Bull Mountain

by Brian Panowich

  Clayton’s eyes slowly became skeptical slits as he studied Simon Holly. There was a lack of pretension about this man that Clayton found himself admiring. This wasn’t just a chance to put a commendation in his jacket; at least it didn’t feel that way to Clayton. This was a chance to do some real good on the mountain. If it wasn’t all bullshit, and normally Clayton could smell bullshit a county over. He got the impression this meeting was more important to Holly’s case than he was letting on. The agent was presenting well, but fidgety. His knee bounced slightly, and Clayton could tell he was a touch nervous. This case must be a career maker, he thought. “Why do you care?” Clayton said. “If you have all the intel you need to pick him up, then why don’t you just go in and take him out? Why do you care what happens to the people up here?”

  Holly looked mildly surprised, then genuinely hurt. “Why would I not care? You don’t have a monopoly on keeping people safe, Sheriff. You said before that you’re nothing like me, but with one fell swoop we could shut down the biggest flow of guns and dope in the history of the East Coast—one that floods over six state lines. I won’t lie to you and say it wouldn’t be nice to be recognized as one of the men who did it, but if you’re the man I think you are, living in the shadow of your family’s legacy can only make this all the more important to you. The number of lives we’d save, a lot of whom live in your backyard, is the reason I do this job. I would say we’re a lot more alike than you think.”

  Clayton scratched at a rust-colored patch in his calico beard, hardly noticing his fading headache. “And Hal walks?”

  “Anywhere he wants.”

  “If I can convince him to be a rat.”

  “Listen, Sheriff, I just told you why I’m invested in this, but for the sake of total disclosure, the truth is, nobody is interested in this place. No offense, but it’s just a big rock in the hottest, stickiest state in the union. No one I work with would dream of being stuck in this place if your brother wasn’t breaking the law, and breaking it so well. If that stops, we stop. Period.”

  Clayton opened the bottom drawer of his desk, the place that used to be reserved for the good stuff when he was drinking, and took out a can of long-cut snuff tobacco. He pinched out a wad and seated it between his lower lip and gum, then spit into an empty Styrofoam cup.

  “Nice speech.”

  “Thanks. I practiced all the way here.”

  “So you got all dressed up in your Sunday best to walk in here and give the brother of the big bad wolf all your plans to take him down, and you’re calling that a better plan?”

  “Yes, Sheriff, that’s about the size of it, but in all fairness, my mother would never have let me wear jeans to church on Sunday, and to be honest, I didn’t think you’d be here today. I was going to make an appointment for tomorrow.”

  Clayton smiled.

  “Well, Holly, in all fairness, I ran unopposed.”

  Holly laughed. “I know.”

  The sheriff stood up, walked over to the coat rack, and pulled on his jacket.

  “Come on, you can tell me more over some biscuits and gravy. I’m starving. This early, we can get a seat at Lucky’s before the church crowd takes over.”

  “Sounds good, Sheriff.”

  “Call me Clayton.”

  “All right, then, Clayton. Lead the way.”

  Clayton opened the door to the front office, where Cricket and Choctaw had done everything short of holding a glass to the wall to eavesdrop.

  “Cricket, will you call Kate and tell her I’m not going to make it to her mother’s this morning?”

  “She’s not going to be happy.”

  “I know. That’s why I want you to call her. Choctaw, call up Darby to come swap out watch over your prisoner back there. If we’re all here on a Sunday, he might as well be, too. Then call in to Lucky’s for some breakfast for our guest and I’ll have it sent over.”

  “Yessir, boss.”

  “And while you’re at it, order up some grub for you and Cricket, too. Sky’s the limit. Eat your backs out.”

  “Feeling generous this morning, boss?”

  “Nope”—Clayton winked at Holly—“but the federal government is.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  CLAYTON BURROUGHS

  2015

  Clayton stared at the ceiling. Thirty-five heavy timber logs made of the same white pine that grew not twenty feet outside his bedroom window. He and his father had built the house together as a wedding gift for Kate before she and Clayton were married. His father was nearly seventy then and still worked like a man in his twenties. That was more than a decade ago and not once did that purlin roof ever let in a single drop of rain—not once. Clayton stayed on the top floor of a fancy hotel in Atlanta once, and took notice of the water spots and discoloration growing from the edges of the popcorn ceiling. He thought about that all the time. Two hundred dollars a night in a tower of steel and glass, and they couldn’t do what he and his father had done with a couple of hammers and a few nails. It was a small example, but it echoed through everything he was ever taught, every lesson Gareth Burroughs ever tried to instill.

  “You’re gonna need a real house, boy,” his father had said. “If you’re gonna take that woman and give a go at being a real man, then you’re gonna need a house to match.”

  A real man.

  Clayton’s lip curled at the memory. It was always that way. Every good thing Gareth Burroughs ever did for his youngest son came tainted with what he really thought of him. That he didn’t measure up. That he was nothing like his older brothers, Hal and Buck. Gareth never came right out and said it, but he didn’t have to. It was in his eyes. They were filled with the gray storm clouds of disappointment.

  Kate had always seen this place as the kindest thing her husband’s father ever did for them, but she didn’t know they’d built it in silence. A father following through on his obligation to shelter his son no matter how big a letdown he turned out to be. Those laughing rafters above his bed, the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes at night, were his penance for turning his back on his family. It was also a way to keep Clayton exactly where Gareth wanted him—rooted to Bull Mountain.

  Clayton shifted his attention from the pockmarks made by his father’s ax in the ceiling to a much more pleasant view of his wife, Kate, drying herself off in the open cedar archway of the bathroom. She had a routine. She would wrap one towel around her body before pulling back the shower curtain, and another around her head in that turban wrap only women knew how to do. Then she’d sit on the edge of the tub and rub lemongrass oil on her freshly shaved legs. That part would take a little longer if she knew Clayton was watching. Then, like a magician’s final act, the two towels would hit the floor, and they’d be replaced by one of her husband’s McFalls County Sheriff’s Department T-shirts. The motion was so fluid, if Clayton blinked he’d miss the split-second shot of her bare ass before she hit the light and nestled a mound of damp chocolate-brown curls on his chest.

  Kate never wore panties to bed. Just the thought of that still did it for Clayton even after eleven years of marriage. She adjusted one leg over her husband and nuzzled her cheek against his chest. This was their tried-and-true sleeping position, and she waited for his hands to start roaming her, but they didn’t come. “We missed you at Mom’s today,” she said.

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I swear that boy is going to be the death of me.”

  “Choctaw?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s a good kid, just a little misguided is all.”

  “Misguided.” Clayton chewed on the word. “That’s one way of saying it.”

  Kate shifted gears. “You remember my appointment is Tuesday, right?”

  “Huh?”

  “My appointment,” she repeated.

  “Oh, right. Of course.” Clayton warmed up to her a little in an attempt
to stifle his cynicism about the “appointment.” It wouldn’t be the first time in the past decade they got their hopes up just to be disappointed. Parenthood didn’t seem to be in the cards for them, and they were about out of time.

  She lifted her head to look at him. “Where are you, Clayton?”

  “I’m right here, baby.”

  “No, you’re not. Your body’s here, but your head’s somewhere else. You’ve been staring up at those rafters for almost an hour like they’re fixing to come crashing down.”

  “They might be, Kate.”

  Kate looked up at the rafters, too.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “I do, but I’m not sure you’re gonna want to hear about it.”

  “Try me.”

  Clayton ran his fingers through her damp hair and let his hand rest at her neck. Her skin always felt warm as a fever and softer than spun cotton.

  “A federal came to my office today, wanting to talk about Halford. They’re going to try to take down the mountain.”

  “Again?” Her tone was low and cautious. It always was when talk of Clayton’s family started up.

  “Yeah, again.”

  “And they want your help?”

  “Sort of. This guy, Holly, doesn’t want information. They already seem to know everything they need to know. According to this guy, they don’t even want Hal.”

  “So what’s the story?”

  “They want his connection. Some guy in Jacksonville.”

  “Florida?”

  “Yeah, he runs some kind of biker gang. The feds think if they can shut these guys in Jacksonville down, they stop the flow of meth off the mountain as a bonus.”

  “So why are they up here talking to you? Shouldn’t they be in Florida, making that happen?”

  Clayton didn’t have time to answer before she figured it out herself.

  “They want your brother to flip,” she said.

  “Yup. They think he can be persuaded to give the guy up. If he does, they leave him be. That simple.”

  “Do you really think he’d do that?”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  “But they want you to try and convince him anyway?”

  “That’s the gist of it, yeah.”

  Kate rolled over onto her back, leaving Clayton’s bare chest cold and wet. “We’ve been down this road before, Clayton. There’s no convincing that man of anything. He’s crazy. You know that.”

  “You’re right, unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless he thinks it could benefit him.” Clayton sat up and faced her. “Listen, he doesn’t need the money. Hell, he never has. He’s probably got millions buried in coffee cans all over this mountain. If I told him he could finally stop looking over his shoulder, maybe he’d consider it.”

  “Wait a minute.” Kate sat up, too. “You’re not seriously thinking of doing this thing, are you?” Kate backed away from Clayton to study his expression.

  “Well, yeah. Maybe. This could be my last chance to save him.”

  “Please, Clayton, your brother is a murderer and a drug dealer. He doesn’t need saving. He’s beyond saving.”

  “It’s not his fault.”

  “Don’t start with the it’s-the-way-he-was-raised routine. I thought we agreed on this. You were raised by the same man he was, and you don’t sell poison to children.”

  “You asked me to talk about this, remember?”

  “Well, I think I changed my mind.”

  “Listen, Kate. The few times I’ve seen him since Buck was killed, he looked, I don’t know, different. Older. Tired. I think Buck’s dying might have changed him somehow.”

  “He threatened to kill you at Buckley’s funeral.”

  “He was grieving.”

  “You were grieving. Mike was grieving. Big Val was grieving. He was just drunk and hateful.”

  “People grieve in different ways. He’s alone up there now, running things by himself.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know my brother. He doesn’t trust anybody.”

  “But you think he’ll trust you?”

  “I’m his brother.”

  “And you think he cares about that?”

  “I think he knows I’m the only blood kin he’s got left, and at the end of the day, I think that’s all he’ll care about. He still carries the weight of Deddy’s death on him. Maybe I can convince him to retire. He can just live up there, hunt, drink his shine, and give this outlaw bit a rest. Right now he thinks that can never be an option. If he thinks it can be, he might just set the whole thing down like a sack of bricks. No more looking over his shoulder for the next federal sting. No more worrying about being killed by tweekers looking to rob him.”

  Kate pulled her hair back into a makeshift ponytail. “Okay, just assume Halford does buy that fairy tale, which he won’t, but assume that he does. Doesn’t giving up those thugs in Florida put him in a new set of crosshairs? Isn’t that how it works? Retaliation after retaliation, and it never stops.”

  “Baby, the Burroughses have been able to keep ourselves protected from the bulk of federal law enforcement for more than a century. I think we can hold our own against some geeked-up motorheads.”

  “We?” Kate said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t think I do, Clayton. What I am clear on, though, is that you’re thinking of getting into bed with the same feds that killed one of your brothers already, to try and convince your other brother, the self-proclaimed hillbilly godfather of Bull Mountain, to just drop his lifelong criminal enterprise, and what? Go fishing?”

  Clayton sank back into his pillow and rubbed his temples. He thought about the bottle of whiskey in the cupboard above the fridge. He’d been thinking about it a lot today. The idea of a drink always sounded better than the actual act of drinking itself. He’d quit drinking so he could have conversations like this one with his wife without ending up on the couch thinking about how to apologize for being an asshole, but still, it sounded good. Kate leaned in over him like a terrier. “Those bastards will get to go back to wherever the hell it is they came from, and you’ll end up cleaning the mess they make of our lives. You know all this already, Clayton. We went through this when Buckley died.” Kate was practically shouting now, and she took a minute to calm herself. “I know you want things to change up here. I do, too, especially now, but what makes you think this time is going to turn out any different than the last?”

  “The agent I met this morning. This Holly guy. Something about him is different. He’s not like one of these high-speed super-cops that come up here thinking he can bulldoze a bunch of rednecks because he got high marks at the academy. He’s, I don’t know, Kate . . .” Clayton stumbled for the right word. “He’s genuine,” he finally said.

  “Genuine,” Kate repeated coldly.

  “Yes, I got a gut feeling. He’s done his homework on this thing and he’s figured out the right way to get it done. I think I trust this guy. I think I want to, anyway. If what he’s saying is true, this is a shot at doing some real good. I should at least try, right?”

  Silence.

  “Besides, they’re going to do this with or without me, so it makes sense for me to try, right?” It was the second time he’d asked that question and the second time she didn’t answer.

  “Kate, right?”

  Kate swiveled her legs out from under the quilted comforter and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to her husband. Clayton reached out to touch her, but decided against it.

  Kate finally spoke but didn’t turn to face him. “I love you, Clayton. You know that. I knew what your family was when I met you and I hated it, but I loved you anyway. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to help it. Every cell in my body screamed at me to pack up
and move as far away from this place—away from you—as possible. But I couldn’t. My heart wouldn’t let me. My mama told me not to marry you because of where you came from. Who you came from. I told her she was wrong. I knew it was a gamble, and I’m not ashamed to admit some part of me was even turned on by who you were. What girl doesn’t want to be swept away by the outlaw? So I stayed and I married you. You wanted something different for your life. Something honorable. It was the biggest leap of faith I ever made, and it scared me to death, but I did it anyway.”

  “Baby, I know this.”

  “Right. You do know this. But what you don’t know is that it still scares me to death. Yes, eleven years later I’m still scared that one night you’re going to come home and tell me you’ve decided to follow in your daddy’s footsteps or, worse, you’re not going to come home at all. Then I’m going to have to wonder if you’re buried in a holler somewhere next to everyone else your family didn’t agree with. Men with badges like yours killed Buckley, so I get it. You feel compelled to stop it from happening to Halford, too, but it’s not up to you to save anybody.”

  “Baby . . .”

  “Let me finish.” She turned to face him. “I’m your wife. I swore to stand by you for better or worse and I don’t take that vow lightly, and believe me, anything that puts us in direct contact with your lunatic brother is the very definition of worse. That being said, you do what you have to do. But hear me, Clayton Burroughs, I will not let some cop, no matter how genuine he is, drag you down a hole you can’t climb out of to help a man who doesn’t want or deserve your help.”

  “He’s my brother, Kate.”

  “He’s goddamn crazy, is what he is.”

  “That doesn’t make him any less my brother. No less my family.”

  “I’m your family now. I come first. That’s what you promised me when you put that ring on my finger, and you aren’t getting out of it. Ever. Do you hear me, Sheriff?”

  “I hear you, woman.”

  Clayton grabbed a handful of T-shirt and pulled her down on top of him. He loved it when she called him Sheriff. He pushed her down on her back and slid himself on top of her. That way, he wouldn’t have to look at the rafters.