“I figured I’d help you out through this, uh, situation. And whatever you want afterward. I’m not trying to abandon the family. But you asked if I wanted it, long term. I didn’t want to give you a bullshit answer. I figure I owe you more than that.”
“No, I understand it all. Perfectly. We’ll take the meat up this afternoon and I’ll work it out with Wayman. I’m sure he’s got somebody up there we can get to fill in down here, till we make permanent arrangements.” Luke locked eyes with his son. “It’s good to know where you stand. Tell your mother the pastor’s here, and I’m going out to meet him.”
Pastor Sowell exited his vehicle and approached Luke with his right hand out to shake, while the other floated to the side, ready if called into a hug.
That wasn’t happening.
“Cephus was my best boy,” Luke said. He looked to the hills. “Cephus was the apple. You know? And we can’t bury him out in the cemetery like he died in a car accident. Because a murderer got him, and if I let the police in on it, that hamstrings my options. You understand? War’s coming soon enough anyway. Hell, this is very damn likely the first shot, far as I’m concerned. This family has a vital role. And you. So I wanted you here to make sure we send off Cephus right.”
Sowell, along with Graves and a few dozen others scattered over Coconino County, were regulars at the separatist meetings. They shook hands every month, and talked about the havoc being caused by Blacks and Browns. How the havoc of the under races was forcing them to prepare for war, just as soon as democracy crumbled under the weight of socialist totalitarianism and the ever-expanding police state.
Finch joined them from inside. “Ma’s coming,” he said. He sat on one of the four-wheelers near the pastor’s car.
Sowell said, “Inviting the police to investigate Cephus’s death would be tantamount to inviting them to investigate his life, and with the work he was doing for the cause, that’s clearly not the Lord’s will.”
“Amen, pastor. A-fucking-men.”
Sowell used his floating left hand to clasp Luke Graves’s shoulder. He gave a quick squeeze and release, then a couple slaps.
“You don’t need to say any more,” Sowell said. “We need to get Cephus sent off to the Lord. He’s a just and deserving soldier and the Lord’s mercy is assured. We can all rejoice in that. Amen?”
“Amen.”
Luke pulled a blindfold out of his pocket. “If you don’t mind.”
“What’s this?”
“The ceremony is going to be inside our compound. When the shit hits the fan, you and the rest’ll be welcome. But for now, it’s location is strictly need-to-know.”
“I, uh, see.”
The pastor closed his eyes.
Finch said, “Just a minute. Why don’t you climb aboard before you get blindfolded?”
Sowell swung his leg over the seat.
Luke wrapped the blindfold around his head, tied it off.
Luke and Caroline boarded another four-wheeler, this one with a .30-06 holstered in a leather scabbard on the side. Luke led across the back yard to a trail that zig zagged up the hill, and then partly around the side, before joining an old logging road. There, they turned left and continued a quarter mile. Between evergreens, through bare branches of deciduous trees, the view stretched across an enormous straw-gold valley set between two randomly spaced mountains, belched up from a perfectly flat plain. Far below, vehicles passed along Interstate 40.
Looking at it, Luke wondered if anyone had bothered to check on the meat in the basement. Without their morning pills, the girls might be vocal when he returned to them in an hour, to start the journey to Salt Lake City.
He’d need to keep Caroline away from them. He didn’t spend fifty grand on a bunch of chicas to have his wife carve them up.
Luke swerved onto a barely discernible trail. In summer, foliage would hide it. Now it was visible. He downshifted the four-wheeler, and the machine ground slowly up the steep trail. Luke leaned forward. Caroline squeezed him. The four-wheeler crested, and Luke kept it easing forward. He stopped at a rock outcropping.
Six years ago, the rocks had been a pair of mostly-buried boulders.
He’d stood there with a representative of Longterm Family Shelters, a company from Boise, Idaho, that specialized in constructing hidden, unknown, off the grid, secret, no-fucking-way-anyone-will-ever-know-you’re-there shelters for folks who could see the end was nigh and wanted a safe perch to watch it.
The rep had pointed to the rocks, and said, “This is it. Perfect camouflage.”
With the man’s explanation, Luke agreed to the 2.2-million-dollar price tag.
“In one sense,” the rep said, “It makes a lot more sense to pay with a mortgage than to use your own money. The day comes when you need this place, no one’s going to keep track of your credit score.”
“But how can it be secret if I mortgage it? Wouldn’t that mean an appraiser, and all that?”
“Many of our clients place a second mortgage on their existing homes. Say it’s for business expansion.”
Luke had done so. In the end, if he could screw a Jew banker, that was gravy.
Within weeks of that conversation, all very quietly, with no one the wiser, rough looking men from Longterm Family Shelters began to arrive. They worked all summer, under tree cover.
First they tethered the two boulders with multiple I-beams set two feet deep. Built a facade between them with a hidden door. Dug thirty feet back, straight into the hill, then down ten, and excavated a three thousand square foot concrete cave, with ten bedrooms, a kitchen, common area, command center, three bathrooms, the works. Electricity came from solar units hidden over the mountain. Water from a well, dug from inside the unit, to be maintainable and free from tampering from the outside. Equipped with state of the art electric controls, the unit also had solid state fail-safes, in the event the sun went dark. In addition to the 3,000 feet of living space, the company excavated another 2,000 feet of storage, and last, the ossuary.
He hadn’t wanted it at first, but the company representative suggested all his biggest clients were going with it. The reason? When outside circumstances demand you enter one of these shelters, you never know if it’s for the last time. You’ll likely be with others. One of them might pass away. When that happens, you don’t want to have to keep him in a bedroom, and it would be a shame to spend a couple million dollars on a shelter, and then lose it to a band of roving marauders when you open the door to bury grandma under the apple tree.
Luke had no idea how soon the ossuary would be useful.
He looked behind him and dismounted. Pastor Sowell still wore the blindfold.
In the five and a half years since the shelter had been completed, the facade had weathered, moss had grown, and the illusion was perfect. Though he knew exactly which part of the rock to reach under and press, it amazed him each time to feel the entire boulder seem to pop as if on a latch. It was an illusion. Only a doorway opened. It was six feet wide, as was the thirty-foot walkway to the chamber rooms. The door swung inward on hinges hidden in a vertical crevice.
Luke pushed open the door, turned on the lights, and drove the four-wheeler inside. Finch followed.
Luke closed and bolted the door. He pulled the bow tie behind the pastor’s head and stuffed the blindfold in his pocket.
“Welcome to our future home.”
Luke helped Caroline off the four-wheeler and led the party to the door at the end of the wide hall. He pushed a key into a lock located in the center of the door, a design reminiscent of old European locks. A single mechanism controlled fifteen deadbolts, each drilled four inches into the concrete wall. The action was smooth and the door drifted inward.
Luke pushed it and turned on a light, revealing stairs that descended ten feet. When everyone was on the stairs, he turned off the hall light. They waited for him to lead down the steps.
They arrived at the largest room in the shelter, the common room. Equipped with the finest electron
ics for surveillance of the mountainside and valley below, it also held several gaming tables, a dart board on a wall, and book shelves, as yet unpopulated. Luke still hadn’t fully moved all the equipment he’d bought for it. He had a couple tons of supplies, food, clothing and water in the basement of his house. The time just never seemed to be there, with his dual meat businesses flourishing.
When it was all over, when Cephus’s killer was tortured and dead, he’d make a point to finish preparing the chamber.
“Will television stations will be operational, when you’re using this?” Pastor Sowell said.
“That’s just for nowadays, when we watch football up here. Have to stay inside and get used to it, a little. That’s what Sundays are for.”
Luke took Caroline’s hand and led the group across the main chamber past a kitchen area—he left the light off, there—and down a hall that branched into sizable bedrooms. Each was capable of housing six men on bunks. At last they arrived at a door at the end of the hall, also equipped with a multi-deadbolt lock. The manufacturer had explained, you’ll want to maintain rigorous control over what is placed in storage. In hard times, even the most trustworthy family members have difficulty with rationing supplies.
Luke pushed open the door. The empty chamber seemed vast, but was the size of a large basement, with a twelve-foot ceiling. He led them through this to a door at the far end, again locked.
Inside, a dirt cave another fifty feet long, with hollowed out thigh-high side chambers, two feet deep, six feet long, for the placement of corpses.
At the end, under the last set of LED lights, rested Cephus Graves.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ruth gimme a lift and drop me off ’bout two mile from the Graves house. I’s re-outfitted with pack, bag and tarp, food. None of that bright yellow bullshit. Got the camouflage on everything.
Plan a three day reconnoiter. Topo map, binocular. Some point the house’ll be empty. If Luke Graves takes Dreadlocks with him to the Salt Lake, it’ll be just the missus to deal with. Rap her on the head if I gotto. She ain’t without part in what her husband done.
Woods is mixed hardwood and conifer. Not like Carolina wood; here the land’s bare under the trees and you can see uncanny far. Plus with no leaves on the maple and oak, sunlight keep the whole thing bright. Fella’s exposed long way off in these wood, so I find a pine with low limbs and stretch out the tarp, lay out the bag and climb in for a lazy day. Joe nestles in tight, and I can’t imagine a world more perfect. Got the pine tree scent and clean woods far as the eye can see or ear can hear. They’s a crick you don’t notice till the breeze is total still, and you almost gotta stop breathing to pick up the sound. No bugs. No men. No red. No juice. Mind wanders till I see dead men hanging in trees, and I know I was dreaming.
They’s more killing coming.
Open the eyes and pull back the tarp.
Sun down, dusk up. Got the ambition comes with an empty belly. Roll the tarp and shove the bag in the backpack pocket. They thought of everything. Gulp water and start moving, looking shelter for the cook stove. Ahead is all flat land and trees, open like the rest. But behind, I think on that crick. It’s eroded the ground and I hop down in the cut.
Daylight slow to a stop. Hang the tarp with bungee cords and stakes, shape an A with openings facing the crick banks. Oughtta keep the light low. Fire the cookstove and boil water, fill two pouches. Twist the knob and the flame die.
Total dark now. Fish in the pack for the flashlight with the red-light filter. Gimme just a tiny glow and put away the cook stove, tarp.
Fill a foldable nylon bowl with Purina for Joe. He sniff it.
I’ll have some of that chicken a la king.
“Fuck you will.”
Now the backpacker pouch of food is done, I open it and the steam smell like a gourmet restaurant. I spoon some out.
Said I’ll have some of that.
“I treat you too good.”
I dump some gravy and chicken on his chow and Stinky Joe launches in.
“You need to catch a rabbit or something. How come I got to carry all yer food?”
I wait. Stinky Joe too polite to talk while he chomps and chews. I finish the first bag of chow and start the second. Each bag’s suppose to feed two people, so I eat for four.
This one’s the beef stew. Wish I had a loaf bread.
You look full.
“Dark out. You can’t see shit.”
Still.
“Here. I hook you up. But drink lots of water. Salt in this’ll last rest yer life.”
I fetch his bowl. Empty. ’Nother handful of dog chow, cover it in beef stew. Pour what I don’t give him down my throat like drinking out a mug. Swaller carrot and tater chunks whole.
Joe finish same time.
“Aright. We got mebbe two mile to the house. You ready?”
You know that girl stole your shit?
“Uh-huh.”
She’s out here.
“I know.”
I mean, close.
“Well, let her follow. She won’t do me no harm. Just a girl.”
I rinse his empty bowl in the crick and tuck it under straps on the pack so its exposed to dry but won’t flop around.
Got the waxing gibbous above, already high in the sky, so mebbe it’ll set around two three in the a.m.
Joe go out sniffing. I look about the darkness for a clearing. Head there. Bust out the map, red light, and Polaris for the north heading. Rotate the map. I’s north Interstate 40, headed west. Staying on the south side the hills. Put the Polaris off my right. Locate the road Ruth left me on, the hill off my right. Straight line to the Graves joint has me climbing two hills. But if I stay south and follow a course like the under wire in a bra—mebbe a big ass bra—I travel farther but less up and down.
I speculate on the size of hooties would need a bra that big.
Stinky Joe come up beside. We ease into the walk.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Wayman stood with his back to his office desk, looking out the mirrored glass to a thin crowd on the Butcher Shop dance floor.
It was only ten. A disproportionate number of the folks at the bar and on the floor were men. Men arrived first, laid low next to the oasis that brought in the prey.
The only girls present had gotten juiced early. They’d already taken the dance floor—as if getting out of their heads was more important than going someplace specific.
Every night, the same thing. The first men came to prowl. The first women, to escape.
Wayman stared. The wild was the wild. It was an environment. Environments don’t give a shit. They starve or feed you, depending on your decisions. What you’re willing to take.
These last few weeks of being head over heels for Claudia ...
Could he trust her absolutely? In his line of work, that was imperative. How would he be able to find out if he could trust her, without risking everything?
No woman could be more important than business. Ever.
But thinking about a solitary life, no kids at Christmas time, gleeful around a tree, making a mess of the mashed potatoes and ham gravy ... And what about old age? If he lived that long, his path led to desolate solitude, no one to trust, no one to be generous to, no one to protect. No one to carry on his blood, his genius.
What was the use in creating wealth if you didn’t have the woes and joys of family?
Self-gratification. They used to call it self abuse.
Wayman was bigger than that. Claudia had awakened him. He needed to work for something more.
He’d pondered both Luke’s sitrep warning and his last statement, indicating Wayman needed to make Finch’s life-or-death test today. If Claudia was the right woman, he wanted to know. And if she wasn’t: even more so. He’d create a test for her, just the same as Finch.
Wayman’s pocket vibrated, and he remembered a news headline that cell phones stored next to your nuts make it hard to get a woman pregnant. Mobility. Motility. Something.
; Wayman answered.
“Five minutes,” Luke said.
Wayman pressed END and, about to slip the cell into his pocket, placed it on his office desk. He stepped to the door. Turned back to the phone. Shook his head.
Grabbing it, Wayman looked down on the dance floor and saw Claudia making her way to the balcony.
“Shit. Asger—the truck’ll be here in five. Go meet it for me. I’ll be right behind you.”
He wove between dancing girls and crossed the balcony, meeting Claudia on the top step.
“I have to attend something at the restaurant. I’ll be a while. I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”
She took his hands. “I’ll come with you.”
“Sorry, I—it’s a personnel matter. Someone’s about to lose his job.”
“Oh. Can I stay here?”
“Yeah, I’ll be back in a few.” He kissed her cheek. “We can visit a little, but this is a work night for me. We need to have dinner again. So we can talk about everything. You know.”
“Okay. Call me.”
“No, stay.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” she said. “Call me; we’ll have dinner. Set up some boundaries.”
“I don’t want boundaries. I just have to work.”
“That’s what I mean.” She smiled at him, big, and Wayman smiled back.
From the balcony he entered his office, locked it behind him, exited into the second hall, took the stairs instead of the elevator.
What was he thinking? Like he’d ever find a woman he could level with. He’d have to ask his father how he knew his mother would be okay with the business.
He walked through the Butcher Shop’s kitchen and to the loading dock. Asger stood at the open garage door, looking out into the night. The truck had not yet arrived.
“You have a woman? Amy, right?”
Asger partly smiled, partly wrinkled his brow. “Amy. Others.”
The Isuzu refrigerated truck pulled past, stopped, and backed toward the dock.
“All right. Double check and make sure no one’s in the kitchen or anywhere, right? And after that, I’m going to have Finch work with you.”
Pretty Like an Ugly Girl (Baer Creighton Book 3) Page 9