The Mountain Read online

  “Send her over.”

  “Look,” Mark said. “Why don’t you just—”

  “Send. Her. To me.”

  Brenda said, “Let me go.”

  And they released her.

  She sighed, and then started across the clearing.

  “That’s it,” Willem said. “Come to Papa.” He pulled his jacket open, revealing the long handle of a hunting knife sheathed to his belt. “I’ve got something for ya.”

  She took another step, and he said, “Which one of you cocksuckers killed my boy?”

  Mark and Eddie both said, “I did.”

  Tina said, “I did, you son of a bitch.”

  “Brave, huh? Let’s see how brave you are when I start nailing your asses to a tree… Right after I carve sweet cheeks here into fish bait.”

  Eddie grabbed his pistol and the shotgun roared to life. Brenda’s chest exploded and she slammed backwards to the ground, Willem jacking the shotgun before Eddie could even raise his weapon.

  “Toss it, son.”

  Eddie tossed the gun at Willem’s feet, and Tina fell sobbing to her knees.

  The mountain man laughed and something whistled through the air. He looked up and an arrow found his chest. He staggered backwards, clutching the base of the arrow while the shotgun dropped to the ground and Mark and Eddie attacked, Mark hitting him high and Eddie hitting him low as the three of them went crashing to the ground.

  “Don’t kill him!” somebody shouted, and Eddie looked up over his shoulder, both hands clamped around Willem’s throat as he and Mark held the madman in place.

  At the top of the cliff was a vague outline of the ass-end of the jeep. Beside it stood the doughnut cutter with Willem’s bow in his hand. He waved, and then tossed something over the edge. Seconds later, a burlap sack landed with a clank at Eddie’s feet. He relaxed his grip on Willem’s throat, and the mountain man choked out, “You’re dead, motherfucker.”

  “Shut up,” Mark said. He wiggled the arrow and Willem yelped.

  Behind them, Tina, sobbing, cradled Brenda’s head in her lap.

  Pebbles and rocks tumbled as feet pounded down the trail. Moments later, Charlie Rodgers walked through the campsite and into the clearing. When he reached Mark and Eddie, he said, “I can’t believe I hit him. I had a shotgun and the son of a bitch jammed on me. I can’t believe I actually hit him.”

  “Well, you did,” Mark told him. “You nailed his ass good.”

  Charlie picked up the sack he’d tossed from above. “Get him on his feet.”

  They brought him roughly to his feet, jerking and shaking him, Eddie with a handful of hair; Willem screaming as Mark twisted the arrow. “Let’s see you pull it out, motherfucker! You got the juice for it? Huh? You got the juice for it, you son of a bitch!”

  “Over there,” Charlie said, and they pushed him across the clearing, into the tree line until they were standing beside the headless corpse. “You do this? Did you nail this poor bastard up like a goddamn human scarecrow?”

  “Fuck you,” said Willem.

  “Tough son of a bitch, aren’t you?” Charlie said. “Tough when you’re draggin’ a buncha women through the woods.”

  “Drug somethin’ through your woman.”

  Mark twisted the arrow and Willem howled with pain, shoved it deeper and Willem screamed and grabbed his wrist. “Goddamnit,” he said. “Stop.”

  “Lift him,” Charlie said. “Against the tree, shoulder-level with him.”

  They slammed him up, backwards against the broad trunk, feet dangling a foot and a half off the ground as Charlie pulled a hammer and a handful of nails from the sack, and dropped the burlap to the ground. The nails were long and thick, with heads as round as quarters. The hammer was a five-pound ball-peen.

  Willem yelped when a nail was pushed against his shoulder, and then screamed when the hammer came down.

  Charlie said, “This is for Brenda, you son of a bitch.”, Willem shrieking and screaming as the pounded nail flattened against his shoulder.

  “And this is for Thel.”

  Charlie swung the hammer and another round of screaming and crying echoed across the clearing.

  Mark and Eddie watched in stunned fascination as two more nails as long as spikes were driven into Willem’s other shoulder. And then, after one long moment of Willem screaming and crying, whining and cursing, Charlie hammered one final nail through Willem’s forehead, and the screaming stopped.

  Charlie dropped the hammer and nails, and stepped back, like an artist admiring his handiwork.

  “Jesus,” Mark said, and Charlie said, “He deserved it.”

  And Eddie, staring at the dead mountain man crucified against the tree like Jesus on the cross next to a headless thief, found himself saying something he would never have thought himself capable of: “He damn sure did deserve it.”

  Tina ran through the tree line to Charlie, and they came together like something out of a romance novel, except there was no kissing and clutching, for this was not a romance novel. It was real life, as real as life could get. They held each other for a long moment, and Eddie thought of Brenda, how her life had been stolen from her, the awful mess that had blown out of her back. He didn’t look in her direction. He couldn’t. He’d seen her ruined body once, and that was enough to last him a lifetime.

  Charlie took a backward step. One hand holding Tina’s, the other by his side, he said, “Have you guys seen Harry or Traber?”

  Mark said, “Huh?”

  “No,” Tina said.

  “We were all three together. I went up the mountain and they went to the caves. They should’ve been out by now. Maybe we should go look for them.”

  “Maybe we should just get off the mountain instead, before some more Johnsons show up,” Tina told him. “You can round up some help and come back, ‘cause I sure as hell ain’t going into no caves.”

  Eddie was glad to see Charlie nodding his agreement. The last thing he wanted was to go searching through some dark cave full of misshapen, inbred freaks. And if Harry and Traber—whoever they were—had gone in and not come back out, Eddie didn’t want to be the one going in after them. Not unless he had an army behind him.

  Not even then.

  Charlie crossed the clearing and picked up Willem’s shotgun. When he got back, he said, “Well, let’s get outa here.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Mark said, and then followed the others back along the tree line, past Butchie Walker and Bobby Jarvis’ prone bodies, to the narrow path he and Eddie had traveled up hours ago.

  No one said much of anything as they made their way down the mountain, and then followed the trail up, back to where they had broken through the brush after leaving the wrecked Honda behind.

  The cone of light had dwindled to a weak yellow glow, as the car’s battery had so obviously worn down. But Eddie could see it shining through the underbrush, and he stopped for a moment, and said, “I want my guitar.”

  Mark said, “What are you, nutty? We’ll come back in the daylight and get it.”

  “Huh uh. I want it now,” he said, and then stepped through the bushes, disappearing into the foliage as a shotgun blast echoed from somewhere down the mountain.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  When Traber left the cave, he ran through the woods and into the tree line, across the clearing and over the ridge, and didn’t stop running until he was down the hill and back to the old mountain road. Sure, they’d wiped out a bunch of those freaky sons of bitches, but that didn’t mean more of them weren’t out there in the woods. For all he knew, Elbert Johnson himself was leading an army of them down the mountainside at that very moment. That, and the adrenaline pounding through his veins kept his legs churning. Kept his stomach churning, too.

  Before he knew it, he was back at the truck. He didn’t know if Harry had left the keys in it or not, and for a brief moment, he wondered if he had. After all, he wasn’t exactly paying attention when they pulled up and jumped onto the ground. After the wil
d tale Charlie Rodgers had recounted, the only thing on Traber’s mind had been staying the hell alive.

  He opened the door, breathing a great sigh of relief when he found the keys in the ignition, right where the old man had left them. Traber jumped behind the wheel, slammed the door shut and fired up the engine. Seconds later, the headlights were on and he was headed back down the mountain.

  It had been a long, fucked-up day, starting with Mary Jackson’s angry ultimatum to find her little girl—which, oddly enough, had tied in with the rest of this insanity. Laurie Miller and her crazy husband, the Miller brothers, Butchie Walker and Bobby Jarvis… and if they were dead, where were the Markham brothers? All four of those guys hung together like glue. Were they lying somewhere on the mountain, too? Or did they somehow get away and make it back to the valley? Maybe they had loaded up Joey’s Celica and called it a night. Maybe, all coked up, Joey had decided to get an early start. Hell, they’d be leaving bright and early anyway. Maybe they had simply gone home before anything happened. And what had happened to send Butchie and Bobby chasing those folks through the woods?

  Traber sighed. He would never know what happened. What he did know was, that he now had a built in alibi for anyone crazy enough to think he was mixed up with whatever had happened to Laurie and her husband. He was up at Butchie Walker’s place, organizing a search party for little Cindy Jackson, the crazy little bitch who’d taken up with one of the Johnson boys. The state police and the Miller brothers could be damned, Farley, too, and anyone else who dared cast suspicion Traber’s way.

  You don’t believe me, ask Butchie. He’ll tell ya. What’s that? Butchie’s dead? Oh well…

  All he had to do now was get down to the barn and clear out all the drugs—load up as much as he could, and then burn that sucker to the ground. Right after he looted Butchie’s double-wide. He doubted if Butchie kept all that drug money in the bank. He might not keep it in the house, either. Not all of it. Maybe some of it was buried. Probably a lot of it was buried. But Traber was willing to bet there’d be a sizable stash of it somewhere inside the trailer. And after everything had died down, he could always get a shovel and a metal detector and go treasure hunting. He’d probably find something, too.

  Traber pulled up to a stop at the old holler road, rolled down his window and gunfire echoed across the mountain. The loud report of a shotgun. With any luck, Charlie Rodgers had just been removed from the equation. And if not, who cared? Traber’s story was solid gold. Nobody was going to doubt him after what turned up in that cave later on this morning. And no one would blame him for hauling ass back to the valley for help. It really was too bad about the old horse trader. Traber had always liked the guy. But he couldn’t have that kind of shit hanging over his head. Now it was all wrapped up in a neat little package.

  He hung a left onto the road, heading for Butchie Walker’s place. Heading for home. Moments later, he was over the bridge and in front of the barn. Right back where it had all started.

  Traber parked beside his police cruiser, killed the lights and the engine and stepped out of the truck. Everything was just as he’d left it: Butchie’s truck in front of the trailer and Bobby’s Mustang backed up to the open barn door. The trailer dark and the barn lit up, country music still piping out of the radio.

  Traber walked across the dirt yard, into the barn, and cold steel touched the back of his neck. He jerked sideways and grabbed for his gun, and a shotgun went off beside his head. Before he knew it a hangman’s noose was around his neck and he was being dragged across the barn. Then the rope loosened and he was lying on his back in the middle of the floor, Luke Miller standing over him, smiling and shaking his head.

  Brother Carl right at his heels.

  Traber looked around the barn. Everything was gone: the hanging plants and the bulging black bags stacked up in the corner; the sealed cartons of pot and the flat cardboard boxes. Everything—even the scales and the jar of moonshine.

  Luke said, “You just couldn’t leave her alone, could you?”

  “What? What’re you talkin’ about?”

  “What happened, he catch you two cocksuckers, shot Laurie and you shot him?”

  “The fuck’re you talkin’ about?”

  “Cut the shit, Traber.”

  Carl laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Cut the shit, Traber. The jig’s up, brother. And so are you.”

  Yes, the jig was up, the noose around his neck—and these motherfuckers… But he wasn’t going to admit it. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. If they killed him, he wanted them to go through the rest of their life with just a sliver of doubt. If they killed him, he would haunt their sorry asses from the grave.

  “Look, why the fuck would I do something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” Luke said. “Maybe because you were fuckin’ her every which way but loose and he caught your ass doing it?”

  Carl laughed, and Luke said, “Maybe because the only way out was to blow his shit away. ‘Cause from the looks of it, that was the only way you were gettin’ outa there.”

  “Look, I wasn’t anywhere near their place. I promise.”

  “You promise! That’s rich, ain’t it, Carl? He promises!”

  “Rich as a box of choc-o-lots,” he said, mimicking the Alabama retard he’d seen on TV time and time again.

  This time it was Luke’s turn to laugh, and Traber’s turn to feel his stomach shrivel into a fist-sized ball of ice when Luke pulled a knife from behind his back. It was long and wide, and razor-sharp, and Traber thought it was the biggest damned knife he’d ever seen.

  “Hold him still, Carl.”

  Carl put a massive boot on Traber’s arm, just below the shoulder, and pressed down with all his weight.

  “Goddamn, Carl,” Traber said, grimacing as sharp needles of pain exploded through his shoulder, down his arm and into his wrist.

  “Not too hard, brother,” Luke said, and Carl eased up a bit.

  The pain subsided, and Traber said, “Jesus, y’all.”

  Luke grabbed Traber’s index finger, squeezing it tight as he pulled it upward.

  “Jesus can’t help you, pal. Unless you tell the truth.”

  “I am telling the truth.”

  Luke held his blade against the meaty base of Traber’s finger, sliced it and blood began to flow. Traber, struggling to break free, screamed, and Carl pressed hard against his shoulder.

  “Okay, Traber, one last chance. The boat’s sailin’, the train’s leavin’ the station. The truth, Traber. Tell it.”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  “You were there, all right.”

  “I wasn’t. I swear.”

  Carl chuckled. “Here we go again,” he said, and then pulled something from his pocket and dropped it onto Traber’s chest. It was a mashed up piece of a slug. “I dug this outa the doorjamb in Rance’s bedroom. You know what it is, don’t you, Mr. Colt .45.”

  “Okay, okay! I was there, but I didn’t kill any—”

  “Now you tell the truth,” Luke said, and then pressed the knife against the bleeding finger.

  “Okay okay!” Traber said. “I’ll tell—”

  “Too late!” Luke called out, laughing and sawing until the finger popped loose and blood began to spray, Traber screaming, “YOU GODDAMN SON OF A BITCH! I’LL KILL YOU!”

  “Funny,” Luke said, sheathing the knife as Carl kept the crooked lawman pinned to the floor. “That’s just what I was gonna say to you.” He pulled a pound-sized Ziploc bag from beneath his jacket, grabbed a heaping handful of pot and packed Traber’s mouth full… returned the baggy to its resting place and nodded at Carl. “Get him up, brother.”

  Carl pulled him up by the noose that was around his neck. It tightened and Traber grabbed at it, blood pumping from the hole where his finger should have been as he flailed helplessly at the rope. Then he was hanging backwards off the stout redneck’s back, his feet kicking air as nine fingers clawed the noose.

  “Easy, brother,” said
Luke. “We don’t want him dead… yet.”

  Carl dropped him to the ground, Traber wheezing and clutching his throat as the brothers grabbed him again, Luke at one end and Carl at the other, the length of rope dragging behind as they carried Traber out the door, around the barn and into the back, to

  Luke’s pickup, which sat behind the barn. In the bed of the pickup were the bulging black plastic bags, the taped up cardboard cartons and flat pieces as well. Luke grabbed a hammer and Carl grabbed a burlap bag full of nails. He pulled one out, laughing and waving it in Traber’s face. It was long and thick, with a head as round as a quarter.

  Traber tried to scream but his mouth was packed full of pot, and all that came out was a low muffled wail that no one was ever going to hear. He screamed when they stepped away from the truck, and kept on screaming all the way to the deep woods behind the barn.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Orange streaks of dawn were creeping over the horizon when they broke through the tree line. Eddie carried his guitar down the mountain like a third-rate rock star weary from too many nights on too many roads. He was tired and thirsty, hungry and sad. Sad for Brenda and sad for Thel, who he assumed was lying dead in a cold, dark cave.

  They came down through Butchie Walker’s fir trees, right past Jerry Markham’s body. Eddie didn’t look at it as they went by, but Mark and Charlie and Tina did.

  Charlie, shaking his head, said, “What a waste.”

  And everyone agreed that it was.

  A rooster crowed as they crossed the road. Eddie shook his head and laughed.

  Charlie and Tina brightened up when they spotted Harry’s pickup. They ran over and looked inside. The keys were in it but Harry wasn’t.

  Charlie called out, “Harry!”

  But no one answered.

  “What the fuck?” he said.

  Mark said, “Maybe they already went for help.”

  “In what? Traber’s patrol car is here, so is Harry’s truck. I don’t think they took off on foot.”

  They crossed the yard, and stepped in through the open barn door, where they found blood on the floor, speckles of it on the wooden surface of the table.