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  He ran back into the trailer, shouting, “It’s okay! Bobby, it’s okay!”

  Traber laughed and the two on the porch shook their heads. “Not cool,” one said, and the other said, “Not cool at all, Traber.”

  “Lighten up, fellas. It’s just a—”

  Butchie led Bobby through the doorway, Butchie shaking his head, his young friend grinning. “Everybody’s a comedian today,” Butchie said. “You’re lucky that was piss goin’ down them pipes.”

  Traber huffed out another laugh.

  “Laugh, motherfucker. You keep fucking with me—”

  “Watch it there, son,” Traber said. “That’s the law you’re talkin’ to.”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn.”

  “Well you better give a damn, if you wanta keep your ass on the good side of the law. ‘Cause right now, I’m the only thing standing between you and a six by twelve-foot cell.”

  Bobby shook his head, laughing while the other two stepped forward, down the stairs and into the yard. One said, “You hillbilly son of a bitch.”

  Traber threw open his jacket, revealing a Colt .45 that lay nestled in a holster, strapped to his leg, gunslinger-style. He stood there, grinning, his fingers flexing above the pistol grip. “Try it, hombre,” he said.

  “Goddamnit,” Butchie said. “Would you cut the shit?” He pulled a bag of pot from his back pocket, stepped down off the porch and tossed it to Traber, who caught it, and said, “Muchas gracias.”

  Butchie laughed and shook his head. “You’re crazier’n owl shit,” he said, and everybody burst out laughing, the two in the yard casting a cautious eye at Traber as he folded his jacket around his holster, and then slipped the plump baggie into a pocket. They were brothers, a couple of years apart and a couple of years out of high school: Jerry and Joey Markham—Jerry on the left and Joey on the right, both with short red hair, blue eyes and a face full of freckles. Jerry pulled a joint from his shirt pocket. “Jesus,” he said, and then struck a match and touched it to the joint, blew out the flame and tossed the match to the ground. Then he handed the joint to his brother, who hit it and passed it over to Butchie while Traber stepped forward to join them.

  “You guys know anything about Cindy Jackson gone missing?”

  “Huh uh,” Butchie said.

  Traber took the joint from Bobby, hit it a couple of times. “Jesus, this is some kickass shit,” he said, as he passed it on to Jerry Markham. To Butchie, he said, “But y’all haven’t seen her?”

  “Huh uh.”

  “She’s not shackin’ up here with y’all.”

  “Hell no.”

  “’Cause she ain’t been home since Tuesday night, and there ain’t too many places she could be around here. Hell, I couldn’t blame you if she was—damn fine looking girl there. Wouldn’t mind taggin’ a piece of that myself.”

  “Nah,” Butchie told him. “We ain’t seen her.”

  Bobby said, “I heard her daddy chased her outa the house.”

  “Yep,” Traber said. “Me too. Problem is, she hasn’t come home yet and her mama’s worried about her. Came by to see me today, all upset ‘cause I ain’t out beatin’ the weeds trying to find her ass. That’s why I’m here—well, one of the reasons.”

  “I thought it was ‘cause you ran outa pot,” red-headed Joey Markham said.

  Traber smiled “Well, that too… I’m afraid if I don’t get something going trying to find her, Mary’s likely to call in the state boys. And we sure as hell don’t want a buncha state troopers roamin’ the woods around here.”

  “No doubt,” said Butchie.

  “So I was hoping I could get y’all to help me out tomorrow. You know, make a good show of huntin’ around the woods.”

  Butchie shrugged and nodded his head, and Traber continued, “I’ll go ‘round to the church tomorrow and scare up some volunteers, so Mary’ll see I’m not draggin’ my feet. Get a few teams scoutin’ around various places. Then me and you and the boys here’ll kick around yonder.” Traber nodded toward Rickert’s Mountain. “Smoke some doobies and slug back a few beers, and that’ll be that.”

  “That’ll be that, all right,” Butchie said. “’Cause she damn sure ain’t out in those woods. It’d take her half a day just to get up here.”

  “Her mama’s worried the Johnsons might’ve got her.”

  “Shit,” Butchie said. “I doubt it. They don’t come far enough off the mountain to bother anybody.”

  “Yeah,” Traber said. “She ain’t around here. Probably caught a ride down at the truck stop. Like her mama said, she ain’t got no place to go, no clothes, no money. Which brings me to my other reason for coming up here.”

  “What’s that?” said Butchie.

  “I’m almost outa money, too.”

  “Goddamnit.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kayla Rockley wiped down the kitchen counter and draped her dishrag over the narrow edge of the sink. The dinner was eaten, the dishes cleaned and draining in the white plastic strainer. She smiled as Mark and Eddie’s voices floated in from the hallway. Mark hadn’t been home since his father had passed. It was so hard to believe Richard had only been gone two years. It seemed like forever since he’d kissed her goodbye and headed off to work that last morning. God, how she missed him.

  Kayla was happy to see Eddie. It had been so long—years, in fact—since she’d last laid eyes on him. What a pleasant surprise it was to see the man he had grown into, his handsome features. And his hair, so neatly trimmed, nothing like the wild-eyed kid she remembered. Once he was showered and shaved and dressed in a fresh set of clothes, he really looked nice. She was glad he’d come up, and that he would be accompanying her son to Louisiana. Kayla worried about Mark being on the road by himself, and didn’t want to think about him being all alone in the little backwater town they were going to. No telling what he might get himself into out there. Trouble seemed to follow Mark everywhere he went. She knew something had happened on his way into Weaverton, no matter what he said about getting whacked on the oil rig—that black eye of his was too fresh to have happened down south. Mark had a smart mouth, and he was quick to react, sometimes overreacting, like the time he’d called a policeman a pig and she’d had to bail him out of jail on a loitering charge because the cop had crossed the line. Sometimes she thought it was her fault for the way she’d brought him up, her and Richard drinking and drugging in front of him, leaving the stuff around the house, knowing he was probably getting into it but never having the inner strength to face the demons that were hounding them. Praise the Lord for finally coming into her heart and turning her life around, and for riding her shoulder while she worked on her husband—bless his heart; he was such a good man. If only she could reach in and open her son up to Him. That was why she was so glad to see Eddie. He was always so well behaved. Maybe some of his manners would rub off on Mark. Maybe they would be good for each other.

  Kayla grabbed a half-full glass of tea off the countertop, and left the kitchen to join the boys—because to her, no matter how straight or how tall they grew, they would always be her boys. She smiled as she walked up behind the couch and put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

  “I can’t get over how good you look,” she told him.

  Mark sniggered, as Eddie said, “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  She stroked a hand across Eddie’s hair and he began to blush. “Look at this,” she said. “I wish Mark would cut that mane of his.” And this time it was Eddie’s turn to chuckle, as his friend said, “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “It’s so nice to have you guys around. I just wish you could stay a little longer. Are you sure you have to leave tonight?”

  “Well,” Mark said. “Technically, we’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

  “But so early.”

  “I told you, Mom. So we can get a jump on the traffic.”

  Kayla sighed, and Mark said, “You’re still gonna let us use your car tonight, aren’t you?”

  “You’re lea
ving at three o’clock in the morning, and you’re going out tonight?”

  “You know,” Mark said. “To show Eddie around town.”

  “Oh, please. What’re you going to show him? The combination country store/police station?”

  Eddie chuckled, and Mark said, “A couple of girls, maybe?”

  “And just when do you two plan on sleeping? Or do you even plan on sleeping tonight?”

  “Aw, Mom.”

  Kayla looked at her watch. It was eight-thirty. She knew that nothing she said would change their minds. Boys will be boys, even when they’re grown men. “Well,” she said. “I’m gonna take a bath. Come here and give me a hug—both of you.”

  They stood up and walked over to Kayla. Eddie hugged her first, then Mark. She held him for a moment before releasing her grip and taking a step back, a lump forming in the back of her throat as she looked at a younger version of her deceased husband: the brown hair, the cleft in his chin, Richard’s eyes. Still clasping his hand, she said, “All grown up, both of you.”

  “Which is an excellent reason for you not to worry,” Mark said, drawing a chuckle from Kayla, who said, “Oh, it is, is it?” She gave his hand a squeeze.

  “Keys are on the table,” she said, and then started for the hallway and stopped. “You are going to wake me before you leave, aren’t you?”

  “Of course,” Mark said, and Kayla said, “Make sure you do.”

  * * *

  Mark and Eddie were excited, optimistic about meeting up with Brenda and Thel tonight. But as upbeat as they may have been, Mark couldn’t help seasoning his optimism with a healthy dose of realism. Would they really show up? Wouldn’t be the first time a couple of girls had fed them a line. If he had a buck for every wrong number some hot babe had given him… And even if they did show, there was no guarantee as to what might happen. For all he knew, Mark would find Jimmy and his gang waiting to finish the job those truck-stop-rednecks had started. The guy sure was raring to go back at Farley’s, with his red face and the cue stick in his hands, and three against two wasn’t exactly the best of odds. But Mark figured it was safe enough. Surely those guys would have sense enough to stay clear of the enraged barman for a while.

  “So what do you think?” Mark said as they made their way along the highway.

  “What?”

  “What?” Mark looked at Eddie, then back at the road. “What do you think? The women. You think they’ll show?”

  Shrugging, Eddie said, “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “Yeah, really,” Mark said. “We’re the cool new guys, in town from exciting and far away places.”

  Eddie huffed out a laugh.

  “What?”

  “Exciting and far away places. Nothing much exciting about J-ville, and you just crawled off an oil rig out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I got news for you, pal. Jacksonville’s the birthplace of southern rock, and the little coastal town I just crawled out of flat-out rocks—with a capital R.”

  “I don’t know about your little bayou town, but there ain’t shit happening in Jax. Southern rock may have been born there, but it had to hightail it outa town to grow up. Hell, you know that. You know a rock band can’t survive with the handful of clubs they got down there. Why the hell else would I be following your ass to Louisiana?”

  “You know that and so do I, but Brenda and Thel don’t. You grew up there and never left. You wait, you’ll see. You get away from there and people think it’s some magical, mystical place where long-haired country boys crawl up outa golden fields of sensimilla with guitars slung over their shoulders.”

  Smiling, Eddie shrugged. “They do have the killer herb down there.”

  “No shit. If I miss anything, it’s that high-grade, kick-ass pot.”

  “Speaking of which,” Eddie said, and then pulled a thin, hand-rolled cigarette out of his shirt pocket. “Wanta burn one?”

  “You brought some herb with you?”

  “Sure did.”

  “The fuck are you, some kind of moron?” Mark said this, not because he thought Eddie was stupid enough to have had drugs on him while he hitched his way through damn near every backwoods, redneck town the south had to offer, not at all. Mark was glad he did it. He was pissed because they’d missed an opportunity to impress Brenda and Thel.

  “What?”

  “Why didn’t you mention it in front of the girls? You know how that shit draws the trim. Jesus, Eddie. We could’ve taken ‘em off and tooted a couple of joints. Hell, we could’ve been knee-deep in pussy by now.”

  “Yeah, right. Fresh off the road, dirty clothes, no bath, and you think I should corner a couple of sweeties in the cab of a truck. You must really want to kill our night.”

  Mark glanced at Eddie and smiled; Eddie fired up the joint and he chuckled.

  “Point taken,” he said, laughing as Eddie passed the reefer his way. Mark took a hit, held it in and let it out. Took another, held it in a little longer and then coughed it out. “Damn, I miss this shit. And the fucking coke. Boy, do I miss the coke.”

  “Yeah, well, T-bone Baker’s sure missing the hell out of you right about now.”

  “Jesus… T-bone. I can’t believe I did that.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said. “Neither can he.”

  Eddie and Mark, raised two houses apart in the Cedar Hills area of Jacksonville, Florida, were a byproduct of their low income, middleclass suburban environment. Their childhood years saw the birth of Southern Rock, where groups like Skynnrd and Hatchet, Blackfoot and .38 Special honed their skills at the local watering holes attended religiously by Mark and Eddie’s drug-abusing parents. The two friends were proud of their heritage, glad to have grown up in a household where their next high lay waiting in back of Dad’s sock drawer, or beneath the couch cushions. Eddie, who took up the guitar at twelve, spent his teenage years emulating his southern rock heroes. He woke up thinking about music, and went to bed dreaming of the fame and fortune his guitar would bring him. And Mark was right there, drinking and drugging, fighting and selling weed alongside his pal. When high school was over, Eddie lived out his dream, playing music in the bars and clubs while Mark sold drugs supplied by Tommy T-bone Baker, another childhood friend, who had parleyed a summer in Mexico into a career as a ruthless purveyor of marijuana and cocaine. Eventually they drifted apart, but not so far that Mark wouldn’t pop up at one of Eddie’s performances, or be there to lend an ear, or a helping hand when Eddie found yet another of his volatile relationships headed down the tubes—the direction all of them seemed to go, eventually. They were pals, friends to the end who would never let each other down. Not even when Tommy T-bone Baker showed up on Eddie’s doorstep demanding to know Mark’s whereabouts would Eddie give him up. Not even when T-bone’s henchman held a blade to his throat.

  “Neither can I, actually,” Eddie said. “How much did you end up owing him, anyway?”

  “Four grand.”

  “Jesus, Mark. How much shit did he front you?”

  Wincing, Mark said, “A bunch.”

  “You know he broke Jimbo Kelly’s leg over a half-pound of weed, don’t you?”

  Mark shrugged his shoulders.

  “I can’t imagine what he’d do to you.”

  “Yeah,” Mark said as he pulled into Farley’s parking lot. “That’s another reason I won’t be going back to J-ville anytime soon.”

  Chapter Nine

  Butchie Walker leaned forward in his chair, over an old wooden table in the middle of his barn. Rows of marijuana plants hung upside down, curing on taut strands of rope strung low from a series of poles set into the ground a few feet apart from one end of the barn to the other. The smell of the room was a mixture of hay, dirt and pine. A scale and a roll of packing tape sat on the table, beside a clear, bulging plastic Ziploc bag of pot. Several sealed bags sat in a cardboard box next to Butchie’s feet, along with a black fifty-gallon trash bag, half-full of the herb they’d been weighing out in pound-sized containers. A pile of the b
ulging black bags lay in a corner of the barn, next to two four-foot-high stacks of flat corrugated cardboard cartons. Several empty boxes constructed from the stack sat next to the table, beside a row of stacked cartons which had already been filled and taped shut.

  Butchie pulled a thick bud half as long as his arm from the black plastic bag and laid it on the table, crystalline resin beading along the flowered plant sparkling in the overhead light as he said, “High Times ain’t got nothing on us.”

  “No doubt,” Bobby Jarvis said.

  Red-headed Joey Markham pinched off the end of the bud and held a clump of it under his nose. “I love that smell,” he said, and then began pulling the sticky piece of marijuana apart. When he finished he rolled a huge joint, then another, pinched off some more, and started the process over again.

  Butchie snorted a thick line of cocaine off a round mirror encased in a thin wooden frame, switched a cut-off piece of plastic straw to his other nostril and huffed up another pile. Then he handed the straw to Bobby, who went happily after his lines. On the opposite side of the table, Jerry and Joey Markham cast an eager eye at the cocaine while Butchie picked up a half-full jar of moonshine, took a healthy sip and passed it over to Jerry.

  “I still don’t see why we have to put up with Traber’s shit,” Joey said, as he took the Mason jar from his brother. He took a drink and passed it along to Bobby, who had just lifted his head from the table, miniscule flecks of white powder falling like snowflakes away from his nostrils.

  “No shit,” Jerry said. “Every fucking month, and what the hell good is he? It’s not like he’s helping us move the shit—and he could. Hell, he should, for what he’s being paid. Fill the trunk of that cop car of his and drive the shit to the cities. Who the hell’s gonna fuck with a cop?”

  “Just the cost of doing business,” Butchie said.

  “Fuck him. He doesn’t do a goddamn thing.”