Adrift: The Complete Novel (2 page)

+++

“What do you mean he’s still there?”

“I told you Johnny, old Hollie let the guy into his house. Hasn’t left yet.”

Johnny Laney gripped his cell phone angrily. Old Man Herndon had always had a streak of rebel in him. Johnny’s grandfather had lived with an uneasy truce brokered years ago with Hollister Herndon. Stepping foot onto Hollie’s land went against his grandfather’s orders.

“You just keep an eye on him. I want to know when he leaves.”

Johnny would have his revenge, even if it meant bending his family’s laws. The blonde stranger would pay.

+++

Hollie returned at noon, sweat stained and flushed. “It’s a hot one out there.” He poured himself a glass of sweet tea and gulped it down in one shot. “Now that hit the spot.”

“Any luck with the deer?” I asked.

“Nah. Saw a couple, but they were too far out. They’re getting smarter every year. Bolder too. Never used to come out during the day.”

“Can I ask you a stupid question?”

Hollie turned, pouring himself another glass of tea. “What’s that?”

I was embarrassed to ask. The question alone would tell him something wasn’t right. “What town is this?”

He looked at me for a moment, putting the pieces together in his head. “This is Defuniak Springs, Florida. Just north of the Gulf of Mexico. How’d you end up here if you don’t even know where here is?”

“Got on a bus in North Carolina, had a few drinks along the way. From what I remember, we stopped. I guess it was here in Defuniak Springs, I hit the bar next door to the gas station, and the rest you know. I guess the bus left without me.”

Hollie put the pitcher of iced tea back in the fridge, took another sip and looked at me. “You running from something, Daniel?”

I didn’t know how to answer the question. This man was a stranger, a kind stranger, but still a stranger. “If you mean, am I running from the law, no.”

Hollie studied me. I knew he wanted more, but in the end he didn’t press. “How about we head over to the barn and load up some hay?”

+++

Thirty minutes later, after loading ten bales into the back of Hollie’s old pickup, and driving down a single lane dirt road running the border of his and a neighbor’s land, we reached our destination.

“You can just throw them out there,” pointing to the side of the road. I looked around, wondering why we were unloading in the middle of a field, when I heard a tinkling, followed by a handful of cows emerging from a copse of trees. I hopped out of the cab and into the bed of the truck, easily tossing the bales over the side. By the time I’d thrown the last bale out, the cows were hungrily tearing into the tightly packed meal.

I jumped down and climbed back into the cab. Hollie slowly turned the truck around, careful to avoid the distracted cattle. We headed back the way we came.

“Are those your cows?” I asked.

“Nah. Belong to my neighbor. Nice old lady. Lost her husband a few years back. I do what I can to help. She used to have a couple hundred head of cattle. Now what you see is what she’s got.”

There were no more than ten or twelve cattle in the small herd. “What happened?”

Hollie shrugged. “Max Laney took it all.”

Chapter 3

Johnny Laney paced back and forth. He’d been summoned by his grandfather, who was keeping him waiting in the grand foyer of his largest home.

“Come in here, Johnny.”

Reflexively, Johnny took off the ball cap he’d been wearing. He walked deeper into the house, entering the spacious living area with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the pool and grotto.

“Jesus, boy. What the hell happened to your nose?”

Johnny reached up and touched his nose tenderly. “Got in a little bit of a scuffle is all, granddad. No big deal.”

“That’s not what your uncle said. He tells me that Len and Randy came home busted up this morning.”

Johnny shuffled uncomfortably.

“What are you not telling me?”

“It was nothing. We were just horsin’ around.”

“What about last night? Were you going to tell me about the fight at Pappy’s?”

Johnny’s eyes looked up in shock. “How did…”

“How did I find out?” Maximillian Laney stood up from his chair, looking every bit the patriarch he was, gray hair slicked back, Tommy Bahama shirt untucked over khaki pants and suede loafers. “You think there’s anything that happens in this town that I don’t know about?”

“No…no, sir.”

“You’re goddamn right!” Max Laney calmed as quickly as he’d risen to anger. “Now, tell me what happened last night.”

+++

Hollie let me make dinner that night. I grilled the inch-and-a-half thick rib-eyes while he made up corn biscuits in the same skillet he’d used for the bacon. That, along with canned tomatoes from a roadside vendor, made it the most enjoyable meal I’d had in ages. We ate silently, savoring the marbled steaks as they melted in our mouths.

A shot sounded from far away, probably at least two miles. My ears perked up and I looked to the window. Hollie kept eating. “That’s just the neighbors. Probably shooting at coyotes.”

“You have a lot of them around here?”

“Just like the deer, they seem to be making a comeback. Laws changed a while back, made it illegal to hunt them. Numbers swelled. Now they say we can kill them again.”

“Why do you shoot them?”

“They get into everything. Had a friend lose close to fifty chickens in one night. Another lost half a dozen calves to a pack of coyotes. In fact, I’ve been meaning to take a few out myself, just haven’t had the time. What do you say we head out after dinner and see if we can’t bag us a few?”

I nodded silently, eyes on my plate.

“You do know how to shoot, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, let’s not go back to this
Sir
business. You don’t have to come with me, but I sure could use an extra set of eyes. Mine aren’t what they used to be. If you don’t want to shoot, you can spot for me.”

Every fiber in my body wanted to say no, but instead, I said, “Okay.”

+++

Darkness fell as we setup in the second story silo above the barn. Hollie brought two shooting mats for us to lay on, along with a night vision scope and his Garand 30.06 rifle. I asked him about the beautifully maintained weapon.

“Got it as a gift after I came home from Korea.” He didn’t explain further and I didn’t pry. It seemed that Hollie had his secrets too.

“How does it shoot?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve never put a scope on it, want to keep it like in the old days, but even without the scope I can get a decent grouping at five hundred yards.”

“Not bad.”

“You know anything about guns?” he asked.

I nodded

We gazed out into the fading light, stars beginning to twinkle overhead. I took a slow breath, feeling the familiar anticipation.

+++

We didn’t have to wait long for the coyotes. They slinked their way into the rows of corn that stood waist high, taking their time, almost like window shopping. “Five dollars says they’re heading to Mrs. Nettle’s chicken coop,” whispered Hollie. “Probably looking for groundhogs.”

Hollie settled behind the sights of the Garand, nuzzling it, an old friend. “I can’t see a damn thing. Must be my eyes. Here, see if you can. I’ll spot for you.”

Reluctantly, I took the weapon, checking the safety, eight rounds inserted with the World War II era ‘en bloc’ clip. Running a hand along the smooth wood stock, I settled back onto the mat, breathing slowed, my old rhythm, eyes over the iron sights.

“Can you see ‘em?” asked Hollie.

“Yes.”

“You ever fire a Garand? It’s got a little more kick than what your generation is used to. Just sayin’.”

“I’m okay,” I said, simply.

My focus narrowed, tunnel vision encompassing the small portion of field, like an internal spotlight highlighting the target area.

“Fire whenever you’re ready, son.” Hollie watched expectantly through his night vision scope.

Breath in. Slow breath out.
BOOM
. Shift.
BOOM
. Shift.
BOOM
. Shift. Coyotes scattering.
BOOM
. Shift.
BOOM
. Coyotes bolting for the woods.
BOOM
,
BOOM
,
BOOM
. Eight rounds. Eight kills. The clink of metal as the clip ejected from the rifle, flying into the air, falling to the ground. Silence.

Hollie turned his head slowly my way as I checked the rifle’s chamber out of habit, placing the weapon back in my host’s hands. I rose, suddenly exhausted. “I thought you said you knew
a little
about guns.”   

I shrugged, climbing onto the ladder leading down to the ground.

“Hold on. That was some shooting. Eight hits at almost two hundreds yards, near dark.” He stood up, I could see the look on his face. I didn’t want it. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that, son?”

I looked up, struggling to hold back the emotion in my voice. “Marines.”

Lowering myself to the ground, I went looking for my ruck sack, and the bottle of whiskey whispering to me in the dark.

Chapter 4

Snake Eyes! Snake Eyes!
The call screamed in my head, desperate, pleading, dying.

“Daniel?!” a more muffled call came. “Where are you, son?”

Hay rustled as I shifted around. I was in the barn again. The last I remembered was taking a walk in the fields with my bottle of whiskey, trying to forget.

My bowels clenched as I struggled to stand, holding my stomach. “I’m in here, Hollie,” I called.

A moment later, the barn door opened and Hollie entered, once again shotgun peeking through first. “Daniel?”

“Right here.”

“What are you doing in here?”

I shrugged, making my way into the daylight.

Hollie looked at me, wanting to ask questions, instead, after a pause saying, “I’ve got some breakfast cooking. You come over when you’re ready.”

I watched him walk toward the house, me struggling to have the courage to face him. My bowels answered for me, and I hustled to the house, making a B-line for the bathroom.

+++

This time it was country ham and eggs over-easy. Hollie waited patiently, saying Grace after I’d taken a seat. We ate without talking, him probably wondering whether I should go, me wondering the same.

We finished, tag-teaming the dishes, still without a word. Hollie dried his hands and said, “Follow me. I want to show you something.”

Here it was. My out. “Hollie, I…”

“We can talk later, just follow me.”

I nodded, walking behind him as he took the steps to the second floor. Pictures scattered along the hallway gave me glimpses of how Hollie used to be. Young and strong, working the fields, married.

Turning a corner, we entered a small bedroom. Hollie opened the closet, pointing to an old foot locker with HERNDON stenciled in white on the top. “Can you lift that up onto the bed?”

I picked it up, laying the wooden box softly on the comforter.

Hollie opened the foot locker, slowly, reverently. He picked up a black and white photograph and handed it to me. It perfectly captured the youth and exuberance of a young Army Lieutenant and a pretty girl. “That’s me and Patty, right before I got shipped off to Korea.”

“You were a Ranger?”

Hollie nodded, looking down into the container, lifting out another picture. It was in color, a young man, face painted in olive and black, floppy boonie cover, M16-A2 cradled, a wide white smile. “That was my son. Ranger too. Lost him in ’92.”

I understood. My father hadn’t been a Marine, but plenty of my fellow Marines had followed in their family’s footsteps.

We sat down on the edge of the bed, Hollie flipping through photos from his time as a Ranger. “This one was right after a night raid when we destroyed the 12
th
North Korean division headquarters. Dicey night, but we took it to ‘em.”

The pictures of destruction, craters, and bodies, threw my thoughts to my time overseas, another country, another time. I listened politely as he told me his stories, obviously struggling at times. I could tell that he hadn’t shown his memories to many. Most of us didn’t.

“How did you end up here?” I asked once he’d replaced the album.

“Dad died while I was in Korea. As soon as I came back stateside, I finished out my commitment and took over the farm. Momma couldn’t run it by herself, in fact, the Laney family was trying to buy it from her, for a steal, of course. Dad hadn’t left much money. I dug in, got us out of debt, and I’ve been here ever since.”