“You packing?” the first man asked.
“I am.”
“Leave it here.”
“I won’t.”
The man aimed right at Kirk’s face. “I said leave it here.”
“I was issued my weapon by the government and I won’t be leaving it here,” Kirk said. “And ask your buddy to take a look between your eyes.”
The second redneck glanced over and saw the flickering red dot resting between his buddy’s eyes. “You got a shooter out there?”
“Got a couple of shooters,” Kirk said. “I don’t mean any trouble for Ray but we have to talk. You know you can’t stand between family.”
The man indicated for his partner to step aside and they waved for him to pass. As they went by, that guy pulled out a cell phone and made a call.
Kirk got back in and Eagle drove through the roadblock, Roland still crunched down in the back.
“I could kill them,” Roland said. “‘Don’t like his kind’? Let me kill him.”
“Don’t worry,” Kirk said over his shoulder. “He’s TDTL. Someone will do that soon enough.”
“TDTL?” Roland asked.
“Too dumb to live,” Kirk explained.
“I do appreciate the offer though, Roland,” Eagle said. Then he began humming the theme from Deliverance.
“Funny,” Kirk muttered, but he was focused on what was ahead. A large ramshackle house, which had obviously been added to bit by bit, sat on top of a small knob. A barn was to the right, except the barn looked to be in a lot better shape than the house, with a new metal roof and all the windows covered with heavy wood shutters. Several smokestacks punched through the roof, with smoke lazily drifting forth. “They’re cooking,” Kirk said. “And it’s a big operation. Bigger than what was here before.”
“I thought your uncle didn’t use?” Eagle said.
“He didn’t, but a lot’s changed here since I been gone.”
Nodding at the house, Eagle said: “I bet you the inside looks better than the outside.” The SUV stopped in front of the house. Kirk got out while Eagle stayed in the driver’s seat, engine running.
“I got two shooters upstairs,” Eagle informed Roland, looking down at the display. Instead of a GPS it showed the input from a thermal camera mounted into the molding on the front bumper. “Windows A3 and A5.” Kirk had laid out the building to them the previous night and they’d designated sides, floors, windows… everything, so that they could quickly designate targets.
Google Earth helped.
The front door swung open and Kirk’s uncle Ray came out, his left arm looped over the shoulder of a woman. Three men fanned out behind him, staying on the porch, their boots creaking down the worn wooden planks, two ARs and one pump-action shotgun being brought into play. The barrels were pointed down.
For now.
Ray had a large .357 Magnum tucked in a holster on his left side. The woman helped Ray down the three stairs to the dirt path. An incongruous white picket fence about three Mark Twain stories short of a new paint job separated him from Kirk, who halted at the gate.
“Ray.”
The older man had his head cocked slightly to the left. He nodded. “Winthrop. Been quite a while since you’ve been home.”
“I’ve been busy, Ray.”
“Fighting other people’s wars,” Ray said. “Told you it was dumb. Fought in Vietnam. For what? Now we buy furniture from the same gooks we used to bomb.”
Kirk spread his hands. “What’s going on, Ray? What are you doing up here in Woodrell’s place?”
Ray laughed. “Ain’t no more Woodrell. He’s in the swamp. Got tired of him pushing, so I pushed back.”
Kirk shook his head. “I don’t get it, Ray. Meth took my dad and you helped keep it away. Now you’re running it?”
“Meth didn’t take your dad,” Ray said. “Being stupid killed your dad.”
“You told me you’d take care of—”
Ray cut him off. “Never said such a thing.”
“Ray, listen—”
“You got shooters out there in the woods?” Ray asked.
“Yes.”
“I got shooters too,” Ray said.
“You promised to look after my sisters and brothers.”
“I am,” Ray said.
“You got Parker working up here,” Kirk said. “How is that looking after him? Dee said you slapped her when she came here to get him. You don’t slap women, Ray. You know that. Especially not my sister.”
Kirk could see the woman wasn’t window dressing. She was supporting a good portion of Ray’s weight. She was like many women in the hills, possibly aged beyond her years. She could have been an old twenty-five or a young fifty.
“What’s wrong with you?” Kirk asked.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Ray said. “Tell your nigger friend to get out of the car.”
Kirk blinked. His uncle had never used that word even though it was more than common in the area. Deep in a dark drunk, Ray had told Kirk several times how his life had been saved twice in Vietnam by his best friend, an African American (which is the term Ray had always used) from Atlanta.
Eagle got out of the SUV and walked up beside Kirk.
“Couldn’t find the shooters,” a voice called out from behind as the two men who’d been blocking the road broke out of the tree line on the right, twenty yards away. “We looked, Ray.”
“You didn’t look good enough,” Ray said.
“I know he’s kin,” the man continued, “but look who he come down here with. We don’t”—the man didn’t get another word out as Ray pulled the Magnum and fired. The bullet hit the man in the shoulder, the large round pirouetting him 360 degrees.
At the sound of the gun, Roland came out of the back of the SUV, his M249 at the ready. A red dot centered on Ray’s forehead as Roland aimed at the house.
Kirk held his hands up. “Hold on, hold on! Everyone just calm down.”
“I never promised you nothing,” Ray said.
“He thinks he’s telling the truth,” Eagle said in a low voice to Kirk.
“What?” Kirk was confused, but Roland was ignoring both of them, his light machine gun at the ready. And the red dot was steady on Ray’s head.
“Ray,” Kirk said in a louder voice. “Come on. This isn’t you.”
Ray laughed and tapped the side of his head. “I see things now, Parker. I see the way things need to be.”
“I’m not Parker,” Kirk said. “I’m Winthrop.”
Ray blinked, and there was a window into him through his eyes. Kirk looked at the woman, then the other gunmen. “You let him do this? To all of you?”
The woman spit. “Shut your trap, boy. Your uncle is the toughest son of a bitch this here county ever made. You don’t be talking trash about him.”
“He doesn’t know reality,” Eagle said in his low voice. “Prefrontal cortex is fried. Wet brain, given what you say about his drinking. They all don’t know it. He’s fabulating.”
Roland caught that last part. “He’s what?”
“He’s inventing his own reality,” Eagle said. He took a step closer to Kirk, but spoke in a voice they could all hear. “You would never hit Dee, would you, Ray?”
Ray blinked, more twitched. “I never hit Dee.”
Kirk closed his eyes briefly. “Dee would never lie to me.”
“It just gets worse,” Eagle said to Kirk. “There’s no cure.”
“Get away from him!” Ray yelled as a young girl ran to the man he’d wounded, trying to tend to his wound.
“Ray!” Kirk caught his uncle’s attention. “You’re sick. Let me help you.”
“Girl,” Ray said, lifting his pistol toward the young girl who was pressing down on her father’s wound. “You git, or I’ll—”
Kirk lifted his arm and fired before anyone could react. The bullet hit Ray in the left thigh and knocked him down like a hammer.