by Mel Odom
“Yes, sir.” Shel grabbed two more bales of hay. They were light, dry, and packed. Alfalfa would have weighed over twice as much. But alfalfa was expensive. “Yesterday, Victor Gant tried to kill me and a buddy.”
Tyrel looked at Shel then. “And you come out here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ain’t like you to run from trouble.”
Anger stirred within Shel and he tried to get a grip on it. “I didn’t come here running, sir.”
“Gant threatened your family, did he?”
Shel barely curbed the heated response that was inside him and fighting to get out. “Yes, sir. He did.”
“You killed his boy,” Tyrel said. “He’s gonna want blood for that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You shoulda killed him.”
“I tried. Man’s hard to kill.”
Tyrel nodded. “They tried to kill him in Vietnam, too.”
“Who?”
His daddy shook his head. “Charlie. Who else would have tried to kill him over there?”
“I read Gant’s service jacket,” Shel said. “Man didn’t exactly walk a straight line while he was over there. The Criminal Investigation Command checked him out several times.”
“Those were hard times over there, boy. Today’s the same. This war over in Iraq, it’s plenty bad. Got kids over there doing things they shouldn’t do. Rape, theft, black market, and drugs.”
“I know. I’ve been over there in it.”
“You put young, innocent men in a war zone, they don’t come out the same way. Anybody who thinks they’ll come out the same is a fool.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Victor Gant, he was probably a bad one even before he went over there.” Tyrel picked up another bale of hay and headed for the stacks.
“I think so too,” Shel said.
“What kind of shape is that shoulder in?”
“I’m a hundred percent.”
Tyrel nodded. “Let’s see if it is. Throw me them bales down from that truck bed.”
“Why don’t you throw them down?” Catching the bales was harder than throwing them, and Shel was bigger and younger than his daddy.
“Because I told you to.”
“Yes, sir.” Shel turned and vaulted up onto flatbed without strain. He plucked at the sweat-soaked T-shirt and tried to create a gust of cooler wind. Then he picked up a bale of hay and tossed it down to his daddy.
Tyrel caught the hay bale as if it weighed nothing. He walked it over to the stacks and climbed up the makeshift stairway made of bales. At the top, he stacked the bale.
“Can you throw those bales over here?”
“Yes, sir.” Shel bent down, caught up a bale, and threw it onto the stack where his daddy stood.
Tyrel managed the bale easily and motioned for another. “Keep ’em coming. I want to get this done before I go to bed tonight. We get done early, there’s a ball game on.”
“Yes, sir.” Shel bent to the task and began shoveling bales across the distance.
›› 1926 Hours
The work took Shel back years. He remembered when his daddy had first trained him to stack hay, then when he’d trained Don.
He recalled the first time he and Don had done it by themselves; they’d done it while their daddy was preoccupied with the cows and the veterinarian. They’d stacked the bales as quickly as they could. As a result, by their daddy’s standards, the effort had been slipshod. He’d made them take the stacks apart and restack the whole load while he’d watched.
At the time, Don had been disappointed because he hadn’t gotten to go somewhere he’d wanted to. Shel couldn’t even remember where that was now. As for Shel, he’d been angry-and embarrassed. Those emotions were always a bad combination for him.
Shel had wanted to do the hay as a surprise for his daddy. He’d thought maybe he could get his daddy’s attention. He’d been thirteen. It had been a lot of work for a thirteen-year-old, and having to convince Don to help him hadn’t been easy.
Even now that old anger rolled over him as he worked. He grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt and mopped the sweat from his face.
“You ain’t slowing down on my account, are you?” his daddy called.
Shel looked at the man. Tyrel looked as relaxed as if he’d been taking life easy. Sweat stained his shirt, but he wasn’t breathing hard and didn’t appear tired. At times like this, Shel didn’t think the man was human.
Bending to the task again, Shel got into the rhythm and focused on moving through the bales. His shoulder ached a little from the repetitive lifting, swinging, and throwing, but he wasn’t going to quit. He let his anger feed his adrenaline, strength, and endurance.
And he still couldn’t bury his daddy in hay bales. Every one he threw was quickly stacked before he could throw the next. The effort became an exercise in futility. Frustration chafed at him until he’d thrown the last bale. Then, when he looked and found his daddy putting the bale away like it was nothing, he cursed.
That drew his daddy’s attention immediately.
Cursing wasn’t something Shel was given to. His daddy had brought him up to watch his mouth, especially around women and children. Even the loose swearing so prevalent in the military hadn’t stuck on him.
Shel’s immediate impulse was to apologize. He stopped himself just short of that. Instead, he didn’t look at his daddy and jumped from the back of the truck.
His daddy joined him a moment later. Without a word, Tyrel stripped the gloves from his hands and shoved them into the back pocket of his jeans.
“You got something on your mind, boy?” Tyrel’s voice was hard and carefully measured.
“Just forgot myself is all,” Shel said.
Tyrel eyed him. “That’s just a word. Me and you both have heard that word more’n a few times. Probably used it too.”
Shel felt ridiculous. He was taller and bigger than his daddy. He was a Marine. He was wearing a pistol on his hip.
And still he felt like a ten-year-old standing there.
“It ain’t the word I’m bothered about,” Tyrel said. “You come here to this house with a chip on your shoulder the size of a Clydesdale, and you ain’t keeping it together. I want to know what’s going on.”
Shel tried to speak and couldn’t. Helpless, he shook his head.
“Is it Victor Gant?” his daddy asked.
“I don’t know.” Even as he said it, Shel knew he’d made another mistake. The last thing Tyrel ever wanted to hear one of his sons say was I don’t know.
Tyrel’s voice hardened. “Well, that’s an outright lie, boy. If there’s anybody in this world who knows what he’s mad at when he’s mad, it’s you.”
Before he could stop himself, Shel said, “Maybe I’m a better liar than you gave me credit for, Daddy. The way I understand it, I come by it honest enough.”
Tyrel’s face tightened and his voice became a hoarse rasp. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about that soldier you killed over at Qui Nhon.” Even though he’d been in hundreds of fights and was amped up on adrenaline, Shel didn’t see his daddy move till just before the hard-knuckled fist exploded against his jaw.
41
›› Rafter M Ranch
›› Outside Fort Davis, Texas
›› 2004 Hours (Central Time Zone)
Caught almost flat-footed by the blow, Shel rocked backward. For a moment he thought his head had come clean off his shoulders. Black spots exploded in his vision.
Half-dazed, Shel threw a punch of his own.
Either his daddy hadn’t been expecting it or he’d thought Shel was going to go down. Shel’s fist caught him full in the face and drove him backward. Tyrel’s head snapped around. Something popped.
Horrified at what he’d done out of reflex, Shel hesitated. Then he caught another punch on his chin that knocked him back.
Without another word, Shel and Tyrel fought. Max started to come forward, but Shel called the Labra
dor back. Whining, Max subsided and lay flat on the hay-covered ground.
Pain flared Shel’s senses. Despite the blows he landed on his daddy, Tyrel refused to go down. For every punch Shel threw, his daddy came back with one.
Tyrel McHenry knew how to fight. He’d boxed before he’d gone into the Army and been sent to Vietnam. After he’d gotten back, there’d been more fights. And he never held back.
Blood filled Shel’s mouth and made breathing difficult. He stepped back and spat blood. His chest heaved.
His daddy hit him again.
Tyrel wasn’t faring much better. He breathed liked a bellows pump. His nose was no longer straight. Blood leaked down over his chin.
Shel stepped back again, then gave ground as Tyrel came at him. There was no mercy in his daddy. Something fierce rode him, drove him to the fight with everything he had. Blocking blows that came just as hard and as fast as the first one, Shel punched and fought back. He spotted an opening and clubbed his daddy on the side of the head with his fist.
Stumbling back, Tyrel lost his footing for just a moment. He sat down heavily, almost out on his feet.
Bending over, Shel rested his bruised hands on his knees. He didn’t have the stomach for fighting any more. He wanted to be done with it. He wanted to walk away.
But the question remained.
“Is that what you are, Daddy?” Shel asked hoarsely. “A murderer?”
Tyrel flailed an arm out for a paddock wall, caught the planks, and tried to pull himself up. But he didn’t have enough strength or focus to do that.
“Who did you kill over there?” Shel demanded.
“I killed a lot of people,” Tyrel growled. “That was my job. Just like yours. Just like when you killed Victor Gant’s boy. Does that make you a murderer?”
“No,” Shel said. “No, it don’t. But Victor Gant told me you killed an American soldier. He said he helped you bury him.”
Using both hands, Tyrel pulled himself into a standing position. “You gonna believe that man?”
Shel stared at his daddy. “If he’s lying, tell me that, Daddy.”
Tyrel refused to meet his gaze. His chest rose and fell.
“Tell me that Victor Gant was lying, Daddy,” Shel said. “Just tell me that. I won’t even wonder why you hit me.”
His daddy’s breath roared in the silence of the barn.
“Can you do that, Daddy?” Shel whispered. He no longer had the strength to speak in his full voice. His arms and legs felt weak. If his daddy attacked him again, he didn’t know if he could defend himself.
“You get on outta here, Shelton.” Tyrel swiveled his head to stare at Shel. “You hear me? You get on outta here.”
“Daddy-”
Crying out like a trapped animal, Tyrel reached for a pitchfork and yanked it from a hay bale. He swung it around to point the tines at Shel. “You get offa my property. Now! ”
Tears filled Shel’s eyes and that embarrassed him too. “Daddy-”
“You get on outta here, Shel,” his daddy ordered, “or one of us is gonna get killed in the next minute.”
Shel knew his daddy meant every word he said. If he tried to stay, his daddy would try to make him leave. And one of them would most likely end up dead. Without a word, he backed away till he felt he had enough distance between himself and the man he’d never truly known.
Then Shel turned and walked out of the barn. He called Max to his side. Without turning back to look, he walked to the rental SUV and crawled inside. When he finally did look back at the barn, he couldn’t see Tyrel. Shel couldn’t believe what had happened.
Reluctantly, but knowing he had no choice, he keyed the ignition and drove away.
›› 2051 Hours
For a long time after Shel had gone, Tyrel stood in the quiet of the barn. He forced himself to be calm after he heard Shel drive away. The pain from the blows Tyrel had received during the fight hurt, but not nearly as much as what he felt inside.
He didn’t think he’d ever hurt so bad in his life. Not even when Amanda had died. She’d slipped away, little by little, over months. Sad as it was, he’d been able to adjust as he went along, although it was still hard.
But Shel…
A ragged cry of pain escaped Tyrel’s bloodied lips. He couldn’t believe it when he heard it. The sound was more that of an animal than anything human. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d hurt so badly. Even not being there when Don’s kids were born hadn’t hurt as much as the look of disbelief on Shel’s face.
He was waiting on you to deny it, Tyrel told himself. He came out here all this way not because he wanted to confront you about it but because he wanted you to tell him it wasn’t true.
But it was. All of it was true.
When he finally had himself a little more under control, Tyrel walked back to the ranch house. The sun was finally starting to wane. Darkness crept in from the east, sliding across the land and sticking long black fingers into the red orange sunset.
In the house, he stood over the sink and washed his face. The washcloth he used came away smeared in blood. His lips had swelled and he couldn’t breathe through his nose. When he cleared his sinus passages, bloody mucus filled the paper towel. He was pretty sure his nose was broken.
You had it coming, he told himself. You had a lot worse coming. You still do. What you shoulda done all them years ago was turn yourself in.
He hadn’t been able to, though. He’d been too scared. Victor Gant had assured Tyrel that no one would ever know. He hadn’t realized how much of a difference knowing himself would make. There hadn’t been a day in his life since that Tyrel hadn’t thought about Dennis Hinton.
The young man’s name was haunting in itself. It had taken Tyrel months to figure out why. Then, when he looked at it one day, he’d realized that Dennis spelled backward was sinned.
It had been a sobering discovery.
Somewhere out there, in a grave near Highway 19 only a few miles outside of Qui Nhon, Dennis Hinton lay moldering and unclaimed by his family. Nightmares about Hinton rising from his grave had tormented Tyrel’s dreams for almost forty years.
Now they’d come home to roost. Tyrel just hadn’t expected Shel to be the messenger.
With a shaking hand, Tyrel turned the water off and stepped back from the sink. Fearful yet calm, he gazed around the kitchen.
You knew it was going to come down to this, he told himself. This ain’t no surprise, and you’re a fool if you pretend it is. Sooner or later, you knew you’d have to decide to run for your freedom or stay and get arrested.
He’d lived in denial so long that it was hard to think he wasn’t going to live out his life unnoticed. He’d lived such a small life. He hadn’t reached for much. When he was younger, there had been so much more that he wanted. But he hadn’t taken on a thing he couldn’t walk away from if he had to.
Except for Amanda and the boys, he told himself. He’d kept them at a distance, though. All of their lives and most of his, he’d forced them to be strong and independent. Shel had gotten that message and had stayed away a lot. Only Don, with his church ways and belief in God, had continued to try to work on their relationship. The grandkids were the hardest, though. When they were born, Tyrel couldn’t help but feel-partly-that he’d gotten a chance to do things over.
He hadn’t allowed himself to feel that way for long, though. That was a loser’s wager. He wasn’t nearly the kind of man they all thought he was.
Still hurting, Tyrel went to his bedroom and took out the bottle of Jack Daniel’s he’d bought a few days ago. Since that drunken call he’d made to Shel in the hospital, he’d stayed away from the booze. It was too easy to get lost in the strong drink.
He retreated to the living room and sat in the easy chair. He drank straight hits from the bottle. The whiskey hit his stomach like napalm. He felt the pain in his face and his heart lessening with each drink.
Then he felt something else.
The sensation of being watche
d by a predator was unmistakable. Tyrel had learned it in the jungles of Vietnam, and he’d returned home with it. He’d had times when he was out on the streets of big cities when that singular ability had manifested again.
Sometimes, out in the far pastures, he’d gotten the same feeling when he’d been spied on by coyotes.
And from time to time, he’d gotten that feeling from other men while in bars or sale barns.
Tyrel had that feeling now. He took another hit off the whiskey bottle and looked through the nearest window. Full dark had fallen. No lights were on in the living room. He hadn’t turned any on in the kitchen either.
Whoever was watching him had the benefit of anonymity in that darkness.
Tyrel took a final sip from the Jack Daniel’s bottle and placed it beside the chair. Then he got up and walked to the master bedroom.
Heavy drapes blocked the window there. Even though they lived miles from neighbors, Amanda had always covered the windows in dark, hard material. Tyrel was certain he couldn’t be seen.
He walked to the closet and removed the false flooring that covered the hidden area below. Even Amanda hadn’t known about this, and he’d felt bad about that the whole time. But he couldn’t just give himself up to be hanged or shot, whichever the military courts would decide. Not even the idea of living out the rest of his life behind bars was acceptable.
He pulled out the cash he’d saved up over the years. There was fifty thousand dollars in nonsequential hundred dollar bills. All of them were well circulated. They made a solid brick in his hands. Rubber bands held the bills together.
He shoved the money into a carry-on bag and added clothing. He didn’t need much. He could buy more once he reached Mexico. Once he got into Juarez, he could disappear. There were places he could go and take up another identity he’d set up years ago.
All he had to do was escape whoever was out in the night.
He went to the gun rack by the bed, took out the Colt. 45 Peacemaker, and strapped it around his lean hips. He had a little trouble buckling the belt due to the swelling in his hands, but he cinched it up and used the leg tie-down to secure the bottom of the holster. He added two speedloaders filled with extra ammunition, then dropped four boxes of extra bullets into the carry-on.