by Jeff Carson
A beat-up Ford F-150 that Wolf recognized as Ethan Womack’s was parked pointing west, as if it had driven up the county road from Highway 734. Greg’s newer-model Chevy pickup pointed east, so that the two trucks were nose to nose.
A blue tank stood against the wall of the shack next to the entrance. Judging by the smell in the still air, it contained gasoline, which was good for a family of psychos who liked their revenge served well done.
“Inside,” Barker said as they reached the exterior of the building.
How did Ethan Womack fit into this? As Wolf walked closer to the structure, he figured he’d learn that in a matter of seconds.
Come on, cavalry.
The silhouette of a large man holding a pistol loomed in the shack entrance. Then as Wolf got closer, the face came out of shadow and he recognized the toothy grin of Peter Barker, otherwise known by his self-proclaimed nickname of “Peat,” in reference to the partially decayed organic matter used for fuel and pulled from bogs in his homeland of Ireland.
“Little Davy Wolf. How nice to see you.” Peat’s smile disappeared and he looked past him. “What the hell was that shot I heard?”
“I had to get this guy moving,” Barker said.
“I called you to make sure you were okay.”
“I never got the call.” Barker reached down and twisted a knob on a radio on his belt. “Oh, yeah, forgot to turn it back on. Didn’t want this asshole hearing me.”
Peat shook his head. “Your dad’s not responding to my calls or the radio.”
“I’ll try him.”
Peat waved Wolf inside with a silver semi-auto pistol while Barker put the radio to his mouth. “Dad, come in.”
“Peat,” Wolf said, nodding.
“Come see your little buddy. I think he’s conscious.” Peat grabbed a water bottle from a workbench and, keeping his gun trained on Wolf, poured it onto a formless pile of blankets resting on the hay.
When the bundle didn’t move, Peat pulled back the fabric, revealing Rachette’s pale, naked form. He poured some more, and this time the water splashed on his face.
Rachette remained perfectly still.
Wolf stepped into the hay next to his detective and knelt. He put a hand on his forehead and felt intense heat. Better than the alternative, he thought.
Rachette’s hands were tied in front with rope. Crusted blood painted his torso and the finger wound oozed pus through a makeshift bandage. A fecal–urine stench rose to meet Wolf’s nose.
Peat backed away and waved a hand. “Whew. Well, he’s not looking too good. Probably something to do with the infection in his pinkie—sorry, where the pinkie used to be.” Peat laughed and it sounded like someone shoveling rocks.
Wolf took Rachette’s wrist and felt a weak and slow pulse. He pulled the blankets back up and glared at Peat.
“Awwww, poor guy’s hurt, huh? Well, he’ll be fuckin’ dead like you and that little bitch in no time. Where they at?” he asked Barker.
Barker held up his radio. “They’re not answering.”
Peat tossed the bottle at Wolf and Wolf blocked it without breaking eye-contact.
Peat seemed entertained and began to laugh, but his mirth turned into a coughing fit.
“Jesus, old man,” Barker said, “you have to quit smoking.”
Peat raised a middle finger.
In the corner, next to the workbench, stood a thin man watching in silence. He was dressed in ratty jeans and a black winter coat zipped to his chin. On his head was a winter cap pulled low over his ears.
Wolf recognized him as Ethan Womack. He had the same blue eyes as his brother, although Ethan’s held less fire.
“Ethan,” Wolf said.
“Yeah,” Peat said. “Our new friend Ethan. Come on. Say hi, Ethan.”
Ethan stood unmoving, his shoulders slumped. His wrists were cuffed together and attached to a chain fastened to the workbench. His prominent brow was fixed in a relaxed position and he stared, unblinking, at Peat.
“Chatty guy,” Peat said, hitching a thumb and shaking his head. “Guy was armed to the teeth when we found him. Wearing a flak jacket and had a fifty-cal sniper rifle in his truck. That and this Kimber 1911.” Peat displayed the silver pistol in his hand. “You’re lucky we stopped him before he got to you, Davy.”
Wolf narrowed his eyes and looked at Barker, who was now standing inside with the rifle on his shoulder. “What is this?”
“This guy was following you for days.” Barker hitched a thumb to Ethan. “I saved you. You’re welcome.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to get it,” Peat said. “But you move and I shoot you in the head. Get that? Now sit next to your friend and shut up.”
Rachette’s head lolled as Wolf sat down next to him.
“Call him on his phone,” Peat said to Barker.
“I don’t have reception.”
Peat pulled out a cell and dialed. “Worthless, you know that? Jesus, one bar. Reception’s a joke.”
“Yeah, well, we are at twelve thousand five hundred feet, so.” Barker shook his head and looked at Wolf as if to say, can you believe this guy?
“I’m not getting them,” Peat said. “Either of them.”
The cavalry, Wolf thought, this time letting the hope fill him.
“Like you said, reception’s shit. They’ll come when they come.”
“No, it’s ringing.” Peat eyed his nephew. “They’re not answering.”
“It’s ringing on your end. Who knows? … they’re probably busy tying her up, or scraping her dead body off the ground or something.” Barker winked at Wolf.
Wolf caught movement in the corner of the shack and they all looked.
Ethan Womack had come out to the front of the workbench, and Peat and Barker turned toward him.
“Hey, there. What’s going on?” Peat asked, lowering his phone and putting it in his pocket.
“I have to …” Ethan’s eyes shifted back and forth. “… have to pee.” He looked like a child trying to lie about eating the last cookie.
Barker and Peat exchanged a glance.
“What do you think?” Barker asked.
“I think the screwing around is over, that’s what I think. Let’s get this show on the road.” Peat raised his pistol and pulled the trigger.
There was a click.
Ethan crossed his hands in front of his face and took a step back.
Peat nonchalantly racked the pistol slide. Aimed it again.
“No, wait!” Barker yelled.
Peat shot Ethan in the chest.
Wolf closed his eyes as Ethan flew back like he’d been kicked by a horse. Through the ringing in his ears he heard Ethan crumple on the ground. When he opened his eyes, Peat’s pistol was aimed at him.
“Wait a minute.” Barker raised Peat’s aim. “Stop! You’ve already screwed this up. How many times do we have to go over this? If we want to make it look like Ethan and Wolf got in a shootout, then why would Wolf have shot Ethan with Ethan’s gun?”
Peat creased his forehead and lowered the weapon. “I don’t know. So they switched guns somehow. Got in a fist fight and ended up with each other’s guns. Boom. Shot each other. They’re gonna be fried to a crisp.”
“You’re dumber than a cow.”
“Okay, so give me Wolf’s gun.”
“How about you pull the chains off this corpse and I’ll take care of the rest of this, okay, old man?”
“Suit yourself.” Peat crouched down next to Ethan. “He’s still breathing.”
Barker looked annoyed at the news. “I’ll take care of it. Get the fucking chains off.”
Barker pulled Wolf’s pistol from his paddle holster and stepped forward. His eyes were calm pools of hate, and there was zero hesitation in his movements as he raised the weapon.
“And what about the cow you shot up there?” Wolf asked the first question that popped into his mind, then kept talking. “How are you going to deal with that cow carca
ss with your bullet lodged in it? They’re going to find that.”
Barker nodded. “That’s a good point. Thank you, Chief. I’ll have to deal with that.”
“When? During or after this place is sky-high in flames? A big fire like this one’s gonna draw attention. You’d better deal with that cow first.”
Barker laughed. “Or I could just shoot you, then go deal with it, and then set you guys on fire.”
Wolf swallowed.
There was a squeak outside, and then the sound of an engine with crackling tires.
Barker lowered the gun. “There they are. You know what? I’d rather you and Patterson experience this together.”
Peat walked to the door with an armload of silver chains. “Let’s get her in here and get this done. Is he serious about the cow?”
Barker nodded absently, looking like he’d just been pulled out of a dream.
“Then we’re going to have to haul it out. We’re supposed to be down at the ranch, ignorant of all this, not up here shooting cows at the same time it went down. You’re worried about whose gun killed who, and you’re leaving bullets in cow carcasses? Like you said, those forensic guys can figure—”
“All right!” Barker pointed his pistol at his uncle. “Just go get her.”
Peat smiled with something that looked like pride and disappeared through the doorway.
“What the fuck?” Peat said.
CHAPTER 43
“Huhhhh … huhhhh …”
The guy’s moaning had gone past the point of making Patterson uneasy. Now her sanity wavered.
“Shut up!”
Like a snoring man woken briefly, he stopped and started again. “Huhhhh …”
She’d left one man dead on the side of the road three miles back, and as if the horror of that wasn’t enough, now her failed attempt at murder sat in an unnatural position next to her. Every bump in the road drove him closer to death.
Twice she’d retched, and the more noise this guy made, the stronger her urge to vomit.
“Huhhhh …”
That was it. She stopped and heaved out the door until there was nothing left. She sucked in deep breaths while the cool air dried the sweat on her forehead. By the time she’d pulled herself back inside and shut the door, she was a new woman.
Now she let the anger flow through her again. Let this man suffer. They’d both gotten what was coming to them. And if Greg Barker and Ethan Womack were up here with Rachette, they’d get what they deserved, too.
The dash clock read 11:39 p.m. Did that mean Wolf was twenty-one minutes from an ambush one valley over? Would Rachette be in the shed?
She was above the tree line now and the road finally swung to the north. Remembering the aerial view of the road, she knew she was close. A mile, maybe less.
One positive in this otherwise abysmal situation struck her: before his head had been mushed, the man had taken a phone call and said, “I have her. I’ll be up there in a few minutes.” Or something to that effect.
When she’d tried to figure out who’d called him, his phone had been locked with a PIN. But the fact remained, whoever he’d spoken to was expecting him in this truck with her as a prisoner, which meant she had the element of surprise.
She drove over a rise and saw light in the distance. Two pickup trucks were parked nose to nose, one of which she recognized as Ethan Womack’s old Ford F-150. The other looked like Greg Barker’s newer ridiculously lifted and tricked-out pickup. The light she saw poured out of a shack next to the vehicles.
Getting her bearings, she gazed north to a barren ridge. Wolf would be on the other side. Which meant someone had to be over there waiting for him. Maybe they’d even moved Rachette there.
“Huhhhhh …”
She pictured a fifty-caliber sniper rifle being pointed at her right now and decided: so be it. It would put her out of her misery.
Leaning into the windshield, she let off the gas and coasted the big pickup down the final stretch, keeping a sharp eye on the doorway and the newly acquired pistol in her right hand.
She got closer, and then closer still, until she could’ve thrown the pistol and hit the door.
She clicked on the high beams, so anyone trying to look through the windshield would be blasted with light, and got out.
Rounding the back of the truck, she saw a white-bearded man exit the shed with his head down.
She stood still at the tailgate and watched him through the windows.
He tossed something on the ground and it clanked. Then he squinted into the headlights and put a hand to his face. He walked to the passenger door and ripped it open.
Patterson moved fast around the back of the truck and raised the gun.
“What the fuck?” Cormack Barker spilled out onto the white-bearded man. “Cormack!” He struggled to lower him to the ground. “Cormack … where’s Shamus? What happened to—”
“Freeze right there,” Patterson said, pointing the gun.
The man swiveled around fast.
She took a step back and leveled on his center mass. “Shamus is dead. I killed him. And I’ll kill you next if you move.”
A movement near the doorway to the shack caught her eye. Greg Barker leaned out, pointing a gun at her.
CHAPTER 44
Wolf heard desperation in Peat’s voice through the thin wall of decayed wood. Then he heard Patterson.
The sound reached Barker’s ears at the same time, and he snapped out of his reverie and inched his way to the door with the Glock poised to fire.
With each step Barker took, Wolf was pulled with him, his muscles tensed to spring. And then Barker forgot the world inside the shack and ducked out the doorway.
Wolf ran at full speed, tackling him just as the pistol went off.
CHAPTER 45
Patterson’s hand exploded in pain as her pistol spun to the ground.
She bent down to pick it up and hesitated. Shock overcame her at the sight of her left thumb. It was bent back and bleeding profusely—the muscle fibers underneath the skin of her palm exposed.
A boot filled her vision and connected with her face, and then she was eating dirt.
Blinking, she came to and searched frantically for the pistol on the ground. She found it, pointing at her face. “Get up!”
She got up and swayed, then tumbled to the ground as the man pulled her. A sharp, metallic blow hit her in the back of the head and warmth flowed down her neck.
She lay still, listening to grunting and shuffling accompanied by the occasional slap of fist on flesh.
A few moments later, she realized that Wolf and Barker were fighting, wrestling on the ground near the open doorway to the shack.
Barker was on top, raining savage blows onto Wolf’s face. He was a much bigger man and she knew the odds were against her former boss. But then again, she’d seen Wolf do the impossible before.
On cue, Wolf caught Barker’s fist and must’ve dug into a pressure point because Barker howled in pain and rolled sideways.
Wolf landed a few punches.
Kill him! she thought with gritted teeth.
The two separated and stood.
Barker wiped blood off his lip, put up his fists and bounced on his toes.
“Yee-haw!” The man with the white beard fired a shot in the air. “Okay, this is what I’m talking about!” He looked down at Patterson and stomped kicked her.
She’d suffered broken ribs before and knew the pain it brought. She had no doubt that bone had just been cracked near her armpit.
“Let’s go, bitch!” Greg said to Wolf, slapping his own chest.
Wolf dove at him and they circled toward Patterson, then behind her and towards the back of the shed.
Turning would cause more pain than she could bear so she rested her head on the ground and listened. She heard more blows, more feet shuffling, more taunts from White Beard, and the sound of Greg Barker gaining confidence with each fist connecting with flesh.
Barker grunted one last
time as he landed another hit, and then there was nothing but the sound of his heavy breathing.
The man with the beard was back near the truck, examining Cormack. “He’s hurt bad. We have to take him to the hospital.”
“Yeah? And how’s that gonna go down?” Barker said between quick breaths. “We need a private doctor.”
Patterson heard footsteps, and then Greg grabbed her by the hand and dragged her. A whimper escaped her lips. It felt like the sharp edges of broken ribs were cutting tissue inside of her.
“What did you do to him? What did you do to my dad?”
She resisted telling him she’d just run over his ass with a few thousand pounds of Acura. The guy didn’t need more goading into a dark place. He was already there and Patterson didn’t like the looks of it.
Barker dragged her through the doorway and up onto a lump of blankets resting on hay. “It’s time to have a bonfire.”
The blankets stirred, and she realized Rachette was underneath them.
A few seconds later, Barker and his uncle came in carrying Wolf. They dropped him next to her and backed up.
“All right. Let’s finish this right now,” Barker said. “First thing’s first. I’m gonna blow Wolf’s head off, and I want you to watch it.”
Barker studied her. She was lying on her side, facing in the opposite direction to Wolf.
“Turn around so you can watch.”
“Go fuck yourself.” The act of talking punch her ribs with pain again.
Barker bent down and grabbed her by the hair, flipped her over, and dropped her so she faced Wolf.
He stared up with vacant eyes. Both his lips were split and oozing blood while his jaw wriggled side to side.
“Where’s Ethan?” White Beard’s voice was frantic.
Barker twisted. “What?”
With Barker on his heels, White Beard walked to the doorway. When he stopped, the two men collided.
“Move it! Get out there an—”
A boom rocked the interior of the shack, like someone had cupped their hands and slapped Patterson’s ears.
The two men’s heads exploded and she closed her eyes as warm flesh hit her like shrapnel.