twenty-year-old bourbon.
I went out to the truck and collected three items from the center console of the Bullet and a shovel I’d stolen from Henry. This time Dog accompanied me out to the fire, and we watched it for a long time. I sat on the cooler with the three items resting beside me, the flickering orange, yellow, and red reflecting in Dog’s eyes and mine.
The fire died down, and it didn’t take long to dig the hole. I took another swig of the bourbon, then took the three items from the surface of the cooler and stuffed them under my arm. I opened the cooler and pulled out a long bone, probably a femur. I looked at Dog but tossed it back. Dramatic moments call for dramatic bones, and it only took a moment for me to find the skull.
I palmed it in my hand; it seemed smaller than it should have. I studied the skull, trying to see something in its structure that would explain the man’s malevolence, but all I saw was the ghostly reflection of the gold tooth. It is said that the evil men do lives on, and the good is oft interred with their bones; I hoped with all my heart that this was not the case here and that what I was doing was the right thing.
I tossed the skull into the hole and eventually added the other bones until the cooler was empty. I pulled the tiny chrome-plated, pearl-handled. 32 from under my arm and threw the empty pistol in as well, and then pulled the manila envelope out, undid the clasp, sat and looked at each of the photographs of the tortured and dead woman, returning them to the envelope as I went. When I was finished, I took the shovel and filled in the hole, making a raised area. When the rains came in the spring, I would tamp the area flat. It was amazing, the things you learned loitering in graveyards.
I sat on the cooler again and opened the small white box. Dog and I sat there, munching ruggelach, and I stared at the humped up earth and thought about how, perhaps, the old sheriff and I weren’t that different after all.
