The Broken Places (28 page)

Esau turned the Kawasaki around just in time to see Bones running from the lodge and two sheriff’s deputies walking from the shed. The men yelled to Bones, Bones hauling some serious ass with that goddamn gold rifle in hand. The wind whipped up some rain into Esau’s eyes. He didn’t wait a second to head on over that bridge, hoping Bones would come on but not being able to do a thing about it. His ATV rumbled up and over that footbridge and dug in hard and quick to the mud and stones, spewing up some dirt as he fishtailed and swung on into the tree line and onto the fire road, turning back just for a second to see Bones riding on behind him. He thought back to the time on the horses at Parchman, that feeling like ten years back. Bones looked a mite bit more comfortable with his legs straddled over an engine than a horse.

The trail was thick with mud and broken in spots with runoff from the hill. Esau ran it hard and fast, hunkered down with his backpack strapped tight and rifle thrown over his shoulder. He’d tucked his loaded .357 into his belt ready and waiting for any poor son of a bitch who decided to follow. Back at the shed he’d only seen the two ATVs, but there could have been more, probably would be more, and he’d sure bet the sheriff had brought his own up into the hills.

There was lightning and thunder as the wet branches whipped across his face. The cool rain ran down over his bad eye, good eye firmly on that narrow path that was sometimes hard to follow, but they kept rolling on some ruts in the road that a truck had made sometime in the last year and looked to where the saplings and weeds were no taller than your knee. The whine of the ATVs filled the forest, turning and cutting, Esau’s foot not touching the brake a single time. He raced on down that hill, thinking about Becky, hoping she would do what she had said and go and follow through with what needed to be done. She had sworn to him, pulled his hand to her, up under her shirt and her bra, to feel her heart beating for him to know it was true. Esau knew it hadn’t been her heart that he’d trusted, feeling that big ole titty in his hand and that familiar swelling between his legs, knowing he’d follow Becky into the depths of Hades itself. More branches swatted his face and his bad eye, though he ducked some. He turned at a sharp, muddy curve where the road got a bit steeper, touching that brake for the first time, looking back to Bones, who rode up beside him, breathing hard, smiling big ole crooked teeth, that golden rifle tucked into a camo backpack.

They both turned the ATVs to the empty road and looked down the fire road and the wide expanse of the valley. They could see Highway 9 and a few trailers down that way. A couple cars and trucks. Good pickings. But they’d need to move fast before word got out; everyone would know this road only led in one direction.

•   •   •

Thirty seconds later,
Ike McCaslin drove up behind the hunt lodge and hopped out of Quinn’s running F-250, asking which way those boys were headed. Quinn jumped in behind the wheel, Lillie following on the passenger side, as he pointed down the fire road, all the deputies understanding where it spilled out and the direction they should head. Quinn knocked the truck in four-wheel drive and headed in the direction of those 4-wheelers, coming to the bridge and straddling it, big tires running fine and smooth over the ravine and on to the curve.

“Couldn’t resist it,” Lillie said, buckling in, which was a true task with the jostling. “Could you?”

“Nope.”

Branches swatted at the windshield and scraped the sides of the truck as it rolled up and over rocks and down into ruts, crushing fallen logs as Quinn cracked the window, listening but not hearing the motors. Another limb appeared in the windshield, and Quinn turned to the right, evading it, picking up the path again and turning down into the drop-off. The valley below, three contiguous farms, their early plantings as clear and defined as Highway 9. He hit the lights and the siren.

“Sheriff,” Lillie said. “What happened to ‘move as fast as tactically sound’?”

“Learned that in Ranger training.”

“And this?”

“Being wild-ass crazy.”

In all that jostling and bucking, Lillie actually nodded. “Roger that,” Lillie said.

•   •   •

Esau and Bones had slowed,
rolling back the throttle a bit before turning through the woods and toward that little group of trailers down by the highway. Rain was going full tilt now, making it harder to see the path. Bones was up by Esau’s side, pointing an opposite way, showing where that road to the right petered out and the other path would take them down through a ravine and on into the valley. Esau nodded and gunned the Kawasaki, turning around just in time to see a big green Ford with a growling engine bust through the brush and woods, chewing up that narrow path and coming right at them with sirens and lights. With not much else a man could do, Esau headed down the new path, Bones right behind him, bucking up and nearly falling off the 4×4, hitting another stump and then coming up hard around a half-fallen tree. Esau wanted to reach for his pistol but didn’t want to risk his ass falling off. Down on the other side of the ravine was a long, flat space that spread out treeless and open, a deer stand sitting right there at the edge of the forest.

Esau motored on down into the ravine, water coming up past his knees and up to the seat, but the Kawasaki revved up and then out up a sandy hill. He was not the first to ride these trails back here. Bones stopped at the edge, and Esau, turning back, told him to come on. Bones looked up at the top of the bed, squinting at Esau, almost like he couldn’t believe he’d actually made it through the water. But Bones sat back into the seat and gunned the engine and came up on the other side, following the trail again. Those sirens were coming up quick toward them.

•   •   •

Quinn knew the road.
He hadn’t been on it since he was fourteen, but time didn’t seem to matter. He was waiting for that big, wide creek bed to come up. It was the same creek bed he’d fallen into after it had frozen and Boom had to lift his ass out and build a fire and make sure his socks and coat were dry before they headed on out of the forest. When he saw the break in the woods, he slowed, just a little, and edged the Ford down the slope.

“I don’t care for this,” Lillie said, looking like she might be sick.

“It’s the only way.”

“I don’t care for this at all.” She put her hand to her mouth.

“Trust me.”

“We’re getting stuck.”

“Nope.”

“Yep.”

Lillie nodded. The engine whined and tires spun, sinking them down into the ravine a little more, water coming up nearly past the big tires before Quinn knocked the truck in a low four and lifted out of the bed. The thin path on the other side gave his truck a decent place to grip, even if just on one side, as the nose of the truck lifted up and then over the hill, windshield wipers swiping away the dead leaves and pine needles and rain. Quinn turned on into the curve, seeing those two convicts running the stolen ATVs toward the final stretch of hills before things flattened out into country roads and farms and plenty of trailers and houses.

“Some truck,” Lillie said.

“Second time Boom got me through that patch.”

“Yep,” Lillie said, craning her head, holding a rifle in her hand. “I can get a shot from here.”

“Hold it.”

“I can get a fucking shot from here.”

Just as Quinn slowed, one of those boys opened up with a pistol, spiderwebbing the windshield dead center between him and Lillie. He pushed Lillie down far into her seat while he made himself smaller, Quinn following the road but backing off a little. The man on the rear ATV, the tall one they called Bones, aimed that pistol again, bullet whizzing off the hood.

•   •   •

Bones had done got those boys
off their ass. Esau turned back to the road, looking down the slope, seeing they’d be coming off that big hill really soon. Bones fired again, waiting for those deputies to start shooting back. Esau leaned forward, tasting smoke and oil, trying to duck the wind, and cranked that son of a bitch hard, taking the turn fast and reckless and loose. This was a hell of a morning, rain in the face, police coming up hard against him. Esau grinned and looked back at Bones to give him a salute.

Bones raised the gun again and fired. Esau turned in time to duck a big ole branch, coming back around the bend to watch Bones shoot again but not turn back around in time. That branch plucked his black ass off the ATV like some kind of magic trick, the ATV still running and gunning while it tumbled riderless off the path and down the hill over and over into some saplings. Esau just saw Bones for a moment, caught in the crux of a branch like a man’s thumb and forefinger, hanging guilty as hell, legs kicking back and forth and dead-ass stuck. Down in the valley ahead of them, Esau could see the lights and hear the sirens from the deputies’ cars. Behind them, that big green truck eating up the forest and tearing right for him.

•   •   •

Quinn had to turn the wheel
hard to the right to miss the man hanging from the tree. As the truck recovered, the front end dug in hard to a ditch, lifting the back right wheel up out of the dirt, spinning as useless as the other. Lillie and Quinn jumped out at the same time, finding Bones Magee caught still and lifeless in the crook of an oak. Lillie didn’t hesitate to try and pull him out, but he’d been snagged at the base of his skull and wouldn’t move. Quinn got under the convict and lifted his legs. Esau Davis headed on down the hill on his ATV, down to where the rest of the Tibbehah sheriff’s office would be waiting for him.

Quinn laid the man down in the dirt. His eyes were bloodshot and open, mouth busted, with his jaw knocked out of socket. Quinn tried for a pulse, listened for a breath, but the man was dead.

Lillie walked away with rifle in hand, training the scope down the hill. She put down the gun and shook her head, passing the weapon to Quinn, who searched the scope, seeing Esau ride through a clearing of trees at about three hundred meters. He lifted Lillie’s .308 Browning to his shoulder.

“I can make it.”

“I give you the gun, and you’ll shoot,” Quinn said, shaking his head.

“We have every right,” she said.

“Too easy.”

“You take the shot, then, Sheriff,” she said. “That boy has nothing to lose.”

He passed the gun to Lillie, knowing between the two of them she was a better shot, and she quickly lifted the gun, running the barrel to an open pasture where the ATV would appear. It would be a hell of a shot, about four football fields, but not too far for Lillie. She slowed her breathing, arms set in bronze, taking aim on the space, and without a word, squeezed the trigger. Even from that distance, Esau Davis left the seat of the ATV and toppled to the ground.

Across the greening farmland, corn sprouting immature and small in neat rows, walked his deputies. Art, Dave, and Ike moved side by side through the tilled earth, guns high and at the ready, with Davis sprawled in the dirt.

Quinn and Lillie walked down to join them.

•   •   •

Esau rolled,
knowing he’d been shot in the fucking back. He lay there for a moment, thinking,
Well, shit, we gave it a hell of a run.
But besides that sharp-ass pain in his side, he could breathe just fine. The sky was gray and flat but moving. Rain pinged down into his face, bringing him back. He turned his head to see those deputies coming, still a good bit away in a couple pastures. Some son of a bitch nearby had a dog. He heard that barking. Those men had fanned out, walking in a row of four. If he was gonna make a move, it needed to be fast and hard. Ain’t no going back for Bones. Everything in the world was now between him and Becky. He moved his hand to make sure he still had the gun.

He could feel the backpack up against him.

He was maybe twenty, thirty feet from the tree line.

If those bastards wanted him, he was gonna make them work.

When he got to his feet and started to run, he felt like someone had stuck a fire poker into his side and started to twist it. He figured he might be able to get that bullet out with a hot knife himself like fucking Rambo. But first he needed to get gone up into those hills with as much distance between him and those deputies as he could.

He had a gun and supplies. His heart was good and his lungs were good, and if he could shut off that bleeding for a while and move, they’d have to make a hell of an effort to find him. Esau was a woodsman, always been a woodsman, and with every step into the green-ass woods he felt more at home.

There was shouting and then some more shots. He ran and ran, thinking about nothing but branches and cover and being invisible.

“Yes, sir, that’s him,” Johnny Stagg said, nodding down to the body of Bones Magee on a cool, stainless-steel slab. “That’s the son of a bitch who took me by gunpoint and would’ve killed me if I hadn’t escaped.”

“How’d that happen, Johnny?” Quinn said, looking to Ophelia Bundren. Ophelia looked up over the doctor’s mask, waiting to slide old Bones back in the cooler.

“They got to arguing and weren’t paying attention,” he said. “I just walked right out the door of Senator Vardaman’s and on down the road.”