A Swollen Red Sun

by Matthew McBride

  “Well, damndest thing, Dale. Somebody found the poor old sumbitch out there by that gravel pile last night. At the junction of K ’n’ F.”

  Banks sat up in his chair. “Found him? What the hell you mean? He’s dead?”

  Herb threw his hands up. “No, no, he ain’t dead. Not yet anyway. Tough old fart. A car come up on him ’n’ his dog layin’ out in the middle of the road last night.”

  “In the middle of the road? What in God’s name you tellin’ me, Herb?”

  Herb shrugged. “Well, nobody knew what the hell to think at first. He liked ta got hit by a damn car, Dale. He’s just layin’ there. Out cold. Covered in blood from a head wound, his dog beside him. Somebody shot her dead.”

  “What?” Banks could not believe what he was hearing. “Hang on a minute here, Sheriff. Lemme get this straight. Olen Brandt was just layin’ in the highway with his dog beside him?”

  The sheriff shook his head and continued to shake it while Banks talked.

  “What the hell happened to him? Who shot his dog?”

  Sheriff Herb Feeler pulled a smoke loose from his pack and struck a wooden match against the zipper on his Wranglers.

  Banks took a dip of snuff.

  “Nobody knows what the hell happened, Dale. He sure as shit wasn’t makin’ any sense last night. But ’parently he’s come ’round OK. Turns out he was haulin’ a pretty big load of anhydrous yesterday evening and somebody jacked his truck.”

  Banks shook his head and spit into a Styrofoam cup. “Well, goddamn, Herb. Don’t that beat all?”

  “Never heard of that b’fore, but I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.”

  “What’d they do to him?” Banks asked.

  “Says he thinks he got outta the truck, but he can’t remember a damn thing after that. Hell, Dale, I don’t even know if he remembers steppin’ outta the truck. But somebody musta flopped him a good one at some point.”

  “And the sumbitches shot his dog?”

  “Killed her dead. Looked like she tried to protect him.”

  Banks stood and said he was going to talk to Olen. “I been deer huntin’ on his place since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

  Herb said that was a good idea. Go and talk to the old man. See what he remembered.

  Banks thought about the money he’d stashed at Olen’s and hoped he hadn’t gotten his friend involved. He made a list of suspects, and Olen’s kin was at the very top. A nephew Banks knew ran with Jerry Dean.

  If Banks was responsible for the old man’s condition, he would never forgive himself.

  He’d been hunting with Olen Brandt his whole life. Was a friend to Olen’s boys, Wade and Gil. Grew up at the farm and spent many summers there. Before Gil died, before he and Wade grew old enough to drift apart, until Dale was a policeman and Wade was an outlaw stealing from river cabins and parked cars.

  Banks had caught him once with stolen property and let him go. Told Wade he only got one pass. Last chance to change your life, he’d said. But Wade didn’t listen.

  A year later, he strong-armed a restaurant and fired a handgun. He did a good stretch in Algoa for that. Came out hard with a scar across his jaw. Said he’d changed. Started a tree-trimming business and turned his life around. But a few months later, he robbed a bait shop in a truck with his name painted on the door.

  Dale and Olen remained close. They shared a passion for the outdoors and continued to hunt and fish. They hunted with compound bows and shotguns and muzzleloaders.

  When Olen got too old to draw a bow, Banks bought him a crossbow and a new wave of excitement filled the old man. They hunted whitetail and turkeys. Trapped coon. Then Arlene got sick and everything changed.

  Wade got out of prison and worked construction. Did carpentry. But a nine-to-five job was not in the cards for Wade Brandt. One day, he and Duke McCray inhaled cans of whipped cream and robbed a gas station and a kid got shot.

  Olen and Arlene could not sit through Wade’s trial. A year later, she was dead, and Olen swore his son had killed her. When Arlene died, part of Olen Brandt went in the ground beside her, and a little piece of him died every day once she was gone.

  Hermann Hospital was an old square building made of ancient red brick that sat a stone’s throw north of old Highway 100. Banks went inside and found Olen Brandt staring out the window in a bed that was cranked up tall. He watched him through the doorway for a spell before he stepped inside. He loved that old man, and he was going to find those responsible. Banks had ideas about that. Hoped he was wrong, but doubted he was. He knew Olen had a nephew named Jackson Brandt just dumb enough to try this kind of thing.

  His knuckles rapped hard on the inside of the doorframe, and Olen startled.

  “Olen, it’s me. Dale Banks.”

  Olen shook his head and motioned for him to come in. He looked old and tired. Like he was ready to give up and call it a life.

  Banks reached down and set his hand on the old man’s leg. “You OK, old-timer?”

  Olen didn’t understand why he was still alive. Tom Cuddy was gone. So was Sandy. So was everybody. Last night, in the space of a half hour, he’d lost the only two things in this world he had left.

  Banks felt his pain. It resonated in the air like the frequency to a country station and Olen’s life belted out a heartbreak song.

  “I’m sorry, bud.”

  Olen nodded. Said he knew. If the old man cried, Banks would have to leave.

  “Can I get you anything? Soda pop? Shot of whiskey?”

  Olen said he just wanted to go home. He wasn’t about to die in some damn hospital.

  Banks gave him a grin. “You’re not gonna die, old buddy. You’re too dang ornery for that.”

  The old man tried to smile but couldn’t.

  “What do you know about last night, Olen? Who done this to you?”

  He thought hard, but told Dale he did not know. He saw an old Chevy come out of the woods like the devil was after it, but that’s the last thing he remembered.

  “Old Chevy?” Banks asked. “Think you can describe it?”

  Olen said it was dark, but he knew it was a Chevy. Something old. From the 1970s. “It was beat to hell on the outside.”

  Banks grinned and wrote. “Anything else?”

  Olen said no. All he knew was that it didn’t have a tailgate and the bed may have been blue. Or black. He said it happened fast. It was almost dark.

  Banks told him he’d done good. That was a hell of a lot to remember. Especially considering the whack he took.

  “Why’d they have to go ’n’ shoot my dog?” Olen’s eyes filled with a watery glaze. They bulged and strained, but they held. “I’da give ’em whatever it was they was after.”

  “Olen, I’m so sorry. I know you loved that dog.”

  “She was my wife’s dog.”

  Banks thought about things he needed to do around the farm. Outside jobs he could do with the boy. He had to take his mind off the old man and his ache. “I’m gonna find these sumbitches, Olen. I promise you.”

  “You need to hang ’em when you do.”

  Banks said he’d do his best. He hoped they’d resist, and at that moment, he meant it more than he didn’t.

  “I wanna go home.”

  Banks said he’d already spoken with the doctor. Olen would be free to leave in the evening. “I’m gonna get back to work and see if I can’t find these guys, OK? I’ll make sure I’m back up here by five sharp to pick you up, all right?”

  Olen thanked him and took his hand. His grip was strong.

  “Where’s she at?” he asked quietly.

  “I went out there before I came here and made sure she’s layin’ under a shade tree. I’ll go ’n’ pick her up right now ’n’ take her back to your place.”

  Olen said he was going, too.

  “No, you need to wait. Let me do this for you. A man shouldn’t hafta bury his own dog.”

  Olen let go and turned to look out the window. He watched a cardinal z
ip around, jumping from branch to twig. “Thank you,” he said.

  Banks said he was honored to do it and felt his throat tighten up. He nodded. Told Olen he had work to do. He’d be back at five. Banks left the room and walked down the hall and felt a strong urge for a chew.

  Hastings pulled up on the scene with caution and put his car in park. A domestic dispute between a felon and his wife at a trailer was the worst call he could imagine.

  He opened the door and climbed out and patted his sidearm without thinking. Just making sure it was there. Because that was a good habit. The kind of habit that forms over time. Especially with a teacher like Banks to make sure.

  Bo had been there before, at that mobile home. All of them had. Every deputy sheriff in Gasconade County had been to the trailer on Brockmeyer Road, and none of them volunteered to go back. It was a deputy’s worst nightmare. Remote, and parked on a dead-end road, so they always knew you were coming.

  Hastings stood beside his car and listened. The air smelled like burning trash. He thought about Banks. About what he would do if he were there. He would pull the chew from his pocket and thunk the lid with his finger and open it and withdraw a pinch and a half and stick the wad behind his lip and push it down with his tongue.

  Bo Hastings reached for the walkie-talkie on his shoulder and held the mic.

  “Gasconade Central, this is 109. Show me on location. Appears quiet at this time. I’m headed up to the front door.”

  “109, this is Gasconade Central. Let us know you need anything—case he gets outta hand.”

  “Gasconade Central, this is 109. Will do.”

  Hastings walked from the car and stood beside the driveway. What yard there was had once been dirt that became mud and was now sewage. There were planks of wood to step on and smaller patches of plywood that served as stepping stones. When Hastings, a solid kid with a broad back and wide shoulders, stepped on the first board, it sank a few inches and slid beneath his foot.

  “Looks like we got us a sewer problem, Officer,” Fish said, opening the door, trying to catch Hastings off guard, though he hadn’t.

  “Yeah, I thought I smelled shit,” Hastings said. A response that would have made Banks proud.

  Fish stepped onto the porch a little too quickly, and Hastings didn’t like it. He halted and stood his ground and threw his left hand up. “No, sir. You stop right there.” He flipped open his holster with his right hand.

  Fish stopped. “Oh, big man, gotta gun. Well you cain’t tell me what ta do in my own house.”

  Hastings’s jaw flashed muscle. “Listen here, fella, you’ll do whatever I tell ya. We gotta call from your wife. Said you beat her up. Now, where is she?”

  Fish snorted and his upper body jumped around, though his feet were planted firmly. “Oh, tough talk. Like I’m supposed to be scared of you.”

  Hastings took a step forward and pulled the mace from his other holster. “Don’t make me spray you, cuz I’m a pretty good shot.”

  Some cops missed, it happened—he’d seen it happen—but Hastings wouldn’t miss. He practiced. Banks taught him to hit a coffee filter held to a tree branch with a clothespin.

  “Where’s your wife?” Hastings yelled for her. “Raylene?”

  Fish moved quickly, angry and wired from crank. As he came at the deputy with all he had, Hastings fired a burst of mace, which thoroughly doused Fish’s face, exactly where Hastings aimed.

  Even with chemical in his eyes and nose and mouth, Fish charged him.

  But Bo Hastings prepared for it. Threw a forearm into the face of his assailant and tried to sidestep him.

  As they collided, Bo dropped the mace and spun toward Fish, grabbed him by the throat and held him. Fell to the ground and drove his knee into Fish’s chest. Heard a rib snap like a dead branch.

  Fish gasped and lost his wind, but Bo kept driving. Had to use momentum. Had to use everything he had until he could reach his gun. This was real life. It was happening, and the only thought in Hastings’s mind was survival. He brought down a hard left and struck Fish in the jaw, and Fish’s head snapped off the ground and he went limp.

  The deputy heaved himself off and went to stand but lost his footing in the sewage. Fell on his back. Fought for his breath, and with a gut instinct for survival, thought of Kenny’s wife, Raylene.

  If domestic violence had taught him anything, it was that no matter how badly she’d been beaten, as soon as she saw handcuffs, she, the wife, or the girlfriend—bloody and swollen-faced and blackened-eyed—would recant her story. Because, in the end, despite all they’d been put through, they still did what they could to protect them.

  So it would not surprise Hastings to look up and see her standing there with an ax or a shotgun. With tweakers high on dope, you never knew. Crank ruined people. Bo had seen it. Time and time again. Friends and neighbors and relatives. It took hold of them in ways they could not have imagined.

  Half the county was on dope. Every week, without fail, arrests were made for possession of product, or precursors, or attempt to manufacture.

  Hastings, buried in mud and shit, came to his knees and drew his weapon. Looked around with caution. Had to make sure Fisher’s wife hadn’t made a move.

  He crawled toward Fish and removed his cuffs and hooked them around each wrist. Clicked them. Sat down and took a deep breath, then picked up his mace and shook the can and sprayed it in Kenny’s face.

  Fish screamed, as much as he could, and gagged. Tried to roll over but couldn’t.

  Hastings stood and spun around. Still waiting for an ax-wielding wife or a shotgun-brandishing next-of-kin to confront him.

  Fish spit mud and mace from his mouth and threatened the kid.

  “You’re goin’ to jail, you dumb son of a bitch.”

  Fish kicked blindly at Bo and cursed him.

  Once he caught his breath and his heart rate slowed down—though it still had not returned to normal, probably wouldn’t for a half hour—Hastings called Gasconade Central and requested an ambulance.

  Then, because he deserved it, he kicked Fish in the ribs that weren’t broken and sat down on the hood and waited.

  Jackson Brandt woke up with a shotgun in his mouth.

  Banks jammed the metal pipe between Jackson’s teeth. “Wake up, cocksucker.”

  Jackson’s eyes were white moons covered in red veins. He could not speak, though he tried.

  “Don’t talk, just listen.”

  Jackson shook his head up and down.

  “You’re a dog turd on the bottom of my work boot, boy. You ain’t nothin’ but trash to me. You understand that? Cuz it’s real important to me you understand that.”

  Jackson tried to stay calm, but the tube was in his mouth. He tried to talk, and the cop shoved the barrel deep into the back of his throat. It felt like he was dying.

  “You understand what I’m sayin’?”

  Jackson nodded. His eyes watered. Banks worked the stock back and forth until Jackson puked into the barrel and it ran back down in his mouth.

  “I am a God-fearin’ man, Jackson Brandt. Yes, I am. And because I’m a God-fearin’ man, I know it is my sworn duty to eliminate shit bags like you and make this world a better place for my kids.”

  Jackson did his best to say no and shook his head.

  “I’m gonna ask you a question—and if you lie to me, I’ll blow your throat out through the back of your head.”

  Jackson screamed into the gun barrel and cold puke bubbles seeped from the barrel and ran down his cheeks into his ears.

  “I know what you’re thinkin’, boy. I’m a cop, so I won’t do it. But lemme tell you somethin’, son. Take a good look at this gun. This is your gun.”

  Jackson tried to turn his head. His eyes looked to his left, to the corner, where his 20-gauge was supposed to be.

  “You lie to me and you’re just another white trash bum who ate a shotgun.”

  Jackson tried to speak, but he was choking. He begged the deputy with his eyes.


  “Don’t you lie to me.”

  Jackson could not breathe. He swore with his nods and his gestures.

  Banks removed the shotgun and words began to spew from Jackson’s mouth along with a burst of vomit. “It was Jerry Dean that done it. It was Jerry Dean, man. I swear. If you’s gonna shoot somebody, shoot him.”

  “Was Jerry Dean done what?”

  And with that, Jackson was alarmed. Did his best to proceed with caution.

  Was there a cop in his room because of Fish, or because of Jerry Dean? Or maybe it was the prison guard who got busted—not that he should know about him, but sometimes Jackson heard things. Some things he remembered; some things he forgot. But he had not survived the game for as long as he had by talking to police and answering questions.

  Banks asked again. “What about Jerry Dean?”

  “It … it was Jerry Dean Skaggs took my uncle’s truck and shot his dog, man… . It was him. Honest. I didn’t want no part of it, man, I swear.”

  Jackson sat up, tried to catch his breath. He pointed to his bottom lip, the wound from Jerry Dean’s fist still mending. “He done this, too.”

  Banks reached down and slammed Jackson in the mouth with a straight right and his lip busted open.

  Jackson screamed, “You sumbitch, why’d you hit me? Ah, goddamn, that hurts!”

  “I ain’t even asked you a question yet, dipshit.”

  Jackson rolled onto his side. “If that ain’t what you wanna know, then why the hell’re you here?”

  “I was just gonna ask about that ridin’ mower you got for sale out there in your mama’s yard.” Banks threw the shotgun at Jackson and bounced the stock off his head. “Get up, you piece of shit.”

  “Ouch! You … this is bullshit, man. This is police brutality. I know my rights.”

  “You don’t know shit.”

  “You pulled a gun on me, man. You coulda kilt me.”

  “The gun ain’t even loaded, you dummy.”

  Jackson moaned and cried, and Banks flipped the cap on his holster.

  “But this gun here, this one is loaded, fucknuts, and I’ll drop you where you lay and say you pulled on me. Different scenario, same result. Now get your ass outside. You’re comin’ with me.”