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“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said. “I’ve been down this road with you before.”
“Naw you ain’t,” he said. “The cockfight was over by Gnatty Branch. This here’s Laurel Branch.”
“You know what I mean. No more side trips!”
“Hell, Doc, don’t make me feel worse’n I already do. It’s real important — if I don’t do this, Vern’s gonna have his ass in a sling big-time. No joke — this is a genu-ine family emergency. Besides, we’re already here.” We lurched to a stop and Waylon shut off the mighty diesel.
I looked out the windshield. There wasn’t much “here” here: a rutted turnaround, from which a narrow footpath led into the woods. Waylon got out and headed down the trail. “Hey, wait up,” I called. Fifty yards down the path, I was surprised to see trees posted with Keep Out and No Trespassing signs. Running beneath them were shiny strands of barbed wire. Waylon pressed down on the top strand and stepped over the fence, then motioned for me to follow.
“Waylon, I think whoever put up this fence and these signs means business.”
He laughed. “Oh, he means business, but he don’t mean us. We’s family.”
The trail angled through a stand of pines — all dead, decimated by a pine beetle infestation three years before — which bore additional menacing signs. I looked at Waylon doubtfully, but he just grinned and motioned me forward. As I neared the edge of the pine thicket, Waylon slowed, then stopped. “Doc, watch your step here — be sure you don’t catch that war.”
“War? What war?”
“That war about a foot off the ground there, couple steps ahead.”
I looked where he was pointing. A taut monofilament line — invisible unless you happened to catch a glint of sunlight through it — stretched across the trail about knee-high. To my left, it was wrapped around the trunk of a dead pine; to the right, it disappeared into a pile of deadfall. Looking closer at the deadfall, I detected two small dark circles, rimmed in bluish-black metal. “Waylon, is that what I think it is?”
He nodded. “Double-barrel Remington twelve-gauge. For them that can’t read.”
Waylon was already moving down the trail, so I high-stepped over the trip wire, very carefully, to keep up with him. “What are we doing here, Waylon, and why’s your cousin Vern so antisocial?”
“He’s got a note comin’ due that I got to help him with. He’s a small farmer, you might say, and he don’t like people gettin’ in his crops or messing in his business.”
“But he’s not gonna mind us? Or me?”
“Naw. I’m blood, and long’s you’re with me, you’re awright. Matter of fact, he’s heard about you, kindly wants to meet you. Duck your head, Doc. Duck, damnit!”
I ducked, just in time to avoid getting snagged by a series of triple-ganged fishhooks, suspended at various approximations of eye level, from more monofilament line. I guessed the reasoning was, if you didn’t read the warning signs, you didn’t need your eyesight. I renewed my vow never to travel with Waylon again, even if it meant walking back to Knoxville.
The trail followed the hill’s contour lines, and now it arced through a small hollow strewn with boulders, ranging in size from television sets to trailer trucks. As we approached a narrows hemmed by rocks, Waylon stopped again. “You see them leaves in that low spot yonder?” I nodded. “You’re gonna wanna jump clean over them. Got it?”
“Got it. Why do I want to do that?”
“So you don’t get bit by them copperheads curled up right there.”
Looking closely, I could just barely make out the fat, mottled shapes of three copperheads coiled on the bed of leaves. “How’d you know they’d be there?”
“ ’Count of them fishhooks in their tails. Keeps ’em close to home, you know?”
“Fishhooks? You mean they’re staked out in the middle of the trail? Damn, Waylon, how many more booby traps between us and Cousin Vern? And what if he’s rigged up some new ones you don’t know about?”
“This here’s the last ’un, coming in this-away. And Vern ain’t rigged up no more, ’cause he ain’t the one rigs ’em.” He said this with a mixture of matter-of-factness, modesty, and the proprietary pride of an artist displaying his handiwork. I should have known.
We wound down the hollow, which gradually widened into a small bowl. At the center, there appeared to be a sunlit clearing, though as we got closer, I saw that much of it was occupied by small trees, ten or twelve feet tall. At one edge of the opening stood a small cabin — more of a hut, really — with a wisp of smoke curling up from a rusted flue. Suddenly I understood: the clearing wasn’t a thicket of small trees, but a patch of huge marijuana plants, some of them with stalks as thick as my wrist. Of course — why else would a trail in the woods be booby-trapped with shotguns and copperheads? This lush, blue-green foliage waving in the breeze was the linchpin of Cooke County’s underground economy.
While we were still a hundred yards away, Waylon gave a piercing whistle. A deep baying emanated from the hut, and a rickety screen door screeched open and then slapped shut. Loping toward us on legs nearly as long as mine was a huge red hound, lop-eared and goofy-looking. The beast charged up to Waylon and reared up like a stallion, then placed immense paws on his shoulders. He stood eye to eye with Waylon and licked him square on the mouth. Waylon laughed, making no effort to dodge the dog’s slobbery tongue.
After he’d had his fill of kissing, the dog dropped to all fours and trotted over to sniff my crotch. Luckily, the smell didn’t inspire him to French-kiss me. “Best keep him and your girlfriend apart,” I said. “One of them’s liable to get jealous.”
Waylon thumped the dog’s rib cage. “This here’s my buddy. Hard to believe it now, but a year ago, he could fit in the palm of my hand. Not much of a coon hound, turns out, but he’s a real sweet dog, ain’t you, Duke?” As if in answer, Duke slobbered happily on Waylon’s palm.
The door screeched again, and a skinny, stunted echo of Waylon slouched toward us. “Hey, Vernon,” Waylon called. “I got the Doc here with me. He’s that genius bone detective I was telling you about.”
Vernon nodded hello. I nodded back. “You’uns ain’t just come from a chicken fight, is you?” Vernon snickered at his own humor, and I shot Waylon a baleful look.
Waylon fished a wallet from somewhere. “Here’s two hunnerd. I thought I’d be a little flusher, but I didn’t make out as well last Sunday as I planned.”
That was my fault, I realized — if I hadn’t collapsed at the cockfight, Waylon could have stayed longer and wagered more.
Vernon took the money and shook Waylon’s hand. “I ’preciate you. I hate to ask, but we’re still having a bad time with Ralph. He’s my least-un,” he explained to me. “He’s pale as a ghost, he won’t eat, and he’s got blood in his pee and his shit—’scuse my language, Doc. Waylon, he don’t look good at all. We’re afraid he ain’t gonna make it.”
With good cause, I thought — it sounded like the child might have leukemia, but I hesitated to bring up the subject. Maybe I could talk about it with Waylon later.
Waylon clapped Vern on the shoulder, then folded him in a bear hug, almost completely enveloping the smaller man. A muffled sob issued from the vicinity of the big man’s chest. “It’s gone be all right,” Waylon said. “Y’all just hang in there; everthing’s gone be all right. Listen, I got to get the Doc over to Jim’s.”
In the distance, I became aware of the staccato thudding of a helicopter heading our way. Waylon’s head snapped up. “Shit, let’s go, Doc,” he said. “We got to be out of sight before that chopper sets down.”
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nbsp; He bounded off the trail and scampered behind a tangle of fallen pines. I followed as quickly as I could, hoping we weren’t venturing into a different zone of booby traps. I heard a rustle behind us, and looked back to see Duke, the hound, following us.
Once we were hidden, Waylon’s hand resting on Duke’s collar, we dared a look back toward Vernon’s hut. A sleek, black-and-gold Bell JetRanger settled into the edge of the clearing amid a whirlwind of leaves and dust. On the helicopter’s side was a five-pointed star and the words “Cooke County Sheriff.” As the turbine engine spooled down, Orbin Kitchings emerged from the cockpit and strode toward Vernon, utterly unconcerned about the rotor still freewheeling above his head.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Waylon fiddling silently with something, but I paid it no heed until my nostrils caught a familiar and dreadful aroma: he had opened a can of Copenhagen, and I was directly downwind. I fought back the urge to gag, forcing myself to focus on the figures arguing in the clearing. As the noise from the engine and the prop died, I began to make out their conversation. “But that’s all I got,” said Vernon, his voice high and tight. “I ain’t playin’ games, that’s ever cent I have in this world. My boy’s been sick and I ain’t got no money till this crop comes in. Just come back then.”
Orbin spat. “Shit, Vernon, it ain’t worth my time and fuel to come out here for this. I told you five hundred.” Damn, I thought, if only the TBI had already bugged the helicopter. Maybe they’d have it done by his next trip.
“I know, Orbin, and I tried, but I just ain’t got it till I get this crop in. Weather stays good, I’ll get another week’s growth. That’s an extry couple thousand. You got to cut me some slack here.”
There was a pause. “What did you say to me?”
“You…you got to work with me, Orbin.” Vernon’s voice quavered. Sensing his distress, the dog squirmed, but Waylon held tight to his collar.
