The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [6]
I’d known these two men my whole life and still didn’t know them enough to say word one to them. Or care to. They’d been the ones to run the dogs since their daddy was killed in a bar fight in Beaufort before I was born, and lived in a shanty back toward Jacksonboro. Neither of them had ever married, though there was word every now and again about there being a girl or two living with them in that shack, but never for long. And I’d never seen one of them without the other. They were just the men who ran the dogs, stinking of beer every Saturday-morning deer hunt the whole season long.
We stopped at the window, and Unc said, “Head up Cemetery. Let the dogs out above Baldwin before where it crosses Levee.”
Patrick rolled his head over to Unc, smiled. He had a heavy ponytail I don’t think he’d ever washed, his forehead working back on him, and from the light off the dash I could see in his smile where teeth ought to have been.
He grunted, then Reynold leaned forward, his bald head soaking up the green of that dash light. “Sir yes sir,” he said, and saluted.
Patrick gave it the gas, pulled away. And just like every time, once they were past the clubhouse Reynold gave off the same old high-pitched, hard laugh, a laugh out of control and ugly: his own rebel yell, Patrick and Reynold’s way of getting in the last word on the blind man they worked for.
Forty-five minutes after Unc’d sent him, here came Cleve Ravenel’s Ram 2500, behind him two cruisers, the first with its blue lights on, siren going, the other only following along. Ravenel blinked his lights on and off a couple times. Leading the parade.
And still Patrick and Reynold hadn’t shown up.
Unc was already moving toward them, and I wondered if maybe he didn’t need me here after all. If maybe I shouldn’t have just called Mom and headed home. I hadn’t done squat yet in all this, only followed him, watching.
“It’s two of them,” I said. “Two cruisers.” I caught up with him.
The first cruiser cut the siren and lights. “I’ll wager it’s Doug Yandle in the lead,” he said, and shook his head. “A siren.”
Cleve Ravenel pulled to a stop, his truck sliding a couple feet, the wheels locked for how hard he’d hit the brakes.
But Unc kept walking quick, a step ahead of me. When he came even with the truck, he let the stick drag behind him, his hand down, and I watched him pull his index finger along the front quarter panel, leave a stripe of clean red metal in the fresh mud splashed up there.
Ravenel let us pass before he popped open his door, climbed out. “Sorry it took so long,” he said. He hitched up his camo pants over that beer gut. “Got lost,” he said.
The door of the first cruiser was already open, an officer climbing out, Smokey the Bear hat in hand. He was tan, had a perfect mustache, creases starched into the light brown uniform.
I didn’t like him already.
“Mr. Dillard,” the officer said, and started to put on the hat.
“Deputy Yandle,” Unc said. He was at the front quarter panel of the cruiser, dragged his muddy finger along the white metal casual as you please, leaving behind a thin brown stripe the officer couldn’t see for Unc headed toward him.
He was wiping the mud off on the cruiser, and I felt myself smile. Him giving shit to this droid already.
Yandle stopped, hat halfway to his head, surprised Unc knew who it was already.
Unc stopped, pulled the stick up, held it. “Who’s your backup?” he said.
“Mr. Dillard,” this Yandle said, his voice loud, like Unc’s being blind meant he couldn’t hear well either. He slammed his door, put his hands on his hips. “We had a call regarding a possible 763—”
“Leland!” I heard, and looked past this Yandle to the second cruiser, saw a man climbing out.
“Tommy Thigpen,” Unc said, and started around Yandle, the stick tapping out the ground. “Haven’t seen you since back when I could see,” he said. “How’s your granddaddy doing?”
“Passed on a while back,” this Thigpen said, and shrugged.
Unc paused a moment.