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Chapter 1

 

 

The corpse swayed gently in the summer breeze. Dangling legs half-danced to a tune only the dead could hear. A thick cloud of fat green flies buzzed about.

 Hanged by the neck from a tall oak tree just off his driveway, old Jeb Fowler died within eyeshot of his tiny clapboard shack.

It was hot out. Too damn hot for a dead body to waltz upon the wind.

Three men, two of them brothers, stood with wide eyes. They took in the sight, unable to look away. Something like this, once seen, couldn’t be unseen. It stayed with you, always, like a scar.

“Cut him down,” Cletus Mayhart said.

“How long you reckon he’s been up there?”  Judd Mayhart, Cletus’ younger brother, wondered aloud. Despite the heat, Judd was chilled to the bone. He’d liked the old coot, as far as old coots went.

Cletus considered. It was hard to say. Jeb’s skin was light blue in spots, sunburnt a mad red in others. Hands blackened, pooled with blood. In life, Old Jeb had been a thin man, rail-thin, but now he was about twice his usual size. An old, wrinkled face stretched so tight the few wrinkles remaining were nothing but faint lines. His eyeballs bulged and his tongue, swollen like a sausage, lolled out.

 The skin split apart in a couple of spots, revealing the meat beneath.

“Too long, I’d say, hoss,” Mudbug Johnson finally answered in his half-Creole, half-southern bumpkin way. “Too damn long.” Mudbug was the oldest of the trio. Both brothers often looked up to him despite only coming to town recently. Well, as much as boys like them looked up to anyone, he reckoned.

Mudbug, not his given name, of course, stood a head over six foot tall and almost as broad in the shoulders. He was a fighter. Not a professional boxer, not even a streetfighter. He took jobs from those that paid well, and in the course of the job, there always arose an occasion to brawl. He didn’t mind it a bit. In fact, he rather enjoyed it. When not pursuing his duties, he was laid back and didn’t seem to get excitable about too much of anything at all.    

Raised on the Louisiana coast in a tiny village no one had ever heard of, he’d walked away at age twelve and never looked back. It had been a hard row to hoe, him on his own, but he managed as best he could. Things changed when he hit his first growth spurt. Then, when his muscles began filling out within the year, things got a bit easier, and he’d traveled that path ever since. From here to there, looking for any piece of the action.

Abruptly, Judd turned and strolled over to the edge of the trees that flanked the drive within a few half dozen feet, took a few halting steps toward a thicket of honeysuckle, leaned forward with his hands on his knees, and spewed his guts.

The stench of the cooked and decaying body was acrid. Just a hair’s breadth past what Judd could stomach.

Stomach voided, Judd wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand. He stood up and drank in a lungful of clear, untainted air. Then, willing his stomach to settle, Judd stood still and straight. He shivered slightly. He needed a moment. Just a minute to settle his nerves and his jiggly guts.

A silent flash in the corner of his eye.

From beyond the tree line.

At first, his mind couldn’t decipher what he saw. Was there someone out here with them? Was whoever put Jeb up in that tree still out here?

He took a few steps forward, mindful of sidestepping the sick splattered on the ground at his feet. Peering deeper into the woods, Judd saw nothing out of place. The trees grew thick, and the floor of the woods was covered in wild, flowing green: vines of sumac, honeysuckle, and all other manner of thriving plants.

Judd thought about hollering for Cletus. He quickly thought better of it.

Had he really been spooked so easily? Judd was no hero, but neither was he a coward. He took a couple more steps to the tree line.

“Judd, damn it, boy, taking a coffee break?” his brother called. “Get your ass over here and give us a hand.”  With eyes glued to the trees in front of him, Judd raised his hand and waved, without turning to his brother or Mudbug…or Jeb’s body.

Still, he saw nothing. Maybe he’d seen nothing in the first place. That was probably it. His nerves, already frayed from fighting with his ole lady this morning—she’d caught him stepping out on her, so she decided to return the favor, permanently—then finding Jeb hanging the way they did. It had to be his mind playing tricks on him.

A blur flew by right before his eyes. A breath escaped him, and he took a step back on instinct.

He saw nothing more. With eyes peeled, he took in the whole scene in front of him. Nothing but pines and oaks and lots and lots of underbrush. He saw nothing, no sign of anything. All he saw was a giant hornet’s nest but with no hornets. He didn’t see a single squirrel, no rabbits, no sign of life whatsoever. There was not even birdsong on such a lovely, sunny morning. The silence and absence of any wild thing seemed wrong.

Judd felt hot, like too much blood had run too fast to his brain. His skin was clammy to the touch. Then, the chills were gone, replaced by something else.

“Screw this,” he muttered under his breath. It was harder to turn his back on the trees than he thought it would be. Still, he managed.

Walking back, Judd pulled a glass jar from the back pocket of his overalls. He fiddled a bit more than usual with the lid. He brought the glass to his lips and tilted it back. A welcome and familiar fire trailed down his gullet. Almost pure alcohol, just the fumes alone made his eyes water and helped clear the stench from his nose. He drank down two thirsty gulps and waited for the buzz to come. It didn’t take long

Suddenly, as the homemade hooch reached his brain, the sun grew brighter. The world became sharper, his vision clearer, even as walking took a bit more concentration. Thank God for corn whiskey, Judd thought, certainly not for the first time in his life.

Cletus had backed the truck up under the hanging body. Now he and Mudbug were standing in the bed, looking up at Jeb. Judd didn’t know why. That feller there wasn’t coming back to life. No siree, no how.

“Cut him down, Judd,” Cletus said again.

“Shouldn’t we get the sheriff? I mean, this is murder, Cletus. Ain’t no way he done this his’self. Not Jeb. And you just don’t hang a man and expect to get away with it ‘round here. Especially a white man,” Judd said.

Cletus shook his head. “No. No good ever comes from getting Carl King involved.” Cletus swatted something tiny and buzzing. Not yet noon, and the mercury was just about ready to burst out of the tube.

Judd protested. “Look, I liked Jeb as good as anybody. Crotchety old fool was meaner than a snake but had a good heart, but I ain’t no undertaker, and I don’t like dead bodies.” He went quiet for a moment, then almost sulking, he said, “Been too damn many dead bodies ‘round here as of late.” 

Cletus shrugged and said. “Damn it, Judd. I ain’t asking you to bury the body. But, leaving old Jeb like that…hell, it just ain’t right.”

All three men agreed on that point. It took some doing. Judd had a bit of a climb to cut the rope with his Imperial pocketknife. Standing atop the truck’s cab, he could just reach a section of rope above Jeb. He sawed the rope, and soon enough, he was through. Cletus and Mudbug lowered the corpse gently.

They settled the old man in the back of Cletus’s truck, the noose still secure around his neck. They covered him with grungy sheets Cletus kept behind the seat to protect cargo when the need arose.

“Guess we won’t be making any runs for a while,” Mudbug said after, his Cajun accent not strong but still there. He was the newest of the trio to start working for Jeb Fowler. He made two of Cletus, who made his younger brother look like a juvenile playing at being a grown man. But Mudbug was not as young as the brothers, having Cletus by over a decade.

He had a point about the ‘shine runs. The three worked the stills for old Jeb and made deliveries. They weren’t getting rich and never would at their rate, but it was easier money than picking cotton in the fields, and they generally enjoyed it. Moonshining was a business that, once in your blood, was hard to shake. But, with Jeb gone, they would all have to find work, or they’d starve by the end of the month.

“Looks that way,” Judd said. “Guess I’ll go over to the mill, see if they need a new hand.”

“Good luck with that,” Cletus said. “The folks that work there, they know somebody.”

“Well hell, brother,” Judd said. “We know all kinds of people. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Cletus answered, looking down at Jeb. “Just not the right kind.” Mudbug shrugged, and Judd nodded, then all eyes floated back to the covered body of Jeb Fowler.

 “Don’t hardly seem right,” Judd said, echoing his brother’s earlier sentiment as they were prepared to leave. “A man was murdered here, and ain’t nothing going to happen. No one’s going to pay.”

“Those are the breaks, kid,” Mudbug said. Judd just shrugged.

“Yeah,” Cletus said. “But that’s Winchester County for you, after all, ain’t it?”

 

 

 

Mudbug was glad to hear the two men considering leaving town. It would be the best for all concerned. Then Cletus spoke again, and Mudbug furrowed his brow.

“The more I think about it, the more of a shame it would be to just walk away,” Cletus said.

“What you mean?” Judd asked.

“I mean, we just left the still. Everything’s there.”

“But that’s not our stuff, Cletus.”

“I know that, brother. I do. But hell, Jeb won’t be needing it anymore, will he? Someone ought to put it to use. We know how to make good brew, we have the customers, just till we get ahead a little, then we can move on.”

Judd nodded. He looked as if Cletus’ argument had already won him over. But then, the elder Mayhart turned to Mudbug Johnson. “What do you think, ‘Bug? You in?”

Mudbug was sweating to death under the morning sun. His hat was keeping the worst of the sun from his face. But there was little to do but suffer through the heat.

“I don’t think so,” Johnson said after a moment. “I reckon this old feller is hanging here because of the ‘shine. He’s not the first. We all know that. I don’t think he’ll be the last, either. I rightly don’t think I want to hang around to see if I’m right. Someone has started hunting, and I don’t aim to be their next target.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right. But I’m not ready to leave behind a chance to make good money for something down the road that more likely than not will pay less if it pays anything. A bird in the hand and all that.” Cletus already had that look in his eyes—that look a man had when he was already spending money that hadn’t hit his palm yet. Mudbug had been guilty of that himself, at least in his younger days.

“I can’t hold that against you,” Mudbug said. “A man has to make a living. But he has to be alive to spend that money.”  

Cletus laughed. Mudbug’s eyes narrowed. “I appreciate your concern ‘Bug. I think me and Judd can take care of ourselves.”

“That’s right,” Judd said, his words slurring slightly. “We always have. We always will.”

Cletus nodded. “He’s right, you know. Folks have been after us since the day we was born, seems like. We’ve always came out okay. I reckon we will this time, too. Besides, this whole country is going to shit. Ain’t like we got a lot of prospects.”

Mudbug nodded slowly. “Should at least think it over a day or two. After that, you might decide it’s not worth the risk.”

Cletus looked at Mudbug for a moment.

“Why you so interested in our well-being, ‘Bug?” Cletus asked. “Thinking about running us off and having the whole operation to yourself?”

The answer to Cletus’s question was not what he expected. Instead of an argument, four gunshots, one after another in quick succession, cracked through the quiet, sunlit day. The sharp sound whacked off the trees and echoed off into oblivion. Both Cletus and his brother fell to the ground where they stood, two holes apiece in their chests. Bone dry dust billowed up around them. They were dead before they hit the ground.

Mudbug shoved the Smith and Weston .38-caliber under his belt at the small of his back. The barrel was still hot from firing, but he paid it no mind.

Without ceremony or even a word over the dead, Mudbug Johnson wrestled each of their bodies into the bed of the truck next to the old man. When finished, Mudbug took his hat off and wiped the sweat from his brow with a red handkerchief. After a moment, he walked to the driver’s side of the truck, got in and started the engine. Slowly, he eased it onto a path he’d discovered two days prior that led to a hidden spot where the three bodies could rot away undisturbed for perpetuity.

 

 

 

When he was finished, he even took the time to say something over their graves. They were good boys. They deserved that, at the least. They’d never done him no harm.

Back at the truck, he pulled a jug of water from behind the seat.

Mudbug whistled a ditty he’d learned as a young boy. Then, with his window down, he slapped the outside of the truck on the drive back to town. The radio didn’t work, and that was fine by him. He could make his own music, as rough as it was.

Mudbug still hated the grit in the air. Everything was coated in dust and red dirt, and when the wind blew, you could feel that dry grit between your teeth. He missed the salty air and the ocean breeze off the coast. However, he did not miss the hard work. While he was never much of a law-abiding citizen, even crooked jobs down south required a lot of hard work.

The coast had gotten too hot for him, and that temperature had nothing to do with it. Legitimate jobs were hard to come by, and honestly, Mudbug didn’t care much about what he had to do, as long as he was paid for it. That kind of thinking only lasts so long in the same place. Sooner or later, you had to move on.  

God only knew how he ended up in this little armpit of nowhere. As the summer wore on, he thought of the north. It would be cooler up there, that was for sure. But once you passed that Mason-Dixon line, things were different. Hell, life was different. Mudbug wasn’t a man that feared change. He was just getting to the age where it didn’t take like it used to, old dog new tricks kind of situation.

Still, he knew he’d be out of this town by the end of summer, if not sooner. He’d make as much money as he could and then hit the road. His destination would be as big a mystery to him as anyone else.

‘Bug thought of the old Jeb’s last few minutes, dangling from that tree. He hadn’t begged for mercy. No, quite to the contrary, he’d called Mudbug everything under the sun. Bug had to give it to the old man. He stood proud until the end. As for the Mayharts, he’d hated to end them like he had. They weren’t bad boys as things went. But he did as he was told as long as the money flowed and knew in a day or two, he would forget all about them.

Things were going to get a lot worse before they got better. That was for damn sure, and Mudbug was counting on it. Because you see, trouble often paid well, and Mudbug believed in one thing above everything else: cold, hard cash.

Mudbug wasn’t worried about being seen in the truck. At least not yet. He often drove the Mayharts, and sometimes he brought the truck into town solo. No one would suspect a thing for a couple of days. Cletus and his brother weren’t popular around town. Besides, it would have been a helluva walk back into town from where Mudbug had dropped the bodies.

 He parked the truck in the middle of Farmington, near the Winchester County Courthouse, and rambled off on a circuitous route. He didn’t lock the doors but took the keys.

Mudbug liked Farmington well enough. It was a clean little town, despite the grit in the air. As long as you didn’t bother anyone, no one bothered you. Though on the few occasions he’d dealt with the locals, he found they all tended to be long-winded and could ramble on as long as you’d allow.

After a few minutes, he came to the door he wanted and pushed it open. The lobby of the Winchester County Sheriff’s Office was cooler than outside, but not by much. A large ceiling fan spun the air, and the lights were either off or low to help in all possible ways to combat the heat.

“Is he in?” Mudbug asked the man sitting behind a desk. Jenkins was an older deputy who no longer worked patrol but answered the phone and completed reports.

“In his office,” Jenkins said and turned back to his work. Mudbug walked past and headed for the dim corridor beyond the lobby. A few doors down, he stopped again and knocked.

“Yeah?” a husky voice called.

Inside, Carl King, a very corpulent fellow in his mid-fifties, sat behind his desk, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar. To say Carl King was fat was a gross understatement. But there was more to the man than just flab. A lumbering man, the sheriff was well over six feet tall, with long arms and long legs. In his youth, he’d been a brick wall of a man, and, having to resort to fistfights more times than even he could recall, he’d bested the best of them, as they say. The years and the easy job had worked against him. While that physique might exist beneath the layers of cellulite, the man looked as if he would burst out from his clothing at any minute. Still, in short bursts, he could be an incredibly vicious fighter, and even Mudbug had to admit the man could be intimidating, to a point. Nevertheless, he nodded politely as Mudbug stepped in. “The boys find Jeb?” he asked.

“They did,” Mudbug said. He was a man of few words. Carl King nodded again, considering.

“Good. Where are the boys now?”

“Keeping him company.” 

“Too bad,” the sheriff said, forming the words around the large cigar between his teeth. The cigar smoke was overpowering. Mudbug’s stomach roiled. He hated smoke, but it wasn’t his office, so he said nothing.

“It’s for the best. Much as I hate it. Decent those two, really. Never hurt a fly between them,” the sheriff said. Mudbug couldn’t argue with that.

“All they had to do was pack up and leave town. But, instead, they hatched a plan to take over the old man’s operation.”

The sheriff nodded but did not look pleased. “Alright, good work. Go get some rest. We’ll need you tonight.”

“I’ll be here.” He said nothing further, and the sheriff looked back at his desk, where the newspaper lay.

“Something else?” the sheriff asked when he realized Mudbug wasn’t leaving.

“That would be my pay.”

“I see.” Sheriff King’s beady eyes narrowed further as if sizing up the man standing before him. The sheriff leaned back even further in his chair. He reached his hand into his pocket pulled out a few folded bills. “I’m sorry about that. Just got caught up in the paper. You know how it is.”

“I do, sheriff,” “Bug said. “I surely do.”

Carl King counted out four bills. He slid them across the table.

“Don’t look right,” Mudbug said. “What gives?”

“Little extra in there for you.”

“For?”

“I know you liked them boys. Hell, I did too, but you know that oldest one. We either take care of them now or wait and let them get the drop on us. And that’s what I like about you; you go along with the plan.”  Johnson couldn’t tell if the man was serious or not. But who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth?

“I appreciate it,” Mudbug said sincerely. The sheriff nodded and went back to his paper. Mudbug was dismissed.

By the time Mudbug pushed through the front doors of the sheriff’s office, he’d decided he might as well grab lunch.

Killing and disposing of dead bodies did wonders for a man’s appetite.

 

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