My Brother's Destroyer

by Clayton Lindemuth

I fire again. Stand still below the rock outcrop, looking up for motion. For a glint of silver or the sound of shoe leather. Rustling pant legs. Red eyes. The echoes fade and my ears still ring.

  Tink. Tink. Tink.

  The breeze turns and I whiff something recalls the scent of the fight pit. Death.

  They’s rocks everywhere. I drag my feet. That pungent smell gets strong down among the tree trunks. I ease up on the hemlock where I rigged the branch trigger and the branch don’t cross the path. I stop. Hair stands on my neck, and I know what I’m about to find.

  I holster Smith. Dig a Zippo out my pocket and flick. Kneel. Not five feet off is a black mat of bloody leaves. Furrows dug in the dirt, like from a boot—just one. The barbed wire I’d stretched across the trail is gone. The trap is sprung.

  I touch the blood. It’s dry.

  I hold the light a foot off the ground and crawl, yard after yard. I weary of hands and knees, and stand, and continue at a half-stoop. The Zippo flame flickers and whips.

  I see a boot.

  I come alongside; kneel. His bottoms is black. I bring the lighter to his face. Cory Smylie.

  His eyes is sunk, but fixed on the sky like he set his gaze on a star and tried to hang on while the darkness all around him swelled and blotted it all out. His face is gray-pale; I move the Zippo south and glance at his wounds. Barbed wire ripped out his pants, part his thigh, part his groin. All at once a breeze changes direction and I get a lungful of death.

  I’ve had enough. Too damn much.

  I tramp through the dark in footsteps I been setting twenty years. Cross the crick on slippy stones. Duck and weave through scrub, emerge in a grove of cherry and oak, and it ain’t a minute ‘til I’m at the rotted tree with two buckets of gold yet in the hollow. I’m going to swing this blade and cut down this tree. I’m going to grab a bucket of coin and take it to Mae tonight. Tell her I’m her daddy and I love her but she won’t ever see Larry or Cory Smylie again. Tell her to take one coin each to a different dealer in a different town, ‘til she has enough money to ditch Gleason, then keep the rest in gold. Tell her to make sure them kids go to college, and the next man she finds, he better have motor oil under his finger-nails and smell like ten hours’ sweat. Then she’ll know she’s got a man.

  I’ll come back to this tree, gather the rest of the gold. Come morning I’ll take Stinky Joe—no, fuck that. His name’s Joe from here out. I’ll haul ass west with Joe in my brand new old truck. Keep the windows down and the radio off, and drive ‘til I don’t see dead men in the trees.

  I swing the ax.

  THE END

  A special word from Baer Creighton…

  A Special Word from Baer Creighton:

  Hey Yall. This is important. No bullshit. You dug this book, leave a review!

  And if you wanna know what comes next, Mister Clayton is presently gettin it on paper. Join the Facebook Group called Red Meat Lit so’s you know when my next adventure is out.

  Meantime, flip the page one more time and see if another Lindemuth title don’t tickle yer fancy!

  --Baer

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  About the Author

  Clayton Lindemuth writes noir because that’s where he lives. He runs marathons. Reads economics. Is a dog lover, and eternally misses Arizona. Clayton is the author of Cold Quiet Country, Sometimes Bone, Nothing Save the Bones Inside Her, My Brother’s Destroyer, Solomon Bull, TREAD, and the recently released Strong at the Broken Places. He lives in Missouri with his wife Julie and his puppydog Faith, also known as “Princess Wigglebums.”