Bull Mountain(42)

“Hal, we don’t need to rehash all this.”

Halford ignored him. “But it ain’t like we all didn’t see it coming. Ever since you were a kid, you walked around thinking you were better than us, and now look at you, strutting around with that star on your shirt, still trying to prove how much better than us you are. If Deddy were here right now, he’d be disgusted at how you turned out.”

Clayton felt a twinge of anger tighten up one side of his face, and he matched his brother’s low tone of voice. “You want to talk about Deddy, Hal? Why don’t we talk about why he ain’t here? Why don’t you tell me the truth about the fire?”

“I don’t need to tell you shit.”

“You’re right. You don’t. I saw the barn. It didn’t look like no kerosene fire to me. It looked like the place exploded. What happened, you guys learn to cook that shit through trial and error, and Deddy paid the price?”

Hal’s upper lip curled. “Get off my mountain before I lose my patience and beat you to death where you stand.”

“Why was the old man in there, Hal? I talked to the fire chief, and he paints a whole different story than the bullshit you tried to pass off. Don’t you think it’s sad? He ran this mountain for seventy years without so much as a scratch and didn’t make it through one when you started making the decisions.”

Both men stood with their heels dug into the dirt, braced, each waiting for the other to swing. “This is your last warning,” Hal said. “Turn around, get back in that truck, and go back to your life, or so help me, Clayton, I will throw your body in the f*ckin’ ravine for the coons.”

Clayton didn’t hear the threat so much, as he tried to remember the last time Halford had called him by his first name. Not since they were kids. He held Halford’s stare and saw nothing in his brother’s eyes but an empty rage churning like the storm clouds those old men on the porch must have seen coming. Clayton had hoped age would change his brother for the better, for the wiser, but it hadn’t. He had hoped Buckley’s senseless death would have dictated some logic, but it didn’t. Hal was still the same man who could sit and hum a tune while his enemies burned alive tied to a tree less than twenty feet away. Clayton was almost ready to believe his brother could kill him, too.

Almost.

“Okay, then, Hal.” Clayton backed down from his brother, adjusted his hat, and made his way toward the Bronco, where his deputy was only now able to exhale. Darby pressed the button on the armrest to unlock the doors.

“Nice visit, Sheriff,” Hal said, and started back up the steps. His hands were shaking. It surprised Clayton. He opened the door to the truck, took off his hat, tossed it onto the driver’s seat, and began to unbuckle his gun belt.

“What are you doing, Sheriff?” Darby’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy? We just got a pass. Let’s get outta here.”

Clayton tossed the belt and sidearm onto the seat and slammed the door. “You want to threaten me, Halford? My whole life I’ve been listening to you talk about what a badass you are, but I’ve never seen you do a damn thing that didn’t involve you telling people what to do. How about we put all that talk to the test, fat man.”

Darby sank his face into his hands.

Clayton rolled up his sleeves, then unpinned the small tin star from his duty shirt and set it on the hood of the Bronco. A new expression replaced the anger on Halford’s face, one that was rarely seen by his people—he smiled. “Do you know where you are, boy?”

“I know exactly where I am. I’m on the northern edge of McFalls County, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Waymore Valley Sheriff’s Department.”

Halford laughed hard enough to make his belly shake. “Is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Nobody up here gives a shit about your jurisdiction, Clayton. You’re a joke. An embarrassment.”

“Yeah, I get that, and I made my peace with the way you see me, but that don’t change the facts.”

Several men in the yard trained their guns on the sheriff, but Halford waved them all down. “Not one of you harms this man,” he said. “Put your guns down.” Slowly the rifles lowered. Hal cracked his knuckles and twisted his head from side to side to pop the bones in his neck. Then he stepped off the porch.





4.


Clayton swung first, but Hal sidestepped it and threw a solid haymaker into Clayton’s ribs. It hit like a railroad hammer and dropped Clayton to his knees.

“Get up,” Hal bellowed at him. “Get up, boy. Don’t go down with one punch. It’s embarrassing.” He loomed over Clayton with a smile while the sheriff regained his breath. It didn’t take long for Clayton to spring up and go at Hal again. The big man tried to pivot and sidestep the hit again, but this time Clayton anticipated it, and the second punch connected square on Hal’s jaw. It felt like the knuckles in his hand had exploded. Hal shook it off, grabbed his brother by his tan duty shirt, and pulled him into a head butt. Another explosion of pain followed by bright white light and black spots.

Don’t black out. Don’t black out. Don’t black out, Clayton chanted in his mind. Before his vision cleared, Clayton swung both fists like twin pendulums into the sides of Hal’s head. That hurt him. He let go, and Clayton hammered a quick succession of rabbit punches into Hal’s kidney. As the big man buckled over, Clayton brought up his knee and rammed it into Hal’s face. It caught him in the cheek and sprawled him backward flat onto his back. He sounded like an oak tree falling against the forest floor. Clayton moved in to kick him but noticed all the rifles were back in the air and aimed at him. These men weren’t used to seeing their leader in the dirt. Clayton put his hands in the air and backed away.