On his way across the mountain, Earl passed many a road that might have taken him to his prey. But he stuck to his plan and passed them by, not sure if he was doing the right thing or not. By the time he pulled into Weaver’s Creek, a bright autumn sun rode high in the mid-afternoon sky.
He stopped in front of a general store alongside the road, took off his hat and laid it on the seat, on top of the box of shotgun shells. Then he got out and walked across the dirt lot, to the front of the old weathered building. Three stairs led up to a raised wooden porch, where an old man with curly-white hair sat on the top step, carving on what looked to be the remnant of a tree branch. He wore a red flannel shirt and faded dungarees, and had a corncob pipe clenched between his teeth.
He looked up, waving a buzzing fly away from his ear when Earl approached him.
“Hey, how you doin’, young-un?”
“Fine, sir,” Earl said. “And yourself?”
The old man looked down at Earl’s feet, then slowly raised his eyes, assessing what stood before him: gleaming black leather shoes, polished to a fine sheen, uniform pants neatly pressed; Earl’s gun belt and buckle visible through the gap at the front of his navy-blue coat. “What can I do for you, officer?” he said, and then took a draw on his pipe, smoke flowing slowly from his nostrils as Earl asked if he’d seen an old beat-up truck come through there.
“Can’t say’s I have. What’d they do?”
“Robbed the bank over in Whitley.”
“You don’t say.” A twinkle appeared in the old-timer’s eyes, as if that might be good news to him. “Well, I’ve only been out here about thirty minutes. Like I said—ain’t seen no truck come by.”
“You know anybody living around here might drive one?”
“All kinds of old trucks ‘round these here parts.” He laughed and took another draw on his pipe. “Hell,” he said. “Old beat up trucks is about all there is around here.”
“This one has a crack in the back window, Kentucky plates.”
“Nah, ain’t seen no Kentucky plates come by.”
“Well, thanks anyway,” Earl said, as he climbed the porch stairs, and the old man went back to his piece of wood.
Inside, at a cooler near the rear of the store, Earl opened the lid, grabbed an RC Cola and slid the top back in place. He pried the cap off with an opener that was attached to the side of the cooler, took a couple of gulps and walked up to the counter, where a fat old woman took his quarter. She had wiry red hair, and a dirty and stained apron. She wiped her hands on it and handed him back some change. When she smiled, Earl thought he had more fingers than she had teeth. On his way to the car, he shoved the coins into his pocket, guzzled some more of his drink and hurried past the old man.
Several dirt roads branched off the two-lane-blacktop, into hollows dotted with farms, broken down shacks and shanties. He crossed a small wooden bridge spanning a stream, and continued on past a couple of houses, until the road started up an incline. He stopped in front of a dying oak tree. Its scorched trunk, split all the way to the ground from an apparent lightning strike, stood next to a dirt path overrun with weeds that snaked up the hillside.
He kept going deeper into the mountain. Every once in a while he would come to a driveway, or the road would splinter off in two or three different directions that he was leery of following. A couple of times he stopped to ask an old woman hanging laundry, or a group of playing children if they had seen the truck. He described the men and asked if they were familiar to them. They weren’t, and he had no reason to believe they were lying. He drove though the area, searching for the truck, a thin man wearing a long black coat, or some fat bastard wearing a dirty old denim jacket, but saw none of these things as he roamed the backwoods of Weaver’s Creek.
He pulled up to a crossroads with a decision to make. Head back to Whitley or venture further east. They could be anywhere, could very well have driven past the store and kept right on going. Hell, for all he knew they could be all the way to Charleston by now. They could have headed north to the Ohio border. Or they could be holed up right here. Right under his nose. He took a right, heading east past the general store, past the old man, who was still on the porch, working on his stick, staring listlessly out at the empty dirt lot in front of him.
Earl stopped in front of the only gas station in Weaver’s Creek, a two-storied structure with curtained windows that looked down on an old weathered awning. A young man in a baseball cap and a grease-stained pair of jeans stood pumping gas into a Model T. The only difference Earl could see between this boy and Henry Walker Jr. was the Jimmy stenciled above the pocket of his dirty uniform shirt.
Earl, who had been in the car an awfully long time, had grown weary and tight. He yawned and got out, stretched his long muscular frame and leaned back into the car, grabbed the empty soft drink bottle and then walked over and tossed it into a trashcan sitting beside the pump.
“How you doing?” he asked the gas station jockey.
“Okay, I guess. Somethin’ I can do for ya?”
“Don’t guess you’ve seen an old black GMC pick-up come through here, have you?”
Jimmy ran a hand under his cap and scratched his head. “Nah,” he said. “Ain’t seen no GMC today.”
Earl nodded toward the building. “You got a telephone in there?”
“Yes, sir. Just go on inside and tell Uncle Chester ya wanta use it.”
“Good deal,” Earl told him, and then made his way under the awning, through a screen door that had a metal Coca Cola sign attached to it. The rusted spring attached to the door squalled when he opened it, and banged the door shut when he walked inside.
The layout inside the place reminded him of Henry Walker’s Esso station: the dusty counter and the rusted old cash register, the faded off-white window shade pulled halfway down. A short, barrel-chested man sat behind a small wooden desk, in an old wooden chair on metal casters, a few days growth of beard covering his face, his black hair cut close to the scalp. He wore the same type of uniform shirt as the kid out front. When he saw Earl, he got out of the chair, stepped up to the counter and leaned on it.
“Howdy,” he said. “Chester Brill’s the name.”
“Earl Peters. Sheriff Earl Peters.”
“Ooh.” Chester ran a hand across his stubbled chin. “You’re the new lawman over in Whitley, ain’tcha?”
Earl, smiling, nodded his head.
“Somethin’ I can do for ya?”
“Yeah, if you’ve seen a beat up old GMC truck come by here today.”
“Well, can’t say as I have. But I ain’t exactly been watching the cars go by, either. Did ya ask Jimmy?”
“Yeah, he ain’t seen it. Can I use your telephone, Chester?”
“Sure. Over there on the desk.”
Earl thanked him and stepped around the counter, lifted the handset and got hold of the operator. Moments later, Alvie Ross was on the line.
“Alvie Ross, you hear about the bank?”
“Hell yeah I heard. Been waitin’ on you to call all afternoon. The hell are you, son?”
“Over in Weaver’s Creek.”
“You call the state police?”
“Aw, hell no.” Earl grimaced, his face turning red because he knew he damn well should have called them. “I hauled ass straight outa there. Thought if I hurried I might catch up with ‘em. But I got stopped by a train down by Tomlin’s place.”
“Don’t worry about it. I called them for you. They’re out there right now, looking for three guys in an old black beat up GMC with Kentucky plates, cracked back window and all.”
“Thanks. Good job, Alvie Ross. Look, Jonas Campbell saw them head up Seeker’s Mountain, so I came on over here. I’ve been all over this place, and nobody’s seen that truck.”
“Hell, Earl, you reckon they’re hidin’ up one of them back roads on the mountain?”
“Could be. Or they could’ve drove straight through here and be headed to God knows where. Like my new friend Chester sai
d: Ain’t like people are watching the roads around here.”
Alvie Ross laughed.
Chester, standing next to Earl, gave his shoulders a shrug.
“Look,” Alvie Ross said. “The state boys are covering all the roads outa here. I’m gonna get Henry Walker and some other men and start up the back roads of Seeker’s Mountain. What’re you gonna do?”
“Head a little further east. See if anyone up that way’s seen them.”
“Okay, Earl.”
“Alvie Ross?”
“Yeah?”
“How’s Fraley and the women?”
“Oh, the women are fine. Except, well, Cathy Brooks is a little shook up. You know they ripped her dress open and messed with her, don’t you?”
“Yeah, those sons of bitches.” Earl looked down. He had clenched his hand into a fist without even realizing it.
“Doc Fletcher says Fraley’s cracked a cheekbone. He patched him up and sent him on home. He’ll be okay, but, well… they cleaned out that damn vault.”
“Goddamn it.” Earl paused, and then sighed. “Let’s get to it, Alvie Ross. I’ll go down the road a ways; don’t turn something up soon, I’ll join you boys on the mountain.”
“See ya, Earl.”
“Yup,” Earl said, and then hung up.
“The hell’s goin’ on, Sheriff?” Chester asked him.
“Bunch of lowlifes robbed our bank this morning.”
“You don’t say. Well, good luck catchin’ ‘em. Anything I can do to help?”
“Yeah. You see three dirty-lookin’ pricks drive by in an old beat-up GMC with Kentucky plates, shoot the fuckers.”
Chester laughed. “How ‘bout I call the state police instead?”
Earl, laughing at his own asinine suggestion, shook his head. “Good idea,” he said.
Once in the car, he pulled onto the road and headed east, until he came to a small bridge that passed over a stream. Beyond that was another dirt road with more houses and shacks, any one of which the robbers could be hiding in. He kept going. A mile further down the road, he saw a man walking toward him, carrying a fishing rod, a tackle box and a stringer of fish. He pulled to a stop a few yards away from the man, got out of the car and asked the man how he was doing.
“Okay,” the guy said, casting a wary eye on Earl. “Something I can do for you?”
Earl pulled his jacket open, flashing the gold star pinned to his chest. “Yeah, I’m looking for a bunch of bank robbers, three of ‘em in an old black GMC truck with Kentucky plates.”
“Ain’t seen nobody like that. And I’ve been out here all day.”
“Well, thanks,” Earl said, and then got back into his car, waving at the man as he made a U-turn and headed back down the road.
At least now he felt a little better about calling it quits and joining up with Alvie Ross. With the state troopers patrolling the roads, those guys didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting out of the area.
He hoped.
Thank God Alvie Ross had sense enough to call them. The goddamn sheriff sure as hell hadn’t!
Chester’s gas station loomed in the distance, the empty fuel pump and the nephew with his head under the hood of an old rusted heap sitting on cinderblocks at the side of the building. A couple of miles further was the General store, the old man gone now, the only sign of life an old black GMC truck sitting in the dirt lot.
Earl shifted into a lower gear, kept his foot off the gas pedal and rolled slowly by the truck, eyeing the crack across the back window and the West Virginia plates. He pulled onto the side of the road, swung the vehicle around and drove back by the store, took a left across a wooden bridge, and then pulled to a stop alongside a dirt road running parallel to the highway.
He sat there, watching the front door open, and a short, fat man wearing a faded denim jacket step onto the porch, grinning from ear to ear. A case of beer under one arm and a brown paper bag cradled in the other, he made his way to the truck, opened the passenger door and tossed the bag onto the seat. Then he hefted the case and sat it in the truck bed, grabbed a bottle and carried it with him to the front of the truck.
Earl pulled into a driveway, stopped and shifted into reverse. Gravel crunched beneath his tires as he backed onto the road and pulled forward, crossing the bridge just in time to see the truck pull onto the asphalt and head west toward Whitley. A beat to hell black GMC with a cracked rear window and West Virginia plates.
They could have switched them.
A fat man, with an old blue jean jacket.
Lots of people around here wear blue jean jackets.
Hauling a case of beer around in the middle of the afternoon? That shit-eating grin of his?
Yeah, right.
It was him, all right. Earl knew it. He could feel it.
He reached under his coat for a little .38 caliber reassurance, and then slowed his pace and let the old jalopy put some distance between them, and before he knew it he was crossing the same wooden bridge he had taken on his first run up the mountain, passing farmhouses and shacks as it wound its way up the old mountain road; Earl following, keeping his distance, but keeping him in sight as the truck slowed; Earl muttering
“I’ll be damned” as the truck pulled onto an overgrown path whose bushes scraped the truck’s sides as it passed a dying oak whose trunk had been split all the way to the ground from an apparent lightning strike.
Earl pulled up beside the tree, blocked the exit and shut off the ignition. Fishing a hand into his shirt pocket as his eyes locked onto the path, he grabbed a cigarette from its pack, lit up and checked his wristwatch. It was four-thirty.
Thirty minutes later, he got the shotgun out of the back seat, stuffed his coat pocket full of shells and started up the trail.
The narrow path ended at the foot of a dilapidated shack. Crawling with vines and surrounded by overgrown bushes and trees, it sat like a great hulking beast before the truck Earl had followed. Inside, the case of beer beside him, empty wrappers and a half-eaten sandwich on the table, Fred Carter sat across from his cousin, dipping his hand into a big bag of potato chips. Musty old curtains, so thin you could see through them, hung from the two front windows of the one-room shack, which had no windows at the back, nor a door to flee out of. Faint rays of dying sunlight streamed through holes in the tarpaper roof, painting the floor below it. The floor, plagued by years of dry rot that had left several holes in its surface, groaned when Carter’s nephew crossed it on his way to the table.
Fred took a long drink of cool refreshing beer, nodded at the kid and said, “Hey, Bobby, you gonna finish that?”
“Huh uh,” he said. Then, sitting down at the table, “Can I have another one of them beers?”
“Hell yeah. Do a man’s job you get a man’s pay. Right, Clarence?”
“Goddamn right you do. Drink a man’s drink, too.”
Fred drained his bottle, and reached down and pulled three more out of the case. Opening one for each of them, he handed one to Bobby and slid the other across to Clarence, laughing as he gave his cousin a playful punch on the shoulder. “Pretty good, huh?”
“Told ya,” Clarence said. “Fake names, switch those plates? Hell, they wouldn’t know us if we drove right by them.”
“Then why’d we have to hole-up in this shit-hole?” Fred grabbed the half-eaten sandwich, wolfing it down in two bites.
“I told you,” Clarence said, and then raised his bottle and chugged a mouthful of beer. “We wait ‘til dark, go down and steal a car outa the valley, then we haul ass away from here free and clear.”
“You just said we could drive right by ‘em.”
“Goddamn it, Fred. What if we can’t? They’re lookin’ for an old beat to shit truck. Hell, they might even know about the busted back window. You wanta take a chance on that?”
Fred gave his head a disgusted shake, took a long swig of beer and watched his cousin’s fourteen-year-old son take a sip of his.
“What about you, boy?” Clarence said.<
br />
Grinning, Bobby replied, “I’m with you, Daddy.”
“There you go, Freddie-boy.” Clarence winked at his son. “Two to one.”
“We shoulda kept right on goin’ this mornin’,” Fred muttered, wishing it was already dark so they could get the hell down the road and spend some money. They were going to have a fine old time, and he couldn’t wait to get started.
“Won’t be long now. Why don’t you go ahead and put the money in the truck. We’ll suck down as much beer as we can before it gets too warm. By then it’ll be time to go.” Clarence reached down, grabbed the sack and hefted it onto the table.
“Twenty-one thousand, one-hundred and eighty-two dollars,” Bobby said, as if he were not a bank robber eyeing a bag of loot, but a museum patron admiring a great work of art.
Pillowcase in hand, Fred stood up. “Still don’t see why we couldn’t’ve took that woman with us.”
“I told you, you fuckin’ moron. We take that bitch, they’d have every swingin’ dick in the county huntin’ after us. Goddamn, son. You act like you ain’t never had no pussy before.”
Fred, grinning, his stained buckteeth hanging over his bottom lip, said, “It has been a while.”
Bobby shook his head, both he and his father laughing as Fred picked up his beer, tipped it back and drained the bottle dry, belching and farting on his way across the room.
“God damn, cousin, no wonder you can’t get no trim,” Clarence said, to which the bucktoothed slob answered with “Fuck you” on his way out the door.
Dead leaves blew across the clearing as Fred stood by the truck, the bag of loot in his hand as shadows stretched across the yard, left there in place of a sun that had passed behind the mountain while he’d been inside chugging beer.
Fred had always wondered what a sack full of money would feel like, and now he knew: damn good. He reached beneath his jacket and touched the butt of the revolver tucked into his waistband, and for the second time today thought about using it on his kin. The money would last a hell of a lot longer if they didn’t split it up. That was a solid fact.
Lord of the Mountain Page 9
