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  “Nah,” Tuten said. “It’s nothing like that. Nails ain’t gay. I just don’t want him to kill you before I get a chance to find out who your people are.”

  “Him—kill us?” Clyde laughed even louder and this time it was genuine. He turned back to the bar and put the shotgun on Nails, but by then it was too late. Nails swung the mangled fist that Curtis couldn’t get tied across the floor like a wrecking ball. He caught both Clyde and Curtis in the ankles and took their legs out with one swipe. They both fell backwards to the floor, and Clyde’s shotgun went spinning toward the door. Within seconds, Nails had grabbed the aluminum bat that Tuten had clearly given him a few minutes ago, and used his good hand to bring it down full force into Clyde’s left shinbone. The crunching sound and snap of the bone echoed through the room.

  “Damn,” Tuten said, stretching out the word. Clyde screamed in an almost inaudible pitch, and a dog barked from somewhere outside in the woods. Nails slid Clyde across the debris-covered floor by the foot connected to his shattered leg and pulled him into reach. Clyde passed out.

  Nails looked at the skinny man with the wrecked leg, with no sign of mercy in his odd, oversized eyes. “I’m sorry, Fred. I gotta kill him. I ain’t no retard. He called me a retard—twice.”

  “I heard him, Nails. Do what you gotta do, but leave me at least two of the others alive.”

  “Hold up!” Curtis shouted. He’d dropped his .22 when he fell but managed to scamper toward the door and got to Clyde’s shotgun. He aimed the long gun at Nails. “Now who’s the mother-fuckin’ man?” he said, and racked the Mossberg like he’d seen Clyde do. The unspent round Clyde already had in the chamber ejected from the side of the weapon and spun like a top on the cement. Everyone in the room looked at the little red pinwheel—hypnotized by it.

  After a long moment, Curtis pulled the trigger. There was only an empty click. Nails and Tuten looked confused, before Tuten let out a belly laugh that hit him so hard it turned into a smoker’s cough. JoJo and Hutch, who had been frozen silent until now, bolted for the door. Curtis threw the useless long gun at Nails—who caught it—and slid further back toward the ruined door, leaving Clyde passed out on the floor.

  Nails sat up holding the gun. He was still confused. “Did that just happen?”

  “Yep,” Tuten said, as he came around the bar and used a paring knife to start cutting the zip-ties off his friends.

  Curtis finally got to his feet and hustled toward the waiting El Camino outside. JoJo had already gotten into the driver’s seat and had it cranked and waiting. Curtis hopped over the tailgate into the bed of the shiny black muscle car as Hutch jumped into the passenger seat.

  “Go!” Curtis yelled. “Go!”

  “What about Clyde?”

  “Fuck Clyde, JoJo. Just go!”

  JoJo stomped on the gas and the car roared. The car-truck hybrid kicked up a dust storm in its wake as it began to peel away from the aborted robbery. It went a little less than twenty feet down the pig-path before the engine revved on its own and the chassis jerked, slamming Curtis into the back window. The car jumped another few feet down the dirt road, and then finally sputtered to a dead stop.

  “What the fuck, JoJo?”

  JoJo twisted the key in the ignition, but heard nothing but a low-pitched winding sound. “It’s flooded,” he said.

  “Flooded?” Hutch barked. “How the hell can it be flooded? We were already moving. Try it again.”

  JoJo turned the key again to nothing but a clicking sound, barely louder than the crickets outside.

  “Did you get gas like we told you to?” Hutch said, looking back through the window toward the men who were now crowding the front door of the bar.

  JoJo looked indignant. “Of course I got gas. I filled her up right before we got here. The tank’s full, man.”

  Curtis banged a fist down on the roof above them and hollered through the back glass.

  “Goddammit, JoJo. Did you put diesel in her again?”

  Now JoJo looked both offended and ashamed. “Hell, no, man. I used the green handle. You said to use the green handle.”

  Curtis banged both fists down on the roof. “No, no, no, you idiot. I said don’t use the green handle. I said—”

  It didn’t matter anymore what Curtis had to say. The left side of his face and most of his shoulder disappeared into a fine pink mist that covered the glass of the back window that Hutch had been looking through. He immediately sprayed the inside of the window with vomit.

  Nails stood on the porch of The Chute, covered in Clyde’s blood, balancing Clyde’s shotgun in the crook of his elbow. This time no one paid any attention to the red shell casing that flew into the bushes.

  “Don’t kill any more of them, Nails. I need some of them alive.”

  Nails lowered the gun and tossed it into the bushes. “I can’t do it anyway. Not with that. They only left me the one shell.”

  Tuten pulled his robe closed in the cool night breeze and cinched the fuzzy belt tight around his waist. He hoisted the rifle JoJo had dropped in the club when he ran out over his shoulder and started walking toward the car. “The tag says Boneville.”

  Nails put a hand over his eyes and squinted. “Yes, it does.”

  “Where the hell is Boneville?”

  “Who cares?” Nails wiped his hands across the fronts of his blue jeans. “You want me to call Scabby Mike?”

  “Nah, it’s the middle of the night. Let’s give him something to work with first. You take that one.” He pointed the rifle at Hutch who had already gotten out of the dead car and taken to the woods. “I’m too old for that running shit. I’ll have a chat with the driver.”

  Nails took off after him.

  JoJo was still sitting behind the steering wheel, gripping it with both hands, when Tuten walked over to the driver’s door. The boy was mumbling. He was still trying to remember if he’d used the green handle or not.

  2

  WAYMORE VALLEY TOWNSHIP, GEORGIA

  Clayton Burroughs listened to the message from Scabby Mike for a second time, and then tucked the cell phone back in his pocket. He had been standing in the last aisle of Pollard’s Corner Gas ’n’ Go long enough now to forget what he was even doing there. The Percocet did that sometimes. It made him foggy. With his hands tucked deep in his pockets, he fiddled with his phone and wallet, waiting for his head to clear, and then looked around aimlessly at the length of dusty aluminum shelves. Jars of Duke’s Mayonnaise, and pull-top cans of Vienna Sausages, and Dinty Moore Potted Meat were lined up in neatly kept rows in the often forgotten grocery section of the small outpost. Clayton doubted that any of it had been bought or restocked in years. No one was going to overpay old man Pollard for out-of-date pickled eggs, or dented cans of baby formula, when there was an IGA just a few miles up the road.

  Wait a minute... baby formula. Finally, a bell went off. Clayton’s eyes settled on a stack of Carolina-blue travel-packs of baby wipes, and the fog finally lifted.

  Diapers—right. That’s what he’d written on the note. But was it Huggies or Pampers?

  He could never remember. He was pretty sure Kate preferred Huggies. He recognized the red plastic bag they were packaged in from somewhere in his travels around the baby’s room, but he wouldn’t bet his life on it. The drugs made him forget shit from minute to minute. That’s why he’d written himself a note, but now he couldn’t find the note either.

  Jesus, Clayton, if you’re going to use diapers as an excuse to leave the house early, you should at least remember the brand.

  He dug around in his pockets again, pulling out the same wallet and cell phone he’d already taken inventory of three times. “Goddammit,” he mumbled, and then walked over to the baby-supply section, bent down and snatched up the red plastic brick with a huff. He tucked it firmly under his arm like a football, and decided not to spend another second of his day worrying over it. He had a fifty-fifty shot at getting it right. Maybe for once he’d get lucky.

  Yeah, right, c
onsidering my recent streak of good fortune, he thought. It’s more likely I’ll find out the kid don’t even use diapers anymore.

  Kate probably used a box of his old sheriff’s department T-shirts. It would make sense. After all, he was a shit magnet. He almost smiled at the absurd extent of his own negativity, until he tried to straighten himself upright, and lightning shot down his left side from armpit to kneecap. Every time he got cocky, or the pills made him forget it was there, the pain hammered him back into reality. It was always there—always—and it would never let him forget. It was particularly nasty today. It was penance for being shitty to Kate the night before. She wanted to talk. He didn’t. He just wasn’t up for conversation. Then again, he never was anymore. He remembered a time when his silence wasn’t a personal assault on her emotions, but an attractive strong, silent-type quality that she used to love. He curled his lip into another almost-smile. He knew that was total bullshit, but he’d become a master at rationalizing his bullshit lately. He tried to stand again, and another lightning bolt burst down his leg. That half-ass smile on his face morphed quickly into a tight grimace. He might be able to rationalize his bullshit, but there was nothing to ration away the fire that lived in his bones. He closed his eyes, steeled himself, and straightened out his back the rest of the way. The pills normally got him over the hump in the morning, but he reckoned not even twenty milligrams of Oxy could counteract karma. He pictured his wife from the night before, swaying back and forth in the swing on their front porch.

  “You should feel thankful you’re alive,” she said. “You could’ve died out there in the woods, and then where would we be?” She said shit like that constantly—but she just didn’t get it. When every time you take a step the wrong way, or take a seat too fast, or do something stupid like bending over to grab some fuckin’ diapers, and you feel your bones scrape together and cut grooves into each other, it’s pretty damn difficult to feel thankful for anything. He pictured Kate again sitting in that same swing right now at that very moment, stabbing a sewing needle over and over again into a tiny voodoo doll with a red beard and a silver star on its chest. He shook his head.

  Jesus, Clayton? That woman is your best friend. What’s wrong with you?

  His crazy was getting out of hand this morning.

  *

  Clayton walked up to the counter where old man Pollard was stationed on his stool in front of an ancient push-button register. Cardboard displays and spin-racks filled with fishing lures and cigarette lighters cluttered up the counter. The elderly purveyor of beer, bait, and corn-nuts leaned down hard on the counter—his neck stretched to the limit. He peered over his wire-rimmed glasses at a group of kids in the back of the store by the soft-drink coolers. Clayton followed the old man’s stare to the swarm of kids. He only recognized one of them. A kid named Reggie Cole. He was a good kid, but he was being raised and ruined by a shit-bird of a father. Clayton could relate. The whole pack of them were decked out from head to toe in camouflage hunting gear with orange-shock trim. Kids spent more time buying gear from Ace Hardware in order to look the part these days than they did actually walking down any real game. He doubted a one of them could even shoot worth a shit.

  “Punks,” he mumbled. They were heisting beer. He was immediately reminded of how his brother Halford had been caught doing exactly the same thing by the same old man perched behind the same counter over twenty years ago. Their deddy had whupped his ass for it, too. Not for the stealing, but for the getting caught. Halford took that beating without a single tear. Clayton had listened from the other room and cried for him. He remembered his brother coming in his bedroom later that night, and telling him not to ever let nobody see him cry. He said it made him weak. He said he deserved the whuppin’ and if things had been reversed, he wouldn’t be all curled up in the bed boo-hooin’ for him. Clayton didn’t believe it back then, but knew it for the truth now. Clayton shook off the memory, and dumped the diapers on the counter. He grabbed a couple of Slim Jims, and a copy of the McFalls County News-Times, and slid the goods over to the old man.

  “Dammit, Clayton. Good morning.”

  “Morning, Tom.”

  The old man adjusted his glasses. “Now, dammit, I know them kids are robbing me blind back ’ere.”

  Clayton didn’t bother to look back at them again, and Pollard pulled Clayton’s groceries toward him and held the diapers up for inspection like he’d never seen anything like them in his store before. He did the same thing with everything else.

  “I got me one of those big funny mirrors put up a couple months back, but dammit, I still can’t see a thing in it. Don’t know what the hell good it does.”

  “Well, if you can’t see that mirror from twenty feet away, Tom, I’d say you’re already blind, without any help from them dumb-ass kids.”

  Pollard gave Clayton a blank stare over his glasses, grunted, and then rang up each item using one finger to tap on the ancient cash-resister’s keys. While he waited, Clayton turned and looked into the circular fisheye mirror hanging in the back corner. It was obvious these kids had pulled this caper off before, but not enough times to perfect it. They were runnin’ it slow. They stood in a mass configuration, directly in front of the mirror to block the view of the beer cooler, while the smallest one in the bunch—Reggie—came up through the blind spot. In a minute or two they’d all provide the little runt cover, while he toted a couple of twelve packs out the door. They’d leave one in the group behind to buy a Coke or something as the rest of them filed out. That part was key. It made the visit legit, in case anyone tried to question their intentions. They had the heist down, but their timing was off, and normally that would cost them, but due to the pain being so bad in his leg this morning, and the fact that Clayton liked the little runt, Reggie—hell, just because they had the balls to make the run with him in the store, Clayton kept what he knew to himself, and turned back to Pollard.

  “What I owe you, Tom?”

  “Can you make out what’s going on back there, Clayton?”

  “Nah, I can’t see a thing.”

  The old man yelled over Clayton’s shoulder, “Ya’ll need to buy something or get the hell on. Don’t think I can’t see what you little shits are up to.”

  A few of the kids laughed.

  “Goddammit, Clayton, I got me a .22 under here, and I ain’t too old yet to show these little bastards what’s what.”

  “They’re just kids, Tom. Leave the gun where it is.”

  “Just kids, my ass. Kids should be in damn school, not fiddley-fartin’ around the back of my place of business.”

  “I hear you, Tom.”

  “I’ll comp you all this stuff, if you go back ’ere and cap one in the foot. Don’t care which.”

  “Which foot, or which kid?”

  “Dammit, Clayton, I’m serious.”

  “No, you’re not, Tom. Now, c’mon, what do I owe you?”

  “This gonna do it for ya?”

  Clayton hadn’t planned on diving down any rabbit holes today, but his answer came fast and automatic, without a single thought of debate.

  “How ’bout two pints of Evan Williams and a pack of Camel Lights.”

  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how fast the devil can leap up on your shoulder and dictate the downfall of your afternoon.

  The old man got all toothy again, as if he had just recognized Clayton for the first time since he came in. “Well, all right, then.”

  While the old man fished the squat brown bottles out from under the counter, Clayton spun a rack of generic Zippo-type lighters and looked at the different designs. Some of them had some real insightful representation of southern culture on them, phrases like Get ’er Done, or The South Will Rise Again painted in red, white, and blue letters. Another one read Liquor in the front, Poker in the back—real top-shelf wit. He wondered who the asshole was that got paid to come up with that garbage. Clayton would like to punch that asshole in the mouth. A few others had pictures of fish, tractors, and Co
nfederate flags, because that’s clearly the entirety of what made up the mentality here in Clayton’s home state—fish, tractors, and Confederate flags. That shit irritated him. He wondered why it didn’t irritate everyone.

  The whole world thinks we’re fuckin’ Duck Dynasty. And hell, they’re just a bunch’a Ivy League pussies, getting richer than they already were by making the South look like a goddamn joke. Ten minutes alone on this mountain and every one of those peckerwoods would be shittin’ in their Under Armour.

  He chewed his lip, snuck a peek back at the kids, and stopped spinning the rack of lighters. He pulled one from the plastic clip. It was just brushed silver—no pictures, no ridiculous idioms, no bigoted stereotypes. He slid it across the counter next to bottles of bourbon. “I’ll take that, too.”

  “All right, then,” Pollard repeated. He inspected it on both sides, and tossed it in the bag. “That’ll be twenty-six bucks.” The register said $38.32.

  Clayton gave the man two twenties. “Keep the change, Tom.”

  Pollard took the bills and inspected them, too—on both sides. Neither man said goodbye as Clayton headed out the door. He got in his Bronco, cranked up the engine, and fished through the paper bag for one of the bottles of whiskey. He unscrewed the cap and took a hefty nip to fight off the cold morning air. He adjusted the heater vent to hit him straight in the face, and watched as Reggie Cole hoofed it out of the store with a couple of twelve packs of High Life. The rest of the crew followed, all of them laughing it up. Clayton smiled, and thought about his brother again. At least Reggie wouldn’t be toting an ass-whuppin’ tonight for getting caught. Clayton took another sip and let the whiskey burn the sides of his tongue before he swallowed. He missed his brothers, and the whiskey only made the guilt of them being gone that much worse. He almost took out his phone to tell Scabby Mike to meet him somewhere else. Mike’s message had said to meet him at Burnt Hickory Pond. Normally, Clayton would’ve gone out of his way to avoid that graveyard. It was too soon. But maybe it was time. Maybe he was overdue for a visit with the family.