Bull Mountain(4)

Riley Burroughs didn’t stagger at all when Cooper’s high-caliber bullet pierced his neck. His body dropped immediately with a hard thud and he bled out into the clay.

6.

Cooper cocked his rifle and chambered another round before cautiously approaching Rye’s body. He gave it a hard kick in the gut. It was like kicking a sandbag. Once he was assured Rye was dead, he lowered his gun and looked back at his son. Gareth had already dropped his own rifle to the ground and was trying to process what just happened. There were no tears—not yet—just confusion and adrenaline. Cooper looked down at his brother’s graying hollow face and spit a stream of glistening brown tobacco juice across it.

And that was that.

Cooper propped his rifle against a tree and sat in the damp grass beside Gareth. The boy briefly considered running, but knew better. That thought left his mind as fast as it had come. Instead, he sat and watched his father pull the plug of chew from his lip and toss it into the brush.

“Look around you, boy.”

Gareth just stared at his father.

“I’m tellin’ you to do something, Gareth. You best listen. Now take a look around you. I’m not asking a third time.”

Gareth did. He looked at the deer he’d just shot on the bank of the creek, and then turned to the trail they’d come in by. He purposely avoided the direction of his dead uncle. Cooper fiddled with a foil pouch of chewing tobacco.

“What do you see?”

Gareth’s mouth was coated with chalk. He cleared his throat twice before he could speak.

“Trees, Deddy. Trees and woods.”

“That it?”

Gareth was frightened of saying the wrong thing.

“Yessir.”

“Then you ain’t seein’ the most important thing. The trees and the woods are only a part of it.”

The tears were starting to show now in the corners of Gareth’s eyes.

“It’s home,” Cooper said. “Our home. As far as you can see out in every direction belongs to us—to you. Ain’t nothing more important than that. Ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do to keep it so. Even if it means I gotta do a thing that ain’t easy doing.”

“Ain’t it Uncle Rye’s home, too?” Gareth squeezed his eyes shut and steeled himself for the backhand, but it didn’t come.

“Not no more,” Cooper said. He reached over to adjust his son’s cap again, then wiped the tears off the boy’s rosy chapped face. “I’ll give you this one time to cry, but then I won’t have no more goin’ on about it. You understand?”

Gareth nodded.

“Do you?”

“Yessir.”

“Good. Then we got us one more thing to do, before we dress and drag out that deer you shot.” Cooper loosened the fisherman’s knot on his pack and pulled out an old army-surplus folding shovel.

He handed it to Gareth.

Cooper Burroughs sat and chewed tobacco while he watched his nine-year-old son dig his first grave. There was more lesson in that than in killin’ any eight-point buck.





CHAPTER





2




CLAYTON BURROUGHS

WAYMORE VALLEY, GEORGIA

2015

1.

Well, isn’t that how it always goes down? You spend all week, and damn near most of the weekend, too, either cooped up in an office shuffling paperwork or checking off the honey-do list, all for a few hours alone on a Sunday morning, just to have it shot to shit with a phone call.

I should have let it ring.

Clayton wheeled the Bronco into the parking place marked RESERVED FOR MCFALLS COUNTY SHERIFF. He stepped out and stood in the empty space his deputy’s car should be in—and wasn’t—and dropped his chin to his chest. The sun was nudging up behind the motor inn and post office across the street; not the way he wanted to take in the sunrise this morning. He should be hip deep in the creek right now. He let out a slow, disconcerted whistle of breath, hoisted his sagging gun belt, and walked into the office.

“Good morning, Sheriff.”

“Well, that’s up for debate, Cricket.”

Cricket, Clayton’s receptionist, was a tiny little thing in her early twenties, and somewhat of a hidden beauty. If the light hit her just right she might be worth a longer look, but most days, with her mousy brown hair pulled back tight in a librarian’s ponytail, she had the chameleonlike ability to become one with the wallpaper. She pushed her thick plastic-rimmed glasses up on her nose and closed out whatever she was doing on the station’s computer.

“Sorry to get you in here on a Sunday, sir, but we thought you’d want to deal with this as soon as possible.” Cricket stood up from behind her desk and handed Clayton a file folder.

“S’okay, Cricket. It’s not your fault,” Clayton said, thumbing through the papers in the file. “You got me out of having to go to church with the in-laws, so it’s not a total loss. I was hoping to do a little fishing, though.”

Cricket was all business, as was her way. “Our guest is in cell one.” She motioned down a short hallway leading to the two small lockups, a couple cells barely big enough to house a cot and a stainless-steel commode each.

“And where’s Choctaw?”

“He’s waiting in your office.”