Death is Not Forever (Barefield Book Book 3)

by Trey R. Barker

  Jim Dell’s shirt, his jeans, even his boots, were bloody. His arm ended just below the shoulder, wrapped up and tied off. The blood had dried brown and matched the crusty brown on the side of Jim Dell’s head.

  “Tired of you trying to kill me.” JD fired fast.

  “I’m not trying to kill you.” Bean tried to burrow under some of the debris but there was so little left, there wasn’t anywhere for him to go. Bullets thunked the wood and dirt around him, shooting blasts of dust all around him. He pounded his empty holster, his boot, everywhere he normally kept a gun.

  There was nothing.

  Damnit, why’d I leave the .380 at home?

  Back at his house, sitting primly in the drawer of his desk. He hadn’t wanted it to search for Angela and now he was out in the open and about to be killed because he didn’t have it.

  “Jim Dell. You shot my wife.” Bean’s voice boomed over the empty landscape, punctuated, like a lung by an icepick, by Jim Dell’s shooting.

  Keeping his head low, Bean searched for some way out or some better cover. To stay here was to invite death to sit right the hell down and dine with him. The closest thing was pretty much his house, a good fifty yards away.

  I’ll never make it. He’ll know where I’m headed, he’ll pull a bead.

  He’ll kill me.

  Except the son of a bitch was shooting so fast he’d be out of rounds in the next two or three heartbeats.

  There’s no way he can reload with one arm.

  So Bean didn’t have to run faster than a bullet, just faster than JD would reload. He could be in his front door, get his .380, and be back parking a round in JD’s brainpan before JD could get him.

  “Goddamnit, are you deaf? I didn’t shoot your wife. I had nothing to do with that bullshit. Tired of saying it.”

  “The fuck you didn’t...you paid her.”

  Jim Dell’s laugh snaked out between rounds. “Damn sure did do that, didn’t I?”

  “Blood money.”

  “Hah! That blood money got you elected.”

  “Why’d you kill Tommy-Blue and Andy? Those guys, and Mariana, took your hit so you could protect the governor.”

  “And now I’m going to Washington with that governor.”

  “With one arm? How the fuck that gonna work?”

  More rounds exploded from Jim Dell’s gun, peppering all around Bean. Getting closer. Jim Dell was finding his range. Soon enough, Bean would be dead.

  You gotta move. You can’t sit here and let him kill you.

  To Bean’s left, Digger moved quick. Jim Dell was concentrating on the Judge and Digger meant to circle around, try and get a shot from Jim Dell’s blind side.

  To keep JD from realizing Digger was moving, Bean started a gentle snake slide to his right, toward his house. JD’s shots closed in on where Bean had been.

  “And by the way, I didn’t kill Tommy-Blue or Andy, thanks for asking. But then you knew that, didn’t you?” JD laughed, a screechy sound approaching hysterics.

  Bean knew that sound, had heard it frequently from people he sentenced to jail or prison. Heard it from those who suddenly realized life was on a very different trajectory than they’d thought.

  From people who suddenly understood fear.

  What’s scaring you, Jim Dell?

  “JD, I didn’t know anything until someone delivered your finger.”

  “And so you sent her back for more? Fuck off, asswipe.”

  Bean saw it the moment JD ran out of rounds. The gun stopped suddenly—the air thick and dead and still and silent—and there was a vague sense of surprise on Jim Dell’s face. Bean wasted no time. Jumping up, he ran. His boots pounded out a frenzied rhythm across the compound.

  Fifty yards and through the front window. Don’t bother about the door, just pile it through the window.

  “Can’t get away, Bean,” Jim Dell said. He’d backed up toward his SUV, opened the driver’s door for cover and got busy changing magazines. “Run hard, little man, run hard.”

  Then he laughed and it was a completely different sound from moments earlier. Now it was calm, assured. Bean looked over his shoulder, still running as hard as he could, and saw a man—thin and raggedy, missing teeth when he grimaced, scraggly black hair—slowly sight a rifle on Bean. The man stood on the SUV’s running boards and the barrel gently followed Bean across the compound.

  Son of a bitch. This is it, Mariana. This is how I die. Not of the madness, not of my own hand, not of a heart attack or getting run over by a semi full of dope. This. Gunned down by a cartel soldier who’s riding with a chopped up and bloody Ranger and to whom I’m just a mathematics problem...bullet goes so many feet per second at a distance of X yards with a drop of so many inches and wind of such and such speed.

  I love you, I’ll see you soon.

  Bean knew what adrenaline did to a body. He knew about auditory exclusion and time elongation and myriad other crap. He knew his house hadn’t gotten any further and that he hadn’t slowed down, but right now, no matter how many times he put his feet down, that house got no closer. It was a desert mirage, floating in Bean’s vision and head and madness but not actually there.

  Will I hear it? The crack of the firing pin against the primer? The explosion of powder spinning the lead through the barrel? Or maybe the bullet splitting the air? Will I feel it? When the bullet rips through my skull or severs my spine...will I feel it or will I just suddenly be gone?

  There was no sign of Digger and Bean knew he might already be dead. A wild fantasy blasted through Bean’s head...Digger arriving at the last second, taking out the cartel shooter with a single pop behind the ear, then disarming Jim Dell and holding him until Bean sauntered up, .380 ready to war.

  And then? How you want to finish that fantasy off? Shoot Jim Dell? Saving yourself and Digger? “It was self-defense, Your Honor.” Bullshit. Let’s talk like adults, Bean, you shoot him and you do it for a reckoning. Or maybe simple revenge.

  You want to shoot him, Jeremiah, because you’re mad at me.

  Yes.

  Because I lied to you.

  Yes.

  And that was the truth of the last twenty-four hours, wasn’t it? Mariana had lied to him in the months before Angela’s birth and he was angry about it.

  Ah, the smell of hypocrisy, Jeremiah. You lied to me...before and after I died...but you’re pissy that I lied to you.

  “I know! Goddamnit, I know!” Bean’s feet pounded, his heart angry in his chest, his hands clenched to fists not because he ran, but because he desperately wanted to hit something. “I am a hypocrite. I am a coward.”

  “Here we go, Judge.” Jim Dell’s voice carried high and hard on the still air. “He’s got you in the sight picture, Judge. Another second...you’ll be dead. Here we go!”

  “I am not the man I wanted to be,” Bean said to Mariana.

  Worse, I am not the man I promised you I would be.

  “Hear that? He jacked a round. Your killing’s coming...just a second more.”

  “Not today.”

  A single shot. Low and deep and Bean knew one of Digger’s fat, slow .45 rounds was making mash of the soldier’s head.

  “Son of a bitch.” Jim Dell howled and started laying out bullets like a carpet.

  But not toward Bean.

  Please, God, don’t let him kill Digger. Don’t let him kill my best friend.

  Praying, Jeremiah?

  “Yeah.”

  Good, baby.

  And then his house was in front of him, looming like a teen-aged girl’s father on date night. He dove from five feet away and crashed through his living room window. Glass shattered around him, bounced off the couch with him, sliced him. He rolled to the floor and scooted to the desk, grabbing the .380 from the drawer. Chambered a round, drew a quick bead on the SUV and fired off all seven rounds.

  The gun clicked empty and the air went silent again.

  “Well, that was fucking stupid,” Bean said to no one.

  Damned SUV was
at least forty yards away and his .380 had an effective range of about fifteen steps. Hell, even if he’d hit Jim Dell, it probably wouldn’t have killed him.

  Taking cover behind a wall, Bean looked outside sparingly and carefully. Nothing moved and the air was silent. On the far side of the SUV, partially visible at the front end, he saw a downed pile. The soldier.

  “Digger?”

  No answer.

  “Jim Dell?”

  No answer from him, either.

  “Where the fuck are you, boy?”

  Jim Dell was waiting for him to come out. And probably Digger was waiting for Jim Dell to show himself.

  Breathing deeply, trying to slow it, trying to let the adrenaline clear his system, Bean ejected his empty magazine and banged in another. He grabbed a second full one and stuffed it in his pocket. He also grabbed his Glock 26. A tiny little gun. He stuffed it in the back of his pants.

  For agonizing minutes, ten...twenty...forty-five...Bean remained where he was, partially hidden behind a wall, the .380 in front of him, a talisman. The wall clock—cut from sheet metal and polished to a high sheen and shaped Texas and painted with the flag—never stopped, never hesitated. It cranked off seconds and minutes as though Bean had nothing but all the time in the world. Sweat coated his face dripped and sometimes hit his hand, sometimes fell to the floor in dime-sized drops. “Where are you, Jim Dell?” His voice a whisper. Five or six times he checked his gun, made sure there was a round in it, checked his extra magazine, eyed the shotgun hanging on the wall. The heat burned into the air and dust, baking everything into a sledgehammer that banged hard into him. His breath was forty-grit sandpaper in his throat. “Come on, come on. Let’s giddy-up.” On the far side of the SUV, the sun twisted and distorted the air and everything danced on the heat waves but nothing moved. His eyes burned, stinging with sweat and concentration. The silence bit into him, scaring him. Langtry West had a thrum all its own, a rumbling sound that was omnipresent, built, Bean believed, on the ghosts that consumed everyone who visited this compound. But now even that rumble was silent, as though the ghosts were even waiting for the next move. “Where the fuck are you?”

  He would wait Jim Dell out. The man was impatient, always had been. Sooner, much sooner, rather than later, he’d start mouthing off. He’d try to draw him out. And Digger would be right there.

  And this whole bullshit would be over. No more shootings, no more murders, no more bullshit. It started with Jim Dell twenty plus years ago, went through Mariana, through Zapata, through God alone knew what other crap in Austin with the Governor, then through Tommy-Blue and Andy and now it would finally be done.

  Except...

  Said he didn’t do it. Said he didn’t shoot them.

  Bean blinked the thoughts away. Of course the man said he didn’t kill Tommy-Blue and Andy. What else was he going to say? He’d never admitted to anything in his life, why start now?

  Except...

  “And so you sent her back for more?”

  He’d said that last night, too. Bean hadn’t really thought about it and if he had, he’d have assumed JD meant Reuter.

  But what if he hadn’t? What if Jim Dell had meant something else entirely?

  “Prodigal Ranger comes home...for some reckoning.”

  It hit him hard then. A sledgehammer to the skull. “She knew.”

  Angela had said it in the bar, during the gun fight. She’d known JD was a Ranger. Bean thought back. No one, that he remembered, had said word one about JD being a Ranger yet Angela had known.

  “All across the state.”

  Angela had said that, too. She’d called it a bloody trail.

  And he knew now, with absolute certainty, she’d followed that bloody trail straight to Bean. But not because she’d simply followed it.

  Because she’d created it.

  Angela had found Jim Dell Perkins and snipped off his finger. She’d sent that finger to the only place she knew...Johnny’s. Probably asked about him and they said, “Yeah, the Judge comes in whenever he’s in town. We’ll get it to him.” Then she followed him to Echo and Tommy-Blue and Andy. She’d been watching and waiting for a chance to kill her father.

  After nearly an hour, Bean could see the SUV in a different light. The sun had marched away from Langtry West and its rays came in at different angles. Now, lower to the ground, they lit up the SUV’s undercarriage.

  There wasn’t a single body, there were two. The soldier and Jim Dell. The side of Jim Dell’s head was gone and flies already buzzed the mess.

  Bean breathed deeply.

  “He’s gone, Mariana.”

  And good riddance, Jeremiah.

  Hands shaking, barrel of the .380 dancing, Bean stepped through his broken living room window, kept his eyes both on the garage and SUV but at the same time on the entire silent, empty compound. It was as if he were the only person left. The World had Raptured, maybe, leaving just him.

  “Digger?”

  As he moved toward the outbuilding, he began to realize Digger was dead. The man who’d kept him safe was dead and his daughter was gone and there was nothing left for him.

  “Now, Mariana? Can I come to you now?”

  Silence answered.

  With every step, his gun lowered, his heart grew heavier. Halfway there, he realized he was crying.

  But when he stepped inside the outbuilding, he realized he was fucked.

  Digger wasn’t dead.

  Neither was Chelle.

  Angela sat on a barrel, a gun pointed at him. Digger and Chelle both were bound and gagged on nearby chairs. Digger was badly beaten and Chelle had a smear of dark red lipstick on her cheek.

  “Daddy! I didn’t think you’d ever get here.”

  43

  Bean stopped in the doorway. His hands shook, his heart had stopped, and his breath was frozen despite the heat. He raised his gun until it was pointed at his daughter.

  “You gonna shoot?” She smiled. “Maybe that’s a good idea but I don’t think you’ve got the balls.”

  “I’ve killed before.”

  “And you might again. But ain’t gonna be today...and sure as fuck not me. You’ve felt guilty since you did it, remember?” Her gun, winking silver in the late afternoon light, moved easily, dispassionately from Bean to Digger. She rubbed the tip against his skull.

  “It was you.”

  The gun stopped moving. “Me? What was me?”

  “The killing. Echo. Tommy-Blue. Andy.” He pointed to Jim Dell’s body. “Him.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No, fuck no. Not me. You can’t blame that one on me.” She jammed her gun toward Jim Dell. “That was all your boy.”

  Digger stared hard at Bean, trying to tell him something, though Bean didn’t understand the message. The man’s head was bloody, already bruising purple and blue. He drooled around the ball gag, a long string of saliva that dripped from mouth to chin to thighs. An open wound ran the length of his right arm—his shooting hand—and was still bleeding, though it was starting to slow.

  Slowly, Digger nodded. Yeah, it said, I got Jim Dell for you, Judge, but I couldn’t do anything about her.

  “Thank you, Digger.”

  She laughed, a mocking sound that ground like glass against Bean’s ears. “Ain’t that sweet. So fucking sweet.” She spat on Digger’s face. “Never said thanks to me for anything.”

  “What have you done that I should thank you for?”

  “I came back, goddamnit.” Her eyes popped open. “See what you made me do? You made me blaspheme.” She swung the gun toward Bean. “Do that again and I’ll kill you.”

  Bean nodded. “You cut off Jim Dell’s finger and sent it to me.”

  “Finger? Dude, I cut off his entire arm. Was going to send him to you piece by piece.”

  “Why?” Bean kept his gun up, but began to move foot to foot, hoping he could cut some of the twenty feet between them. Closer in, guarantee his shot didn’t hit Digger or Chelle.

  “Daddy, ho
w stupid do you think I am? If you take another step, I’ll kill all three of you and go home.”

  Bean stopped. “And where’s home?”

  “Where ever I want.”

  “Are you taking Chelle home?”

  Angela smiled and for a moment, just long enough to be forever, Bean saw Mariana in his daughter’s face. Her mother was in Angela’s face and grin, the angles of her cheeks and the way her lips were off-center when she smiled. Angela’s eyes were the same brown, but a subtly different shade; more fierce and powerful, somehow less loving.

  “Her name is Bethany.”

  Chelle’s face was empty, as though this were somehow just another thing to be dealt with. Bean wanted to see fear but Chelle had already seen so many things, been subjected to so many horrible things that being held at gunpoint by a crazed woman probably meant little.

  “Bethany? Okay. Are you going to take Bethany home?”

  Angela’s face pinched, her eyes closed for just a moment. She took a deep breath. “Bethany’s home is with me...where ever I am.”

  Oh, Mariana, how do I do this? How do I talk to her? How do I keep Digger and Chelle alive?

  “Bethany is your daughter?” Bean asked.

  Now Angela flashed anger and thrust the gun toward him. “I’m not stupid, asshole. I’m not crazy. I know she isn’t my daughter.” She leaned down and gently kissed the top of Chelle’s head. “...the daughter I—The daughter I should have had.”

  “Where is your daughter, Angela? Where is my granddaughter?”

  “Not your granddaughter! Not yours. You fucking gave me up, you hear me? You gave me up...twice.” Anger rode Angela high and hard, hot blood suffused her face as spittle flew from her lips. She waved the gun maniacally. “You gave me up so you get no claims on me or my daughter. You keep your hands off her. You hear me? You keep your hands off me and her.”

  Bean swallowed. Hands on her? Was that a message? Was that an admission of molestation? By who? Her foster father? Someone else?

  Christ, Mariana, was it worse for her than I imagined? Did they rape my daughter, too?