was faint and backwards. “Listen to the mouth on that girl,” Abby said. Then, to Danielle, she said, “You’re not hiding anything with that shirt on inside out.
“Get her out of here. Get ’em both out.”
“Why can’t you just let her go on the road?” Joel asked.
“Because she knows where we live.”
“But you let some others go, and they knew where we live,” he countered.
“That was a mistake. It may still be a mistake. But it’s a mistake I’m never going to make, again.”
Danielle wondered what this line of conversation meant and, when she looked at Anne, who was crying and distraught, it was obvious there was something terribly wrong.
“Grandma…” Joel began.
“Get them out, now! Both of ’em!” She commanded and turned her back to them and focused on the stew she was preparing. “I’d give anything for hot running water and a garbage disposal that worked.”
“Grandma…” Joel repeated.
“Don’t waste no bullet on the baby,” Abby said and cut Joel off.
No one said a word for a moment.
“What do you mean by that?” Danielle asked.
Abby didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. This was her parting “gift” to Danielle for all the insults and rude comments she’d made. Let her think about what it meant when they were on their way out to the field.
“What’s she mean?” Danielle asked Joel.
Joel looked away.
“Let’s go,” Hank said. He motioned with a nod toward the door. “Move it,” he demanded.
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