Renewal 9 - Delay Tactics (7 page)

The old bridge was tougher than anyone would have guessed, but when  the critical mass was reached, the entire span folded up in the space of a few seconds. Men and trucks seemed to float in midair, but that was an illusion that was created by the speed of the bridge’s plunge into the river. That illusion was shattered when the floating bits caught up with the shrieking bridge, and the whole mess hit the water with a deep punching sound that Tam could feel in her guts. The water freed by the impact shot amazingly high in the air, easily doubling the original height of the bridge and raining down on sinking trucks with an endless hiss.

Men flailed in the water. Some reached the banks easily. The men who had made it across poured out of their trucks and ran back to the ragged threshold of the river. A few of those men were even good enough to scramble down the steep slope to help their fallen comrades. Plenty of men drowned, either caught inside or underneath the vehicles, or pummeled under the mad churning of others as they grabbed anything to survive the boiling chaos. On the west side of the river, thirty some odd trucks were lucky to have stopped before the bridge. Those trucks watched in horror for a minute or two and then came to their own panicked conclusions.

Tam observed the catastrophe of her own making with an icy calm on her face, but managed to smile as the end of the convoy began to swing out onto the shoulder of the highway, heading back the way they had come. Of course, it was possible that they were simply planning to go around the long way through Beech Grove, but somehow she doubted it. She wondered how far they would need to run to escape Tucker’s eventual reckoning.

A baker’s dozen climbed out of the water on that side and staggered up the embankment to the highway. Even at this distance, the body language of dismay was almost comically displayed as those thirteen men found themselves alone without transportation in the most cursed land in the state. They too began to walk west. Tam’s people would pick them up before long.

Gary Tucker Jr. stood at the broken edge of the bridge for long minutes before he began to curse. He cursed the water, the fire, the bridge, the men, and the bitch he was sure had done this to him. Mostly he cursed God. He knew that the Knights of the White God was a con, but maybe somewhere along the way, with all of his success and privilege, he had begun to believe in his special standing, just a little, and God was calling his bluff.

Chapter 9 – 10

Terry pulled Big Bertha to a stop in the gravel lot north of Manchester. He angled the big truck to shine the headlights on the four men sitting in the middle of the lot with their hands bound by rope. There were two older men and two that appeared somewhere in their late twenties. The men were guarded by an even dozen of Kirk’s best men, including John Hall. That didn’t surprise Terry. Those two were the best at sneaking in and doing damage. Bill Carter slid from the passenger seat, choosing to land on his good leg in one bound rather than using the awkward middle step. Terry killed the ignition and left the lights shining.

By the time Terry joined Bill and Kirk, Bill was already speaking to the oldest man. “Garrett Cox. This your boy?”

“No. That’s my boy behind me. I’m sitting next to Talley’s kid,” Cox said with obvious anger.

Kirk said, “My mistake.” He offered it with a who-gives-a-crap shrug.

“No matter,” Bill said. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re all in this together.”

“In what together?” Cox asked.

“Well, we can start with men you sent out to burn our place down last night.”

“I don’t know jack sh...”

“Stop right there. We wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of plucking you fine gentlemen out of your big old houses if we didn’t have witnesses and proof. For one thing, we can show you a nice collection of bodies. Some of them died shooting at my people. The rest died trying to set my barn on fire. Anyone you know?”

“I don’t know anything,” Cox growled in answer.

“Ok, well just so you know, I came out because I’m the one who doesn’t like all this torture and killing business. This man,” Bill indicated Kirk, “Seems to really enjoy it. He saves me a lot of sleepless nights.”

Kirk picked up his role as the bad cop. “So, Boss... We gonna torture the kids to get the daddies to talk, or the other way around?”

“I figure the daddies know more than the kids, so I guess it’ll have to be their boys up first. Either way, somebody will talk. I mean, shit... The things you do to them.” Bill gave a theatrical shudder.

Garret Cox was beginning to sweat profusely, as opposed to the normal sweat of a hot August night.

“What’s your boy’s name, Mr. Cox?” Kirk asked. “I like to know who I’m working on.”

Cox said nothing.

“Doesn’t really matter, though. He’ll tell me his own name, won’t you boy?” Kirk circled the men as he spoke and dragged Derek Cox to his feet. In reality, the entire families were well known to everyone in Coffee County.

Terry felt about eighty percent sure that this was all an act, but it was convincing enough to make him think of excuses to leave. Kirk was using a slippery redneck accent that sounded like a chainsaw revving, and frankly, it scared Terry. He couldn’t imagine what the Coxes were feeling right then. Terry stood rigidly and watched new beads of perspiration forming on Garret Cox’s hairline, even as his own sweat started to run.

Kirk stood the young man in front of his father and waited a minute for the psychological pressure to build. The elder Talley, a man named George, had wriggled around to watch. His son, who was already facing the potential torture, was staring in wide-eyed fear, probably verging on shock. As far as he knew, he was next.

When Kirk judged he was at the point of maximum strain, he pulled his knife, and began to brandish it in the harsh glare of the headlights. He watched the light bounce off the razor edge, and without appearing to aim, he bounced the blinding reflections in Garrett Cox’s eyes. He knew from the old days that this was often enough to do the trick, but old Garrett was holding firm. The knife accelerated to a blur that only Kirk could achieve. He sliced up the inside of one of Derek’s legs and down the other, splitting the entire inseam of the young man’s pants, barely even scratching the skin. From Kirk’s view, he sheathed the knife and folded the legs of Derek’s pants over the rope around his wrists. To everyone else, it looked like Derek’s pants simply exploded, leaving the poor man dangling in the breeze.

Kirk slipped back into his dangerous tone and said, “My daddy always said to leave the balls for last, but I reckon, why waste time? Let’s just start with the balls.” The way he said it, “balls” was a very long word.

Kirk’s knife appeared in his hand again, and he leaned in towards Derek’s exposed manhood, seemingly testing the angles for the perfect cut. George Talley saved Derek from a fate worse than death.

“Ok, ok, stop! I’ll tell you everything,” George practically screamed it out in a single burst and then immediately shifted into deep sobbing.

Having a crying peer bouncing against his back turned out to be too much for the leader of the Cox family. He started blubbering too. Terry marveled at how fast everything had changed. Kirk dropped his sinister expression and went back to his normal inscrutable one. He gave one of his men a nod, and the man disappeared into the shadows, returning a minute later with a pair of pants for the younger Cox.

“All right. Stop crying and start talking, so we don’t have to do this shit all over again,” Bill barked at the two older men.

George Talley talked, and within a couple of minutes, so did Garrett Cox. They ended up helping each other to relay the most complete version of events they could recall, and it was quite complete, matching up well with what Bill already knew. At some point in the spilling of the guts, Kirk signaled his man to help Derek with his pants problem, and by the end almost every tension was resolved. In the course of the tale, it became clear that Wyatt Jenkins had handled his peers the same way he had dealt with Jared Cooper, only telling the parts of the story that would help his cause. As Bill filled them in on the missing parts, the two family leaders felt something they rarely bothered to feel. Shame.

“All right, Kirk. I think we’re about finished here. Cut ‘em loose and put any weapons they had over in the bushes.” Bill waved to the scrubby growth on the north end of the parking lot.

“Gentlemen, I thank you for your cooperation, and I apologize for going about it the hard way. Fact of the matter is, I can’t trust you, but you can trust in the fact that I didn’t do to you what I did to the Jenkins.” Bill caught each man’s eye in turn and they looked back like spiritually defeated men. “The other fact of the matter is that things have got to change in this county. You’ve been taking advantage of people for too long, and that’s over now.”

“All of you get to go home to your families tonight, unharmed other than a pair of britches. But there’s a catch. You, and your entire families, are confined to your farms for a year. Any Cox or Talley caught outside the fence will be turned over to the state for collusion in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Dusty Baer. I can assure you that the state prosecutor will not care whether you knew what was happening or not. If you need something from town, hire someone to get it. In addition, you will refuse to participate in any attacks on our land. I don’t care if the ghost of Jerry Doan Jenkins appears to you in the middle of the night and tells you to join the fight, you will not do it. If I get the slightest hint that you or anyone you hire is in our territory, then the deal is off and your farms will burn. Do we understand each other, gentlemen?”

Bill waited until each of the four men had given his word. In Garrett Cox’s case, it took longer than Bill wanted. He added a final comment while staring the elder Cox right in the face. “Oh, and in case you are wondering, we will be watching.” Bill turned to Kirk and said, “Ok, let’s pull your men back from the farms and leave a watch in place. Let’s go.”

In thirty seconds, the four men were alone. They looked at each other dumbly, their minds trying to catch up with events. Eventually, when none them could think of a better idea, they began to walk home. It was no surprise when Derek Cox made the extra effort to walk away from his father.

Chapter 9 – 11

After finishing their business with Kirk, Bill and Terry were riding through the dark back roads of Coffee County, circling north of Tullahoma to meet up with the highway near the Bedford County line. The naked bed of Normandy Lake revealed old road beds that had been drowned in the early 1970’s when the lake was first brought up to its summer pool level. Bill was familiar with those roads, but wouldn’t trust himself to find them in the dark. He had no way of knowing the progress the Dragon army was making through Bedford County, but knowing Tam Rogers, he expected the white-robers were having a very bad day.

The circuitous route gave Bill and Terry plenty of time to talk about the events of the day. Terry was still nervous about Tullahoma, though Bill assured him that they were nowhere near the dangerous heart of town. Not completely convinced, Terry kept his eyes moving, looking for any signs of trouble on the overgrown lanes they traveled.

“Would Kirk have gone through with it?” Terry asked.

“No. Kirk has never actually had to go through with it. He’s more of a pitt bull dog than a cat. Cats like to toy with their prey, for some reason. Dogs try to stay out of the fight until they’re in it, and then they are one hundred percent in. And like a fighting dog, once Kirk decides to move, us normal folks can’t see anything but a blur. But I know he’s not interested in hurting people. He only interested in winning.” Bill sounded like he was convincing himself for at least some of his answer.

“Did you tell him what to do?”

“I told him to try to take some family members alive. I didn’t expect him to get the exact family members we needed. I trust him to handle the details, and he usually does it better than I would,” Bill replied in a flat tone, like a military report.

“So, you specifically decided to do the hard thing to avoid doing what we did at the Jenkins farm?”

“I felt bad about destroying it, and I also realized that it’s too easy to turn into what we’re fighting. We’ve never been out to take anything from anyone else. Our entire fighting system is designed for defense. I realized that I had overstepped the lines of defense by striking out in revenge, half way across the county,” Bill said, pausing for a few beats. “Then there are the politics, which is a crappy topic up against life and death, but if we just set out to eliminate the families altogether, then we would end up doing what they have always done, holding onto control through fear and intimidation. We made our point with the Jenkins men, who we know for a fact were involved with Dusty’s death, and we used that one action as leverage against the rest. I hope that’s enough. I half-expect Garrett Cox to show up in a white robe on Sunday.”

“So, no matter what we do about the Dragons, it’s always more about making friends than winning fights,” Terry said, trying to sum it up in his own mind.

“Yeah. That’s a good way to put it. If you have enough to live, and can protect what’s yours in this world, then helping someone else is almost always a good idea. Sometimes people can disappoint you, but not too often to stop trying.” Bill dug in his pocket for a pouch of tobacco, and held it out to Terry.

Terry glanced at it and shook his head.

“Good. Terrible habit,” Bill said.

“Why Sunday? Is that when you think they will attack?” Terry was full of questions.

“I think it will be soon. Remember what we found in Nashville? Those Dragons had about three days’ worth of food on hand. They probably don’t think about the long haul. They cover two counties and they have plenty of working vehicles, so they probably think in terms of quick raids, out and back. I’m fairly sure they don’t have any concept of supply lines, or even any home base to keep the supplies coming, so no matter what they’ve come to do, they’ll have to do it quickly. Of course, they may be counting on the families to keep them fed while they work out a plan. I’m hoping they will be disappointed.”