Fire in the Hole

  Though he hadn't racked the pump to put a shell in the breech.

  Still hadn't as he slowed up seeing Raylan in his shirtsleeves, Dewey Crowe taking careful steps now, holding the shotgun out in front of him.

  Raylan said, "Mr. Crowe? Listen, you better hold on there while I tell you something."

  It stopped him about fifty feet away, his shoulders hunched.

  "I want you to understand," Raylan said, "I don't pull my sidearm 'less I'm gonna shoot to kill. That's its purpose, huh, to kill. So it's how I use it."

  Speaking hard words in a quiet tone of voice.

  "I want you to think about what I'm saying before you act and it's too late."

  "Jesus Christ," Dewey said. "I got a fuckin' scatter gun pointed right at you."

  "But can you rack in a load," Raylan said, "before I put a hole through you?"

  Raylan stepped out to the yard. He said,

  "Come on," pushing the barrel of the shotgun aside to take Dewey by the arm and walk him out to the car, a piece of junk but still a Cadillac.

  "Where'd you want to take Ava?" Dewey said, "Man, I don't understand you."

  "Boyd want to see her?"

  "It's none of your business."

  "You know Boyd and I were buddies? We dug coal and drank beer together." Raylan opened the car door. "You see him, tell him I'm in Harlan."

  Dewey didn't say anything getting in the car. He had to turn the key a few times before it caught. Raylan reached through the open window and put his hand on his shoulder. "I was you, boy, I'd drop this Nazi bullshit and get back to poaching gators, it's safer."

  Dewey looked up at him. As he said, "The next time I see you . . ." only got that far before Raylan took a handful of his spiked hair and brought his head down hard on the windowsill. Raylan hunched over now to look into the face tightened with pain.

  "Listen to me. Tell Boyd his old buddy wants to see him, Raylan Givens."

  VI.

  He went back in the house to find Ava in the kitchen pouring Jim Beam, Ava in a tank top and shorts, her hair wrapped in a towel that was like a white turban around her head. She said, "Who was that?" not sounding too interested. He told her and she said, "Oh, the one with Heil Hitler on his chest, he was one of Bowman's buddies."

  "He came to take you someplace."

  "Most likely to see Boyd. You want something with yours? I've got Diet Co'Cola, RC Cola, Dr Pepper... "

  "Just ice, if you have some."

  "I ever forget to fill the trays Bowman'd start slapping me. 'What's wrong with you? Don't you know how to keep house?' "

  The towel covering her hair made the rest of her seem more exposed, white and kind of puffy, more to her, like she had gained a good twenty pounds since taking off the housedress that hung on her. He saw now it was that wild hair that had made her face appear drawn. He noticed bruises on her pale skin, on her arms and legs, that made her appear soiled, and, oh man, her behind filled out those shorts—Raylan watching her carrying their drinks to the table where she had shot her husband.

  "I cleaned it up good. Had to scrub the wall there with Lysol to get, you know, the stains off it. I think Lysol's the best cleaning product you can buy."

  Raylan sat down at the table with her. "You haven't seen Boyd, have you? I mean since?"

  "No, but he'll be after me, I know. He's been after me."

  "That's why we want to keep an eye on you," Raylan said. "You know I'm with the Marshals Service."

  "I believe was your mother told me, before she passed." Ava lit a cigarette from a pack lying on the table and blew a stream of smoke by him. "I made the mistake of telling Bowman about his brother coming around and he whipped me with his belt. Didn't want to believe it." She drew on the cigarette again. Smoke came out as she said, "Here's a man was so jealous he'd stop by Betty's to check on me."

  "Betty's?"

  "Hair Salon, where I work, or did. I trained under Betty washing hair, giving perms. I do hair now for special occasions, weddings, graduations I do a bunch of the girls. Yeah,

  Bowman'd stop by and look in He'd get on me for the least thing. Like if he found a hair in his baked possum? Or I didn't get out all the scent glands? He'd have a fit, throw his supper at me, the plate, the whole mess."

  Raylan listened, sipping his drink, wanting to get back to Boyd.

  "I wish I could move, go someplace and open my own hair salon. Where do you live?"

  "West Palm Beach."

  "Is it nice?"

  "Palm trees and traffic, if you're going anywhere."

  Ava drew on her cigarette and started to grin. She turned it off exhaling the smoke and said, "I think Bowman's problem, besides being stupid, he wasn't raised properly. He had the worst table manners. Like he'd be sitting here, he'd lean over to one side and get a look like he was concentrating on some deep thought? Furrow his brow and let a fart. It didn't matter he was having his supper. But the worst, oh my Lord, were the beer farts, the next morning when he was hungover? I'd have to leave the house."

  Raylan managed to smile, nodding his head.

  "That's the way he always was, either drunk or hungover, or gone. Off playing soldier with his brother."

  "You have any idea where he is?"

  Ava looked at him funny. "I imagine he's in Hell. Where else would he be?"

  "I mean Boyd."

  "Boyd's on his way there. You gonna arrest him?"

  "We have to catch him in the act first. Robbing a bank, blowing up a church... making an attempt on your life... "

  "Mine?"

  "You said yourself he'll be coming after you."

  " 'Cause he likes me. Boyd don't want to shoot me, Raylan, he wants to"—she shrugged in a cute way—"go to bed with me." Ava stubbed out her cigarette, her eyes warm as she looked at him and put her hand on his. "You want me to help you catch him?"

  Raylan sipped his drink. "How about if you get him to talk to me?"

  "I could do that."

  Ava got up and Raylan's gaze followed her into the kitchen. He said, "I hear he has a place up by Sukey Ridge." Then had to wait for Ava to come back to the table with the Jim Beam and a bowl of ice.

  "It's his church," Ava said, freshening their drinks. "He's only there when he gets his skinheads together. There's a fun bunch. They sit around drinking beer and listening to black-hater bands, different ones like the Midtown Boot Boys, Dying Breed, all bopping their bald heads. They are so creepy."

  "Boyd doesn't stay there?"

  "Bowman said he has places around nobody knows about, not even all the skins." Ava took a drink and said, " 'Cept I know of one," giving Raylan a sly look with those brown eyes he remembered. "Was Boyd, not Bowman, told me where he stays most of the time."

  Raylan took a drink. "You want to tell me where it is?" Ava said, "What do I get if I do?"

  VII.

  It was Devil Ellis saw the car headlights out the window, moving up the grade, and told Boyd somebody was coming. Boyd folded the map full of arrows and circles they were looking at and shoved it into the table drawer.

  Devil, at the window now, peering out from under his black hat, said, "Who do you know drives a Town Car?"

  Walking to the door Boyd said, "Why don't we find out," each being cool in front of the other.

  Devil said, "Ain't anyone I've seen before."

  Boyd opened the door and watched the man in the cocked Stetson approach out of the dark. Boyd, grinning now because he was glad to see him, said, "It's my old buddy, Raylan Givens."

  Raylan had to smile seeing the way Boyd was waiting for him, holding out his arms now, Boyd saying, "God damn, look at you, a suit and necktie, all dressed up to look like a lawman." He gave Raylan a hug, patting his back, Raylan letting him for old times' sake. As they stepped apart Boyd looked over at Devil. "Here's how you wear a hat, casual, not down on your goddamn ears."

  Raylan looked him over, recalling a Devil Ellis on Art Mullen's skinhead list. This one was giving Raylan a dead-eyed look, showing he wasn't i
mpressed, as Boyd was saying,

  "I hear you called on Ava. Boy name Dewey Crowe said he ran you off."

  "You believe that?"

  "Not if you say it ain't so. Ava's the one told you I was here?"

  "I talked her into it. Told her I wouldn't tell anybody."

  "How do you know she didn't send you to me?" Boyd winked. "So I could decide what to do with you."

  "I'll take care of him," Devil said, wanting in on what was going on.

  Raylan didn't bother with him. He said to Boyd, "I doubt she even knows this is the house was foreclosed on. Pretty slick, move back in figuring nobody would look for you here." Raylan saying it as he began to look around at the front room of this farmhouse that was spare of furnishing—a table and a few straight chairs on the linoleum floor—but looked like a gallery with all the white supremacy symbols framed on the wall. There were emblems representing the KKK, Aryan Nations, the Hammerskins, SS thunderbolts, rahowa with a death's head that stood for Racial Holy War, swastikas on an Iron Cross, over an eagle, Nazi Party flag with swastika... Raylan said, "You all sure like swastikas," and looked over at Boyd. "What's the spiderweb?"

  "You get it tattooed on your elbow if you done time or killed some minority, Jew or a jigaboo."

  "Boyd, you know any Jews?"

  "A few. I also know they run the economy, control the Federal Reserve and the IRS. I recruit skins don't know any more'n you, have to show 'em why we have a moral obligation to get rid of minorities. Read your Bible."

  "It's in there?"

  "Part of Creation. Back at the beginning of time you got your mud people, referred to as beasts 'cause they don't have souls. Okay, Adam jumped Eve and she begat Abel, the beginning of the white race as God intended. But then Satan in the form of a snake jumped Eve. She begat Cain and things got out of hand. Cain began fucking mud people, the women, and out of these fornications came the Edomites. And you know who the Edomites are?"

  "Tell me."

  "The Jews."

  "You're serious."

  "Read your Bible as interpreted by experts."

  "Are you born again?"

  "Again and again."

  "I think you're putting me on," Raylan said, noticing silver chains now hanging from deer antlers, on the wall with photos taken of Boyd in Vietnam. Raylan walked over and Boyd followed him.

  "They look like dog turds now, but they's ears I took offa dead gooks I killed. After I got back I use to offer a pair to different women I was seeing."

  "No takers, huh?"

  "It was like a test. A woman that won't accept a pair and wear 'em proudly ain't the one I'm looking for. We invite these little Nazigirls up to the church? Chelsea girls they're called—shitkickers, hair under their armpits—any one of 'em would wear a pair of the ears, fight over 'em, but they're not my type. I like a woman ain't afraid of nothing but more feminine in her ways, more womanly."

  "Like Ava," Raylan said.

  "Listen, I called her up—" Boyd stopped and looked over at Devil. "Go on get us a jar and a couple glasses." He raised his voice, "Clean ones," as Devil went out to the kitchen. Boyd turned to Raylan. "He just got his release, so he's looking for action."

  "I can tell," Raylan said.

  "Was down three years on a marijuana conviction—you know it's grown all around here. Devil couldn't convince the court what he had was for personal use. Four hundred pounds in two refrigerators."

  Raylan sensed a connection between Devil and the marijuana church in Cincinnati and said, "We were thinking to sell this house to a black man, see if it might bring you out in the open."

  Boyd said, "Your nigger would never've known what hit him."

  Devil came with a jar of shine no meaner-looking than water, a few specks of charcoal in it, his fingers in the three glasses he placed on the table.

  Boyd shoved one of the glasses back to him. "This is me and Raylan's party. You aren't invited." Devil seemed to want to argue, give a reason to stay. Boyd told him go on, get outta here.

  Now he poured their drinks, a few inches of pure corn into each glass. "I don't like him hearing things he's liable to take the wrong way."

  Raylan said, "How you feel about Ava?" He took a sip. It was smooth, but caused saliva to rise in his mouth and made him swallow a couple of times.

  "I called her up," Boyd said. "I told her the only reason I didn't take her out and shoot her, I saw she had no choice in what she done. I told her she showed spunk for a woman, not knowing what I'd do about it. I told her another reason was the Bible saying a man should see to the needs of his brother's widow, and that I intended to take care of her."

  "Bless your heart," Raylan said.

  "Don't get smart with me. I meant it."

  "Boyd, you use the Bible to get what you want, same as you use all this white supremacy bullshit to rob banks and raise hell, blow up a church in Cincinnati for the fun of it. See, I'm giving you the benefit you aren't mental. I know you aren't stupid enough to believe that mud people story."

  They stood facing each other across the table, the quart mason jar of moonshine between them, Boyd showing his size in a khaki shirt pulled taut across his chest. He appeared calm, his eyes showing interest.

  He said, "Raylan, the whole world's gonna become mulatta we don't separate the races quick. I believe that much and it's enough."

  Raylan only shrugged. "Then you'll die for it or go to prison."

  Boyd looked at him now like he was trying to decide something in his mind.

  "You'd shoot me, you get the chance?"

  "You make me pull," Raylan said, "I'll put you down."

  Devil had the map spread open on the table again, the one with the circles and arrows. He said to Boyd coming back in the house, "You kiss him goodbye?"

  Boyd said, "You want your jaw broke?"

  "I'm kidding with you," Devil said, waited for Boyd to sit down and hunched over next to him to point out on the map. "Here, we take 421 down across the Virginia line. East on 606 and we come to Nina, not an hour from here."

  "How many people?"

  "Less'n four hundred. Nearest deputies are at Big Stone Gap. Hit the town, the bank, the stores, bang bang bang, any place there's a cash register. Run up the flag...Which one?"

  "Rebel battle flag."

  "That'd be my choice. We show how a town can be taken over and secured with fifteen militia. How, the time comes, it can be done all over the Jewnited States."

  Boyd put his finger on a line Devil had drawn. "I don't see a road here."

  "It ain't on the map, Boyd, it's a four-wheeler trail through marijuana country, one of many the growers use. It takes us up to near 38 and we're back home."

  Now, as Boyd studied the map, Devil said, "Why'd you let him go? I could've put him away, easy."

  Boyd looked up. He said to Devil, "Stick to your recon." Looked at the map again and said, "What I do with Raylan's my business."

  Boyd had come outside with him to stand with his hands in his pockets, nodding toward the crest of a slope that had been strip-mined and stood bare against the night sky. He told Raylan they were cutting the tops off of mountains and letting the slag run down to ruin the creeks.

  Shaking houses to pieces with their blasting. He reminded Raylan how their dads had dug coal ten hours a day for eighty cents. How "me and you" would go into worked-out mines and chop into the pillars of coal holding up the roof, and run like hell if she began to cave. Remember? It was called robbing the mine. And how they stood on the picket line the year they struck Eastover and watched the courts back the company scabs and gun thugs. "Whose side's the govermint always been on, Raylan, us or the people with money? And who controls the money and wants to mongrelize the world?" That was his argument, why he felt he could rob banks and kill anyone wasn't white. There was no talking to him.

  Raylan said, "You're gonna stand in a lineup tomorrow, Harlan County courthouse, nine o'clock."

  "What'd I do now?"

  "You can show up or we'll come get yo
u."

  He made his way down the mountain and through Evartspast his high school, the Home of the Wildcats, going toward Harlan till he swung off 38 to follow dirt roads dark as pitch, no sign other than jesus saves, and would have missed the house if a light wasn't on—Raylan thinking that if he'd stayed he'd be living up a hollow in a house like that, a pickup truck in the yard But what would he be?

  Ava hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek and held on bringing him inside, Ava wearing a loose sweater now with her shorts, wearing her hair in a softwave that came close to one of her brown eyes and a nice scent that he liked—Raylan sitting with her on the sofa now, their drinks on the coffee table Bowman must've put his steel-toed work shoes on to get it scarred like it was, Bowman a presence, his wife until a few days ago sitting at the end of the sofa by the lamp shining on her hair. "Did you see Boyd?"

  "I told him he has to come in tomorrow. Boyd blew up a church in Cincinnati and we have a witness who'll take a look at him."

  "Well, that was quick. Boy, you work fast," Ava said, raising her eyebrows at him. "And I oughta know."

  Right there, Raylan knew he should tell her wait, he wasn't making a move on her. But what he said was, "Boyd might not show up. Even if he does, I'm pretty sure he won't be made, identified."

  "So you'll be staying around? Cool."

  Ava got up and went to her CD player. She put on Shania Twain and came back singing along, " 'Men's shirts, short skirts, oh, oh, oh, really go wild, doin' it in style...''' The phone rang. Ava turned down the volume on her way to the kitchen. Raylan heard her say, "Who?... Oh, yeah, I remember. Listen, hon? I can't talk to you right now, I've got company." Now she was laughing as she hung up the phone. Ava turned the volume back up and joined Shania again singing, " 'Oh, oh, oh, get in the action, feel the attraction... ' Fella name Russ. Can you believe he's the second one's called me? I kinda knew 'em from a Fourth of July party we went to. Couple of showoffs. They made a bet, see who could throw down a blue blazer the fastest. You know, you light a shot glass of whiskey? That's a blue blazer. They both threw theirs over their shoulder and banged their shot glasses down at the same time, on the picnic table." Ava shook her head, smiling at the memory. "Cute guys, I'd see them watching me. Now I'm single again they're calling me up. You believe it?"