Bull Mountain (16 page)

CHAPTER

C
LAYTON
B
URROUGHS

2015

1.

Darby pulled the Bronco up in front of a small cottage. It was a humble place, no more than two, maybe three, rooms inside, with an outhouse and a rusty but still-operational
John Deere tractor in the yard. The porch was covered with potted plants, and armies of violets and red Gerber daisies lined the stone walkway. This place looked more like the bed-and-breakfast cabins tourists rented out in Helen, Georgia, or by the vineyards in Dahlonega. It was in direct contrast to the sun-bleached compound they’d just left. The colors were vibrant in the late-afternoon sunlight
and for a split second Darby entertained the idea of this being the home of a mistress Clayton was keeping on the side. It sure had the look of a woman’s touch. That idea vanished as soon as the seven-foot black man holding a shotgun appeared on the porch.

“Who’s that there?” the man said. He looked to be in his late sixties, maybe older. A ring of silver-gray hair dusted the sides of his
bald head, and matching tufts of gray sprouted down his chest. His shoulders were broad, but they sagged under his age, and his belly folded over his red boxer shorts. His muscle tone wasn’t the same as it used to be, but he was still a hulk of a man.

“Put the gun down, Val. It’s me, Clayton.” Clayton got out of the truck and put his hands in the air. Darby cut the engine.

“Clayton Burroughs?
Boy, what the hell are you doing up here?” Val took a harder look at his company. “And what happened to your face?”

“Well, if you could loan me a stretch of porch and a piece of venison from your icebox, I’d be happy to tell you.”

Val lowered the shotgun. “Get on up here, then. I’ll go put some pants on.”

“Thanks for that,” Clayton said.

“And don’t be steppin’ all over my garden
on your way over.” Val turned back into the house and Clayton and Darby eased up to the porch. Darby relaxed for the first time since they’d left the station that afternoon. “You reckon he’s got anything to drink in there?”

Clayton laughed. “The best on the mountain.”

Val came back out wearing a pair of well-worn overalls, holding a thick hunk of backstrap for Clayton’s eye and a large
ceramic jug. He handed the meat to Clayton and put a big, calloused hand on his shoulder. No hugs or small-talk sentiment, just a hand on a shoulder and a respectful nod made it obvious to anyone watching that these men were family. It wasn’t necessary to
catch up.
They were both just thankful to be there now. The old man fished a sleeve of clear plastic cups from a basket between two pine rockers
and took a seat. Clayton sat in the other one and laid the ice-cold slab of meat over his throbbing eye. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“Who done that to you, son?”

“Halford.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah, not my finest hour.”

“Why you climbing in the ring with that boy? He could have killed you. What was you thinkin’?”

“That’s what I said,” Darby chimed in from
the steps and tipped his hat at Val.

“He wasn’t gonna kill me. He’s my brother. Besides, I had Darby there to pull me out when it got bad.” He leaned his head forward and looked at Darby. “Thanks for what you did back there. I mean it. Thanks.”

Darby tipped his hat at Clayton as well. Val set the plastic cups upside down on the cork and slid the jug across the porch, over to the deputy.
“Clayton, what are you doing up here fooling with your brother? I thought you kept your sheriffin’ confined to the Valley.”

“Normally I do.”

“Halford come down there steppin’ on your toes?”

“No.”

“Then what, then? You was on your way to visit with me and thought you’d go get yourself an ass-kicking for good measure?”

Clayton laughed, then groaned. “No.”

“Yeah, that can’t
be right. None of you boys can ever find the time to come visit an old man.”

“I came up here to make Hal an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Clayton said, and stared up at the wooden beams and tin awning that covered the porch. He wondered if Val had ghosts up in his rafters as well.

“Looks like he refused.”

“Refused hard and repeatedly,” Darby said. He took a swig from his cup and immediately
fire raced down his throat and blew through his sinuses. Tears came to his eyes and he smiled wide. “
That’s
what I’m talking about.”

“That’s my deddy’s apple pie.”

Clayton looked over at the jug. “Pour me some of that.”

Darby frowned. “Is that a good idea, sir?”

“You gonna question everything I say today, Deputy?”

“Sorry, sir.” Darby poured a second cup and held it out. Val
put up a hand.

“If you’s off the drink, Clayton, maybe you ought to stay that way.”

“Last time I checked, Val, I’m pretty sure I was grown.”

Val let his hand hover for a moment longer and thought about how many times he’d heard Gareth tell him the same thing right before going off and doing something terrible that only one of them would regret. But Clayton was right, he
was
grown.
“Well, then, by all means, Sheriff.” Val put his hand down. “But would you mind tellin’ me why you decided to bring all this to my front porch? You could’ve doctored that eye down in Waymore.”

Clayton took the cold venison from his face and laid it back in the waxy paper it came wrapped in. “Honestly, Val? I was hopin’ to enlist an ally with this Halford thing.”

“That’s not gonna happen,”
Val said without a second’s hesitation.

Clayton sat upright in the rocker. “Don’t you want to hear what I’ve got in mind?”

“Nope. Sure don’t.”

Clayton looked stunned, like a child who was just denied getting his way.

“Val, you don’t understand.”

“Clayton, now, I said no. You’re welcome to take a load off. Drink a lil’ bit, and I’d be happy to patch you up, but you keep that
craziness off my front porch, you hear? I just want to plant my flowers and get old peacefully. Your brother keeps his distance from me, and me from him. I ain’t lookin’ to change that.”

“I thought you cared about him.”

“I cared about your father. And Halford ain’t your father.”

“You say that like Deddy was a good man.”

“No, he wasn’t. Gareth wasn’t a good man. But for a long time,
neither was I. We come up together surrounded by all this.” Val lifted his arms out, motioning around him. “We had each other’s backs. Nowadays, that kinda thinkin’ don’t even exist no more, and I want no part of what happens up here.”

Darby drained his cup, suffered the burn, and poured another. Val picked up the jug and took a swig directly from it. No reaction, like he was drinking water.

“That shit they’re makin’ up here ain’t just a drug. It’s evil, plain and simple. Your deddy was the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever known, and as soon as your brothers brought that shit up here, it killed him.”

“The drugs didn’t kill him, Val.”

“The hell they didn’t.”

“Cricket told me your daddy died in a fire,” Darby said.

Clayton scratched at his beard. “That’s the story
Halford would have everyone believe, but the truth is he blew himself up learning how to cook that shit. You’d think the high-and-mighty king of Bull Mountain wouldn’t go out like some lowly city tweeker, but in the end, that’s exactly how it went down.”

“You should have more respect, little Burroughs. He was your father, and despite his failings, he only did as his deddy did before him. You
want to put that anger on somebody, you put it on your grandfather. That’s where this family went wrong. Nobody deserves to die like your deddy did. He died screaming. You ever see somebody burn to death?”

Clayton had.

“It was your grandfather let loose the demons on this mountain, and there ain’t no putting that genie back in the bottle. Never was. Not then, not now.”

“Wilcombe had
a little something to do with it.” Again Clayton put that name out there to see the reaction he’d get. This time he got one. Val put the jug down.

“How do you know that name?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I know everything about what Hal’s got going on in Florida. I know my father partnered with those people and Hal is keeping it going. Feds are ready to march on this mountain
and burn it all down, along with all the people on it—people I don’t want to see get caught up in the crossfire, if you get my meaning. I’m up here on damage control, hoping to save some lives, and nobody wants to fucking listen.”

“You ain’t gotta cuss me, boy.”

“Sorry, Val. It’s just frustrating. I’m not ready to write this place off. Katie keeps telling me it’s a lost cause, Hal just
wants to kick my ass, and now you don’t even want to hear how all this might end peacefully.”

Val reached two enormous hands out and grabbed the side of Clayton’s rocker, stilling it. “You listen up, boy. You need to go back down to that little lady of yours and listen to what she has to say. Live your life in that valley, policing decent folk. Nothing up here will ever end peacefully. I’ve
come to terms with that, and anybody making a home here has as well. You need to stay away from here and count yourself lucky that what your granddeddy did to your deddy and brothers didn’t take on you. That’s the peaceful ending you’re looking for. You surviving all this mess. You and Kate growing old together and having a baby, the good Lord willin’. That’s the best ending I can think of. If it’s
time for Bull Mountain to pay for its sins by way of these federal agents, then so be it. You just stay clear. It’s time, and believe me when I tell you, all us sons-a-bitches that walked this road, we deserve it.” Val spoke that last part quietly, remorsefully, and into his lap.

Clayton stared off into the thick expanse of forest that surrounded Val’s home. After a minute or so of listening
to the trees sway in the warm wind, it was Darby who broke the silence. “If the feds know everything, like locations and key players,” he said, “then why don’t they just send in some kinda stealth team to take them all out without a big show?”

“Because that’s not how things work up here,” Clayton said. “You can’t sneak up on the man who has spent his life in the woods sneaking up on things.
They’ve tried it before. People died and nothing changed.”

“So go home, boy,” Val said, as if suddenly validated by Clayton’s own words. “Go home and stop this foolishness. Stop thinkin’ you can right something that was born wrong.”

Clayton rolled the red plastic cup between his palms and snorted out a dry, humorless laugh. He held up the cup in a toast. “To being born wrong,” he said,
and drank the cup empty without waiting for a response. It stung the split in his lip but went down welcome and easy.

2.

“Drop me at Lucky’s.”

“But this is
your
vehicle, sir.”

Clayton said nothing, and Darby was done arguing. “Lucky’s it is.”

Lucky’s was the kind of place that took on a different tone depending on where the sun was positioned in relation to the Earth. During
the day, a cantankerous old man named Hollis “Lucky” Peterman and his equally disgruntled brother, Harvey, served biscuits and gravy and the best cornmeal flapjacks in the state to the deer hunters and working folk of Waymore Valley. But in the evening, Harvey’s daughter, Nicole, poured bourbon cocktails and pitchers of Bud Light from behind the bar. Lucky’s had a built-in crowd, mostly because
Lucky’s was the
only
bar in the Valley. Clayton half-stumbled out of the Bronco under the influence of Val’s apple-pie moonshine. He grabbed the frame of the car door, steadied himself, and slammed it shut.

And that’s how it happens,
he thought.
One drink, on a particularly bad day, and a year’s sobriety blown to hell like it never happened.
Clayton was sure, by night’s end, he’d be a smoker
again, too, but these revelations weren’t enough to keep him from walking into the bar. He pushed those thoughts to the back of his clouded mind and made for the front door. The place was jumping. Old-school Hank Williams Jr. belted out from the jukebox: 
“. . . and I get whiskey bent and hell bound.”
It set the tone with an appropriate anthem for the night. Nicole looked as beautiful as ever slinging
liquor behind the bar. Most of the women in Waymore wore clothes they cut from patterns or bought from the discount stores that peppered the countryside, but Nicole was a different type. She wore high heels with her blue jeans. She shopped at the outlet malls down in Buford and Commerce. Tonight Nicole wore a shiny black sequined top that sparkled under the bar lights and dark blue jeans tight
enough to keep a man Clayton’s age looking straight ahead, in fear of feeling like a dirty old man. Clayton spied an open seat at the end of the bar and slipped in, barely aware of the foul mood, or the shame, he was toting in with him. He eased onto the bar stool and took in a deep lungful of secondhand smoke. It smelled bad and good. He took off his hat and laid it on the bar, accidentally
nudging the arm of a large gentleman to his left.