Bull Mountain (26 page)

CHAPTER

C
LAYTON
B
URROUGHS

W
ESTERN
R
IDGE,
J
OHNSON’S
G
AP

2015

1.

Clayton pulled the Bronco over and cut the engine just before he reached the clearing where the cabin his great-grandfather had built sat quiet
and serene. His deddy had brought him here a few times when he was little, but something about the place never sat right with Gareth. Clayton always got the impression his father was never comfortable here. Choctaw came out here all the time. He swore Bear Creek was the best trout fishing in all North Georgia. Clayton just took his word for it.

The midnight-blue Camaro that Choctaw had thrown
most of his extra bones into restoring for the past five or so years was parked out front. No other cars. If someone else had been out here with him before, they were gone now. Clayton could breathe a little easier. The driver’s-side door hung wide open and gently rocked in the breeze. The cabin was covered in the shadows of the heavy canopy of trees and brush surrounding it. Clayton could easily
slip in from the back and surprise anyone inside, but he was going to play this completely straight. Even he was aware of just how foolish his next move was, but he wasn’t taking any chances at getting anyone else killed on this mountain, except maybe himself. He carefully slid his Colt from his holster and held it up over his head, letting it dangle on one finger. “Choctaw,” he yelled, “you in
there? It’s me, Clayton.” He walked up the gravel drive toward the front porch and glanced in the open door of the Camaro as he passed it. Dry blood the color of coffee grounds stained most of the front seat. It looked a few days old, most likely from the hijacking. No fresh blood at all. A 20-gauge shotgun lay across the seat. “Choctaw,” he yelled again, and this time the curtain shuffled slightly
in the window next to the door.

“It’s just me, James. I just want to talk. I’m here to help you with whatever this is.”

“You alone, Sheriff?” Choctaw yelled back.

“Yes, I am, James. Are you?”

“Are you sure?” Choctaw asked, still concealed within the cabin.

“Have you ever known me to lie to you, Deputy?”

Thirty or so seconds passed as Choctaw mulled that over. Finally he
yelled back.

“No, sir.”

“Well, then, how about I come in there and we sort this out. We don’t have a whole lot of time before we have company up here, and my arms are getting tired.”

Another thirty seconds.

“All right, boss.” Deputy Frasier appeared at the door, thin and pale like a scarecrow up for three days on a meth binge. The repeater in his hands looked to weigh more than
he did, and he held it pointed at the ground, as if it were a relief to let it drop. “C’mon in,” he said, and disappeared back through the door.

Clayton holstered his weapon and followed Choctaw into the cabin.

2.

Clayton hadn’t seen the inside of this place since he was a kid. Nothing hung on the walls, and the wood-burning stove was a rusted-out firetrap. There was nothing else in
the wide-open space except dust, a few cases of crushed empty beer cans, a fold-out bed against the wall with no sheets, and two black plastic garbage bags stuffed to capacity by the back screen door. One of the bags was torn open at the top, allowing a view of the cash inside. Clayton blew all the air from his lungs and let out a disappointed “Damn.”

Choctaw took a seat on the bed and laid
his rifle down next to him. Like magic he produced a quart of shine from the foot of the bed and took a long, gulping swig. He wiped his mouth and held the bottle out to Clayton. “I know you’re all sober these days, but I ain’t tryin’ to be rude.”

Clayton took a seat next to him on the bed and took the bottle. He held it a good long while before screwing the cap back on and setting it on the
floor.

“How did you get pulled into this mess, Choc? Was it your buddy Chester’s idea?”

The deputy laughed, which turned into a dry cough, which quickly turned into a sob. Clayton wasn’t expecting that. Not once in eleven years of knowing the man had he ever seen Choctaw cry. He didn’t think he knew how. He reached across to put an arm around the deputy’s shoulders, but Choctaw abruptly
stood up, snatched the bottle, and crossed the room. “Chester didn’t get me into anything. He was a good friend—a real solid dude. He saved my life over there in that shithole desert more than once. He got dealt a raw deal with that bitch in Tennessee. He couldn’t get any real work. He needed this. I told him it was a bad idea, but what else could I do? He was my friend, boss. I owed the guy my
life. You don’t know how it was over there.”

Clayton waited for the rest.

“It was supposed to be a quick payday. Nobody gets hurt and even the guy we were ripping off wouldn’t come looking for what we took. Nobody was supposed to get hurt, boss. Chester—Allen—wasn’t supposed to get killed. It just ain’t right.”

Clayton stood up. “So tell me what happened. The only way I can protect
you is if you lay it out straight. How did you know about the money in the first place?”

Choctaw wiped his raw, reddened eyes and took another swig from the bottle. “Let’s just take the money and get out of here,” he said. “Frankie and Lenny already took their cut, so that leaves a little over a hundred and twenty-five grand here.” The deputy reached into the open garbage bag and grabbed a
wad of crumpled bills. “We could just take a bag apiece and dip out, boss.”

“Are you out of your mind, Deputy? There are federal agents on the way here right now to recover this money and haul your ass into custody. I talked them into letting me bring you in, to keep you from getting shot to hell. I need to know how you and Chester knew to rob these guys. Why wouldn’t the owner come looking
for you? Who’s going to just write off a loss that big? Where did you get your information from?”

Choctaw laughed a delirious laugh. Clayton grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “This is no joke, Deputy. I had to do a lot of convincing to get them to let me come out here and bring you in myself. Now, I can’t help you if—”

“Who did you convince?” Choctaw suddenly looked hard and angry.

“What?”

“Who exactly did you have to convince?”

“The feds.”

Choctaw loosed another laugh; this time it was a deep belly laugh that bordered on maniacal. Clayton grabbed Choctaw by the front of his loose red flannel shirt and pulled him face-to-face. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“It’s rigged, boss. The feds are what’s going on here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how it doesn’t matter what you do to protect me. I’m not walking away from this.”

“What are you not telling me, James?” Clayton was close to shouting.

“Chester said it was a fed who set him up with the robbery. He said the guy knew exactly when and where to hit those biker guys. He said no one would come looking for it. He said by the time we rode into the sunset, the
dude we were stealing from would be dead.”

“That’s bullshit. That doesn’t make any sense. Why would a dirty fed do that without taking a cut for himself? What does he have to gain by serving it up to you guys? Why not just take it himself?”

“I don’t know, boss. I was just doing Chester a favor. Frankie and Lenny were in, I couldn’t say no. Chester was convinced the guy was on the level.”

“You got a name?”

“No. Chester never told any of us, but I did think it was pretty weird that the day after Chester comes to me with all this, that Holly joker shows up out of the blue, saying he knows all kinds of shit about Halford and you.”

“Holly? You think he’s Chester’s dirty fed? That’s crazy. He’s the agent assigned to the case.”

“I don’t know shit, boss. I just know I’m
in a lot of trouble and whoever it is isn’t going to let me live through it. I didn’t know what to do, so I came out here.”

Clayton let go of Choctaw’s shirt and pushed him back toward the bags of cash. The wheels in his head were spinning to a blur. This didn’t make sense.

“Start at the beginning, and tell me everything you know.”

“That’s it, boss. That’s all I know.”

“Did you
know the money was on its way to my brother?”

“Halford? Oh, Jesus. Now I
know
I’m going to die. What am I going to do?”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Clayton took the jar of shine from him and turned it up. Choctaw looked confused but didn’t ask, and Clayton didn’t explain. Instead, the deputy looked at the bags of cash at his feet. “It’s a lot of money, boss. I mean, why can’t
we just walk away, right now? I can disappear. You can say I wasn’t here when you got here and—”

“That’s not going to happen. We’re going to sit here and wait. If Holly is involved in this shit at all, we’ll know in just a few minutes.”

“He’s coming here?”

“Any minute now.”

The deputy snatched his rifle up off the bed and pointed it at Clayton.

Clayton set the jar on the floor.
“What are you doing, Deputy?”

“They’re going to kill me, boss. I can’t be here. You can’t keep me here.”

“You have lost your mind. Put the rifle down. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

That’s when Choctaw’s head exploded.

3.

Clayton watched Choctaw’s headless body collapse to the floor, and spun around to face the back door. Holly racked the shotgun and lowered it.

“Are you all right, Sheriff?”

Clayton raised his Colt.

“Hey, slow down, Sheriff.”

Clayton held his gun on Holly and wiped blood spatter from his beard. “You just killed that boy in cold blood.”

“The hell I did,” Holly said. “I saw him holding that rifle on you and thought you were in trouble. A thank-you for saving your ass would be nice.”

Clayton thumbed the hammer back. “Bullshit.
I had this under control. You killed him to keep him from fingering you.”

“Fingering me for what? You’re talking crazy.”

“Am I? He told me Bankey had a federal agent feeding him information on the robbery. He said it was a fed with intimate knowledge about the players moving the money.”

Holly looked at the bags of cash. “And you think that agent is me?”

“I know you just killed
the only man capable of helping me make that distinction.”

Holly slowly held the shotgun out with both hands, bent over, and slid it across the floor to Clayton. “Well, that’s insane, but if you want to play out this little fairy tale, so be it. Here . . .” He removed his sidearm and slid that over to Clayton, too. The sheriff stopped it with his boot and kicked it out the back door. He holstered
his Colt and picked up the shotgun. “Now let’s take a ride.”

“I’m your friend, Clayton. You’re making a mistake.”

“If I am, I’ll apologize, but right now, you and me are going to drive to Waymore and have a chat with the Bureau, and see if I can sort all this out.” He motioned the barrel of the gun toward the front door. Holly started to walk.

“What about all your money?” he said.

“It ain’t my money.”

“So you’re just going to leave it there, sitting in your boy’s blood?”

“You’re going to pay for that boy’s murder,” Clayton said.

Holly sighed and turned around to face the sheriff. His eyes were different now. That shark smile was back and every sense of urgency had left him. If anything, Clayton thought he looked disappointed.

“Why am I the one going to
pay?” Holly said. “You’re the one that killed him. You came in here and decided that all the money was better than half the money, so you executed the poor bastard with his own shotgun. That’s pretty brutal, man.”

“Nobody is going to believe that.”

“Of course they will. I mean, come on. When Halford found out it was you that ripped him off, he was so pissed he brought his big ass down
the mountain personally to kill you. He hasn’t come off the mountain in years. Everyone in that shithole dust farm you live in saw that. They also saw you kill him.”

“And that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Either way would have been fine by me. You kill him. He kills you. If it would’ve worked out the other way, I just would’ve called the big son of a bitch and told him his money was
in here with the dipshit Indian that stole it. One way or another, I’d still be standing here, and one of you bags of shit would be standing there.”