“Consider it done. All of it.”
“What about Mr. Holland’s remains?” asks Buckman.
Paul looks down at the corpse and snorts. “You can feed that motherfucker to the hogs for all I care.”
Everyone present seems taken aback by the speed with which the situation has changed, yet no one looks displeased. It’s as though Paul has so completely assumed Max’s mantle that he seems a younger incarnation of his father.
“Paul?” Buckman says as Wyatt prepares to escort Jet inside. “There’s still the matter of the cache. The Seychelles accounts, all the things your wife mentioned.” The ruthless old banker looks Jet in the eye. “May we rely on your continued discretion, my dear?”
After several seconds, she nods. “Just don’t cross me, Claude.”
The deer-skinning shed stinks of blood and urine. Nadine whimpers when I open the door, but then she recognizes me. Her first response is a quick sucking in of breath. Then she says, “Are they going to kill us?”
“No.” I go to her and cover her with a Pendleton blanket Wyatt Cash brought me.
She sobs and shudders against me. “I prayed you’d come.”
“I’m so sorry I took so long.” I squeeze her tight, trying to comfort her. “I’m sorry I had your gun. What did they do to you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She draws back far enough for me to see revulsion in her face. “Except that Beau Holland. I never want to see him again.”
“You won’t. Paul killed him two minutes ago. You can look at his corpse if you want to.”
A look of desolation crosses her face. “I almost do. But no.”
“Paul and Jet got us out of here, believe it or not.” I hear engines outside. The meeting must be breaking up.
“Can we go now, please?” she asks.
“They’re getting us a truck. For me to drive you home.”
“Thank God. I can’t believe it.”
“Unless you want to ride in a helicopter with Jet and Kevin?”
Her face hardens. “No. It was Jet who told them about me. Did you know that?”
“I just found out. I’m sorry.” I feel I should try to defend Jet’s action, even though I can’t believe it myself. “They threatened her son.”
Nadine nods, but it’s plain that forgiveness will be a long time coming, if ever. “You said you’re driving me home?”
“Yes.”
“Could I stay at your house? Not to—you know. I just don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“Absolutely.”
When I pick up her clothes, I realize they’re tacky with blood. “Um . . . you’ve got blood on your things.”
“I don’t care. It’s my blood. Just turn around for a minute.”
I turn to the stained wall of the skinning shed, thinking how close we came to dying in here. Not just the two of us, but Jet and Kevin and Paul as well.
“I’m finished,” Nadine says. “Can we go now?”
Hanging the blanket around her shoulders, I open the shed door and lead her out into the harsh light. An old GMC pickup stands waiting, keys in the ignition. I walk her around the truck and help her into the passenger seat, then climb behind the wheel and crank the engine. As I put the truck into gear, Wyatt Cash’s chopper lifts into the night sky above the camp.
I gently press the gas pedal, and the truck rolls forward. Passing the Boar Island pavilion, I see a figure detach itself from the others and stand silhouetted in the light, one arm raised in farewell.
“Who’s that?” asks Nadine.
“Paul.”
She raises a hand and waves limply. “What the hell happened out there?”
“You’ll never believe it.”
“But you’ll tell me everything?”
“Later. Once we’re safe.”
I gun the engine and blow past the vehicles and men of the Poker Club, back toward the mainland. Toward home. If Bienville is home. Before anything else, I need to do what I came back to Mississippi to do in the first place. Bury my father. Or in his case, scatter his ashes on the river.
Then we’ll see.
Chapter 56
Buck’s funeral is scheduled for three p.m. That worked out well, because Nadine and I slept twelve hours straight after getting home from the hunting camp. I wasn’t sure Mom coming to the cemetery was a great idea, given that my father’s funeral will be held in a couple of days, but she brushed away my concerns. She told me she’s always been grateful for what Buck did for me as a boy and doesn’t want his widow to have to bury her husband with only a handful of people to mourn him. That’s the closest Mom has ever come to acknowledging Buck being my surrogate father.
Nadine, too, fears that the funeral will be a bleak affair, given that the town virtually disowned Buck after his work threatened the paper mill. I feel a little more hopeful since learning that most of the newspaper staff is going; every warm body will make Quinn feel a little better. Mom is riding beside me in the Flex, while Nadine sits in the middle of the backseat, wearing a dark navy dress that’s quite a change from her usual jeans and T-shirts.
Two blocks from Cemetery Road, I recognize a couple of cars ahead of us. Hopefully they’re headed to the service. One is Dr. Jack Kirby’s, which lifts my heart. The other looks like it belongs to Byron Ellis, the coroner. Maybe we’ll have a decent showing after all, enough to pay modest tribute to all the good work Buck did for the people of this town.
As we drive through the cemetery gate, something tells me I might have misjudged the occasion. A young Boy Scout stands beside the asphalt lane, staring ahead with military bearing, his green ball cap held flat against the red kerchief on his chest as a sign of respect. I remember exactly what that uniform feels like, though in my day we wore the iconic Stetson campaign hat or a military-style garrison cap. Thirty yards down the lane, another Scout stands in the same rigid posture.
“My goodness,” says my mother, flattening her hand against her bosom. “What fine boys. What fine, thoughtful boys.”
As we drive deeper into the cemetery, we pass Scouts every thirty yards, all the way to the burial site, where a tent has been set up. As I make the final turn, I see forty or fifty cars parked along the lane beside the gravesite.
“Thank God,” I say softly.
“Look at the crowd down there,” my mother says. “What do you notice?”
I gaze down the lane at the knots of people, mostly adults moving among uniformed boys. “I don’t know. What?”
Nadine leans up between our seats. “It’s nearly all male. I’ll bet those men are Scouts, too. Men Buck mentored when they were boys.”
“Must be,” I say, feeling my throat tighten.
Mom squeezes my hand. “Good works never die. There’s your proof. You think those men give a damn about some paper mill?”
“Come on,” says Nadine, touching my shoulder. “Let’s go pay our respects to Buck.”
We walk down the asphalt lane and join the mourners. Through the bodies, I see Quinn Ferris moving from person to person, thanking each for coming. To my surprise, she’s smiling a lot of the time. When Quinn gets to me, I worry that she’ll ask me to say something over Buck’s grave, but she doesn’t. When I ask who is going to speak, she says no one. There will be no prayer, eulogy, or benediction, no Christian minister of any kind. But cryptically she adds that there will be a farewell ceremony of sorts.