Bull Mountain(7)

The agent stuck his hand out and flashed a pearly-white salesman smile at the sheriff. Clayton thought it made him look like a cartoon shark from one of those kids’ movies, but he stood up anyway. His deputy did not. Choctaw just eyeballed the agent with an expression similar to that of a man who’d just eaten a spoonful of shit.

“Sheriff Clayton Burroughs?” the agent said.

“Unless I’m wearing someone else’s badge, that would be me.” The sheriff shook the agent’s hand and matched his firm grip. Every fed that ever walked through that door felt it was necessary to conduct a dick-measuring contest with a viselike handshake. This G-man was no different.

“And you are?” Clayton said, pulling back his hand and calling it a draw.

“My name is Special Agent Simon Holly.”

“You got ID?”

“Of course.” Holly held out his badge, and the sheriff nodded. Choctaw tried to take a peek, but Holly intentionally snubbed him and tucked the ID back into his blazer.

“Thank you for seeing me this early . . . and on a Sunday.” He winked at the sheriff in an attempt to let him know he was privy to the sheriff’s intercom conversation with Cricket. Of course he was. The building had only two rooms. Clayton thought the wink was an odd thing to do, but he sat back down and motioned for Holly to do the same.

“No problem, Special Agent Simon Holly. I wasn’t doing anything important. My deputy here was just on his way out.”

Choctaw peeled his eyes off the agent slowly, like removing a Band-Aid, and took the hint. “Right, boss.” He made his way to the door, then paused and turned around. “Is this about the black kid I got locked up there in the back?”

Clayton regarded Holly for the answer to that as well.

“No, Deputy Frasier,” Holly said. “No, it’s not.”

All the color drained from the deputy’s face. He stood in the doorway, mentally racing through every shady scenario that would have put his name on the fed’s radar. Holly broke into his shark’s grin. The sheriff watched his lone deputy squirm like a little kid who’d just got caught shoplifting, hoping he would be smart enough to figure it out on his own. Clayton felt the ache building behind his eyes. He took another sip of his coffee. Cold. He pushed the mug across his desk. “It says Deputy Frasier on your name tag,” Clayton said to Choctaw, clearly embarrassed to have to point it out. Holly nodded in agreement, pursed his lips, and steepled his fingers in his lap. “Right there on your shirt, Deputy.”

“Right,” Choctaw said, drawing the word out, not entirely convinced but ready to get gone all the same. He tipped his Stetson to the sheriff and slipped out the door like a shadow.

“The world’s finest detective,” Clayton said.

“I suppose good help is hard to find way up here.”

“He’s not as bad as he looks.”

Holly looked at the office door, then back to the sheriff. “He looks pretty bad.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot to be said for loyalty. But you’re right, the pickin’s are slim.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, Sheriff.”

“You don’t have to take anything. I don’t care either way. I’ve known that man since he was a boy. He’s like family around here, so I’d appreciate you withholding judgment in my office.”

“No disrespect, Sheriff. I’m sure he’s a fine deputy.”

Clayton waved away the small talk like it was a gnat buzzing in his face, and leaned back in his chair. “Are you here to size up my staff, or do you want to tell me what the FBI wants with my office?”

“I’m with the ATF.”

“Okay . . .”

Holly stiffened up a bit and gave Clayton a practiced hardcase stare. The sheriff was unimpressed. “Spare me the intensity, agent. It makes you look a little silly. I know why you’re here. I wish it was something else, but it’s not. It never is. Just get to it.” The throbbing behind Clayton’s eyes was on the brink of becoming a full-fledged headache, and he could feel his Sunday morning going straight down the crapper.

“Right to the point. I can appreciate that. In a nutshell, I’m here to take your brother out of the game.”

Clayton sipped his coffee again, forgetting it was cold, and spit it back into the mug. “I wish that could have been the zinger you wanted it to be. I mean, here you are, so excited to sit there and say that, you couldn’t even wait until Monday.”

“I don’t think I’m making myself—”

“Let me go ahead and stop you there,” Clayton said, and fished an aspirin bottle out of his desk. He popped two chalky white pills into his mouth and chewed them dry while he spoke. “Every few years or so, some young FBI or ATF agent, much like yourself, comes poking around my office all beady-eyed and barrel-chested, looking to drop a hammer on one of my brothers. The only difference this time between you and them is, I don’t need to ask you which brother you’re targeting, since one of your people already shot Buckley to death last year.” Clayton let that hang between them and hardened his own stare. “And by the way, how much changed after that?”

“We had nothing to do with that, Sheriff. From what I understand, that was a state-level entanglement. I believe the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was the agency involved.”