A Particular Darkness

by Robert E. Dunn

The Reverend moved first, blocking my line of fire. As he advanced he lifted his arms with the great cross behind him.

  “You can’t do this here.”

  I didn’t fire the first shot. It came from outside and it was a single round not automatic fire. Either Clare or Uncle Orson were covering me. I wasn’t the only one who read the sound. Most of the contractors I could see turned to the threat in their rear and began firing. The ones who didn’t regretted it. One lifted his weapon in my direction. Before I could take cover or sight my weapon, his head popped open in a red splash.

  Massoud darted out from behind the Reverend, leaping from the stage then bolting for an open flap. I shot as he ran and missed.

  My gunfire attracted another of the mercenaries. Three rounds passed so close, one through my hair, that the hornet whiz of their passing tracked heat on my skin. His next three rounds went through the peak of the tent roof and out into the night as he fell with a hole in his throat.

  “The storm,” Reverend Bolin shouted out into the house of violence. “When the disciples went out on the Sea of Galilee, the storm raged and they despaired, calling for their master to save them. Jesus appeared calming the waters.”

  “I know this one,” I called back to him as I went carefully to the open flap through which Massoud had gone. “This is where Jesus admonishes them for having too little faith.”

  “Knowing is not the same as understanding, Katrina.”

  “Preaching to the choir,” I told him as I stepped out into the steady rain and settled wind. All the hairs on my body stood straight up. It’s the calm that tells you to worry. As long as the wind howls and the rain blasts, it is a storm. When the sky calms and you feel your skin crawl, you know hell is coming.

  I ran to the big RV. Its door was standing open with bright yellow light pouring from it. Automatic fire started chewing the ground in front of me leading, and walking back as I ducked and rolled. I fired two rounds of suppressing fire at where the muzzle flashes had been then ran for the open door.

  I made it in as gunfire collapsed the front tire.

  The RV was one of those big rolling houses that cost more than most people’s regular home. Inside it was fitted with plush chairs, and HD television and a better kitchen than I’ve ever cooked in. Way in the back, Billy was bound by silver tape and seated in a chair. His mouth and eyes were still covered by the duct tape as well. I was unable to keep myself from imagining what he might be seeing in his darkness.

  “Come on in,” a voice from inside invited. It was Silas Boone.

  “I’d kind of hoped you were dead,” I said.

  He cackled as if that was the funniest thing he’d heard in a long time. “Ya know,” he said. “I hoped the same thing about you, Hurricane. You can come in. My gun ain’t even pointed at you. I’m sure you know where I’m aiming.”

  “I do.” Silas and I were separated by a partition that held mechanical and hydraulic equipment to push out the entire side of the vehicle. He was in that cove of space. From where I was crouched in the doorway, I could see him clearly reflected in one of the big tinted windows. Silas was reclining on a couch propped on one arm and aiming at Billy.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked me still focusing on Billy. “Cat got your tongue?” Then he cackled again sounding like a demented hen laying a square egg. “I bet a bull dyke bitch like you likes a little kitty on her tongue.” He laughed harder.

  “That’s why your cousin is dead.” I taunted. “You know he was fishing to get away from you and all your hateful crap.”

  “He was a fag.”

  I could see Silas moving higher up on the couch. The effort was obviously painful. Stretched on after him was his lifeless leg wrapped in thick bandages.

  “He wouldn’t give up smokin’ the bone so why should I care what happened? And it don’t matter. We got the Russian that killed him.”

  “Russian didn’t kill him. You got the wrong guy. Givens and Massoud let you think it was the Russian. Tried to make me believe it. They didn’t care about him any more than you. They wanted the investigation to go away. They sent Dewey to kill the congresswoman but everything went bad when Gagarin showed up. Dewey believed the Russian killed Daniel and Sartaña and lost what little control he had.”

  “It was you shot the boy.”

  “I shot him. But they sent him to get shot. Givens never would have left him alive.”

  “Girl,” he shouted to the ceiling. Then in a normal voice, still staring at Billy, Silas asked, “You tryin’ to appeal to my family side?”

  “Obviously it isn’t working. So how about I appeal to your self-interest? Toss your weapon out and I’ll let you get out of here alive. I can’t promise you’ll walk out after the last time we met.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re a funny woman all right. Shoot me in the knee. My bad knee. I’ll never walk again.”

  “They’re doing amazing things with prosthetics these days. Or put up a fight. I’ll take the other one and you can get some of those space age running things. Maybe get into the Olympics.”

  “You get off on talking tough like a man?”

  “One of us has to.” I actually made myself chuckle with that. “Listen, I can keep outsmarting you all night, but I don’t want to be in here when the wind starts howling. Why don’t you come out and live through this?”

  His answer was a gunshot that ripped a hole through the window I’d been watching him through. In the enclosed space the sound was a brutal kick in the eardrums that sent my senses into a void. I shook my head with my hands cupped over my ears, opening then closing my mouth hoping to pop some life back into them. The first thing to come back was a squealing tone then a rush of sound like waves against rocks that kept getting louder.

  It wasn’t waves and it wasn’t the after effects of the gunfire either. The sound built like an onrushing freight train and the RV began to teeter then really shake.

  Tornado.

  Chapter 22

  As the RV trembled in the wind I heard Billy screaming through the tape over his mouth. At first I thought it was panic. When I looked I saw that he was jerking his head to his left and the screaming was one muffled word. It sounded like ow-un.

  Down.

  He was telling me he was going for the floor.

  “Go,” I shouted and he did.

  “What the hell?” Silas hollered.

  It wasn’t clear if he was reacting to Billy falling or me standing up and rushing into the unsteady cabin. He fired at Billy and missed, the bullet tracking high as he fell to the carpet.

  I didn’t miss Silas. I didn’t wound him either.

  By the time I got my hands on Billy the trembling of the RV felt like an earthquake. Instead of lifting him up. I was kicked to the floor right on top of him. Then everything moved at a strange angle and crashed back to level with a howling scream of wind and rending metal.

  We had to get out. If the RV went over we would be like a couple of shoes in a dryer. The lights flickered and the huge vehicle teetered again. I jumped to my unsteady feet and pulled Billy up after me. When I jerked his arm to make him follow, he fell. His ankles were bound. I helped him up again then knelt at his feet. My teeth were the only tools I had to tear through the duct tape.

  With a hand on his T-shirt collar I pulled and he ran after me. We jumped from the RV as it rolled away behind us. We ran. There is no telling where we were going or even how long we remained upright. Anything I could see was distorted by movement. Everything was shaking, trembling, swirling. Streaks, mostly colorless runs of gray sliced through black. All the while, the freight train of sound, huffed and squealed. It was an avalanche of sensation.

  We fell. There was no place to run so I pressed Billy into the mud and grass covering him with my body.

  I don’t know if he heard me, but as we huddled in the rage of wind, I kept telling him, “Everything will be all right.”

  Once before in my life I had hunkered under a wall as wind whipped the dust of eternity over me
. That time I was alone in my growing grave.

  With Billy under me I wasn’t as fearful. It was dirt and wind, it was all the swirling loss of my life. But it wasn’t alone.

  Everything stopped.

  It was as if we were dropped into a thick sack of wet darkness and silence. When I finally looked up, the feeble light from three still burning bulbs illuminated what was left of the stage. The great cross was fallen. It reclined on its side with one arm still raised. Draped over the long end, was the black-clad body of Roscoe Bolin.

  The sight, and the silence, made me think, this is what the prophets felt when God’s voice went quiet.

  I didn’t think such big thoughts for long.

  Billy said something from under the tape and I was pretty sure it was Get this tape off. So I worked it as gently as possible from his mouth.

  He gasped, gulping long breaths of air before he finally said, “What the hell was that?”

  “Tornado,” I answered.

  Then Billy Blevins kissed me. It was a good kiss too, happy and grateful, and full of life. I let it go on as long as he wanted. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed when he broke it to say, “Get this tape off my eyes and free my arms.”

  The tape was in his hair and eyebrows so I didn’t pull it all away. I tore it off his nose and eyes. There was no point in tackling his arms without a knife so he stayed bound up as I helped him up one more time.

  The first movement we saw was actually a news crew, two men with a camera stalking through the remains of canvas and stage lights and the bodies of dead men with bullet holes.

  “What happened?” Billy asked and the question was too big to answer.

  “It’s a long story,” was all I could say.

  Someone moaned loudly and black moved in the light. It was Roscoe. He was unfolding himself from the cross and standing on shaky legs.

  The video crew caught the movement as well and rushed into the space the main tent had occupied and focused on the Reverend. He ignored them pointing his finger at me.

  “You.” he accused with the John Brown light in his eyes. “I blame you.”

  The camera followed his accusation. Is it vanity that I tried smoothing my hair?

  “No more blame.” The voice from beyond the circle of light was equally weighty. Clarence Bolin stepped out of the night. “Unless you point that finger at yourself.”

  The camera turned to Clare then back to Roscoe and to Billy and I then back to the Reverend. I bet all the while they were seeing Pulitzers as they taped the end of our story.

  Clare came closer followed by my uncle. Both still carried their rifles.

  No one was saying anything. We may have been too exhausted or stunned by the storm that came back as a gentle, straight-falling rain at that moment. It’s tempting to say it was a glad-to-be-alive moment, the same feeling I had sharing that kiss with Billy. But the truth, I believe, is that everyone knows that things aren’t over until they’re over.

  And our story was not yet over.

  A charging bolt was pulled back, chambering a round in an automatic weapon. Then Massoud staggered up behind us and jammed the barrel into Billy’s spine forcing him forward.

  “Someone bring me a car,” he said. To Orson and Clare he said, “Drop your guns.” Next he turned Billy to keep him in front of me. “You too. Drop the pistol.” Into the air he shouted, “A car. Get me a car.”

  “It won’t do you any good,” I said, displaying my empty hands. “It’s over. You can’t get away and there’s no chance the government will support your cause now.”

  “Governments. Governments don’t rule the world like you suppose. They certainly don’t rule America. At least not America beyond her own doorstep. There are other people. Other ways of doing things.”

  As if he had said some secret word, the video camera, which had been tracking Massoud since he showed up, shattered in sparks and glass.

  I caught the muzzle flash in the distance, but didn’t see the shooter. I didn’t need to. Givens.

  “Do you see now?” Massoud’s thick mustache twitched as he asked the question. “That’s how it is. The people in the dark and shadows who run this world. Inside the light—under the tent you have the show. That’s your government and your God.”

  “I don’t accept that,” Roscoe pronounced from the stage. “I don’t believe. It’s not what you believe, Massoud. It can’t be. If we serve nothing higher we can never rise above the dirt.”

  “We build with the dirt then we serve what we create and build higher. Only the people matter.” Massoud turned to me. “My people.”

  I understood that was the cue for a bullet to pass through my head. There was time for the understanding and the regret that I hadn’t lived more. If I’d had another micro second I might have accepted. I didn’t.

  Massoud’s head split at the temple coughing out a spray of red and gray. His body crumpled into a small pile on the trampled grass.

  Givens wasn’t following Massoud’s orders. He was cleaning house.

  “Roscoe,” I raised my hand with the shout, but too late.

  The last bullet of the night pierced his heart and the Reverend dropped backward, collapsing again onto his fallen cross.

  Epilogue

  I kept my Monday appointment with Dr. Kurtz. I had a lot to share and tell. And a lot I kept to myself too. Maybe I didn’t despise therapy as much as I once had. That didn’t mean that I trusted it entirely either. Sometimes we need things we don’t like or want. That’s a whole other conversation.

  I wore a dress when I went to see her that time. I don’t know why and I felt silly when she complimented me. She sets an impossible standard, I informed her. She smiled a bright lipstick-beaming smile and said, “So do you.”

  Daddy’s funeral was the kind of event you dream of for the people in your life. It was filled with military men and their stories. Flowers bloomed from every space. One arrangement was from the White House. So much of his life was secret from me. What was clear though was that I had gotten the best of it.

  The service was officiated by my friend Clarence Bolin. Clare was ordained just like his brother and they had both found their own ways to challenge the faith. A few days later I joined him at the private ceremony for his big brother.

  “Brotherhood is a tough relationship,” he told me. “Family of any kind is hard.” After that, he went off with my Uncle Orson who had also lost a brother. I think they got drunk on homemade whiskey.

  Whilomina Tindall wore her grief, beautiful black, and never took it off. She really loved my father. After the funeral she remained a part of my life. She had to, I roped her into helping me create a nonprofit to support and protect refugee women. I finally felt like I had something to add to and a reason for Nelson’s fame and wealth. I’m still probably the richest working cop in the country.

  I didn’t expect to be a cop, but the depths of governmental denial ran deep. Riley Yates became famous for a while as the reporter who exposed the plot to fund a new Kurdistan. Since it was a covert campaign that worked against the interests of NATO partners and regional allies it was all publically investigated and publically smoke screened. Reverend Bolin, Massoud, and their mercenaries took the blame for what was called, an independent and freelance operation.

  That was probably why Givens had left us alive.

  After an unpaid vacation I got to return to work. Ultimately nothing changed in the department. Sheriff Benson stood for election after all. Billy’s injuries and the new spark of life the sheriff got from Marion Combs convinced him to change his mind. At least for the time being. Houseman retired and Sheriff Benson gave his job to Billy. He became Detective Billy Blevins.

  After a lot of thought, and a lot of therapy, I decided that my life was like the tornado that scared a mile of the county that night. But all the wind was my own. I lived in it. In the conflict and the swirl. After my assault in Iraq I had hated the world and blustered against it. When I met Nelson, I ran into love and marriag
e as if I could own the storm and keep the pain at bay.

  I refused to rush or run with Billy Blevins in my life. We went slow, healing and laughing. He didn’t even kiss me a third time until weeks after that night.

  But what a kiss.

  The first in a gritty new series by author Robert Dunn, featuring sheriff’s detective Katrina Williams, as she investigates moonshine, murder, and the ghosts of her own past . . .

  A Living Grave

  Katrina Williams left the Army ten years ago disillusioned and damaged. Now a sheriff’s detective at home in the Missouri Ozarks, Katrina is living her life one case at a time—between mandated therapy sessions—until she learns that she’s a suspect in a military investigation with ties to her painful past.

  The disappearance of a local girl is far from the routine distraction, however. Brutally murdered, the girl’s corpse is found by a bootlegger whose information leads Katrina into a tangled web of teenagers, moonshiners, motorcycle clubs, and a fellow veteran battling illness and his own personal demons. Unraveling each thread will take time Katrina might not have as the Army investigator turns his searchlight on the devastating incident that ended her military career. Now Katrina will need to dig deep for the truth—before she’s found buried . . .

  Read on for a special excerpt!

  A Lyrical Underground e-book on sale now.

  Chapter 1

  Therapy is not for the weak. It is spine-ripping, devastatingly hard work that shines a light on all the secret parts of your soul. We are all vampires at the center of ourselves, I think. Those bits of ourselves, the secrets that are protected by ego and self-delusion, burn like phosphorus flames when the light finally pins them down.

  I didn’t choose therapy. The sessions were a requirement of keeping my job with the Taney County Sheriff’s Department. I’m the only female detective in the department and the only one required to attend counseling.