The Rented Mule (45 page)

Cooper stopped to let Grayson catch his breath. The kid was exhausted and seemed asthmatic, but he refused to be carried. Cooper suspected he didn’t trust men and couldn’t blame him, given who his father was and how he had been mistreated. Based on the little Cooper knew, he wondered what all the boy had suffered at the hands of that psychopath. He thought about Ben’s innocent qualities and couldn’t comprehend someone harming a child.
There’s a very special ring of Hell for child abusers and molesters! I hope you enjoy it, Mark!

Grayson and Cooper sat down on a rock to rest a moment. Again, Cooper looked at Grayson and held up his index finger to his mouth, signifying quiet. The only thing Cooper could hear was the ringing in his ears from the explosion. The flashlight beam was dimming, so he turned it off.

Grayson immediately cried, “No!” and began sniffling.

“It’s okay, Grayson. Don’t cry. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” Cooper said as he clicked it back on.

Cooper looked around, wondering where to search for the bats’ exit. His thoughts wandered to Dixie and how the hardheaded dog loved to retrieve everybody’s birds, much to his frustration. The reality that his life was in chaos was hitting him hard. He didn’t know if Kelly was safe outside with Brooke. He couldn’t understand Mark’s unbelievable anger toward him. He thought of his children, and then wondered what was going to happen to his business and to Gates. He started to worry that he would bleed to death before the rescuers arrived or before they found the way out, and then none of this would matter.

Cooper looked into Grayson’s hollow eyes filled with tears, and he knew that he was going to die making things right by that child and everyone else, including Dixie.

Cooper rose, and without saying anything so did Grayson, who reached for Cooper’s hand as they pushed deeper into the cave. Cooper was almost in a panic from the flashlight’s dimming beam and sped up. After they had traveled about two hundred yards, Cooper noticed blood in the dirt and smeared on the cave walls. He tried to determine whether this was from Mark’s earlier beaver-trap encounter or worse—if it was fresh, and Mark was somehow still alive. As Cooper pulled out his pistol, he whispered to Grayson to follow silently behind him.

Watching the cave ahead, Cooper worked the light into every crevice as his nerves began to unwind. Mark’s blood spoor was becoming steady, and he also noticed his dog’s tracks. Several times when he stopped short, Grayson bumped him, so again he put Grayson’s small hand into his back pocket, hoping that he could tell when he was stopping. The cave was getting smaller and tighter the farther they went.

Mark smiled as he made it to the cave’s opening, knowing that he would get away and that Cooper and Grayson were going to die in a few moments. Even if the cops were crawling all over the old house, Mark was safe. This unknown exit was almost half of a mile from the house, on the property’s boundary line, and huge rocks on a hillside hid it. Brush was grown up around the fracture in the rocks, which was just large enough for a man to squeeze through. A long fuse would give him time to be well on his way before permanently sealing shut his past. Though he was physically feeling worse, mentally things were getting clearer and brighter.

Cooper thought he heard something up ahead and quickly turned off the light. Grayson began to complain, but
Cooper quickly shushed him. Though Cooper’s ears were ringing, and he didn’t fully trust what he heard, he listened intently. He thought he heard voices—one of which he did not want to hear.

Mark had pushed the goggles up on his forehead as he began crawling out the narrow slit. The air was heavy. Halfway out, he noticed someone’s silhouette. Fear gripped him until his eyes adjusted, and he realized that it was his crazy uncle, Jubal Daniels, sitting on a stump, rubbing the head of a wet black dog sitting next to him.

“Damn it, old man, you scared the shit out of me, and that crazy dog almost got me killed!”

The old man, wearing his distinctive trench coat and wide-brimmed black hat, which drooped from the rain, stared back.

“Give me a hand, my arm’s busted up,” Mark commanded, reaching out with his good arm. “Help me, damn it!”

The old man sat motionless less than fifteen feet away.

“Besides bein’ completely crazy, are you deaf too?” Mark said, continuing to struggle through the small gap. I’m gonna gutshoot that damned dog of yours if you don’t help me!”

Mark looked around for something to grab onto when suddenly a boot slammed down on his injured hand. The pain was so stunning he couldn’t utter a sound before momentarily blacking out. When he regained consciousness, he was looking down the barrel of a large pistol. As his glance shifted to the old man, he could sense a change in the man who Mark had abused since he was a teenager. The old man had been emotionless for as long as Mark could remember. He had silently endured beatings and emotional abuse, yet hung around like a spirit-broken dog, cowering in the presence of anyone, especially Mark.

“Look, old man. You better pull me outta here! We’re family, and you ain’t got much left,” Mark said hatefully.

“I can’t let you hurt that little boy no more,” Jubal said in a tired voice.

Mark hadn’t heard him speak in years. With clear determination and purpose, the old man thumb-cocked the revolver.

“Don’t do it, Jubal,” Don Daniels calmly commanded as he approached the scene. “That little peckerhead’s mine.”

The old man took a step back, his pistol still trained on Mark’s head.

Don Daniels took pleasure in Mark’s obvious shock at seeing him alive. “Surprised, aren’t you?” Without waiting on a reply, he continued, “Do you know what you have done? Don’t you have the ability to stick to a plan? Answer me!”

“I had to improvise!”

“Killin’ me was your idea of improvising?” Don calmly asked, watching Mark’s eyes.

Jubal looked back and forth between the men, confused.

“I… I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Mark stuttered, struggling to say something.

“Mark, I’m tired of it. You have screwed everything up! Again. After all I’ve done for you and your momma. This is how you repay me?”

Cooper and Grayson slowly eased closer to the voices. Cooper could clearly hear Mark’s voice and quickly turned around to Grayson, whose eyes were wide, and said, “Don’t say a word or make a sound. Okay?”

Grayson obviously heard his father’s voice, too, but simply nodded his understanding.

Cooper couldn’t fathom how Mark was still alive. He listened intently, trying to determine what was being said and by how many.
I gotta get closer.

Cooper instructed Grayson to sit quietly on a rock. He gave him the flashlight, telling him not to turn it on unless he told him it was okay. Grayson sat and pulled his knees up tight to his chest.

Cooper whispered, “Everything’s gonna be all right. I promise.” He then gave Grayson a hug before he stepped away.

The cave narrowed considerably as Cooper inched closer to the voices. His claustrophobia was in uncharted territory, but knowing that Mark was alive and still in the cave gave him something beside that panic on which to concentrate. The closer he got, the tighter he squeezed the grip of his pistol. His sweat poured.

Cooper stood hunched over, listening. Mark was close. Cooper could hear something scraping on rocks but couldn’t see his hand directly in front of his eyes, so he decided he’d light his lighter. Aiming the pistol in the direction of the voices, he flicked on the lighter, illuminating the lower half of Mark’s body sticking halfway through a small opening.
That’s the way out!

Cooper quickly extinguished the lighter. The fact that Mark was unaware of Cooper’s presence gave him a moment to consider his next move. Hearing voices outside convinced him to be patient and to listen for anything that might help him understand what was happening. Cooper inched closer and decided that if Mark made even a slight move, he’d shoot him in the ass and take his chances with whoever was outside.

The closer Cooper got to Mark, the more confident he became. Watching Mark’s legs slowly move reminded him of the rattlesnake he killed. The movement wasn’t accomplishing anything, it was just nerves reacting to tension. As one of the voices outside became intense, Mark’s legs frantically tried to find purchase.

The mist turned to rain as Don and Jubal Daniels stood staring down with disgust at Mark, half of his body was out of the small hole, and he was clawing in vain to pull himself free.

Don squatted down close to Mark’s face and said, “If you’d just stayed on script and laid low, Cooper’s land option would have expired, and I could have added that piece to all I’ve been buying up around here to sell to Toyota. You’re a stupid son of a bitch! All I needed was this last piece of the puzzle. Once that old black woman learned that Cooper wasn’t the saint she thought he was, I coulda got it for a song. The last piece woulda been in place. I already had the whole thing sold to the Japanese. I’da cleared twenty-five million! Don’t you get it?! Everybody coulda had everything they ever wanted. I’da made a fortune and walked away, never to be seen again. You coulda been president of the bank, and you coulda lured Brooke back with the Tower Agency. I’d have given it all to ya. I never wanted that ad agency anyway. But I guess it was just too damn complicated for your jealous, drug-addled mind to comprehend. Don’t you realize how much twenty-five-million dollars is and how rare of a chance this was? You’re an idiot! You’ve destroyed my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—my chance to get out. I’m so freakin’ tired of the banking business—the shitty rink-a-dink
ten-grand loans to some bubba who wants to open a bait shop, givin’ mortgages to folks who can’t afford a single-wide trailer much less a quarter-of-a-million-dollar mortgage that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae force us to make, and all the bounced checks and the government auditors up my ass with a microscope! I was gonna get out! I had it all set up. Don’t you see what you’ve done?!”

“Well, uh, I… I… I was, well, it’s like this, Uncle Don, I couldn’t… I just couldn’t let anybody else have Brooke. She wanted Cooper, and it just makes me crazy to think about it!”

Lightning flashed. Don could see the fear in his nephew’s eyes. He hated Mark for who he was and what he had done.

“I understand that. But hell, even Jubal followed the plan.”

“It can still work. Nobody but us knows about this exit. We can blow it shut and maybe collapse the whole cave. I’ve got dynamite with me, right here in my pocket… if I could reach it.”

Don paused for a moment and then said, “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. It can work out. That’s the good news.”

Don calmly reached into his coat pocket. “The bad news for you,” he continued, “is that I intend to blame you for everything—with your mental illness and drug abuse… and fortunately for me, you won’t be around to dispute a word of it.”

Before Mark could respond, he saw Don withdraw a liter bottle from his coat pocket and point it at his head. For a split second, Mark wondered what was happening. Then, with horror, he recognized that the bottle was taped to a pistol, but before he could open his mouth, Don Daniels calmly squeezed the trigger.