Bull Mountain (24 page)

“I would hardly call it a partnership, Halford. Just a business relationship that has come to an end.”

“You called my father ‘family.’”

“Yes, your father was like
family. It’s a sentiment I never extended to you and your brothers. This is what is best for us all. And Halford, I must ask that you not act irrationally toward the men currently representing my interests. It will only start a senseless, bloody war with the Jackals that will only end in large amounts of suffering on both sides. Something I’m sure neither of us want to endure.”

“You done?”
Halford asked.

“Yes, Mr. Burroughs, I’m done.”

Halford flipped the phone closed, stared at it for a moment, then threw it across the room. It shattered against the stone fireplace. All the men surrounding him stood firm, but each one of them felt the prick of fear in the backs of their necks when Halford Burroughs let out a roar that shook the house. “That son of a bitch!” He grabbed the
edge of the oak table and effortlessly flipped it over, sending gun parts and oil containers flying. “I’m going to fucking kill him!” He turned to a massive gun rack behind the table and pulled down a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun. He broke the rifle in half to ensure that it was loaded, and flipped it closed. “That son of a bitch!” he screamed again. Even Scabby Mike felt the twinge of uncertainty
as to whether or not Halford was capable of turning on them. Only Bracken had the balls to speak.

“What’s going on, Hal? What did he say?”

Halford slowed his frenzy and looked at Bracken, as if he’d just noticed there were other people in the room. His expression was more wild animal than human. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“Oscar? Why? What did he say?”

Halford rolled his
head from side to side and popped the bones in his neck. “No,” he said, “not the Brit. He’s just an old man closer to death than he wants to admit. He’s got heat and he’s rolling over. I was ready to put you in his seat anyway.”

Bracken looked confused.

“If I were you,” Hal said, “I’d watch my back. That old bastard probably already sold you down the river. You said it yourself that the
list of people who knew you were coming was short. Who is at the top of that list? Now get out of my way, I got business to handle.” Bracken stepped aside, but before Halford could step through, a figure appeared at the screen door.

“You okay in there, Mr. Burroughs?” Rabbit said.

The blast nearly deafened everyone and cut Rabbit in half.

“Goddamn it, Halford,” Scabby Mike said. “What
the hell did you just do?”

“Clean that fuckin’ tweeker off my porch. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Mike followed Halford out the buckshot-peppered hole that used to be a door. Rabbit was a mangled mess partially wrapped in pieces of screen mesh.

“Halford,” Mike yelled, confused and angry. “Where the hell are you going?” He squatted at Rabbit’s body and closed the dead boy’s eyelids.

“I’m going to see my little brother,” Halford yelled back.

“Clayton? Why?” Mike stood up. “What does Clayton have to do with this?”

Halford stopped and turned around. “He has everything to do with this. He shows up here out of the blue, talking about how cops knew everything about our thing up here and about how my money would be the first thing to go. He even mentioned Wilcombe’s name.
And now I’m getting jacked at gunpoint on the highway.”

“You think cops jacked Bracken?” Mike said, still confused.

“Cops don’t operate like that. Outlaws do. That little prick’s got my money or he knows who does.”

“Let me come with you, then,” Mike said.

“You’ll just try to stop me from doing what I have to do.”

“He’s your brother, Hal.”

“You’re my brother, Mike. He’s
a dead man.”

CHAPTER

C
LAYTON
B
URROUGHS

2015

1.

Cricket didn’t need to ask her boss what was going on when he dragged ass through the door a full three hours later than usual and didn’t take off his sunglasses once he was
inside. The news of Sheriff Burroughs’s bender and the ass-whuppin’ he threw on Big Joe Dooley the night before had her phone ringing off the hook before she even finished turning the key in the front door. Still, she was gentle with him. “Morning, Sheriff.” She met him halfway across the lobby with a cup of coffee, black.

“Morning, Cricket,” Clayton said, taking the warm foam cup but setting
it back down on the counter. “I suppose you’ve already heard?”

“Yes, sir, I have, but let me tell you, that Joe Dooley has gotten out of line a few times with me before, too, so it’s my opinion that every single woman in Waymore owes you a thank-you.”

Clayton smiled. “Big Joe is an asshole, but he didn’t deserve what I did. I was way out of line . . . but thanks for saying that.”

Cricket picked up the coffee and handed it to him again. This time she let her hand linger on his for a moment. “Are you okay, sir? Is there something I can do?”

Clayton looked at her hand on his and wondered if they could be any more different. He felt the warmth of it—the genuine concern. Cricket was good people. That’s why he’d hired her. “I’m fine,” he said.

Cricket raised a skeptical
eyebrow.

“Really, I’m fine. It’s just been a heavy few days. Down here in this valley it’s easy to forget where I come from. This case I’m working with Agent Holly is a full-on reminder of all that bad blood I left on the mountain, and that reality check knocked me sideways for a minute. But really, I’m fine now.”

Cricket let go of his hand and returned to her desk. She picked up a yellow
file folder and handed it to Clayton. “Agent Holly came by about an hour ago and dropped this off. He said you asked for it.”

Clayton slipped the file under his arm and retreated into the sanctum of his office. He smiled again at the mousy receptionist through the narrowing gap of the door until it clicked shut. He tossed the file on his desk and drew the shades before finally taking off his
sunglasses. The hangover was brutal. He felt like an overcooked, thoroughly dried-out Thanksgiving turkey stuffed with cold sweat and cigarette ashes. The worst part was that, even now, he still craved the bourbon. He always would. Just a few fingers to even him out. Clear his head. The only moisture in his body was in his mouth, watering at the thought. He sat down and sipped Cricket’s coffee.
He needed to work—something to occupy his mind so the demons wouldn’t have anyone to play with. He opened Holly’s file.

2.

He removed the paper clip holding the two-year-old mug shot photos and laid them on the desk. A typical G.I. drunk-tank shot and profile. Short cropped dark hair, military regulation mustache, and a deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression. Clayton thought something
about the guy looked familiar. Maybe he
had
seen this guy before. He thumbed through the paperwork for photos of the crime scene, but there was nothing. Allen Cleveland Bankey was his full name. No bells ringing there at all. Clayton opened his desk drawer and found his aspirin. He shook two out and chewed them dry. He skimmed through the rap sheet, but there wasn’t anything else in the file Holly
hadn’t already told him. Bankey was an army veteran. Two tours in Iraq. Two in Afghanistan. All consecutive. He was a desert rat. His military record was impeccable. If anything, the file made this guy look like a hero except for the glaring statutory-rape charge that followed his time overseas. According to the file, the girl was sixteen. He met her in a bar she wasn’t old enough to be in, and
the sex was consensual. The girl’s parents agreed to drop the charges, but the state of Tennessee picked it up and Bankey served eighteen months. Released for good behavior. Raw deal. Now the poor bastard was on a slab for hijacking bikers with a rifle and a clown mask. What a fall from grace. The world is a broken place sometimes. Clayton wondered when it hadn’t been. Still, the guy looked vaguely
familiar. Clayton scratched at his beard and tapped on the intercom.

“Cricket, has Deputy Frasier been in this morning?”

Static.

“No, sir. I tried to call him a few hours ago, but he didn’t answer.”

“Well, try to call him again. If you reach him, tell him I need to see him as soon as possible.”

Static.

“Yessir . . . Um, Sheriff. Permission to talk to you in person?”

Clayton sat back and looked at the closed door of his office. “Um . . . of course, Cricket. Come on back.”

Cricket tapped at the door lightly, then opened it and came into the room. She looked almost embarrassed—nervous. She stood twisting her hands together like she was trying to remove something sticky from her fingers.

“What is it, Cricket?”

“Is Choctaw caught up in this mess?”

“What mess? This?” Clayton held up the file.

“Yes, sir.”

Clayton was confused. “Why would he be?”

Now Cricket looked a little confused herself. “Because of his friend.” She pointed at the file. Clayton looked back down at the photo, and then again at Cricket.

“Do you know this man?”

“Sure, I’ve met him a few times when I was out with . . .” Her face flushed, and Clayton
finally understood why.

“Listen, Cricket. I don’t care what you and Choctaw do in your free time.”

“But it says in the SOPs that county employees are not to fraternize.”

Clayton stared at her blankly. “Huh?” he said, even more confused.

“I really need this job, Sheriff. I don’t think I could go back to waitressing—”

Clayton shook his head and held his hands up to cut her off.
“Cricket, I
really
don’t care about any of that, and I promise you no one is going to lose their job, but I need you to tell me right now how you know this man.”

“He’s James’s . . . Choctaw’s friend. His army buddy. You’ve met him, I think. I thought he was a pretty nice guy until that whole wrecking-the-patrol-car thing.”

Clayton sank into his chair. He held up the photo again and pictured
the man in it with a full beard and longer hair. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Chester?”

“His name is Allen, but James calls him Chester because of the sex-offender thing that happened. I wasn’t supposed to tell you about any of that. Choctaw didn’t want you to disapprove.”

Clayton almost laughed.
“Chester the molester,”
he said to himself, as if he were answering a riddle.

“Yeah,”
Cricket said. “Allen said he hated it, but if he let his buddies know, they would never stop calling him that. That’s how all those guys are. Always giving each other a hard time. I can’t believe he’s dead now. I just saw him two days ago.”

“Where was the last time you saw him?”

“Sunday night at James’s place. All the guys in his old army unit were coming into town for a get-together next
weekend, and James asked me to help him plan it.”

“Was that the last time you saw Choctaw, too?”

“Yes, sir, and I haven’t seen him since. It’s not like him to break plans without telling me. That’s why I was so upset yesterday.”

“Was anyone else at Choc’s place Sunday?”

“Two of the guys from his unit had just come into town.”

“So Choc, Chester, and two other guys?”

“Yessir.”

“Cricket, listen to me. I need you to find Choctaw as fast as you can and have him call me immediately. Do you understand?”

“Do you think he has something to do with all this?” She looked on the verge of tears.

“I don’t know. I hope not. Just find him for me, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, and scurried out the door. Clayton sat dazed for a minute, letting the information sink in, and
then picked up the phone.

3.

“Holly.”

“Simon, it’s Clayton.”

“Well, how you feeling, Sheriff?”

“Like shit warmed over, but listen. I got information on your dead guy.”

“Do tell . . .”

“Allen Bankey is a guy I met once, going by the name of Chester. Turns out Chester was a nickname. That’s why I didn’t recognize the name you gave me. He’s an old army buddy of my deputy’s.
I think he’s been bunking at his house.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Negative.”

“You got eyes on your deputy?”

“No. He’s MIA at the moment, but I’m tracking him down right now.”

“Do you think he’s involved?”

“I don’t know. I want to say he’s not capable of something like this, but either way, he’s my deputy, and my friend, so I want to find him first before you go higher up
with anything.”

“Of course, Sheriff. Right now we’ll call him a person of interest and I’ll wait to hear from you before I call in the bloodhounds.”

“Simon. He’s my friend.”

“I understand that. You’re point on this. I’ll sit on it as long as I can.”

“Thank you.”

Holly hung up.

Clayton’s head was throbbing. Dehydration and information overload were ripping his head to pieces.
He chewed two more aspirin and tried to suppress the voice booming in his head telling him to search the cabinets for a forgotten stash of whiskey. He almost listened, too, but Cricket’s frantic voice on the intercom drowned it out.

4.

“Sheriff?”

“Yeah?”

“I think we have a problem.”

“What now?”

Static.

“Cricket?”

Static.

Raised voices and a loud crash boomed
from the lobby, followed by Cricket’s scream.

5.

Clayton nearly overturned his desk getting up and out the door. He prayed it wasn’t what he thought it was, but he knew what was happening on the other side of that door before he opened it. His brother, Halford, stood in front of the double glass doors leading out to the street, dangling Cricket by her hair like a fresh-caught fish on a
line. The computer, phone, and picture frames from her desk were busted and scattered all over the floor from when Halford had pulled her up and over it. She was screaming and crying, scratching at Halford’s hand, but he only twisted it tighter in her hair. Clayton was horrified as he took in the scene, focused not on the petite, squirming young woman balancing on her tiptoes but on the double-barreled
shotgun Halford had jammed up under her chin. Clayton drew his gun on instinct and trained it with both hands on his older brother.

6.

“Let her go, Hal. Now!”

Halford lifted Cricket higher onto the tips of her toes. She screamed louder. “Tell this bitch to shut up, Clayton, so we can get this done. Tell her before I paint the walls.”

“Let her go, Hal, or I swear to God, I’ll shoot
you down where you stand.”

“Tell her, Clayton. Tell her right now.”

“You’re going to be okay, Cricket. I promise.” Cricket looked at Clayton, wide-eyed and terrified. “You’re going to be okay. He won’t shoot.” Her screams dialed down into choked sobs. “Now let her go, Halford. I’m right here. Say what you came here to say, but leave her alone.”

Halford laughed. “You think I came here
to talk? We’re beyond talking. You only get to stay in this valley, pretending to be sheriff, because I let you. You’re only still alive because I let you. You think you got power? You think you can fuck with me? You have no idea what you’re fucking with, little brother.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Halford, but if you don’t put her down, it’s not going to matter.”

“You think
I don’t know it was you? You come up on the mountain talking about cops taking my money, talking about Wilcombe like you know him, while you send your own boys in to rob me. You think I’m stupid? I want my money.”

“What money?”

“Did you really think I would just lay down and let you take what I earned?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Halford, but I’m serious. I’m not going
to tell you again. Let the girl go, and drop the shotgun, or I will put you down.”

Halford didn’t laugh this time. His eyes went as cold and dark as Clayton had ever seen them. “You’re a fuckin’ disappointment, Clayton, through and through. Deddy called a spade a spade with you before you could shave.”