Renewal 6 - Cold (7 page)

Charlie squared himself to the Dragon’s cell and gave a sharp kick to one of the bars. The Dragon rolled over and opened bloodshot eyes just enough to see the source of the noise. When he saw Charlie standing there, he raised his middle finger and rolled back to face the wall.

“You might as well answer my questions. It all turns out the same way in the end, Tucker.”

“If that’s the case, why should I bother?”

“Because I can decide that you smell bad enough for a bath and send in some nice officers with a fire hose. Maybe you’d rather stay dry.”

Tucker rolled back to face Charlie and sat up. “You make a good argument, Mr. Attorney General.”

“Excellent. First, I’d like to say that I enjoyed your little conversation with your boy. You’re locked up in jail and still making lives miserable.”

“Miserable for other people, not me.”

“So, the whole racist, white-robe act is just a show, huh?”

“Seemed like good idea at the time, and I got a couple of counties worth of scared morons to show for it,” the Dragon said with obvious pride.

“Good for you, I guess. Why not just ride in with a typical band of pirates, shoot a few innocents for the fear factor, and steal what you want?”

“Well, the interesting part is that it not only works on the morons, it works on my people as well. Some of them actually believe in that shit. Just to keep ‘em happy, we cleared the region of non-whites years ago. I figure if you’re killing for show, might as well have a show.”

“What about your boy? Does he believe in it?”

“Hell, no. I taught him better than that. He believes in nothing, except taking whatever he wants. I guess you know... The next thing he wants is that asshole you sent to kill me.”

“Yeah, I heard. The interesting part from my end is that I sent Bill Carter to find out what happened. If he missed your show, odds are he would have headed straight back here to report, and by the time we got our act together, you would have been long gone. After you decided to burn two good men to death, he felt morally obligated to stick around and kill you.”

“He missed,” the Dragon said with a snarl.

Charlie pulled out a case of cigarettes he had brought, though he didn’t smoke. “Want one?”

“Why not? Nobody lives long enough for cancer these days.” The Dragon got up from his bunk, and took three slow steps across the cell. He ended up facing Charlie from eighteen inches away, legs spread in a defiant stance and head tilted back to look the taller man in the eye.

“So, I’m just curious. We only have witnesses for the last two, but how many men have you killed?” Charlie asked, as the Dragon took a cigarette and waited for Charlie to light it.

“Myself, just a few. Like I said, I have people for that.”

“Ok, how many have you
had
killed?”

“Hundreds... Thousands, maybe... Who knows? Who cares? You can’t hang me for any of them. Hell, you can’t hang me for the rapes, or the robbery, or the towns I burned to the ground. None of it,” the Dragon said with the demeanor of a man who just won an Olympic medal.

“You’re right, Dragon. I can’t, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I will rid the world of you and save all the victims you haven’t touched yet.”

“Whatever helps you sleep, big man.” The Dragon took a long drag on the cigarette, and leaned his head back to blow the smoke into the air. His arrogance was incredible. “Personally, I thi...”

Charlie’s silenced bullet entered below the Dragon’s jaw, passed right through his reptilian brain stem and erupted from the back of his skull with a small spray of bone, hair, blood, and gray matter. The Dragon dropped like a sack of horse feed.

Charlie made two more mistakes, aside from the obvious. The silenced gun was not nearly as quiet as he had believed. The sharp, slithering crack echoed off every hard surface in the cell jail. He expected the door to open any second, but it did not. The second mistake was that the Dragon’s body fell in a way that left the hands well inside the cell. After slipping on a pair of leather gloves, Charlie had to drop to his hands and knees, stretching his arm to the limit in order to place the tiny pistol in the Dragon’s dead hand.

The Attorney General was feeling the need to finish the job. He peeled the gloves and strode back to the Judge’s cell. Charlie fought the strong urge to put a bullet in the man’s back and to run out the door. Instead, he rapped on the Judge’s bar with the pistol, and put it back inside his coat. Jerry Doan Jenkins stopped snoring, and looked over his shoulder at Charlie.

“... The hell...” the Judge muttered.

“Get over here, Jenkins. I got a couple questions for you.”

“You can just bugger off.”

“You’re not going to want to miss what I have to say. It concerns your family.”

The Judge’s eyes opened wide. He rolled off the cot and walked over to the bars, grasping one in each hand. “What about my family?”

“I overheard a conversation in the visiting area. You know the Dragon?” Charlie asked.

The Judge glanced down the hall. “Yeah...”

“Well he told his son to take a company of men down to find your family and kill them all. He said he couldn’t work with a moron like you.”

“That son of a...”

The second bullet entered the Judge’s left temple and plowed through his brain at an angle, bursting free from the middle of the far side of his head. Jerry Doan Jenkins lived long enough to suffer, but he quickly lost enough blood to stop his heart. Charlie had hoped to provoke the man to turn his head long enough for the shot. He was lucky that it worked. Charlie gripped the Judge’s hand on the bar as the man died to keep the hands within easy reach this time. When the body hit the floor, Charlie put the gloves on again. His legal opinion was that these were two entirely plausible suicides. Hard to explain the guns, he expected, but the Junior Dragon may have brought them in.

Unfortunately, Officer Jack Burton heard the second shot and threw the door open, with his own weapon drawn. He was just quick enough to see Charlie’s hand retreating from the second tiny weapon, just placed in the Judge’s hand. The officer’s mouth dropped open at the sight of the highest official in his chain of command committing murder. Charlie’s own gun was back inside his coat, and Jack reasonably concluded that the murder weapon was in plain sight in the Judge’s hand.

Charlie raised his hands and stood up before Burton gathered his wits to speak.

Charlie spoke first. “Listen, Jack. These guys are conspiring to send both their clans against the man who saved you. He’s going to be badly outnumbered, and everything I can do to help, I have to do. The last thing Carter needs is these two masterminds running the show. Understand?”

Jack nodded slowly.

“Here’s what happened. You never saw me. The Dragon’s kid smuggled these pistols in to his father who somehow gave one to the Judge. They committed suicide before we could hang them.”

Jack found his tongue. “What the hell, sir? You can’t just...”

“I know, Jack. I know. If you had asked me this morning, I never would have even considered this, but the situation is changing fast and I owe Bill Carter. You do too. This gives him a fighting chance. Is there any doubt in your mind that these two would be dead in a month?”

“No. I was looking forward to the hanging.”

“Right. All I did was speed up the justice system to save Bill and his people the trouble that these two would add to his problems. Even so, it’s going to be a hard fight. Every little bit helps, and if this helps, I’ll live with the guilt. Understand?”

Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Ok, I agree with your argument, but in the morning, my ass is fired.”

“Jack, you know what you need to know. If you protect me, I’ll protect you. It won’t matter for more than a few days. Everyone wanted these two to die, especially inside your own department.”

Officer Burton though for ten seconds. Finally, he nodded and said, “Ok, Mr. Bell. They committed suicide on my watch. I’ll take the heat. You have my word.”

“Thank you, Jack. I won’t forget.”

Chapter 6 – 14

Terry waited with Seth in the Carter kitchen. As usual, Aggie had something to eat sitting on the counter. The men munched on squares of cornbread with butter and strawberry jam, while they waited on Aggie to get Bill ready for visitors. They had been turned away from Bill when they had returned the previous evening. Aggie told them firmly that Bill had done too much that day, and whatever they had to say could wait until morning. They had shrugged agreeably, and Seth had taken Terry home to his family’s house to give the Carters some peace. Now they were back, bright and early, in a golden haze of morning that promised another hot and humid day in Tennessee.

Aggie walked into the kitchen, having completed the arduous task of waking Bill. He was a handful right now, a man of endless work stuck in bed. She was ready to kick him out the door and let him hobble around town, annoying everyone else.

“Ok, boys. He’s awake, but that’s about all I can promise,” she said. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, Aggie,” Terry replied.

Seth mumbled something around his cornbread, and smiled at the boss’s wife as they set their dishes by the sink. As they made their way upstairs. Terry could almost feel Bill’s foul temper before they entered the bedroom. He was squinting in the bright light glaring through the windows and grimacing from the pain and stiffness.

“I should be feeling better by now. It sucks getting old, men. Sucks!” Bill declared.

“Morning, Bill.” Terry greeted his leader. “Hey, we got Big Seth, the human crutch. Wanna go outside?”

“My wife will string me up if I leave this bed,” Bill replied, pouting like a little boy.

“And you always do exactly what she says, right?” Terry asked with a sly smile.

Bill grunted in surprise and said, “Come here, big guy. I’m starting to hate this room.”

Seth stepped over and set his hands under Bill’s arms with a disarming gentleness, and effortlessly lifted Bill to his feet. Bill winced at the motion, but settled quickly to a point of balance. Seth was too tall to serve as the human crutch, and Terry took his place supporting Bill’s left side. They stepped out to the head of the stairs, where Seth joined back in and simply carried Bill to the first floor. From there, it was an easy limp to the front porch. Terry left Bill holding the porch rail, with the notion that Bill could move around a bit, while still having some support. Terry stood a carefully calculated distance to Bill’s left, and Seth stepped off the porch to face Bill from the street level.

“This ok, Bill?” Terry asked.

“This is good,” Bill replied, swaying slowly from side to side. “Good idea.”

Seth saw Aggie watching from the glass, and gave her a massive thumbs up. “I think she’ll let you live, Boss. Me and Terry, maybe not.”

“Don’t you worry, boys. She’s likes the young men,” Bill said, turning his head to look at Terry.

Terry was suddenly uncomfortable, and covered it by giving his report. “So, we talked to Larry...”

“Don’t keep me waiting. What did he say?”

“He agreed to help out. It took some talking, and there’s no telling how many he will bring, but he said he’d come.”

“Good. How did you convince him?” Bill asked.

“I didn’t. I got him to the fence, maybe. His son, Tate, kicked him over,” Terry replied.

“Really? I wasn’t even sure those boys could talk. Miracles never cease...”

“Anyway, they could show up as early as today, depending on how hard they try to recruit the neighbors.”

“Ok. We’ll have the front guards on the lookout for them. There are six men up front now, and double on the patrols.” Bill was thinking out loud.

“We talked to Charlie. Mike is getting better, but it’s going to take time for the head injury.”

“Mike took a serious beating, all right. Did you give Charlie my requests?” Bill asked, all business now.

“We did. The aide shipments are on their way this morning. Getting Charlie down here was iffy. He wants to come, but he sort of said that his wife is a little touchy about her men traveling right now.”

“Understandable, I reckon. Still I hope he can work it out. We need more people, and I think Charlie can help talk a few into helping us,” Bill said, staring into the middle distance.

“Yeah, all I know for sure is that he understands, and he wants to help.”

“What about the third favor?”

“Charlie said his hands are tied. He has separated the Judge from the Dragon, but he can’t legally stop them from having visitors. He can’t really speed up the process much, but he said just about everyone wishes that he could.”

“Well, the good news, I guess, is that since the Dragon showed up out of nowhere, he doesn’t have too many friends in Murfreesboro. The bad news is that he showed up out of nowhere, which means the State is blind in his territory. He could have ten thousand men ready to fight and we wouldn’t know it. If we had some time, I’d send Kirk down there to find out, but things are moving too fast. I need everyone close to home.” Bill sighed heavily. There was never enough time, resources, or manpower.

“What’s next, Bill?” Terry asked.

Bill focused on Seth. “Big Seth, how did our boy do?” he asked, jerking his head towards Terry.

“He’s a good talker, Boss. Real good. Heck, he talked me into letting him drive.” Seth made everything sound like fun.

“Ok. In that case, I want you two to jump into Big Bertha and head into Manchester to help Dusty do some talking. Make a show of it. The word’s out on us, so now we want to look as strong as possible. The only thing to keep quiet is our location. We need to save that secret as long as we can. Otherwise, we’ll get overrun by too many people to feed and organize. Hopefully, we can feed them with the aid shipments, while we make our case.”

“Yes, sir. Can I talk to my folks?”

“Absolutely. Make sure you give them some food, but tell them to stay put. Soon enough, they’ll be in the safest part of the county,” Bill said. “If you get Manchester moving in the right direction, I want you to head over to Tullahoma, and see if you can drum up some support. Seth, you’ve got some people there, right?”