Savage Rising

by C. Hoyt Caldwell

  Friar helped the handcuffed suspect to his feet. “You folks need to stop connecting these dots. Don’t do nothing but make my life harder.”

  “Find anything we can use?” Spivey asked Dani.

  She smiled and answered, “You might could say that.”

  “What?”

  “It’d be better if you just hike up here and take a look.”

  Gus groaned. “I can’t imagine I’m needed to climb up there.”

  Spivey started the climb. “I bought your time, Partway. You’ll do the climb.”

  Gus reluctantly followed him up the crevasse. “You ain’t gotta rub it in by rhyming.”

  Spivey reached the mouth of the cave a full two minutes before Gus. He fought his gag reflex, triggered by the pungent smell of sulfur.

  Dani nearly laughed. “You get used to it.”

  “This better be worth it.”

  “It is,” she said as she leaned inside the cave and yelled to some unseen person in the back. “You done yet?”

  Nola yelled back. “Just about. Injuries aren’t life threatening. Her legs have atrophied a bit. Ima need a hand getting her out of here.”

  Spivey looked at Dani with an almost hopeful expression. “Her?”

  Dani said, “Wait here.” She disappeared inside the cave.

  Gus finally reached the plateau leading to the cave opening. He was breathing heavily and clutching his chest. “What’s a heart attack feel like? I think I got me one of those going on.”

  Spivey kept his eyes on the cave opening. “You’re fine. You just need to stop eating at that grease stain, Pep’s Road-Shit Pancakes, or whatever the fuck you call it.”

  Three figures emerged from the cave. Luna Conway dangled between Nola and Dani as they carried her out into the open. Her head bounced as she switched back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness. The light of the day assaulted her eyes, and she squinted against the nearly unbearable flicker of the sun.

  Spivey’s heart sank as he lost hope.

  “Luna?” Gus said.

  The hope bubbled up again.

  Chapter 47

  “She carries on quite a bit about her dog,” Friar said as he navigated his cruiser through the streets of Baptist Flats.

  Gus sat in the backseat with Luna Conway’s feet resting in his lap. The woman turned restlessly about every two minutes, each time coming close to squashing Gus’s testicles flat as dinner plates.

  “She does do that,” Gus answered Friar. “Didn’t even know she had a dog, to tell you the truth.”

  Luna whimpered incessantly, occasionally asking no one in particular if anyone had gotten her dog.

  “She’s in shock,” Nola said. “Who knows if she’s even got a dog? She could be reliving a memory about a dog from when she was twelve.”

  “Pikes go back a good bit in the dog-fighting business,” Gus said. “Can’t imagine no kind of dog would fare too well under a Pike’s care, even if she is a Conway now.”

  “My dog,” Luna mumbled frantically.

  Friar turned in to the motel parking lot. “She’s in it deep. Someone wanna tell me why we ain’t taking her to the hospital?”

  “Hospital will ask questions,” Nola answered. “Those questions may get back to the people who put her in that cave.”

  “And?” Friar asked.

  “And we don’t want them to know yet. They’ll find out soon enough. Better we get a few hours’ head start before they find out on their own she’s missing. And even when they do discover she’s gone, the last thing they’ll suspect is that the law found her.”

  Friar pulled the car into a parking space. “Because?”

  “Because the law would have taken her to the hospital,” Gus interjected.

  Friar looked into the rearview mirror and spotted the chubby-cheeked grin of the man Spivey called Partway. “Oh. That actually makes sense.”

  Nola pushed the passenger-side door open. “You sound surprised.”

  “I’m surprised that I actually understand what’s going on. Most of the time I ain’t got a clue.” He climbed out of the cruiser and quickly opened the back door.

  “You say that like you’re proud,” Nola said as she hurried to her motel room and unlocked the door.

  “I kind of am,” he said, placing his hands under Luna’s arms. He attempted to gently extract the now flailing woman from the car. “I’ve been a deputy close to seven years. For someone that’s smart enough to know what’s going on, that ain’t no big deal, but for a fella like me, that’s a pretty damn good feat.”

  Luna planted her heel squarely in Gus’s enlarged, soft sack, and he barked out a groan that could’ve stirred the dead.

  Friar stopped his efforts to pull Luna out of the car long enough to laugh at Gus’s misfortune.

  Nola rolled her eyes and made her way back to the cruiser. “Stop dicking around. We’re trying not to be seen.” She pushed Friar aside and managed to pull Luna out of the car without further incident. She squatted down and hoisted the delirious woman over her shoulder and carried her to the room. All the while, Luna continued insisting that someone check on her dog.

  By the time Friar and Gus entered the room, the bath water was running. The two men hovered around the entrance, not knowing what to do with themselves. As Friar finally moved to the TV to fetch the remote, he glanced in the mirror and accidentally stole a glimpse of a now naked Luna. His cheeks flushed, and he felt a surge of embarrassment travel from his head to his toes. Before he could turn away, he noticed the fist-sized purple blemishes that covered her torso, and his embarrassment gave way to outrage.

  Chapter 48

  “Okay,” Spivey said, standing in the abandoned warehouse. “I didn’t say anything in the car, but I feel like I should speak up. You overshot your sheriff’s office by an hour.”

  Dani shoved the suspect with the mangled face into a lone chair sitting in the center of the expansive room. The hum of the electric current running through the exposed wires hanging from the ceiling was so loud it made your bones itch. A dozen bare lightbulbs swung about slightly, dangling from the rafters at the ends of shoddy twenty-foot wires.

  “Yeah, well, if this piece of shit is connected to the group that shot up our station, I didn’t figure it a good idea to take him there.”

  “I get that,” Spivey said. “But this place isn’t anywhere near Baptist Flats.”

  “That’s the point,” Dani said.

  “Y’all better just shoot me dead,” the suspect said with a cackle. “I ain’t selling out my boys.”

  “Kind of figured that,” Dani said. She turned to Spivey. “Law ain’t gonna get nothing out of this dumbass cracker.”

  Spivey looked around the abandoned structure and smiled. “I see.” He approached the suspect and said to Dani, “You probably should wait outside while I…question the gentleman.”

  Dani laughed. “Yeah, neither of us is going to be questioning this…gentleman.”

  Spivey, irritated by her laugh, said, “Making deals and persuading hostiles is kind of in my wheelhouse.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Dani said. “But I’m guessing you ain’t muscled anyone who don’t own a closet full of suits and one of them financial portfolios in a long time.”

  “Money or no, they all bleed the same.”

  The suspect laughed this time.

  “What’s so funny?” Spivey said, slapping him in the back of the head.

  “That thing you said about bleeding the same. That’s some real tough-guy talk.”

  Spivey grimaced and was about to unload on the mangled-faced suspect when the door to the warehouse opened.

  “The closeout kings have o-rived,” a fat man said as he entered the building. A taller, skinnier man stepped across the threshold shortly after him.

  The suspect who had been amused by Spivey bore a sudden look of terror.

  Kenny and Step casually made their way under the first ring of illumination cast by a naked lightbulb.


  “Shit,” the suspect said.

  “Shit is right, boy,” Kenny said with a goofy grin. “Your day has gone seriously wrong when they call us in.”

  Step lit a Porter 100 and tossed the spent match to the cracked concrete floor. “Name?”

  “We don’t know his name,” Spivey said.

  “That’s why I didn’t ask you,” Step said. “I was talking to shit-for-brains.”

  The suspect swallowed. “Duncan.”

  “Duncan what?”

  “Bradly Duncan.”

  Kenny hooted out a laugh. “Carl Duncan’s boy?”

  “Yeah,” the suspect said, sounding agreeable.

  “How do you like that?” Kenny said. “This is Carl Duncan’s boy. You remember Carl?”

  Step took a deep drag from his cigarette before shaking his head. “Not familiar.”

  “Sure. Titus Grove. Closed him out about three-year ago.”

  Step nodded. “Yeah. Cried like a baby. Pissed himself.”

  “That’s the one,” Kenny said.

  Dani motioned for Spivey to follow her as she headed for the door. He hesitated. He’d never admit it, but his pride was hurt. He could beat information out of the mangled-faced cracker just as deftly as the two goons she’d called in, but he reluctantly gave in and followed Dani out of the warehouse door.

  “I gotta take a shit,” the suspect insisted.

  “So take it,” Step said. “You can talk and shit at the same time can’t you?”

  “C’mon, man, don’t make me shit myself.”

  “Seems fitting. Your daddy pissed himself.”

  “Step’s got a point,” Kenny said. “In fact, you’d be outdoing your daddy if you think about it. He’d most likely be proud.”

  “C’mon, I seriously gotta take a shit.”

  “Ain’t nobody doubting you,” Step said. “Let’s get to the questions.”

  “I can’t think! C’mon…”

  “Who hit the Baptist Flats Sheriff’s Office?”

  The suspect donned a pained look before Kenny jumped back, pinching his nose. “Lordy, he’s shitting himself.”

  Step turned his head and held the burning embers of his cigarette under his nostrils. “Good God, boy.”

  “I gotta go!”

  “Go?” Kenny said. “It smells like you done went!”

  “I ain’t. Not all the way. Please!”

  “Fuck it,” Step said, moving back. “Take him to the bathroom in the back, Kenny.”

  “Me?”

  “You ain’t gotta wipe him. Just take him to the back and let him evacuate that shit.”

  Kenny groaned and yanked the cracker out of the chair. “I’m always stuck with the unpleasant parts of our work.”

  Step walked toward the entrance. “Should have studied harder in school.”

  Kenny pushed the mangled-faced asshole in the opposite direction, vowing that this would be the last time he’d let Step tell him what to do.

  Step exited the warehouse, pulling a new cigarette from the pack. As soon as Dani spotted him, she hopped off of the hood of her cruiser and approached him. “That was quick.”

  “Nothing quick about it,” Step said. “Cracker’s taking a shit.”

  Spivey leaned against the warehouse wall, shook his head, and grunted his disapproval.

  “Got something to say, asshole?”

  Spivey sent Step his best stony glare. “Glad to see you’re making sure all his needs are being met.”

  “I’m meeting my needs, friend. I prefer not breathing in the foul odor of shit while I work.”

  “He said anything yet?” Dani asked.

  Step shook his head as he sparked a new cigarette to life. “He will. I know the boy’s bloodline. He’d sell out his own mother for a beer and a pack of peanuts.”

  “Then why is it we need you?” Spivey asked.

  “Don’t give a shit what you need. I’m here for Dani. You can fuck off anytime.”

  “I’d love to, but I’ve got skin in this game…”

  “The ATF agent,” Step said, blowing out a thick stream of smoke. “Dani told me. Fuckhead in there knows anything about her, Kenny and me will get it out of him. But I wouldn’t hold your breath that he knows anything more than a rumor or two.”

  “What makes you say that?” Dani asked.

  “Because little boy Duncan is low down on the organizational chart. Killing an ATF agent is a top brass move…”

  “Killing?” Spivey said, seething. Just as he was about to tear into Step for making such an assumption, Kenny yelled out from deep inside the warehouse.

  “Step!”

  Step stooped past the doorway and yelled, “We back on?”

  Kenny hesitated before answering. “We’ve been shut down! Permanently!”

  Spivey, hearing Kenny’s announcement, quickly squeezed around Step and ran toward the sound of Kenny’s voice. He spotted a doorway highlighted by a waterfall of light seeping through the darkness.

  Dani followed in a slow jog, while Step kept his pace at a disinterested stroll. Kenny’s message was loud and clear. Their day was done, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Knowing why wouldn’t change that fact.

  “Fuck!” Spivey barked when he looked inside the bathroom.

  Dani was the next to see what would prevent the further questioning of her mangled-faced suspect. “What happened?”

  “The boy didn’t want to answer no questions,” Kenny said, fidgeting in the path of light stretched out from the doorway.

  Step finally arrived at the open bathroom door and looked inside. Bradly Duncan sat on the filth-covered green tile floor next to a broken toilet. A metal rod from the tank’s interior was jammed into his neck, and a deep-red stream of blood soaked his shirt and pooled in his lap.

  Chapter 49

  Kenny and Step left the warehouse with the mangled-faced cracker wrapped in plastic. They’d had more than their fair share of experience disposing of bodies in the surrounding mountains. They had come to the warehouse already expecting to leave with the two bodies brought in from the cave. Getting rid of one more didn’t really complicate matters that much.

  Spivey fumed as he watched the taillights from Step’s truck turn out of the parking lot and head down the road. He tried to bite his tongue, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Well, that was a fuckup.”

  Dani clenched her back teeth before saying, “Yeah, your fuckup.”

  He turned to her, red-faced. “What did you say?”

  “This thing went south because of you.”

  “I’m sorry. I missed the part where I called in Tweedledee and Tweedle-fucking-dumb to handle the questioning of our only suspect…Oh, wait, that wasn’t me. That was you!”

  She barked back with more force than Spivey. “I called them in because I can’t trust you!”

  “Don’t blame me because you’ve got trust issues…”

  “I’m blaming you because you’ve lied to me from day one. You’re still lying to me.”

  He had to force himself to keep his feet planted and not rush her. Not to strike her, but to get in her face and scare the living daylights out of her. “About what? What do you think I’m lying about? What?”

  “Mac’s family didn’t send you down here looking for her. There’s something else going on.”

  He hesitated because he couldn’t figure out how she’d read him so clearly. He’d thought he was better at subterfuge. “You’re out of your mind…”

  She held up a hand and cut him off. “You don’t have to tell me the truth, but don’t you fucking keep up the lie. You do, and I will arrest you.”

  “Arrest me for what?”

  She considered his question. “Being an asshole. Interfering with an investigation. Breaking and entering into my house. I’ll find something to throw your ass behind bars.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. I can’t tell you what you want to hear just to make you feel better. I’m here as a family friend.
I am what I am.”

  “What you are is somebody who don’t give a shit about Special Agent Patricia McElhenney,” Dani said as she dug in her pocket for her keys, taking her eyes off Spivey in the process. If she’d kept paying attention to the man she didn’t trust, she would have seen a puzzled expression flash across his face. He did give a shit about Mac. He was the only one that gave a shit about Mac. She was the only thing he gave a shit about.

  Dani retrieved the keys and stomped across the pavement to her cruiser. “We best get going.”

  Spivey didn’t move. His mind’s eye fixed on the smiling face of Mac. When he heard Dani open the car door, he spoke up. “I am corporate security.”

  Dani shook her head in disbelief as she started to climb behind the steering wheel. He was lying to her for no reason now.

  “But like I said before, I’m not just corporate security.”

  She stopped and stood back up behind the door. “And Mac’s family.”

  “She doesn’t have family. None of us do.”

  “Us?”

  “The corporate security job is a cover.”

  “For what? You ATF, too?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not, and neither was Mac…is Mac…was Mac.” He felt a stabbing pain in his throat when he admitted in so many words that Mac was most likely dead.

  “FBI?”

  “Homeland Security. Kind of.”

  Dani stepped away from the cruiser and slammed the door shut. “Explain.”

  He sighed. “This isn’t easy. I got this job because of my psych profile.”

  “Which was?”

  “Basically it says I have the personality type that keeps secrets. I tell you the truth, and I blow that theory out of the fucking water.”

  “You got a choice. Keep your secret, and we keep flailing about with our heads up our asses, or you tell me everything, and we avoid the shit we just went through today. I wanna work with you, not against you.”

  He nodded and said, “I work with a private contractor that runs intelligence for Homeland Security.”

  “I would think that they’d do that sort of thing in-house.”

  “They do, but all their agency activity is subject to government oversight. Private contractors, not so much.”