Page 439 of Hell Hath No Fury
“No, sir. Can’t say that I do,” I replied in complete honesty. “And it’s Duke.”
“I suppose you picked up that handle in the service, am I right?” he asked. “I’d heard that you’d enlisted and about how you were wounded over there in Vietnam.”
“I’m sorry, how do I know you?” I asked.
“Of course, you don’t remember. You were no taller than one of my huntin’ dogs last time I saw you,” Sheriff Early said with a grin wider than the brim of his hat. I had no idea who this politician cop was or why he was being so nice to me, but it made me uneasy.
“Your daddy and I are old friends,” Sheriff Early continued and my feeling of uneasiness doubled. “I remember he once invited me and my kids to go deer hunting on your property one season,” he said, and a flood of memories came rushing to the front of my mind. While I still didn’t have any recollection of Sheriff Early himself, I remembered that hunting trip and his shithead twin boys very clearly. They were sadistic monsters who were a few years older than me and got off on seeing animals suffer.
On the first day of our hunt, I took down a beautiful mature doe towards the very end of the day. I remember my old man telling us three boys to run into the thicket where she fell and make sure she wasn’t suffering. I was around ten years old, so this wasn’t my first kill, but until this point, my father had always cut the throat of the deer once I’d taken it down. This minimizes the animal’s suffering and is better for the quality of the game meat. My father raised me to be respectful and resourceful with every animal that we hunted. We huntedhumanely, legally, and always used every bit of the animal we possibly could.
I was excited because my old man had allowed me to handle the task, but scared shitless to do it. He probably figured as much which is probably why he sent the older boys with me, but instead of helping me, they thought it would be funnier to hold me down and make me watch the deer die from my bullet wound while they teased and tormented her. We were out of sight of our fathers and by the time they let me up I ran back to the camp empty-handed.
My father was pissed about the tainted venison, but even more so that I’d returned from the thicket bloodless and crying. I hated those shithead twins for not only fucking with me, but for making the deer suffer needlessly.
“I seem to recall you took down a nice buck that day, Randal,” Sheriff Early said, snapping me back to attention.
“A doe,” I corrected.
“Is that so? I’m sure your memory is a lot better than mine these days young man,” he said in a tone shaped by years of pandering for votes. “Well, my staff knows what good friends me and your daddy are, so the moment your name came across my sergeant’s desk, he called, and I came right down.”
I bet you did.
“I’ve had the chance to catch up with your father on the telephone and apologize for this entire little mix-up.”
The only thing I wanted to mix up was this spineless dipshit’s face.
“Your father is anxious to have you back home in Savannah, so as soon as your lawyer gets here, we’ll go ahead and get you released. Sound good?”
Sound good?These cops wouldn’t have pissed on me if I was on fire when I was brought in, and this guy was treating me more like a hotel concierge than the county sheriff. This could onlymean that his campaign for sheriff was bought and paid for by my old man.
“Sounds great, but there’s just one more thing,” I said casually, now knowing that this guy was in my father’s pocket and that I held all the cards.
“What’s that?” Sheriff Early said through an obvious forced smile.
“My friends. I think my father would want my friends, who were also falsely imprisoned, to be released as well.”
“What friends? I was told you were brought in alone on a traffic violation.”
“No, I ride with some of the other gentlemen in the tank. They’re hard to miss. They’re all pretty much dressed like me.”
Sheriff Early’s head snapped toward the deputy guard, who stammered through an attempt at deflecting his heat.
“The other bikers were brought in earlier, sir. We didn’t know Mr. Hill was with them. I—”
“Just get their names and make sure their release paperwork is ready by the time Mr. Hill’s lawyer gets here.”
“Yes, sir,” the deputy replied and turned for the door.
“And my good friend Pete,” I added cheerily.
“Pete?” Sheriff Early asked, his dumb hick face now turning red.
“Yes.”
“What’s Pete’s last name.”
“Don’t know.”
