Page 15 of Hell and Gone
He tried to argue with Lawrence about the sleeping bag, tried to pass it back when Lawrence returned to the campfire.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve slept beneath the stars.” Lawrence turned up the collar of his jacket and settled in against the fallen tree trunk, squaring his hat on his head. “You sleep with it, Army. At the very least you can use it to rest those sore muscles of yours.”
We could share.It came into his mind like a bomb, a thought unbidden, unwanted. Everett shoved it away. There’d be none of that. Not anymore.
“What’s your theory about what’s going on out here?” he asked instead after a wolf howled somewhere in the distance. He gripped the sleeping bag in his lap, squeezed and unsqueezed the packed downy feathers.
Lawrence sighed again, long and hard. “As for the missin’ stock, that’s rustlers,” Lawrence said. “It’s always rustlers. Rustlers comin’ through up the old trails or makin’ new ones. There’s been rustlers since the Old West days, and there will be rustlers still when we’re drivin’ flying cars.”
“Sheriff Braddock thinks maybe the cattle thefts are drug-related.”
“Could be.”
Man of a million words, Lawrence Jackson was. Everett sighed. “Why isn’t Braddock surprised Carson Riley turned up dead?” He could hear Braddock’s worn voice, tobacco-rough and rolling over each vowel.Looks like a suicide, and there’s reason enough to suspect he decided killin’ himself was the way to get out of the trouble he found himself in. There’s history behind that corpse, lots of it, and I can’t say I was surprised to see him dead with rope burns on his neck.
Lawrence looked up sharply. Firelight caught on his eyeballs, turned them to daggers that speared Everett. His lips moved, twisting tight over themselves, face going ugly with a scowl. “He mention the Heart’s Rafter boys that are missin’ or did he just shit on Carson?”
“He didn’t mention anything about Heart’s Rafter, other than where it was located.”
“Where you from in Texas, Army?”
Everett blinked. The way Lawrence spoke, the changes in topic, the move from slow cadence to rapid-fire shots, gave him whiplash. “Dallas.”
Lawrence snorted. “You ain’t know nothin’ ‘bout small towns, then,” he drawled. “I’m talkin’ real small. Small like this mountain, this valley. Braddock likes to say he’s got two thousand square miles to patrol, but you know how many people that actually is? Less than a thousand. And we’re all alone up here, cut off from the world, wrapped all tight around this mountain.
“There’s deep history in places like this. Peopleremember. They remember when you was five years old in your first hat and boots. They remember when you got your first pimple, when you was just a dumb kid doing dumb shit. Everyone is connected to everyone else. You live your whole life with the same people, day in and day out.”
“What’s that got to do with Carson Riley? Or Heart’s Rafter?”
Lawrence’s face fell as he stared into the fire. “Endless Sky is the biggest employer of cowboys in these parts. Everyone wants to work for the big ole ranch, right? Better pay. Better livin’.” He shrugged. “Carson used to work for Howell at Endless Sky, ‘long with those two Heart’s Rafter boys. Dell and Aaron. Fact, they were a range party. Carson worked there long enough he was trainin’ Dell and Aaron, and they was bringin’ in the herd from one of the pastures last summer together.
“They got their month’s pay all in one big lump, as they was out on the range the weeks before. Cowboys are usual paid weekly. And Dell and Aaron had never had that much money at one time ‘fore in their life. Sixteen hundred dollars. What are two young, dumb idiots to do? Well, they took themselves down to Gunsight, the pisstown near the highway filled with bars and strip clubs and gas stations. And Carson, being Carson, went with them. Wanted to keep an eye on them.” He shook his head.
“Story gets told different every time. But the way Carson tells—well,told—it, Dell and Aaron were senseless drunk and shovin’ bills in a couple strippers’ thongs when some local truckers got pissed they was hoggin’ all the action. Words got thrown, then fists. Then they all got thrown out.”
Lawrence breathed in deep. His voice dropped, his words rougher, dragged from him. Like each had to be clawed free of his throat. “’Fore Carson knew what was happening, Dell and Aaron were trying to drive away and those truckers were shooting at ‘em. They was drivin’ an Endless Sky ranch truck they’d borrowed. Aaron was the one drivin’, and, well, he didn’t take to gettin’ shot at, and he threw that truck in reverse.” Lawrence’s eyes found his through the smoke. “Backed right up over those two truckers in that big ole ranch truck. Carson said he could hear their bones break, every single one in their bodies. Like timber snapping. Or watermelon exploding.”
“That’s murder.”
“Yeah, that’s what Sheriff Braddock said, too. Carson was in the truck, so he was arrested with the boys when the deputies finally got out there and put an end to the fight. It got ugly. Real ugly. But Howell’s a big name in these parts, and he has a real slick attorney workin’ for him. Got the charges dropped. Argued Aaron was justified in what he’d done. Self-defense. That kicked off a hornet’s nest of troubles throughout the winter. Endless Sky trucks got torched. Some of the Endless Sky boys torched a big rig parked at the gas station while the owner was eatin’ inside. Truckers across the state were refusing deliveries here. Long haul truckers were comin’ in and startin’ fights with any cowboy they saw. Felt like a war was about to start ‘round here.”
“If those three worked at Endless Sky, how come Dell and Aaron were at Heart’s Rafter, and why Carson was working for you?”
Again, that sour look. “The deal eventually was, accordin’ to Carson, he and the boys had to get gone. Get off Endless Sky, get out of the Crazies. All that shit would stop if they got gone. Some deal Howell’s attorney cooked up with one of the trucker’s representatives. So they was fired. Trouble is,” he said, sighing. “You can’t just banish a man from the land he’s always known. Takes a lot out of a man to leave everythin’ and everyone. Plus, it’s hard to run from the Crazies. Real hard. Carson was workin’ up to it. He took it hard. He was real down about it. But Dell and Aaron, they wanted to fight it. They wanted to stay. Bill Warner said everyone deserves a second chance. But Carson, he was workin’ up to leavin’. He was makin’ his peace.”
“And he was here? You two were friends?”
A pause. Hesitation.
Everett’s eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, we were friends. We had an understandin’ between us.”
“What kind of understanding?”
“He came to me when Howell threw him out. When he had nothin’. When he was broken down, and I helped him stand back up. That kind of understandin’.”
He held Lawrence’s gaze, held it until the log split and sparks blew up and the smoke billowed between them. Lawrence poked at the coals with a stick, the fire slowly running out of logs and limbs they’d thrown on hours before. He used to be able to see Lawrence’s face, stare into his eyes, watch the way he shifted, the way he held himself. In the fading firelight, it was all Everett could do to map Lawrence’s presence in the darkness, catch the firelight reflected off his pupils. Trace the curves of his face sliding in and out of the night.
