Page 54

CHAPTER 54

REDLEY

Stark fear floods me as I check for a pulse. I didn’t hear or see anything that would have killed him, but maybe it’s his own damn head injury. I breathe a deep sigh of relief when I find that he is still alive. After a minute of pushing and wrestling, I manage to get out from under him but not flip him over.

He makes a noise beside me, and I think he’s coming to, but he never rouses fully. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to see him hurt or leave him here, but I wasn’t kidding that I have to put this whole thing behind me. There’s no way in hell I’m going to be with Wolf. I need to find those deeds and get his father out of Grimm Groves permanently.

I know he must have gotten out here somehow, so I check his pockets. My eyebrows shoot halfway up my face when I find my own key ring inside. My heart is in my throat, and I can’t help but wonder if he actually did something kind for once. I head back in the direction that I had Daniel drop me off on sheer instinct. If Wolf saw that I traded him the truck and wanted to give it back to me, leaving it in the same place would make good sense.

I don’t need to go that far. My truck stands in the middle of the forest, parked on top of an access road I had no idea existed.

What the hell?

I ignore the fact that I didn’t know this was here, that Wolf and his family have a private access that they used to rob me and instead focus on the kindness of the gesture. I’m so moved that I’m considering driving the truck as far down as I can so I can load him inside and get him help. It may be stupid, but he’s right. I think I do love him.

I unlock the door to the truck and climb inside, sticking the keys in the ignition with every intention of trying to help him. That’s when I look to the right and find Daniel’s dead body sitting next to me. I scream at the top of my lungs. If Wolf has regained consciousness in the distance, he certainly hears me.

I want to say I can’t believe he did this, but I can. It’s so typical Wolf.

After climbing back out of the car, I open the passenger door. In the same way Wolf caught me while I was running, I grab Daniel by the back of the shirt and toss his dead body on the ground.

Fuck Wolf, I’m leaving him here.

I take the truck back to the main road, then pick my way around the mountain until I find the closest access to my little cabin. Much to my relief, the majority of my supplies I got from Daniel are still in the truck, and I’m grudgingly grateful that there are a hell of a lot more things than what I got from Danny. It’s almost like Wolf was trying to make something up to me, but I won’t let that take root in my heart too.

It’s cold tonight, but now that I have blankets, I don’t dare start more than a very small fire in the wood stove. The light shouldn’t be too bright, and the night should cover the smoke. I curl up and eat some smoked jerky and drink the canteen. I’m so tired and hungry it’s seeping into my bones and making my foundation weak.

I take out Daddy’s journal and Great-great-granddaddy’s too, and once again read through everything, but the benefit to a second read is that you find things you didn’t the first time. He wrote in his journal that he told Netta before he passed not to trust anyone if anything happened to him. He would die as the last person she trusts and to always keep her secrets hidden with him.

I fall asleep, clutching both books in my hands, wondering if I have any hope of beating men who, by all accounts, are far worse than monsters.

* * *

The old Little cemetery is close to town, unlike my goddamn diamond mine, which is hidden on the lee side of the mountain.

It hardly feels real, but it must be, given I’m still holding a chunk of a precious gemstone in my pocket rather than my usual nothing. The terrain here is far easier, and it takes me very little time to reach the series of gravestones after I pull the truck off the road and do my best to hide it behind some trees and bushes.

Old leaves from seasons past crunch under my feet as I approach the graves. Despite how bad things have gotten for me and how fast, it makes me feel good to see all the flowers popping up among them like they are having a peaceful rest. Our original settling family chose the spot to bury our dead because of the natural clearing and cover. Other than the leaves and a few sticks, they’ve been pretty protected here.

Granny is the most recent one planted despite being a fair bit older than many of the others there. The dirt above her grave is packed down now but hasn’t grown much moss or lichen like the others. Memories of burying her out here all alone fill my mind.

After Wolf asked me to go with him, I knew I couldn’t stay here without eventually saying yes. I wanted what he offered too damn much, and it’s only now that I can admit that to myself. Granny already had a pine box prepared for the occasion, and I put that in the ground first. Her tiny withered body went next. I just wasn’t strong enough to pick them up together.

I cried in the ground with her before I climbed back out and shut the lid. I suppose I could’ve let somebody help me, but it felt wrong to let anybody touch her who denied how and why she died. I may not have always seen eye to eye with my granny, but she sure deserved better than to be handled in death by people who called her crazy in life.

She's lying next to her husband. Like Old Netta, she never remarried after he died. Maybe that was part of why she was always so hateful to me. I was one of the last people who spent time with her husband before he passed, and he chose to spend a day fishing with my brother and me over spending the day with her. I always wondered if part of her blamed me for taking that time with him as well as surviving when the rest of my family died.

My heart jerks as I see my parents and my brother. I say a little prayer for each of them, hoping they’re together and happy in the afterlife. After picking a couple of the surrounding flowers, I drop them on each grave. I don’t spend long with them, or I’ll start thinking and crying, hating myself for missing when I took my shot at their killer.

I keep moving, looking at the long line of Littles who have met their untimely end, always leaving one alive so there would be a chance to find those deeds and take everything. You can’t rip a mountain apart for diamonds when it’s not yours. He wanted to marry me to steal my land.

So I guess I was wrong. It was always a genuine offer. It just didn’t come with any love attached. Once he was married to me, legal and proper, he would have all the time in the world to take what’s mine. Hell, he could’ve easily killed me himself once we were married and pretended it was the wolf. It wouldn’t even be a lie. The people of town would assume he was just as crazy as Granny and me, and he could live his life as an unapologetic murderer.

So why the hell didn’t he just do all that? Why skulk through the woods as a murdering monster instead of just coming to my door and wooing me? If Wolf had come to me with sweet words and gentle kisses, this would’ve been his land five years ago. I guess I can’t blame him for being too stupid and shortsighted to understand that building bonds with people out of love is more valuable than those made by fear and manipulation. He is the Wolf after all. He’s just an animal.

Great-great-granddaddy’s tombstone is one of the most elaborate in the cemetery. You can tell from the size, shape, and epigraph that Netta loved her husband dearly. No wonder Wolf’s grandfather failed in wooing her . She loved her husband and wasn’t going to go with someone who was supposed to be his friend. On the other hand, I have been easy prey.

Despite what Wolf said, I don’t think The Badgleys understand that, but the Littles have loyalty, married and natural-born alike. I came out here to confirm a suspicion. No one has ever found those deeds or either cabin. I’ve been staying at the little spot by the lake, and they’re sure not there. There are a lot of places on this mountain you could hide something, but most of them aren’t safe. They’re exposed to the elements or buried in a way you might not find them again, but buried corpses tend to stay put.

My daddy had his own suspicions about the deeds, but all he ever wrote about them in his journal was that Great-great-granddaddy and Netta were the last who knew. Great-great-granddaddy wouldn’t be the first or last Little to take a secret to the grave.

I’m about to kneel for a closer look when something catches my ear. I turn and find someone standing in the wood line.