It struck Clayton as odd that just one man—a boy, no less—was left by himself to man the gates of Burroughs Summit, so he hollered back, as he tried to place where he’d seen him before. “Why are you out here, all alone?”
“I promise you, Mr. Burroughs, I ain’t alone.” He pointed to the security cameras that topped each fence post. They surveyed the entire property. That was new, too. Clayton remembered the number of men guarding this place when Halford was alive was in the dozens—an army of shadows all ready to light up anyone who came calling if the big man gave the word. Now there was a skinny kid with a rifle and bunch of cameras. When Halford ran the mountain he kept things old guard like their father had done, but Mike had embraced the concept of the High-Tech Redneck, and taken advantage of the available modern technology. Either that, or the stories Clayton had been catching wind of recently about Halford’s dwindling crew held more truth than he previously believed.
But why the hell wouldn’t they scatter? What was left up here for them? The empire had fallen.
Clayton had seen to that himself when he pulled the trigger on his own kin, and executed their leader.
“They call me T-Ride!”
“Huh?” Clayton looked back at the kid by the gate. He was smiling and holding his hat with both hands, and the recognition set in. He was Mike’s nephew. The kid in the truck from that mess at Burnt Hickory the other day.
“I know who you are, son. How’s your mom and them?” Clayton didn’t really care. It was a reflexive response, and so was the boy’s answer.
“Can’t complain, I reckon, and it wouldn’t do no good if we did.”
“I heard that.” Clayton looked up at the blinking red lights on the cameras as the gate closed on its own between them. “Listen, kid, I don’t care how many cameras Mike’s got on you out here, you watch your six.”
“Yessir.” T-Ride tapped the rifle hanging at his side. “I got this watchin’ my back.”
Clayton nodded, and unpinned his badge. He tossed it onto the seat of the SUV. Everyone up here knew who he was, but he didn’t see the point in rubbing salt in the wound. He walked over to the passenger side, reached through the window and slid his Colt from the glove box. He winced a little as he slid it into the holster strapped to his bad leg. He moved with a slight limp, but not enough for the kid by the gate to notice. “Just be careful out here, son.”
“Yessir, Mr. Burroughs.” The kid waited for the gate to click closed before he sat back down on his perch near the tree line. He laid the rifle across his lap, and winced a little himself as he thought about the man he watched drown to death in three inches of pond water at Clayton Burroughs’ feet. Clayton didn’t notice the kid’s hands shaking either. In fact, he forgot about the kid the instant he turned and headed toward the house.
*
The sun had already begun to set in the lowlands, but from this high up, the sky was still a soft tangerine behind the endless rolling backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The orange burn of the evening was slowing lulling the giants to sleep, stealing their details. The ridges and ravines had disappeared, leaving only the Goliath silhouettes towering in the distance. It was beautiful—and telling. That sky would only last a few minutes. It was the perfect example of how fleeting beauty could be up there before everything was swallowed by pitch black.
The dirt-and-pea gravel surrounding the compound that used to be a grassy front yard, was filled with trucks and Jeeps and ATVs, matte black and primer gray, some new, some old—mostly old—some only held together by spite and free time. It wasn’t a yard anymore. It was a hillbilly motor pool. Halford had turned the house into an armored fortress. The whole place took on the look of a miniature state prison. Motion lights, cameras, and razor wire replaced wooden slat shutters and hand-carved rockers. Sleeping bloodhounds on the porch were gone now, replaced by highly trained pit bulls tied to the chain-link fence.
This used to a home, now it was a home base.
Clayton and his brothers grew up here, but nothing about the compound resembled the place he remembered. The house still remained at the center, a simple, pitched-roof structure made mostly of yellow pine and cedar. There were two windows on each side of the front door. Only now, they were covered by hinged sheets of galvanized steel—pocked and marred by gunfire. Concrete-block additions were built onto the sides of the house for added protection and muscle. He looked at the roofline as he crossed between cars. Massive floodlights had been added, the kind you’d see at a high-school football stadium, and once he saw the high-end security camera’s blinking red lights at the fence, he began to see them everywhere. They were nestled into everything. He looked for the bench by the fire pit where he first tried to hold Kate’s hand. It was gone. The fire pit was, too. The huge birdhouse that once sat atop a wooden pole on the side of the house was also gone. The pole was still there, but only tatters of duct tape and paracord hung from it now. He could only imagine what it had been used for over the years.
Clayton remembered there always being a faint smell of blood and fresh venison, cornmeal, or homemade bread in the air at this time of day when he was a kid. Despite who his father was, he always spent the time to gather all the boys together for family dinners, but that was gone, too. Now the air smelled of gun oil and diesel fuel. The compound had consumed the home the way a copperhead would a field mouse.
He walked up the steps to the door, and watched a camera mounted above it swivel and follow his movement. He stared at the red light, knowing full well the color red meant stop, another sign he was going to ignore, like the call from Cricket he’d just passed on to his inexperienced deputy. The guilt of that was beginning to set in when he heard the loud click of the lock. Without realizing he was doing it, he let the fingers of his left hand rub at the wooden grip of his Colt, as he pushed open the door.
*
Clayton wiped his feet on a tattered chunk of yellow carpet just inside the door. It was filthy. The hardwood floors were stained and buckled in places, but still felt as solid as the floors in his own home. Gareth Burroughs built things to last. He searched the cedar-paneled front room for a familiar face. The lamplight from the house’s original fixtures filled the interior with an electric amber glow that caused the pine rafters to cast distorted shadows all over his brother’s clubhouse. Clayton zeroed in on Scabby Mike, who stood up and removed his hat as he walked in. At least a dozen more men wearing clothes the color of sun-bleached straw and dried mud stopped talking when the Law invaded their domain. The place stank of spilled whiskey, cigarette smoke, and men gone days without soap or a shower. He wondered if Halford would have stood for the people he commanded letting their father’s home be defiled like this, or had he let it get this way himself? He could feel the burn of every set of eyes in the room on his skin like a rash, and he was suddenly aware of the sweat beading under the coarse red hair on his upper lip. He didn’t belong in this place anymore. He wanted a drink. More eyes peered at him from the kitchen. The yellow-and-cornflower-blue wallpaper in the kitchen triggered a memory about a fistfight he and his brother Buckley got into in there the first time he brought Kate home to meet his family. Clayton nearly beat his brother to death that night for saying something about her that he couldn’t even remember. He did remember how his father did nothing to stop it, how he smiled and just moved Kate gently out of the way. He also remembered the look of disgust in Kate’s eyes that night. It was the last time she ever came to dinner.
Mark Tuley was in the kitchen, standing with a man at least three times his age. Mark lifted his beer bottle off a makeshift table made out of plywood and stacked ammunition cases and tipped it to Clayton as he crossed the room. Clayton nodded in hopes of getting his hands on one of those beers. He tipped an imaginary bottle to his lips and Mark smiled before moving to the fridge. As Clayton moved further into the snake pit, he started to recognize more and more of the men in his company. Frank Wells, a local fireman with more children at home than Clayton could count, sat with the
Rosier brothers—twins—both of them named Robert, although one of them went by Bobby. He didn’t know which one. He didn’t think anyone did. That was a common occurrence around the foothills. Clayton’s train of thought screeched to a dead halt when he saw another face he’d not seen in years. It was the large, misshapen face of a man named Nails McKenna, who sat by himself on a dingy sofa in the darkest corner of the room. Clayton hadn’t seen him in person since before he and Kate were married. They used to be friends. The three of them. Nails sat by himself, not just because his appearance frightened people, but due to his reputation as a stone-cold killer. Nails had the ability to scare the un-scareable, but Clayton was glad to see him. He’d known Nails back when people didn’t fear him, and they still called him Nelson. Back before decades of ridicule about his mild retardation or his incestuous family turned him into the brooding loner that he was. Back before the people sitting around this very room stole his childhood and turned him into a hardened killer. Everyone called him Nails because of the deformity in his left hand that made his fingernails resemble animal claws. Clayton felt the nickname suited him, but not because of his hand. Nails McKenna might just have been the saddest story on Bull Mountain, but he survived it. He was still here. Clayton believed that to get through a life like that, someone would need to be made of steel—or hard as nails. He held his right hand out to Nails, and the big man half stood to shake it.
“Good to see you again, Nelson.” Clayton offered a half-smile, but Nails offered nothing in return. He’d lost the capacity to smile a long, long time ago.
“How is Katelyn?”
“She’s good, Nails. Better than I deserve.”
“And the little one?”
Clayton shrugged. He really didn’t know.
Nails let go of Clayton’s hand, let out a small grunt, and settled back into the sofa. He stared into his beer and Clayton let the conversation die there.
The old man standing with Mark was Ernest Pruitt, and after seeing the two men standing there side by side, it was easy to see the relation. Ernest had been inner-circle when Gareth Burroughs was alive. That made Mark kin. Now Clayton understood why Mike seemed almost subordinate to him the other day at the house. Ernest lifted his gray-whiskered chin to him and tipped his hat. Clayton nodded but thought it was a little strange that this old-timer showed him any respect at all. He never had before. None of them had, but things had changed, and the room buzzed with it. In fact, most of the men in the room had either removed their hats, or stood up when he came in.
“Clayton,” Mike said, squeezing the brim of his hat as he greeted him. Mark handed him a beer, and Clayton took it without a thank you.
“Let’s just get this over with.”
“Okay, come with me.” Mike led Clayton through what used to be the living room where a huge, ornate television had been the centerpiece of the room. It was empty now except for the ammo cans that lined the walls and a massive stocked long-gun rack. They walked through a thick oak door that led to a room Clayton had never been privy to when he lived here. It was his father’s private office—the war room, his brothers called it. Once they passed through the door, three men stood up from their seats along the left side of a smooth and ancient oak farm table. The men dressed in leather and denim looked to be as out of place as Clayton did, yet a lot more at ease. They stood and waited for the introductions. Clayton shook hands with a man named Moe. He was short and wide, and wore his hair in a ponytail. His handshake was a dead fish. The second man, a younger one with a crew cut and bright eyes, cupped Clayton’s hand with both of his and introduced himself as Jay Martin. He looked more like an insurance salesman in a biker costume than he did an actual biker. They both wore cuts of leather with patches indicating their rank in the Jacksonville Jackals Motorcycle Club. Clayton had been a distant observer to these people his entire life. Now he was shaking their hands. He didn’t know how that made him feel. He wanted a cigarette. The air felt thinner in the small meeting room as if it had somehow elevated another ten thousand feet while they stood there. His chest felt tight, and it tightened even more as he caught the stare of the third and final man he had come there to meet. This one was in charge. He stood at least a foot taller than anyone else in the room, and his skin appeared to be carved out of granite. Not just his skin, but his eyes, his lips, his fingernails, even the denim he was covered in was completely void of color. A few days’ growth of gray stubble around the edges of his head had blended into his salt-and-peppered beard, and his age was impossible to guess. He was fifty if he was five hundred. His face carried age-lines, but they didn’t soften him or make him appear fragile or old. They were carved into him—the way water eroded rock over time, cutting grooves in sandstone. Clayton stared at the gray man’s hand for too long before shaking it. It made him look weak, and all at once he knew he’d made a mistake. He was sure of it. This stone man had been staring right through him since he walked in the room, and knew Clayton had to build up the nerve to stare back. He would see Clayton for the frightened rabbit his father saw him as and it would get them all killed. He felt the sweat on his lip spread and moisten his forehead and neck. Stars burst at the edges of his vision and he thought sure he might faint.
Goddamn, Clayton. Get your shit together. This is your deddy’s house. Don’t you let ’em do this to you. Don’t you dare, you stupid old bastard.
“Clayton,” Mike said, putting his hand under Clayton’s elbow, to keep him steady.
The stone man spoke. “Mr. Burroughs, my name is Bracken Leek, President of the Jacksonville Chapter of the Jackals Motorcycle Club. I’m also a friend to your family.”
It was comical in the most tragic sense to see how small his own hand looked inside of this giant’s. Bracken could squeeze his fingers around his and crush every bone in Clayton’s hand if he wanted to, but it didn’t go that way. Bracken shook his hand firmly and held it long enough for Clayton to feel the warmth of blood behind the stone, and then let go.
“I know who you are, Leek.”
“I have no doubt you do, Sheriff.”
“So what is it you want?”
“Why don’t we have a seat,” Mike said, cutting in and motioning for Clayton and the bikers to sit. Clayton began to sit in one of the chairs along the opposite side of Bracken and his men, but Mike discreetly nudged him toward the larger chair at the head of the table. Clayton sat down, and the comfort of easing his weight off his left leg was evident on his face. What wasn’t apparent to anyone in the room but Mike was the strange blend of emotion that had to be churning through Clayton’s blood. He was sitting in the same chair that had belonged to his brother Halford, and to his father Gareth before him. The same chair his grandfather Cooper had steered the Burroughs empire from before them all. It filled his chest with something hot, something he wasn’t used to, or could recognize right away. No one really believes that anything in life is more important than money, or love even, until it’s their turn to sit at the head of the table—until they truly know power. That was what Clayton felt as he sat in that chair—power. Mike couldn’t help but smile as Clayton took off his hat and laid it on the table like it belonged there. He leaned forward and repeated himself.
“So—what is it you people want?”
7
SERVICE ROAD NINETEEN
“Copy that.”
Deputy Darby Ellis hung the handset to his radio back in the cradle and turned the 2002 Crown Vic around, careful to avoid the ditches that lined both sides of the road. Thank God, he thought. He’d only been a few miles behind his boss when Cricket called him off. He’d much rather be on his way to a call than anywhere Clayton was headed to.
“A possible cookhouse on White Bluff Road,” Cricket told him.
“Possible, my ass.” Darby knew full well what went on at that address, but at least now he knew what he was getting himself into.
Sonny Cole was a run-down lowlife who had spent most of his adult life in and out of prison. It was a cycle that kept hi
s wife and son in a constant state of disrepair. The trailer they lived in mirrored that fact. It may have been white or beige at some point in history but a decade of mildew had built up over every square inch of the thing, painting the entire rectangular box a dull green. There weren’t any cars parked out front, but that didn’t mean anything; Darby had never known Sonny to own one. He had other things to buy with the family’s money like liquor, beer, and crank. Darby pulled the Crown Vic up to the front door and cut the engine. He stepped out and put on his hat. The new hadn’t worn off the stiff Stetson yet and he still liked the feel of authority it gave him. Darby had wanted to be a cop his entire life, and it was still a little hard to get his head around the fact that he actually was one. He tucked at the back of his shirttail to make sure he looked presentable, and ran his hand across the cuffs on his gun-belt, letting it rest slightly on his county-issued Glock 9. He knocked once on the Plexiglas trailer door, and after no response he knocked again a little harder. The acrid smell of ammonia was thick in the air, and his eyes teared up from the sting of it. He looked down at the sticker-covered BMX bicycle lying in the dirt by the steps and the fresh tracks tailing the back tire and rubbed at his eyes.
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