A Swollen Red Sun (6 page)

Olen had spent the afternoon plowing the wheat field and tending to various brush fires he’d started. By quarter of five, the old truck found pavement and scrolled over the blacktop at no more than forty-five miles an hour. He traveled back roads with little traffic. Passed shacks and trailers and alfalfa fields shaved clean of hay.

He drove Highway K with time to spare. Tom Cuddy would be at the store until seven.

Olen liked Tom Cuddy. They went back to the days of the old one-room schoolhouse in Mount Sterling. Tom had lost his wife to cancer, too, in the summer, so Olen knew they would have much to talk about. He looked forward to their conversation. Tom could probably use a good handshake.

Olen parked the Dodge and walked inside and was disappointed to find a young man on a cell phone behind the counter who did not look old enough to shave. He set his phone down when he saw Olen and offered a polite smile. Asked how he could help.

The old man scanned the room with troubled eyes. “Where’s Tom Cuddy?”

The young man looked uncomfortable. Tried to shrink down inside his shirt. “Mr. Brandt, I’m sorry to tell you this, sir, but Mr. Cuddy passed.”

Olen was shocked. “What the hell’re you talkin’ about?”

The boy put his head down. Said it happened two months back. Told him again that he was sorry.

“
What
happened two months back?”
Had Tom gotten cancer, too?

The boy wanted to walk away but Olen would not let it go.

“Tom Cuddy shot himself, Mr. Brandt. Again, I’m awful sorry to hafta be the one to give you this God-awful news.”

“Shot himself?” Olen refused to believe it.

“Yes, sir, with a deer rifle.”

Olen walked outside where Sandy waited and she licked his hand.

Tom Cuddy shot himself. It was unbelievable. How long since they’d talked? He thought about it hard. Time had a way of passing you by and made the days blur and run together. It had been a good year since they’d last spoke. He knew Vera was sick, but he did not know how much time she had left.

But Tom was lucky and she went quickly. Or so he’d heard.

Olen thought about poor Tom shooting his brains out with a rifle. Thoughts Olen knew well. You could place the rifle butt against the wall and press the barrel to your head. Steady it with your left hand. With your right, use a stick to push the trigger.

“Come ’ere, girl.” Sandy licked his face, and Olen walked back inside. Settled up.

The kid met him out back and hooked the trailer to the receiver hitch of Olen’s Dodge. It was a long trailer. Tandem axle. Hauling two one-thousand-gallon nurse tanks of anhydrous ammonia. He told Olen to be careful. Told him again he was sorry. He knew Tom Cuddy was a friend.

Olen nodded. “The last one I had left.”

Olen moved the truck across the parking lot and rolled back down Highway O. Overhead trees shaded the road and dim rays of light shone through.

He shifted gears, and the Cummins diesel pushed dark smoke across the shoulder. Olen could not draw his mind away from his friend. Tom could not live without his wife. His partner. He wondered what a man’s last thoughts might be just before he pulled the trigger.

Olen heaved the load in fourth gear through the straight-aways and kept his rpm running high, where the power was. He turned onto Rural Route F, made a right turn at the next split, and followed. He saw a wild turkey spring from a clover field and take aim for the trees, but he could not shake his thoughts of Tom. He wondered if he’d taken his shoe off and used his foot. Surely, a man could push the trigger with his toe if he had to.

He came to the gravel pile the state used for rock, and a beat-up Chevrolet jumped from the ditch and onto the road.

Olen jammed the brakes and yanked the shifter out of fourth and into third.

“You son of a bitch.” The trailer whipped back and forth while he fought to hold the road.

The truck in front died suddenly, and Olen stomped his brake again and brought the Dodge to a hard stop as the anhydrous tanks rocked and shook and threatened to break loose from their cradle.

Olen put the truck in neutral, his foot on the brake; his heart had stopped beating a half-mile back. He set the emergency brake and opened the door. Sandy walked to the edge of his seat and barked. Olen yelled out, asked what in God’s name was wrong with them? It looked like they’d shot out of the damn woods.

He stood beside the Dodge and waited for the door to open on the Chevy. There was just enough light to see a man behind the wheel.

Sandy came to his side. Growled and barked.

“Calm down, girl.”

Jerry Dean ran from his place in the woods. He came up behind the old man and clocked him in the back of his skull with a Desert Eagle.

Olen went down in a heap of limbs. Sandy growled. When she sprang for Jerry Dean, he shot her. She yelped and fell beside the old man and died on the concrete.

Jerry Dean jumped behind the wheel and the truck lunged forward and pushed coal-black smoke into the night, smoke that painted the air with an oily haze above a tired old man and his dog.

Banks sat at the picnic table and drank beer and looked toward the edge of his property and watched orange coals turn white hot as blue flames jumped and tussled in his fire pit grill.

“Honey, Bo ’n’ his wife might swing by for a beer.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Jude said.

“Hell, I still got good fire. We got any o’ that corn to throw on?”

Jude was pretty sure they did. She’d look. Then she asked about Becky. “How’s she doin’? Poor thing.”

Becky Hastings had suffered a miscarriage in the spring. But Bo hadn’t brought it up, and Banks hadn’t asked.

“Guess she’s fine,” he said. Jude knew that was the best answer she would get. Men did not confide the way women did. They should, but didn’t. Especially cops.

“Well, I hope they’re able to make it. They’re sweet kids.”

Banks said he knew. Hastings was the best rookie out there. Gifted with natural instincts and confident—not too confident, smart enough to know too much confidence would get you shot. Bo Hastings had a name to make for himself, and the future was there for his taking.

By twilight, Banks sat with Hastings at the edge of the yard that overlooked a fifteen-acre tract, covering both field and wood, most fenced but some open. Enough land for goats, a few cows, and a handful of chickens. They grew crops, which they’d just harvested, and though they had not brought much, every bit of income helped. Brought the cost of life down by a couple of bucks and taught his kids the value of the land.

Life was about hard work, and Banks made his kids work hard when they were young so they’d never know anything but.

The two deputies talked more like friends than coworkers. Banks had eighteen years in the department. He’d seen them come; he’d seen them go. But he knew Bo Hastings came from good people.
His
people. Raised up in the country. They lived off the land and tried to do right by God.

The wives talked about the things wives talk about when husbands meander off to do their dealings, and Jude saw pain in Becky’s face so she asked about the miscarriage.

Becky looked down, said it was sad. “We never had time to name it.” Said somehow being nameless made it easier to let go of something that was never hers to keep.

“I do have good news, though,” she smiled. “You’ll hafta wait until Bo tells Dale.”

Before Jude could respond, Grace waddled up to Becky and handed her a doll with blonde stringy hair and a red dress.

“Bay-bee!”

Becky smiled and pinched Grace’s cheeks. Grace raised both arms. “Up.”

Jude laughed. Said that was her latest thing.

Becky hoisted Grace up in the sky and she giggled. Then Becky kissed her little cheek, and Grace kissed back. A big, uncoordinated kiss with an open mouth. The kind of kiss a baby gives.

The deputies returned and grabbed new beers from the cooler. Banks asked about that corn-on-the-cob.

“Ready, hun.”

Jude had rounded up a few freshly shucked ears and thrown them on the grill and cooked them.

“Y’all hungry?” Banks asked.

They took their seats around the picnic table, and Banks said a few words of thanks. He thanked God for the bounty He’d bestowed upon them. Thanked God for their health. He did not thank God for the money, though he ought to.

“In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.”

Jerry Dean followed Jackson to a gravel road south of Hermann and pulled over on the shoulder to have words. He walked up to the Chevy. Saw Jackson was worked up.

“Now, this is ’bout as far as you go, man.”

“What happened back there, you fucker?”

“What?”

“You didn’t never say nothin’ ’bout no guns. We ain’t never even talked ’bout havin’ guns, J.D.”

Jerry Dean stood on the gravel and faced Jackson as he sat behind the wheel. He took a step to the door, bent down. Said, “Well,
excuse
the fuck outta me, Jackson Brandt, if I don’t wanna be attacked by no goddamn dog.”

“Well, you sure as all hell didn’t have to hit the old man.”

“That were a love tap, is all. Reckon he’ll be fine.”

Jackson looked ahead through the windshield, his jaw flexed. All he’d wanted was crank. He never wanted to see nobody hurt. He cared about his uncle. Though he hardly knew him anymore.

He turned. Met Jerry Dean’s gaze. “That dog wouldn’t’ve hurt you none. She’s as old as he is.”

Jerry Dean took a deep breath and a step back. “Listen, I ain’t got time for this bullshit from you, man. Case you forgot, we got a stolen truck with two thousand gallons of product just sittin’ here on the side of the fuckin’ road. Now, get my truck outta sight. Take it ta your place. Just don’t go gettin’ nosey ’n’ followin’ me.”

“Why the hell not? I ain’t gonna sit this out. Not after already bein’ a part of it like I am.”

“Cuz you don’t wanna go where I hafta go, Jackson… .
That
I can promise you, man. I swear ta you, there’s men done been up Goat Hill that ain’t never come back down.”

Jerry Dean’s words sent a powerful message. The Pogue clan was dangerous. They were private people who did not venture down the hill or leave the woods.

Butch Pogue was a monster that fashioned himself a preacher of his own religion. A polygamist of sorts who took wives and corrupted them with his teachings. Goat Hill was a compound and a prison and a world of many tortures. That much Jackson knew.

Jerry Dean walked backward toward Olen’s truck. “Go on, numbnuts. Skedaddle.”

He climbed in the Dodge and left his associate sitting on the shoulder.

Jerry Dean put fire to a doobie and pulled the tanks to the far west corner of Gasconade County. Mostly back roads of hard gravel and red dust. He drew long, slow hits from the joint to calm his nerves.

The Pogue clan and their brood were known but not spoke of, and when so, only in calm voices and hushed whispers. They were people who came from the dirt. Generation after generation of warped, misguided ways handed down through beatings and teachings that became more twisted and immoral with each passing. Every generation worse than the one it followed.

Goat Hill was a small mountain of solid rock that opened to a few hundred acres of wood and fields at the top where the Pogue compound flourished.

Valentine Ford sat at the base and surrounded the entrance to the hill like a rolling moat. The back of Goat Hill was a high bluff of boulder and stone. There was one way in or out, and the path twisted and turned over battered earth that only the tallest and strongest vehicles would survive.

The road ran hard and rough with potholes and washboards dominating the stretch that led to the hills. The far end of the county had few people but the Pogues and their kin, so the county did its best to stay away.

The passage had deep canals carved into rock that washed loose for the first time a hundred years ago and more washed away with each rain.

Deep chunks of missing road and grooved rock festooned his course as the Dodge bounced through holes and the trailer wiggled and jerked—but Jerry Dean tugged in low gear, the truck doing all the work and the joint glowing red hot with each potent draw.

Butch Pogue made the strongest crank Jerry Dean had ever seen. Beautiful dope that burned clear and clean. The Reverend took his time. His measurements accurate and precise. He took great pride in his product.

The preacher respected the flame and the temperatures and the volatile elements he worked with. He prayed for his batches to burn clean and strong with the heat from a thousand suns. Blessed them with rituals and sacrificed pigs and dogs.

Jerry Dean had seen him do it. Heard of him doing worse.

The Reverend ran strong on pure, clean crank for days and days without sleep. He groomed his dogs, then fought them against one another and preached to his wives and son—long fervent sermons packed with fire and brimstone chants during which he’d shoot pigs with arrows and fire shotguns into the sky.

He wrote his own scripture and was fond of quoting it to those chosen few who felt his call. The rumors were they’d consumed people. Fed the guts to the pigs. Burned the skin and crushed the bones and ate the meat.

When Jerry Dean reached the ford, the hills were alive with sounds of pitch-black night. Long continuous urges and wild callings of birds and bobcats and coyotes.

Valentine Ford sat low between two rock walls of Ozark granite with conduits blasted from the sides by the hand of God that kept the creek well fed and swollen. The ford was dense, ran many feet deep, and was impenetrable in even the slightest hint of rain.

Jerry Dean dipped into the chilly water and the engine hissed and he felt the slight rock of the cab when the truck settled down. The water hit mid-door, then climbed higher until the headlights went dull under white water.

Jerry Dean put the Dodge in four-wheel drive, and both shafts twisted hard and moved the big truck through to the other side. When the nose climbed out, he hammered down and hoped the tanks wouldn’t float off the trailer.

He climbed the steep rise toward the peak of Goat Hill, and the sky got close but stayed dark. The moon was a small chunk of cheese behind black fog that shrank and expanded between cloud pass.