THUGLIT Issue Seven (7 page)

But all their lives, Mitch hasn
't kept anything important from his brother, and he sure as hell isn't going to start now.

"
She is done with me," he says. "She came by to warn us."

Cole frowns.
"About what?"

"
Bud Wolfe."

"
Mitch. I'm not going to drag it out of you. I don't have the energy for that."

Mitch sighs and looks away, trying to figure out how to phrase this. Doesn
't take him long to give up. There's no way to make it sound better than it is. "Bud Wolfe says he's Ruby Jean's husband. He heard she's gone missing, and he's looking for us."

Cole looks down into his lap and doesn
't answer for a few beats. He's straight-faced.

"
If you're going to tell me I fucked us both, go ahead," Mitch says.

Cole
's silent.

Mitch shifts his weight from one foot to the other, hands still in his pockets.
"All right. You're pissed. You're scared. This is the last thing we need right now, I know. But you gotta believe me when I tell you that I will not let this guy or anybody else touch you. I'm going to keep you safe, Cole. Do you trust me?"

Cole looks up and meets his brother
's gaze, everything about him tired. "I'm not five years old anymore, Mitch. I'm not scared. I ain't pissed at you neither. And it's not your job to keep me safe."

"
Yes, it is," Mitch says. "Always will be."

Cole lowers his eyes again.
"I trust you," he says, voice soft. "What are we going to do?"

"
I'm going to find Bud Wolfe, and I'm going to talk to him."

"
What if talk's not enough?"

"
Then, I'll deal with it."

"
What's that mean?"

Mitch pauses.
"I don't know. Depends on Bud."

Cole stares at him, and Mitch can
't read the look.

"
Think I'm gonna lie down for a spell," Cole says.

"
All right. You want your painkillers?"

"
No. I'm good."

Mitch lays his brother down on the left side of his bed, cradling his back with one arm and his head with the other hand. Every move hurts, with those busted ribs and pounded flesh. They both know it. Cole doesn
't ask for help, and Mitch doesn't mention it. Big brother does what he has to, and little brother takes it without complaint.

Mitch sits on the bed next to Cole, back against the headboard and legs straight in front of him, drinking whiskey on ice and wondering when their lives are going to be beer material again. He looks down at his brother who
's supposed to be sleeping, and Cole opens his eyes to look up at him, meaning he can't get comfortable and maybe he's still a little afraid of falling asleep and never waking up again.

Mitch sets his glass of melting ice on the night table next to him and slides down on the bed, head and shoulders lifted on two pillows. Cole lies back against Mitch
's chest, head on his brother's shoulder, and Mitch curls his arm around Cole's belly. Mitch can smell the Irish Spring shampoo in Cole's hair.

He
can feel his brother breathing.

Bud Wolfe looks a hell of a lot fiercer than a moose. But the size comparison's accurate. He's six foot five with a lumberjack build—the kind that's never seen the inside of a gym but came from doing manual labor just about every day since he was eighteen. His shoulders threaten to pop open his shirt seams any minute. His eyes are lead-gray, bright and ornery.

Mitch finds him in Black Moon, same dive where Ruby Jean convinced Cole it
'd be a good idea to fuck her. He doesn't know how he knows to go there, but he figures Bud can smell Ruby Jean everywhere she's been, like one of those coonhounds that live next door to Mitch and Cole.

Bud
's keeping to himself in a booth, nursing a beer in a tall, handled glass. Mitch orders Jack on the rocks at the bar, gets the bartender's confirmation of Bud's identity, and goes to join the man whose wife he killed. Bud flicks his eyes up to him when Mitch slides into the other side of Bud's booth.

"
Heard you're looking for me. Name's Mitch Rose."

Bud straightens, t
aking his elbows off the table.

Mitch sips his whiskey, feeling as calm as he would talking to any old friend.
"Ruby Jean Douglas truly your wife?"

"
That's right," says Bud.

"
You hear what she did to my brother?"

"
Rumor is she beat him up pretty good with a bat."

"
It was a club—and that ain't no rumor."

Bud pauses, staring at Mitch with a wary expression.
"Where is he?"

"
My brother? He's home, resting. That's where he's going to stay for a while yet. Turns out it takes a long time to heal from a beatin that bad. The movies are full of shit."

Bud takes a drink.
"I've been in town the last three days," he says. "I came as soon as I heard she's wanted for attempted murder here. I started chewing on it right away. RJ might be a no-good cheatin slut, but long as I known her, she hasn't been dangerous. She runs off on me two years ago, parks herself here, then tries to kill an innocent man? I asked myself, why would she go and do a thing like that?"

Mitch watches him over the rim of hi
s glass and doesn't say a word.

"
She wouldn't do something like that for no reason," Bud continues. "Then, I thought—maybe this man she tried to kill wasn't so innocent. Maybe he done something to her. Maybe he had it coming."

"
My brother didn't do a damn thing," Mitch says. "Except tell your wife, who nobody around these parts knew was married, that he didn't want to see her anymore."

Bud stiffens. The movement
's so slight that Mitch wouldn't notice if he was any farther away or any less focused on the man.

"
So your brother was fuckin my wife," Bud says, voice even.

"
The way I see it, Ruby Jean was fuckin my brother," says Mitch. "After she got done with a handful of other men."

"
She try to kill them too?"

Mitch pauses.
"I don't know. I don't think so."

"
So what makes your brother different?"

"
Go ask Ruby Jean."

"
I would—if I knew where the hell she was."

The men sit silent and work on their drinks. Mitch finishes his whiskey. Bud gets down to the swill of his beer. Crooked Still starts playing
"Ain't No Grave" over the speakers, and Mitch hears it like Ruby Jean's singing.

"
So how exactly did she go?" Bud asks him, voice rougher and deeper now.

Mitch blinks at him, brain tripping over the question for a second.
"She ran out of my house, hopped into her car, and left. That's the last time I saw her. If my brother hadn't been pulp on my kitchen floor, I mighta chased her down."

"
I been by her place. Looks like she didn't take anything with her."

"
She's wanted for attempted murder," Mitch says. "I wouldn't come back here for lipstick and panties neither, if I were her. How'd you know she disappeared anyway? The wanted notice?"

Bud nods.

"I'm guessing you didn't know she was here."

"
You guess correctly."

"
You been looking for her since she left?"

"
I was waiting for her to come back."

One of the waitresses—a cute blonde with short hair and a great rack—stops by the table to take Mitch
's glass. "Can I bring you gentlemen some refills?" she asks.

"
No more whiskey for me, sweetheart, but I will take a bottle of Coors," Mitch says.

Bud just shakes his head.

She leaves them and goes up to the bar to trade Mitch's glass for the beer.

"
Why'd you want to find me and my brother?" Mitch says to Bud.

Bud doesn
't answer right away, picking at the edge of his cardboard coaster. "If you were the last ones to see her, you'd have an idea about where she went more than anybody else. And I wanted to hear from the source what was true."

"
Is that all?"

Bud stares at Mitch with his mouth in a thin, pursed line.
"Should there be something else?"

Mitch sips on his beer.
"Nope."

"
You mind if I take a look around your property?" Bud asks, after a pause. "See where she did the damage?"

"
I understand you want to find your wife," says Mitch. "But my brother needs to rest up in peace. I ain't let him had visitors since he came home from the hospital."

Bud doesn
't answer for a minute. "And I suppose there'd be nothing to see outside, in the area."

"
Well, she didn't leave tracks, if that's what you mean." Mitch smiles as he lifts his beer bottle to his lips again.

Bud takes out his wallet and leaves a ten on the table.
"I hope your brother gets well soon," he says, darkness in his eyes.

Mitch sits there alone in the booth and takes his time f
inishing the rest of his Coors.

"I just don't understand why you want to do this," Kelly says, lying in her bed with the sheet pulled up over her breasts. She's propped up on one elbow, watching Mitch put his clothes back on. "Nothing's happened. Nobody knows what you did, and there's no reason they'd go looking for anything at your place."

Mitch pulls his jeans up around his waist, zips the fly, buttons them, and leans over for his belt on the floor.
"I told you," he says. "As long as her widower's poking around, Cole and I aren't safe. And I don't want anything else bothering my brother. I already had to tell him about Bud, and I shouldn't have."

"
What's leaving going to help? Won't it just look like you got a reason to hide, if you run while this man's still in town?"

Mitch picks up his flannel shirt and puts it on, leaving it open over his t-shirt. He stops and looks at Kelly for the first time since he got out of bed. God damn, is she pretty. So good-looking with her bed-tossed hair hanging over her
bare shoulders, Mitch almost wants to strip and ride all over again.

It won
't be easy to leave her behind, that's for sure.

"
We're not going to be gone forever," he says. "It's just for a little while—until Bud goes the hell back to where he came from and stays there. Shit, Cole's probably better off recovering someplace other than the house where the bitch nearly killed him."

"
Staying in some cheap motel, eating junk food and sleeping on a hard mattress that hasn't had the sex washed out of it in thirty years isn't what's best for Cole," Kelly says. "And you know that."

He does. But he
's afraid Bud'll show up at the house any moment and hurt Cole just for fucking Ruby Jean. Mitch is so afraid, he can't stay here with Kelly for another hour because he needs to go home to protect his brother. He already feels guilty for taking the extra time away for Kelly, even though he called Cole from Black Moon before coming to her.

"
I have to get him out of here, Kelly," Mitch says. "I have to keep him safe."

"
You could keep him here, and he'd be safe," says Kelly.

"
I can't drag you into this any more than I have. That's not fair to you."

Kelly sits up in bed and scoots forward.
"It's not fair to leave me behind while you go off to God-knows where without knowing how long you'll be there! Christ, Mitch. I'm keeping your secret, aren't I? That's dragged in enough."

"
I know. That's why I can't ask you for anything else."

"
You're not asking. I'm offering. You want to lay low until Bud leaves town? You and Cole stay with me for a few days."

Mitch blows air through his nose, setting his hands on his hips and looks down at the floor. Putting Kelly in the line of fire—whether Bud Wolfe
's or the law's—would be unbelievably irresponsible of him. If anything happens to her, he'll never forgive himself.

"
Mitch?" she says.

"
I'll think about it," he says.

He shoves his feet back into his cowboy boots and kisses her hairline before he leaves.

Rain
's coming down hard by the time Mitch pulls his truck into his and Cole's driveway. He can see it falling at an angle in front of the bright, white bulbs mounted on the eaves of his neighbor's house. His own house is dark, which fills Mitch with a sense of foreboding. Cole knows to leave a light on for him at night.