Wolf held his breath, waiting for two more shots to kill him next. But Sexton lowered his weapon, tilted his head, and stared at the scene in front of him.
Wolf lowered his hands to his side slowly. "James. Where is Deputy Cain?"
"Where is she, Jimmy?" McBeth asked. "Come on, man, what did you do with her?"
Sexton's eyes locked on McBeth's. "I had to shut her up. She's okay. I knocked her out first so she wouldn't be scared. Nobody will find her, I made it deep enough so the cadaver dogs can't even smell it."
McBeth exhaled in exasperation. “Jimmy, what did you do?”
Jimmy stared.
“You killed Chris?” McBeth asked. “You killed Mary? And look what you’re doing now, Jimmy.”
“He hit you,” Sexton said. “He called you names. He tried to burn you, Eagle. He made you feel weak again. Nobody gets to do that to you. Nobody should ever do that. I stopped him. He was just going to keep going if I didn’t. It was just like your dad.”
Wolf fingered the key chain in his jeans pocket, finding the bulge of the key fob through the fabric. He pinched the button and held it down. Two seconds later his vehicle fired to life next to Sexton. Sexton swiveled fast, aiming the gun at Wolf's vehicle.
Wolf wasted no time. He bent down, picked up his own gun off the ground, took aim, and fired.
Sexton spun and ducked out of sight behind the four-wheel vehicle. Wolf followed, sprinting around the ATV. His feet thumped loudly, telegraphing his approach to Sexton, but Wolf was ready.
When Sexton's leg came into view he fired, then shot the hand that held the gun, then his chest, his throat, and his head.
Spinning around, he marched back toward McBeth, gun pointed and teeth clenched. "Get in your truck right now.”
McBeth was on his hands and knees, staring at him with an open mouth.
Wolf shot past him. “Now!”
McBeth jumped up and got in his truck. Wolf got into the passenger seat, aiming his gun. “Get down there now.”
“Okay. Okay.” McBeth nodded, firing up the engine and spitting gravel as they sped down the mine road past the ATV and Sexton’s corpse.
Wolf thought about what was ahead. It had been years since he’d operated a tractor, and he’d never operated an excavator like the one Wolf knew was parked down here—the one that must have been used to bury Cain.
My God. He’d said he’d knocked her out first so she wouldn’t be scared. She was either dead or in the process of suffocating right now. He looked at McBeth, trying to assess the man in the faint light of the dashboard. His eyes were wide, shell-shocked, yet he kept the truck true and straight on the dirt road.
"You bought that steak,” Wolf said.
“What steak?” McBeth shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You planted the gun at Hammes’s house. You fed the steak to the dog so you could do it. We saw your credit card transaction under your name.”
"No, I swear. All of us use the same credit cards. My credit cards. Jimmy had one. I told you, I pay for everything in the operation.”
Wolf looked out the windshield, watching as another pickup truck came into view, parked next to a giant excavator. The scoop was dug halfway into the ground next to a gaping hole.
He held his breath, hope welling up inside. He’d been picturing the hole covered with dirt. Here it was, wide open. Maybe Sexton hadn’t covered her yet.
"Stop here!”
While McBeth’s tires scraped to a halt, Wolf was already out the door and running.
He slid to the edge of the hole and looked down. It was too deep and dark to see the bottom so he pulled his flashlight off his belt, clicked it on, and pointed it down.
She wasn’t there.
At least, not topside. The hole’s sheer walls led down to a mound of what looked like freshly laid dirt.
McBeth ran up behind him and stopped at the edge of the hole, looking over. Wolf shone his light in the man's face. McBeth still looked in shock, trying to comprehend what was going on.
Wolf made the only choice he had. “Get in the excavator. You can pull out the side of this hole, right?” He put a hand up in karate chop position, signifying the overall linear hole shape. He put his other hand up against it, perpendicular, making a T. “If you dig out the side and then past the bottom of it, we have a place to push the dirt that’s already in the bottom.”
McBeth stared, frozen stiff.
"Did you hear me? Get in the excavator and pull out the side of this hole!"
McBeth nodded, jolting into action. “Yes. Okay!” He ran into the dark toward the machine, climbed up and inside, and fired it up. It rumbled to life and the boom arm lifted off the ground.
The beast’s tracks churned as it lumbered forward, then sideways, then forward again. McBeth was shifting the machine into position, but Sexton’s truck was in the way. He finally pushed it aside with the boom, the truck bouncing and screeching as it was cast aside. The excavator drove forward, this time much faster.
Wolf looked down again. He couldn’t take it anymore. She could have been under mere inches of the dirt, waiting for air to fill her lungs. Every second counted.
He slid over the edge, landing hard on the corner of the hole, hoping she hadn’t been underneath his bodyweight as he slammed hard into the soft ground.
He dug frantically with both hands, probing as deep as he could, moving in a line side to side. He moved up a couple feet and tried again, getting his arm in all the way to the elbow. His fingers jabbed into something hard. He opened his hand and clasped around a rock. He moved forward and started another line.
His right hand felt something. There! His fingers pinched around fabric, and underneath it he felt soft
