“Ah, hell! Get out of here!”
She starts, then freezes. Stares. I wave. She bolts. Two huge bounds and she’s thirty feet gone; another two and she’s brown in the thicket.
Don’t want to think on that doe. She was meat for a whole mess of dogs. I’ll go the grocery instead. Involves risk, but hell, it ain’t like I was going to get away with all this anyhow. I head back the still. Park the thirty-thirty agin the cave wall. Stinky Joe cocks his head. “What you looking at?”
Stinky Joe says, I didn’t say nothing.
“I’ll be back in a couple hours.” I scruff his ears.
I walk down the hill with eyes and ears tuned. Crow farts in a beech tree, I’ll hear it.
Chapter Forty One
Joe Stipe sat on his porch with a sarsaparilla soda in one hand and a cordless telephone in the other. The delicate scent of diesel exhaust was in the air. He stared across the narrow lawn to the blacktop motor pool and the trucks awaiting maintenance, the forested hills beyond. Creighton was out there somewhere.
All morning Stipe had a nagging thought that he ought to know where Creighton hid. It was like a word on the tip of his tongue. The Gleason deputies had found no trail—the hound had tracked Creighton from toolshed to still site, back and forth three times, and finally sat down, confused. Stipe’s men had no more success. Creighton had disappeared, almost as if he was in the burned Brown house. No dice there. The fire department found no remains.
Stipe had personally ransacked Creighton’s camp and found no indication of where he was headed.
Anxiety didn’t come close to it. On the afternoon before an extremely important dog match, his enemy with cannonball nuts was utterly unaccounted for.
Stipe had asked Stan to beef up security by bringing a couple nephews, bulky thugs who’d played high school football but hadn’t gotten big until they joined the Local, but Stipe knew they wouldn’t impede Creighton. He was impervious to ass-beatings.
When Creighton struck it would be for blood. The victor would be the man willing to risk all.
So far Stipe had held back. He could have finished off Creighton that very first night, but he’d intended to pressure Creighton into selling out and working for him. Why destroy a man when you could enslave him? Most men only bent so far, and just before they snapped, they’d relent. But not Creighton. Creighton had proved he would destroy himself for vengeance. That wasn’t the kind of man to have running loose before an important match.
But for the moment a different problem had become more urgent. Stipe jammed his finger to the telephone keypad and sipped soda while the phone rang.
“Mort, this is Joe, up Gleason.”
“Yeah.”
“Got a special tonight. Need a favor.”
“Halloween special.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can’t make it. Got the kids and the trick-or-treat.”
Stipe exhaled into the phone. He was silent.
“Like to help, but I’m out of commission.”
Stipe said, “You still got Rusty Nail?”
“Accourse.”
“I want you to bring him tonight. I got boys coming in from Atlanta, and it’s a big deal. Real big deal. Local hoodlum shot Achilles right in the cussed eyeball and I need star power. I’ll match Rusty Nail easy, and it’ll give him another win ’fore you stud him.”
“Look, Joe, like I said—”
“Mort, I don’t ask a favor twice. You hear me?”
The pause was long. “Yeah, Joe.”
The Atlanta boys had contacted Stipe earlier in the week on a telephone referral from a Georgia acquaintance Stipe knew only by his reputation as the best dog breeder in the state. Stipe was unsure if the two visitors were emissaries for the Georgia man or if they acted on their own. He hoped the former.
Truly superior genetic lines were difficult to find, but mixing them was the lifeblood of the sport. Breeding was always a balance between excluding inferior animals and keeping pairings diverse enough to prevent the line from stagnating. Pulling champion DNA out of Georgia would pay dividends.
If the Atlanta visitors represented a champion breeder, they wouldn’t be interested in some redneck pairing labs and rotts. Stipe had decided to fight two of the bait dogs, the lab and the female pit, as an opening spectacle. But Stipe’s Atlanta guests would be looking for true game, and for that, Stipe needed at least one uncontestable champion.
Champions were in limited supply, and none of Stipe’s contacts had been willing to provide his top dog on short notice. A champion dog needed time to prepare. A month walking around with a chain wrapped around his neck. Hours swinging by his jaw from a rope.
None of the dogmen Stipe called took his bait. No amount of return favors secured their interest. It was almost as if word to avoid Stipe’s fights had gotten out. It bothered him, and left no alternative but to flex muscle.
The last man on Stipe’s list was Mort, owner of Rusty Nails, a four-year-old, sixty-pound Red Nose pit with an unbroken string of wins. The dog was so good Stipe had waited to match him against Achilles, hoping Achilles would improve and Rusty Nails would decline with the delay. If Achilles won, Rusty Nails’s stud value would fall. Mort had called Stipe out on it a month ago, and all week Stipe had avoided making this call. Now his shenanigans were for naught and he needed his adversary’s help.
“I’ve lined up five fights. I need six. I don’t like to lean on you, but this is important. My boys coming up from Atlanta are big-time. Big dough. You ever want to match a dog in a sanctioned fight in Buncombe County again, you’ll give me your word right now. What’s it going to be?”
“You play hardball, Stipe.”
“I’m backed in a corner. I need you in. So either sell Rusty Nails to me, or bring his ass down and fight him.”
“I’m in.”
“Good. Tonight. I’ll put Rusty Nails last, and I’ll make sure he looks good as a favor to you.”
“I really appreciate that.”
The phone beeped.
“I got another call, Mort. I’ll see you tonight.” Stipe pressed the button. He looked up and saw his security man Stan’s GMC enter the motor pool drive.
“Stipe here.”
“Joe. Dis’s Ted.”
“Hey, Big Ted, what can I do you for? You coming tonight?”
“Nah. Mebbe. Gotta mind the restaurant. You and Creighton square up yet?”
“Can’t find him.”
“Yeah. You oughta be lookin’ a truck. Guilio—you know Guilio, up on Merrimon—he sold Creighton a ’98 F-150.”
“What color?”
“Brown.”
Stipe raised his voice to overcome the sound of Stan’s GMC, idling a dozen feet away. “Thanks, Big Ted. You come tonight and put money on Rusty Nails. That’s the safe bet.” Stipe drew his finger across his throat and Stan cut the engine.
“Eh, I appreciate that,” Big Ted said.
Stipe disconnected the call. Stan exited the truck, crossed in front of the grill and stood on the steps below Stipe.
Stipe needed to replace Burly. The way things were heating up, he’d have to keep Stan and the other two deployable. Too bad Cory proved such an idiot. Come to think of it, Cory hadn’t been around either.
Stipe waited for Stan to speak. For the last few days Stan had displayed a lack of imagination, almost as if he was glad Burly was gone and finding his killer meant nothing to him.
“We learned a little more. A little.”
Stipe sipped sarsaparilla.
“I personally visited Larry’s girl, Mae.”
Stipe leaned. “Yeah?”
“He ain’t been around, is what she said. I left Billy to keep an eye on the place until he had to go to work at the plant. Just to see if Creighton shows up.”
“He won’t. He’s crazy, not stupid. He’s holed up.”
“Well, I talked to Ruth—you know there was history with Larry and Baer and Ruth? Well, took a while to find her. She’s been staying with h
er father at the home. He’s real sick and they was thinking he might keel over—”
“She seen Creighton?”
“Well, she’s at her place now and says she ain’t seen hide nor hair of him. She spent more time asking questions than answering. She don’t know nothing. Then I stopped by to see Eve, since Larry said Baer put the moves on her.”
“Larry’s full of shit.”
“Yeah, well, she said it was Baer putting the moves on her too.”
Stipe laughed out loud. He rocked to his feet and stood at the porch rail. “So you got nothing.”
“Not entirely. I started with the bad news, but we got a little good, too. Mechanic outside of Gleason, runs Gatchell’s old body shop—he said Creighton tried to buy his welder, same day as Burly went gone. Kid sent Creighton to some guy named Craig Schlitz, like the beer or something.”
“Was Creighton driving a brown F-150?”
“That’s the other good news. Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Anything else? You’ve been digging how many days and that’s all you got?”
Stan turned partly away. “Well, I turned up something else. What do you know about a couple boys poking around Gleason this week? Word is they’re asking about you.”
“Don’t worry about them. What’s your plan for Creighton? We’re down to the wire and I want him found today. Right now.”
Stan removed his ball cap and crumpled the bill in his hands.
Blood flushed Stipe’s cheeks. “You fresh out of ideas, that it? Beat the bushes. I don’t care if you have to go to Creighton’s campsite and start walking circles. You find me that son of a bitch and you put him down. Now get the hell out of here!”
Stipe watched Stan’s dense, dull, sad face. He’d pushed too hard. Stan was a dolt. But too much was riding on tonight. Sometimes a situation demanded strong leadership.
Stan retreated to the GMC. He climbed inside the cab and started the engine.
How could it be so difficult? Creighton wasn’t a man to turn tail. He was hell bent on revenge, and Stipe knew in his bones that Creighton had stayed close enough to get it. He’d bought a truck. Tried to buy tools. He was rebuilding. Creighton thought he would win this war.
A man with the audacity to march into the enemy’s stronghold, not once but twice… Creighton was in the woods somewhere, scheming. Each escalation proved him victorious. Achilles, dead. Burly and Ernie, dead. Cory, missing for a week almost. Creighton had even seen through Stipe’s longtime associate Pete Bleau. Each time Stipe raised the stakes he found Creighton had already covered and raised. The only thing left was flat-out murder. No time for clever setups or covering tracks. He’d whitewash everything afterward. But you had to know where a man was if you wanted to murder him.
Stipe imagined Creighton sitting under a walnut tree, whittling a stick. Sipping moonshine. Staring blank into the trees, biding his time.
Ernie Gadwal had been certain Creighton would kife everything he needed to rebuild his still from the Brown farm. Stipe had seen it long before Ernie—it was in his mind when he told Smylie to tip off the revenue boys. But any chance of manipulating Creighton into a subordinate position vis-à-vis making shine was destroyed when Ernie went slam off his instructions and killed Creighton’s dog. Stipe had Creighton right where he wanted him, and Ernie blew it.
Ernie. Another dimwit, thought he was smart. Followed Creighton everywhere, even…
Stipe lurched down the porch steps. Stan’s GMC was at the gate.
“Stan! Stan!” Stipe crossed the lot with his hand against his chest. His heart thudded and flopped. “Stan!”
The GMC halted. Stan tumbled out and stood with his eyes revealing confusion.
Stipe looked at his watch. There was time. “Stan! Bring in the boys and tell em to fetch their guns. Now! I know where Creighton is!”
Chapter Forty Two
I back out the truck and head into town. It’s early and nobody knows this truck, but I’m edgy. No way they ain’t found Burly Worley and his sidekick.
Back in the day I’d tool along in my Nova nice and easy with the windows down. No radio. Just tires crunching dirt, aching to spin. Them days I didn’t have a past, just a future. Now I’m old, I got no future so I brood on what’s past. Feel like a kid started out with a hundred dollar bill and next I know I’m an old man with empty pockets, wondering how the hell I spent everything so fast.
I go to the Bi Lo so I don’t see nobody I know.
I remember that dream.
Sometimes you don’t know what the hell triggered the memory. Dreams is all bullshit anyhow, but the image smacks me upside the head and I stand numb on the sidewalk.
It’s dusk, and the woods is a sketch of black and white, and the trail’s emptied to a patch of land different’n any other. It’s a land of horror. Stepping in means crossing a line. The trees is decorated with bodies. People—dead people—suspended with they backs agin the trees and they arms and legs sticking out straight. Each tree has fifty… it’s like the trees is made of corpses instead of wood. This tree, that tree, the whole woods beyond the line is dead men and women. The air’s tranquil, and though my feet strike crunchy leaves, they land silent.
I step closer the woods. The dead land.
I shake loose the image. Fuck dreams.
I stand at the cooler at the back of the grocery.
“Need ten pound of hamburg.”
The man nods. Packs meat in plastic. I’m the grateful hypocrite didn’t slaughter the doe-eyed cow going in that bag.
“You planning some kind of picnic?” he says.
I say “Yeah” by way of conversation.
He drops the wrapped meat to the counter. I grab it. “Take ’er easy.” I leave.
I buy a jug of Turkey at the ABC.
“The liter?”
“Fuck liters. That big jug right there.”
I pay with cash. His eyes go to mine but they’s no red.
All these disaffected years—but no one ever surprised me.
“Everything good?” the man says.
“Things is about to get Wild Turkified. That’s an improvement.”
Ten-pound hamburg in the fold of my arm, Wild Turkey in the other. I put the meat on the passenger seat and break the seal on the Turkey. This Kentucky bourbon’s smooth as goose shit but you got to drink twice as much.
I’m in the parking lot and two men come out George’s Hot Dogs, other side of the street. They watch me and I gawk a minute back ‘til they mosey toward the corner. They ain’t from here. Dressed like law that don’t know how to fit in. I don’t need another run to the jailhouse so I wait ‘til they turn the corner, then gulp a long snurgle of Turkey.
I drive slow and halfways home a car passes. Inside the cab is the two fellas from town. My hackles is sky high, but I got no juice at all.
No harm comes, and back at the cave I treat Stinky Joe with a handful of hamburg, and dig out that melatonin I bought two week ago. I close the meat bag and set the pill bottle beside. Another gurgle of Turkey, and I stretch out on my sleeping bag and close my eyes for a nap.
See if I can steer clear of that land of corpses in the trees.
I wake and those dead stiff-legged bodies is still in my eyes but Stinky Joe’s growling low and grumbly like he means it. I roll to my side and he’s at the cave entrance, standing taut with his ass shaking. His floppy ears is up and a bad feeling shoots through me. I’m haunted by ghosts and deep shadows but living trouble’s come to my door.
I grab Smith and scoot beside Stinky Joe. “What you see?”
Down there, he says.
I scan the brown landscape. I block Stinky Joe with my arm and he leans into it. I spot movement fifty yards off—a man flashes a go signal to someone on his right. He bears a rifle. Another man leaves the protection of a giant oak and advances to the next. His rifle barrel sticks out. I keep an eye on both of them and gather my scattered brain.
I got Turkey left in the bottle and two full flask. I slip
to the back of the cave and grab the bottle, down it, and grab my thirty-thirty rifle. I pop the lever. Brass in the chamber.
Five jugs with cinnamon is lined on the cave wall, but they’s no way out but them goons’ll know and shoot. They’ve come for a showdown. I leave the jugs.
Wild Turkey hits the spot and starts pushing back the corpses in trees and the cold mist crossing my mind. The dream slips away but leaves the chill. Stinky Joe’s moved to the entrance side. He shakes like he wishes I was there to hold him back.
“I’ll show you how to fight, Stinky Joe. Just you watch this.”
Back at the entrance I stay low in the shadows. It’s early evening. Downslope is the fire circle, rocks stacked maybe twelve inch high. Got a boulder off to the side where I sit at nights watching the fire. They’s trees all down the slope. To the right sits two mash barrels, each full of slaggy poison mush. I bet one of them barrel’d stop a bullet, but not as good as a big-assed rock.
I find the first fellow again, now forty yards away. He looks to his left at a third man. Three men, each with a rifle. They’s the lugnuts was in town with Stipe that day. At forty yards I could drop any one of them but the other two’d hole up and the skirmish’d come down to which of us brought the most bullets. I got a bunch, that’s for damn sure, and more on my pistol belt, but I got someplace to be in a couple hours. They could pin me down ‘til dark.
I got one option: close work.
They’ll converge on the cave. If they got any brains they’ll send two up and leave one in reserve, covering them. If I got any luck they’ll all three come up. I stretch on the dirt and wriggle ‘til I got a clean view.
All three men is stopped and the leader’s got deep thought etched on his face. His eyes is hell bent on the cave entrance but with the shadows he don’t know if I’m a rock or a man with a gun trained on him.
Stinky Joe whimpers.
“Shhhh.” I turn my head and signal him to slip to the back of the cave.
He steps toward me.
Man down the hill swings his rifle to his eye. I got no choice. I pull the trigger and the cave sounds like the middle of a thunderclap. I cycle a new bullet and take fresh aim. The man stands for a second, then fires his rifle. The bullet zings from the rock overhang. The man staggers and drops on his ass, then back.
My Brother's Destroyer Page 25
