Bull Mountain(76)

“Holly? You think he’s Chester’s dirty fed? That’s crazy. He’s the agent assigned to the case.”

“I don’t know shit, boss. I just know I’m in a lot of trouble and whoever it is isn’t going to let me live through it. I didn’t know what to do, so I came out here.”

Clayton let go of Choctaw’s shirt and pushed him back toward the bags of cash. The wheels in his head were spinning to a blur. This didn’t make sense.

“Start at the beginning, and tell me everything you know.”

“That’s it, boss. That’s all I know.”

“Did you know the money was on its way to my brother?”

“Halford? Oh, Jesus. Now I know I’m going to die. What am I going to do?”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Clayton took the jar of shine from him and turned it up. Choctaw looked confused but didn’t ask, and Clayton didn’t explain. Instead, the deputy looked at the bags of cash at his feet. “It’s a lot of money, boss. I mean, why can’t we just walk away, right now? I can disappear. You can say I wasn’t here when you got here and—”

“That’s not going to happen. We’re going to sit here and wait. If Holly is involved in this shit at all, we’ll know in just a few minutes.”

“He’s coming here?”

“Any minute now.”

The deputy snatched his rifle up off the bed and pointed it at Clayton.

Clayton set the jar on the floor. “What are you doing, Deputy?”

“They’re going to kill me, boss. I can’t be here. You can’t keep me here.”

“You have lost your mind. Put the rifle down. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

That’s when Choctaw’s head exploded.

3.

Clayton watched Choctaw’s headless body collapse to the floor, and spun around to face the back door. Holly racked the shotgun and lowered it.

“Are you all right, Sheriff?”

Clayton raised his Colt.

“Hey, slow down, Sheriff.”

Clayton held his gun on Holly and wiped blood spatter from his beard. “You just killed that boy in cold blood.”

“The hell I did,” Holly said. “I saw him holding that rifle on you and thought you were in trouble. A thank-you for saving your ass would be nice.”

Clayton thumbed the hammer back. “Bullshit. I had this under control. You killed him to keep him from fingering you.”

“Fingering me for what? You’re talking crazy.”

“Am I? He told me Bankey had a federal agent feeding him information on the robbery. He said it was a fed with intimate knowledge about the players moving the money.”

Holly looked at the bags of cash. “And you think that agent is me?”

“I know you just killed the only man capable of helping me make that distinction.”

Holly slowly held the shotgun out with both hands, bent over, and slid it across the floor to Clayton. “Well, that’s insane, but if you want to play out this little fairy tale, so be it. Here . . .” He removed his sidearm and slid that over to Clayton, too. The sheriff stopped it with his boot and kicked it out the back door. He holstered his Colt and picked up the shotgun. “Now let’s take a ride.”

“I’m your friend, Clayton. You’re making a mistake.”

“If I am, I’ll apologize, but right now, you and me are going to drive to Waymore and have a chat with the Bureau, and see if I can sort all this out.” He motioned the barrel of the gun toward the front door. Holly started to walk.

“What about all your money?” he said.

“It ain’t my money.”

“So you’re just going to leave it there, sitting in your boy’s blood?”

“You’re going to pay for that boy’s murder,” Clayton said.

Holly sighed and turned around to face the sheriff. His eyes were different now. That shark smile was back and every sense of urgency had left him. If anything, Clayton thought he looked disappointed.

“Why am I the one going to pay?” Holly said. “You’re the one that killed him. You came in here and decided that all the money was better than half the money, so you executed the poor bastard with his own shotgun. That’s pretty brutal, man.”

“Nobody is going to believe that.”

“Of course they will. I mean, come on. When Halford found out it was you that ripped him off, he was so pissed he brought his big ass down the mountain personally to kill you. He hasn’t come off the mountain in years. Everyone in that shithole dust farm you live in saw that. They also saw you kill him.”

“And that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Either way would have been fine by me. You kill him. He kills you. If it would’ve worked out the other way, I just would’ve called the big son of a bitch and told him his money was in here with the dipshit Indian that stole it. One way or another, I’d still be standing here, and one of you bags of shit would be standing there.”

“So everything you said about a bloodless takedown was bullshit.”

“Nobody bled that didn’t need it comin’.” Holly glanced down at the headless corpse of Deputy Frasier. “Except maybe him.”