Heartwood (Billy Bob Holland 2)

“You think you’re big stuff, don’t you?” she said.

“I’m chained up here. I might get county time. These guys will burn me with the bondsman so I got to wait in the bag for my court date. You’re drinking gin or vodka with cherries in it. Maybe your shit don’t flush, but I ain’t big stuff.”

“You want a cigarette?”

“I don’t smoke no more.”

“Anymore.”

“What?”

“ ‘Anymore’ is the correct usage. You’re a lot smarter than you pretend. You’re just up here to say nighty-night to Jeff Deitrich?”

He stuck his little finger in his ear and let water drain from it.

“You want to do me a favor?” he said. “I put my car keys under the dash. Keep them for a guy I’m gonna send. Otherwise, some local white bread will chop up my car or these two county fucks will have it towed in.”

“I heard you were a piece of work,” she said.

“My friend’s a wetbrain. But if you’ll keep the keys, he’ll find you.”

“Why trust your car to a wetbrain?”

“In case nobody told you, it’s open season around here on Purple Hearts.”

“I’ll think about holding your keys,” she said.

She balanced her glass on a pile of sawed mesquite wood and walked into the shadows, out of the light that shone from the oak trees. She found the ax leaning handle-up against the corner post. The flat sides of the blade were streaked with wisps of wood and dried sap, but the edge had been filed and honed the color of buffed pewter.

She lifted it with both hands and walked back into the electric light. Her shadow fell across Ronnie Cross’s upturned face.

“What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?” she asked.

“Dealing with people who are full of shit.”

She smiled at the corner of her mouth.

“You ever have a fling with white bread?” she said.

“I’m a one-woman man. Her name’s Esmeralda.”

“Put out your right hand and close your eyes.”

He studied her face, his joyless, dark eyes seeming to reach inside her thoughts. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth, his lips parting indolently. She felt a flush of color spread in her throat, a tingle in her thighs. Her eyes brightened with anger and her palms closed on the ax handle.

“Put your wrist on the stump,” she said.

He paused momentarily, then lifted his cuffed right hand so that the left manacle came tight and clinked inside the U-bolt embedded in the chopping block. He spread his fingers flatly on the wood, his eyes never leaving hers. The veins in his wrist looked like purple soda straws.

She raised the ax above her right shoulder, her hands gripped uncertainly midway up the handle, and swung the blade down toward his face.

She felt the filed edge bite into metal and sink into wood.

In seconds he was on his feet, the severed manacle glinting like a bracelet on his right wrist. He paused just beyond the roof of the shed, his face half covered with shadow.

“For white bread, you’re a class act,” he said.

Then he was running barefoot down the slope in the rain. The iridescent light radiating from the trees glistened on his body. She watched him sprint down the riverbank, gaining speed, and dive like a giant steel-skinned fish into the middle of a rain ring.