Bull Mountain

by Brian Panowich

  “I wanted to let you know I’ll be down your way in a few days. Was hoping to bend your ear on some business.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” There was the sound of the phone being muffled, and Gareth thought he could make out another voice besides Wilcombe’s—a man’s voice. Although Jimbo had already taken him from the room, he felt his father’s stare across the table from him, and the faint clicking of his fingernail on the wood.

  “This family doesn’t need anything from anybody.”

  He shook it off. It was the only idea on the table, and he wasn’t his father.

  “You still there, Wilcombe?”

  “Yes, yes, Mr. Burroughs. Three days’ time works well for me. I can assume you’ll be bringing something along to make the trip worthwhile for everyone involved?”

  “If that means the quote I got from Cartwright, then I reckon it would be a good assumption.”

  “Outstanding. When you arrive in Jacksonville, call this number and Julie will make all the arrangements.”

  “Julie, right.”

  Wilcombe might have said something else, but Gareth hung up.

  3.

  Three days later, Gareth, Val, and Jimbo checked in to a roadside motel off the interstate in Jacksonville. Gareth called the number on the card from the room phone and got the address for the meet from Julie. Jimbo tucked a camo duffel bag containing thirty grand under one of the room’s twin-size beds and sat down.

  “Jimbo, you stay,” Gareth said. “Don’t leave that money alone for a second, and put a hole through anybody that tries to get through but us. Even if you know them.”

  Jimbo tapped the hand cannon under his shirt. “I got this, brother.”

  One hour later Val and Gareth pulled the truck up in front of a bar with three dressed-down Harleys parked in front. The bikes were all black—no ornate silver-trimmed saddlebags or flashy paint jobs—just three squat beasts hitched like horses to a post outside a saloon. The building itself was a one-story concrete block with nothing to even signify it was a bar except a flickering MILLER TIME neon hanging in one of the rectangular fixed windows lining the top of the storefront. A sun-faded OPEN sign hung from a suction cup stuck to the plate-glass door. Gareth had expected more. He had expected the place to look like a scene from Sturgis or Easy Rider, but aside from the hogs outside, it looked more like a tax attorney’s office. Considering Wilcombe’s fancy accent, MC errand boys, and hot-shit-sounding secretary, this place was nothing short of a dank shithole.

  After exchanging an underwhelmed look, Gareth and Val got out of the truck and walked to the door. Gareth put his hand on the glass but paused before pushing it open.

  “I gotta tell you, Val, I’m not sold on this idea. I’m out of my element here.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “If this goes south . . .” Gareth said.

  “It won’t. You’re Gareth Burroughs. You’re fucking invincible.” Both men smiled, but only briefly. Gareth took a breath and pushed open the door.

  4.

  They both let their eyes adjust to the sickly blue electric light and took a quick inventory of the patrons and the layout. To their left, two bikers were playing pool under a hanging Pabst Blue Ribbon lamp, and a thin bartender with a huge Wyatt Earp–style mustache stood behind the bar. His facial hair gave him tusks like a walrus. All three of them were sporting JACKSONVILLE JACKALS patches on their cuts. One of the men playing pool looked able to handle himself—tall, with lots of bulky muscle crammed into a denim jacket. His buddy, on the other hand, looked like he hadn’t skipped a meal in all of his fiftysomething years. He was soft and pudgy, with a long, stringy gray ponytail. The size-up was reassuring. Three men in an open room matched the three bikes parked outside. That didn’t count what could be out back, or in the bathroom to the right, or on the other side of the door behind the bar. Gareth guessed it led to a kitchen or a storage room. It could serve as an ambush point or an escape route, but if shit went sideways, Gareth knew right away his chance of getting out of this box, as it stood, was a fifty-fifty shot. He breathed a little easier, but not much. He’d faced worse odds back home.

  They stood in the doorway while every eyeball in the place locked on them.

  It was understandable. Gareth may not have looked like much under his straw cowboy hat and canvas jacket—a pale-skinned redhead, weighing in at one-sixty on a good day—but Val was a different story. Val was a solid-muscled farm boy, every bit of three hundred pounds. He was also black as night, no stars. He looked like a mountain of Kentucky coal in a flannel shirt.

  They slowly crossed the room, and Gareth took a seat at the bar. Val stood behind him with his arms crossed, trading stink-eye stares with Moe and Curly at the pool table. From the bulges under their jackets, Val counted at least one gun per man.

  “Can I help you boys with something?” the walrus said to Gareth.

  “Nope, but we’ll take two beers. Don’t matter which.”

  “You planning on drinking both of them?”

  Gareth just stared blankly at the man. “Do you have a problem?”

  “Not with you. I believe we’re expecting you. But your boy there might have to wait outside.”

  “My boy? Oh, you mean Val.” Gareth motioned with a thumb over his shoulder. “That guy’s name is Albert Valentine. Named after his deddy. Some people call him Albert, but not many. Most folks call him Val. You know, short for Valentine.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what the boy’s name is.”

  “Apparently. Because if you did, you’d know that it’s pretty damn rude to call him boy. Nobody calls him boy, and you just did it twice. My advice is to not let it happen a third time.”

  “Tuesday’s Gone” played on the jukebox, filling the gap of silence while the bartender sized Gareth up.

  “Well, when this train ends, I’ll try again, / But I’m leaving my woman at home . . .”

  Gareth scanned the door behind the bartender for movement or shadows. He saw nothing. Two minutes in and they were already on the wrong foot with these guys. His palms were sweaty. He needed to keep his talking big enough to back them down but not too big to fit his foot in his mouth. “So are you gonna pour a couple beers or do I need to do it myself?” he said.

  The bartender narrowed his eyes and leaned down on the bar with his elbows. “Like I said, if you’re the fella I got a call about, then I been expecting you. I’d be happy to pour you a brew, but this here is my place, and I reserve the right to serve, or not serve, whoever the hell I please. So, friend of the boss or not, I’m gonna have to ask you to have your pet gorilla there wait outside, or head back to whatever Mississippi swamp y’all come from.”

  “We’re from Georgia.”

  “Seriously, mister, I don’t give a fuck where you’re from. Those are the rules.”

  Val, who’d been silent up to this point, as if the conversation behind him wasn’t about him, finally turned around and sat down on the stool next to Gareth. Without saying a word, he reached into the shirt pocket of his flannel and pulled out a roll of cash the size of a fist. He peeled off a hundred-dollar bill and laid it on the bar. He let the weasel barkeep eyeball it, and Val watched his expression change from angry bigot to curious bigot.

  “Mister,” Val said, tucking the rest of the bankroll back in his pocket, “I understand this is your place, and you have the right to run it however you see fit.”

  “That’s right,” the bartender said, not taking his eyes off the prize on the bar.

  “It’s also clear to me that you don’t like black people that much, and that, too, is your right, but I got to tell you, that remark about me being a gorilla was just downright mean. I’m not a gorilla, I’m a human being. And to be completely honest, that hurt my feelings a little bit.”

  The barkeep said nothing but did shift his eyes from the cash to keep Val’s star
e.

  “I’ll get over it,” Val said, “I’m a big boy. No harm, no foul. But the thing is, my friend here is supposed to meet someone you apparently work for, and this is the place they chose to meet. So we’re kind of stuck.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “No, sir, no, it’s not. But all my friend here is asking for is one beer each to enjoy while we wait. We ain’t looking for no trouble. Just one beer each. That’s it.”

  The bartender looked at Gareth, then back down at the hundred-dollar bill.

  “I can’t break that this early in the day.”

  “You can keep the change,” Val said.

  The bartender breathed a heavy sigh under his massive mustache. “All right, then. One beer each, and if Oscar ain’t here by then, you’re waiting in the car.”

  “That’s a deal,” Val said.

  The bartender swept the cash up from the bar and stuck the bill in his own shirt pocket. He pulled two frosted mugs from the cooler and looked at them for a moment like he was considering something. He put one of them back and reached under the bar. He pulled out a red plastic cup from a sleeve, looked at Val with a contented smirk, and filled them both with draft beer. He set them on the bar, giving the glass to Gareth and the plastic cup to Val. “No sense in dirtying up a clean glass,” he said with a grin. Val stared at the cup and felt the tension increase in his jaw. Gareth felt it, too, because he put a hand on Val’s shoulder to calm him.

  “Thank you,” Gareth said. The bartender just smiled and moved down the bar. Gareth picked up his beer, took a sip, and wiped foam from his beard. Val hesitated but sipped his, too. One of the bikers from the pool table, the meathead, approached the end of the bar.

  “Everything all right over here, Pinky?”

  “We’re all good, Rodd.”

  “That him?” Rodd asked, tilting his head in Gareth’s direction.

  “Yeah,” Pinky said. “That’s him.”

  Rodd drummed his fingers on the bar and walked back to the table.

  “Pinky?” Gareth whispered to Val. Val shrugged and both men picked up their beers. Gareth sipped his, but Val turned his up and finished it off in two large gulps. Gareth dropped his chin to his chest and sighed.

  Pinky picked up the cup and tossed it in the trash. “Well, I guess you best be on your way, then,” he said. Val just stared at where the cup had been—the skin on his face tight.

  Gareth wiped more suds from his beard and fished out a napkin from a plastic caddy. “Sure thing, Pinky,” he said, putting a hand up to take the bartender’s attention away from Val. “But can I ask you something first?”

  “As long as he’s going.”

  “You gotta tell me, what in God’s name is that infernal racket you got us listening to in here?”

  Pinky looked jarred at that. “What, the music?”

  “Is that what that is?” Gareth said.

  Pinky listened again as if to confirm his answer. Ronnie Van Zant was pleading for just three steps toward the door.

  “That’s Lynyrd Skynyrd,” Pinky said indignantly. “That’s the pride of Jacksonville. The greatest southern rock band in the world.”

  Gareth scoffed and elbowed Val, who was still glaring down at the bar. “That ain’t no southern music I ever heard. Where’s the banjo, or the fiddle? It sounds more like a bunch of retards tryin’ to fuck a doorknob.”

  “Maybe it ain’t for you, Gareth,” Val said, still not looking up. “Maybe it’s only for pig-fuckin’ faggots named Pinky.”

  “What the hell?” Pinky said, and his face reddened like he’d just gotten slapped. “What did you say, boy?”

  “And . . . that makes three,” Gareth said.

  Pinky reached under the bar and came back with a wooden baseball bat, but for a big man, Val moved as fast as a cobra. He grabbed the bat with Pinky still attached and effortlessly yanked him into a head butt. The sound of Pinky’s nose breaking made Gareth wince. Pinky let go of the Louisville Slugger and stumbled backward into a row of liquor bottles. A few fell and crashed to the floor. Gareth spun around in his seat, his gun already out and trained on the two bikers, but they already stood holding their own weapons out.

  “Well, shit,” Gareth said.

  Pinky held his bleeding nose and swayed behind the bar, trying to regain focus. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet grunt.

  “You don’t like niggers?” Val asked. “How you like getting your nose broke by one? Now you got a good reason not to like us.” Val spun around and looked at the other two bikers aiming guns at him and Gareth. He was still holding the bat.

  “Put your gun down,” the bigger one named Rodd said.

  “Not gonna happen,” Gareth said. “Your buddy had that coming. You put your guns down so we can talk about it.”

  “Sorry, man,” Val said softly to Gareth. Gareth shot him a terse look but didn’t answer.

  “We got you two to one,” Rodd said. “Drop your gun or I’m gonna blow your fuckin’ head off.”

  “Nah,” Gareth said. “I bet I take at least one of you. I do this shit all the time, boys. You sure you can hit me from there? You don’t look too sure of yourself. I know I can.”

  “He won’t have to,” Pinky said, and racked a shotgun behind them. Val took a deep breath and Gareth had no choice but to give up the ghost and lower his gun. That’s when the front door opened and two more men joined the party.

  “What the hell is going on?” Oscar Wilcombe said.

  5.

  Wilcombe was a small man. Thin and squatty, with thinning sand-colored hair. He wore a dark suit and wire-rimmed glasses. He also carried a metal-reinforced briefcase. The man walking behind him couldn’t have been any more the polar opposite. He was an oak tree, well over six feet tall, shiny bald, with gray-blue eyes. He wore faded blue jeans and a denim jacket with the sleeves torn off. His arms were ripped and vascular, both covered from shoulder to wrist with intricate tattoo work, the kind that takes a lifetime of commitment to finish. His jacket also carried the Jackals’ rocker on the back, along with a patch above the breast pocket that read PRESIDENT.

  “Jackals, lower your guns now,” Wilcombe said.

  Pinky wiped some of the blood from his enormous mustache onto his shoulder but kept the shotgun in place. “Oscar, these sons of—”

  “I said put it down, Pinkerton.”

  Pinky was hesitant but lowered the gun. The other two bikers looked to the bigger man behind Wilcombe. He nodded and they lowered their guns as well. Gareth took notice of that. The bald guy had to be the top dog in Wilcombe’s kennel. The order came from Wilcombe, but the men needed the big boy’s approval to obey. That was good to know.

  “Mr. Burroughs, I presume,” Wilcombe said.

  “That’s right,” Gareth said.

  Wilcombe took a few steps into the middle of the room. “Can we all put our weapons away?” he said.

  Gareth looked down at the Colt in his hand. “Of course,” he said, and slid it back into his pants. Val tossed the bat to the floor as he and the big man with Wilcombe sized each other up. They looked evenly matched. That only made Gareth more uncomfortable. He’d brought Val for intimidation. The President evened that out.

  “I thought we agreed to meet at nine o’clock?” Wilcombe said.

  “We did. We were early,” Gareth said. Wilcombe set the briefcase down by one of the tables and introduced himself, first holding his hand out to Gareth and then to Val. They both shook the man’s hand, but Val’s eyes never left the President.

  “I’m Oscar Wilcombe, and this is my associate, Bracken Leek.” The bald man didn’t bother to shake any hands, he just turned and clicked the lock on the door.

  “It’s a pleasure,” Gareth said.

  “What happened, Pinky?” Bracken said.

  Val answered that. “Your man was rude.”
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  “Fuck you, coon,” Pinky barked through a blood-soaked bar rag he held up to his face.

  Val looked at Bracken. “See?”

  “And you had to straighten him out? Is that what happened?” Bracken moved down the bar to survey the damage. “You always come into a man’s house and beat him bloody like that?”

  “If he’s a piece-of-shit racist, I do,” Val said.

  “Maybe you should try that dance with me.” Bracken took a step toward Val, but Gareth put a hand between them. “Enough,” he said, and turned to Wilcombe. “Is this going to be a problem?”

  “Mr. Burroughs, I’m going to need you to explain to my associate what took place here, so we can move past it.”

  “Fair enough,” Gareth said. “Your man there, Pinky, wasn’t none too happy with my friend being in his bar. Called him a gorilla. Called him his boy. Three times, if I remember correctly. Val don’t like that shit. Neither do I. I gave him a chance to make nice, but he thought he would get all Ty Cobb and try to swing that bat over there at my friend’s head.” Gareth pointed to the Louisville Slugger on the floor. “My friend took offense.”

  Bracken and Val stood close enough to kiss.

  “Well, then, no, Mr. Burroughs, we don’t have a problem. Rodd, will you and Jeremy assist Pinkerton with resetting his nose? Clean him up and take care of the mess behind the bar.” Again they waited for Bracken to approve. He backed out of Val’s face and picked up the bat, then tossed it to Pinky, and the three bikers disappeared through the back door. Bracken poured himself a whiskey.

  “My apologies, Mr. Burroughs. If I’d known you’d have a colored gentleman with you, I would have given some warning.”

  “But seeing that we’re from Georgia, you just assumed we all run around with white hoods on, right?”

  Wilcombe smiled slightly and held his hands up in a shrug, then motioned to the booth behind him. “Shall we?”

  “Right,” Gareth said. Val retook his seat at the bar.

  The little man sat down and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Now, what is it I can do for you?”