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.Not the cheap flash and empty promises of modern charlatans.That’s the shit that should be buried and forgotten.Those words, along with the prompting of his subconscious—since he refused to believe he had actually been visited by Angie’s spirit—had convinced him that the money had been split up and moved to at least two other sites, including this one and the salt cavern where Miriam Piper-Gold’s body had been hidden.If he had guessed wrong, the man standing some six feet away pointing his pistol would surely use the weapon.But come to think of it, he would probably do the same if Jay were right—unless Jay found some way to distract and overpower R.C.first.Jay had to, not for his own sake, but for Dana’s.If there was any chance—any chance at all—that she had survived a gunshot wound to her head, he had to get back to her quickly.He dug deep into his reserves of strength to summon up an attempt at conversation.“So who’s been helping you?”The stony soil rattled as it slid down from his shovel.When his uncle didn’t answer, he added, “Somebody had to’ve.That old truck’s not yours, is it? And someone’s picked up supplies and stuff for you.”“Is this the part where you try to draw me into conversation to lull me off my guard?” R.C.asked him.With a nod, he added, “Guess you have learned something since you left here.I would’ve tried the same thing.”“I learned a lot from watching you,” Jay said, trying not to let his uncle’s comment get to him.“It’s what made me switch my major to criminal justice while I was putting myself through school.I wanted to be like the first man I respected.”At the moment Jay wanted nothing more than to split the bastard’s skull with the shovel he’d been handed.But with his uncle out of range, he used his foot to drive the blade in deeper.“Flattery now, huh? They teach you that in Dallas? Or did they have you ass-kiss ayatollahs while you were over there in I-raq?”“Maybe you could give me a few pointers on sucking up,” Jay countered.“The way you’ve let Abe Hooks run your office all these years.I know about the way y’all ‘persuaded’ folks you didn’t want around to leave Rimrock.”Maybe if he pissed off the man sufficiently, his uncle would grow careless enough to drop his guard.Since Jay was standing in the hole he’d dug, the chances of gaining control were worse than slim, so he’d have to act fast to seize on the slightest opening.But R.C.simply shrugged.“Hell, boy.That’s not Hooks runnin’ me.That’s just the way things are done out here.The way they’ve always been done since back before your granddad and great-granddad did their stints as sheriff.”“Things were done that way in a lot of departments for a lot of years.But that doesn’t make it right—especially not when people end up dead.”Jay’s uncle spit.“I’ve heard about that pussification training they make cops take now.All that diversity awareness and such shit.And that might be well and good in those fancy college classes they got the ACLU teachin’.But out here we hold with what works—and that’s still a strong sheriff givin’ bad men till sundown to get the hell out of Dodge.”Something he’d said rang a bell.His reference to the American Civil Liberties Union, maybe.But Jay was far too distracted to focus on it at the moment.“That hippie squatter you and your buddies burned to death back when I was a kid? I still remember him and his woman wearing those tie-dyed T-shirts from the sixties and making candles and wind chimes to sell at craft fairs.Do you really expect me to believe people like that were threatening the peace? Or maybe they were just a little too different for the people here in Devil’s Claw?”“Everybody knew those two were illegally harvesting peyote buttons.You let that sort of business get a toehold, and before you know it all sorts of—”Interrupting himself, R.C.frowned and pointed to Jay’s right.“Should have found something by now.Little thing like her couldn’t have dug too deep.Maybe you ought to try a bit farther over that way.”But Jay’s shovel had already struck something that felt different.Unlike the noisy, pebbled sand he had been digging, the sound was deadened and the steel blade’s bite felt soft.Far too soft to be explained by the banded packs of cash that he’d expected.As the pungent odor filled his nostrils, dread breached Jay’s levees.Dread mingled with the bittersweet anticipation of his own impending death.Chapter Thirty-twoBehold, from the land of the farther sunsI returned.And I was in a reptile-swarming place,Peopled, otherwise, with grimaces,Shrouded above in black impenetrableness.I shrank, loathing,Sick with it.And I said to him,“What is this?”He made answer slowly,“Spirit, this is a world;This was your home.”—Stephen Crane,“The Black Riders and Other Lines”As Wallace raced along dark roads, Dana checked Max’s leg wound, in part because she couldn’t stand the thought of the dog suffering and in part because she had to do something—anything—to keep from going utterly to pieces in her worry over Jay.“It’s not so bad, boy.Not so bad,” she reassured the quivering dog as she stroked his short hair.To her relief she found no injuries other than a single slash across Max’s upper foreleg, which had nearly finished bleeding.Grazed by the shot, the shepherd had gone into hiding.Dana quickly guessed the reason as she touched the knotty, healed wounds along his side, which she remembered feeling earlier.Someone had hurt the animal before he’d come into Jay’s keeping.Some cruel jackass with a gun.“Never again,” she promised Max.Even if Jay didn’t make it, she wouldn’t let—Shredded by the thought, she forced herself to ask Wallace a question.“How…how did you know her? How did you know Angie?”“What?” he asked her from the driver’s seat, where he had clearly been lost in his own thoughts.Once she repeated the question, his ring finger tapped a fitful beat against the wheel.“I didn’t know your sister.” He noisily cleared his throat.“Not really.Just bumped into her a few times around town.”“Jay said you picked her up when she was drunk.Not long before she vanished.”His gaze flashed sideways
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