Page 27 of Fury
The sound of her name spoken aloud caused Fury’s head to jerk back. He corrected Duck, knowing she’d always preferred her nickname. “Tabby. Yeah.”
Changing direction, Duck asked, “You get everything squared away with Chase and the band today?”
Fury nodded, picking up his beer again. “Yeah, they’re all tucked in by now, I hope.”
Then Duck made the one connection Fury had hoped to avoid. “Bethy know you?”
“She didn’t recognize me, no.”
“No, I mean did she know you back in Kentucky?” Duck’s question wasn’t hard to answer, because she had. He nodded. “But she didn’t recognize you?”
“Nope. I’d like to keep it that way. I’m Fury. That’s the long and the short of it.” Carefully setting his empty bottle back on the table, he stood and said, “I’m gonna go see if he’s ready to come back inside.”
***
Sitting and drinking a beer after supper, Fury was surprised at how much Duck’s house reminded him of home. The desert had its own set of sounds, but being surrounded by acres and acres of empty space let a silence settle in, just like the mountains of Kentucky. Noises of animals settling down echoed, strengthening the illusion.I could get used to something like this again, he thought, tipping his head against the back of the chair, comfortable in a way he couldn’t fake. Eyes closed, he yawned and relaxed, knowing the home of a brother would be safe.
Brenda, Duck’s old lady, was full of surprises. Things even Duck didn’t know, it seemed. She’d spoken of her early childhood being in Kentucky, not New Mexico, and something she said snagged Fury’s attention. From Cynthania, so close to his hometown, and she’d lost her parents in a car accident. That wasn’t shocking, wrecks happened all the time, especially in the mountains where a moment’s inattention could result in a fall of hundreds of feet. But she survived because a Good Samaritan had pulled her from the wreckage. Not just pulled a little girl out of a smoldering pile of scrap metal, but carried her to the local hospital. Then left her there, making an anonymous deposit onto a gurney in the ER.Fuck.
He’d heard that story before.
Watcher’s sister had taken a dive off a high curve and died. Little Tabby, raised as his baby sister for years.Fuck.
Everyone thought she’d killed herself. Thought she’d had enough of living with the knowledge that her body had been defiled in a way that should never happen to a woman, never happen to a girl—and never, ever happen to a child. Thought she’d sailed her truck off a mountainside to end the pain inside her mind.
Not my Tabby. That had been the refrain he couldn’t shake.Not my Tabby. She wouldn’t have done that to him. Wouldn’t have done that to her best friend, Bethany. Wouldn’t have done that to her brother, Mike. The day before her funeral, Fury had been in the right place at the wrong time, and overheard an enlightening conversation between his daddy and Preacher Mason. That had been the catalyst to getting himself unassed and out of the holler.
Daddy’s voice was solemn and quiet, but Gabe could clearly hear every word said between the two men. He’d seen old man Mason and Daddy walk to the barn, seen the shady looks Daddy had cast around the clearing before he closed the big door. Whatever this was, the men didn’t want to be seen doing it. Tabby’s death was eating at Gabe, and he’d heard Momma on the phone this morning saying the coroner had finally released her body. Funeral was tomorrow, and Gabe didn’t know how he would be able to stand going. Seeing the box that held her body, knowing the light that always shone from Tabby was snuffed out.
Everyone on the mountain knew what she’d suffered. Parents dead, and her mother’s death an unsolved mystery. One the TV shows liked to talk about, reporters and cameras arriving in town every few years to capture new footage of the storefronts and any local resident who’d talk to them. Their somber questions echoing through the streets, “And no one knows who killed Mrs. Otey?” As if the person responsible would be jumping up and down in the background, waving their hand and shouting, “Me, I did it. It was me!”
With everything going on, when he’d seen the men’s secretive movements, Gabe followed. He slipped through the narrow door at the back of the building, walking silently on the loose ground, tracking their voices through the darkness with ease. He’d been hunting and trapping the mountains since he was eight years old. Stalking two old men through a barn wasn’t difficult enough to tax him. Close, so close he could have reached out and grabbed old man Mason’s coattails, Gabe crouched and listened.
“Ezra,” Mason said, his voice a growling slash through the dark, “you better take care of that kid.” He puffed a breath, taxed by his emotions. “We don’t need no repeat of before.”
Gabe tipped his head, wondering what the man was talking about. He didn’t have to wonder long.
Daddy spoke into the silence, his manner obsequious, greasy sounding, like someone with something to hide. “You know that was a fluke, Irving. We’ve got the suppliers under control this time. The boy won’t surface. I fixed it good last time, and you know I’m right.”
Gabe barely had time to wonder,Suppliers?Then his father was speaking again, the words stripping the air from Gabe’s lungs. “Tabby never knew what hit her, right? You did it quick?”
Old man Mason’s tone was dismissive, angry at being questioned. “I told you she wouldn’t suffer. I’m not an animal, Ezra. My man dealt with her with compassion, like I promised. He got the kid out, too, just like before. Innocents shouldn’t suffer for their family’s mistakes. You know I did my part, and now it’s all on you. You park that kid, and you park him deep if you want him to keep breathing.” Mason moved, and Gabe stared through the crack in the wooden wall to see the man’s hands were clenching and unclenching, seemingly frustrated at his inability to do something. “I do what’s needful. Morgan’s grandbaby lived, that’s all he needs to know. You park him deep, and I’ll leave that boy alone. You don’t, and there’s gonna be hellfire to pay. I’ll tear your family to the ground, Ezra. You’ll lose more than you ever thought possible.”
Daddy shuffled closer to the preacher, craning his neck to look up at the big man. His words were half plea, half ultimatum, but full of fear. “And my family, with this, Irving, we’re out of it. I’m telling you we are out.”
Mason’s laughter was dark and filled with humor. “You ain’t never gonna be out, Ledbetter. Dug in deep, you’re stuck with me. We’re in the pits chipping away at the walls around us. You know that, better than most. I’m leaving. You’re just wasting my time with all this bullshit, and I don’t take kindly to people wasting my time.”
Gabe’s father stood silent for a moment, and it was his turn to impotently clench his fists. When he finally spoke, his words were quiet but vibrating with anger. “You done took from me, Mason. You know that. Took from me and mine. I had one slip, one. And you hold that over my head like I was your lackey, setting off to do whatever the king bids. I won’t lose more. Not this time. I’m warning you—”
He didn’t get anything else out. Mason moved so fast Gabe scarcely tracked him, and had his hand around Ezra’s throat in a heartbeat, had him lifted and pushed against the wall. Leaning close, choking him with his strength and weight, old man Mason rumbled the words, “You do not know what’s been taken from me. My wife. My children. That man took them, and took them, and took them. He’s taken the last thing he’ll ever have. His man is bedding my daughter.” Mason’s voice broke, and Gabe’s fists tightened.Bethany, he was talking about Bethy. “Do not speak to me about how much has been lost. That man ain’t going to see the light of day once I get done with him. I’ll bury him a mile deep. And I’ll plant you there beside him, if you buck me on this. Ledbetter, you do what’s needful. You park his grandson where he can’t get at him. You do it in a way that he gets the message. And when I get my wife back, I’ll think about letting you out. Not until then. Not a bit of it.”
Fury pushed to his feet, suddenly unable to stay inside another moment. He muttered something, it didn’t matter what, as long as it got him out and into the nighttime air. He pulled in a deep breath, shocked for a moment at the absence of rich earth and deep woods on the air. Tabby hadn’t killed herself. That was knowledge he’d lived with for a long time. He’d had to see how it ate at Bethy, how it ate at his ma. Tabby hadn’t killed herself, hadn’t taken herself away from them. The knowledge had run him from the mountain and to the military, where he’d found a costly mix of friends, leading him in the end to Dion.
It had run Bethy from the mountain, too, and Fury had been there that day, his mouth closed tight because of fear. The last time he’d allowed himself to be ruled by that weakness. Bethy had faced off against her father, told him she was done, and then she left the graveside of her best friend in tears, Mike Otey’s arm wrapped around her shoulder.
At home that night, Gabe had heard his mother’s cries, heard the smacking of the strap and knew his daddy would be coming his way next. If the man didn’t get what he wanted one way, he’d get it another. He always had. That was when Gabe had packed, taking his knife to the pillow and dumping the feathers on the bed before shoving his sets of smalls and pants into the empty case.
At the last minute, he’d heard his father’s footsteps coming up the hallway, a staggering gait which sent the man running into the walls, bouncing back and forth between them in a telling way. Easing over the windowsill on his belly, Gabe had stared at the turning doorknob as he reached up to silently close the window. Feet firmly on the ground, he’d cast around for a few seconds to find the bag, heart in his throat. Then he’d been running. Barefooted and free, tearing through the woods, crashing down the mountainside and to the road where he’d ridden his thumb to Lexington. Showing up at the recruiting office like he had, the only reason the men didn’t call the police on sight was because he’d thought to grab his papers. With his birth certificate in hand, they couldn’t turn him away. Right hand raised, he’d stared into the eyes of the man in front of him, repeating the words that would take him away from there.
