He couldn’t follow him all the way. Since Laird lived in the middle of nowhere, he wouldn’t be able to hide himself sufficiently, and he needed to confirm that was where Asher was headed.
So Cameron went to the next closest house, pulling into the long driveway, approaching a wide bungalow with pale blue shutters and flowers planted in barrels out front.
An older man with wispy white hair and a large woman behind him with graying roots and the line between her chest and her stomach completely obscured came out of the house, both staring at the unfamiliar car that was parked in the expanse of dirt that made up their yard.
The man pulled out a shotgun from behind his back, pointing it at the car.
“We ain’t buying what you’re selling.” He moved the gun to Cameron’s chest.
Cameron’s eyes moved to a mailbox that was affixed to the front porch. The name “Roethlisberger” was printed across the green metal in white paint.
“Mr. Roethlisberger.” Cameron cleared his throat. “I’m not here to sell you anything.”
“Get your ass off our property,” Mrs. Roethlisberger cried out, stepping forward next to her husband, her hands on her portly hips, sinking into her clothes.
“It’s the Lairds that live next door, right?” Cameron asked, ignoring her. “About a mile or two down?”
The Roethlisbergers exchanged nervous glances. The wife whispered something but she wasn’t very quiet about it. Considering the empty hollow of sound that made up these plains, Cameron heard her very clearly.
“I’ll go call Dottie,” she whispered.
“You guys see a Ferrari go by here recently? Real nice one. Probably haven’t seen a car that nice in your whole damn lives,” Cameron said.
Mr. Roethlisberger coughed and spat out a huge loogie onto the dirt as he said, “Yeah. I seen it yesterday. I know more than you do about cars, boy. I guarantee it.”
Cameron raised his pistol from the back of his black jeans. He shot them both, starting with the husband and then the woman, getting them both in the stomach and letting their heavy bodies fall to the ground.
Stepping over them and onto the front porch, Cameron sat down on one of the rocking chairs, lighting up his new favorite menthol cigarettes. He wasn’t in a rush. This was the only road in and out unless Asher planned to continue on to Mexico. Which Cameron supposed he could do but if he did, he would be right on his tail, following him into death in order to seek and gain what he was owed.
Chapter 32
Nehemias Laird
Nowhere, Texas
It was a day of sitting around and smoking with Asher before Laird realized that he really did like this kid. He provided him with perspectives he’d never considered before when he did decide to speak up. He became much more talkative when he was high, and it seemed to relax the anxiety and grief that he was holding on to.
They swapped war stories, and Asher thanked Laird’s mother for her horrendous cooking. They watched The Big Lebowski because Asher had never heard of it, let alone seen it. Another sign for Laird of how old he was getting.
He found himself thinking that he wouldn’t mind if Asher stayed for a while or even permanently. They had no shortage of money to fix up the house, and they could maybe even build him his own place out of one of the abandoned outbuildings. They could finally do something with all of the acreage they had. Maybe, make it into an actual farm again, and not just a bathroom for stray cats and raccoons.
Asher was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at an upside-down jar, when Laird walked in the next morning, immediately going for his weed tray and the coffee machine.
“What you got there?” Laird asked, rubbing at his eyes.
“Look,” Asher whispered, pointing to the jar, his nail delicately clinking against the side.
Turning away from his grinder and leaning over Asher’s shoulder, Laird squinted at the jar. It was a small brown, almost orange spider with long crooked legs.
“That’s a brown recluse,” Laird muttered, scrutinizing the small creature as it ran along the edges of the glass. It hopped up suddenly against the side and both Laird and Asher jumped. Asher scrambled up from his chair, holding on to the back of it and staring at the jar.
“You don’t want to make that thing too angry,” Laird said. “They’re venomous, you know?”
“That little thing?” Asher asked. “It was crawling on my face last night!”
“Well…” Laird leaned back and went back to the tray on the kitchen counter. “You’re lucky it didn’t bite.”
“You’re lucky too,” he replied. “I bet the closest hospital’s like miles away.”
“You’re right about that.”
The sound of tires coming up the driveway caused them both to freeze. Laird had made Asher move the Ferrari around back to the falling-apart garage so it wouldn’t draw any attention from the eyes of the neighbours who had nothing better to do than get up in their business. As fast as he could, he finished up the rolling of the joint and tucked it behind his ear.
With a quick glance out the window, Laird saw an older Taurus with tinted windows pulling up to the house. It stopped out front, and Cameron Snowman got out, holding a huge gun in his hands.
“Fuck,” Laird said and then yelled, “Get down!”
Just as Laird yelled, Snowman unloaded on the house with a submachine gun. The patter of the gunshots crashed through the walls, the windows, through the wires he’d spent years organizing. Splinters of wood and glass exploded through the farmhouse as both Laird and Asher stuck themselves to the tile of the kitchen floor, hands over the back of their heads. In between the rapid-fire shots, they could hear the clanging of the metal casings falling against the dirt outside.
“Asher, you motherfucker!” Snowman stopped the shots to scream out. “Come out here, you little bitch!”
“Basement. Now,” Laird hissed, pointing and crawling simultaneously as he dragged
