Half Past Dead Read Free

heat. He’d dropped pebbles between the slats to see if any snakes were coiled below. A plunk told him he’d hit dirt, not a snake.
    He shook off the memory and knocked. A Dixie Chicks tune blasted from the rear of the trailer park. With it came a gust of wind and the scent of rabbit stew. He wondered how many rabbits he’d shot and brought home for his mother to cook, when they hadn’t had enough money to do more than pay the rent on the trailer.
    No one came to the door. He tried the knob, but it was locked. He walked down the wooden steps and went around back where a propane tank supplied fuel to the trailer. The garden his mother had tended, even when she’d been so eaten up by cancer that she could barely walk, had been taken over by weeds and wild onions.
    He didn’t get it. He honestly didn’t. From the moment he’d joined the Army and began making money, he’d tried to persuade his mother to move to a nicer place. To the end, she’d insisted this was her home.
    â€œI’m glad you can’t see it now, Ma,” he whispered to himself. “The place is a disaster.”
    He saw a flash of red in the dense brush beyond the forsaken garden. What the hell? Wildlife thrived in the woods around Twin Oaks, but the only animal he could think of that color was a fox. The ones around here were gray, not red.
    â€œI gots me a gun trained on yore back, sonny.”
    There was no mistaking the three-pack-a-day rasp. Cooter Hobbs should have died long before Justin’s mother had, but the old cuss was too ornery to kick the bucket.
    â€œIt’s me, Cooter,” Justin said, turning slowly, his hands in the air.
    Cooter stared at him from behind the barrel of a shotgun. He hadn’t changed a bit since Justin had moved to Shady Acres as a child. His hair had been white then and shot skyward like a field of wheat. Beneath searching eyes worthy of a repo man were oysterlike bags.
    â€œWhacha’ doin’ here, you?”
    â€œJust checking out the old place.”
    â€œNew feller in town lives here now. Works at the Lucky Seven. Janitor or some such.” Cooter gestured at the single-wide with the weapon. “Don’t keep up the place like yore ma. Stupid sumbitch.”
    Yore instead of your and sumbitch. No sir, time hadn’t improved Cooter’s vocabulary or mellowed him one bit.
    â€œMovin’ back, you?” Cooter hitched at his bib overalls with his thumb.
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œI knew you wouldn’t amount to nuthin’. Shoulda gone to Ole Miss.”
    Justin bit back a smart-ass reply. He was going to get plenty of grief about Ole Miss when he moved home. There would be a lot of gossip about Verity, too, but no one would dare say anything about her death to his face.
    Cooter raised the rifle and took aim at something in the bushes behind Justin.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    Cooter shook his head and lowered the shotgun. “Damn dog’s too fast fer me.”
    â€œWhat dog?”
    â€œThe ole red mutt the Dickersons left behind.”
    Justin remembered the Dickerson’s cute puppy. He’d played with Redd several times when he’d visited his mother. The pup had been tied in front of their trailer on the last morning Justin had come to see his mother. He’d taken her to the nearest hospital in Jackson, but by then it was too late to save her.
    â€œMidnight movers,” Cooter said with a huff of disgust.
    People who didn’t have rent money often moved in the middle of the night. If they didn’t, Cooter would demand a television set or a gun as partial payment on the rent. Cooter didn’t own Shady Acres but he managed it in return for free rent.
    â€œMutt’s jist an egg suck dog.”
    â€œRedd’s probably starving.”
    â€œSumbitch’s as good as dead.” Cooter turned to leave. “Git outta here, you. Don’t gots no vacancies. No one wants you here