“What’d they send you for?”
Mike cupped a cigarette in his hands and lit it with a disposable lighter. “Daddy Frank said for me to pick up your rig, and you to drive back in my truck.”
The last of too many cups of coffee rose into Alonzo’s throat, burning like battery acid. A Dodge dually came around the bend in the park road and stopped, the diesel growling in idle. Alonzo’s attention flickered between Dillman and the stranger in a straw cowboy hat that emerged and circled the door to stop in front of the truck.
Who was this guy? Did Daddy Frank send one of Buck Henderson’s contractors along with Dillman? If he did, then Alonzo wouldn’t see the sunset.
A flicker from the corner of Alonzo’s right eye caught his attention as something animal-like suddenly appeared from around the end of the camper.
Only one person moved like that.
Boone!
Chapter 26
Heavy clouds seemed to be within a tall man’s reach when I turned off the highway into the Evening Star RV Park. The neat and well-maintained park shaped like a softened rectangle was larger than most, with mesquite trees blocking my view in several places. The wooden office building was just past the entrance shaded by huge live oak trees.
A few trailers were parked in two rows of pull-throughs in a center loop. I figured there were fifty or sixty in all, from what I could tell. Those on the outside edges were the kind of sites where RVers backed their rigs into the campsite.
Beyond the bobwire fence around the property, there was nothing but a pasture full of mesquite, cedars, and scattered live oak trees.
The truth was, I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I figured I’d recognize it when I saw it. The coming rain drove most of the campers inside their rigs to wait out the storm. A couple of folks made of sturdier stuff were sitting outside, under the awnings attached to their trailers. They all waved.
I drove the loop, going clockwise, wondering if I was making a water haul when the peaceful appearance of the park changed. The action was at the far end at the last back-in.
A man with slightly graying hair was sitting in the doorway of his rig, sheltered by his awning. He looked peaceful, but the attitude of another man standing between the camper and an idling truck pulled onto the side of the little road spoke volumes. That guy was nervous or agitated.
They’d been having words before I showed up, and their discussion was amping up. I stopped the truck and stepped out without knowing what was going on or if the man sitting in the doorway was the feller I was looking for.
It didn’t make any difference, because about the time I got around to the front of my truck one of the strangest-looking people I’ve ever laid eyes on seemed to pop up out of the ground with an open straight razor in his hand.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
Chapter 27
Apparently startled by the readily identifiable Texas Ranger coming around the front of the idling Dodge, Boone froze in place at the end of the trailer, waiting to see what would happen next. Confused by the gnawing pain in his stomach and three men who were all looking at him, Alonzo tried to process what he was seeing.
They weren’t sent to simply pick up the trailer and the cash. Boone’s presence proved Mike’s statement was a lie. The strange tattooed man’s long, spiderlike fingers held a thin object that could only be a straight razor.
Alonzo was overwhelmed with a tidal wave of emotions and the pain in his gut. He paused, weighing his options and trying to clear his mind. Though the other men posed a threat, he couldn’t take his eyes off the creature that brought death wherever he arrived.
Expressionless, Boone licked his lips. His tongue protruded far too long. “Alonzo!” Boone’s high, gravelly voice surprised him. The odd man seldom spoke, and if he did at all, it was always the answer to a direct question. His eyes wide in tension and determination were the only thing that belied his anticipation. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
The damp air seemed to clear when fat raindrops landed with a splat on the hard ground.
Boone stepped forward, but none of them were ready for what happened next.
Alonzo snatched a Glock 19 from the floor next to his leg. The outcome might have been different if Mike hadn’t been a smoker. Mike killed himself, in a sense. The cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth certainly looked cool, and probably made the girls think he was tough back in Jasper on Saturday night, but he had to squint through the smoke.
That was all Alonzo needed, giving him plenty of time to shoot. Most people who practice on a range do well when they aim with care, but as most professionals will tell you, the majority of shots fired in a conflict miss their targets.
Alonzo drew on Mike, who suddenly found himself looking down the barrel of the pistol. “Wait a second!” The look on Dillman’s face revealed that he wasn’t ready for such a reaction. “Dammit!” He snatched a Colt Commander from under his oversize shirt.
The beavertail on the grip’s safety caught in his shirttail, causing him to lose a precious half second.
The Hydra-Shoks did their job and expanded upon impact. Alonzo’s first round blew out Mike’s heart. He was the first person Alonzo had ever shot in a gunfight, and Mike Dillman fell straight down in a heap as the skies opened up in a torrent of water.
With his primary target down, Alonzo twisted back toward Boone, who had vanished as fast as the bolts fracturing the clouds overhead. One second he was standing in the open, and the next, he was gone.
The Ranger came into focus, holding a big .45 aimed at Alonzo. “Put the gun down, now!”
Alonzo fired again, missing. The Ranger shot once and the bullet bit Alonzo’s side with the smack of a sledgehammer. His foot slipped off the wet step and he crashed into the aluminum doorframe with the force of a battering ram, hot and sharp, cutting his scalp to the bone. The world spun as the impact threw him out and onto the hard concrete pad.
His head slammed against the damp slab and the world spun.
Chapter 28
What at first looked like a standoff went to pieces when the guy in the trailer snatched up a pistol and went to shooting at the smoker. The bald, skinny guy vanished as quick as he’d appeared at the same time Trailer Guy pulled the trigger.
Smoker went down and I hollered at the shooter. “Put the gun down, now!”
Trailer Guy wasn’t inclined to talk. He twisted in the doorway and fired. The bullet passed overhead with the buzz of a big, hot insect. My Colt came up, and when the front sight settled on him, I pulled the trigger two times.
The first shot missed, but the second caught him in the side, and he went down in a heap, bouncing off the doorframe. From the corner of my eye I saw the hairless man rush around the opposite end of the RV and charge through the hammering rain toward Smoker’s still body.
With the initial threat down, I swung the .45 toward Baldy, but a sudden shout from my right stopped me in my tracks.
The high, scared voice of an elderly man cut through the ringing in my ears. “Put that gun down, cowboy. I done told you!”
My head jerked to the side. An elderly man stood by a picnic table in front of a bumper-pull trailer, aiming a big revolver at me from only twenty feet away.
“Easy! I’m a Texas Ranger!”
“I don’t know that for sure. Keep still ’til I figure this out.”
“Believe me! I’m a Texas Ranger. I’m the law! Get down!”
“Show me your badge!”
“The damned thing’s on my shirt. Can’t you see it?”
“Not without my glasses. ’Lonzo, you be still, too.” The older guy’s voice quavered, but he was game if nothing else. “None of this smells right.”
Chapter 29
Lying on the wet ground beside the trailer steps, Alonzo found his actions suddenly came far too slow. The next thing he knew, Boone was standing beside Mike’s body, holding a pistol he’d presumably picked up from the ground.
Alonzo rolled
over, and the pain stabbed like a lance. Boone aimed the Colt at Jefferson, who swung his weapon back and forth between the Cowboy’s big Dodge and Boone.
“’Lonzo, you be still, too,” Jefferson said. “None of this smells right.”
Alonzo really wanted to talk to the old feller about that, but he could barely draw a deep breath. Instead, he tried to buy some time and figure out exactly what was happening by tilting his head to see an already rain-soaked Jefferson in jeans and a thick Carhartt shirt, standing several feet away.
The muzzle of Jefferson’s old-school .45 revolver swung back to Boone, who seemed content to wait and watch in the rain with the pistol hanging limp alongside his leg. He tilted his head like a puppy trying to figure out a strange, unfamiliar sound.
A sharp clap of thunder sounded like another shot and Jefferson flinched. That was all Boone needed. Jefferson jerked at the report and fired one shot that went wild as he tried to take cover behind a concrete picnic table. His feet tangled and the would-be Good Samaritan fell with a loud thump.
Boone did something that chilled even Alonzo’s blood.
He shot Mike Dillman in the head.
The man’s skull exploded from the impact as his arms and legs flexed and then stilled.
Alonzo shot at Boone over and over again, but his unbelievably heavy arm refused to cooperate. The bullets plowed the now-muddy ground five feet behind Boone. Alonzo’s wrist flexed and the Glock’s action froze as an empty shell stove-piped.
Alonzo closed his eyes, almost welcoming the coming bullet.
They opened at the roar of Dillman’s engine. Instead of coming after Alonzo to finish the job, Boone jumped into the truck. The tires spun on the wet blacktop as he slammed the transmission into reverse. He spun the wheel, threw it into gear, and stomped the gas, almost losing control as he whipped the wheel and the pickup fishtailed. He let off to regain traction and in seconds the pickup shot out of sight in a spray of water.
The Ranger rose from behind his truck. “Don’t shoot me!”
Jefferson kept the gun on him. “I won’t if you stay there. I bet the laws are on the way and they can sort this out.”
“I am the law, dammit!”
Taking advantage of their standoff, Alonzo rose and stumbled to his truck, started the engine, and sped out of the park, leaving the two law-abiding men behind to work things out.
Chapter 30
Sheriff Buck Henderson steered his marked Chevy Tahoe along an oil road lined with tall pines. He was still steaming from their discussion back at Jimmy Don’s house. The AC was on high to battle the sticky air. Willy rode shotgun.
Buck finally broke the silence. “Where’d you leave your truck?”
“At the house.” Still quiet from his dressing down by Jimmy Don, Willy stared straight ahead. “Tanner came out and picked me up.”
“You still live out there on Honey Road?”
Willy nodded. “Don’t many call it that no more.”
“That’s a fact.” Buck took a deep breath to calm himself. “These younger people and move-ins call ’em by road numbers now. You can’t even tell ’em how to get somewhere like we used to, not that we do it much anymore now that everybody uses GPS. I still tell folks to turn by landmarks and about half the time they don’t know where Art Stevens’s barn is, or the Old Mill Road. Still livin’ alone?”
“Yeah, cain’t keep no woman out there in that piece-of-shit trailer.”
Buck figured there were a lot of other reasons, too. The radio mounted on the floorboard crackled to life. “Sheriff?”
He plucked the microphone off the dash. “Go ahead.”
“You in town?”
Buck flicked a glance toward Willy, and then back to the road that wound through the narrow slash through the loblolly and shortleaf pines.
“Naw, I’m following up on a report out here east. What’s up?”
“Those feds say they’ll be here in half an hour.”
“I’ll be a little late. It ain’t my fault they’re early. Have ’em wait.”
“Yessir.”
Buck hung the microphone back on the bracket at the same time they came upon a fresh scar on the land. One second they were surrounded by trees, and with startling suddenness, a clear-cut operation threw light into Willy’s side of the car. The recently logged landscape studded with a few mid-story hardwoods that survived the chainsaws looked as if someone had called in an artillery strike.
Buck let out with a disgusted sigh. “I’ve lived here my whole life and I still can’t get used to what this looks like after the Company gets finished.”
The devastated land revealed all the terrain’s dips and rises for a full five minutes before ending at the sharp edge of densely packed pines.
“It’ll grow back.” Willy kept his face turned toward the freshly logged lease.
A redheaded woodpecker flitted across the road as soon as they were once again surrounded by the forest. Willy turned his head to comment and stopped when he saw Buck’s face.
Realizing he’d been projecting his mood, Buck forced the frown off his forehead.
“They’re stripping my woods.” He turned his attention back to the road to see a black youngster on the shoulder of the road, riding bareback toward them on a roan horse. The boy around twelve or thirteen grinned wide and threw up a hand to wave.
Willy instinctively waved back and they were past.
“Kid oughta be in school.” Buck watched him recede in the rearview mirror. “I’ll be draggin’ his ass to jail before long. Little bastard won’t graduate, and the next thing you know he’ll be stealin’ from his neighbors.”
The road bent into an S-curve and when it straightened again, they came upon a black man walking in their direction through the short grass beyond the shoulder. There was twenty feet separating him from the woods and he carried a shotgun resting in the crook of his arm. Guns in that part of the country were as common as dead coons and possums on the side of the highway, but it was apparent the man was, or had been, hunting.
None of the lawmen in that part of the country paid much attention to those hunters who lived in the backwoods. Most of them, both black and white, barely scraped by and lived on food stamps and what game they could take. Venison was a staple, and most weren’t trophy hunters, even in deer season. They were hunting to eat. Even the game warden looked the other way on many occasions, but not spring turkey season.
Buck saw the dismay on the man’s face at the same time a beat-up station wagon slowed and the driver hung his arm out of the open window to speak to the hunter. The hunter was obviously uncomfortable about being seen. The asphalt road was so narrow Buck had to slow down to pass. Despite the look on his face, the hunter waved out of habit at the same time he opened the back door and slid the shotgun in, muzzle first. Both the driver and the hunter met Buck’s gaze as he drove past.
Buck watched the car in his rearview mirror, memorizing the make and model. He was sure he’d read the backward license correctly and committed it to memory. “Was that Salvadore Williams with the shotgun?”
Willy had to completely turn his body to see with his good eye. “Yep.” The car was still sitting there as Buck’s Chevy went around another curve, and they disappeared from sight.
It was almost too much for the sheriff. His off-the-cuff plan looked to be going down the drain. He accelerated in frustration, and five minutes later came to an oil road that split off toward the Sabine. “This is it, right?”
“Yep.”
A clearing appeared minutes later. Willy lived in a sagging trailer wedged on blocks in the trees. It had been there so long pines had grown in front and back, so close to the rusty trailer that the house’s roof was covered with needles four inches thick.
Willy’s wore-out old Chevrolet pickup was parked in front. He opened the door, refusing to meet the sheriff’s eyes. “Thanks for the lift, and Buck, I’m sorry for the problems I caused you.”
“It don’t matter none.” Buck picked
up the microphone. Willy was halfway to his truck when Buck opened his own door. “Willy, I changed my mind. Go inside and bring me that thirty-eight y’all used last night. I don’t want to take the chance of you getting caught with it or that Colt. I’ll take care of it.”
“Yeah? You sure?” He paused in indecision, putting the Python into his pocket.
“Go get the other’n.”
Willy shrugged. “Up to you.” He dug out a set of keys and climbed the rickety wooden steps that looked as if a ten-year-old had hammered them together. Minutes later, he came back outside with the .38 and walked toward the Chevy.
Buck stepped around the open car door with his Glock in hand. Willy’s eyes widened when the sheriff’s Glock 19 came into view. Mouth moving in a silent plea, he raised the revolver, offering it to the sheriff.
Buck fired so fast the echoes through the trees sounded as one roll of thunder. All three bullets struck Willy in the chest. The .38 dropped into the sand and brown needles with a soft thud. Willy toppled like a felled pine and landed on his face.
Sheriff Buck Henderson listened for a moment and heard nothing but songbirds in the trees. A shadow passed over his car, and he looked upward. A buzzard drifted past. “How do you sonsabitches know?”
After checking over his shoulder, he holstered the Glock and walked over to Willy’s body. He kicked the revolver to the side to keep the scene as realistic as possible, then bent over and rolled Willy onto his back. The dead man’s eyes were full of sand. A pine needle stuck to the white scar.
Satisfied, Buck patted the front pocket of Willy’s overalls, making sure the Colt Python that also contained the man’s prints was still in there. He went back to his car and picked up the microphone. He keyed it once and stepped back to his original shooting position. “Dispatch.”
“Go ahead, Sheriff.”
“I just pulled up at Willy Henderson’s house. Got a tip he might know something about last night’s shooting. . . hey! You! Put that gun down! Put it down now! No, no, no!!!” He angled the Glock toward the sky and tilted it so the ejected brass would be easy to find. He pulled the trigger three times, sending the rounds over the house in the direction of the Sabine River. “Sonofabitch! Dispatch! Man down. I just shot an armed suspect. Get some people out here and an ambulance!”
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