Blood of Cain

83

Forty minutes later, Max and I were pulling onto my driveway on the river. The acorns and shells popping under the Jeep’s tires now had the soothing rhythm sound of symphonic music. And my rustic cabin by the river stood like an old friend welcoming me home after the war. I thought about the mansions and trailers, warehouses, tool and die shops, all stitched together on a commercial and residential quilt across the rolling acreage of Murphy Village.

In a way, I suppose, the last few days were not unlike a war. I’d been threatened — three times, shot at, dodged the news media posse, and spent four hours listening to stories about a life and family I never knew existed. But it was more than worth it because I got to spend time with my mother. I’d found her, lost her, and buried her in a span of a few days. I’d placed flowers on the grave of my murdered sister and learned it was my brother who’d killed her.

I tried to wrap my mind around it. And the fact that I still had a daughter I’d never met out there somewhere. Maybe I’d take Max down to the Everglades, rent a canoe, and simply vanish for a couple of weeks. But I know I’d return to another death — the murder of my niece, Courtney. And that’s assuming her body was recoverable. My mother asked me to return her to safety.

And that I would do.

Before entering the cabin, Max and I checked the perimeter. She sniffed, peed, chased a squirrel and reclaimed her world by the river. I checked windows and doors for any subtle signs of entry. Everything looked as I had left it, in what felt like a lifetime ago. I glanced up at the camera they’d mounted in the old oak closest to my home, the bullet hole almost dead center in the shattered lens.

I disarmed the alarm system, entered our home, and went online to buy airline tickets. Round-trip. I didn’t plan to stay long. I fixed Max dinner. Then I poured a Jameson’s over ice, and the two of us followed each other down the backyard to my dock. We sat at the end of it, Max enjoying her fish and lamb nuggets, me enjoying the Irish whiskey and beginnings of a marvelous sunset over the river. The air was cool, smelling of honeysuckles and trumpet flowers.

I wanted the glow of the sun to hang over the river a little longer, to stay and let Max and I bask in its warmth, its light. I’d seen too much darkness in the last few days and I wasn’t ready to say farewell to the one thing that separated us from the cloak of darkness, the stealth of the night.

Within minutes, the sun slipped below the oxbow bend in the river, stoking the bellies of low-hanging clouds with crimson embers, the light reflecting from the moving water with the heartbeat of life, the clouds like masked faces spilling blood red tears into the river.

I pulled the Glock from under my belt, set it next to me, and sipped the Irish whiskey. A gentle breeze caused the weeping willow branches to sway, the tree’s narrow limbs like long fingers tickling back of the river. Trumpet vines, filled with purple flowers, mixed with the yellow blossoms of riverbank grapes and poured motionless over the embankment near the river like a frozen waterfall of color. Max and I watched an osprey catch its bass dinner from the center of the river.

It was good to be home.

I looked over to Max, her ears rising, nostrils quivering, a minor growl somewhere in her throat.

“What do you hear, girl?”

She cut her brown eyes back to me, almost asking me to be quiet so she could listen closer. She focused her attention on the road. A car drove by slowly, too slowly. The driver touched the brakes twice and continued driving. I lifted my Glock and stood from the bench. Max jumped up, huffed a subdued bark, and began trotting off the dock to the backyard.

“Max, let’s take it easy.” I lifted her off the ground, carried her to the screened-in back porch, and said, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” I closed the door. She looked at me like I was an alien and she paced the worn cedar flooring, her ears following the unseen.

I slipped into the woods adjacent to my property, fireflies crawling out of the pine needles, from under leaves, rising up with their lanterns winking. I walked toward the road, Glock in my right hand, ready for Logan’s soldiers to step over the line in the sand. And this was the last line I’d draw.

If they came at me again, I’d take no prisoners, do whatever I had to do, and then release the admission-of-guilt video, or maybe the implication-of-guilt video would be a better label. I’d let the press chew on it and see what the voters would swallow and what they’d vomit up. I’d grown tired of Senator Lloyd Logan, and I was disappointed in the woman I once knew, thought I’d loved — Andrea Logan.

I could hear the car stop, the driver finding a spot in the national forest to turn around and head back this way. The car entered my driveway, lights on. Why? Why so brazen? Maybe this was a distraction and the other team members were coming from the rear and moving toward the back of my house.

Max. She’d bark, no doubt. But what would they do to silence her on the back porch? If they’d put a dozen .45 caliber rounds into the head and face of a young woman … I didn’t want to think about what they’d do to little Max. I stayed in the thicket and followed the car as the driver moved very slowly down my driveway, unhurried as a walk, like he was trying to dodge the acorns and oyster shells. That wouldn’t happen. I’d placed the shells there for that reason. The oaks added their own touch.

I slipped in behind the palms and oaks, keeping the trees between me and the driver’s line of sight. The driver tapped his brakes, pulled to a quiet stop, and the headlights went out. I came closer, within fifteen feet of the driver’s door. The door slowly opened and the driver stepped out as I leveled the Glock, aimed for the person’s spinal cord and said, “Hands up! Now, or I’ll blow a hole through your backbone.”

The hands shot up in the night air, and the woman’s voice pleaded, “Don’t kill me!”

“Turn around.”

Kim Davis turned around, holding her arms straight up, eyes wide. “Sean, can I put my hands down?”