Leonard, Elmore - Raylan Givens 03 Read Free

claymores?"
    "You think you're funny," Ellis said. "If I believed you planted any I'd move clear to Tennessee."
    They followed switchbacks up through the trees finally to top a rise and coast into the barnlot back of the old church, not used for services since Ike was President. Boyd had bought it cheap, had it painted and turned into a dormitory for when his skinheads were here. Anybody complained it looked like a prison dorm, Boyd would tell 'em to go sleep in the barn—with a mean rat-eating owl lived there. He got out of the truck stiff, tired from riding.
    Three skins watched him from the back porch where a kerosene lamp sat on top the fridge. The two fat boys were locals Boyd called the Pork brothers. The one without a shirt this cool evening, his dyed-blond hair spiked, was a boy named Dewey Crowe from Lake Okeechobee in Florida. He wore a necklace of alligator teeth along with the word heil tattooed on one tit and hitler on the other, part of the Fuhrer's name in the boy's armpit.
    Walking toward them Boyd said, "What's going on?"
    It was Dewey Crowe who spoke up. "Your brother got shot."
    The words came at Boyd cold, without any note of sympathy, so he took it to mean Bowman wasn't shot any place'd kill him.
    But then Dewey said, "He's dead," in that same flat tone of voice.
    And it hit Boyd like a shock of electricity. Wait a minute—in his mind seeing his brother alive and in his prime, grown even bigger'n Boyd. How could he be dead?
    "Was his wife shot him," Dewey said, "with his deer rifle. They say Ava done it while Bowman was having his supper."

    IV.

    It was Art Mullen, marshal in charge of this East Kentucky Special Op Group, who had requested Raylan Givens, now seated in Art's temporary office in the Harlan County courthouse. It was an overcast morning in October, the two sipping coffee, getting acquainted again.
    "I remember you were from around here."
    "A long time ago."
    "You still look the same as you did at Glynco," Art said, meaning the time they were both firearms instructors at the academy. "Still wearing the dark suit and wing-tip cowboy boots."
    "The boots're fairly new."
    "Don't tell me that hat is." The kind Art Mullen thought of as a businessman's Stetson, except no businessman'd wear this one with its creases and just slightly curled brim cocked toward one eye, the hat part of Raylan's lawman personality. He said no, it was old.
    "What do you pack these days?"
    "This trip my old Smith forty-five Target." He saw Art grin. "You and your big six-shooter—born a hundred years too late. You ever get married again?"
    "No, but I wouldn't mind some homelife. I can't say Winona ruined it for me. I stopped to see my two boys on the way up. They come down to Florida every summer and I get 'em jobs."
    There was a lull. Raylan looked toward the gray sky in the window, trees starting to change color. Art Mullen, a big, comfortable man with a quiet way of speaking, said, "Tell me what you remember of Boyd Crowder."
    Raylan, nodding his head a couple of times, went back to that time in his mind. "Well, we dug coal side by side for Eastover Mining, near Brookside. Boyd was a few years older and had become a powderman. He'd crawl down a hole with his case of Emulex five-twenty and come out stringing wire. You'd hear him call out 'Fire in the hole,' to clear the shaft. She'd blow and we'd go back in to dig out the pieces. We weren't what you'd call buddies, but you work a deep mine with a man you look out for each other."
    Art Mullen said, "Fire in the hole, uh?" in a thoughtful kind of way.
    "I hate to say he was good at it," Raylan said, and sipped his coffee, still back all those years in his mind. "I remember when we struck Eastover and Duke Power brought in scabs and gun thugs? Their cars'd drive in, Boyd'd be waiting to swing at 'em with a wrecking bar. He was put in jail twice. Then when he shot one of the scabs, almost killed him, Boyd took off and I heard he joined the army. Came out and what