Page 46 of Small Town Beast

Chapter Eight

On the phone with the detective, Saverin nearly missed the six men marching single file up the hill. They were dressed in working clothes, hats and boots and all. He thought he knew them; then he was sure of it.

“Thank you very much, detective,” he said. “Reckon you’ll go over there and sort it out?”

“Not a chance in hell,” the detective’s voice crackled back. “Return the Bible, or it’s your hide, Bailey.”

Saverin hung up. The men had reached the house. Coffee could wait.

Saverin wiped the ointment he’d been about to apply to his scar off his hands and onto a rag. He stepped outside, the morning sun searing bright into his eyes.

“We come in peace,” called the troop’s apparent leader, a sandy-haired man with a funny name— what was the name? Saverin knew it; something biblical…He kept the Kimber holstered at his waist.

“We don’t have guns, nothing. We just want to talk,” the man said.

Absalom. His name was Absalom. Him and the other cousins Saverin knew from the harvest. Every year McCalls and the associated clans harvested the great weed crop from the secret hills, cured it, packed it, and then smuggled it off the mountain.

Absalom did the cutting and worked quality control. And he was a troublemaker. But he raised his shirt to show an empty belt, and the rest of his goons did the same.

In the past it was common for family to turn up at the Bailey place uninvited, but that tradition ended when Saverin’s brother and father went under the dirt.

“Can I help you?” Saverin asked, his calm voice belied by the angry glint in his eyes.

“We want nothing from you, Saverin. Just your time,” said Absalom very politely.

“I’ll time you one minute to get off my hill.”

“Not until we speak our piece,” Absalom said, planting his feet. “We heard what you said at the Turnkey. Our clan may bear some blame for what happened to your brother Sam, God rest him, and maybe to your Pa as well. And to your…disfigurement. But we ought to let bygones be bygones.”

“Do we?”

Absalom met Saverin’s uneven stare. It was always interesting to see the change in someone’s face when they took the full measure of his scars for the first time. Absalom’s bravado faltered, humbled by the ruin of a man he’d once held in awe.

“I understand your anger, cousin,” the Green Tree went on more carefully. “Family’s got to stand together. That’s why I’m comin’ to you straight like a man.”

“Noble words.”

“I mean them,” said Absalom with an intensity that gave the Bailey man pause. There was something else.

“What?” Saverin asked, though deep down he knew.

Absalom said, “Roman.”

The damaged tissue of Saverin’s face allowed little expression but he felt a coil of dread knot tighter in his gut. “What about Roman?”

“Roman’s led the family ever since Duke died. He holds the keys– we never questioned that, even with his…blood. But he wants to stop the harvest.‘Go clean’, he says. Shut down the fields.”

“I’m out of the business. That ain’t my concern.”

“Bullshit,” said Absalom.

Saverin stared at the uppity son of a bitch. “I beg your pardon?”

“Saverin, we ain’t stupid. Without dope we’ve got no income. You think we don’t get that the McCalls and Baileys have been tight as corn since the first days of Florin, tossing just enough scraps to keep us fed? Where’s our land? Our hills? Buried in debt to Roman McCall.” Absalom’s eyes flashed. “All we have is the harvest. I figure that’s just the way you big boys at the top always wanted it, but you won’t take it from us now without a fight.”

In the social ladder of Florin Saverin understood his position. Baileys had backed McCalls every step on the road to riches. These two clans were the top of the food chain, and the others like the Green Trees worked for them and died for them if needed be; that was just how it was.

Absalom’s green eyes burned like a zealot’s. Did Roman know what kind of tiger was roaming loose in his kingdom?

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