Bull Mountain(77)

“All this for a couple hundred grand?”

Holly laughed. “You really are dumber than you look, Clayton.”

Clayton felt a nerve in his eyelid twitch and gripped the shotgun with white knuckles. “It was all bullshit. You never had anything on Halford. No task force. No knowledge of his operations.”

“No, some of that was true. There was never any plan to move against your brother, but I do know everything about his empire.” Holly smiled wider and his eyes darkened. “You want to know how I found out?”

Clayton mashed his teeth.

“Your brother Buckley told me, before I killed him.”

“You’re a f*cking liar.”

“Before I set him up to have my team put several hundred bullets in him, I picked him up for a little one-on-one and convinced him to talk to me. After three days of withdrawal from your family’s honeypot, he told me all kinds of shit about Halford, you, this place, this cabin, times, locations, all of it. That idiot knew it all and gave it up just to keep a steady flow of crank in his veins. It sucks having a junkie in the family. There’s no telling what they’ll do to stay high. Believe me, I know. I bet that retard would’ve blown me if I’d wanted him to.”

“I ought to kill you where you stand.”

“Well, do it, then, Sheriff Burroughs.” Holly dragged out his words, mocking the title of sheriff. “Stop pretending you’re something you’re not. You’re a piece-of-shit hillbilly gangster like your dead daddy and all your dead brothers, but you know what? You’re the worst of them all because you hide behind that star and think it masks who you really are. Buckley gave you up, too. He told me all about his brother the sheriff, who turned a blind eye to everything going on up here. At least the rest of them admitted to being outlaws. You’re just another criminal who thinks he can dress up like one of the good guys and that washes the stink off him.”

Clayton glared at Holly. “Nothing like you, huh?”

“We’re more alike than you think, Clayton.” Holly reached around into the small of his back.

Clayton pulled the trigger.

Click.

“You rednecks and your long guns. I knew you’d go for the shotgun over that Colt.”

Clayton tossed the empty shotgun at Holly, but he was ready for it and sidestepped it. He pulled his backup nine-millimeter, but Clayton was on him and grabbed his hand. Holly fired, but the first two shots went into the ceiling—the third through the screen door. Clayton shoved Holly hard into the wall and banged his hand over and over into the wood until the gun fell to the floor with a thud. Holly went for Clayton’s Colt, but the sheriff hooked him around the throat with his forearm and landed a solid blow to Holly’s gut. Holly gasped for air and slid down the wall to his knees. Clayton pulled the Colt and pressed the barrel to the agent’s forehead.

“Well, go ahead, Sheriff. You’re Gareth Burroughs’s son. Do what you do best.”

“I should. I should kill you like you did that boy over there, and then I should bury your body in the woods like my deddy would’ve done.” Clayton took two steps back. “But I’m not my deddy. Now get up.”

Holly slowly rose to his feet. “You better kill me, Sheriff.”

“You have the right to remain silent.”

Holly laughed. “Are you f*cking kidding me?”

“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

“You’re a joke, Clayton. You’re a perversion of the law.”

Clayton spun him around and shoved him toward the front door. “Put your hands on your head.”

“This is not how it’s gonna end, Clayton.”

Clayton shoved him again, this time pressing the gun between Holly’s shoulder blades, pushing him out onto the porch. “It’s Sheriff Burroughs,” he said. “Now put your hands on your head, or I can start beating on you. Your choice.”

Holly did as he was told, and both men took the steps down to the gravel.

“You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as I’ve read them to you?”

Holly spit blood into the gravel and kept walking. Clayton limped behind him, nudging him every foot or so with the barrel of the gun. When they reached the middle of the clearing, Holly stopped. “Can I ask you to do something for me, Clayton?”

“Just keep moving.”

“Seriously, I just want to know if you’ll send our daddy my regards when you get to hell?”

“What?”

“Gun!” Holly yelled, and dropped flat to his belly.

“What are you . . .” The half-dozen pinpoints of red light hovering on Clayton’s chest caused the rest of his sentence to lodge in his throat.

He closed his eyes and pictured Kate.

The first shot from a high-powered rifle hit him in the chest. It pushed him backward but not off his feet. Maybe it was the confusion of the moment or Choctaw’s whiskey dulling his senses, but Clayton didn’t drop his gun. Instead, he swung the Colt a half-turn to the left before the second shot hit him right below the first. It hit like a sledgehammer, and Clayton buckled. It was over in seconds. He never stood a chance. Dozens of agents in body armor and blue windbreakers emerged from the tree line, just as Clayton’s body hit the gravel. Holly took his hands from his face, opened his eyes, and crawled over to Clayton’s shaking body. He was still breathing, but blood filled his mouth and streaked down his beard. His eyes were wide.