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  “Relax, son. Put the crosshairs on the thick muscle under his neck. Where the fur turns white. Do you see where I mean?”

  “Yessir. I see it.”

  The buck looked up from the creek as if it heard them talking, and looked toward their position. Rye was about thirty feet to the left of Cooper and Gareth’s perch. No one took another breath until the deer dropped its head back to the water.

  “When you’re ready, boy. Take the shot.” Cooper held his own rifle across the fallen pine, shoulder to shoulder with his son. Gareth was still and ready. As the boy’s finger squeezed the trigger, just like his father showed him, Cooper swung his own rifle to the left. Two shots echoed through the forest. Two shots that sounded like one. The big buck staggered backward from the impact, then bounded forward in an attempt to defy its fate. Its back legs quivered under its weight, and finally the animal fell.

  Riley Burroughs didn’t stagger at all when Cooper’s high-caliber bullet pierced his neck. His body dropped immediately with a hard thud and he bled out into the clay.

  6.

  Cooper cocked his rifle and chambered another round before cautiously approaching Rye’s body. He gave it a hard kick in the gut. It was like kicking a sandbag. Once he was assured Rye was dead, he lowered his gun and looked back at his son. Gareth had already dropped his own rifle to the ground and was trying to process what just happened. There were no tears—not yet—just confusion and adrenaline. Cooper looked down at his brother’s graying hollow face and spit a stream of glistening brown tobacco juice across it.

  And that was that.

  Cooper propped his rifle against a tree and sat in the damp grass beside Gareth. The boy briefly considered running, but knew better. That thought left his mind as fast as it had come. Instead, he sat and watched his father pull the plug of chew from his lip and toss it into the brush.

  “Look around you, boy.”

  Gareth just stared at his father.

  “I’m tellin’ you to do something, Gareth. You best listen. Now take a look around you. I’m not asking a third time.”

  Gareth did. He looked at the deer he’d just shot on the bank of the creek, and then turned to the trail they’d come in by. He purposely avoided the direction of his dead uncle. Cooper fiddled with a foil pouch of chewing tobacco.

  “What do you see?”

  Gareth’s mouth was coated with chalk. He cleared his throat twice before he could speak.

  “Trees, Deddy. Trees and woods.”

  “That it?”

  Gareth was frightened of saying the wrong thing.

  “Yessir.”

  “Then you ain’t seein’ the most important thing. The trees and the woods are only a part of it.”

  The tears were starting to show now in the corners of Gareth’s eyes.

  “It’s home,” Cooper said. “Our home. As far as you can see out in every direction belongs to us—to you. Ain’t nothing more important than that. Ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do to keep it so. Even if it means I gotta do a thing that ain’t easy doing.”

  “Ain’t it Uncle Rye’s home, too?” Gareth squeezed his eyes shut and steeled himself for the backhand, but it didn’t come.

  “Not no more,” Cooper said. He reached over to adjust his son’s cap again, then wiped the tears off the boy’s rosy chapped face. “I’ll give you this one time to cry, but then I won’t have no more goin’ on about it. You understand?”

  Gareth nodded.

  “Do you?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good. Then we got us one more thing to do, before we dress and drag out that deer you shot.” Cooper loosened the fisherman’s knot on his pack and pulled out an old army-surplus folding shovel.

  He handed it to Gareth.

  Cooper Burroughs sat and chewed tobacco while he watched his nine-year-old son dig his first grave. There was more lesson in that than in killin’ any eight-point buck.

  CHAPTER

  2

  CLAYTON BURROUGHS

  WAYMORE VALLEY, GEORGIA

  2015

  1.

  Well, isn’t that how it always goes down? You spend all week, and damn near most of the weekend, too, either cooped up in an office shuffling paperwork or checking off the honey-do list, all for a few hours alone on a Sunday morning, just to have it shot to shit with a phone call.

  I should have let it ring.

  Clayton wheeled the Bronco into the parking place marked RESERVED FOR MCFALLS COUNTY SHERIFF. He stepped out and stood in the empty space his deputy’s car should be in—and wasn’t—and dropped his chin to his chest. The sun was nudging up behind the motor inn and post office across the street; not the way he wanted to take in the sunrise this morning. He should be hip deep in the creek right now. He let out a slow, disconcerted whistle of breath, hoisted his sagging gun belt, and walked into the office.

  “Good morning, Sheriff.”

  “Well, that’s up for debate, Cricket.”

  Cricket, Clayton’s receptionist, was a tiny little thing in her early twenties, and somewhat of a hidden beauty. If the light hit her just right she might be worth a longer look, but most days, with her mousy brown hair pulled back tight in a librarian’s ponytail, she had the chameleonlike ability to become one with the wallpaper. She pushed her thick plastic-rimmed glasses up on her nose and closed out whatever she was doing on the station’s computer.

  “Sorry to get you in here on a Sunday, sir, but we thought you’d want to deal with this as soon as possible.” Cricket stood up from behind her desk and handed Clayton a file folder.

  “S’okay, Cricket. It’s not your fault,” Clayton said, thumbing through the papers in the file. “You got me out of having to go to church with the in-laws, so it’s not a total loss. I was hoping to do a little fishing, though.”

  Cricket was all business, as was her way. “Our guest is in cell one.” She motioned down a short hallway leading to the two small lockups, a couple cells barely big enough to house a cot and a stainless-steel commode each.

  “And where’s Choctaw?”

  “He’s waiting in your office.”

  Clayton peered down the hallway and then at the door to his office, contemplating which headache to tackle first. He chose the devil he knew.

  2.

  “Okay,” the sheriff said, and sipped his coffee. “Start at the beginning.”

  Choctaw sank down in the chair opposite the sheriff’s desk and pushed his Stetson back on his brow. The deputy was the kind of skinny that made his skin look shrink-wrapped to his bones, and he squirmed in his seat like a high school student called before the principal.

  “All right,” he said. “I was out a few nights ago with my buddy Chester. You remember Chester? We served together in Iraq. He come down from Tennessee a few weeks back, after he got home from his last tour. I brought him around the office when he first got here.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Yeah, I remember the guy.”

  “Cool. Anyway, we got a way of messin’ with each other that goes way back to when we were fixing Humvees in the desert—just clownin’, you know? Anyway, last week I bought me one of those blow-up dolls—”

  The sheriff put a hand up. “Hold on, like a sex-toy thing?”

  “Yeah, exactly. A Fuck and Suck Sally. Them things ain’t cheap, by the way.”

  “Good to know. Where the hell did you find one of those around here?”

  “The Internet, boss. I even got me one of those PayPal accounts just for that reason.”

  “A who-pal-what?”

  The deputy looked a bit dumbfounded. “A PayPal account . . . ?”

  Static played across the sheriff’s gray-green eyes as he sat and stroked his beard.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter. That’s not the point. The point is, I bought this blow-up doll to mess with Chester. I should have bought
a bicycle pump, too, because I damn near gave myself an aneurysm blowing the thing up.”

  “What does any of this have to do with last night?”

  “I’m getting to that. Bear with me. A few days after I bought the thing, I set it up all pretty-like in the passenger seat of Chester’s ride right before he come out of The Pair O’ Jacks—that joint headed up I-75 toward Roswell. You know the place?”

  The sheriff nodded again. “Uh-huh.”

  “Yeah, right, so when he comes out to the car, he’s expecting to see me, but instead he gets an eyeful of Fuck and Suck Sally. He totally lost his shit. Straight up busted his ass trying to get back out of the car.”

  The deputy waited for the sheriff to laugh, but it didn’t happen. He just stared at the younger man blankly, as if he were trying to gauge his level of stupid.

  “Is this remotely leading to why we’re sitting in my office this early on a Sunday morning, when we both would clearly rather be somewhere else?” He pushed his own hat up a few inches, leaned back in the swivel chair, and crossed his arms.

  “It was funny,” Choctaw insisted. “I guess you had to be there.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Anyway, now the ball’s in Chester’s court to get me back, and that brings us to last night.”

  “Finally.”

  Choctaw took off his hat, pushed back his shiny black hair, and reseated it deep on his brow. “So I’m out on patrol, and I’m letting Chester ride along with me.” Choctaw put up both his hands palms out to fend off another dirty look. “I know you don’t like that sort of thing, so don’t bother sayin’ so.”

  The sheriff bit down on his lip and sighed through his nose. He took off his hat as well, freeing a head of bushy, rust-brown hair, and set the hat on his desk. “Go on,” he said, scratching at his temples where his hat had been pressing down and where the first hints of gray were beginning to appear.

  “Chester is all on my case about stopping at the Texaco on 56 to get some chew and whatnot.” The deputy paused and thought on what he’d just said. “You know something, boss? I should have known right then. He normally wants to go way out to Pollard’s Corner so he can sneak peeks at Old Man Pollard’s daughter working the counter. She just turned eighteen, you know, but I swear she looks a lot older than that. I don’t see how Old Man Pollard—”

  “Focus, Deputy.”

  “Right. Anyway, I should have known something was off about that, but I missed it.”

  “The world’s finest detective.”

  “Whatever. So I pull into the Texaco, and Chester hands me a few bills and asks me to go in, like I’m his do-boy, but whatever, he’s lazy, I know that, so I go inside.”

  “Where was Chester?”

  “In the car.”

  “You left Chester in a county-owned vehicle?”

  “I trust the guy, boss.” Choctaw was spectacular at missing the point entirely. “So I go in and leave the engine running.”

  “You left the engine running in your patrol car with a civilian in it?”

  “Yeah, boss, like you ain’t never done it.”

  The sheriff pulled at his beard. “Go on.”

  “Yeah, like I was sayin’, I walk in and wouldn’t you know it, there’s this dumb-shit crackhead with a peashooter .22 holding up the place. I about shit and fell back in it. I knew looking at him he wasn’t from around here.” He raised an eyebrow at the sheriff to emphasize the perpetrator’s darker persuasion. “A brother, probably picking up some quick cash on his way back to Atlanta.”

  Because all brothers originate from Atlanta. Everybody knows that.

  “Talk about terrible luck, though. What an idiot. Anyway, he gets all freaked out seeing a deputy of the law walk in, so he aims that little toy pistol at me. I’m like, ‘Dude, what the hell? I’m a cop. Put that thing on the counter and assume the position.’ I’m sure he knew how to do it, probably been doing it his whole life.”

  “You know, Choctaw, for a minority like yourself, you sure are quick to profile.”

  “I’m only fifty percent American Indian, boss. The rest of me is one hundred percent good ol’-fashioned redneck.”

  “That makes a hundred and fifty percent.”

  “Right.”

  The sheriff sighed again. He doubted there was any American Indian in there at all. Choctaw’s skin color was tinted enough to notice only if it was pointed out to you. He could even be Mexican, but whatever.

  “Did you draw on him?”

  “Had no time. As soon as I tell him to put his gun down he starts getting all jittery and starts popping off rounds into the ceiling. Drop-ceiling panels and dust start raining down all over the place and I couldn’t see nothing. I drew my gun then, but I didn’t shoot it.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “In the pandemonium, this jackass bolts. Before I know it, he got around me and made it outside. As it turns out, this idiot is on foot, so he hops into the first car he thinks he can haul ass in.”

  “Your running patrol car?”

  “Yup. By the time I get outside after him, he’s tear-assin’ out of the parking lot.”

  “Where’s your friend?”

  “Chester?”

  The sheriff spoke into his lap. “Yeah, Chester.”

  “Chester is totally oblivious to what’s going on inside, because he’s too busy exacting his revenge for the goddamn blow-up doll.” The deputy leaned forward in his chair. “Get this, Chester stashed two big-ass bags of packing peanuts behind the Texaco ice machine earlier that day, and that’s why he was so hopped up about stopping there. As soon as I walked inside, he went and dumped ’em all into my patrol car.”

  Silence filled the sheriff’s office like ocean water.

  The sheriff narrowed his eyes. “Peanuts?”

  “Not real peanuts, packing peanuts. You know, that white Styrofoam shit you get from FedEx.”

  “Right, packing peanuts.” His head was starting to hurt.

  “Yeah, right. So this retard just jacked a cop car full of packing peanuts. That guy’s got to have the worst luck of all time. He got that Crown Vic up to about forty miles an hour before it looked like a fuckin’ snow globe.”

  The sheriff coughed up a sudden laugh against his will. He didn’t want to, but he did. Choctaw joined in.

  “I kid you not, boss. This asshole can’t see a damn thing when the peanuts start flying and, boom, straight into a telephone pole across the street. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried. That’s why there’s a black kid all banged up in cell one and car three is in the shop. That’s what happened, boss. Honest truth.”

  “Where’s your friend now?”

  “Chester?”

  This time the sheriff just waited.

  “He’s at my place, scared to death you’re gonna lock him up for obstructing justice, or something like that. At the very least, make him pay for the damages to the car.”

  “Well, you can tell him to relax, he doesn’t have to worry about the damages.”

  “Thanks, boss, I knew you’d—”

  “Because you’re going to pay for them.”

  Choctaw deflated like an untied balloon animal. He squinted and studied the sheriff’s bearded face for a hint of sarcasm. Maybe he was joking. He wasn’t.

  “Oh, come on, Clayton. It was circumstances beyond my control—”

  The deputy was interrupted by a beep on the sheriff’s intercom, and both men listened as the timid voice of Cricket from the front desk crackled out of the speaker.

  “Sheriff Burroughs, there’s a federal agent here to see you.”

  3.

  The sheriff looked at his watch.

  “It’s eight-thirty.”

  “I’m aware of that, sir.” Cricket’s lo-fi voice crackled over the intercom.

  “On a Sunday
.”

  “I know that, too, sir. Would you like me to tell him to come back tomorrow?”

  The sheriff thought on that and wondered if it was possible. Maybe he could just climb out the window.

  “Sir?”

  “No. No. Send him in.” The sheriff put on his hat and looked at his deputy, who shrugged. A few seconds later the door opened and in walked a handsome man in his mid-forties, maybe younger, with sharp features, dark close-cropped hair, and stormy gray eyes. Cricket, who always wore her hair back, had managed to shake it free and even took off her glasses to smile at the agent before closing the door behind him. Clayton found that amusing. Choctaw shifted uneasily in his chair.

  The agent was wearing a dark blue blazer, a matching tie, and a starched white shirt tucked into blue jeans. Wearing a tie with blue jeans spoke volumes about a man, but Clayton gave him points for trying to country it up. Most of these feds never even took their designer sunglasses off when they found their way into Clayton’s office.

  The agent stuck his hand out and flashed a pearly-white salesman smile at the sheriff. Clayton thought it made him look like a cartoon shark from one of those kids’ movies, but he stood up anyway. His deputy did not. Choctaw just eyeballed the agent with an expression similar to that of a man who’d just eaten a spoonful of shit.

  “Sheriff Clayton Burroughs?” the agent said.

  “Unless I’m wearing someone else’s badge, that would be me.” The sheriff shook the agent’s hand and matched his firm grip. Every fed that ever walked through that door felt it was necessary to conduct a dick-measuring contest with a viselike handshake. This G-man was no different.

  “And you are?” Clayton said, pulling back his hand and calling it a draw.

  “My name is Special Agent Simon Holly.”

  “You got ID?”

  “Of course.” Holly held out his badge, and the sheriff nodded. Choctaw tried to take a peek, but Holly intentionally snubbed him and tucked the ID back into his blazer.