“No amphetamines, Mr. Burroughs. We are moving the club into something else. Something legitimate. We have contacts in place within a group of medical professionals based in Tennessee and North Carolina that wish to expand their business, and they need our help to do that. They are also prepared to pay everyone who helps facilitate that a handsome and ongoing sum.”
“Medical professionals?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of business are they looking to expand?”
“They operate a number of medical clinics already, and wish to open more.”
“Clinics?”
“Yes.”
“Specializing in pain management, I suppose.”
Jay and Moe glanced at each other and then at Clayton. They were impressed.
“You’d suppose correctly,” Bracken said.
“You’re talking about OxyContin,” Clayton said, and Bracken didn’t even blink. Clayton was beginning to think he didn’t know how. He figured out the rest without any coaxing. “And you need safe passage to move stolen drugs from Florida to these clinics north of us.”
“Yes, that’s right, except that the medication isn’t being stolen. It’s being purchased.”
“Okay, if you say so, and Halford’s relationships with the police will keep them off your back, while Mike here keeps the unruly locals from jumping you in transit, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re calling that legitimate?”
“I’m calling it progress.”
“And you’re telling the local sheriff your intentions because I just happened to be named Burroughs? Ballsy move.”
“No, Sheriff. It’s not balls, or because of your name alone. It’s respect. Respect for your father—for your brother.”
“I told you, I’m not Halford. And I may be a sheriff, but I don’t know anyone—not like that.”
“Mike here can facilitate that.”
“Then why not just deal with Mike?”
“Because Mike knows his place at the table.”
Clayton waited for that indignity to play out across Scabby Mike’s face, but it didn’t happen. He simply nodded in agreement again.
“My family. Right. And you’re telling me I get to make the call as to whether or not this happens? Just like that?”
“Yes, Sheriff. You have the ability to turn us away, without debate—just like that.”
Clayton didn’t even hesitate. “Well, then—no.” He let that hard syllable hang over all their heads, while he hammered his second shot of hooch. He sat the glass down, and rubbed at a knot in the wooden table as if to signal that the meeting was at a close. “Well, that’s that. Drugs in the hands of children and the poor are the same to me, whether they’re made in a bathtub in these mountains or a lab in India, and I won’t be a part of it. So if you’re shootin’ me straight, and all this is truly up to me, then my answer is no—hell, no.”
The room stayed silent. Clayton thought about saying it again, but he didn’t have to.
“Sir, if I may,” Jay said smoothly, breaking the silence. “Children are not the recipients of legally prescribed narcotics. And Sheriff, I hate to break it to you, but the impoverished are able to get the same thing from any Walmart or local drugstore in the region, so I fail to see the difference in what we’re proposing, outside of you letting fat-cat corporations make a boatload of cash that could rightfully benefit your own constituents.”
“Fancy talk there, son.” It was clear that Clayton’s shine buzz had begun to melt his inhibitions. “Legally prescribed narcotics?” he said and leaned forward onto the oak table. “Jayden, is it? That’s a fancy name, too. Let me ask you something, Jayden. Do you think I’m fuckin’ stupid?”
“Hold on, Clayton,” Mike said, cutting in to stop the escalation. “Maybe you could let Bracken and his people explain why allowing this partnership could benefit not only the people in this room, but everyone on this mountain—including Kate, and Eben.”
Clayton narrowed his eyes at his scarred friend. “Use as many familiar names as you want, Mike. It’s not going to happen.”
“Well, hell, I’d like to hear it.”
Everyone turned. Mark Tuley poked his head in from the open doorway he’d been leaning on. “I mean, c’mon, Clayton, these men have come a long way. The least we can do is hear everything they have to say before we send them packin’. Right?” Mark sat down next to Mike like he belonged there and poured some iced tea. He was the first to touch the sweaty pitcher. Clayton sat back, and scratched at his beard. He liked this guy, Tuley. He didn’t want to, but he did. Bracken waited for Clayton’s permission to continue.
“Okay, Leek. Tell me what I’m missing? Humor Mr. Tuley, there.”
Mark sipped his tea, and nodded at Clayton. “Thanks, Sheriff.” He turned to Bracken. “Now sell it, big boy. The table’s yours.”
Clayton almost laughed out loud.
“Okay, Mr. Tuley. As you know, your people have a huge problem up here. We can help you solve it.”
“Enlighten us.”
“Halford’s unfortunate death and the federal raids that stripped this place of everything he and his father built, have created a vacuum up here—a void if you will—that an extremely troublesome element is going to want to fill. That black hole is at this very moment attracting a lot of wolves directly to your front door mainly because of your name. These people know the Burroughs organization is crippled and will be looking to reestablish that flow of dope and money, and the last living Burroughs is now, and always will be, a threat to them.”
“I handle myself just fine, Leek.”
“I wasn’t referring to you, Sheriff. I meant your son.”
Clayton said nothing.
“You can’t pretend to not know this is happening, Mr. Burroughs. You even had an incident with some of the people I’m talking about a few days back.”
Clayton shot Scabby Mike a hard look. Mike just shrugged, and nodded in agreement.
“This kind of thing isn’t going to stop,” Bracken said. “I know. I’ve seen it happen a hundred times over in this business. And yes, that’s what it is, a business, and if you want to define your role in all this as the man who keeps the peace, and keeps crank off of Bull Mountain? Then work with me. I can help that happen. What is it they say? If you don’t maintain the land, you’ll get overrun with weeds and vermin.”
“Do much farming back in the day, Bracken?” Mark grabbed an apple from the bowl.
“Sixty acres of orange orchards was how my father fed us, Mr. Tuley, but that’s irrelevant. The point is, and someone of your intelligence and history knows as well as I do, that if this vacuum goes unregulated much longer, you’re going to have much worse than some kids from Boneville to deal with. People will die—your people. You don’t want that. I don’t want that.”
Mark let Clayton pick up the volley. “And what are you offering here, Bracken? Guns?” Clayton made a show of looking around the room at all the firepower already present. “How many guns do we need?”
Bracken leaned down on his elbows. “Sheriff, the people conspiring against you have the same truckload of scatter guns and hunting rifles you do. The difference is more and more people are going to side against you if the other side offers to pay them. Mike here is having a harder and harder time convincing them to stay. Just ask him.”
Again, Mike nodded in agreement.
“So, guns? Yes, I can provide firepower to replace everything the government confiscated after Halford’s death. I can also bring in another chapter of the Jackals to help out with manpower, but, most importantly, I can cut your family into my deal with these doctors up north. It’s incredibly lucrative and the cash in hand will calm the natives. I can help your mountain survive this.”
Again the room went silent. Mark sipped at his tea. He’d also taken out his knife and was carving off pieces of his apple. He smacked his lips while he ate them. Clayton was beginning to get irritated with how relaxed he was.
“I don’t understand, Sheriff.” Bracken leaned back in his chair.
“Neither do I. I mean, why ask us? Why not come in here guns blazing and just take it? Take the routes, claim it all without a second thought to what I think?”
“Because family is important.”
“We aren’t family, Leek.”
“Not by blood, but neither am I blood related to these two men sitting next to me, and I’d give my life for each of them, as they would for me. Family goes beyond blood in my world, Sheriff, and my club has broken bread with your kin for a very long time. That means something to my club. It means everything to me. I am not your enemy.”
“You keep talking about my family as if I have ever been a part of it. Let me tell you something about family, Leek.” Clayton’s belligerence was beginning to rear itself, and a slight slur had attached to his words. “Do you remember the floods that came through here in 1985?”
“Clayton, maybe now isn’t the time.” Mike put his hand on Clayton’s arm, but the sheriff snatched it away. “No, Mike. This fella here has all the respect for my family. So I want to tell him a little bit about them.” He looked at Bracken.
“I do remember the flooding. It stalled our business with your father for months. What about it?”
Mark sat upright. Wondering what the hell this had to do with anything.
“That crazy rain we had back then washed out the whole valley. We were kids.” Clayton looked at Mark. “Were you still here? You remember that?”
“Yeah. I’m tracking.”
“The rain. It didn’t stop for days. It was like the end of days or something. I remember that shit like it just happened.”
“Clayton—” Mike said, trying to reel Clayton back into the moment.
“Just hold on, Mike. Listen. This is important.” Clayton cut his eyes at Bracken. “Family is important, right?” he said, feeding the big man’s words back to him. Bracken didn’t seem to mind listening, and that was a good thing, because Mike knew once a Burroughs got started on a tangent, folks were going to hear the story whether they wanted to or not, so he scooted back in his chair and stretched his legs under the table.
“I was eleven,” Clayton said. “I didn’t even know Kate yet—but he might’ve.” Clayton tipped his glass at Mark, who showed no reaction. “I remember that summer and that rain so well because it was the first time Halford tried to kill me.”
“Clayton—”
The sheriff didn’t even acknowledge Mike’s interruption that time. He just kept talking.
“The rain caused Bear Creek to overflow and it ran as wild as the Mississippi all the way down the mountain. It hit Clark’s Hill pretty hard as it passed through, snatchin’ up trailers and mobile homes along the way before it finally washed out Main Street in Waymore. The Hill never recovered.” Clayton looked pensive for a moment and then continued. “All kinds of stuff from those homes, like books, furniture, baby dolls, toilet-bowl scrubbers, you name it, were rushing down the waterway, getting thrown all over the place. It was a mess. Anyway, Buckley had this crazy idea that we should snatch up something to use as floats and ride the current from up here all the way down into Waymore. He said we could go loot Main Street since most of the townsfolk had evacuated. Hell, back then I didn’t even know what looting meant. I only agreed so I could hang out with my brother, since most of the time he treated me like shit. Buck found himself an old corduroy sofa cushion, and I found a big, round, plastic garbage-can lid. At first it was crazy fun. The creek was flowing so fast, every time we got in, it would slam us into the sandy bank by the bend at Johnson’s gap. We’d hit the sand and roll into the grass and trees. We got filthy as hell, and it was one of the few times I ever saw Buckley laugh without it being at my expense.” Clayton poured a little more shine and slid the jar over to Moe, who was the only other person at the table drinking it. He was getting comfortable in his father’s chair. “After a little trial and error, we finally got a pretty good handle on how to maneuver our trash-floats and thought we were ready to take the bend. We hoofed it way up to Red Rock before we dropped back in, so we’d have some real speed pushin’ us, and then gave it one more go.” Clayton sipped at his whiskey. “Most fun I ever had in my life,” he said, and leaned back in his chair lost in the memory. He scratched at his neck and beard.
“Well, then what?” Moe blurted out like a third-grader during Story Time. Mark nearly laughed out loud at the rotund biker’s eagerness to hear the end of his new drinking buddy’s story.
“We cleared that fuckin’ bend, is what,” Clayton said, still in a fog, and then focused back on the point. “We pulled it off and made it, but that trash-can lid was round and it spun me the whole time like a pinwheel. I got it under control in the straightaway, but not before I hit a huge branch—or a log, maybe—I don’t even know, but whatever it was, it had snapped down from the rain and there it was, out of nowhere, lying across that side of the creek. I straightened out just in time to face-plant right into that son of a bitch. I cracked my head real good and it stopped me cold. That trash-can lid flipped out from under me and blew down the creek and I got more and more entangled in that overhang. I was jacked up on that branch something fierce, and the current was steadily trying to pull me under. It had my legs pulled straight out in front of me, and I didn’t have the strength to force them down. The water ripped my boots off and my feet felt like they were being sucked off my ankles, too. Buck made it through the bend but cleared the branch that had me. The last thing I saw was him looking back and hollerin’, but he was haulin’ too much ass to stop. A few seconds later he was gone.”
Bracken didn’t appear uninterested but poured himself a glass of iced tea.
“Anyway, here I am getting pulled deeper and deeper under that mess until I finally got my foot stuck on something under me to brace myself, but not before my face done slipped about a half-inch or so under the surface. I couldn’t get any air. I stretched my neck until I thought it might snap but I just couldn’t get clear. Every breath came with a good swallow of that nasty-ass river water.”
“Drowning is a horrible way to die,” Bracken said. That made Clayton think about the young man he left gagging on the edge of Burnt Hickory Pond, and wondered if that was Bracken’s intention.
“Second only to fire,” Mark said over his tea glass, and Bracken actually stiffened. Mike shifted again in his seat. Clayton wasn’t sure what that was about but had enough shine in him not to care. He kept talking.
“I could see the sky and treetops above me distorting through the water, and up to that point in my life it was the most scared I’d ever been. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die. I knew I was going to die. I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t get free. I couldn’t do anything. I was sure I was about to check out, and the sad part was I remember thinking how relieved my father was going to be to find out the son he didn’t want had drowned to death in about four feet of water.”
“That’s a horrible thing for a boy to think.”
“Bracken, my father never cared if we lived or died out here. He only would’ve been concerned with how, and if we deserved it or not.”
“That isn’t the Gareth I knew.”
“And that’s the point here. They weren’t your family.”
“But you didn’t die.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“So what happened?”
“I was able to get free. I don’t know. The branch shifted or something, and I was able to claw my way to the shore.”
“So in what way do you interpret what happened to you that day as an attempt on your life? You said it was the first time Halford—”
“He was there.” Clayton sat up sharp and angry. “Right there, sitting on a broken tree stump just a few feet away, watching the whole time.”
Mike sat forward as if to say something.
“No, Mike,” Clayton barked and shut him down with his tone. “That son o
f a bitch sat there and watched—waiting for me to drown. Don’t say he was about to help or he didn’t understand what was happening. Don’t defend him. He saw me going under, and he sat down to take in the show. Once I got done hackin’ and could breathe right again, I watched my big brother stand up, brush the mud off his pants, and walk away—disappointed. And that’s my brother, Mr. Leek. That’s the family you’re here to honor. And that’s why my answer is no. The burden my family has been to the people who live on this mountain has finally been lifted, and I’ll be damned if I let it begin again—much less be an active participant.” Clayton slid his chair back and stood up. The pain in his leg became secondary to his anger. “We’re done here.”
Bracken studied him and then nodded. “Okay, then. I need to make a phone call.”
“Of course,” Mike said, and stood. Clayton was almost to the door when he finally noticed the orange blinking light coming from his portable radio. He’d silenced it before the meeting, but that indicator light meant someone had initiated their emergency-response system, and there was only one other person in the county who could’ve done it. He eased up the volume knob, and keyed the mic.
“Cricket, what’s going on?”
Static.
“Sheriff, where have you been?” Her voice was frantic. “There have been several calls about an explosion on White Bluff Road.”
“That’s where we sent Darby?”
“It’s where you sent Darby, yes. He went dark over ten minutes ago. Clayton, he’s in trouble.”
“Dispatch county fire.”
“I already did, sir. No word yet.”
“Fuck. I’m on my way.” He slipped the radio into his belt. “Mike, get that gate open.”
“Yessir.”
Goddamn you, Clayton. That boy is your responsibility and you just sent him into a shit-storm so you could play outlaw. What is the matter with you? If something happens to Darby Ellis, it’s on you, you old fool.
Clayton hustled to his Bronco as fast as his gimp leg would allow.
“Clayton!” Mike yelled from the porch, and the sheriff turned to look.
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