by Steph Post
“No, you listen. I can’t help you with Tulah. But I can tell you what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna get in your car, and you’re gonna turn around and you’re gonna leave me and my family alone, do you understand?”
“Ramey, I mean it. I’m not threatening you. I’ll make sure you’re all granted immunity, whatever you want. Just help me out here, okay? Help me. I’m asking.”
Clive knew that he sounded desperate. No, he sounded pathetic, just as he had earlier on the phone with Lopez. It made him sick. He made himself sick. Clive kicked savagely at the clump of grass, but when he looked back up at Ramey, he saw something in her eyes. Something. The flicker of a waver? It wasn’t disgust and it wasn’t pity, as he had been expecting to see. It was, maybe, uncertainty? Her jaw was clenched, but no longer out of anger. When she spoke, her words were softer, but they still held the same finality.
“Agent Grant, you need to go. Now. Understand? You need to go.”
Ramey began to turn away from him, but hesitated. She seemed to be waiting for him to do the same. But he had seen it, that second of doubt on her face.
“Ramey, just hear me…”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of movement. Clive didn’t see the man, only the gun, and he crashed into Ramey, slamming her down into the dirt. He had heard the shot, and then the cacophony of ones that followed, but the first one stuck with him, one long, shattering note that seemed to go on forever. He had twisted when he fell and the whole world above him was caught up in shadows. The shadow of a tree limb, the shadow of a cloud, the shadow of the sun, the shadow of a bird, sweeping gently over him, ascending on outstretched wings. Clive listened to the sound of that single bullet, its echo still resonating in his ears, reverberating now somewhere in his chest, and he knew. He would be a shadow now, too.
ALL HELL was breaking loose. Shelia had been standing at the edge of the living room window, cigarette in hand, while keeping an eye on Ramey and reporting her progress with the ATF agent back to Judah and Benji. She screamed when she heard the first gunshot and saw both Ramey and the agent hit the ground. More shots followed, coming from both the front and back of the house, and then there was the shattering of glass, but Shelia stayed crouched down by the window. Judah was behind her, yelling his head off at Alvin and Gary to get to the back, and Benji had grabbed her ankle and was trying to drag her behind the couch for cover, but Shelia watched for Ramey. The agent had flopped on his back and wasn’t moving, but Ramey was scuttling on her knees and elbows, trying to stay low and make it around the car. Shelia waited until she could see Ramey hunched down behind the wheel well, trapped, but alive, before she let Benji pull her behind the couch.
“Jesus Christ!”
She got to her knees just in time to catch the shotgun Judah tossed in her arms. He pointed to Benji, sprawled out awkwardly beside her.
“You stay with him, you hear? You stay with him!”
Judah was out the front door before she could say anything. Shelia turned to Benji, now struggling to get to his feet with a rifle gripped in one hand. Shelia jammed her shoulder up into his armpit and he braced himself against her. He was trying to get to the window.
“For the love of God…”
Benji let go of her long enough to smash one of the window panes with the stock of the rifle. He jammed the barrel through the hole in the glass and turned to her.
“Just shut up already and cover me.”
JUDAH CROUCHED down behind the porch steps and realized that he was about to make an impossible decision. To his left, not twenty yards away, was Ramey, pinned behind the Aveo, without a weapon or a way to run. He could see her, but he couldn’t get to her. The windows above her had been shattered by bullets coming from two men with assault rifles at the edge of the woods. Ramey’s hair was dusted with glass and her face was streaked with dirt. He had to look away; there was so much fear behind her wide, wet eyes.
Ahead of Judah, also at the edge of the woods, but closer to him, was Weaver. He stood stock-still like a golem waiting to be brought to life, his hands at his sides, one fist clenched and the other gripping a gun, until suddenly he grinned at Judah. A savage, inhuman smile. The smile of one who has come to slaughter. Weaver raised his hand and the shooting from the two men further down the tree line abruptly ceased. Weaver was waiting and Judah understood.
He turned back to Ramey. Did she? Ramey was panting and holding her already injured wrist to her chest, but she raised her head up. Everything was there, as it always had been, and at least he could take those eyes with him. She nodded once and mouthed the word.
“Go.”
Judah nodded back and turned to Weaver. The man’s smile fell and he turned tail, disappearing into the woods. Judah followed.
The underbrush snagged his clothes and whipped at his face and hands, but Judah charged headlong, crashing through the stands of palmettos and dodging around scrub pines and turkey oaks as he kept Weaver barely in view. Weaver’s men hadn’t fired when Judah crossed the yard, but now he could hear gunshots again. He tried not to think about Ramey, trapped behind the car, or the others still in the house. Judah kept his eyes on the black flap of hair he could see flashing through the trees ahead. Weaver was the only one who mattered.
Weaver had a lead on him, but Judah knew he was gaining. Weaver was limping, at times staggering against the trees, but Judah couldn’t get a clear shot. He fired off three rounds, but they all went wide. A tangle of kudzu snagged him and for a moment Judah was caught up as he tore at the vine, trying to wrench himself free. When he looked up, Weaver was gone.
Judah ran into the small clearing just ahead of him and frantically spun in a circle, searching in all directions.
“Weaver!”
Judah stopped for a moment, listening. The gunshots coming from the house had ceased and now he could hear only the hum of insects, the screaming calls of birds and his own ragged breath. Judah turned in a circle again, the .45 held out in front of him, but he wasn’t fast enough. He heard the crash through the palmettos behind him at the same moment as he felt the blow to the back of his head. Judah dropped to the ground like a stone.
He was disoriented for a moment and realized, as he rolled and pushed himself to his knees, that the .45 had been slung from his hand in the fall. Judah lurched to his feet, his fists clenched against the throbbing pain in his head and neck, to face the man pointing a Beretta straight at him. If Judah was going to die, he was going to die on his feet. Weaver coughed out a wheezing laugh. He was without a shirt, but wrapped around the waist and chest with bandages. Blood was seeping through the gauze wrapped over the bullet wound in his shoulder and Judah smiled bleakly at this. That was where Ramey must have shot him. Good for her. He could see where she had scratched his face pretty badly, too. His right ear was taped up with more gauze and even just standing, he was favoring one leg. Weaver laughed again and spat at Judah’s feet.
“Well, those girls made a mess of me, huh? I’m a regular Egyptian mummy standing here. But they couldn’t quite finish me off.”
Judah didn’t say anything. He was trying to lift his head up all the way, trying to stand up tall in front of the man about to kill him. Weaver’s face darkened.
“Maybe you thought you’d be the one to do it?”
Judah looked Weaver in the eye. His voice was steady.
“Yes.”
Weaver laughed again. A dispassionate, merciless laugh, and Judah swayed but kept his feet under him. He was not going to fall. Weaver would have to put him down.
“Well, I’m not sure how well that’s going to work out now, all things considered…”
The shot came from behind Judah and barely missed Weaver, but it was enough. Weaver turned his head as the bullet whizzed past and Judah lunged forward, tackling him to the ground. They rolled over one another and Weaver ended up on top, crushing Judah with his weight. Weaver was trying to bring his arms up between them, to get the gun to where he could aim, but Judah reached aroun
d and pounded his fist into Weaver’s back, right where Shelia had already stabbed him. Judah could see the shock come over Weaver’s face, and as his body went slack for a moment, Judah wedged his arm between them and jammed his knuckles into the man’s bullet wound. Weaver thrashed backward, half-howling, half-snarling, and Judah kicked hard, finally twisting around so that Weaver flipped and Judah was on top of him. Weaver was still clutching the Beretta and he brought it around to try to shoot Judah in the side, but Judah knocked his arm back and reached for his own .45, caught in the damp, fallen leaves and slippery pine needles. He got his fingers around the gun and, even as Weaver bucked beneath him, lashing his head back and forth, Judah was able to bring the barrel around to Weaver’s temple. He didn’t stop for a dramatic pause, he didn’t look into Weaver’s eyes, he didn’t say a word. Judah pulled the trigger and was done with it.
What was left of Weaver’s head fell backward onto the mess of blood and leaves, and Judah rolled off of Weaver’s body. He lay heaving and panting, staring up at the canopy of tree branches and the bright sun filtering down over him. Judah caught his breath and waited for Ramey to come out of the woods, lay down her gun beside him and put her hands on either side of his face, pressing her forehead to his.
Judah waited, but Ramey didn’t come to him. He listened, but the woods were quiet again and Judah sat up in a panic, his head throbbing, his chest still heaving.
“Jesus Christ, little brother. You gonna lay there all day like sleeping beauty or what?”
Eyes wide, almost uncomprehending, Judah staggered to his feet and clasped the outstretched hand of Levi Cannon.
Felton raised his head and squinted up into the searing, white firmament. He did not see the lowering sky or the compass of sparrows wheeling above him. He saw only God.
“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”
Felton whispered under his breath as he lifted his feet high to step over the nubs of cypress knees breaking through the skin of brackish water surrounding him. He steadied himself on the long tupelo branch he had cut down into a staff and continued to mutter.
“Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
The mud sucked at his shoes and legs, and the insects tore at his hands and face, but he did not feel their sting.
“Every valley shall be exalted.”
He stumbled on a root underneath the water and his pack swung heavily to one side, but he caught himself. Felton continued.
“And every mountain and hill shall be made low.”
On either side of the shallow waterway, cypress trees shrouded in Spanish moss rose up around him, but their canopy didn’t quite cover his path and the bare skin on Felton’s balding head was already blistering in the unforgiving sun. This, he did not feel either.
“And the crooked shall be made straight.”
A white heron swooped down in front of him and landed on a half-submerged rotting log, but Felton did not see it.
“And the rough places plain.”
The air echoed with the sound of woodpeckers drilling into trees, and somewhere in the distance was the faint bellow of an alligator, but Felton did not hear it.
“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.”
He did not smell the tannins in the water or the rotting vegetation. He did not hear the songbirds. He did not feel the sweat. He did not see the swamp, stretching endlessly ahead of him for forty miles, leading him up into Georgia.
“And all flesh shall see it together.”
Felton did not know where he was going, but it was no matter. God would guide him. The right hand of the Lord, the pale serpent in the sky, would deliver him. Felton had listened. He had risen. And now he would wander, until the time was right, until his spirit was broken and reborn. Until he was called again.
“For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.”
THE SHOOTING had stopped, but Ramey stayed crouched down behind the Aveo’s front tire until Benji opened the front door, holding a rifle over his head like a goddamn trophy. He shouted across the yard to her.
“We got ’em, Ramey!”
Ramey shouted back to him.
“What?”
Benji hobbled out the door. Shelia, behind him, handed him his crutch and he stumped over to the porch railing.
“The men shooting at you. I got one of them, and the other ran off down the driveway.”
Ramey cautiously stood up and looked around the yard. Aside from the two dead men, one of them the ATF agent who she had to quickly look away from, it was empty.
“I heard shots coming from somewhere else.”
Alvin, supporting Gary, stumbled through the door and collapsed on the porch swing. Gary had a bloody dishtowel pressed hard to his side, but he seemed to be okay. He was grinning like a lunatic, at any rate.
“Taken care of! We got the two who were out back.You’re gonna need a new rug in the laundry room, though. There’s a mess of blood all over the floor.”
Were they all insane? Or just high on survival? Ramey slowly walked across the yard.
“And Judah?”
Everyone’s face suddenly fell. Ramey charged up the porch and grabbed the rifle Benji had stood against the railing. He reached for her arm, trying to stop her.
“What are you doing?”
She pulled free of him.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going after him.”
Ramey turned to Alvin, who was already on his feet, reloading. Benji tried to stop her again.
“You don’t know what happened. You can’t just run out into the woods after Judah. We got his guys, but Weaver could still be out there.”
Ramey pushed past him.
“Exactly.”
She started down the porch steps, but drew up short when she heard branches snapping loudly and then caught the flash of Judah’s white T-shirt as he emerged from the woods. There was blood on his neck and collar, but from the way he was walking, forcefully, purposefully, he didn’t appear to be hurt. And there was someone coming out of the trees behind him. She raised her hand to her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
“Levi?”
Benji cried out from behind her as he stumped down the steps. Judah and Levi came up to stand in front of the porch and Benji pounded his oldest brother on the back.
“It’s you. Jesus Christ, man. Where you been for the past three months?”
Levi shrugged his broad shoulders and shook his head.
“It’s a long story. A very long story. But I’m here now.”
Ramey narrowed her eyes at Levi and noticed that he avoided looking in her direction. The last time she had seen him, he was beating the shit out of Judah in the back parking lot of The Ace. And she had pointed a gun at him to make him stop. She turned to Judah, looking for a sign, but he was ignoring his brothers. He was staring hard up at Ramey as he stepped onto the bottom stair. She crossed her arms and met his eyes.
“Weaver?”
“Dead.”
Judah slowly looked around him, as if seeing everyone for the first time, and Ramey realized that perhaps he was, in a way. There was something changed about him. His eyes. The set of his mouth. The way his gaze lingered on Shelia at one end of the porch and Alvin and Gary at the other, as if assessing their worth. Their place. And the way he looked at her. Not as his girl. Not as his woman. But as his queen. A sharpness stole into Ramey’s heart, at once thrilling and terrifying. It was sealed; things would never be the same.
Judah trudged up the steps and slid his arm around her waist. He pressed his head against her collarbone for a moment and then continued to the next step above her. She reached out and grabbed his wrist.
“Judah. What now?”
He turned around and stared out at the mess with her. Agent Grant’s body still lay where it had fallen. There was another dead man sprawled in the dirt about halfway down the driveway and Ramey supposed that Weaver’s body was still somewhere in the woods
. Judah’s smile was grim.
“We take care of this. We move forward. We keep going.”
Judah dropped his eyes to Ramey.
“Because this is who we are.”
Ramey understood, and she echoed him, but she still wasn’t sure that she believed him.
“This is who we are.”
SISTER TULAH recognized the handwriting on the outside of the envelope. The childish block letters spelled out the recipient of its contents: Attn: ATF Special Agent Clive Grant. She stared at it, creased down the middle from where The Pines manager had folded it to stick in his shirt pocket. Tulah had already checked the back, when the greasy little manager had handed the envelope to Tulah through the window of her Navigator it had still been sealed.
The envelope now sat squarely on the thick leather blotter in the center of her desk. She settled herself comfortably in her oxblood chair and clicked the green-shaded lamp on. The bottle of Mithridatium was gone, replaced now by stacks of file folders and ledgers. The Recompense was over. It was time to get back to business. Sister Tulah took up her silver letter opener and slit the side of the envelope. She tapped the pages out and carefully unfolded them. It was as she had feared. And worse.
The list of transgressions was long, going back to the early nineties. There were dates, names and estimated dollar amounts. Locations. Transactions. Quotations. Most were accurate, some were not, but it was enough to put her and about twenty other people in prison for life. The last page was signed, swearing all of the information to be true. The signature, scrawling almost off the page, cauterized itself into Sister Tulah’s mind.
Felton. She had never confided in him, not once, but what she held in her hand was more than a decade’s worth of eavesdropping and snooping. Listening at closed doors. Scurrying about, with his head down. His tail between his legs. All the while, remembering. Tulah had not thought he had it in him: a backbone for betrayal.
She folded the pages and slid them back into the envelope. Tulah would decide what to do with them later. She would decide what to do with Brother Felton later. The Elders had been searching for him since the previous night, but so far there was no word. No trace. It was as if he had vanished. Sister Tulah would find him, though. She would find him and she would skin him. She would cut him into a thousand pieces like the snake that he was and she would trample the remains into the dust.