Lincoln says nothing at first. Then he laughs with bitter humor. “I’d hate to be surrounded by a trigger-happy motorcycle gang in this place. These walls wouldn’t keep us safe from a BB gun.”
Looking around the shack, it strikes me how odd it is that Snake passed up a chance to live out his days with his son Billy in the luxury of Andorra in order to try to rebuild his former criminal enterprise—without the benefit of his nephew’s political connections or army of dirty cops. Did Snake realize when he made that choice that his life would likely end in a mildewed shack near the Mississippi River? Probably not. But even if he had, he might have made the same choice. Snake Knox is a southerner through and through, and dying on soft sheets in a tax haven between France and Spain would almost certainly feel to him like a coward’s way out.
“What’s the point of this place, anyway?” Lincoln asks.
“Keep your voice down.”
“This town, I mean. You know anything about it?”
“A little. This two-bit place was almost the capital of the Mississippi Territory. During the Civil War, a Yankee gunboat was stationed down in the river, and the sailors on board broke regulations to come ashore. With some regularity, apparently. Enough to make time with the local belles. Some local Confederates got word of it and busted into the church one Sunday, captured most of the crew. One of the Yankees actually hid beneath the hoopskirt of his girlfriend. The whole thing made national news in 1863.”
“You a history buff or something?”
“Not really. My dad brought me—our dad, I mean—he brought me up here when I was about eight, I guess. Maybe ten.”
Lincoln nods, his expression hard to read. “Old Junius Jelks didn’t waste time with that kind of field trip when I was growing up. If he took me anywhere, it was to work a con.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah . . . fuck it. That’s life, ain’t it?”
I let some time pass. “What did you think about Dad changing his plea?”
Lincoln shakes his head and doesn’t say anything for a while. “I guess he came out a lot better than he could have. Three years in jail, when he could’ve got life. Pretty smart, in the end.”
“That jury was going to acquit him, Lincoln.”
“I think you’re probably right. And when he yelled out like that . . . I swear, I thought he meant to plead guilty to the full charge. To first-degree murder.”
“He did mean to. He tried to. Quentin got it pled down.”
Lincoln nods. “I been thinking about that.”
“And?”
“I don’t think Doc killed Mama.”
“He didn’t.”
“But I think he knew that, in a way, he done worse than killing her. You know? And he wanted to be punished for it.”
“That’s exactly it. But he didn’t have to go to prison.”
Lincoln shrugs. “Maybe he did. For himself. But tell me this. You know for a fact he didn’t kill her?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Who did?”
“The man who’s about to walk into this house. And Sonny Thornfield.”
Lincoln takes a long, deep breath and looks down at the semiautomatic pistol in his hand. “There’s not really anything else to say, is there?”
“I guess not. You all right?”
This time he says nothing.
Chapter 76
I feel the footsteps through the floor before I hear voices. When you’re listening so hard you can hear your pulse in your ears and watch your belly jump with each heartbeat, the impact of three people walking comes through your butt and your feet like the vibrations of a timpani drum.
I look across the ten feet that separate me from my half brother, knowing that in ten seconds one or both of us could be dead.
What if only one walks in while another stays outside to finish a cigarette? Or two walk in but one stays out? If Wilma stays out, Lincoln will probably open up on the guys—
The door swings open and Alois Engel comes through, two feet to my left, wearing Levi’s and a red T-shirt and a shoulder holster. My hand tightens on my pistol to the point of pain. If he turns before the others come in—
The second body through belongs to someone I don’t recognize, but he’s bigger than Alois. He’s young, and there’s a pistol in the holster on his belt. My Springfield comes up with a will of its own, lining up on the stranger’s back as the smell of cigarette smoke floats through the door. He starts to turn as someone else comes through behind him. I’m expecting Wilma, but it’s Snake, thank God, because the last thing I want is a gunfight with Snake Knox outside.
Somebody laughs, but I don’t know who because Wilma is right on Snake’s ass, and before I can think the stranger turns, sees Lincoln, and grabs for his gun. I pull my trigger, but Lincoln shoots him first, right under the breastbone, probably in the heart because the stranger drops like a steel girder hit him in the chest.
When the others spin, they’re staring straight into our raised weapons. My heart is pounding so hard my vision blurs, but my brain can’t fix my gaze on any object for more than a fraction of a second anyway. All it registers is eyes: panic in Wilma’s, rage in Alois’s, and Snake’s ravenous eyes vacuuming up details, devouring everything—
“Hands up or die!” Lincoln yells. “You’ve got two seconds!”
Alois goes for his gun.
Lincoln swings his aim onto the kid, but before he fires Snake drives his elbow into his son’s arm, ensuring he can’t get to his gun.
“Stand down, goddamn it!” Snake yells. “They’ve got us!”
For a couple of seconds Alois looks like he might still go for his gun, but the urgency in his father’s eyes—and the hate in Lincoln’s—finally tips the balance.
The acrid stink of powder fired in anger hurls me back to nights when I was the one who did the killing, and my stomach threatens to betray me. The man on the floor is already dead, thank God. I don’t know if I could stand here watching a stranger gurgle out his last living breaths.
“People heard those shots,” Lincoln says. “You want to talk to him, get to it.”
It takes a few seconds for me to regain control, but then I motion toward the sofa with my pistol. “I want to talk to all of you. Get over on the couch.”
“Fuck you,” snarls Alois, his blue eyes filled with contempt.
“Shut him up,” Lincoln growls at Snake. “Or I’ll blow his fucking spine out.”
“Alois,” Snake intones.
The kid’s eyes drip disdain.
I can’t get over Snake’s appearance. Someone has transformed him from a wild-haired hell-raiser into a dyed-black, Brylcreemed church deacon. But even this new incarnation is tied to death in my mind, to the writhing body of Will Devine dying on the floor of the Adams County courthouse—
“Throw your guns in that sink,” Lincoln orders. “Right now.”
Alois starts to say something, but Snake says, “Do it, Junior. This ain’t the time.”