“Well, I think I changed my mind.”
“Listen, Kate. The few times I’ve seen him since Buck was killed, he looked, I don’t know, different. Older. Tired. I think Buck’s dying might have changed him somehow.”
“He threatened to kill you at Buckley’s funeral.”
“He was grieving.”
“You were grieving. Mike was grieving. Big Val was grieving. He was just drunk and hateful.”
“People grieve in different ways. He’s alone up there now, running things by himself.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know my brother. He doesn’t trust anybody.”
“But you think he’ll trust you?”
“I’m his brother.”
“And you think he cares about that?”
“I think he knows I’m the only blood kin he’s got left, and at the end of the day, I think that’s all he’ll care about. He still carries the weight of Deddy’s death on him. Maybe I can convince him to retire. He can just live up there, hunt, drink his shine, and give this outlaw bit a rest. Right now he thinks that can never be an option. If he thinks it can be, he might just set the whole thing down like a sack of bricks. No more looking over his shoulder for the next federal sting. No more worrying about being killed by tweekers looking to rob him.”
Kate pulled her hair back into a makeshift ponytail. “Okay, just assume Halford does buy that fairy tale, which he won’t, but assume that he does. Doesn’t giving up those thugs in Florida put him in a new set of crosshairs? Isn’t that how it works? Retaliation after retaliation, and it never stops.”
“Baby, the Burroughses have been able to keep ourselves protected from the bulk of federal law enforcement for more than a century. I think we can hold our own against some geeked-up motorheads.”
“We?” Kate said.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t think I do, Clayton. What I am clear on, though, is that you’re thinking of getting into bed with the same feds that killed one of your brothers already, to try and convince your other brother, the self-proclaimed hillbilly godfather of Bull Mountain, to just drop his lifelong criminal enterprise, and what? Go fishing?”
Clayton sank back into his pillow and rubbed his temples. He thought about the bottle of whiskey in the cupboard above the fridge. He’d been thinking about it a lot today. The idea of a drink always sounded better than the actual act of drinking itself. He’d quit drinking so he could have conversations like this one with his wife without ending up on the couch thinking about how to apologize for being an asshole, but still, it sounded good. Kate leaned in over him like a terrier. “Those bastards will get to go back to wherever the hell it is they came from, and you’ll end up cleaning the mess they make of our lives. You know all this already, Clayton. We went through this when Buckley died.” Kate was practically shouting now, and she took a minute to calm herself. “I know you want things to change up here. I do, too, especially now, but what makes you think this time is going to turn out any different than the last?”
“The agent I met this morning. This Holly guy. Something about him is different. He’s not like one of these high-speed super-cops that come up here thinking he can bulldoze a bunch of rednecks because he got high marks at the academy. He’s, I don’t know, Kate . . .” Clayton stumbled for the right word. “He’s genuine,” he finally said.
“Genuine,” Kate repeated coldly.
“Yes, I got a gut feeling. He’s done his homework on this thing and he’s figured out the right way to get it done. I think I trust this guy. I think I want to, anyway. If what he’s saying is true, this is a shot at doing some real good. I should at least try, right?”
Silence.
“Besides, they’re going to do this with or without me, so it makes sense for me to try, right?” It was the second time he’d asked that question and the second time she didn’t answer.
“Kate, right?”
Kate swiveled her legs out from under the quilted comforter and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to her husband. Clayton reached out to touch her, but decided against it.
Kate finally spoke but didn’t turn to face him. “I love you, Clayton. You know that. I knew what your family was when I met you and I hated it, but I loved you anyway. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to help it. Every cell in my body screamed at me to pack up and move as far away from this place—away from you—as possible. But I couldn’t. My heart wouldn’t let me. My mama told me not to marry you because of where you came from. Who you came from. I told her she was wrong. I knew it was a gamble, and I’m not ashamed to admit some part of me was even turned on by who you were. What girl doesn’t want to be swept away by the outlaw? So I stayed and I married you. You wanted something different for your life. Something honorable. It was the biggest leap of faith I ever made, and it scared me to death, but I did it anyway.”