Laying Bones by Reavis Z. Wortham

Author:Reavis Z. Wortham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2020-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The frozen air was still when the meeting at Ned’s house broke up. It was so quiet on the porch he could hear the snowflakes land with a steady hiss. He watched the cars pull slowly onto the covered highway before coming back inside for his hat. “Mama, I’m going to town.”

“It’s bad out there. Why don’t you wait until it quits?”

“The radio said that’s liable to be three or four days from now. I’ll be careful.”

He glanced at the boys who were back at the table. There was something going on between those two, but he also knew there was trouble with them and the preacher’s twins. Figuring it was teenage woes, he shook his head. “Y’all behave yourselves. We might have a talk when I get back.”

Ned left, following the tire tracks in the snow. He crossed the creek bridge, glancing down at where R. B. had gone off only three days earlier. It seemed like a year ago.

The world was soft and quiet, buried under a steady accumulation of snow that covered the trees and the ice-shored creekbanks. Smooth humps and mounds signaled low grasses and brambles on the shoulder. While it wasn’t as thick in the woods, dark splotches under the understory cedars broke up the smooth surfaces.

He wished he was walking through the woods with a shotgun, hunting rabbits, instead of trying to figure out what was going on with that damned club not ten miles away. Rabbit hunting along the edge of wooded pastures was one of his favorite memories from when he was young and alone with no troubles to weigh his mind. Back then he’d stop and wait for the rabbits to grow nervous and usually give in to panic, bounding away.

The same strategy should work to shake things loose over at that honky-tonk. His favorite way to gather information was to poke around then pause and wait to see what might happen. Rabbits grew nervous when a hunter stopped abruptly and waited. He hoped the same would happen with those responsible for R. B.’s death.

The other way to hunt rabbits was to trail them through the snow. The day after a snowfall was the best time, when they emerged to search for food. Then it was easy to follow them to their burrows or hiding places in the brambles.

The rabbit trails he was chasing weren’t clear in his mind. They twisted every which-a-way, but none led back to where his prey was hiding. He was confident at least one of those paths led to the Starlite perched on that no-man’s-land south of the river.

One way or another, they’d explode from cover when they were spooked enough.

Highway 271 was down to a single path through the snow. Only one car was in sight, heading north at a snail’s pace. By the time he reached Powderly, the north wind picked up. Snowflakes fell at an angle as Ned accelerated enough for them to swirl in his slipstream. The Motorola in his floorboard crackled to life with an exchange about a car wreck in Chisum.

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