Deep in the Valley Read Free

morning.
    Tom drove as fast as he dared along County Road 92, but he didn’t run the siren. He didn’t want to give Gus any warning. Tom was going to get him out of there before Gus figured out that one of the boys had called for help. Gus had spent a few nights and weekends locked up for this kind of behavior, but generally it was just enough time to cool him down and get him thinking straight. It was never enough time to make him sorry. He plain wasn’t ever sorry. This time, though, Gus would be gone awhile. Tom had warned him that they didn’t need Leah to press charges. He’d charge Gus with assault and battery himself. It would be Gus’s fifth official arrest on those charges, and he’d do time. Judge Forrest was getting sick of seeing the man come before the bench. Tom was getting fed up with Gus’s failure to have his behavior modified by consequence.
    Everyone in town hated Gus, bar none. Who knew why he was such a nasty man? He wasn’t from the valley and no one knew his people. When the Craven family came into town to shop or go to church, most folks gave Gus a wide berth. They’d say hello to Leah and maybe the boys, but no one ever traded words with Gus on purpose. The worst thing about their terrible situation was that Gus had come to the valley, boughtthat little parcel of land to farm and married a Grace Valley girl. Leah was one of theirs, and they couldn’t seem to do anything for her.
    Leah was only thirty-three and Tom remembered her from school. She used to be friendly with one of his sisters. She had been a shy, pretty girl—and smart. How in the world Gus Craven got to her was an eternal mystery. He was seven years older and never, as far as Tom could remember, even halfway pleasant.
    The farmhouse was sixty years old, and though solidly built, it had fallen into disrepair. The porch sagged, the paint was chipped, screens were torn. Inside was worse.
    The sun was rising over the mountains, casting a long shadow. The lights were on, and Tom could see movement inside as he pulled up in the Range Rover. He headed around to the side of the house, parking in a less obvious position. At that very moment his deputy, Lee Stafford, drove up.
    When Tom opened his door, he heard the sounds of domestic war pouring out of the windows: shrieking, hollering, running, crashing, slamming. Kids were screaming and crying, Gus was shouting and cursing, Leah was begging him repeatedly to stop. Tom pulled his shotgun out of the rack and checked that there was a shell in the chamber.
    “Let’s get him out of there,” he said to Lee.
    Both men, in perfect choreography, jogged up the porch steps. Lee pressed his back against the wall beside the front door while Tom kicked it. Tom always kicked if there was kicking to be done. He would never have his deputies, both younger than him by seven years, face harm’s way in his stead.
    Gus turned his rheumy eyes toward the door. He held his thirteen-year-old son by the hair, his other hand raised and ready to pummel him. Leah pulled back on his arm with no real hope of preventing his abuse. For a split second Tom had a rare thought; he wished Gus had been armed with a gun or knife so he could just shoot him and be done with it. He knew he could do it with a clear conscience. But just as fast, the thought retreated and was lost. Tom was, above all, a peace officer.
    “Let the boy go, Gus,” he said.
    “This ain’t your concern!”
    Tom took two long strides into the room. It came into focus around him—the crunch of broken glass beneath his boots, the smell of booze and sweat and grease. The tinny odor of blood. He counted from the corner of his eye—one, two, three, four. “Leah, where is little Stan?” Stan was the youngest boy, only six years old.
    She backed away from Gus. Her face was bruised and tearstained, and she wore a torn old nightgown. “He’s upstairs. Hiding, I think.”
    “Which one of you sniveling little whelps called the Indian cop?” Gus