The Bone Tree (29 page)

“Before sundown would be better.”

She draws back her head, once again mistrustful. “What did you do?”

“You’ll see.”

“Before sunset is tough. There’s too much going on, and too much competition in town. Plus, we already stayed here too long—my fault, I know. Are you sure it can’t be later than that?”

“I guess later’s okay. But it won’t be as good.”

She sighs and snaps her bra, then begins hunting her shoes. “Later will have to do. Story of our lives, right?”

Right.

WALT GARRITY PAUSED
behind a large oak tree and stared up a hill at the Valhalla hunting lodge. He’d been working his way through the forest of Lusahatcha County for nearly ninety minutes, and he was winded. He’d cut through the game fence a mile south of the main gate, then taken a circuitous path through the hunting camp to avoid the wildlife cameras he saw mounted on pine trees at regular intervals. He could still see the gate in his mind, an enormous wrought-iron thing set between stone pillars. A brass sign on one of the pillars read:

Nailed to a tree to the right of the gate was a smaller wooden sign with letters burned into it. Those letters read:
FORT KNOX.
Beyond the gate, an asphalt road led deep into the forest. Walt had given the road a wide berth, but during his hike into the hunting camp, he’d crossed several logging roads that led nowhere, food plots for game, and always the cameras, affixed to trees with plastic flex-cuffs.

When the lodge appeared through the trees, he approached it with extreme caution. Though the GPS tracker in Drew’s truck had told him Forrest was back at state police headquarters in Baton Rouge, there might be anything from a gang of Double Eagles to a full complement of visiting hunters staying at the camp. As Walt neared the big building, the hum of a central heating unit reached his ears. He paused behind a large thornbush and watched for another five minutes, then made a careful circuit of the house.

Its rustic appearance was merely an illusion. The rough-hewn timber building was served by both power lines and a massive backup generator, while the telephone wires, satellite dishes, and various antennas made
it look more like an army outpost than a hunting camp. Walt saw no vehicles, which encouraged him. Then, to his amazement, he saw that a sliding glass door on a deck at the side of the lodge was standing partly open. Taking a Browning 9 mm from the holster at the small of his back, he moved quickly up to the door and scanned the interior.

The great room of Valhalla looked as he’d expected: dozens of stuffed animal heads adorned the walls, many of them of African origin. Some appeared to be threatened or endangered species; a fully grown mountain gorilla stood in one corner as though pondering a charge toward the center of the room. A staircase led up to a broad landing on the second floor. Following his instincts, Walt slipped inside, bypassed the stairs, and moved along one wall to a cypress door at the far end of the room.

Near the door, he noticed a display of weapons on the wall. Most prominent in the rack were four
katanas
—samurai swords—that appeared to be antiques. To the right of the rack hung the framed photographs Mackiever had told him about early that morning: a Japanese officer with two Caucasian heads hanging from his belt, brandishing a samurai sword; and beside it Sergeant Frank Knox beheading the same officer, who knelt like a slave at his feet. Walt suspected that one of the swords on the wall was the one from the photos, but he didn’t waste time finding out.

Beyond the door, Walt found an office containing an antique desk that might have belonged to Teddy Roosevelt. The room’s appointments also seemed to fit that era, but what dominated the room was a massive feral hog stuffed and mounted on a polished stand against the wall opposite the desk. Walt had hoped to find filing cabinets, or even a safe, but he saw nothing like that. Taking a seat in the black leather chair behind the desk, he quickly went through the drawers. He found little: some ledgers pertaining to Billy Knox’s legitimate business interests, particularly a television program about hunting; a messy drawer filled with pens and office supplies; a bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon; a few tins of Skoal; and a box of Cuban cigars. There was also a letter from Jimmy Buffett’s management company, expressing doubt that their artist could perform for a private birthday party in Mississippi, regardless of the fee.

Walt was about to get up and start working his way through the rest of the lodge when he noticed that a rectangular section of the floor
beneath him was lighter than the rest. Standing, he looked down, trying to work out why this was so. It appeared that the hardwood around the rectangle had been darkened by sunlight, while the rectangle had escaped this aging, as though a rug had covered it for a long period. As he stared, Walt realized that the rectangle was exactly the size of the base upon which the big razorback had been mounted—which now stood on the opposite side of the office.

Kneeling, Walt found a small hole in one plank that went right through the floor. The hole was smaller than his little finger. He searched the desk again until he found what he hoped for, a metal rod with a hook on one end. Inserting this hook in the hole, he lifted a concealed trapdoor about two by three feet wide. His heart began to pound when he saw what lay beneath: two heavy floor safes with combination locks set in their faces.

He was gauging his chances of breaking into those safes when the rumble of a low-flying airplane sounded over the lodge. After twenty seconds it faded, then returned, though at diminished volume. Walt’s heartbeat had just about returned to normal when he heard the
whup-whup-whup
of a helicopter approaching. This was a different engine. The rotor-driven craft flew directly over the lodge, then hovered and began to land in the clearing outside. With no time to flee the building, Walt dropped the trapdoor, replaced the hook in the desk, and ran for the staircase in the great room.

THE LAST THING BILLY
Knox wanted to do while Concordia Parish was turning into a redneck version of Fallujah was return to Louisiana, especially in the company of his father. But since his cousin had sent the invitation, remaining in Texas wasn’t an option. At Forrest’s command, Snake had flown Billy and Sonny over in the Baron, while three more Double Eagles had set out from Toledo Bend by car and would arrive in five hours or so.

Snake had spent most of the flight offering theories for why his bullet hadn’t killed Henry Sexton at Mercy Hospital, all of which amounted to detailed but pathetic excuses. Only Claude Devereux’s hint that Forrest planned to retaliate for the morning’s drug busts by killing Penn Cage and his girlfriend had brightened Snake’s mood. He was furious that
“that newspaper whore” had written a story claiming he’d murdered and mutilated Pooky Wilson in 1964. That Snake was in fact guilty of the crime seemed not to matter to him, but Billy had learned long ago not to demand reason from his father. While Snake went on and on, Billy had simply put on his headphones and listened to Steve Earle for the remainder of the flight.

Forrest’s Redbone enforcer had met them down at the landing strip in an SUV, then ferried them up to the lodge. Now they trooped into the great room like GIs summoned to a pre-mission briefing. Billy had never served in the military, but everybody else had, and there was no mistaking the martial air of this meeting. Snake made quite a thing of laying his rifle case on the coffee table, as though it held some ceremonial weapon about to be consecrated.

Forrest straddled a heavy wooden chair at the center of the room, facing the sofas and club chairs. Ozan played waiter and got everybody their preference in alcohol, but even before it arrived, Snake launched into a monologue on the ways he might remove the human threats to their organization. Forrest let Snake run, but Billy hardly looked at his father. He sensed that Forrest had something very different in mind. Finally, after a couple of shots of bourbon, even Snake began to sense something amiss. When he finally stopped talking, everyone sat in awkward silence, which was unusual at Valhalla, where family members and Double Eagles had always felt completely at home.

Forrest looked at each man in turn: Billy, Sonny, and finally Snake. Then he began to speak, softly but with absolute authority, as if it were understood that no one would interrupt him. This was no mean feat when Snake and Sonny were a generation older than he. Billy could never have pulled this off without his father butting in, but Forrest was different. He always had been.

“We’re under attack from at least four different directions,” he began, “and probably more. The FBI is after us, both for what the Double Eagles did back in the day and for our current operations. The Masters girl is trying to crucify us with her newspaper. Penn Cage wants us because of the threat to his father. And Walker Dennis wants revenge for the cousin he lost a couple of years back. To that you can add a whole department that wants blood because of the deputies that died from the bomb in the warehouse this morning.”

Forrest looked directly at Snake. “While my instinct when attacked is to counterattack, violently, I’ve decided that we’re not going to dump gasoline on this fire. We can’t afford to.”

Billy saw his father gearing up to argue, but Forrest raised his right hand a few inches to forestall him. “Brody apparently lost his mind last night. I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. He did us the favor of taking Henry Sexton off the board, but we don’t know what information he might have passed to others, or what our current exposure is. We don’t know what Morehouse told Henry before you guys took him out, but we have to assume the worst. We also don’t know what Viola Turner may have told Dr. Cage or Henry Sexton before she died. So . . . we’re pretty much in the dark when it comes to the exact nature of the threat. The body count is already unacceptably high. Even if we suspend operations and nobody else gets killed, it’ll be weeks before the FBI pulls out of the parish. And that is what we are going to do. I’ve already given the orders to my people, and you guys will do the same.”

Snake’s face had gone red, but to Billy’s amazement, he didn’t rush to fill the vacuum of Forrest’s first pause.

“The fact that what’s been in the paper has focused on the 1960s is encouraging,” Forrest went on, “because proving any of those crimes in court would be virtually impossible, especially with all the witnesses dead. One of you guys would have to turn state’s evidence for them to get a conviction, and I assume that will not happen.”

“You’re goddamned right it won’t,” Snake vowed.

Forrest acknowledged his fury with a nod. “But that doesn’t mean we’re in the clear. This morning’s busts will allow Dennis to put a lot of pressure on your mules, cookers, et cetera.” Forrest looked at Billy. “What do you think our exposure is from those people?”

“Zero to minimal,” Billy said. He’d been thinking about this all morning. “Hardly any of them can hurt us, and we’re holding wives or kids of the few who could. They won’t talk.”

“Good. Make sure our men in the CPSO reinforce that. If one man tries to cut a deal, mamas and babies start dying. Just the fact that we have people on the inside will scare the hell out of them.”

For the first time, Snake nodded in satisfaction. Probably at the coldness in Forrest’s voice, Billy thought.

“As for the bigger picture,” Forrest continued, “we’re going to play
it very cool. There’ll be a lot of moving parts to my response. First, I’ve called up the Black Team. They’ll start arriving here today. If anybody needs to be threatened or hit in the short term, they’ll handle it. The Bureau has no idea who they are, as opposed to you guys. Second, I need time. First, to get Mackiever out of his job. But there are other reasons, too.” Forrest flexed his fists and looked around the room. “To that end, you guys are going to have to do something you won’t want to do. But we have no choice.”

Snake’s eyes had narrowed in suspicion.

“Sheriff Walker Dennis has asked that you guys and four other Eagles come in to the CPSO tomorrow for voluntary questioning.”

Billy’s stomach flipped over. Snake looked like he was about to bust a gut, but still he waited to hear what was coming. Sonny Thornfield was obviously terrified.

“Why me?” Billy asked hoarsely.

“Not you,” Forrest said. “I misspoke there.”

Billy nearly fell out of his chair with relief.

“At seven tomorrow,” Forrest said, “Snake, Sonny, and the other named Eagles are going to do exactly that. To my knowledge, Dennis has no plans to arrest you. This amounts to harassment, plain and simple. But you’re going to put up with it, because I need the time.”

When Snake finally blew his top, it was like a storm being unleashed from above. He could cuss more in sixty seconds than any man Billy had ever seen. Forrest simply sat there and took it, like a man waiting for a tornado to pass. Sonny looked like he might collapse from the strain at any moment. But at last, like even the most violent of hurricanes, Snake blew himself out.

Forrest waited a bit, then said calmly, “There’s no risk of arrest, Uncle Snake. Zero.”

“For you,” Snake snapped. “That goddamn Masters girl already accused me of murder in the newspaper!”

Forrest actually chuckled at this. “Yeah, well, you’ve been bragging in bars that you killed Martin Luther King. Did you think that shit was never going to come back on you?”

“This is different!”

“You’re goddamn right it is.” Forrest’s eyes looked like lasers burning into Snake’s face.

Snake looked at the broad plank floor. “What are you gonna be doing while all this is going down?”

“I’m glad you asked, Uncle. I’m going to be cutting a deal to make all this trouble go away.”

“Who with?”

“That you don’t need to know. Not right now. Nobody does.”

“Bullshit we don’t,” Snake said, looking around for support. “If you think I’m gonna walk into the sheriff’s office without knowing—”

“I do think that,” Forrest said with icy calm. “Because it’s your only option. Do anything else and you look guilty. Kill the mayor or the Masters girl or, God forbid, John Kaiser, and we’ll have an army of federal agents in here for a year. They’ll be like that posse in the Butch Cassidy movie. They’ll hound us until we’re dead. So you and your old buddies are going to walk into the CPSO like you have nothing to hide.”

“No goddamn way,” Snake muttered. “That’s suicide.”

When Forrest laughed again, Snake looked apoplectic. “I tell you what,” Forrest said. “I was going to keep this a surprise, but to ease your mind, Uncle, I’ll give you a little heads-up. Ten minutes after you walk into the sheriff’s office tomorrow, Walker Dennis won’t be the sheriff anymore.”