“You do remember, Silas,” he says, “that I’m the one who put up all that reward money hoping it would help find your father’s killer.”
“One hundred thousand,” I say. “Hard to forget.”
“Twice that before I was through,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Then he says, “Think about my offer before making that your final answer.”
“That is my final answer,” I say.
I can hear his man Maury doing kitchen things on the other side of the door, banging pots and pans, and wonder, if only fleetingly, what his other tasks for Briar Crockett might be, when he’s not whipping up flapjacks and eggs and then cleaning up afterward.
Maybecleaning upbeing an operative notion.
I stand. So does Briar. It looks as if he might have tried to rise up slightly on his toes, as if trying to look me in the eyes.
“You’re making a mistake, son.”
“We went over this once before. Not your son.”
“I know,” he says.
“Just so you know?” I say. “I’ve made bigger mistakes.”
“You sure about that?”
“Thanks again for the fine meal,” I say.
He waits and then says, “You’re either with me or against me. I’ll just leave it there.”
“Now that does sound a little bit like war, doesn’t it?”
When I get to the door, he says, “Silas?”
His voice is barely loud enough for me to hear it from the other end of the long table.
I stop and turn around.
“I forgot to ask,” he says. “How was dinner last night?”
FIFTY-SIX
I SPEND MOST of the afternoon in the fields with Charlie and Les, watching Charlie look for reasons to go find holes to dig and brush to clear so he can operate my new Bobcat like it’shisnew toy.
I finally leave him out there and walk back to the main house and punish myself with another ballbuster of a workout, continuing to dial things up for myself on a daily basis.
When I’m finished, after more than an hour in there, I shower and change and go downstairs and sit with EJ on the front porch in wicker chairs that I think might be older than the house itself. The sun sets in the distance as she drinks the old-fashioned she occasionally fixes for herself at the end of the day, and I’m working on an ice-cold Boone Creek Blonde, one of my favorites from the Appalachian Mountain Brewery.
It’s my favorite time of the day as much as it is my grandmother’s, because of the spectacular way the sun can sometimes look on the other side of the property, but even more because of the company. It is as if the world just looks right from this vantage point. From this place. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can see my father’s truck coming up the drive, just with him behind the wheel instead of me,country music blasting out of the open windows and all the way to the sunset.
“We haven’t had a chance for you to tell me about your meeting with Briar,” she says.
I turn to look at her, in her mint-colored sweater and her faded jeans, little legs folded underneath her in a chair that looks as if it might swallow her right up if she’s not careful. The old-fashioned, I see, is a nice, rich, dark color today, which means she’s given herself an even more generous pour of Blanton’s, her favorite bourbon, than usual.
“He offered me a job,” I tell her.
