Page 46

“Not going with you. Not going anywhere. Fuck off and leave me alone.”

“Come on.” I reached my hand down to him and he swatted me away.

“Fuck off. Don’t touch me.”

Virgil made a feeble motion towards the knife in his boot, but he was moving in slow motion. Lots of time for me to grab it out of his hand.

I shoved the knife into my gear belt then tried for my brother again. “Come on. You’re getting up, bro.”

Virgil kicked at me and hollered to get me away from him, but he was as limp as a dirty rag and couldn’t stop me.

I pulled him to his feet and wasn’t ready for his dead weight. He flopped right back down into the debris that littered the floor of the gutted building.

“Here we go. Second try. You’re getting out of here, Virge. I’m not leaving without you, so you can forget that.”

“Ain’t going. Piss off.” He swung at me and tried again to kick me in the nuts. A weak effort that went nowhere.

I picked my brother up and figured he weighed less than me. Maybe a hundred and fifty pounds. Tossed him over my shoulder and started for the door.

“Put him down,” hollered one of the kids. “Get your filthy hands off Virge or I’ll cut you, pig.”

“Shut up,” I hollered back at him. “This is my brother and he’s leaving your little pigsty and he ain’t coming back here.”

The kid came running at me and there wasn’t much I could do to fend him off with my brother on my shoulder.

Bang.

Billy fired a shot over the kid’s head to warn him off and that backed him up a bit. “You get back there, punk, or you’ll be doing time in our lockup,” Billy hollered at him.

“Take more than a cripple like you to take me in, fucker.”

Virgil struggled against me, but he didn’t know what he was doing. High, drunk, and uncoordinated, he was a goddamned mess.

Tammy hopped out of the squad, opened the back door, and helped me get Virgil cuffed and hooked up to the D-ring.

Once my brother was secure and couldn’t move much, Billy jumped into the back beside him, and I closed the back door.

I slid behind the wheel and let out a breath while Tammy jumped into the shotgun seat.

“Okay. We’ve got this. Let’s get Virgil home.”

Tammy smiled. “Under all that dirt, he looks a lot like you, Harlan.”

“Yeah. When I shone the light in his face, I knew it was him. No question.”

“That’s a helluva hole he’s been living in,” said Billy. “You might have to leave him in the shower…overnight.” He chuckled.

Wild Stallion Ranch.

By the time I drove north all the way from Conrad East to our ranch five miles past Coyote Creek, Virgil was slumped over in a pile in the back seat sound asleep.

I parked close to the back door of the ranch house and carried him in that way, so I didn’t have to lug him up the porch steps.

Tammy held the door open for me and helped me straighten him up when I flopped him down on the sofa in the living room.

“Fasten the chain on his wrist to the ring in the stone on the hearth,” said Billy. “That will hold him.”

It was July and the stove wasn’t on. Good suggestion.