“You rednecks and your long guns. I knew you’d go for the shotgun over that Colt.”
Clayton tossed the empty shotgun at Holly, but he was ready for it and sidestepped it. He pulled his backup nine-millimeter, but Clayton was on him and grabbed his hand. Holly fired, but the first two shots went into the ceiling—the third through the screen door. Clayton shoved Holly hard into the wall and banged his hand over and over into the wood until the gun fell to the floor with a thud. Holly went for Clayton’s Colt, but the sheriff hooked him around the throat with his forearm and landed a solid blow to Holly’s gut. Holly gasped for air and slid down the wall to his knees. Clayton pulled the Colt and pressed the barrel to the agent’s forehead.
“Well, go ahead, Sheriff. You’re Gareth Burroughs’s son. Do what you do best.”
“I should. I should kill you like you did that boy over there, and then I should bury your body in the woods like my deddy would’ve done.” Clayton took two steps back. “But I’m not my deddy. Now get up.”
Holly slowly rose to his feet. “You better kill me, Sheriff.”
“You have the right to remain silent.”
Holly laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“You’re a joke, Clayton. You’re a perversion of the law.”
Clayton spun him around and shoved him toward the front door. “Put your hands on your head.”
“This is not how it’s gonna end, Clayton.”
Clayton shoved him again, this time pressing the gun between Holly’s shoulder blades, pushing him out onto the porch. “It’s Sheriff Burroughs,” he said. “Now put your hands on your head, or I can start beating on you. Your choice.”
Holly did as he was told, and both men took the steps down to the gravel.
“You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as I’ve read them to you?”
Holly spit blood into the gravel and kept walking. Clayton limped behind him, nudging him every foot or so with the barrel of the gun. When they reached the middle of the clearing, Holly stopped. “Can I ask you to do something for me, Clayton?”
“Just keep moving.”
“Seriously, I just want to know if you’ll send our daddy my regards when you get to hell?”
“What?”
“Gun!” Holly yelled, and dropped flat to his belly.
“What are you . . .” The half-dozen pinpoints of red light hovering on Clayton’s chest caused the rest of his sentence to lodge in his throat.
He closed his eyes and pictured Kate.
The first shot from a high-powered rifle hit him in the chest. It pushed him backward but not off his feet. Maybe it was the confusion of the moment or Choctaw’s whiskey dulling his senses, but Clayton didn’t drop his gun. Instead, he swung the Colt a half-turn to the left before the second shot hit him right below the first. It hit like a sledgehammer, and Clayton buckled. It was over in seconds. He never stood a chance. Dozens of agents in body armor and blue windbreakers emerged from the tree line, just as Clayton’s body hit the gravel. Holly took his hands from his face, opened his eyes, and crawled over to Clayton’s shaking body. He was still breathing, but blood filled his mouth and streaked down his beard. His eyes were wide.
“You make sure you tell him this mountain belongs to me now, big brother. You tell him it belongs to Marion’s boy.”
Clayton choked out a cough that could have been a laugh and looked at the sky.
“You tell him, brother.” Holly rolled over onto his back. “You tell him . . .”
Clayton struggled for air and bled into the dirt less than a quarter mile from the buried bones of his great-uncle Riley. He could hear Holly talking but could only see Kate lifting yellow caution tape and walking away.
Holly gripped a hand over his breast pocket—the pocket that held the tattered photo of him as a boy sitting in the grass with his mother at a small carnival back in Mobile. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the amusement park rides. The organ music. He smelled the thick aroma of fried dough in the air mixed with his mother’s lavender perfume. He didn’t remember much more about that day, but he’d committed every detail of the photo to memory. “It’s done, Mama,” he said to himself. “I got every last one of them.”
4.
“Are you all right, Simon?” Agent Jessup asked, and helped Holly to his feet.
“Yeah, I am, now. None of this blood is mine. It belongs to the poor bastard inside. The good sheriff here blew his head off with the shotgun you’ll find inside the cabin.”
Jessup looked down at the field medics assessing Clayton’s wounds. “Nothing worse than a dirty cop,” he said.
Holly agreed.
CHAPTER
25
OSCAR WILCOMBE
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA