A Swollen Red Sun (19 page)

“Daddy,” Junior yelled.

The Reverend tested the strength of the flood with his eyes. Cried for Junior to stomp the brake. He held the door open with his foot, told Junior stay in the truck till he was free. His grip was firm. He wasn’t going to lose that rifle.

The water pushed hard, but the mud held the truck with suction.

That’s when the Reverend saw them behind the bumper. It was Jerry Dean Skaggs who had freed his wife; they’d used a fence post to leverage the truck into the mouth of the raging torrent.

They stood in the mud and watched the truck slide into the flash.

The Reverend grabbed for the dash as the cab rolled to the left and Junior’s window broke. The truck pitched forward and turned on its side and was swept away.

Jerry Dean took the girl’s hand in his. She was trembling.

“My god, girl, we done it. It’ll be all right now,” he said. “You’ll see.”

The sky flared above them and the forest quaked with a powerful blast of thunder and the girl’s hand was torn from his.

Jerry Dean leaped out of the way and yelled for the girl. Then he saw her. She lay on the ground and blood pumped from her breast into a mud hole that collected water.

“No.”

Jerry Dean heard another shot ring out in the holler and knew it was meant for him. He got to his feet, and then he saw Mama standing halfway up Goat Hill with a high-powered rifle.

Raised at her shoulder.

Jerry Dean dove back to the ground as a shot blasted from the top of the hill and blew into a slick chunk of red mud.

He stayed low and ran. Had to make the tree line. He turned to see the girl, and she was dead in the mud. Everything he’d went through to save her just to watch her die.

Jerry Dean ran into the woods where there was no light and paused in the dark with his hands on his knees. Breathing and thinking. He could not cross the creek. That much he knew.

He was trapped. Wet and cold. It would be a long day. He knew Mama would hunt him. She would turn the dogs loose, and they would hunt him. They both wanted to kill and eat him.

Mama walked up the driveway with the rifle, and her face held no expression. She whistled, and the dogs barked and howled. She whistled again and called for Wine, and a fight broke out inside the pen.

Jerry Dean ran up the hill toward the house. Scared as he was, the house was his only refuge. There were weapons in the house. He knew it, though he had never been inside. Never wanted to. The house was looming. Even now it scared him more than Mama or the dogs.

When he got to a thick of spruce, he dropped to the mud and crawled on his belly. He could hear the big woman whistle. Dogs growled and fought and the pen shook.

Jerry Dean ran hard and a flash of lightning cracked and a deep belch of thunder broke loose over Goat Hill. He stumbled across the driveway and tried unsuccessfully to jump a barbed wire fence. Caught his boot on the top strand and landed on his back in wet leaves.

He scuffled for breath while the downpour beat his face. He listened for dogs and heard only his heartbeat. The pulse in his neck throbbed wildly.

He stood slowly and balanced himself on a fence post. Moved toward the house and slipped in the sludge and went down. He cursed and stood as a pit bull rounded the house and ran toward him.

Jerry Dean was a statue of fear. Hands balled into fists. Mouth open.

Then Mama came around the corner, behind the dog. Her expression was unoccupied, but there was hunger in her eyes.

Jerry Dean grabbed the Desert Eagle from its holster and dropped to one knee and aimed at the dog and fired. The dog fell dead in the leaves. When Jerry Dean looked up, Mama was gone. The rain let up for a spell but had returned with fury and strong wind.

Jerry Dean stood on weak legs and ran past the porch, to the corner where Mama had been standing. Stopped and dropped low and poked his head around the side.

He still had seven rounds, but Butch had twenty dogs. Maybe more. Even with the extra clip, every shot counted. He had to get inside. Out of the rain and away from the dogs.

He turned and lightning made a low arc above the trees and there was Mama. Waiting. The vacancy in her eyes filled with hate. She rammed a bone-handle knife deep in Jerry Dean’s stomach. Went to split him up and he shot a bullet into her face.

She died on her feet with both hands on the knife.

Jerry Dean stood in the monsoon with the Eagle pouring smoke from the barrel and a hunting knife in his gut. Mama on the ground. Good and dead. Bits of her head washed down the house with cool rainwater.

He felt the knife with his free hand but did not look down. He turned with the gun and looked for dogs. Heard sounds of fighting and knew they were close. He caught his breath. Pointed with the gun. His other hand supported the knife. It did not hurt as bad as he thought it should, and that gave him cause to worry.

Ahead were three dogs in a tug-of-war with a string of the dead dog’s innards.

He took a few steps toward the dogs and waited. Raised his gun and stepped closer. The rain let up and there was cloud break. Jerry Dean shot one of the dogs and it fell. The other dog ran off. One stayed and growled at Jerry Dean and he shot it.

He stumbled around the back of the house. Gripped the railing with his hand. Two dogs stood by the back porch and Jerry Dean shot them both and walked in the house and closed the door.

Inside the farmhouse, Jerry Dean’s ears rang from gunfire. Two rounds left. Wine was still out there. They were all out there.

He knocked over tall stacks of magazines and newspapers, but froze once his eyes adjusted to the room. Dead animals lined the hallway in various states of display. There were cats and rats and snakes. There was a horse head mounted above the fireplace.

He walked slowly to the kitchen and held his hand at the wound and puked blood in the sink. Looked down at the protruding bone handle. Blade inside him. When he coughed, the knife jumped. He tried to pull it out, but she had stuck him good. It was a long, broad blade with a gut hook on the tip, and the tip was caught on something. He tugged on the handle, and a wad of bowels inside his belly stretched.

Jerry Dean tasted blood in his throat. He staggered and knocked a pig’s head off the counter to the floor. There were jars filled with hog tongues on the table.

Jerry Dean wobbled through the kitchen to a small porch. When he stepped down, he slipped on wet concrete and fell on his back. Gun slid across the floor. He cried. Tried to move but couldn’t—his strength was diminished. He watched the bone handle rise and fall with each breath and wanted it free
but once he pulled the knife loose his everythings would spill out.

That gut hook was snagged on a pile of intestines like a crochet needle caught in a mess of thread. Jerry Dean closed his eyes and counted brown water stains on the ceiling. Bit down on his lip and pushed his brow tight. Worked the knife in and out with a sawing motion. When he tried to remove it, everything went dark and he disappeared into a void between this world and the next.

Jude got up early and put the kids on the bus and fixed a big country breakfast for her husband. But Banks could not eat. He was sick. He’d come in from the porch in early morning. Soaking wet and stinking drunk.

He showered for a long hot while and scrubbed the bourbon from his pores. Today would be hard. According to Winkler, the state boys found crank in Hastings’s Mustang. There was also money, but he did not know how much. If the kid was clean, and Banks knew he was, then someone went through a lot of trouble to set him up.

It was cold when Banks stepped outside and walked to the garage. Badly hungover, he drove to town and met Winkler for coffee. But neither one had an appetite.

“What do you make a this, Dale?”

There was a strange energy between them after so much bad had happened.

“I don’t know what to make of it, Wink. What do you make of it?”

Winky looked him dead-on. “Somethin’ ain’t right here, not by a long shot. That’s what I make of it.”

“You think?”

“There’s a nigger in the woodpile is what I think.”

Banks took a drink of coffee. “That there is.”

“Was your boy part of this?”

Banks shrugged. “I’d like to think not, Winky. But truth is, I dunno what to think no more. Don’t know who I can trust.”

“Well, that makes two of us, Dale. But I loved that kid. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else, I’m havin’ a hard time believin’ the same cop wrestled Fish to the ground was hooked up with Bazooka Kincaid—cuz you know, Kincaid, Fisher, all them boys run together.”

“That’s right,” Banks said. “Always knew you was a good cop.”

“Yeah, thank you, Dale. If the kid
was
dirty, he had me fooled. But beyond that, just know that I’m watchin’ my back, ’n’ I do suggest you watch yours.”

That was two days in a row he’d heard that, though with Winky it was genuine. With Herb
,
it was a
warning.

“Yeah, you watch your back, too, 105.”

Winkler nodded. They both drank coffee. Banks asked about the suicide of Kenny Fisher. “How you holdin’ up?”

Winkler shook his head from side to side and let out a deep breath. “It shook me up, Dale. I ain’t gonna lie.”

“Damn straight. ’Magine it did.”

“Guess there’s just somethin’ ’bout seein’ a man take his life like that. Right ’n front of ya. Guess that’s the kinda thing stays with a man. Kinda thing you don’t forget.”

Banks nodded. “Not to mention you almost died.”

The two sat quietly. Knowing they could trust each other, but not knowing what to say. Then they parted ways. Winkler went to the police station, and Banks went for a drive.

They both watched their backs.

Jackson Brandt left his trailer in a minivan with a sheet of clear plastic for a window and a handicap sign that would have swung from the rearview mirror had there been one. It was his mama’s van, though she could no longer fit behind the wheel to drive it.

Jackson’s mama was five hundred pounds and seldom went out. But when she did, she would crawl through the van’s sliding door and sit on the floor. Her size was a burden, except in snow, when the weight came in handy and provided traction.

But the times she left her home were few. Once a year, on her birthday, they would go to her favorite restaurant. Beyond that, she did not leave the trailer, and when inside the trailer, there were certain places in certain rooms she could not walk or she would fall through the floor.

Once, she
had
fallen through. She’d opened her closet and a mouse shot by; she jumped. But when she did, the floor shook and gave way and she fell through it. Broke her leg in two places. They cut the rest of the floorboards out with a chainsaw and lowered her to the dirt. Drug her out from under the trailer with a log chain and the neighbor’s tractor.

Jackson knew things were about to go bad; there was no direction left. The holes they had dug for themselves were growing wider and deeper, and now Fish was dead. He’d killed his cousin and that old woman from the bank. Then he’d turned the gun on himself, or so the rumor stated.

It was all over town. News like that spread faster than a flash fire in a match factory.

Jackson could not believe it, and those thoughts consumed him.
Why Fish hadn’t taken the crank from his shed and run
. There were bound to be places in the hills for a man like Fish to hide. There was no need to make a stand.

Besides, Fish would not have done himself in if he still had crank—that much Jackson knew. That he had removed himself from this earth so dramatically told Jackson Brandt that Fish had not found the cooler.

Those thoughts played in Jackson’s mind in broken fragments. He did his best to connect them, because Jackson had his own suspicions as to what had happened.

Fish had murdered his cousin but did not have the strength to shoot his wife. Which, now that he thought about it, could end up being good for
him
, for Jackson. With both Early and Fish out of the way, maybe
he
would have a chance with Raylene. Long as Jerry Dean didn’t swoop in like a knight in shining armor and steal her away—though in Jerry Dean’s case, he would be a knight in shining tin foil.

Jackson smirked at that, the thought of Jerry Dean playing hero.

Still, he thought about that cooler in the shed. He had opened it himself. Seen a gallon bag with a block of crank that held the shape of a small boulder. It was hard, with a rounded edge; it looked like a lump of soap.

But then, maybe the cops had found it. Though Jackson did not know. He was thinking fast and driving fast. Making notes from observations along the way.

He met Banks at a dry creek bed on Brick Church Road.

Jackson said, “I followed the sheriff, man. I done whatchya asked.”

“And?”

“Well, he’s got this gal he sees at the Fuel Mart. But I’m sure you know about that.”

Banks raised his eyebrows, and Jackson said it was true.

“He’s been seein’ her on the side for a hell of a long time. Least that’s what Fish says. He’s the one sells her dope.”

“You mean
used
to sell her dope?” Banks asked Jackson if he’d heard about Fish.

Jackson swallowed hard. Said he had. Said it was a shame how it had all went down.

“
A shame
? That piece of shit tried to kill a deputy.”

Jackson was surprised, genuinely. “Holy shit. I dunno, man. His wife, she run off ’n’ left him. Man, pussy makes you do strange things.”

“Yeah ’n’ so does crank.”

“Yeah, I know, and I learnt my lesson the hard way, man—that’s why I’m done with that shit.
I swear
.”

Banks ignored him. “So what about Feeler? He’s got him a girlfriend. OK, what else? She a crank whore? Are they …
both
usin’?”

Banks cocked his head to the side and felt his jaw slide open with the sudden realization of all he had learned. “Is Herb smoking that shit himself?”

It was an obvious question and Banks was disappointed in himself for failing to consider it.