“What does that have to do with us?”
“Maybe nothing. But from what you tell me, these One Nation guys are just dumb rednecks. If they were smart, they’d hightail it out of these mountains while they’ve had the chance. Either that, or they’d wait until morning and sneak down here to make sure we’re dead. But these guys are dumb. And violent. They have bloodlust. So they’re itching to confirm their kills, bury our bodies, and get to working on this building again so they can go back to inciting a race war. In other words, they don’t have much patience and they’re probably hungry, like I am.” Pickett chinned toward the coolers and canned goods in the shadow of the trees. “They want their Dinty Moore stew.”
Coburn saw the logic in what Pickett said. Besides, in the shape he was in, he couldn’t launch an attack on a butterfly, much less two idiots with firepower and a cause.
“So we wait them out?”
“Till they make a move,” Pickett said.
“Or I drain dry of blood.”
“Whichever comes first.”
“EMILY.”
Pickett opened his eyes.
It had been an hour and a half since either of them had spoken. They had thirty minutes of light left, although it had been a while since they’d seen the sun. The dark walls of trees seemed to be closing in, and because the breeze had stopped it seemed incredibly still and totally silent except for Coburn’s whisper of a name.
“What?” he whispered back.
“Honor and Emily.”
He was puzzled. “That’s a new one.”
Coburn shook his head. “Honor is the name of my . . . woman. Emily’s her daughter. Five years old.”
He tried to keep his surprise from showing. “So you have a family?”
“Barely.”
Joe waited for more that didn’t come. Finally, he said, “I’ve got a great wife and three daughters. I don’t mind admitting that, if it weren’t for them, I don’t know what good I’d be.”
Coburn looked over hard at him. “You mean like me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You wouldn’t be far off the mark. She and I have only been together three months.”
“Marybeth and I met in college.”
Coburn shifted uncomfortably. “Honor and I met under more unusual circumstances.”
He waited for more.
“I crawled out of a swamp into her yard, held her at gunpoint, threatened her life, and tied her up.”
“Never would’ve taken you for such a romantic.”
Coburn puffed a laugh. “She was involved in this case I was working.”
He motioned toward Coburn’s belly. “Is that when that happened?”
“Yep. Didn’t know if I’d ever see her again. I started going out to the airport every day.” Coburn paused. “Anyhow, that asshole I told you about? My boss. Hamilton? Honor threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t tell her where I was. She would’ve been better off staying in Louisiana. But one day there she was. With Emily and Elmo.”
“That sounds like a happy ending.”
Coburn shrugged. “Maybe for a guy who wants to settle down. Maybe for a guy like you. A guy who knows who Elmo is.”
He chuckled. “A little girl, huh? So you’re awash in estrogen.”
“You could say that.”
“Sometimes I think of my place as the ‘House of Feelings,’ ” he said. “It can be quite a shocker to spend the day alone out in the field and return home to that.”
“Four of ’em,” Coburn said, shaking his head. “I have trouble handling two. I’ve spent my whole life on my own. Keeping my own company. Not sharing anything with anybody, especially space. Now I’m having discussions about things like curtains. I don’t care what color they are. I just want to know if they shut.”
He nodded. “I hear you. And what’s the thing with throw pillows?”
“Hell if I know.”
They pondered the imponderable for a few seconds.
“Can Honor cook?” he asked.
Coburn smiled. “Oh, yeah. And don’t get me wrong. She’s wonderful. I can’t keep my hands off her. It’s the other stuff I gotta work through. I keep asking myself, Can I do this?”
“That’s not the question you should be asking.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Do you want to do it?”
He gave him time to answer, but nothing came, so he said, “You can do it, Coburn. If I can put up with a mother-in-law who never fails to remind me that her daughter married down, you can put up with curtains and throw pillows. Builds character. Maybe Honor will take the edge off you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“With all due respect, you could be less of a hard-ass. And one other thing. When we get out of this thing, go have Emily’s name added to your arm. Don’t chicken out this time.”
Coburn glanced at his still seeping wound. “If we get out of this thing.”
“We’ll find out soon enough, I think.”
By eight thirty a sliver of moon had wedged between the spindled tops of two pine trees, the sky overhead almost cloudy from the countless stars. A sight Pickett never tired of seeing.
Two men stepped out of the trees on the south side of the clearing. One was stocky and short with a barrel chest. The other cadaverous, and he pulled his left leg behind him as he walked. Silver light reflected off the barrels of their rifles.
The stocky man whispered, “You gonna make it?”
“I better,” the skinny man said in a southern twang. “Ain’t never tried to walk on a shot-up leg before.”
The stocky man chuckled.
They moved deliberately across the clearing toward the walls of the lodge. Condensation puffed from their mouths with every breath. They kept low as they neared the log walls.
When they were leaning against it, the stocky one whispered, “One, two, three.”
And they both sprang up and looked over the wall, their rifles sweeping the dirt floor.
After a beat, the stocky man said, “Where the hell did they go?”
“Right behind you,” Coburn said, raising the .45 with his left hand.
Joe didn’t even have the stock of the shotgun up to his cheek before there were two loud booms and orange fireballs erupted from the muzzle of Coburn’s weapon. Both the rednecks were thrown into the wall by the bullets’ impact. The skinny man fell like a puppet with his strings clipped. The stocky one regained his balance, turned, and raised his rifle. Coburn shot him again and the man dropped to the ground.
Pickett’s ears rang.
He barely heard Coburn say, “I think I forgot to say freeze.”
COBURN EYED PICKETT IN THE amber light from the campfire. The game warden had finally stopped talking and had settled in to shoveling spoonful after spoonful of canned stew into his mouth.
“I can’t believe I’m so hungry,” Pickett said. “Usually when I see a dead person, I get sick.”
“Then drink,” Coburn said, extending a bottle of bourbon they’d found in the One Nation cache.
Pickett grabbed the bottle, sucked a long swig, then grimaced.
“Good, huh?” Coburn said, taking it back.
The liquor dulled the pain from his shoulder but not as much as he would like.
“How did you know they wouldn’t see us leave that shelter to hide in the trees?”
“The darkest time of the night is that ten-minute window after the sun goes down, and just before the moon comes out. It takes a few minutes for your eyes to adjust. You learn that by chasing poachers around. That’s why we left when we did.”