Текст книги "The Bone Tree"

Автор книги: Greg Iles

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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 58 страниц)

CHAPTER 44

TOM AWAKENED IN a fog of pain and terror. A swarm of black, insectile faces hovered above him, peering down as if they meant to devour him any second. He fought to get off his back, but a flurry of strong hands pressed him back down. When his eyes adjusted to the backlighting, he saw one human face in the alien crowd. A boy, earnest and sweating, leaning over his left shoulder. The boy was working on his gunshot wound.

A syringe floated into his field of view, then stung his shoulder. Blessed relief washed through him. He hadn’t realized how painful his wound had been until the local anesthetic took effect. With relief from pain, his surroundings took on more detail. An IV line ran fluids into his right wrist. For a few seconds he wondered if he was in some kind of ambulance, but then he remembered that the black masks belonged to a SWAT team—the same killers who had broken into Quentin’s house and shot Melba.

“Melba,” he croaked.

“Don’t try to talk,” the boy advised. “You’re severely dehydrated, and your heart’s in bad shape. Let me take care of this wound.”

“Is she dead?”

“What’s he saying?” asked one of the masked faces.

“I think he’s asking about the nurse,” answered another.

“Don’t worry about her,” said the first man. “She’s fine.”

They’re lying, Tom thought. Melba’s dead.

He jerked as the boy medic probed flesh that was not quite numb. Then his stomach rolled as the chopper began to descend rapidly. He wanted to ask the boy a question, but it kept drifting out of his head, like a flashlight fading into darkness. Then all was night once more.

“IS MELBA ALIVE OR DEAD?”

“Does it matter what I say? You won’t believe me either way.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“She’s fine, Doc. They just darted her, same as they did you.”

Hope flamed in Tom’s chest, but he tamped it down, wary of being manipulated.

VOICES IN THE DARK.

One more powerful than the others . . . An officer being deferred to by noncoms and enlisted men.

This time Tom kept his eyes closed.

“What’s his status?” asked the officer’s voice.

“He needs to be in a hospital, Colonel. No shit. We’re lucky that dart didn’t stop his heart.”

“What about his bullet wound?”

“I pumped him full of antibiotics. If his heart doesn’t give out, he should be okay for a couple of days. But he’s also diabetic. Somebody needs to be checking his sugar regularly.”

“For the next twelve hours, that’s your job. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Give me a minute with him. Then we’ll move him out of the chopper.”

There was a shuffle of boots on metal, and then someone squatted on his haunches beside Tom. Tom heard the knees creak.

“Hey, Doc,” said the officer. “You can quit playing possum. I got your message. If you want to make a deal, open your eyes.”

Tom did.

He saw a dark, intense face and a deformed ear that barely qualified as one at all, in the cosmetic sense. Beneath the face he saw a lieutenant colonel’s oak leaves on the epaulettes of a state trooper’s uniform. The uniform threw Tom back to the borrow pits, and Walt killing the trooper beside the van.

“Do you know who I am?” asked the man.

“I don’t recognize you. But I’m guessing you’re Frank Knox’s son.”

The trooper smiled. “That’s right. Forrest Knox.”

“What happened to the ear? War wound?”

Knox looked almost pleased by Tom’s frankness. “Lost it in the Vietnamese Highlands.”

“You didn’t want to fix it?”

Knox shrugged. “I like keeping the civilians off balance. You know?”

Tom didn’t answer. He knew the type all too well.

“So, you want to make a deal,” Forrest said.

“That’s right.”

“You offering to guarantee I stay squeaky clean if I can get you out of hot water on this cop killing? Is that about it?”

“Not just that. I want you to close the Viola Turner murder, too.”

Forrest nodded as though intrigued. “I suppose you didn’t kill her?”

“That no longer matters. The only question now is who gets blamed for it.”

Forrest smiled. “You have a suggestion?”

“I say blame the dead. Easiest for everybody.”

Now Knox grinned. “A man after my own heart. I like that plan, Doc.”

“So what do you think?”

Knox shifted his weight onto his haunches. “I think I need to get in touch with your son. The problem is, I can’t find him.”

“I don’t know where he is,” Tom said. “And vice versa. Safer that way.”

“Maybe up till now. But the thing is, Doc, while I trust your motives—and your follow-through, up to a point—your word doesn’t mean a damn thing if you can’t call off your son and his fiancée at the newspaper. Right?”

“I can do that. I talked to Caitlin tonight.”

“And she said she’ll drop the story?”

Tom tried to hold his facial expression neutral. “She’s open to it. I think Penn and I together can persuade her.”

“I hope so, Doc. For your sake.” Forrest leaned down over him, his gaze disturbingly intimate. “My daddy always liked you, Doc. He respected what you did in Korea. Do you remember him?”

Tom let himself think back to the early sixties. “I remember Frank, all right.”

“Nothing good to say, though? Even now?”

“We were more different than alike.”

Forrest grinned again. “No doubt about that.” He raised his hand and tapped his forefinger hard on Tom’s forehead. “I’d hate to have to hurt you, Doc. I really would. I remember you giving me my football physicals back in the day. But if you and your boy can’t straighten out that Masters cunt before she goes too far . . . she’s gonna pull the same train Viola Turner did back in ’68. Only she won’t come out of it alive.”

While Tom tried to suppress his memory of Viola’s wrecked state after those events, Knox signaled through the chopper’s wide hatch. “Let’s get him out!”

Three masked SWAT team members clambered through the hatch. Forrest moved aside so they could slide Tom onto a stretcher. They lifted him easily, then manhandled him through the door and out under the starry sky.

Tom smelled the stink of old crude oil and the sticky mud some men called gumbo. Turning his head to the right, he saw the long black arm of a pumping unit rising and falling like a black bird drinking from a puddle, the cyclic hum of its engine strangely comforting in the dark.

“Oil field,” he murmured, as the men carried him through the night.

“Yep,” Forrest said from above him. “Brody Royal owned this land, but he won’t have much use for it now. There’s an old well-checker’s shack through the trees. I was going to leave you there, but considering your present condition, I think we’ll give you the better alternative.”

Tom followed Knox’s pointing hand.

Parked in the dark about forty yards from the well was Walt Garrity’s silver Roadtrek van. They must have sent someone to collect it from Drew’s lake house garage.

“Where’s Walt?” Tom asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me that.”

Tom shook his head. “I lost touch with him a long time ago.”

“Come on, Doc. You’re going to make me doubt you’ll stand by any deal.”

Tom felt angina tighten the muscles of his back as they neared the big van. Forrest opened the Roadtrek’s rear doors. The sound made Tom think of Walt threatening Sonny Thornfield in this van only two nights ago. How swiftly the tables had turned. The stretcher banged against the van, and he tensed against the pain.

“Hold it,” Forrest said, and then he leaned over Tom once more. “You were with my daddy when he died, right?”

Tom nodded, wondering where this was going.

“Did he say anything at the end? I was only sixteen, and nobody ever mentioned any last words. But Snake said Daddy was in and out of consciousness when they took him to your office, and I’ve always wondered.”

Tom shut his eyes and saw Frank Knox gasping on the floor of the little surgery room as his blood poured onto the tile and the air embolism hit his heart like a sledgehammer. For the first time in his life, Tom took pleasure in the memory.

“No,” Tom said, opening his eyes. “He passed out when I started working on him, and never regained consciousness. Frank was tough, but his injuries were catastrophic.”

Forrest stared into Tom’s eyes for a few seconds, then nodded slowly. “That’s what I figured.”

Tom heard the men holding the stretcher breathing harder.

“I’ve gone out on a limb for you, Doc. The easiest thing would have been to take you down and hang Viola around your neck. I hope your son wants you back as bad as I’d like to see my daddy. If he doesn’t, this RV’s gonna wind up at the bottom of the river. And you’re gonna be in it.”

Forrest gave the stretcher-bearers a hand signal, then walked away. Tom felt a hitch as the SWAT troopers lifted the stretcher high, then slid him into the tomblike darkness of the van.

CHAPTER 45

IT WAS NEARLY midnight when Sheriff Dennis called me back and told me to meet him in the parking lot of the Ferriday Walmart Supercenter. He didn’t tell me the reason, but the near-panicked urgency in his voice told me I’d been right about the planted drugs. It took all my strength to haul myself out of bed and walk down to my car, and it took most of the drive over to Louisiana to bring myself fully awake.

Driving west on the dark, flat artery of Highway 84, I suddenly spy the Walmart glowing like a fluorescent island in the vast black fields between Vidalia and Ferriday. Fewer than twenty vehicles dot the parking lot when I pull alongside Sheriff Dennis’s cruiser. As I get out and cross between our two cars, I see a black cat with three kittens crouching in the shadow of a parked tractor-trailer, eating from a wet McDonald’s bag.

A hot wind escapes from Walker’s cruiser when I open his passenger door, and when I close myself inside, I see that the sheriff has mounted a sawed-off shotgun in the floor rack between us. His police radio chatters on low volume, and a dashboard computer glows softly with a screen saver that reads: GO TIGERS!

Dennis appears barely in control of his emotions, so I speak in the calmest voice I can muster.

“Hey, bud. Looks like you’re sweating bullets. Why don’t you turn the heater down?”

Dennis wipes his face like a man waking from a trance. “You’re right. Shit, I didn’t realize.”

After he turns the heater to low, I turn and brace my back against the passenger door. “What did you find, and where did you find it?”

The sheriff shakes his head in disbelief. “A shitload of crystal meth, cooked and bagged and ready for sale. Right under my goddamn house!”

“How much is a shitload?”

“Three-quarters of a pound. Enough to put me in Angola for thirty years, not counting corruption charges.”

A strange serenity flows over me at this news.

“You were right,” he says, an edge of hysteria in his voice. “Those goddamn Knoxes.”

“Well, at least we have our answer. This is why the Double Eagles agreed to come back for questioning. They think you’ll be busted by your own men before you ask them your first question.”

Sheriff Dennis goes pale. “My own men?”

“Unless Forrest brings in the DEA—which I doubt—I’d bet on it. I imagine one of your deputies will receive an ‘anonymous’ tip sometime prior to tomorrow’s interrogations. A team will drive over to your house to search it, with the expectation of ‘discovering’ the hoard you found tonight. And if the dope was there, you’d have helped teach your colleagues a valuable lesson: crossing the Knoxes is career suicide for a cop.”

“And you figured this out from a story your kid told you?”

“That triggered it, yeah. Kaiser’s certainty about the Eagles not coming had been bothering me all evening. To submit to questioning, they had to have some kind of insurance. Subconsciously, I must have been wondering what the easiest way to move you off the board would be. I saw drugs planted on cops in Houston before. With this parish’s history of corruption, that would have been a slam dunk.”

Sheriff Dennis wipes the sheen of sweat from his forehead with his uniform sleeve. “So what now?”

I don’t answer for a while. Then, after some thought, I say, “Are you asking me as the mayor of Natchez? As a former prosecutor? Or as a friend?”

“A friend, goddamn it.”

“These are the same guys who killed your cousin, right?”

“Yep.”

“They booby-trapped the warehouse that killed two of your deputies.”

Dennis nods soberly.

I turn and look over at the harsh light spilling out of the Walmart doors. “An elegant solution came to me while I was driving over the bridge.”

“What’s that?”

“Send that meth right back where it came from.”

Walker’s voice goes quiet, as though someone might hear us. “Plant it back on the Knoxes?”

Turning back to him, I answer with words I can’t quite believe are my own. “Put on a pair of latex gloves, then divide the meth into separate packages. You know how to make it look authentic. Stash those packets in or around the homes of the Double Eagles we’re going to question tomorrow. At least Snake and Sonny, anyway. Make sure the amount meets the standard for trafficking charges.”

“That wouldn’t be any problem with this load. What about Billy Knox?”

“Something tells me Billy’s likely to have serious security around his place. I’d leave him out of it. But Snake and Sonny won’t, and I doubt they’re back from Toledo Bend yet.”

Walker looks away from me, his jaw muscles working hard as he grinds his teeth. Then he nods suddenly. “Fuck ’em. I’m gonna do it.”

“Good.”

Now his eyes seek me out. “Have you ever done anything like this?”

“No. In all my years as an assistant DA, I never broke the rules. I never looked the other way when a cop did, either. Not on a single case. I was a goddamn choirboy. And I don’t know why I’m advising you to do this now, except . . .” I trail off, unsure whether even I know the answer. “Tonight Billy Byrd tried to search my house, and I almost pushed him into a gunfight. It was stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Sometimes the only way to fight fire is with fire,” Dennis says softly. “If the bad guys are wearing white hats while they break the rules . . . you throw the rules out the window.”

“I guess that’s it.”

“Part of it. The truth is, you’re worried about your father. If we can keep up the pressure on the Knoxes, it’ll definitely increase his chances of survival.”

I nod slowly, watching the mother cat and her kittens scamper from the shadow of the parked truck to a deeper shadow beside a Dumpster. “Once this is done, you’ll need somebody to make an anonymous tip call to you about the meth at Snake’s and Sonny’s houses, preferably from a pay phone to your home. In case a defense lawyer checks later. Do you have someone you can trust?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Be sure you trust them, Walker. If you’re caught doing this, you’ll go to the penitentiary, if the Knoxes don’t kill you first. If it’s the only way to be sure, I’ll wake up and make the call myself.”

“I don’t want you to take that risk. I can get it handled.”

“All right. I guess we’re done, then.”

“What about tomorrow morning? You’re gonna be there for the interrogation, right?”

“Kaiser says I have no authority to question the Eagles. And technically, he’s correct.”

“Screw that. I want you in that room. Consider yourself a special deputy of Concordia Parish. I’ll swear you in tomorrow. I’ll even pin a tin star on your chest.”

A childish thrill of satisfaction runs through me. Walker Dennis is smarter than people give him credit for being. “I didn’t think about that. You know, with trafficking charges against Sonny and Snake, we’ll have some real leverage. Because of the mandatory sentencing minimums, you won’t even need the cooperation of the DA to charge them.”

“You’re goddamn right. What about Kaiser, though? Do you think he’ll show up and try to stop us?”

I think back to the discussions in Kaiser’s hotel. “I don’t know. He’s got a lot of other things on his mind. But he’s worried we’ll screw things up for him, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him.”

Dennis shakes his head, obviously troubled by something. “You know, that Kaiser’s a pretty tough dude. He fought in ’Nam.”

“Yeah.”

“He also worked in the Bureau’s profiling unit, but he transferred out after attacking a convict they were interviewing. A child killer. He’s probably got a lot of experience with interrogation.”

“So do I, Walker. Don’t worry. With trafficking charges against the Eagles, you won’t require much finesse. And Kaiser won’t be able to interfere. Just make sure you don’t screw up while you’re planting the stuff.”

“I won’t.”

“Where’s the meth now?”

“In the trunk.”

A bolus of pure terror blasts through my veins to my heart. “This trunk?”

“Shit, where else was I gonna put it?”

An almost overwhelming urge to leap from the car grips me. “Okay, okay,” I say, closing my hand around the door handle. “Just get the job done as fast as you can. And be careful. This isn’t some prank, man. They’ll kill you if they catch you. They won’t hesitate.”

Sheriff Dennis leans forward, his eyes burning with long-suppressed rage. “That cuts two ways, brother. I owe these motherfuckers from way back. They come at me tonight . . . I’ll kill ’em. You can sort out the mess with a judge in the morning.”

This prospect doesn’t excite me, but I raise my hand and pat him on the shoulder. “Just watch your back, okay?”

“Just be at my office at seven A.M. You don’t want to miss their faces when I slap that meth on the table.”

I can’t help but smile. “You’re right about that. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hey, wait,” he says as I pop the door handle.

When I turn back, Walker is holding out his hand to me. In it gleams a gold star with Concordia Parish Sheriff engraved in the metal. He’s taken the star from his own chest and offered it to me.

“I can’t take that, Walker.”

“Hell yes you can. In case you beat me to my office tomorrow. Consider yourself a sworn deputy.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I take the badge and slip it carefully into my pocket. “Thanks. Remember what I said, now. Watch your six.”

Dennis grins and gives me a quick salute. “Adios, hombre.”

CHAPTER 46

BILLY KNOX HAD been drinking bourbon at his desk for so long that he’d started talking to the big stuffed razorback standing against the opposite wall. Forrest had planted the spear in that animal’s back as deeply as he’d planted the metaphorical one in Billy’s. Surely there was a rule against asking a man to betray his own father in order to succeed, or even to survive? But rules meant nothing to Forrest. They never had.

Billy had expected his dad to give him hell when he heard the chopper taking off without being told why, but all Snake had done was walk into the study and ask where the bird was headed. When Billy denied knowing its destination, his father had accepted his answer and disappeared. But Billy had known that couldn’t be the end of it.

Sure enough, as he sat staring at the glazed eyes of the hog, the study door opened and Snake stepped into the room wearing a black sweatshirt and weathered Levis. He raised his right hand in greeting, then took a seat across the desk from his son.

“You’ve made a hell of a dent in that whiskey,” Snake said. “Something bothering you?”

“Nah,” Billy lied.

A fleeting smile crossed his father’s features. “Listen to me, boy. I’m not gonna fill you with a bunch of bullshit. I’m here because we’ve come to the fork in the river.”

Billy stirred from his anesthetized stupor. “What do you mean?”

“No games, son. You know what I’m talking about. We’re at the place where some go one way, and the rest go the other. Forrest means to leave all this behind him. And by ‘this’ I mean ‘us.’ He wants to go with the moneymen and the power whores in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. He thinks he can step right up into that life and it will be great. And he’s gonna tell you that you can do it, too, if he hasn’t already.”

Billy wished he would simply pass out, so he wouldn’t have to lie anymore. He could hardly believe that three days ago he’d been trying to hire Jimmy Buffett for his forty-fourth birthday party. Now he couldn’t imagine celebrating anything, except staying out of prison.

“The truth is,” Snake went on, “you’d do better in that world than Forrest ever would. Because Forrest has got something in him that you don’t.”

“What’s that?”

“Self-destruction.”

Billy blinked and leaned forward. “What are you talking about? Forrest is the most careful guy I know.”

“You think that because you don’t really know him.”

“What? I’ve known him all my life.”

Snake reached out and took a slug straight from the bourbon bottle. “How much do you remember about Granddaddy Elam?”

“Not much. I remember that weird hat he’d wear, like something from pilgrim times. The Scarlet Letter or something.”

Snake chuckled darkly. “Yeah. He was a lay preacher, and he wore that thing to impress the suckers. God only knows how many offering plates he robbed and children he fucked in that old hat.”

Billy blinked in surprise, unsure that he’d heard correctly. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing but life. The truth of it. And one truth is, when your own daddy fucks you in the ass, you ain’t ever the same.”

When your own daddy fucks you in the ass . . . ? “Are you saying Uncle Frank was molested by Granddad?”

“Not just Frank. Frank, some of the cousins, God knows how many kids in Elam’s various flocks . . . and me, of course.”

It was all Billy could do to stop himself from disgorging the liquor he’d drunk. “You?”

“Sure. I was there, wasn’t I? And I was too little to stop him. That’s all old Elam needed, boy.” Snake shook his head and sucked his teeth the way Robert Duvall sometimes did in the movies.

As far as Billy was concerned, this was no longer a two-way conversation. His father had the floor. Snake seemed to sense this, because he began to speak without prompting.

“When that kind of shit happens to most people, they either bury it and move on, or it buries them. I’ve seen it bury people. We had a cousin who killed herself when she was fourteen. But Frank . . . he buried it. Most people never suspected a thing.”

“And you?”

Snake waved his hand. “I’m different. I didn’t have to bury it. It’s like prison, you know?”

Billy’s stomach rolled again. He did know, and he didn’t want to be reminded.

“That kind of shit’s generally gonna happen when you’re inside,” Snake said, “and if it does, it does. Ain’t no different than getting stabbed or having your head stove in, if you look at it right. Except it tends to happen regular until you find yourself some protection. Anyway . . . Frank buried what your granddaddy done and moved on. But it was always part of him. You follow?”

“I guess.”

“See, what people sensed in Frank was this burning thing, but cold at the same time, like a cold flame. Some things he did during the war—crazy, heroic things—I knew it was that pain driving him. Even if he didn’t know . . . I did.

“But it’s a funny thing, Bill. You can hate the person who does that to you, and yet still become like them. It’s like you absorb part of them with their damn spunk—part of their black soul. Especially if you’re young.”

“Daddy, I don’t think I—”

“Oh, you’re gonna listen,” Snake said. “You’ve got to hear this. See, when your old man does that to you, the way Elam did us, it can turn you inside out. At some level, you realize that you came into the damned world through that man’s dick. Then you find yourself lying under him with a pillow or a sock stuffed in your mouth, screaming while he’s shoving it into you. . . . That’s about as painful as it gets, in every meaning of the word. That’s what taught me the first law of the damned universe.”

“Which is?”

“Pain begets pain, boy. If that ain’t in the Bible, it ought to be.”

Billy looked at the liquor bottle, but when he nearly lost his supper, he focused back on his father. “Daddy, why are you telling me this?”

“I’m trying to save you. And myself. People think I’m crazy, I know that. Hell, I like ’em to think that. It makes life easier in a lot of ways. And I may be a little crazy. Who ain’t? But I’m crazy like a fox, Billy boy. Because I always rein it in before things spin quite out of control. A crop duster don’t get to be my age without knowing how to rein it in.

“But Frank . . . he was the opposite. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he was cool as ice. But one time in a hundred, he was gonna jump off the rails and do something so extreme you couldn’t believe it.”

“Like?”

“Hell, it don’t matter now. Things somebody like you couldn’t even imagine. My point is, Forrest has that in him, too.”

Billy shook his head, not quite believing this.

“You ever notice how he is with women?”

Billy had heard stories, but he motioned for his father to continue.

“Sure, I’ll slap a woman around if she gives me attitude,” Snake said, “and I like rough pussy. But Forrest is different. He’ll really hurt a woman, and worse, he’ll enjoy it. Not just physically either. He likes breaking women down.”

“He’s been with his wife a long time.”

“His second wife. The first one died. And it’s a good thing nobody looked too close at that. But there’s two reasons that second wife has lasted. First, he learned some things the last time around. He don’t let the demon all the way out with wife number two. But more important, that woman likes being broke down. She don’t show it, but she does. There’s women who love pain, son, and she’s one. She’s also got the same ambition Forrest does. She likes shopping in Dallas and New York with those trust-fund bitches from New Orleans.”

“I don’t see where you’re going with this, Dad.”

“Yeah, you do. Because you think the same way. All that bullshit sounds exciting to you. You want to fly around with rock stars and gamble in the private rooms in Vegas. But I’m here to tell you, Forrest can’t live that life long without blowing it up. It’s just his nature.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because Elam got Forrest, too.”

Billy’s face felt hot. “What?”

Snake leaned forward, his eyes burning with conviction. “You only missed it because you were born so late. Elam died in ’66—right about the time he would have started on you. But not before he got Forrest, and also his big brother, Frank Junior.”

Billy still couldn’t quite accept this. “Has Forrest ever talked to you about it?”

Snake shook his head with regret. “No. I tried to talk to him a couple of times, but he wouldn’t have it. But I know. I’ve seen it in him, man . . . that same cold fire that was in Frank.”

“Then you don’t know for sure.”

“Yes, I do. Listen close now. I’m only gonna tell this once. Forrest’s big brother—Frank Junior—enlisted in the Corps in ’64, and he went to Vietnam in ’65. I can’t tell you how proud Frank was of that boy. Junior was the reincarnation of his daddy, a born soldier. All the news we got from over there was good. The race war had heated up pretty good over here by ’64, so we were pretty busy with the Double Eagles. Old Elam came and went like he always did. He was in his sixties, but he was still a rounder and still getting in trouble—sometimes with the law. Brody got him out of the pokey a few times, as a favor to Frank. Kept him out of prison.” Snake paused, reflecting silently, then went on.

“In 1966, everything changed. Frank got a visit from a casualty team. Frank Junior had been killed. At a place called the Rockpile.”

“I’ve heard about that.”

“Not the real story, you ain’t. The government said young Frank had charged straight into machine-gun fire to save four members of his squad. He got hit getting the second guy, but he kept going back out. The fourth time he ran out there, the gun chewed him to pieces. There was talk of a Medal of Honor. In the end they gave him a posthumous Silver Star.”

Billy actually had heard all this before.

“You’d think Frank would be able to handle something like that,” Snake said, “as much war as he’d seen. But he started drinking, and he didn’t stop. He could always hold his liquor, but he was drinking enough to kill most men. Enough to put himself out every night. Then the letter came.”

“What letter? About the medal?”

“No. A letter from Frank Junior. He’d mailed it before he died. It had got delayed somehow, but it finally came.”

“What did it say?

Snake sighed and took another pull from Billy’s bottle. “Basically, Frank Junior told his daddy that he had no intention of coming back home. Junior was messed up in his head, he said; he always had been, but he’d never had the nerve to talk about it. But once he got to Vietnam, and saw war up close, he just didn’t care anymore.”

“Because of Granddaddy Elam?”

Snake nodded. “He told Frank that Elam had been messing with him since he was a little boy. The old bastard done everything imaginable to him, and he’d threatened to kill us all if Junior told his mama or daddy about it. And Elam was so damn crazy, that poor boy believed it.”

“Jesus, Pop.”

“Junior had made up his mind he was gonna push it in battle until he found some peace. He said he was gonna give the gooks all the hurt he could until his own hurt stopped.” Snake nodded once. “And that’s what he did.”

Billy sat blinking in horror, not knowing what to say.

“Something busted in Frank when he read that letter,” Snake said. “He blamed himself, see? And I blamed myself. Because I was scared as hell the same thing had happened to you.”

“It didn’t. At least I don’t think it did.”

“I know. I made it my business to find out.”

“How’d you do that?”

Snake dug in his pants pocket and brought out a bent cigarette, which he lit with an old silver lighter. He blew out a long stream of blue smoke, then began speaking softly.

“Elam was preaching in East Texas when that letter came, but he was due home in a couple of days. I started checking on Frank every few hours, worried he might kill himself or something. But the day Elam was due back, I went over and found my brother a changed man. Frank was sober as a judge. He told me we were gonna talk to Elam. He told me to get a few of the boys together. Glenn, Sonny, a couple more, and have ’em at his house about dark.

“Elam got home about eight. Me and Frank went by his house and went in without knocking. Frank told Daddy we had an operation set up. We was gonna lynch a nigger that night. Well, old Elam was always up for that kind of party, so he came right along.

“We came out here to Valhalla and got in two boats. Then we headed to the Bone Tree. Elam was drinking moonshine from a clear jug. I still remember that, the jug in the moonlight. When we got to the tree, I climbed out with a rope, and Frank got out with a toolbox. Just as we got to the opening in the big tree, Elam stopped drinking long enough to holler, ‘Where’s the nigger, boys?’” Snake shook his head, a strange smile on his face. “I’ll never forget what happened next. Frank finally looked old Elam in the eye, and he said, ‘You’re the nigger tonight, Daddy.’”