Bull Mountain(41)

“I had nothing to do with that, and you know it.”

“It’s one big brotherhood, though, right?”

For the first time, Clayton felt the heat of the day. Sweat was running between his shoulder blades and down his lower back. His shirt was sticking to him and his neck was kinking up from having to look up at Halford. All of a sudden he craved iced tea—laced with a fifth of bourbon.

“Hal, I didn’t drive out here thinking we had any shot of repairing the damage between us. I’m not fool enough to think that will ever happen, but I got things you need to hear all the same. You don’t want to hear them? Fine. I’ll be on my way. But ask yourself something. Don’t you think if I drove all the way up here, after all this time, and let all these *s you call family put guns in my face in front of my deddy’s house, that what I have to say might just be important?”

Hal chewed on that. He studied Clayton, then shot some stink-eye over at Darby, who was melting in the cab of the Bronco. The floorboard went back to being the most fascinating thing Darby had ever seen.

“Come on, Hal. It’s hot out here.”

“Fine. Talk, but you can do it from there. No way in hell you’re coming into this house. You lost that right a long time ago.”

Clayton sighed and took off his hat. He wiped the sweat off his brow with his forearm, and put it back on. He took another glance around the yard at all of Halford’s men, each face more eager than the next to hear what Clayton had to say. “I don’t think you want all these people hearing what I got to say.”

“Why not, Sheriff?” Halford held his arms out. “We’re all family here, right?”

Clayton took a step toward the porch and spoke in a hushed voice. “I think I might have . . . a way to help our family.”

Hal didn’t say a word. He just stared at Clayton like he was a complete stranger. Clayton took another wary step toward his brother and lowered his voice even more. “A way out, and I mean completely out. It’s a chance for you to retire from all . . . this . . .” He held out his arms like a scarecrow and motioned toward the gathered crowd. “I have guarantees,” he said, almost in a whisper now. “You can keep everything you have. The money. Whatever. Just shut down the dope.” Clayton looked at the tweekers by the rain barrel scratching themselves nervously. “No more looking over your shoulder. No more men with guns at your front gate. Just you and God’s country.”

Hal still said nothing. Clayton needed to give him more. He moved close enough to Hal to almost whisper in his ear, and Hal let him.

“They’re on to your boy in Florida—Wilcombe.” Clayton waited to see if that put a crack in Hal’s stone visage, but there was nothing, not even a blink. “They also know the locations of all sixteen cookhouses. They know your routes and where it’s all going. They’ve got times, dates, names, everything. If you don’t listen to me they’re going to storm this mountain like you or I have never seen. I can’t stop it. And if that happens, a lot of people—a lot of your people—are going to get killed.” Clayton thought about what Holly had said back in his office about appealing to Hal’s other sensibility—about the money being paramount. Clayton didn’t believe it, but he put it out there anyway. “Think about the money, Hal. You’ll lose it all. Everything you worked for taken from you before you even know what’s happening.”

Hal spit on the porch, and Clayton thought he caught a slight shift in Hal’s expression.

“Nothing makes a U.S. federal law enforcement agency drool more than a huge pile of money,” Clayton said, using Agent Holly’s words verbatim. “And they are coming for yours. But it doesn’t have to be like that, Hal. You can keep it all and put a stop to all this.”

Clayton thought he saw Halford weighing the possibility of what he was saying. He also thought he heard a whip-poor-will singing through the dead silence that suddenly blanketed his father’s house, but maybe he only wanted to.

“You’ve got guarantees?” Halford finally said.

“Yes.”

“Just me and God’s country, huh?”

“That’s right.”

Hal reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a coin big enough to be a silver dollar. Without looking at him, Hal motioned to the boy still out on the porch, and he scurried over, the wooden train left abandoned on pine slats. He handed the boy the coin and tousled his hair. “Go inside now and clear my food off the table. I done lost my appetite.” The boy did as he was told and hustled off through the screen door, taking only a second to stop it from slamming again, but once inside, he turned back to Clayton and shot him a bird before disappearing from view. The two old men in the rockers collected their things and moved off the porch as if they’d just noticed a thunderhead forming and were looking to take shelter. Old men were intuitive like that. Halford thumped down the steps of the porch and stood just inches from Clayton’s face. The sheriff stood his ground. Hal spoke in a low, controlled voice. “Do you know what your problem is?”

Clayton smelled the pork sausage and gravy on his brother’s breath. “Hal, think about—”

“Do you?”

Clayton let out another sigh. “What, Hal? What’s my problem?”

“You never got it. This isn’t God’s country. It’s my country. Mine. It always has been and always will be. God don’t have nothing to say about it up here. You could have been part of it, but you turned your back on us—on your family—on Deddy. That was your decision.”