Hunter's Moon by Chuck Logan (english novels to read .TXT) 📕

You keep fighting

392 / CHUCK LOGAN

the wars. Wise up. This country is just one big shopping mall run by murderers. Those people were blackmailing me!”

“You’re going to jail,” said Harry.

Bud laughed. “I built the goddamn jail to hold people like you.

People who lose control. Who get confused and lash out. I can protect you, even inside. After the first time a bunch of those grunting animals hold you down and spread your cheeks, you won’t refuse my calls or my intervention through third parties. By the time you get out, you’ll be trained. You might even get a job sweeping up if you learn how to say ‘Sir.’”

“Why’d you have to do that to Jesse and Cox?”

“Go on, say ‘sir.’”

“Why them, like that?”

“But I didn’t. You did it to protect me from a larcenous woman who’d use her son to attempt murder for profit. You figured it out, but in the process you went over the edge.” Bud yelled into the shadows. “Olle olle oxen free.”

Something started in the dark. Like a pebble being thrown.

Deliberately, Bud yelled into the shadows. “Somebody has to stop you, Harry, before you kill again!” Harry jerked his head. Bud lunged, one hand shoving the slide on the barrel housing of the .45

back, effectively disarming the firing mechanism. His other hand flashed up from the cuff of his boot and black steel guttered in the candlelight.

Harry blocked the marine K-Bar—Bud’s cannibal knife—and took two inches of the tip in the muscle below his left elbow before it jarred into bone. The pain came in a clean bath and he grinned as his left hand clamped on Bud’s right wrist. Bud warded off the pistol and, as they grappled, he puckered his lips in a mocking kiss.

“C’mon, tough guy, wrestle me down.” His voice was a wild giggle.

Boys roughhousing. “Harder, Harry, faster—take it right to the edge.

I always do. Are those steel bands of yours getting flaccid?” Bud thrilled.

Bud crowded him against the granite wall. Candles scattered. Hot wax dotted their faces. Theatrically, Bud yelled, “Run for it, Becky!

I’ll hold him as long as I can.”

Becky darted from the shadows.

HUNTER’S MOON / 393

“Run, run, run!” shouted Bud. His bulk swept Harry in a jerky polka embrace across the gallery. Becky danced on the balls of her feet, maneuvering.

Enough games. Harry broke free and slapped him up with the pistol and his left fist. Bud recoiled, chastised, as if he’d blundered into the moving parts of a machine. He crumbled to his knees.

“Drop it, Griffin!” The mournful voice and the cold circle of steel against the back of his neck came moccasin-silent out of the shadows.

Emery had got his deer after all.

Harry took a moment to enjoy the confusion on Bud’s bleeding face. Then he dropped the pistol.

“You said he was in the hospital,” Bud gasped.

“I lied.”

Bud struggled up, grinning. “Larry, Jesus Christ!”

“Surprise,” said Emery.

Bud missed the irony in Emery’s voice and blurted in relief. “Am I glad to see you. This crazy sonofabitch coulda killed somebody.”

“Yeah,” said Emery. “Looked that way to me, too. Pick up that gun, Maston.”

Despite his blacked eyes, Emery cut an impressive figure turned out in the sheriff’s uniform that was tailored fawn and gray with mother of pearl snap buttons neat on the pockets and a hand-tooled pistol belt low on his hip. A gold five-pointed star pinned his chest and the heavy revolver in his hand appeared very serious, Rock of Ages steady, and very straight indeed.

Harry stepped back to give Bud room to scramble for the pistol.

“He said Becky might be here. I didn’t know what he’d try but I thought maybe…” Bud’s best civic-minded voice.

Becky spoke calmly, too calmly. “What do I do?” And Bud missed that too.

“You just go on outside, Becky,” said Emery, moving swiftly to put his body between Bud and the girl.

“I want to stay,” she said distinctly. Averting her eyes, she stooped to grab at the picture.

394 / CHUCK LOGAN

“No, leave it be,” said Emery. “That’s evidence, honey. You gotta learn to live with the truth. Go on now. Git.”

Becky started through the narrow entrance. She turned.

“Go,” said Emery. “Don’t look back.”

When she’d disappeared, Harry moved to cover the exit. Blood curled down into his palm and he blotted it against the granite, leaving a damp ochre handprint in the candlelight.

Bud sensed a little of it. A sip from Harry’s hemlock eyes. “What?”

he asked. Perplexed, he watched as Harry and Emery exchanged the barest of smiles. He extended the pistol like a pointer. “Larry. It’s him. He’s on drugs. Give him a blood test.”

“No shit,” said Emery. “How you doin’, Harry? How’s the nose?”

“How’s yourself?”

“Mike says you’ll drop the assault charge if I to go to AA. Looks like you got me after all.”

“Larry,” Bud shouted, “Becky! You shouldn’t let her out there alone, she’ll run off—”

“Nah,” said Emery. “She’ll be fine. Her grandma’s out there.

Everybody is.”

“Who! What?”

Time accelerated for Bud and his electric eyes bulged with the meteor that was compressing him down to seconds. It all slowed for Harry and he thought, what a fine thing a cave is and his gaze wandered, slowly diagramming the movements some man or woman had made hundreds of years before, creating a buffalo by torchlight.

“So…what do we do now, guys?” Bud stuttered, shifting uneasily.

“Just what is it you’re up for?”

“Bud Maston, I’m arresting you for the murders of Jessica Deucette and Jason Cox,” Emery said.

“Larry, hey, it’s me, for Chrissake! I admit I did some awful things, but I was stoned, fucked-up…you can understand that.” Bud fingered the pistol nervously.

“We took two slugs outta Jay. My guess is they came from that Colt there in your hand, that now conveniently has your fingerprints on it,” said Emery.

HUNTER’S MOON / 395

“But Harry had the gun. Harry had it,” shouted Bud.

“Looks like you got it now, bigshot.”

“Larry, how’s this going to look in court? Think about what you’re saying,” said Bud.

“You know what it was? The third shot Chris fired. Went