Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Canyon) (20 page)

A shiver ran down his back as he remembered the hunting trip yesterday with Troy and his brothers Scully and Mace. He’d never forget the big brown-spotted snake nearly as long as Sam was tall, slithering across the trail in front of them. A water moccasin, Troy had said. Troy said if it bit you, it could kill you.

Sam hated snakes. He hadn’t known how much they scared him until yesterday.

His eyes burned. He should have run away that night at the chicken fights. He should have headed out into the desert instead of going back to the truck.

But Pepper had been waiting, and he couldn’t just leave him.

“I’ve got some chores for him to do right here,” Aggie said, resting a hand on his shoulder. She was the only one in the camp who’d been nice to him.

“I’ll see he gets somethin’ to eat,” Aggie said. “Soon as we’re done, I’ll send him on out to y’all.”

“All right, but don’t take too long.”

Aggie smiled down at him. She was kind of old, but at least she liked him. “Hear that? We’d best get you fed. How about some grits and syrup? It’s still in the pot. I can heat it up in no time.”

Sam just nodded. His stomach was rumbling. He tried not to think of the French toast his mom used to make, his favorite breakfast meal. He tried not to think of his mom at all.

Or Claire. He wondered if she had tried to find him after he was gone. She probably thought he’d run away and forgot all about him.

His throat closed up. When Aggie set the grits down in front of him along with the pitcher of syrup, he had to force the food past the lump in his throat.

He was never going home. He had to face the truth. Troy would never let him leave, and there was no place to run from here. Not unless he wanted to get killed by a snake or eaten by a gator. He’d seen one of those yesterday, too.

Little by little he was getting to the point where he didn’t really care. Maybe he’d just take off, see if he could make it out of here on his own. Sam went back to eating his grits. He would need to be strong if he decided to run.

Twenty-One

T
he sign for Catahoula Candy Makers sat in front of a long, low, metal-roofed building outside the Egansville city limits on the west side of town. The town itself had a population of twenty-one hundred, bigger, at least, than Converse. Claire couldn’t keep the hope from rising in her chest as they approached the front door.

Ben held it open and she walked to the counter, where a middle-aged woman wearing a clean white apron and a name tag that read Sophie came up to greet them. She was small, with short blond hair and dark eyes.

“Welcome,” the woman said with a smile. “What can I get for you today? We got the Mud Bug twelve-pack, if you’re interested. Saves you ten percent. They keep real good, so you can’t go wrong stockin’ up.”

Claire smiled brightly. “That sounds great.” She hoped she could keep Ben from jumping into interrogation mode, which, with those pale eyes and the way he was grinding his jaw, would send the poor woman running for cover. “We’ll take a twelve-pack.”

“Sure enough,” Sophie said, obviously pleased. She disappeared into the back and returned with a white cardboard box holding twelve packages of Mud Bugs wrapped in clear cellophane, each piece twisted at the ends.

“You ain’t from around here,” the woman said as she wrote out the receipt. “How’d you hear about us?”

“A friend told us about you,” Ben said, taking Claire’s lead, thank God, and standing down, at least for the moment. “Troy Bragg. We tried some at his house. You don’t know him, do you?”

She shook her head, continued writing up the order. “’Fraid I never met him.”

Claire’s spirits fell.

Sophie added the tax. “I know his sister, Aggie, though. She comes in a couple of times a year. Aggie loves our candy.”

Claire couldn’t breathe. Thank heaven Ben stepped in, because she couldn’t get out a single word.

“That’s what Troy told us.” Ben managed a smile that looked at least halfway sincere. “We thought while we were here we’d stop by and say hello. You wouldn’t know her address, would you?”

The woman laughed. “Aggie don’t exactly have an address. She and her kin live about thirty miles south of here, out to Bushytail Bayou. Egansville’s the closest town. Aggie and some of the others come in for supplies once or twice a year.”

Finally back in control, Claire pasted on a friendly smile. “I know she has six brothers. I didn’t know they all lived together.”

Sophie started frowning. “I figured if you knew Aggie, you’d know about that.”

“We’ve mostly talked to Troy,” Ben said smoothly. “He mentioned something about a big family. I can’t remember exactly what it was.”

The woman grinned. “Then if you go out there, you’re in for a real surprise—if they’ll even let you in.”

A man walked out of the back room just then, tall and rangy, with silver hair, a large nose and square jaw. “That’s enough, Sophie. You ain’t bein’ paid to stand around and gossip.”

Her blond eyebrows went up and she flashed Claire a small, woman-to-woman smile.
Men,
it said.
Always interfering.
“Here’s your Mud Bugs. Will that be cash or charge?”

“Cash.” Ben pulled out his silver money clip and peeled off the amount needed to pay the bill.

“Thanks for comin’ in,” Sophie said, handing him the box of candy and his change.

The man behind the counter said nothing, just stood in stony silence, his arms crossed over his chest.

It was cool when they stepped outside, the days creeping toward November, the hot, humid Louisiana summer finally over. As she slid into the passenger seat, Claire thought of Sam and her throat went tight.

“Sam loved the summer heat,” she said, remembering back to the summer before his mother died. “He can swim like a fish and he loves the ocean. He wants to learn how to sail.”

A muscle ticked in Ben’s jaw.

“Aggie Bragg lives with her brothers thirty miles away,” Claire continued. “Do you really think that’s where Sam is?”

Ben flicked her a dark, sideways glance. “Yeah, I do.” He dug out his cell phone and called Sol as he drove out of the parking lot.

“Bushytail Bayou,” he said. “That’s where the Bragg family lives. I need to know exactly where it is and what the hell’s going on out there.”

Sol said something Claire couldn’t hear, then Ben hung up the phone. “We need more information.”

“So how do we get it?” she asked.

“Get on your iPad. Look up the address for the Egansville post office. The Braggs have a box there. In a town this size, odds are someone will know them.”

Claire plucked the device from between the seats, turned it on and brought up Google, pulled up the address. “It’s on First Street. That’s just off the road we’re on.”

The area was extremely rural. The few buildings along the way sat on big parcels of flat ground far apart from one another. There weren’t many of them. It didn’t take long to find the single-story brick building that served as the local post office. Ben parked in front, and both of them got out of the SUV.

Inside, old-fashioned glass-windowed brass post boxes lined the walls. The office was empty except for the wizened little man who stood behind the counter wearing thick horn-rim glasses, a yellow pencil stuck behind his ear.

“Excuse me,” Ben said when the man didn’t look up, just kept sorting through the stack of letters in front of him. “I wonder if maybe you could help us.”

He finally glanced up, didn’t look friendly. “What can I do for ya?”

Claire stepped in, deflecting the man’s attention away from Ben’s icy stare. “We’re looking for a place called Bushytail Bayou. Can you tell us how to get there?”

“What business you got out there?” he asked Ben.

“We hope to visit some friends.”

He scratched his head. “What ya do, ya go south on 121 ’bout thirty miles. You’ll find the road right there in the middle of town. Road follows the Black Snake River.” He looked Ben over, took in the thick biceps beneath the sleeve of his dark gray T-shirt, the muscular chest and shoulders. “You one of them survivalist boys?”

Survivalist!
Claire tried to hide her shock, but the picture of Troy and his brothers dressed in camouflage popped into her head.
Oh, my God!

Ben shook his head. “Like I said, we’re just meeting some buddies.”

“Place ain’t easy to find and them boys don’t cotton to visitors lest you’re one of ’em. My advice be to forget the visit and keep on a-drivin’.”

Ben pretended to consider that. “I think maybe you’re right. We’re on our way to Natchez. It’s a long drive for a quick visit. Think we’ll just keep going.”

Claire sighed. “Sounds like a lot of trouble, and we don’t really know them that well, anyway.” The last thing they needed was someone telling the Braggs they were in Egansville looking for them.

She smiled at the old man, whose name tag read Jenkins. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Jenkins.”

He just grunted and went back to sorting letters into neat little piles. Leaving him to his task, they headed for the car, Claire having to hurry to keep up with Ben’s long, anxious strides.

“Survivalists,” she said as they climbed back into the Denali. “Not white supremacists.”

“Yeah, and word gets out we’re looking for them, they’ll be ready for us.”

“Are we calling the sheriff?”

“Maybe. I want to talk to Sol, see what he comes up with first. In the meantime, we need a room, somewhere out of town, preferably on the road south. We need a place to stash the gear, use the computer and strategize.”

“Maybe we could drive by the area first, see what it looks like.”

“Hell, no. I’m not going anywhere near those guys with you in the car. Besides, I’ve got a hunch their compound won’t be easy to find.”

As Ben drove through the small rural community, he pressed Sol’s number. “Bushytail Bayou is thirty miles south of—” Ben broke off the sentence and started nodding. Apparently, Sol had already found the location.

“The Braggs are involved in some kind of survivalist group,” Ben told him. Sol said something. “Yeah, definitely not good news. They all live together in some sort of compound. It’s bound to be guarded. I’m going to need to find a way in.”

Sol said something, and a few minutes later, Ben hung up the phone.

“He’s on it. He’s sending area maps and intel. In the meantime, how are you coming with that room?”

Claire looked down at the Google page, open on the iPad in her lap. “There’s nothing out there, Ben. No motel for a jillion miles.”

“Try fishing camps. Lots of water around. People love to fish. See if there’s something with a cabin we can rent.”

She typed in the reference, looked up at him. “I can’t believe it. Uncle Buster’s Cabins. Look’s like it’s on a lake off road 121. They rent fishing boats and there’s a small RV park. If I call from here, we might be able to get something.”

“Sounds good.”

She looked down at the iPad. “From the photos, the cabins look pretty good, but there’s no cell phones, no internet.”

“Sat phone. We won’t be incommunicado.”

Claire leaned back in her seat. They were close. She could feel it.

While she made the reservation, Ben pulled into a rural market to pick up supplies for a couple of days, sandwich fixings and breakfast rolls, a couple of bags of potato chips, some milk. Claire grabbed a bag of raw almonds, picked up some apples and bananas, a jug of orange juice, a six-pack of bottled water.

As they climbed back into the car and Ben pulled out of the lot, she said a silent prayer for Sam.
We’re coming, sweetheart. Be strong. Don’t give up. We love you, Sam.
Her eyes felt misty, her throat tight when she finished.

Ben reached over and squeezed her hand. “We’re going to find him, Claire. We’re going to bring him home.”

But it wouldn’t be easy. Claire thought of the bullet wound in Ben’s side that was barely healed, and the other scars he carried.

This time her prayer was for Ben.

Twenty-Two

T
hey followed the two-lane road south, moving farther and farther away from Egansville, through a flat landscape of low-lying farms and wetlands. For the first ten miles, there was only a smattering of houses. The next ten were almost completely uninhabited, just miles of farmland on one side, marshy green swampland on the other.

The narrow, overgrown Black Snake River wound along on the west, slithering through a heavy tangle of leafy plants and deep woods like the serpent it was named for.

Ben hadn’t spent much time in Louisiana, but he knew his way around a jungle. The Philippines had been his last mission, a major clusterfuck that had gotten one of his teammates killed and landed him and two other SEALs in the hospital. He’d been there for three months, managed to recover from his injuries, but ended up leaving the teams.

The bayou was a different kind of jungle. And still a lot the same. He’d rather not think about that.

Beside him, Claire sat up straighter in her seat and pointed off to the right. “Look, Ben, there’s the turn to Black Snake Lake.”

He slowed, turned down a bumpy dirt road lined with low-hanging trees and spotted another sign. He took a right that led to Uncle Buster’s, a row of tidy-looking cabins right along the water, each with a small boat dock on piers out in front.

Ben slowed to a stop in front of a wooden building with a sign that read Old Fishermen Never Die, They Just Smell That Way, and climbed the porch steps to the rental office.

“Ben Slocum,” he said to a short, bald-headed man with a round face and a big beer belly. “My wife called and made a reservation.”

“Buster Pascal. Got it right here.” He pulled a registration form out from beneath the counter.

“My wife and I are on our honeymoon,” Ben said. “Any chance we could get the cabin at the far end of the row?”

Buster smiled. “Congratulations.” He shoved the form across the counter. “Cabin’s yours.” He winked. “A man needs privacy on his honeymoon.”

“Thanks.” The weather here was good, warmer than it was back home. Ben filled out the form and paid the bill in cash for a two-night stay.

Buster counted the money, smiled and shook his head. “A woman who likes to fish. You’re one lucky SOB, my friend.”

Ben flashed him a man-to-man smile. “Won’t be a lot of fishing on this trip—if you know what I mean.”

Buster rumbled a laugh. “Smart man.”

“I see you have boats if I can manage the time. I may want to rent one for a couple of days.” He’d know more about where he was going after he downloaded the area maps Sol was sending.

“Nice aluminum flat-bottoms. Comes with a pole and gear. Take you up into the bayou. Great fishing there—bream, catfish, crappie. But I wouldn’t go far. Easy to wind up lost in there.”

“Bushytail Bayou?”

The owner shook his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t bother. You can get there from here, but you’d have to know the way. There’s lots of twists and turns. Real overgrown. You’d get lost for sure.”

“Glad you warned me. I think I’ll go ahead and take that boat, though.” He pulled his wallet back out, paid for the boat and fishing gear. “I get up earlier than my wife. Bound to get in some time to fish.”

Buster grinned. “My wife hates fishin’. Like I said, you’re a lucky SOB.”

Ben got two keys to cabin nine and headed back to the car. The lie about him and Claire being newlyweds had come easier than it should have, since he wasn’t a marrying man. He wished to hell he could spend his made-up honeymoon in bed with her, but that wasn’t going to happen.

He started the engine and drove to the cabin farthest from the office. As Claire had said, the place wasn’t too bad, a small wooden structure on stilts about two feet off the ground with a covered porch out front. It had two full-size beds, a tiny kitchenette and bath.

“Look, there’s a coffeemaker and bag of coffee.” Claire practically swooned. “Coffee in the morning and an amazing view of a beautiful lake. This is heaven.”

“Yeah, it’s a regular five-star. Nothing but the best for my woman.”

Claire looked over at him, and he realized what he’d said. She wasn’t his woman. She didn’t belong to him. She never would. He didn’t say that, though, just brought his duffel and her suitcase in from the car and tossed them up on one of the beds, stashed the weapons bag and ammunition underneath.

He took his laptop out of his duffel and set it up on the tiny kitchen table.

“No internet, remember.”

He turned on the machine. “I’ll be on satellite. I can tether the computer to the sat phone.”

One of her dark eyebrows went up. “High-tech. Very impressive.”

“Glad you approve.” Before he cranked up his email, he phoned Sol, gave him their current location and told him that from now on they’d be communicating via sat phone.

“I’ve pinpointed the target’s location,” Sol said as he studied satellite photos of the area on his computer screen. “A big open space in the middle of the swamp a little north and west of you. Hang on a minute.” Ben could hear him pounding the keyboard. “Satellite shows a cluster of houses...more like cabins.”

“How many?”

“Looks like eight or nine. Hard to tell exactly what they’re being used for.”

“Can you see Black Snake Lake?”

Silence for a moment. “I see it. Looks like it’s maybe three or four miles from the compound.”

“I need to know how the lake connects to the location. I’ve got a boat, little four-stroke outboard. Unless you’ve found a better way in, looks like I’ll be going in by water.”

“I’ll find the best route. Your computer up and running?”

“I’m hooking up the tether as soon as we’re finished. “You come across anything new on the Braggs?”

A brief pause. “I was just getting to that.”

“I don’t like what I’m hearing in your voice.”

“They call themselves the Bayou Patriots. Looks like about thirty members. The father’s dead. Mace Bragg’s the leader. He’s the oldest brother. They’re headquartered in the compound, but only three of the Bragg brothers live there full-time. Troy lives there off and on. The other two, Jesse and Si, live in double-wide trailers in a wide spot farther down the road. Both of them are married. They’ve each got a couple of kids.”

“Odds are brother Troy is in the compound with Hutchins.”

“And Sam.”

“Yeah,” Ben said gruffly.

“Believe it or not, these guys have a webpage, BayouPatriots.com. Most of the members are local, some in Egansville. One of them runs the website, posts articles on survival, how to arm and defend yourself in case of a natural disaster, or if the government tries to take away your liberties.”

“A website. Twenty-first-century swamp rats.”

“You got it. They hold meetings at the compound every week. From the articles on the website, these guys are heavily armed and they mean business. If they have to, they’re ready to fight to the death to defend themselves against anyone they think is against them.”

Ben didn’t have a problem with people who believed in learning how to stay alive in a bad situation, men who could take care of themselves and their families if the need arose. Hell, he was one of them. He knew better than most that in this crazy world, anything could happen.

But taking a child without any legal right, thrusting him into a life that was completely foreign to him, was immoral as well as against the law.

Ben looked over at Claire. From the paleness of her face, he figured she was hearing enough of the conversation to understand what was going on.

“Check out their website,” Sol said, “and watch your email for the intel I’m sending.”

Ben hung up the phone.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

Bad enough.
“Come here.” When he opened his arms, she went into them and just held on. “It’s going to be all right, angel. I’m trained for this. I know what to do to get Sam out safely.” He’d done dozens of extractions in the SEALs. Except for the shit storm in the Philippines, all of them had been successful.

She looked up at him. “You’re not calling the sheriff, are you? You never planned to call them in the first place.”

“I was waiting to see how things lined up. If the cops go into a situation like this, people are going to get killed. One of them could be Sam. If I go in alone, I can get him out and back to safety before they even know he’s missing.”

She rested her head against his shoulder. He tried not to think how good it felt to have her there.

“I’m scared, Ben. I’m scared for you and Sam.”

He smoothed a hand over her shiny dark hair. “If I believed the cops could get him out without him getting hurt, I’d let them handle it. But I can’t take that chance. I won’t, Claire. Not with Sam’s life.”

She swallowed, started to pull away. Ben caught her face between his hands, bent his head and kissed her. “Trust me, okay?”

She reached up and cupped his cheek. “I do trust you, Ben.”

Wishing he could sweep her up and carry her over to the bed, spend the night making love to her, he turned away and went to work on his computer. If Sol came through with the rest of the information he needed, he would be going in late this afternoon to recon the target. There would be a quarter moon tonight, enough to light his way out of the swamp, assuming he made no wrong turns.

Tomorrow, if luck and the weather stayed on his side, he would be bringing out his son.

* * *

As the afternoon sun moved toward the horizon, Claire watched Ben prepare to leave. He was taking the aluminum boat he had rented, following the map Sol had sent of the area around the lake. There was another map showing the route from the fishing camp across a portion of the lake into Bushytail Bayou and the Patriots’ compound deep in the swamp.

Since they didn’t have a printer, Ben had transposed the map by hand onto a sheet of paper. It showed the main waterway narrowing to a thin channel through a tangle of narrow twists and turns. It showed most of the little tributaries that could lead him in the wrong direction. Most, but not all.

Ben would be marking his way with small pieces of orange neon tape fastened to overhanging trees and vines, the kind hunters used that wouldn’t be completely out of place if they were spotted along the muddy waterways of the bayou.

She walked out to the porch as he fired up the small outboard engine and pulled away from the dock, her chest tight with worry. She hadn’t even considered asking him to take her with him. She would be a detriment, not an asset, to both him and Sam. Besides, he wasn’t bringing Sam out until tomorrow night.

As the time slipped past, Claire went back inside and picked up the book she’d brought with her, sat down and tried to read. When that didn’t work, she set the book aside and began to pace the cabin. Finally, feeling claustrophobic and wishing she had something productive to do, she went back outside and sat on the tiny porch to watch the sunset, a flashy, beautiful display of gold, orange and pink that gave her some idea of why the people who lived out here put up with the heat and humidity of a stifling Louisiana summer.

There was always good to offset the bad.

As darkness descended and the moon came out over the lake, her worry increased. What would the Braggs do if they spotted Ben? Was Duke Hutchins there with Troy? Hutchins had tried to kill Ben at the cockfight. If he got the chance he might try it again.

And what about Sam?

If Sam was there, tomorrow night Ben was going after him. Claire wasn’t sure the boy would go with him. He had left willingly with Troy in the first place. Maybe he would want to stay.

She couldn’t make that scenario work in her head. She didn’t know Troy, but she knew Sam. He was a smart kid, smart enough to realize the kind of life he would have if he stayed in the swamp with Troy. A kid who would figure out fairly quickly the kind of man he’d aligned himself with when he had left the relative safety of the Roberson household.

Sam loved school. He made friends easily and he loved playing sports. Still, there was no way to know for sure what he would do when Ben appeared like a specter from the dead. Exactly what Laura had told Sam his father was—a soldier killed in the war.

Claire glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight and still no sign of Ben. Rubbing her arms against the faint chill coming in off the lake, she listened to the sound of a bullfrog croaking somewhere in the distance. A fish jumped, leaving ripples on the surface of the water.

She didn’t hear Ben come up the steps, just felt his presence behind her and knew he was there. Her heart beat softly as she turned and looked up at him. He was dressed completely in dark green camouflage, his face covered with black greasepaint, making his pale, piercing blue eyes stand out even more. A band of ammunition crisscrossed his muscular chest. His knife was strapped to his thigh, his shotgun slung across his back, his pistol clipped to his web belt.

He should have looked like a stranger, and yet he seemed more familiar than any man she had ever known.

“I’m glad you’re home and safe,” she said softly.

Wordlessly he took her hand, led her into the cabin out of sight and closed the door. One by one, he began to remove his weapons, setting each of them down on the kitchen counter. He grabbed a paper towel and wiped some of the greasepaint off his face.

“Sam was there. I saw him, Claire. He was there with the black Lab you talked about. I didn’t even have to see his face. He walks like me, moves like me. Jesus, it was eerie.”

Her heart squeezed. “He seemed okay? He wasn’t hurt or anything?”

He clenched his jaw. “He’s lost a lot of weight. He didn’t look skinny in the pictures I saw.”

Worry trickled through her. “No, he wasn’t thin the last time I saw him.”

“They’re working him hard, Claire. They had him digging a new latrine out behind the one they’re using. I think it’s good for a kid to do chores, develop good work habits, but they’re working him like a laborer. The woman—I figure it’s Aggie—she’s the only one who talks to him like he’s a person.”

His hand unconsciously fisted. “It was all I could do not to go in and clean house, take Sam out with me by force if I had to. I knew I couldn’t take the chance. I want him out safely. I need to play this right.”