Page 4 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

Mercy gestured to the magazine laid out on the bed beside him and shook his head.

Bob stepped into the room and hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. “I just got off the phone with Knoxville.”

Mercy’s heart stopped. When it started again, it felt as though it had been clawed open, all its blood and meat spilling out to flood his stomach and turn him sick.

“It was Walsh,” Bob said, and the downward curve of his frown was apologetic. Like he was sorry to say it hadn’t been Ghost. That he wasn’t being sought for…familyreasons. No one ever breathed a word of Mercy’s retreat from Knoxville, tail tucked, fur soaked, a whimper caught in his throat, but they all knew what happened. He’d caught all of his brothers staring atone point or another; caught the rustle of whispers in corners, like the turning pages of a book.

“He can’t make you, obviously,” Bob continued, though that was a lie: officers could negotiate terms, deny one another, bitch about it, but a non-officer Dog would go where he was told to go, no backtalk. “But he wants you to patch back in to Tennessee.”

Mercy’s claw-struck heart pulsed in erratic, dying lurches. “Why?”

“James is stepping down next week. Ghost wants to beef up Knoxville.”

“But did Ghost himself request me?”

Bob shrugged his wide shoulders. “Dunno, kid. But Walsh was firm about it.”

Despite those almost-nine intervening years, and a host of personal changes – he was a dad three times over, now, married, Ghost’s son-in-law and not merely an offense to be cast aside – Mercy felt a little of the old trepidation from that night way back when.

Baseless trepidation, of course. The cigarette flicked down into the water, a tiny red shooting star, and Bob straightened away from the pillar so the moonlight carved a sickle down the side of his face, layering shadows in the corner of his eye where he had a half-dozen more smile lines than Mercy remembered.

“As I live and breathe,” he said, and his voice was the same, and Mercy wondered how he’d ever made room fortrepidationwithin the maelstrom that was worrying over Remy, “if it ain’t olMercihimself.”

“Nobody calls me that anymore.”

“Well, I’m gonna. You can’t go forgetting where you came from.”

Mercy closed the final gap, and Bob still smelled like Lucky Strikes and spearmint gum. He still gave the best damn hugs.When he squeezed back, Bob chuckled and said, “Shit. Did your arms get bigger?”

He pushed Mercy back so he could examine him, hands on the crooks of his elbows. In Mercy’s memory, they’d been of a height, but the reality was that Bob was a good two inches shorter. He had to tip his head back a fraction so the bright gleam of their eyes could meet in the darkness.

His smile remained, but it softened. “I’m real sorry to hear about your boy.”

“Yeah.”

As if sensing that was the only response Mercy could manage to choke out, he clapped him on the shoulder and said, “I got you a boat.”

It was a small runabout with a massive Mercury engine on the back; though larger than the narrow bateau Mercy would have preferred, it would carry all four of them, their gear, and get them moving fast when the need inevitably arose. Bob showed where he’d already stashed high-powered spotlights, a first aid kit, a CB radio, and a pair of emergency shotguns in the bow, and Mercy stepped down into it, the water shifting pleasantly beneath him, so he could reach up and accept the bags the others handed down.

The mist thickened while they loaded, and by the time they were all onboard, water slap-slapping against the sides, it had become the sort of murky dark that only the most seasoned of boatmen would have dared navigate.

Toly clutched wildly at the siderail, face ghostly white in the blue, ambient nighttime light, and his eyes were uncharacteristically big.

“Don’t like boats, son?” Devin guessed.

“I’ve – I’ve never been on a boat.” He made a sickly gulping sound that didn’t bode well. “Shouldn’t we wait for daylight?”

“It’ll be alright,” Mercy said. “I know where we’re going, and I’ve got good night vision.”

Toly looked stricken.

Devin patted him on the shoulder. “All you have to do is sit there and enjoy the ride.”

“Guh,” Toly said, elegantly.

Bob hunkered down to crouch at the edge of the dock and tossed the end of the rope over. “Felix, if you need anything,” he started, and Mercy nodded.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll radio you. Thanks, Bob,” he said, and meant it fiercely. “I don’t know…” He didn’t know a lot of things, right now, mostly how to find the words to express his gratitude to everyone who’d already helped them, and would doubtless help them more before this thing was through.

---