'How far is the father from the edge of the picture?'
'He's sixty-seven but in pretty good health. Johnny Mack was asking me if there was some way they could have his father ruled incompetent. Says he's got mental problems.'
'If the old man's out of the way, then we'd have to work with two owners. What about the other son?'
'Sylvester Mull. Delivery truck driver. Lives in a mobile home. Has two kids. Probably an easy sell there.'
“And Herbert DeWalt bought a piece?”
“Yes, sir.”
“DeWalt’s got to be making a play. He’s never gone small on anything.”
Emerland squinted into the sun, listening to the wind bending the pines in the valley below. He felt like a conqueror, like Napoleon or Balboa, looking out and knowing that all this could be his. He had the investors. 'And Johnny Mack?'
The assistant cleared his throat. 'All he talks about is moving to Florida. But he'd probably want lawyers and residuals. He's not too bright, but he knows how to pick a wallet.'
'Best to try the old man first. I'll make the contact.'
'Yes, sir.'
'There are ways to deal with these people. You’ve got to open a dialogue. Speak their language.'
And Emerland knew the language.
It talked in more tongues than had the builders of the Tower of Babel.
Money.
CHAPTER FIVE
Junior Mull looked out from under the bushes, watching the silver strand of his fishing line where it entered the dark water of Stony Creek. Damned trout were taking a day off, he decided. Scarcely a nibble all morning.
His jeans were wet from where he'd been sitting in the black mud of the creek bank. Still, it beat the hell out of having his ass parked in a hard chair at Pickett High. He could be there right now, staring at the ceiling tiles and picking his nose as Old Bitch Moody droned on about integers.
The raw fish smell of the creek and the thick swampy odor of decaying weeds filled his nostrils. The water was a little murky from yesterday's rain, but the fish were supposed to bite better after a rain. That theory had gone all to hell today. Didn't those scaly bastards read Field and Stream?
He dried his fingers on his army jacket before reaching into his chest pocket. May as well fire up another joint. At least I can keep up my sense of humor.
Junior gripped the rod with his left hand as he flicked the lighter and drew in a lungful of harsh dope. He exhaled and fanned with his hand to disperse the smoke. Not much traffic on the road this time of day, but no need to advertise his location. That pea-headed truancy officer had been after him since the fifth grade. Plus, now that he was on probation for shoplifting, it was a good idea to keep a low profile when breaking the law.
He took another drag and looked around his hidey-hole. A stand of laurels hid him from passing cars and an old tired cedar drooped protectively overhead. Empty liquor bottles and rusted cans were scattered around the perimeter of the clearing, and black chunks of wood huddled together inside a ring of creek stones. The charred smell of the dead campfire mingled with the mist that drifted off the creek as the sun rose higher.
His old man had shown him this place. Sylvester was no slouch at playing hooky, either, and that was one of the few qualities Junior had inherited. That, and what his dad called a 'kinship with nature.' Junior giggled and took another hit.
Kinship, hell. Kinship was fucked up, that's what it was. Like Gramps, stewing away on that big old farm, sitting on a goddamned fortune. But did he ever give Junior a red penny of it? Hell, no.
Junior used to hang out up on the farm, especially in the summer when his dad was away on his hunting trips and Mom was staining the sheets with that redneck Jimmy Morris. Junior liked the smell of the hay in the barn and the rich dust from the tobacco that had hung drying in the rafters. He even liked the smell of chicken shit.
There was lots to do on the farm, playing 'fort' in the corncrib with his brother Little Mack or fishing out of season in the branch. Or going up in the briars and eating gooseberries until your belly was about to bust. Even hoeing the garden beat the hell out of hanging around the pool halls in Windshake.
But then Gramps had caught Junior getting into the white lightning. All he'd taken was half a cupful, and he'd been real careful to mark the level in the jar so he could fill it back with water. But the leathery old bastard had taken one swig, sniffed at the jar like a dog smelling between a girl's legs, then went crazy enough to threaten him with a shotgun.
Well, fuck him and his liquor.
Junior sucked down another lungful of marijuana. Junior could go over to Don Oscar's and buy his own moonshine. And Gramps could sit in his chair and rock until his bones came loose before he'd ever set foot on that scraggly-assed side of the mountain again. Crazy old bastard.
Junior chuckled to himself.
The dope was starting to work, making his eyelids twitch and the water glitter under the sunlight in a billion little speckled diamonds and the breeze was a whisk broom in the treetops and seven birds were singing different songs but the notes kind of fit together if you listened. And his stomach was clenched and the back of his neck tingled and he stared at the fishing line where it went into the water and at the round ripple that went out from there, and then another little ring inside that one, and then another, perfect circles that would keep spreading forever but never touch the one ahead of it.
And the water was even laughing with him, lapping up against the creek bank and tickling the muddy ribs of the earth. Stony Creek was RIGHT.
He snorted a little as smoke snot rolled down his lip. He took a final draw, scorching his fingers as he pinched the roach, but even the pain was funny, kind of dead and faraway, as if it were somebody else's and he was only borrowing it for a second.
He went back to watching the ripples where his line went into the water. Might have to try some corn. They're not hitting nightcrawlers today. But I sure do like sticking those slimy, squirting bastards on the hook, though. And I'm as fucked up as a football bat and high as a Georgia pine.
Suddenly the line grew taut, but slackened almost immediately. Junior's hand clenched around the rod.
Come on, you bastard. Hit it one more time.
Then he was standing and the pole was quivering and the water erupted in white-silver splashes. Four- pounder, it felt like. It had taken the hook and was trying to wind the line around an old black tree stump that jutted from the creek like an overturned molar.
Junior tugged and then cranked the reel, pulling in the slack he had gained. He cleared the fish from the stump, but it could dip around a rock just as easily, cutting the line on a sharp edge. Then the fish surfaced again, twitching like a convict in an electric chair, but the fight was over, the bastard was Junior's now, and all that was left was a little show of sport.
Junior reeled it in and flipped it onto the bank. It was the ugliest fish he had ever seen. If it even was a fish.
The thing was shaped like a bowling pin, with a blunt face and heavy tail. It had fins that were like fingers, three in a row down each side. Its single gill was a continuous gray slit across its forehead and gooey mucus dribbled out as the gill flapped in search of water. Its eyes were like wine grapes, green and round and bulging and without pupils. And its mouth The fucker's got TEETH. Not little bumps of cartilage like hogsuckers and knottyheads have. This thing's got a mouthful of bone briars, and no way in hell am I gonna stick my hand in there and work the hook loose.
The fish-thing stopped wriggling as dirt and twigs collected in the gill. Junior put his boot on its belly so it wouldn't flop away while he figured out what to do with it.
Now, I may be fucked up. And after two joints of Tijuana Taxi, that's more than a maybe. But there's no way I'm as fucked up as this here fish-thing.
So, Junior, you can take this thing home and show the old man and see if he's ever seen anything like it, since he's caught and killed just about everything that bleeds in these Appalachian Mountains, except maybe
