The Devil's Country [Kindle in Motion] Read online

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  IN THE WILDERNESS

  Need be, Molly decides to kill her children, then herself.

  Death is better than what will happen if they are caught.

  She clutches the stolen pistol with one hand, her daughter’s arm with the other, and pulls the child toward the meeting place.

  Sweat stings her eyes, trickles down the small of her back. Thorns from the mesquite trees claw at her skin and clothes.

  The land is mean and unforgiving, like the men coming after her.

  Her son is in the lead, maybe thirty yards ahead along the narrow cattle trail.

  He is thirteen, not a boy anymore. He lopes with the endless stamina of youth, a slender, shadowy figure in the dense brush. Every few seconds he stops and turns their way, silently urging them on.

  Molly struggles to catch up, but deep down she knows her efforts are wasted.

  They will catch her because they must. Failure is not an option. Their faith, which was once hers, demands it.

  She has seen too much, glimpsed at the secrets lurking behind the facade of the church.

  Even worse, she has begun to understand, to truly comprehend the nature of where she has spent most of her adult life.

  Understanding but without faith. Knowledge with no belief.

  This is the ultimate sin, and they will make her pay the ultimate price.

  Her only hope is to save her children.

  With that in mind, she presses on, one foot in front of the other, pistol clutched tightly in her hand, the long skirt she wears hampering her progress.

  Engines whine behind her as the pursuers zigzag their four-wheelers through the brush. Every second brings them closer.

  Molly forces herself to move faster, lashing her half jog closer to a sprint. Her daughter struggles to keep pace, yelping as a branch slaps her in the face. Molly turns to check on her and stumbles over a fallen tree limb. She slams into the ground.

  Dirt and cow manure soil her dress. Tears fill her eyes.

  Futility rushes over her like water from a broken dam. The folly of her entire existence is laid bare. Everything she attempts eventually ends in disaster.

  “Get up, Mama.” The girl tugs on Molly’s arm. “We have to hurry.”

  Her daughter is nine, but she’s old beyond her time, well aware of the danger. The life that’s been thrust upon her makes a person that way. This is perhaps Molly’s biggest regret. A nine-year-old shouldn’t have this much fear.

  Molly gulps air. Her legs ache. She realizes she can’t go on.

  Even if she can reach the meeting point and the vehicle is there, the guards will track her down. Whatever safety they might find will be fleeting.

  Silas and his men are everywhere. They see and hear everything.

  Sometimes Molly wonders if they can sense even her very thoughts.

  It’s better to end the ordeal now. Avoid the pain and suffering to come. Let their souls be greeted by the Elohim.

  The pistol is heavy in her hand.

  It is the middle of the afternoon, but the sky has darkened, storm clouds gathering on the horizon. The air smells like rain, a welcome relief for this drought-stricken section of West Texas.

  Her daughter kneels beside her, skin pale, teeth chattering despite the heat.

  “Please, Mama. They’re right behind us.”

  The child is beautiful. Auburn hair, big blue eyes, full lips. Molly wanted so much more for her. School and friends, boys to fret over. A life of her own choosing.

  Molly stares at the gun. A silent prayer forms in her mind: Dear Father in heaven. Please forgive me for what I am about—

  Thunder cracks in the distance, startling her.

  Molly looks toward where she last saw her son.

  The boy is standing on a limestone ridge, silhouetted against a dark sky.

  He points to the other side of the ridge and shouts, “The pickup!”

  Molly lets the girl help her up. She takes a deep breath and runs toward the meeting place, daughter by her side.

  The whine of the four-wheelers’ engines is louder.

  Molly keeps running.

  CRACK.

  A rifle shot echoes across the land as she and her daughter scramble over the crest of the ridge. She checks her daughter in a panic, but the bullet found neither of them.

  Below them is an old Chevy pickup parked on a gravel road, maybe twenty yards away. Her son is already there, opening the driver’s door. Molly and her daughter run for the truck.

  The ones who have gone before her arranged for the vehicle. The key will be under the floor mat, along with a mobile phone and a map to the nearest town. Safety.

  Molly stares at the Chevy as she runs, hardly believing her good fortune. Things don’t go right in Molly’s world. People don’t keep promises; events take the worst turn possible.

  The rain begins. Fat drops splatter in the dust. Lightning jags across a purple sky.

  Molly allows herself to feel a moment of relief. The rain will slow down the pursuers.

  Another rifle shot rings out.

  Her son cries out, grabs his shoulder. Blood oozes from between his fingers.

  An invisible hand clenches Molly’s throat.

  Silas’s men have caught up with them. They will kill the boy and then take away her daughter.

  Her limbs shake, vision blurs.

  A pain on her arm, like a bee sting.

  She looks down, afraid she’ll see blood.

  The girl is pinching her.

  “Mama. We have to get to the truck. Hurry.”

  Molly pushes away the hysteria and sees that her son is holding the key to the pickup aloft at the end of his unwounded arm.

  The sky grows darker still. Sheets of rain begin to fall.

  Mother and daughter run for the truck as Molly says a silent prayer of thanks.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I value my privacy.

  A quiet corner and a good book. A cup of coffee or a beer.

  That’s not too much to ask, is it?

  Not after what I’d been through, certainly.

  The bar was called Jimmy and Dale’s Broken Promise. It had low ceilings and even lower expectations, as good a place as any to spend an hour or so out of the heat.

  I was sitting by the beer taps, reading a paperback copy of Edward Gibbon’s classic, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, nursing a mug of Coors.

  Other than the bartender and myself, only three people were present. A woman at a table in the back by the jukebox and two cowboys by the front, wearing Stetsons, throwing darts.

  I’d counted customers when I’d entered, rated each as to what kind of trouble they could cause. Made sure of where the exits were.

  Old habits.

  The bartender was named Jimmy, and I surmised he was also the owner. I’d thought about asking what had happened to Dale and the broken promise, but that was dangerously close to putting down roots, so I’d just ordered the beer and started reading.

  Two pages later, my mug was down maybe a half inch.

  Jimmy wandered over, polishing a glass with a towel. He was in
his midforties, a few years older than I, and sported a Joe Dirt–style mullet.

  “We’re running a special on Goldschläger,” he said. “You want a shot?”

  I shook my head, continued reading.

  A moment passed. Jimmy finished with one glass, began shining another.

  “You working at the feedlot? Haven’t seen you around here before.”

  The flat-screen over the bar was tuned to the Weather Channel and showed a line of thunderstorms advancing toward the tiny town of Piedra Springs, Texas, the location of Jimmy and Dale and their broken promise.

  There’s an art form to being polite but not encouraging conversation, a thin line to be traversed. Act friendly but not engaging. Don’t be an asshole or a chatterbox.

  “Just passing through.”

  I flipped the page to a new chapter: “The Tyranny of Caracalla and the Usurpation of Macrinus.”

  Due to changes in my employment situation, I’d decided to catch up on some of the stuff I’d missed out on over the years—books not read and roads untraveled being the first two.

  “Passing through Piedra Springs?” Jimmy chuckled. “Don’t that beat all.”

  The town was in a desolate, hard-to-reach section of West Texas, the badlands between Odessa and Sonora, a long way from anywhere that mattered.

  Not many people just stumbled upon Piedra Springs. You either had business there or were trying to avoid business somewhere else. Or you were just wandering, like me.

  He pointed to my nearly full beer. “You OK on your drink?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” I didn’t look up from the book.

  Another two pages had gone by when the girl by the jukebox glided to the bar, carrying an empty glass.

  She was in her early twenties, with small bones and delicate features, a doll relegated to a high shelf because the children’s playtime was much too rough.

  She pushed the glass across the bar and asked for a refill, vodka on the rocks.

  While the bartender made the drink, she turned her attention my way. “Hi there.”

  I finished the paragraph. Waited a moment. Looked up.

  “Hello.” I immediately returned to the book.

  “Whatcha reading?”

  I put down Gibbon, wondered if there was a place in town where I could just get a cup of coffee and not have to talk to people. “A history book,” I said. “About the Romans.”

  She wore a leather headband, a pair of faded jeans, and a low-cut peasant blouse, tie-dyed.

  “You don’t look like a history buff.” She leaned against the bar. “Or a Roman.”

  The movement displayed more of her cleavage, which seemed to be the point.

  She said, “You look like you just got out of the army or something.”

  She was actually sort of correct. My hair was short. I stood a little over six feet, weighed a fit 180 pounds, arms and shoulders stretching the T-shirt I was wearing.

  I’d been discharged from the Texas Rangers almost eight months before. I’d been a Ranger for nearly a decade, going into some of the worst places East Texas had to offer.

  I didn’t tell the girl any of that. I just shrugged and picked up Gibbon again.

  A moment later, she said, “You ever been to Italy?”

  “Italy, Texas?”

  “No, silly. The other one. The real Italy.”

  I debated my answer. The line between being friendly and an asshole was getting thinner.

  “Leave him be, Suzy.” The bartender put her drink on a napkin. “The man just wants to read his book.”

  I made a mental note to leave a healthy tip. Then I gave both of them a polite smile and went back to the Romans.

  Jimmy told her how much the drink would be.

  She patted her pockets.

  “My purse. It’s back at the table.” All innocence. “I’m sure I’ve got some money left.”

  I looked up from my book. Jimmy was staring at her with the look bartenders reserve for young women who try to scam themselves free drinks.

  “We talked about this when you came in,” he said. “You told me you could pay your tab this time.”

  He wasn’t angry, and I understood why.

  It was hard to get mad at a girl like Suzy. You instinctively knew she was doing the best she could and that was never enough.

  “There’s money in my purse.” She stood up straight, chin high.

  Jimmy and I stared at her. She made no move toward the table where her handbag was.

  I sighed and put down the book again. Despite my years as a cop, I was a sucker for lost causes, stray pets, and people who couldn’t quite fit into the groove of life.

  A waif with no money, looking like she’d been conceived in the back of the Grateful Dead’s tour bus, in a bar called the Broken Promise.

  Pretty much the definition of a lost cause, right there.

  I pulled out a twenty. “Here. Allow me.”

  Jimmy took the cash, and the woman climbed onto the stool next to mine.

  “Thank you, kind sir.” She took a sip of vodka. “I thought my friend was going to be here by now.”

  I picked up Gibbon and tried to find my place. Tried to ignore her without being impolite.

  “It’s kind of a date,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in years. We hooked up online.”

  I didn’t reply. Kept reading.

  “He used to be in my cousin’s Al-Anon group.” She clinked the ice in her glass. “This was up in Abilene.”

  The words on the page became a blur, the sound of her voice making them hard to process.

  “He’s been in Austin for the last month or so.” She paused. “An unfortunate misunderstanding with the local authorities.”

  I stopped reading. “He’s been in jail?”

  “Only for a short period.” Her eyes were wide as saucers. “He says that he’s a political prisoner. People can’t handle the truth of his views.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose, tired all of a sudden.

  On the TV, the thunderstorms were getting closer.

  “You seem like a nice person, Suzy. Maybe you could try and meet somebody at a homeless shelter or a methadone clinic.”

  She rattled the ice in her drink and stared off into the distance. “Everybody deserves a second chance, don’t you think?”

  I wondered if there was a bus leaving later. The destination didn’t matter.

  She shifted her weight so that our knees were touching. After a moment, I shifted away.

  One of the cowboys who’d been playing darts approached the bar, ordered two more beers. The crown of his hat peaked higher in the rear than in the front, the crease sloping toward the wearer’s face, what’s known as a Tom Mix–style Stetson. His friend’s hat was similar.

  He tilted back the Stetson and eyed Suzy with the look men reserve for women who are easy pickings.

  She’d been in the back, alone. Now she was at the bar, with someone she obviously had just met. Might as well have had a sign around her neck that read puts out on first date.

  Then the cowboy looked at me.

  I looked back, settled behind the flat, unblinking stare that used to make the tweakheads and gangbangers in certain parts of the Lone Star State run for shelter. It still had some utility, evidently. The cowboy paid for the beers and headed back up to his friend at the dartboard.

  Suzy stayed at the bar and drank, humming to herself softly. She didn’t try to talk to me anymore, so I opened my book and continued to read.

  A page and a half later, a gust of wind swept through the bar as the front door opened and a man in his forties entered. His scalp was clean-sh
aven, and he had a swastika inked on his forehead and what looked like teardrop tattoos under each eye. He stood by the entrance, blinking, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light.

  I glanced at Suzy over the top of the book, kept my voice low. “You can go out the back.”

  She stared at the man, index finger running around the rim of her glass.

  “Nobody would blame you.” I flipped the page.

  The man with the shaved head sauntered toward the bar. I looked up from my book. His skin was sallow, eyes flat and cold, a mackerel on ice.

  She slid off the stool, wobbly on her feet. “Thanks for the drink.”

  Mr. Swastika stopped a few feet away from us, head cocked to one side.

  “Hello, Suzy. Been a long time.” His voice was ragged, like he’d been shouting a lot or smoking meth. “How’re you doing, girl?”

  “Peachy, baby. How about you?” She moved toward the man, her body language open and inviting.

  Mr. Swastika ordered a pitcher of Bud Light. He carried the beer to the back, Suzy trailing after him. They sat at her table by the jukebox.

  I watched them for a few moments, wishing I’d picked a different place to spend an hour reading about the Romans, a different town, even. But I’d been tired of being on the bus, and Piedra Springs had a nice ring to it, so here I was.

  Twenty minutes later, the pitcher was empty. Mr. Swastika stood up. Suzy did the same, wobblier than before.

  They headed toward the exit. Suzy looked over her shoulder at me as she went. Her expression was mournful but resigned. Or maybe that was my imagination.

  A red band scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen, a tornado warning for the county where Piedra Springs was located.

  I opened the book, read a few lines. Then I closed it.

  Jimmy wiped down the bar with a rag. “She does stupid stuff like that on a regular basis.”