“What?”
“That day at the creek. It wasn’t what you think. I mean, it was, but not the way you think.”
“I don’t care, Mike.” Clayton slammed the truck door and headed out toward White Bluff Road, where he should have been in the first place.
10
BURROUGHS HUNTING CABIN OFF THE SOUTHERN RIDGE
When the Jackals reached the cabin a few miles off the summit of Bull Mountain, Bracken waved Moe and Jay on into the house and stood silently by himself on the porch. The night air was thin and the slight breeze on his neck brought little comfort. He despised the humidity of this state. Florida wasn’t that much different by way of the heat, but back home, the smell of salt in the air was a constant reminder of how close he was to the sea and the freedom that came with it. Long ribbons of blacktop and wide-open spaces made up for the furnace-fan weather. Here, there was no compromise. The wet heat just pounded you into submission, even in the shade. It was a filthy feeling that even after decades of dealing with, he’d never gotten used to.
He wanted to ride, no helmet, no weight, no worries, with the wind in his face, and the beach to his back—but that day was still a long way off. He would be here trapped in this myth of mountain culture until this latest business was done. Of course, there would always be more business to tend to—always one more problem to deal with. And now, yet another man named Burroughs—just as stubborn as his predecessors—was standing in the way of his next long ride. Bracken unbuttoned his jacket, hoping to feel a little more of the breeze on his chest but no such luck. It only allowed sticky fingers of sweat to run down his body that only a shower could relieve. He stood on the far edge of the porch, stared out into the woods, and punched an encrypted number into his sat-phone.
“Yes, Bracken.” A woman’s voice answered.
“As of right now, the Burroughs option is a no-go.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Yes, it is. It seems the youngest brother has no interest in keeping the family business alive.”
“He does realize that this meeting was just a formality? We don’t really need his permission. And that by saying no, he isn’t showing much interest in keeping himself alive either?”
“I don’t think we are at the point where threats are necessary, Vanessa.”
“I assumed when you asked for this sit-down, you knew the outcome already. You told me it was a lock.”
“I thought it was. It’s the smart move for him—for everyone up here.”
“So much for your code of honor, Bracken. Now there’s a wild-card lawman out there who knows what we are trying to do.”
“It’s not like that. He isn’t interested in stopping us. He just doesn’t want to throw in. He didn’t show any disrespect.”
“But he didn’t play ball.”
“It was the first time he was up to bat. He’s in a dark place with what happened to his brother. I believe he’s just confused.”
“I don’t have time for confusion.”
“I still believe it’s the right move.”
Vanessa was silent for a moment before she brought on more bad news. “I suppose you heard about the robbery up there. I’m guessing that didn’t help the negotiations.”
Bracken switched the phone from one ear to the other. “How do you know about that?”
“I believe I might’ve been responsible for that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about my idiot nephew and his buddies. The last time I was in Georgia—when I first heard about what the Burroughs had up there—that moron must’ve overheard something he shouldn’t have, and thought he’d act on his own to go looking for it.”
“Your nephew? You mean one of the men that robbed the bar was your kin?”
“Not just one of the men, Bracken, but the one your sheriff friend killed.”
The big biker closed his eyes and scratched at the silver stubble on his neck. “Jesus Christ, Vanessa. How could you let that happen?”
“Thanks for the sympathy, Bracken.”
“I don’t have time for sympathy. The ramifications of this could lose us everything. How could you be that sloppy?”
“Don’t go getting all worked up, old man. I can contain it.”
“Is that right?”
“Bracken, out of my respect for you and everything we’ve done together, I’ll forgive your tone, but don’t forget who’s taking the biggest risk here. This is my deal. I brought you in on this, because of your connections to those rednecks, and so far, that has amounted to jack shit. So cut me some slack. I can handle my own family.”
“You said your nephew. Would that be your brother’s boy?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never known anyone to be able to handle Coot Viner on the warpath.”
“Does my brother frighten you, Bracken?”
“Now is not the time for games, Vanessa.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. Listen, just deliver what you said you could deliver, and I’ll handle the rest. Coot won’t be a problem.”
“You’re asking me to put a lot of trust in you, Vanessa. More than I originally envisioned.”
“I know that.”
“You understand the consequences of breaching that trust?”
The line was silent. Bracken watched Moe and Jay through the broken slats of one of the cabin’s windows. They were laughing about something. Bracken felt the weight of them on his broad shoulders. He turned back to facing the woods and lowered his tone. “I believe the sheriff needs more time. He isn’t ready to admit to himself how bad it’s going to get up here, or how important a role he can play in stopping it. He will come around. He doesn’t have a choice. He’s just being stubborn, and it’s a trait I’m used to dealing with up here.”
“Okay,” Vanessa said, keeping her answer curt. “And the other thing?”
“We’ve got our ears to the ground. We’ve been treading lightly since we’ve been here, since our priority is to reopen the routes, but one of the men at the head of the table up here is someone I didn’t recognize, so Jay did some digging and it turns out he’s a tracker from Atlanta. He’s got skill and a reputation for getting the job done.”
“What’s his name?”
“Mark Tuley. He’s one of Jack Parson’s crew. Do you know that name?”
“Of course I do. Everyone in the Southeast knows that name.”
“Good. Then you know that confirms we are no longer working on a possibility anymore. Tuley’s a native to this place, but he was just brought in a few months ago. I can only assume that’s why.”
“So we are working against a tighter clock.”
“We shouldn’t be working against anything. If anything, the presence of this Tuley fella only reinforces that we should all be working together.”
“Well, that’s why you’re there, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, then, keep at it, and I’ll see you soon.” Vanessa hung up, and Bracken stuck the phone in his pocket. He looked over at his bike and sighed. He just wanted to ride.
11
WHITE BLUFF ROAD
The plot of land where Sonny Cole’s trailer stood looked like a war zone. The building was still standing, but all of the Plexiglas windows had been blown out and there was flaming debris scattered all over the lawn. Clayton stopped the Bronco and got out, leaving it running. He zigzagged through the small patches of fire but tripped over a wheelbase and planted his good knee in the pile of dog shit his deputy purposely avoided. He would have been disgusted by it, but there wasn’t any time for it to register. That’s when he saw the bodies on the ground. Sonny Cole and Darby Ellis both lay sprawled out in the grass. A scorched deputy’s hat lay on the ground just a few feet from where Clayton had fallen. He half-scrambled, half-crawled to the only one of the two bodies he was concerned about. He took a quick inventory of his deputy’s body, patting his legs, chest, and arms, before grabbing and shaking Dar
by hard by the shoulders.
“Darby! Wake up, boy. Don’t do this to me. Darby!”
Darby was completely limp at first but after being pounded a few times into the dirt, he grunted, and immediately Clayton could feel a swell of relief. The deputy hacked and coughed and brown drool spattered across Clayton’s shirt. He was trying to talk, but couldn’t. The air was acidic and Clayton could feel his own eyes and throat burning.
“Don’t talk, buddy. Cricket’s got EMS on the way. You’re gonna be okay. Just hang on.”
Darby pulled himself up from the dirt a few inches and Clayton tried to stop him. “Just take it easy, son. Help is on the way.”
Darby pulled back from Clayton some more and moved his arm to point toward the bulk of the fire behind the trailer. He managed to choke out one word.
“Kids.”
Clayton looked over and saw two more bodies on the ground—smaller bodies. “Oh, my God.” He let go of his deputy and took off toward the two boys. He didn’t get very far before the chemical haze that hung in the air stopped him in his tracks. He felt his throat constrict and he struggled to pull in a solid breath. He pulled his collar up and held it over his nose and mouth, but made no attempt to move any closer. He dropped back to his knees and his eyes began to sting to the point of tears. He wiped at them and through the blur of his vision he saw the two boys, only they weren’t boys anymore. They were just charred curls of flesh that lay in the patchy grass barely distinguishable from the warped and smoking debris scattered all over the yard. He prayed it wasn’t Reggie, but he knew it was. He threw up in the grass and pictured Reggie the way he looked a few days ago at Pollard’s Corner. He threw up again, but nothing came from the dry heave except bile. He could hear sirens coming up the pass—getting closer—but it was too late for these kids. This mountain was a circle of tragedy that never stopped rolling. It held no bias against who it took—not even the children.
He finally willed himself back up to his feet, keeping his face wrapped in his collar. He fell back beside Darby and pulled his head and shoulders into his lap. He could see the flashing lights from the ambulance and called out. He glared at the body of Sonny Cole and yelled out to the emergency medics again. He didn’t know if Sonny was alive or not, but he’d be damned if he let any medical help be wasted on that piece of shit before it got to Darby. He looked down at the bruises starting to form on the deputy’s cheekbones.
“Boss, Cricket is gonna be so mad at me.”
“She’ll get over it, son. I promise.” Clayton whistled, and two young medics in McFalls County uniforms slid Darby from his lap. “Besides,” he said more to himself than anyone else, “this ain’t your fault. It’s mine.”
12
CRIPPLE CREEK ROAD
Kate got her third call from Mark on an evening that Clayton and she were actually getting along. Something had happened a few days prior out on White Bluff Road that got a few local kids killed and put his deputy in the hospital. It was something he didn’t want to talk about, but like everything bad that happened in this county, he’d blamed himself and he’d been staying home a lot more since. Only he wasn’t drinking as much since it happened, so she decided that if he wanted to keep the details to himself, she wasn’t going to pry. She was just thankful for the cease-fire. They were three-quarters of the way through an old spaghetti-western movie starring Yul Brynner when the phone rang. Mark had been asking to see her ever since his surprise call a few days ago and now he was calling when he knew full well Clayton was home. It was like he was testing her to see if she’d lie or finally tell him to fuck off.
While he talked on the other end of the line, she debated whether or not to tell Clayton about her ex being back in town, and letting him handle it, but by the end of the phone call she’d agreed to meet him and thought up a lie. If Mark had been testing her, she just failed—miserably. But she and Clayton had made it this far, and she wasn’t going to let some old boyfriend spin Clayton back into his downward spiral, so she decided to meet with him and tell him herself to go back to wherever he’d been the past twenty-five years and leave her alone. At least that was what she tried to make herself believe, anyway.
Once Mark had hung up, Kate held the phone to her shoulder and watched Eben rub at the scars on his deddy’s chest. Clayton had let his copper-red hair grow long over the past year; when the baby pulled at it, he winced and started to laugh. She hadn’t heard that sound in years. She almost laughed, too, at how stupid she was to do what she was about to do on a night like this, but maybe after tonight, after she shut this nonsense with Mark down for good, the laughter coming from the den could go back to being a permanent fixture in their house. That happy family on the couch in the other room was what she’d been praying for, and here she was coming up with an excuse to leave it. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She felt like she’d just stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone, where she and Clayton had reversed roles. She began to feel ill, but the dial tone buzzed from the phone in her hand, sharpening the moment, and she quickly hung it up. Part of her still felt spiteful, like she deserved a secret of her own.
“Charmaine is in serious need of some girl time,” she said, and grabbed her jacket from the hallway closet anyway.
“Now? It’s getting kinda late, ain’t it?”
“Clayton, I love you, but if I have to watch this stupid movie one more time, I think I might run away and never come back.”
Clayton looked offended. “This is a classic, baby.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“We can change it. Find something else.” Clayton fumbled around on the couch for the remote and when he found it, he held it out. “Here—”
“No, baby, you two men get in a little male bonding. I won’t be long.” She ran a hand over Eben’s head. “Maybe you can convince him that this snore-fest is a classic.”
“You’re breaking my heart, woman.”
She ran her own hand over the scars that crisscrossed his chest and ribs. “I think you’ll survive.” She leaned over the couch and gave them each a kiss on the forehead. “I won’t be long.”
“It won’t matter. We won’t be awake.”
Kate pointed at the TV. “Of that, I have no doubt.”
Clayton rolled his eyes.
“Listen out for the monitor after you put him down.”
“I always do, Kate.”
She smiled. She doubted he even knew how to turn it on.
13
THE NORTHERN FEED OF BEAR CREEK
Kate sat on the passenger side of Mark’s Nissan Tundra, the newest and possibly the most expensive vehicle in McFalls County, and tried her best not to stare at him. She’d just left her Jeep in the hands of two men Mark introduced to her as Nipper and Lo-Fat, and it had become perfectly clear to her right about the time she handed over her keys, that she had lost her goddamn mind. This evening’s rendezvous with a man who was nothing more than a stranger to her now had to top the list of the dumbest things she’d ever done. She’d never cheated on her husband. She’d never even considered it—and knew she never would—but she’d never lied to him either.
Not until tonight.
She felt dirty and wanted to rewind the past hour of her life and go back home, but still, she couldn’t stop looking at this man sitting beside her. She remembered Mark being beautiful in high school, and nothing about that had changed. He didn’t appear to have aged a day. If anything, now that he’d been stripped of the smoothness of adolescence, he’d only become even more magnetic than she remembered.
“You remember this road?” Mark said, and Kate looked out her window. She didn’t.
“No. Should I?”
“I suppose not. It’s pretty strange for me to be back here. Everything is so different but so familiar at the same time. It’s like being in a constant state of déjà vu.”
Kate wanted to agree but didn’t. It was bad enough she felt like a schoolgirl; she didn’t want to sound like one, too. Mark’s tattooed ar
m dangled over the steering wheel and he let his wrist guide the truck down the single-lane dirt road. As they made their way up the mountain, wrapped in awkward small talk, Mark paused to turn up the stereo. Taylor Swift’s voice erupted through the static of an FM radio station. They navigated the mountainside listening to a sticky-sweet pop song about never ever getting back together, when Kate was suddenly overwhelmed at the ridiculousness of it all. She reached out and turned the radio down.
“Okay, Mark. What is this all about?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean we haven’t seen each other in over twenty years so get to the reason you’re back here—and why you are all of a sudden so anxious to see me. You don’t even know me anymore. I don’t know you. So please just tell me what this is all about.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to say I don’t know you, Kate.”
Kate’s face went hot, and her back stiffened. “Don’t do that. I’m happily married, and if that’s what this is all about, then please just turn the truck around.”
“Whoa, hang on, Kate. That’s not what I meant. I just meant I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss what we had. It meant something to me.”
“We were kids.”
“We were nineteen, Kate.”
“And that made us kids, Mark.”
“Well, if it meant nothing to you, then how come your husband doesn’t know anything about us?”
Kate was surprised. “Clayton knows all about you. I don’t have any secrets from him.”
“He knows we held hands in middle school, but he doesn’t know about that summer after graduation, or—”
“Wait a minute.” Kate held up a hand. “How do you know what my husband knows or doesn’t know?”
“Because I talked to him. I saw him the other day.”
“All right. Stop the truck. Tell me what the hell is going on here.”
“Calm down, Kate. There’s no conspiracy happening. When I first got back, I was out with Mike Cummings and we ran into Clayton. He recognized me, but nothing about what he said led me to believe you’d told him anything about us other than when we met.”
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