Hellbender (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 2) (25 page)

From our ledge above the stream, the waterfall we climbed was in plain view. Directly across the narrow valley, the trail we trudged in on slid up the mountain like a snake. It seemed close enough to reach across and touch. From down the trail we heard a clatter. Charlie Lewis was approaching. And he was bringing a lot of people with him. They didn’t try to hide their approach or their numbers.

“This is a good place to feather in,” Ben said, setting his bow and gun on the rocks.

“I think this was smart.” Fenton watched the trail through his rifle’s scope as he caught his breath. “Maybe we’ll just let them pass then creep out to the trucks.” Ben said. “I’d be willing to make a run for it.”

Jamie threw a worried glance his way.

“I’m just saying, Dad, if somebody has to go, I volunteer. It’s going to be dangerous.”

“Ben, you’re a good man but you’re carrying a light lunch. It ain’t going to come to that.” My pap chimed in for the first time since reaching the top. His face was flushed and ruddy. His breathing hadn’t yet returned to normal. “Charlie came for one thing.”

He cast a worried look at Alex. “Two things, I suppose. As long as we keep the kids out of the way we have the advantage.”

I surveyed the stream valley. Sunlight reflected off the things they carried, eyeglasses and binocular lenses. I could hear their voices pretty clearly.

After the initial strategizing a hush fell over the rocks. Greg disappeared with my dad into the laurel to find the bottleneck. The whoosh of cascading water and the slight rustle of leaves in the breeze were the only sounds except for the occasional noise from the Lewis party march. All around the green walls of Mozark Mountain, Otter Creek, and Blackwater Canyon would muffle any shouts for assistance.

Alex was cut off by boundaries of a different sort. She was by herself near the edge of the laurels looking through the items in Jane’s envelope: scraps of paper, various leaves and twigs, bits of string and hair, a silver chain. I hadn’t really spoken to her since everyone else showed up. My responsibility to her probably grew since our kiss, but I didn’t know where my duties began and ended. I may have been a catalyst for these most recent events, but I sure as hell wasn’t in charge of anyone or anything. As far as I knew I was little more than bait.

I should’ve just sent them back. Or just ran off on my own
.

The thought was sulfur in a well, tainting my view of this operation. Despite my actions at Dimple Rock and at the Lewis cabin, the weight of guilt and shame in the pit of my bowels threatened to pull me straight down to hell. The balance had tipped too far away from me. My conscience still couldn’t bear the thought of anybody in this group getting hurt. Yet all signs pointed to bloodshed.

I spent long minutes preparing a speech, listing reasons why they should go then weighing those reasons against arguments that they’d have for staying.

‘Blood is thicker than water,’ they’d say, along with a bunch of other bullshit, but I knew blood was only as thin as the watery plasma it was made of, having tasted so much of it lately. I knew if I was to dismiss them I had to do it while there was still daylight left. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find a way to get everybody’s attention to tell them, and ended up pacing back and forth along the rock’s edge.

Down in the laurel I heard rustling. I knew it was my dad and Greg. I’d run out of time. Sensing a bit of news or change in strategy, everybody kind of gathered around.

“They’re coming,” my dad said, emerging from the laurel at our backs. “Those Johnny Bulls are dropping down to the stream in a few other places back down there. They aim to cut us off, I reckon.”

With that my pap buried his face in his old felt hat. He spoke barely audible syllables. It was like how a little kid deals with fear—if he couldn’t see it, it didn’t exist. “I’m sorry.” He let his hat drop into the old leaves at his feet. “They’re fixing to finish us in one fell swoop. What else can we do?”

My dad said, “Get ready to move. The bottleneck’s only a quarter of a mile back downstream. Head into the laurel and when you get to fixing on a knuckle you stay real close to the cliff before the bottleneck. It’s wide enough for people to pass one at a time. It’s a steep drop to the water, and as far as we could tell, no way to get the high ground above.”

Greg nodded to affirm.

“We have to engage them here,” he tapped the butt of his rifle on the rock a few times. We’re sitting ducks at the bottleneck. From the other side of the stream it’s a straight shot across. They can pick us right off. But we have to draw them up here first.” He sounded so lucid, his words came rapid fire like the drumming of a woodpecker. “Engage them here. Get them thinking this is where it’s going to happen. Once we start moving, Jamie, Fenton, you get dad to the truck. Get him out of here. Henry.” He put his hand on my shoulder. It was like talking to a stranger. “You and Alex are going with them.”

I shook my head. I had other plans.

“No, get home. Get safe. I don’t want you getting hurt.” Ben asked, “What about me? Where do you want me?”

Across the stream, the Lewises thrashed through the brush with machetes. “Your military experience would mean a lot to us here. But I don’t want to speak for you.”

“You don’t have to,” Ben said. “I’m in.”

“We engage them here. Hold them at the stream for as long as we can. When they figure out they can cross further upstream we fall back and hold them at the bottleneck. Two of us can hold them off for a long time. They’ll be pinned down or back off and we’ll rush to the other truck.”

My pap said, “I’m not going. I’m going to stay and fight.”

Jamie moved to console him, but my pap pulled away. He said, “Somebody has to put an end to this, son.”

“But not you, Dad,” my old man said. “Your girls need you back home. I don’t believe there’s much more any of you can do here. Mom needs you there.”

Jamie and Fenton agreed. Jamie said, “This isn’t your time.”

My pap nodded. He handed me his old Winchester Model 70 and his ammo bag. Without a word, he disappeared into the laurel to make his way to the bottleneck.

Ben moved to the edge of the laurels just behind my pap. He loaded his rifle, laid out a few rounds on the rock next to it. He unstrapped his compound bow and arrows from his pack, removed all the arrows from the quiver and laid them on the rock. He nocked an arrow and took a knee.

Jamie lowered himself to the rock next to Ben. I knew he’d been in Vietnam, but never believed it until I saw the way he went into soldier mode. Alex hung back, away from the cliff face. My dad laid himself flat on the rock between me and Ben to my left. Greg and Fenton laid themselves flat on the rock to my right.

I held my breath and watched the thrashing in the laurel on the other side. It came nearly to the bottom of the gorge. I had to remember to breathe. We were running out of room. They only had a few yards left to go. I held my breath again.

A few minutes later Curtis Lewis emerged on the beach below. He scanned the hillside with his scope. At our cliff-top fortress he paused and pretended to shoot. His shoulder jerking back with the kick of a feigned shot. He lowered his gun and said, “Found ‘em. Get your asses moving.”

One by one Lewises and Lewis Lumber employees stumbled onto the beach. Some looked up at us, guns raised. The rest made their way up to the falls. The sheriff was down there, still in uniform. He had a deputy with him. Darren’s guys from Ohiopyle were down there too. Danny and Levi.

“Holy shit,” I said. “That’s a lot of fucking people.”

“Shut it, Henry,” my dad said in a whisper.

We watched as more and more filtered toward the waterfall. Some stayed on the trail. They shouted back and forth to each other. They didn’t try to stay hidden.

I said, “What are we waiting—”

The air bristled with a loud THWAP! My heart pumped in my ears. I expected a gunshot and couldn’t figure out what had happened. Curtis Lewis fell back into the sand. One of Ben’s arrows rose from his shoulder.

Crackles of gunfire echoed quick responses from the cliff faces. Lewis’s men scrambled. Chips of sandstone flew off the rock all around me. My ears rang and my head hurt, but I squeezed the trigger, replaced the cartridge and fired round after round. I aimed for shoulders and legs. I’d never even shot at a rabbit or bird.

Some of Charlie’s men fell back into the laurel. Charlie shouted and fired his pistol at his guys to get them back into the fight. A pair of them stumbled on the beach, bleeding from superficial wounds. Whether from our guns or Charlie’s, I couldn’t be sure.

With a sudden jerk, Fenton retreated from the cliff’s edge like a groundhog from a hawk’s shadow, holding his eyes.

Alex guided him back from the edge and patted his eyes with a chamois from Ben’s pack. She pulled his hands away from his face, exposing a profusion of blood from the tiny flecks of stone that the birdshot had sent into his forehead.

Each of Ben’s arrows hit a target. Some of the men screamed and retreated to the laurel, trying to pull the arrows out of their shoulders or abdomens. The few still lying on the beach didn’t make a sound. I watched one of the men crawling toward the laurel through my scope and reckoned I should finish him. But I found another, anonymous, target and fired. It shamed me that I couldn’t do it.

Greg was on one knee, beret cocked as he reloaded. Jamie traded his rifle for Fenton’s more powerful weapon. Ben fired the last of his arrows and picked up his own rifle. The cocksure smirk on his face was in direct contrast to the furrowed brow that his dad wore. Ben was the steadiest, repeating his shots with a precision that reflected his time in Afghanistan. They came in a mechanical rhythm—crack, snap, click, tink.

Crack, snap, click, tink.

Crack, snap, click, tink. Shells and casings fell like hail, filling depressions in the rock like rain filled a puddle. Some overflowed and dripped off the cliff in a trickle. The casings splashed into the pool at the base of the cliff.

A shot exploded into the rock by my ankles. “We need to get to the bottleneck.”

“Get down!” Jamie shouted, but I waved him off.

“Keep your fucking head down, Henry,” Ben said, reloading.

“We have to get out of here!” I shouted again and pointed to Fenton. The shots from across the gorge came close, but not enough to stop me.

My dad looked at Ben and nodded. “Ben, what do you think?” Ben nodded. “Fall back.”

The shooting from below had stopped for the most part. A pair of wood hicks patched up one of Charlie’s men. Darren Lewis waited on the beach while his guys ascended the falls. If I had to guess, I’d say that there were already a good many on this side headed our way. More of Charlie’s guys were in the laurel, headed upstream to a safer crossing. Just like my dad said they would.

Within seconds silence returned to the gorge. A bit of smoke remained, the air smelled like sulfur. The ringing in my ears didn’t fade as fast as I thought it would.

Greg disappeared toward the bottleneck next.

The first wave of Charlie’s guys hacked at the laurel just below us. They laughed and cursed. They may as well have been hunting buck.

“We got lawmen down here with us,” Charlie shouted from laurel next to the calm pool below the cascade. “So don’t try nothing.”

“Lawmen you bought and paid for,” I shouted.

Charlie huffed to catch his breath then wiped a paw across his sweaty forehead. One by one his personal posse assembled on the beach at his side. Billy came onto the beach last. Darren Lewis looked up at me through his scope by the falls. I backed away from the ledge.

Laughing, Darren took his shot anyway. Jamie fell to the rock.

“Dad!” Ben said.

“I got him!” Darren yelled. “Fucking got him.”

Jamie grabbed his collarbone. Blood trickled out from between his fingers. “Give me your shirt, son.”

Ben took off his over shirt and ripped it into a few long strips. “Take this.” He handed me his rifle. I picked his pistol up off the rock.

Jamie breathed in short, quick breaths. “We can’t beat them. We’re lucky nobody’s dead yet. I hope this wasn’t a mistake.”

Fenton sat up, applying pressure to the bloody spot above his eye. Jamie held wadded strips fast to his wound. Ben was trying to fashion a sling out of what was left of his shirt. “All right. Let’s go for the trucks.”

My dad nodded and let Ben help him to his feet. Then they disappeared into the brush.

Charlie yelled, “Y’all wasn’t so hard to find.” He motioned for Billy to hand him a canvas bag that he’d been carrying. Bandages speckled Billy’s arms and neck. Black and blue splotches peeked from beneath gauze and tape on his hands.

Charlie emptied the contents onto the beach.

I looked through my rifle’s scope at the litter Charlie scattered on the sand. At first glance they appeared to be just twigs, twisted and broken. But as I steadied myself I could see they were figures, little five-point people twisted by Alex’s idle hands.

Charlie said, “Maybe she got a little more Lewis in her than you’d like. Huh, boy?” “What is it?” My dad whispered, but I hushed him and shook my head.

I held my gun out to my side, aimed away from the beach. “Nothing.”