“You been in trouble with the law before?”
“Yessir. But I paid my debt, and now I try to mind m’own business. Can I ax you a question?”
“Why not? I don’t have much else to do tonight but stand around under bridges and talk to folks.”
“Mista Deputy, what ’choo doin’ out here for them fellers to be huntin you?”
“I’m working a case, and somebody ran me off the road.”
“You don’t say. Mos’ folks use the highway to get gone if they’re being chased.”
“Running the creeks is a good idy, sometimes, too.” I realized I’d fallen into the speech patterns the Old Man grew up with and I’d heard up in Lamar County when I was a kid. “Some bad folks are after me. My truck’s in a creek over yonder.”
He nodded and grinned again. “Bullshit. The law don’t run.”
His statement embarrassed me, and I was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see me redden up. “It does when we’re outnumbered and outgunned. What do you know about the Wadler family? Guy named Daddy Frank.”
The man’s eyes widened at the name. “Shit. Man, if that’s who’s after you, you done messed with the devil hisself.”
“That’s what I’m learning. I believe it was some of their men ran me off the road, and I’m trying to get some help. My cell phone don’t work out in here.”
“That’s right. We’re too deep in the bottoms and you know what, I’ve run from folks m’self a time or two. The way you’re travelin’, I’d thank you’s tellin’ me the truth.”
I looked over my shoulder, not happy with standing around and talking like we were at a cocktail party. Crickets and frogs sang in the cool, damp air and I wondered if the sound was covering up footsteps creeping up on us.
He kept talking, comfortable now that he believed who I was. “Me and my people have lived in these woods since Heck was a pup, so we see what a lot most folks miss.”
“I imagine you do. I need to get to where I can make a phone call to the local sheriff.”
“Now look here, if I’s you, I’d hold up a spell. The rest of the way behind me toward Gunn, you’re liable to run into somebody, and you sho as hell don’t want to call Sheriff Buck Henderson. He’s crooked as a snake, and he’s in cahoots with Daddy Frank. They’s a lot folks drivin’ this road right now, more’n usual, and if it’s that Wadler bunch like you think it is, I reckon you need to go with me, Mr. Texas Ranger.”
It took a second for that to sink in. He’d recognized my badge right off and was having a little fun at my expense. I reddened even more, embarrassed that I’d misread the man and mistook the depths of his understanding. “I think you’re right.”
“You come foller me a little ways to my shack and hole up there ’til my cousin comes by fer supper. He’s been laying for a big catfish all day, and I ’magine we’ll have a mess tonight. He has a pickup, and we’ll carry you up to the edge of town and won’t nobody say nothin’ about it. We need to run up to the store for a few things anyway.”
I studied on his idea for a few seconds.
“I’s run to ground a time or two myself, and wished somebody would come along to lend a hand.”
“There’s cell service close by?”
He snorted and looked my shape up and down as if he could see in the darkness. “It’s a long ways off, twenty mile or so.”
I considered the risk his cousin would be taking with me in the car. “Won’t people talk if they see me riding with y’all?”
“Naw, my cousin Sissy married a white feller, though God knows I don’t know why. He’s sorry as sand, but he’s about your size. Jimmy Lee’s rode with us a’fore, and they’ll think you’re him. Most of y’all look alike to us anyhow.”
I matched his grin. “Well, you might have a good idea there.”
“You’re durn tootin’. My name’s Salvadore Williams.”
I started to answer, but he held up a hand. “Nope, don’t need no name from you Mr. Smith. And I don’t believe you’re a Ranger, even though you got some kind of badge hangin’ there on your shirt. They’s a solid quarter apiece up at the store, though most say Sheriff on ’em. You jus’ runnin’ from the Wadlers and that makes you my frien’.” He nudged at a ’toe sack beside his foot. “You can help me skin these squirrels I shot this evenin’ and have supper with us to boot.”
“Like I said, squirrel season’s closed.”
“Is you a Ranger or a game warden?”
“Ranger.”
“So you want out of this or not?”
I considered my chances and didn’t have any good argument, so I followed him even farther into the backwoods as he told me everything he knew about Daddy Frank and his family of criminals.
It was a lot.
Chapter 48
Tanner ran as fast as he could through the thick piney woods he’d played in and hunted in since he was a little kid, though they were dangerous as hell. He often rode with Jimmy Don when his dad came out to the old fertilizer barn to pick up a load of marijuana, or to load someone else’s truck who was traveling through with the grace of Sheriff Buck Henderson.
Once he was safely away from the barn, he knelt in the soaked woods and pulled the drop phone that he’d sent Boone to fetch from his boot. Hitting the Home button, he cursed at the No Service icon. The trees were most likely blocking the signal, and the nearest clear spot was a mile away.
Still spitting blood, he jogged down a game trail that wound through what was left of the old-growth Big Thicket. Men had been lost forever in those woods, and he recalled stories from sixty years earlier of virtual skeletons crawling back to civilization after being gone for weeks. It was said that even people who grew up in those backwoods could step off a trail and get turned around if it was cloudy enough.
Right then anywhere was good as long as it was away from Daddy Frank. The longer he jogged, the happier he felt despite his throbbing nose and face, because now he knew exactly where the old sonofabitch was waiting.
He intended to call Alonzo and warn him. All he’d need was his car after that, and he’d get gone with Shi’Ann.
He finally broke out onto a blacktop road. He crouched in a dense thicket of small understory trees and checked the phone. Two bars were enough. He scrolled through names until he found Shi’Ann.
It rang three times before a male voice answered. “Who is this?”
Tanner’s stomach fell. “Where’s Shi’Ann? This is her number.”
“I said who’s this? My name’s Sheriff Wayne Jennings.”
“Acadiana Parish?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Tanner. She’s my girlfriend. What’s wrong?”
The gruff voice softened. “Tanner Wadler.”
“Yessir.” The southern courtesy came without a thought.
“We found a letter with your name on it on her dresser.”
“What does that mean?”
“Son, I hate to tell you, but she’s dead.”
Tanner stifled a sob. His knees went weak, and he dropped to the needle-covered ground.
“I’m sorry. Can you come out to my office?”
“She didn’t kill herself. That ain’t no suicide note. She’s cut to pieces, ain’t she?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “How’d you know?”
“It was done by a freak named Boone.”
“I’ve heard that name. Folks say he lives in the woods over in Gunn. I thought he was a booger made up to scare little kids.”
Hysterical laughter bubbled up in Tanner’s throat. “Shit, feller. He even scares Daddy Frank.”
Chapter 49
Boone pulled Mike’s truck to a stop beside Tanner’s sedan. Though the skies had cleared and the sun hung low above the treetops, all the lights were on in the house, making it look like a party.
He stepped out and paused. The pregnant woman inside had fascinated him from the start. Skinny like him in some places, bulging and curvy in others, he wanted to run his hands over
her body to feel the tiny life squirm inside her.
Instead, he settled for what he always did. He went to the living room window and peeked inside. The quick look inside told him Marshall was in front of the TV, as usual. Boone didn’t see why they allowed the mindless man to live in his condition. He would have cut his throat and dropped the body in the Sabine River that seemed to absorb everything that went below its muddy surface.
His heart beating in anticipation, Boone picked at Shi’Ann’s blood flaking from his fingernails and hoped Donine was in the bedroom. He hadn’t been back from Comanche more than five minutes earlier that evening when Daddy Frank gave him a gift, sending Boone to eliminate his young wife.
Boone would have frowned, if he could. “Why?”
“Because a little birdie told me she’s been tanglin’ the sheets with my grandboy. Well, I’m splittin’ ’em sheets, and then me’n that boy’s gonna dance tonight.”
The house was only two miles away, as the crow flies across the Sabine. With orders to not dawdle, he was in and out in minutes, but they were gloriously bloody minutes that tasted of copper and salt, punctuated by the popping, gristle-like sound of a pulled tooth.
Now, in the darkness outside of a house containing still another woman Tanner had bedded, Boone ached for even more release. It was spiraling, building like the storm that had just pushed through, and Boone felt the end of his peaceful time on the Sabine was coming to a close.
Watching Donine lying on the bed was everything he wanted right then. His impassive face flushed with heat that quickly died when he peered into the kitchen window to see the blinds closed.
No one ever closed the blinds in this family, not even at night. She was likely up to something.
His mind filled with possibilities. Could she have a male visitor? Wasn’t she too close to delivery to be having any kind of relations? He allowed one corner of his mouth to twitch in a rare smile. He slipped one hand into his pocket and felt Shi’Ann’s fresh molar and the bit of soft gum still attached. He closed his eyes in pleasure, using the tooth as a worry stone and picturing what Donine could be doing for a visitor.
A full minute later he moved like a shadow to check the next window only to find the blinds open and the bedroom empty. Disappointed, he returned to the back door and stepped inside the utility room. The pocket door was completely recessed, giving him a clear view of Marshall, who’d rolled his wheelchair to the open window. He stared at the dark wire screen with the same intensity he watched television.
Muddy footprints led from the utility room into the kitchen.
Boone let go of the molar and slipped the straight razor from his pocket. Opening it with his thumb, he crept past the old man to the kitchen’s entrance and found a melting bowl of ice cream beside a dead cigarette that had burned out on the table.
Disappointed, he searched the rest of the house to find it empty. He paused beside the table and spooned up the still-cool ice cream, tilting it into his slack mouth and rolling the sweetness over his tongue, wondering at Donine’s taste.
Would it be like Shi’Ann’s, cinnamon and unidentifiable spices? Vanilla and sugar maybe?
No, probably salty like her hot, pulsing blood. His eyes wandered the cluttered kitchen counter and he saw a folded note standing against a pitcher of tea. He plucked it up with two fingers and read the flowery script telling whoever found the note that she’d seen Tanner’s car was still there and decided to drive it to her mama’s house.
Disappointed that he’d missed her, he stepped into the living room. Marshall Wadler saw him pass. “Hey, it’s over, you know.”
Boone paused. “What’s over?”
“Don’t you make faces at me, boy. My show’s over and the cat got out.”
Boone remembered a pair of pliers in the kitchen drawer.
Why not? Maybe the old man was right. The way things were going the past couple of days, it probably was over. Besides, he could proudly finish what Daddy Frank left over.
Assaulted by the blaring television, the few minutes in the living room gave Boone a small bit of satisfaction when he choked Marshall Wadler to death and took another small memento. This time it was a front tooth.
He pulled away in Tanner’s car as Marshall’s dead eyes dried out. He was back at the fertilizer barn in no time.
Chapter 50
Sheriff Buck Henderson’s drop phone rang. He stepped over the drying puddle of blood that was all that remained of Preacher Holmes and turned his back on the growing crowd of men assembling in the fertilizer barn. Holmes’s body was already gator bait in the nearby Sabine, hauled there by the grim-faced men who wouldn’t make eye contact.
He thumbed the phone awake. “Hello.”
“Sheriff. This is Kenon.”
Kenon Mills was one of Buck’s most trusted deputies. “What’s up?”
“I just pulled Alonzo over.”
“Good.”
“Well, it ain’t that good. I guess you ain’t heard, but a call went out a few minutes ago from Woodville. A man named Clem Gluck working at Ken’s Burger was shot in the drive-though. Killed him dead, and the assailant’s description matches the Dodge Alonzo’s driving.”
“Shit.”
“That ain’t the half of it. Everybody with a radio’s looking for him right now. He’s shot, bloody from the waist down, stoned to the gills, and has a corpse in the back seat that’s pretty ripe. I started to call an ambulance for him, but then I thought I needed to talk to you first, especially when he said tell you he has the. . . .”
“Don’t say nothin’ else.” The sheriff interrupted, visualizing the scene. “Where are you?”
“Out on FM 1013, just east of Spurger.”
“What’s he doing there?” Though the road eventually wound back up to Gunn, the route was drastically longer.
“Said he wanted to get off 190, figured taking the back roads would be the best. He says he’s headed out to see Mr. Frank where he keeps his fertilizer.”
Buck watched another of Daddy Frank’s kinfolk come into the barn. Every man was armed, and the sheriff had a bad feeling. “Does he have the cash in the truck?”
“He said it is, and something he calls cheese.”
“Good. Tell Alonzo to let you put it all in your trunk, and then turn him loose.”
“What?”
“I said turn him loose. Let somebody else pull him over. He won’t get far.”
“You know what else I still have in my trunk, don’t you?”
Buck pictured several kilos of cocaine that was supposed to go to one of their distributors. Moving the drugs in a patrol car was the perfect cover. “You haven’t delivered that yet?”
“I was on the way when I heard the call. I wanted to help get Alonzo taken care of first.”
“Good man, but things have changed. Dump the product.”
Deputy Mills’s voice was full of surprise. “Where?”
“In the ditch for all I care. It’s over. Take the cash and the cheese to the office parking lot and I’ll meet you there.”
“Yessir.”
Buck hung up and waved a hand at Daddy Frank. “Something’s come up. I’ll be back in an hour.”
The old man nodded and went back to his conversation with those around him.
On the way out, Buck passed Jimmy Don standing in the open barn doors. “Where you going, Buck?”
“Something came up. I’ll be back directly.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just police work.”
The man looked relieved. “Good. I thought something bad had happened.”
Chapter 51
Red and blue lights reflected off every shiny surface on Alonzo’s Dodge pulled onto the grassy shoulder. Not a car had passed on the lonesome highway the entire time.
Alonzo still had both hands on the wheel when Deputy Kenon Mills returned to his driver’s door. All four windows on the truck were down.
Mills stopped with his palm on the butt of his holstered
Glock. “Alonzo?”
The ghost-white man had to blink his eyes clear in order to focus on the deputy standing beside him. “Yeah?”
“Buck said tell you to let me have them boxes and bins.”
“You know what’s in ’em.”
“I believe I do. He wants me to take them to the sheriff’s office and let you go on to wherever it is you’re headed.”
Alonzo had to study on the demand, struggling to stay on track. Thinking, he stuck two fingers into his shirt pocket and plucked out the bottle of pills. As the deputy watched, he tilted it and dry-swallowed some of the contents.
“I got something for Daddy Frank.”
“All Buck told me was to get what I told you.”
Alonzo’s hands tingled. His feet were ice cold. “I can’t help you load ’em.”
“I’ll do it.” The deputy went around to the other side and opened the passenger door. Alonzo watched as he peeked inside the container on top and nodded. He carried both back to his car and put them in the trunk. He returned for the heavy plastic bins in the back seat.
Alonzo didn’t care. What he needed was packed under the driver’s seat.
Deputy Mills returned to his window. “Buck says to go on and don’t stop nowhere else until you get to him.”
“Didn’t intend to.”
Chapter 52
After leaving the Wadler house, Perry Hale and Yolanda pulled onto the highway only seconds before her phone rang. She breathed a sigh of relief and held it up so Perry Hale could see Sonny’s name on the screen.
She put the call on speaker. “We’ve been worried sick about you.”
“For good reason. Where are y’all?”
“In Perry Hale’s truck, heading for the Sabine River bottoms.”
“How come?”
“Well, until the phone rang we were looking for you.”
“I appreciate that. I’m east of Gunn. Got my truck wrecked and had to do a little cross-country jog that wasn’t much fun. Just got a signal a little bit ago and made a few calls. Y’all are supposed to be waiting for me in Jasper.”
She told him everything they’d done and heard since the storm blew in, including the fertilizer barn Donine had described. He traded that information for his own, and while he talked, she heard wind in the background. “I thought you said your truck was wrecked. Who’re you with?”
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