Bull Mountain

by Brian Panowich

  Holly saw Clayton steady himself from the alcohol-induced head rush but made no attempt to help him. He watched curiously as the sheriff crossed the room and grabbed Joe Dooley by the scruff of hair on the back of his thick, sweaty neck. Before the big boy could react, Clayton pushed down hard and slammed Joe’s forehead into the copper-plated bar. The crack of bone on metal reverberated through the room and knocked over several glasses to both sides of them. People scattered and jumped out of the way, making space for the big boy to fall, but Clayton didn’t let go. He held Joe’s face there against the bar to anchor himself until he could twist one of Joe’s arms up and behind his back. Holly smiled. He was impressed that the sheriff could hold his own as drunk as he was. He used the moment to fish a few Percocet from his pocket and washed them down with the rest of his bourbon.

  “I thought I told you to watch your mouth,” Clayton said.

  Joe answered the best he could from the position he was in. “No, you didn’t. You . . . you . . . told me to move . . . I did.”

  “I told you to stay clear of Nicole.” Clayton pushed down hard, smearing the left side of Joe’s face flatter against the cold metal. Nicole stood back, wide-eyed, with both hands covering her mouth. Holly almost laughed out loud.

  “Well, goddamn, Sheriff,” Joe said through the side of his mouth not smashed down against the bar. “How am I supposed to get a drink around here? She’s the only one working.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “This is bullshit. I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “Maybe I just don’t like the way you talk to women, Joe.”

  “Maybe I don’t care what you think.” Joe was getting over his fear of the badge now, being more in fear of town-wide embarrassment. Clayton could feel him starting to buck. He leaned in. “Say you’re sorry.”

  “Fuck you.”

  That’s when Holly saw the lights go out in Clayton’s face. He’d seen that look before on the faces of a lot of men he’d had to put down. The sheriff went full dark. Holly knew he would. Clayton yanked down hard on Big Joe’s neck and kicked his legs out from underneath him. Joe hit the floor hard. Falling bar stools collided into the few remaining patrons, who quickly made for the exits. Clayton used a size-eleven cowboy boot to kick Joe over flat on his back, and then used that same boot to step down on his face. “Fuck who?”

  Holly sipped his water and stood. He was amazed at how fast it had happened. He’d almost written Clayton off as a sloppy drunk. Nothing like what he’d expected him to be, but he was wrong. He didn’t even realize how wrong until he saw Clayton’s gun drawn and pointed at Joe’s head. He never even saw him draw it.

  “Whoa, Sheriff,” Holly said, stepping into the fray. “That’s enough. Put it away. Let him up.”

  “Apologize,” Clayton said again, not letting the big man move.

  “I’m sorry, Sheriff, I’m sorry.”

  Clayton thumbed back the hammer. “To the girl, fat ass. Apologize to the girl.” A dark stain spread over Big Joe’s crotch as he pissed himself.

  “I’m sorry, Nicole. Jesus, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Holly put both his hands up in front of Clayton as a form of surrogate surrender for the man on the floor. “Put it away, Sheriff. Put the gun away and let him up.”

  Clayton switched his rabid glare from Big Joe to Agent Holly, who kept his hands up and repeated slowly, “Put . . . it . . . away.” Clayton finally did. He slid the Colt into his holster and took his foot off Joe’s face. The big boy scuffled away across the floor toward the door. When he got outside, a few people in the crowd helped him to his feet. For a moment he looked like he was going to say something, but Holly stopped him with three words. From the door, he pointed one finger at Big Joe and said, “Don’t. Just go.” Big Joe took the advice.

  Holly turned his attention back to Clayton, who hadn’t moved. He stood staring at the floor as if Joe were still down there. “I think you’re done here, Sheriff.” He laid a cautious hand on Clayton’s shoulder. “Let me take you home.”

  Clayton wore a look on his face like he’d just woken from surgery that required a heavy anesthetic. “Okay,” he said. Holly looked back to Nicole, who hadn’t moved much, either, except to survey the damage done to her daddy’s place. He nodded at her, then toted Clayton out to his car.

  4.

  Kate came out on the porch holding a .30-.30 before Holly could open the door on Clayton’s side of the Crown Vic. Holly knew about Kate. He knew from photos that she was beautiful, but her standing there with that rifle, in nothing but an oversized nightshirt, put her on the list of the top ten sexiest women he’d ever seen. The porch light silhouetting her legs through the thin material drove her up to the top five. She could see someone else in the car but couldn’t make out who it was. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “Mrs. Burroughs?”

  “I know my name. I asked who you are.”

  Holly smiled.

  “I’m serious. My husband’s the sheriff.”

  “I work with your husband. He’s here with me in the car.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Holly held his hands up slightly higher than his shoulders. “My name is Simon Holly. I’m a federal agent and, seriously, ma’am, Clayton is here in the car.”

  Kate took a step forward to see the man in the car a little better in the dark. Holly lowered one hand and opened the passenger-side door. Light flooded the interior of the Crown Vic, and Kate saw her husband. She lowered the rifle a little and took two more steps toward the car before noticing the damage done to his face and steadied the gun back on Simon. She racked the lever. “What happened to him?”

  Holly put his hands up a little higher. “Oh, no. You got it wrong. I didn’t do that. He was already like that. I’m just giving him a ride home.”

  “He’s a friend, Katie. Put that thing away.” Clayton raised a wobbly hand in the air to motion for her to put down the gun, and then tried unsuccessfully to pull himself out of the car. Simon lurched forward and grabbed his elbow to keep him from falling. Kate leaned the rifle against the quarter panel of the car and took Clayton’s face in her hands. She smelled the whiskey immediately and pulled back.

  “Clayton? Are you . . . ? Have you been . . . ?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You’re drunk and you’re beat-up. What the hell is going on here?” She examined his swollen eye, but with a lot less compassion than she would have done if he was sober. She looked to Holly to fill in the blanks. “What happened?”

  “I suppose you should ask him, ma’am.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “I’m thinking he might want to tell you himself.”

  “That’s enough,” Clayton said, grabbing the rifle and making his way toward the porch. “Holly, bring the file on your dead bandito to my office in the morning. Thanks for the ride.” He carefully took the steps and opened the screen door.

  “Clayton!” Kate said, surprised—confused—disgusted.

  “Just come inside, woman. You ain’t got no pants on.” Clayton disappeared into the house. Kate’s cheeks flushed a bright rosy red, but Holly was sure it was caused by anger and not humility. He studied his shoes and puffed his cheeks out. He kept his hands buried deep in his pockets. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said. Kate twisted her head so fast from the front door to Holly, he thought it might snap right off.

  “Sorry? What are you sorry for?” She didn’t wait on an answer. “Are you sorry Halford didn’t kill him? I know that’s what happened. I know he went up there with some fool idea that you put in his head. I know that’s a year of sobriety down the toilet because of this bullshit.”

  “Wait a minute, Kate. It’s bigger than that.”

  “Don’t use my name familiar. You don’t know me. Just get back in your car and dr
ive away. I’d tell you to stay away, but we both know that ain’t gonna happen, is it?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Get the hell off my property.”

  “All right, Mrs. Burroughs.” Holly moved to the driver’s side of the car and put his hand on the door. “You know,” he said, “the girl down at Lucky’s wanted to call you to come get him. I didn’t think you’d want that to play out in public.”

  “What do you want? A thank-you?”

  “Well, yeah,” he said. He kind of did.

  Kate’s hip swiveled out to the side on instinct. It showed off her curves even more, and Holly struggled to keep his attention on her eyes. She grabbed the rifle from where Clayton had propped it against the door and flung her hair back out of her face. “I want you to listen to me, Agent Holly. Can you do that? I mean really listen?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good, because I don’t plan on ever having to talk to you again. My husband is a good man—”

  “Mrs. Burroughs.”

  “You just said you could listen.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, he’s a good man and he’s a good sheriff—almost to a fault. He can handle himself and he’s capable of making his own decisions, but that doesn’t let you off the hook for planting the seed. Don’t think for a second that I won’t hold you just as accountable if anything like this happens again on your watch.”

  “My intentions here are to do this peacefully.”

  “Says the man whose face didn’t get pummeled today. I don’t care what your intentions are. I just want my husband to come home to me every night whole. Tonight is your one pass. But after tonight, if you get him hurt again, if anything happens to that man while he’s acting on your behalf, I don’t care who you are, or what your intentions were, you’re going to have to answer to more than just the Lord. Are we clear on that, Special Agent Holly?”

  Holly studied her resolve; this woman was a piece of work. She’d just threatened a federal agent and meant every word of it. Holly nodded, more in admiration than agreement. He opened the car door.

  “Holly, one more thing.”

  “What’s that, Mrs. Burroughs?”

  “Another thing about Clayton. Once he gets his mind set to something, there’s no stopping him until it’s run its course. Not until it’s done. So I’d be extremely careful what exactly you set him on.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Kate watched the twin red taillights fade to black before she gave her hands permission to shake.

  5.

  “I’m sorry, baby. It was a onetime thing. It won’t happen again.” Clayton was barely conscious, drifting off on their bed as he spoke. Kate covered him with the quilt and stroked his rust-colored hair. There was no point in trying to talk about anything now. Clayton waking up in his boots and dirty clothes with a monster hangover would have to be penance enough. She’d deal with the rest later.

  “It’s okay, Clayton. Get some rest.”

  Within seconds he was out, and the snoring began. He snored only when he drank. She stayed there, sitting on the bed, running her fingers through his hair for a few minutes more before getting up to put the rifle back in the gun cabinet. She walked into the kitchen and used her foot to slide a small wooden step stool out of the pantry and position it in front of the refrigerator. She stepped up, moved a few bottles of vitamins out of the way, and opened the high cupboard. She pulled out the bottle of bourbon. The bottle she wasn’t supposed to know about. She stepped down, opened another cabinet, and took out a rocks glass. Waterford crystal. Expensive. A wedding gift from some friend she’d drifted out of touch with years ago. She carried the whiskey and the glass to the front door, careful not to let the screen door creak and wake up Clayton. Like that would happen. He’d sleep through a hurricane right now. She sat down on the porch swing and held the bottle up to the moonlight. It was a little over half empty. A full two, maybe three, inches below the thin black pen mark she’d put on the back label. Last time she checked, it was at an inch. She closed her eyes and sat quiet, swinging there, listening to the mountain’s nightlife competing for the chance to sing her to sleep. She poured herself a drink and set the bottle down beside her. She held the glass for a long time, staring at it, rolling it between her palms before she finally poured it out on the porch and cried.

  CHAPTER

  16

  ANGEL

  1973

  1.

  Angel rested her forehead against the cool glass of the bus window. The tree line buzzed by in a blur of greens, browns, and reds. Every so often she tried to focus on a single point of interest and moved her head to break the blur, but there was nothing to see she hadn’t seen a hundred times before. She’d hitched every inch of this highway over the course of the past five years in an effort to escape her life, but always ended up headed back in this direction. She’d spent the last of the money the big black man from the hotel gave her on the bus ticket. If she had done what he told her and gone to a hospital, she might still have it all, but she didn’t. She went to Pepé, her pimp. It’s true what they say about young gullible women thinking their tormentors love them. Angel was walking, talking, battered proof. Pepé said he cared about her. Promised to take care of her. Swore to her no other man would put hands on her she didn’t want there. He told her hospitals led to uncomfortable questions, and that led to police, which led to jail. He would never let that happen to her. He’d protect her, and his protection was absolute. Except, his protection consisted of taking all her money, putting a needle full of opium in her arm, and getting a bunch of Hispanic yes-men to hold her down and shove her shoulder back in place while she drooled into a dirty sofa cushion. She didn’t remember all of it, just flashes of color, sweaty faces, and laughter. One of them, the one Pepé called El Cirujano, stitched up her face where that bastard from Georgia had cut her. She hadn’t pulled the gauze off to examine the damage. In fact, she’d avoided her reflection altogether since it all went down. Right now she was fine with never seeing her face again, but she knew something bad was festering under there. Pepé kept her doped up for God knows how long, relegated to the back room of that double-wide, until it dawned on him that nobody would want to fuck a skinny whore in her condition with a face that looked like raw hamburger. That’s when the dope stopped coming and the sick started. Almost two months she’d stayed cooped up in that shithole. She knew it would be just a matter of time before he’d kill her and have his boys toss her body in a dumpster somewhere. A far cry from the life she’d come out here for. She’d thought to stash one of the C-notes in the lining of her bra, and the first chance she got, she slid it under a corner of carpet. When the time came to bail, she took that money and the clothes she had on and climbed out the trailer window. She made a beeline to the bus station where Pepé had first scooped her up so many months ago and bought a ticket for the first bus home. Why didn’t she just go to the damn hospital? Why was she so stupid? Why was everyone else always right, and she got everything so terribly wrong? She moved her forehead around on the window, using up all the coolness of the glass, and closed her eyes. She knew going home was just the latest in her lifelong series of mistakes.

  2.

  The young man sitting next to Angel in the aisle seat fished a bag of peanuts from the rucksack on his lap. “You want some?” he asked, shaking the bag toward Angel. He was chubby in a man-child kind of way, with a full head of tightly curled brown hair. He wore blue jeans and a Florida State sweatshirt that sported the same Indian-head logo also embroidered on the rucksack. He was obviously in his twenties, but the rosy cheeks and chub made him look younger. He seemed nice enough, letting her have the window seat when she got on the bus, and, so far, he hadn’t mentioned the bandages on her face or the dirty denim shirt and sweat-stained tube top she was wearing. She could tell he was fighting it, but he’d managed to keep his eyes off her tits this whole time as
well, and she was thankful for it. She had caught him stealing glances at her bony white legs for the past few miles. She used to like being ogled. It made her feel pretty, but now it just made her feel ill.

  “No, thanks, I’m okay.”

  Florida State tucked the peanuts back into his bag and secured the flap, taking the time to buckle each strap.

  Can’t be too careful traveling with whores, she thought, and wished she’d taken the peanuts. She was starving.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, “but you look pretty hungry.”

  “I’m really not,” she lied. “My stomach’s a little knotted up this morning.”

  “You trying to get clean?” he said without skipping a beat, like he was asking about the weather or a local football score. Angel shifted herself toward the window and slowly angled her arms in an attempt to hide the blackened veins that road-mapped them.

  “It’s cool,” Florida State said. “I’m not judging or anything. I think it’s great you want to do better for yourself. I’m Hattie, by the way.” Hattie stuck out a pudgy hand for Angel to shake. She handled it like it was carved from dog shit.

  “I’m Angel.”

  “Nice to meet you, Angel. Are you headed home or leaving home?”

  “Going home.”

  “Cool. Cool. I got a buddy down in Pensacola getting married in a few days. I’m gonna hang out in the gulf and tan up a little before I hit the wedding.”

  Angel wanted to laugh. This guy had about as much of a chance of getting tanned up as she did getting her virginity back. She really didn’t care what Hattie’s plans were. She only wanted to sleep away the last hours of this trip and wake up in a brand-new but slightly less shitty situation. Hattie wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “You mind if I ask what happened to your face?”

  “Yes,” she said. It came out fast and sharp.