Bull Mountain

by Brian Panowich

  “I thought you cared about him.”

  “I cared about your father. And Halford ain’t your father.”

  “You say that like Deddy was a good man.”

  “No, he wasn’t. Gareth wasn’t a good man. But for a long time, neither was I. We come up together surrounded by all this.” Val lifted his arms out, motioning around him. “We had each other’s backs. Nowadays, that kinda thinkin’ don’t even exist no more, and I want no part of what happens up here.”

  Darby drained his cup, suffered the burn, and poured another. Val picked up the jug and took a swig directly from it. No reaction, like he was drinking water.

  “That shit they’re makin’ up here ain’t just a drug. It’s evil, plain and simple. Your deddy was the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever known, and as soon as your brothers brought that shit up here, it killed him.”

  “The drugs didn’t kill him, Val.”

  “The hell they didn’t.”

  “Cricket told me your daddy died in a fire,” Darby said.

  Clayton scratched at his beard. “That’s the story Halford would have everyone believe, but the truth is he blew himself up learning how to cook that shit. You’d think the high-and-mighty king of Bull Mountain wouldn’t go out like some lowly city tweeker, but in the end, that’s exactly how it went down.”

  “You should have more respect, little Burroughs. He was your father, and despite his failings, he only did as his deddy did before him. You want to put that anger on somebody, you put it on your grandfather. That’s where this family went wrong. Nobody deserves to die like your deddy did. He died screaming. You ever see somebody burn to death?”

  Clayton had.

  “It was your grandfather let loose the demons on this mountain, and there ain’t no putting that genie back in the bottle. Never was. Not then, not now.”

  “Wilcombe had a little something to do with it.” Again Clayton put that name out there to see the reaction he’d get. This time he got one. Val put the jug down.

  “How do you know that name?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I know everything about what Hal’s got going on in Florida. I know my father partnered with those people and Hal is keeping it going. Feds are ready to march on this mountain and burn it all down, along with all the people on it—people I don’t want to see get caught up in the crossfire, if you get my meaning. I’m up here on damage control, hoping to save some lives, and nobody wants to fucking listen.”

  “You ain’t gotta cuss me, boy.”

  “Sorry, Val. It’s just frustrating. I’m not ready to write this place off. Katie keeps telling me it’s a lost cause, Hal just wants to kick my ass, and now you don’t even want to hear how all this might end peacefully.”

  Val reached two enormous hands out and grabbed the side of Clayton’s rocker, stilling it. “You listen up, boy. You need to go back down to that little lady of yours and listen to what she has to say. Live your life in that valley, policing decent folk. Nothing up here will ever end peacefully. I’ve come to terms with that, and anybody making a home here has as well. You need to stay away from here and count yourself lucky that what your granddeddy did to your deddy and brothers didn’t take on you. That’s the peaceful ending you’re looking for. You surviving all this mess. You and Kate growing old together and having a baby, the good Lord willin’. That’s the best ending I can think of. If it’s time for Bull Mountain to pay for its sins by way of these federal agents, then so be it. You just stay clear. It’s time, and believe me when I tell you, all us sons-a-bitches that walked this road, we deserve it.” Val spoke that last part quietly, remorsefully, and into his lap.

  Clayton stared off into the thick expanse of forest that surrounded Val’s home. After a minute or so of listening to the trees sway in the warm wind, it was Darby who broke the silence. “If the feds know everything, like locations and key players,” he said, “then why don’t they just send in some kinda stealth team to take them all out without a big show?”

  “Because that’s not how things work up here,” Clayton said. “You can’t sneak up on the man who has spent his life in the woods sneaking up on things. They’ve tried it before. People died and nothing changed.”

  “So go home, boy,” Val said, as if suddenly validated by Clayton’s own words. “Go home and stop this foolishness. Stop thinkin’ you can right something that was born wrong.”

  Clayton rolled the red plastic cup between his palms and snorted out a dry, humorless laugh. He held up the cup in a toast. “To being born wrong,” he said, and drank the cup empty without waiting for a response. It stung the split in his lip but went down welcome and easy.

  2.

  “Drop me at Lucky’s.”

  “But this is your vehicle, sir.”

  Clayton said nothing, and Darby was done arguing. “Lucky’s it is.”

  Lucky’s was the kind of place that took on a different tone depending on where the sun was positioned in relation to the Earth. During the day, a cantankerous old man named Hollis “Lucky” Peterman and his equally disgruntled brother, Harvey, served biscuits and gravy and the best cornmeal flapjacks in the state to the deer hunters and working folk of Waymore Valley. But in the evening, Harvey’s daughter, Nicole, poured bourbon cocktails and pitchers of Bud Light from behind the bar. Lucky’s had a built-in crowd, mostly because Lucky’s was the only bar in the Valley. Clayton half-stumbled out of the Bronco under the influence of Val’s apple-pie moonshine. He grabbed the frame of the car door, steadied himself, and slammed it shut.

  And that’s how it happens, he thought. One drink, on a particularly bad day, and a year’s sobriety blown to hell like it never happened. Clayton was sure, by night’s end, he’d be a smoker again, too, but these revelations weren’t enough to keep him from walking into the bar. He pushed those thoughts to the back of his clouded mind and made for the front door. The place was jumping. Old-school Hank Williams Jr. belted out from the jukebox: “. . . and I get whiskey bent and hell bound.” It set the tone with an appropriate anthem for the night. Nicole looked as beautiful as ever slinging liquor behind the bar. Most of the women in Waymore wore clothes they cut from patterns or bought from the discount stores that peppered the countryside, but Nicole was a different type. She wore high heels with her blue jeans. She shopped at the outlet malls down in Buford and Commerce. Tonight Nicole wore a shiny black sequined top that sparkled under the bar lights and dark blue jeans tight enough to keep a man Clayton’s age looking straight ahead, in fear of feeling like a dirty old man. Clayton spied an open seat at the end of the bar and slipped in, barely aware of the foul mood, or the shame, he was toting in with him. He eased onto the bar stool and took in a deep lungful of secondhand smoke. It smelled bad and good. He took off his hat and laid it on the bar, accidentally nudging the arm of a large gentleman to his left.

  “Hey, buddy, watch your—” The look of recognition registered on Big Joe Dooley’s face before he finished his sentence. “Sorry, Sheriff, I didn’t see you there. My bad.” Joe was known to get a little rowdy. Clayton and Choctaw both had locked him up in the drunk tank once or twice to let him sleep it off before sending him home to his wife and kids, but otherwise, the big boy was relatively harmless.

  “S’okay, Joe.” Clayton hailed Nicole, who immediately stopped what she was doing, smiled a big pearly smile, and poured the sheriff a ginger ale from a squatty green bottle under the bar. Clayton’s most recent usual. She slapped a bar napkin down and set the soda in front of the sheriff, then took notice of his swollen eye and split lip. Her pretty smile contorted into a pretty grimace.

  “Ouch,” she said. “Holy cow, Sheriff. How does the other guy look?”

  “Much better than me, I’m afraid.”

  “You want me to make you an ice pack for that?”

  “That’s okay, Nicole.”

  “It’s no problem. I got clean
rags in the back. I could fix you up.”

  “Nah, it’s just a scratch. I’ll be okay. Busy night tonight, huh?”

  “It’s a busy night every night, sir.” Nicole leaned forward on the bar with both elbows, maybe not so unintentionally creating a perfect view of her sun-freckled cleavage. Clayton did his best not to look. She didn’t make it easy. Her big green eyes would stop traffic even without all the eye makeup she shrouded them in, but girls her age never believed that. She was a looker, but a good girl. Clayton liked her. Big Joe made no attempt to reel in his slack-jawed stare and shifted his cumbersome weight on the bar stool to lean toward her and Clayton’s conversation. “You think I could get a beer, or do I have to be wearin’ a silver star on my shirt, too?”

  “Just a second, Joe,” Nicole said without looking at him.

  Joe frowned an exaggerated drunken frown. “I been waiting here almost ten minutes, girlie.”

  This time she did look at him. “Look around you, Joe. It’s a little busy. I’ll be right with you.”

  Joe shot a quick glance at Clayton, then mumbled something shitty into his empty glass. Clayton assumed it would have been a lot louder if he hadn’t been sitting there. He ignored him and took a sip of the ginger ale. That wasn’t going to do it.

  “I’ll be back shortly, Sheriff. Are you hungry? Uncle Hollis’s got some country fried steak left over from the lunch rush.”

  “No, thanks, Nicole, but . . .” Clayton paused. Nicole lifted an eyebrow. “. . . you could bring me two fingers of Knob Creek. Straight up.”

  Nicole, caught off guard, narrowed her eyes at the sheriff. “Um . . . okay,” she said, and turned to get the bottle down from the mirrored shelf behind her. Big Joe Dooley dug his pudgy elbow into Clayton’s recently bruised ribs, causing him to wince with pain, but Joe didn’t notice. He pointed to Nicole up on a step stool reaching for the bourbon. The bright colors of the floral tattoo that covered the small of her back teased out from a sliver of skin above the low waist of her jeans.

  “Now, that there is an ass. Right, Sheriff?”

  Clayton said nothing and again avoided taking in an eyeful of the half-his-age ass in the air.

  “I could sit right here and wait on a beer forever,” Joe said, “if I could watch her swing that shit-cutter around all night.”

  That made the nerve above Clayton’s eye twitch. “Shut the fuck up, Joe.”

  Big Joe crumpled his nose like he’d just taken a whiff of fresh dog shit and honestly searched his brain for a reason why another man would take offense to that statement.

  Nicole stepped down, oblivious, and poured the whiskey into a clean glass in front of Clayton. He nodded a “thank you” and she winked a “you’re welcome.” A short narrow man who looked like he was carved completely out of seasoned leather waved a twenty-dollar bill at Nicole from down the bar. She held a finger up to Clayton and sashayed off toward her tip money. Clayton closed his eyes and held the glass to his nose. It smelled of oak, vanilla, and bad decisions. The moment ended abruptly with another shot of pain up his side. Big Joe landed another elbow to Clayton’s ribs, spoiling the sheriff’s first sip. Bourbon dribbled down his beard and spilled onto the bar. He put the glass down.

  “I hate to see her leave,” Joe said, leaning across the bar, his eyes glued to Nicole’s backside. “But I love to watch her go.”

  Clayton used his napkin to mop up the spilled drink and felt the heat rise under his skin. “I thought I told you to shut up, Joe. In fact”—Clayton turned all the way around into the big man’s face—“why don’t you get your fat ass up and find somewhere else to sit as far away from me and that girl as possible.” Clayton’s voice was louder than he’d intended, but that’s what happened when he drank. A few heads turned. A few conversations stopped. Confusion spread over Big Joe’s face like a rash.

  “Goddamn, Clayton, I was just cuttin’ up.”

  “Move your ass, Joe. Now.” Clayton sat up a little straighter and bowed his chest out. There wasn’t much to it, but it looked a lot bigger to most with that star pinned to it. Nicole came back and set a fresh beer in front of Joe. She looked as confused as he did. Joe picked up his frosted mug and gave Clayton a drunken half-assed toast, in the process managing to spill beer down the front of his shirt.

  “Yessir, Mr. Sheriff, sir.” And off he went, sloshing beer on himself and the floor.

  “What was that about?” she said.

  “Some folks live their whole lives without an ounce of class,” Clayton said, and took a long pull of hundred-proof bourbon, letting it sit on his tongue. Nicole wiped up the spilt beer.

  “Well, don’t worry, Sheriff, he’s harmless.”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  Nicole leaned in close to Clayton’s ear. “Hell, Sheriff, show me a drunk who ain’t.”

  3.

  Clayton was on his third drink when Special Agent Simon Holly took Big Joe’s vacated seat. He just sat there, smiling that shark smile of his, until Clayton came up out of his rocks glass and took notice. He squinted hard at Holly, either to focus his eyes or to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Maybe both.

  “Evening, Sheriff.”

  “What are you doing here, Holly?” Clayton said, turning his attention back to his glass.

  “My travel agent said this place was one of the top attractions to take in while visiting the mountain paradise of Waymore Valley, Georgia.”

  Clayton just stared blankly, his eyes slowly disappearing into his face. He wasn’t up for cheery sarcasm.

  “Sorry, Sheriff, I can see you’re in a mood. I’m staying at the motor inn across the street. I saw your deputy drop you off a little while ago, so I thought I’d come break some bread. Tough night?”

  “Why?”

  “Your face looks like shit.”

  “Yeah, well, you can take a little responsibility for that.”

  Holly put his smile away. “You spoke to your brother?”

  “Well, we didn’t do much speakin’.”

  “I take it it didn’t go well?”

  “That’s one way to say it. Brother shit. I don’t think he’s going to listen to reason.”

  “I have no doubt you will find a way.” Holly motioned for Nicole, who smiled even bigger than normal when she saw him.

  “Well, hello there,” she said. “And just who might you be?”

  Holly just smiled, leaned back on the stool, and let the sheriff make the introductions.

  “Nicole, this is Holly. He’s a federal agent sent here to complicate my life. Bring us both one of these.” Clayton tapped his empty glass.

  Holly held out a hand. “It’s Simon, and you better make his water.”

  Nicole cupped his hand with both of hers and leaned in close, making sure Simon got an eyeful of the same award-winning cleavage she’d showed off to Clayton earlier. She spoke in a whisper. “I was just about to call his wife to come get him.”

  “I got him,” Holly said, and winked at her.

  “Cool,” she said, and off she floated to the other side of the bar. Holly leaned forward and watched her move. This time, Clayton did, too.

  “Your day go any better than mine?” Clayton said.

  “We had an incident off Highway 27 near a place called Broadwater. I was close, so they put me on it.”

  “An incident?”

  “Yeah, looks like a hijacking gone wrong. We got one body.”

  “Who bought the farm? A hijacker, or hijackee?”

  “Hijacker, we’re assuming, unless he was jogging along the highway with an assault rifle and a clown mask. The scene was scrubbed clean before the state boys got there, but we impounded an empty moving truck, and we think there might have been bikes involved. We found a broken Harley side mirror, and the skid marks are consistent with someone laying one down.”

  “Bikes,” Clayton sai
d. “Is it related to our thing?”

  “I’m not one hundred percent, but I’ve got ears in Florida that tell me they were moving a bundle of cash this way. It fits with the schedule they keep. But nothing is cement right now. The staties are dragging ass on telling me anything else.”

  “That’s because half the state patrol is in Halford’s pocket. That whole area around Broadwater is a dead zone. Did you ID the dead guy?”

  “Yup. No ID on him, but we ran his prints through IAFIS . . . Um . . . IAFIS is a national database of—”

  Clayton held his hand up. “I know what IAFIS is.”

  “Right. Anyway, we got a hit. The guy’s name is Allen Bankey. Does that name ring any bells?”

  Clayton thought about it. “Nope.”

  Nicole appeared and set two glasses of water down on the bar and a fresh bourbon for Holly. He smiled and nodded politely. Once Nicole bounced away, he kept talking. “He’s ex-military,” Holly said. “We think he was part of a crew but got left after he went down. Surprisingly, the guy’s file is pretty clean except for a bullshit statutory rape charge from a few years back.”

  “How is a rape charge bullshit?” Clayton said, looking at his water like it was some kind of alien artifact.

  “The girl was sixteen, but you’d never know it looking at her. The sex was consensual. The parents let it go, knowing their daughter was no prize, but the state picked it up and the next thing you know, boom—G.I. Joe is a lifelong registered sex offender. It happens all the time.”

  “And now he’s dead.”

  “As Elvis. You’re sure you don’t know him?”

  “Never heard of an Allen Bankey.” Clayton swallowed the water in two gulps. “But bring the file by the office tomorrow and I’ll take a look.”

  “Done,” Holly said, and guzzled half his drink.

  “Hey, Sweet Tits,” roared a voice at the other end of the bar. Clayton looked over and shook his head. Big Joe Dooley was back, looking to fill his glass and blowing kisses at Nicole. Clayton pushed up off his stool and put on his hat. “I’ll be right back.”