Bull Mountain (25 page)

“Deddy’s dead. His death is on you. Just like yours is going to be on me, if you don’t
let . . . her . . . go.”

Cricket had gone quiet. She wasn’t scratching or even struggling. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving, but there was no sound. Clayton assumed she was praying.

Good girl,
he thought
. Stay still.

“Last warning, Halford. If you want to talk this out, I’ll listen. No one needs to die. But if you keep pointing that gun at Cricket, somebody will, and it
won’t be her.” Clayton thumbed the hammer back on his Colt and held it steady.

“I believe you’re right about that,” Halford said, and swung the shotgun toward Clayton. Thunder filled the small office as Halford fired. Buckshot sprayed the ceiling and walls to Clayton’s left, but the sheriff’s aim was true and he put three bullets through Halford’s chest. His huge body bucked and went limp
as he fell backward through the plate-glass window behind him and into the street.

7.

Clayton stood frozen in place, still aiming his gun at where his brother had been standing. There was no keeping his hands from shaking now. He dropped the gun to the floor as if it were suddenly a venomous snake. Cricket was balled up against the wall, pulling and holding her knees to her chest. The
clamor of the shots in this tight environment had temporarily stolen her hearing, but otherwise she was okay—at least physically. Halford’s body was lying on the sidewalk in a growing pool of sticky red, surrounded by thick broken glass that made everything sparkle in the hot afternoon sun. Clayton fell to his knees. All of his will to stand dissipated like smoke.

8.

“Sheriff?” The voice
was right next to him but sounded miles away.

Agent Holly knelt down beside Clayton. People were in the room now, EMTs, state police; Darby was there in uniform, and the deputy coroner was tending to Halford’s body. The edges of Clayton’s vision were blurred, but he could see his brother’s muddy work boots sticking out from underneath the white sheet the medics had laid over him. A stocky
female EMT shined a penlight into one of Clayton’s eyes, and then the other. “Sheriff? Can you hear me? His pupils are reactive and I don’t see any outward trauma. I think he’s okay, but he’s most likely in shock.”

“Talk to me, Clayton,” Holly said. He was coming in clearer now.

“I . . .” Clayton tried to speak, but it felt like his mouth was packed with sawdust.

“It’s okay, Sheriff.
You did good here.” Holly shooed the medic away and got right up in Clayton’s face. “He came here to kill you, Clayton. You have to understand you had no choice.”

“No, he . . .”

“Yes, he did,” Holly said. “He would have killed you, and that little girl you got working for you as a bonus. You know in your gut that’s the truth. He’d have killed you both, left you to rot, and whistled his
way back up that mountain. You saved your life
and
hers.” Holly took Clayton by the chin and lifted his head to give him a view of Cricket through the shattered window. She was wrapped up in another one of the medic’s sheets, sitting on the bumper of the McFalls County ambulance. Mascara streaked down her face and she shivered regardless of the blazing afternoon sun. She would go home today. And
that was good.

Holly stood and reached out a hand. Clayton, feeling his strength returning, took it and let Holly help him to his feet. Once he was up, Clayton leaned down and picked up his hat and gun. He put them both back where they belonged.

9.

Holly stepped over the twisted metal and broken glass and onto the street. Clayton followed. Both men squatted down at Halford’s covered
body, sprawled lifeless on the sidewalk. Holly gripped the edge of the sheet to pull it back, but waited for the sheriff’s approval. Clayton nodded. Halford’s eyes were no different in death than they’d been in life. No colder. No blacker. No more absent of a soul than a man who could rest easy while another man burned alive, or a man who could hold a sawed-off scattergun to the head of an innocent
girl. Clayton could hear the hornets screaming. He fought back the sudden rush of anxiety that peppered his peripheral vision with sunspots, and squeezed his eyes shut until the feeling of nausea began to fade. He thumbed his brother’s eyelids shut and put his gun hand on the dead man’s chest—a few inches above the three holes in his shirt—and offered an unspoken good-bye. Holly said nothing.
Instead, he stood, offered his hand, and helped Clayton to his feet for a second time.

Cricket thought she was all out of tears until Clayton and Holly approached the ambulance. The paramedics backed off when they saw the men coming and began to repack unused supplies into their jump bag. The sheriff sat down next to Cricket on the bumper. She grabbed his arm through the sheet she was wrapped
in and cried gently on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Sheriff. I didn’t know what to do. He came in so fast. I didn’t think he was . . . he was . . .”

“It’s okay, Cricket, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one who should be sorry for dragging you into my family drama. It’s my fault. I almost got you killed.”

Cricket backed her face off his shoulder and caught his eyes. “You saved my
life, Sheriff.”

“You’re damn right he did,” Holly chimed in. He had his cell phone to his ear and was holding one finger in the air as a signal to Clayton that he would be right back, and then he stepped off to the side of the ambulance to focus on his call.

“You did,” Cricket continued. “I know doing what you did must’ve been hard for you. Probably the hardest thing ever, but you did
it and I’m alive because of it. I owe you my life.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

Cricket said something else, but Clayton didn’t hear it. Instead, he caught a familiar voice through the crowded street and focused on it. It was the voice of the one person he really needed to see.

“Kate,” he said, and stood to wave her over. She was standing behind the yellow caution tape, her face ghost-white.
A couple of state police were giving her some resistance about entering the scene, but once she caught her husband’s eye, she barreled through them like a freight train.

“Let her in, she’s my—”

Kate knocked the words and the wind out of him with a crushing hug that pushed him back against the ambulance hard enough to rock it. A paramedic turned and opened his mouth with the intention of
saying something but thought better of it once he saw Kate’s face. Clayton winced but hugged her back. She let him go and looked him over from head to toe to head again. “Oh my God, Clayton. Are you okay? What happened?”

“I’m fine. Who called you?”

“No one called me. I was on my way here to meet you for my doctor’s appointment, and I saw all this. What the hell happened?”

“Halford’s
dead.” He motioned to his brother’s enormous corpse. Darby, two paramedics, and the deputy coroner were all trying to help load it into a second ambulance. She looked to the men, then back to her husband, and all the remaining color in her face faded with the realization. “Did . . . you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, baby. Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

“He saved my life,” Cricket said.

“He saved both
their lives,” Holly said, rounding the ambulance, tucking his phone in his pocket. Kate went from pale and sympathetic to flushed red and angry on a dime.

“This is your fault.” She shoved an accusatory index finger into Holly’s chest. “You brought all this down on us.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know you feel that way.”

“Are you happy now? Are you?”

“No, ma’am,” Holly said.

“Fuck you,
and your ‘yes, ma’am/no, ma’am’ shit.”

“Kate, calm down.” Clayton took his wife’s arm, but she pulled it free.

“No, I won’t calm down. Three days ago we lived in a quiet little valley far removed from all this, and now look around.” Kate lifted both her arms and spun back toward Holly. “Dead people and chaos for us mountain folk, and a plane ticket home for this asshole. Right, asshole?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Holly said.

Kate drew back to deck him, but Clayton grabbed her arm again, and this time didn’t let go. “Simon didn’t make Halford come into my office toting a shotgun, Kate, and he certainly didn’t make him press it to Cricket’s head. That was all Halford. If anything, I’m to blame for provoking him and I’m the one who has to live with what happened here.”

“That’s not
entirely true, Clayton. We both have to live with this. We
all
do,” she said, and pushed a strand of Cricket’s hair back behind her ear.

Clayton pulled her into his chest. “You’re not helping things, woman. Let me talk to the staties over there and give a statement. The sooner I can sort out what needs sorting, the sooner we can go home.”

She wanted to scream, but she bottled it down to
a single compressed syllable. “Fine.”

Clayton tipped his hat to Cricket and then turned to Holly. “I’m guessing this changes your plans.”

“I would say so, yeah.”

“Despite what my wife might say, this was bound to happen someday. I’ve always known that. I’m not looking to blame you for anything.”

“Good to hear, Sheriff. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it happened this way.”

“Me, too. We’ll be seeing you, then.”

“I hope so.”

Clayton put an arm around Kate and the two of them turned to go.

“Sheriff,” Holly said, “I almost forgot.”

“What’s that?”

“That call I took a few minutes ago. I called in the info you gave me. I know you wanted to run it down yourself, but I thought you could use the help. One of my boys with the Georgia Bureau put eyes on your
missing deputy.”

Clayton stopped, and without looking back, asked, “Where?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kate said, and tugged on Clayton’s arm. He turned and looked at Holly. “Where?” he said again.

“One of the GBI choppers that fly regular over the mountain spotted a blue Camaro registered in his name and another vehicle at a cabin on the Western Ridge of the mountain. You know
the place?”

“Yeah, Johnson’s Gap. It’s a hunting cabin that’s been in my family for years. Choctaw goes up there sometimes for the fishing in Bear Creek.”

“Yeah, well, I bet he ain’t fishing today.”

“Don’t kill him, Simon.”

“Don’t intend to, Sheriff, but I can’t make any promises. People tend to get squirrelly around that kind of money, and if the intel is right, that’s where he’s
got it stashed. I got a team headed there now.”

“You got what?” Clayton flared.

“Well, you were a little busy here, Sheriff. I had to make the call. How it turns out is going to be up to him. I’m just giving you a heads-up.”

Cricket came off the bumper of the ambulance. “Sheriff, don’t let them kill him. Whatever he’s done, I’m sure it’s a mix-up. James is a good man. Please, Sheriff,
you know he is. Please don’t let them kill him.” Cricket was back in full sob, crying into Clayton’s chest. Kate stood cold as a slab of granite by his side, burning a hard stare into Holly. She was in a state of suspended animation, waiting to hear her husband say the words she knew he’d say. It made him who he was. He didn’t have a choice. It was his father’s pride. It was the reason she loved
him and the one thing she was completely sure would crush her heart into dust. She pulled on Clayton’s arm. He shook her off.

“Let me go get him,” he said. There it was. Kate felt like she’d been punched in the gut.

“Clayton, you’re hurt,” Holly said, “not to mention you’re probably in shock. Go take care of yourself and yours. Let me handle this.”

“No,” Clayton said. “You’re right.
Situations like this cause people to overreact. There are too many guns and too many questions. I don’t want anyone else to die today. We don’t know if Choctaw was even involved.”

“The odds aren’t good, Sheriff. What does your gut tell you?”

“It tells me if I want to see my deputy again upright and breathing, I need to be the one to bring him in. Call off your dogs and let me do this.”

“Are you sure?” Holly pointed over the sheriff’s shoulder. That’s when Clayton noticed Kate wasn’t holding on to his arm anymore. She was already crossing back under the yellow caution tape. He watched her work her way through the crowd, and a few seconds later she was gone.

Clayton scratched at his beard and spit on the asphalt. “I’ll drive.”

CHAPTER

C
LAYTON
B
URROUGHS

2015

“Are you sure you’re up for this, Clayton? I can have my people here within the hour. Full tactical squad—pros. They’ll do everything possible to take this idiot kid alive. You have
my word.”

Clayton responded by mashing the gas pedal down, and hammered the Bronco farther up the dirt mountain road. “You can’t promise me that, Simon. I know you got good intentions, but your people won’t see Choctaw as an idiot kid caught up in a bad situation. They’ll only see a target. I’m not going to let someone else up here die if I can help it. Not today. Give me your phone.”

“Huh?”

“Your phone. You carry one, don’t you?”

“Yeah, okay.” Holly dug into his pants pocket, pulled out a silver flip phone, and handed it to Clayton. “Here,” he said. “Hit send after you dial.”

Clayton took the phone and smirked at Holly. “The hillbilly sheriff knows how to work a cell phone.”

“All right. I’m just saying.”

Clayton didn’t flip open the phone. Instead, he rolled
his window completely down and tossed it out into the blurring trees.

“What the fuck, Clayton?”

“I don’t want you calling anyone.”

“And you couldn’t just trust me?”

Clayton slowed the Bronco down and pulled over to the side of the road. “Get out, Simon.”

Holly twisted his face into an expression of surprise. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. Get out.”

“I’m not gonna do
that, Clayton.”

The sheriff dropped the shifter into neutral and let his foot off the clutch. He put an arm up on the seat and turned to Agent Holly. “Look, the place we’re headed is less than two miles up this road on the left. It’s about a fifteen-minute walk. By the time you get there, I’ll most likely be sitting on the front porch waiting for you, Choctaw sitting beside me, sipping iced
tea.”

“I’m not going to let that happen, Sheriff. I can’t even begin to tell you how many protocols I’d be breaking if I did what you’re asking me to do.”

“Something tells me a man like you doesn’t give a rat’s ass about protocols. Besides, you can tell anybody that asks I forced you at gunpoint.”

It was Simon’s turn to smirk. “And you think anyone will believe that?”

“Anyone who
knows about me drawing down twice in the past two days will.”

“And what if there’s more than just your deputy waiting up there?”

“Won’t be anyone I don’t know.”

“You know all his ex-military buddies turned hijackers?” Holly saw in the sheriff’s face that he hadn’t thought of that, but Clayton shook his head dismissively.

“If I get there, and it looks like I just stepped in shit,
I’ll pull back and wait on you.”

Holly still didn’t move to open his door. He sat with his arms crossed like a stubborn child.

“Look, Simon, this is the only way I know I’ve got an honest shot at not getting this kid killed like his buddy Bankey. I can tell him I came alone, and I won’t be lying. If he thinks a fed is creeping around, it could spook him into doing something stupid. It’s
only a fifteen-minute walk. I need you to do this. Goddamn, it’s not like I’m asking for your gun. Just get out and meet me there.”

Holly unclicked his seat belt and popped open the Bronco’s door. Before he was fully out, he turned to Clayton and said, “You know, I’ve been running marathons my whole adult life. I can cover two miles in a lot less than fifteen minutes.”

Clayton tipped his
hat. “Well, I best be on my way, then.” He dropped the shifter and punched the hammer down as soon as Holly had both feet on the road, letting the vehicle’s sudden motion slam the door closed. Holly shielded his face from the kick-up of dust and red dirt. When the Bronco was far enough from sight, he brushed the road spray off his dark blue suit, chewed a couple Percocets, and pulled out his cell
phone. Not the burner phone he let Clayton throw out the window, but the one he was issued by the United States government. He chewed the pills into paste, punched in a number, and held the slick black smartphone to his ear. As the phone rang, Holly smiled his shark’s smile and began to jog up the road toward Johnson’s Gap.