When it came to Jackson County, Denny Rattler didn’t know his ass from his elbow. He could get to Walmart since it had always been the closest one to Cherokee, and he could find his way to Smoky Mountain High School from having played them in football. But other than that what little he knew was left to the flea markets, pawnshops, motels, and campgrounds that dotted the highway along the Boundary. Fact was, a man could go his whole life in these mountains without traveling more than twenty miles.
Just south of Sylva, the college had turned Cullowhee into its own little town. Last time Denny’d been there was during his senior year in high school when him and some other football players rode down to play stickball at Mountain Heritage Day. That had been twenty years ago and the place was unrecognizable now.
Growing up, Denny’s uncle hated the college. He used to tell Denny stories about how there was a native mound there before the campus was built, how they flattened the place to pour footers for a building. He said they found skeletons when they were digging and that there was a professor who kept a child’s skull out of that mound on his desk as a paperweight. Denny didn’t know if any of that was true or not, but he recalled the stories just the same.
The way he remembered, there’d been a single road cutting straight through the center of campus, but if it had ever been that way it certainly wasn’t anymore. Turning in to the main entrance, he wheeled through a roundabout with a jacked-up Jeep holding tight to his rear tire. His nose was running and his head was sweaty inside the helmet. Young girls dressed as if it was July strutted across the street and he swerved to miss them without ever letting off of the gas. The road rose and leveled out on a mountain riddled with pine, then dropped down the backside of campus beside the library, where Denny shot left for the river.
The Cullowhee Dam made a waterfall out of the Tuckaseigee and there were a few old men gathered along the bank drinking tallboys from paper sacks and holding cheap button-cast rods with thin lines angled into the current. Wayehutta Road was just on the other side of the bridge. He had the directions scribbled on his hand in blue pen but as he tried to read them he realized his palms had been sweating so bad the words had rubbed off. Watty Freeman had brought the map up on a laptop. Denny knew this was the road and that the property was just a little ways past a church, but without a street number he’d have to hope there were names marking mailboxes.
A white church with a green tin roof and a river rock foundation stood close enough to the road that a man could’ve spit out the window and hit it in passing. Just a ways farther, a dirt drive in desperate need of gravel cut off to the left and rose steep through naked hardwoods. The T-post holding the mailbox was bent at a hard angle and there was a letter missing from the tin so that the name read MAT IS. Denny dropped off the shoulder and flipped open the lid. Junk mail for Doris Mathis or current resident filled the box. There was a power bill addressed to the man he was looking for.
He didn’t have a strategy put together, and that scared the hell out of him because he’d always thought things through and worked from a plan. Going in blind was a surefire way to get caught, and with stakes like this, handcuffs were the least of his worries. It’s just breaking in a house, he told himself. This one’s no different than any other. But that wasn’t true. Deep down he knew he was lying to himself, that if shit went bad here it would likely be the end, and despite what Watty Freeman thought, Denny Rattler had no interest in dying. It had never been that addicts didn’t care whether they lived or died, it was that the feeling you were chasing rested right against the brink and sometimes you just fell over.
The Suzuki chugged hard to climb the driveway and Denny kept the scooter centered in a washed-out tire track, kicking his way along with his feet at times to keep from toppling over. If there was anybody home, he’d get a quick look and turn around like he was lost. The driveway topped out and there were no trucks or cars. An old busted dog lot rotted against the wood line at the far side of the yard and weeds were springing up in what was left of a summer garden.
The house wasn’t much to speak of, a board-and-bat farmhouse stained dark as pitch, a shake roof buried by moss. A single-pitch gable extended off the front over a dirt-floor porch. Dusty muck boots stood next to a couple rocking chairs and there was a metal bowl filled with water on the ground beside them. He looked around for a dog, but didn’t see one. He turned his eyes toward the front door, figuring if there was one it was probably inside.
The fact the old man wasn’t home was a welcome window of opportunity. Denny didn’t have much information. All he knew was that the fellow lived alone, wore a long beard and a funny-looking hat, that he was built too big to fool around with. Watty had assured him that whatever he did it needed to be fast. “You’re not going to want to get into a wrestling match with him is what I’m saying.”
Watty had also demanded a photograph to prove the deed was done, and Denny didn’t have a clue how in the hell he was going to make that happen with no cell phone or nothing. Wasn’t like he walked around with a Polaroid camera hanging off his neck.
Pushing the Suzuki around back, he found a place to hide the scooter beside a tin-roofed lean-to that was built for firewood and angled into the slope. A dog was bawling inside the house, and Denny had to balance on a cinder block to get a look through the window. An old beagle stood pigeon-toed on a tile floor with her tail pointed straight back and her head up as she howled. Seeing that dog eased Denny’s mind because he’d broken into enough houses to know which breeds were trouble. Nine times out of ten a beagle was more bark than bite, and that other time didn’t matter because it was a God-given rule that hounds figured more with their stomachs than their brains.
The house didn’t have a back entrance, and he didn’t try to pry open the window. Plenty of old-timers never locked their doors, so he went around front and sure enough it was as simple as turning the knob. The house opened into a dimly lit den with pine plank tongue-and-groove walls. The dog stood in the opening of the hallway growling but seemed content not to venture any closer.
Denny skimmed the room and saw the kitchen to the right. The fridge was empty except for a few slices of bologna and a stack of American cheese. Ripping the red plastic ring off the meat, he took a piece of cheese and folded the two pieces into a triangle. The dog stood right where he’d left him. Denny knelt and held the treat out in his hand. The hound lifted her head with a cloudy-eyed stare, and when the scent reached her nose she hobbled over stiff-legged and swallowed the offering whole. She sniffed Denny’s hand as if duty-bound to conduct one final inspection. Everything checked out and the beagle slapped her tongue around her jowls. Soon enough her tail was wagging and she was licking Denny’s fingers clean.
Denny made up another treat and led the beagle into a bedroom at the back of the house. He dropped the bologna on a braided oval rug at the foot of the bed and shut the door. He could hear the dog smacking her lips as he came down the hall. Just like always, breaking in came easy. Unfortunately, that wasn’t why he was here.
The idea of killing a man was about as foreign to Denny Rattler as sobriety. Every time he thought about it for very long his emotions got the better of him, so instead of focusing on the act itself he focused on his sister. He’d been in enough fistfights to know he was decent with his hands. But as far as actually killing something, he’d never so much as shot a deer. He remembered seeing a pig killed once when he was a kid and how this old man had hammered the hog in the top of the head with the blunt end of a go-devil, then slit the pig’s throat in one level motion. Blood dumped out as if poured from a paint can, but death came surprisingly fast. All afternoon Denny just kept remembering how that pig’s legs kicked and stirred, dust whirring up from the ground like smoke. He hoped it would be that easy.
In the kitchen, he pulled the biggest butcher knife he could find out of the block and sat down at a wood slab table to wait. There was no telling when the man might show, but he figured he’d be able to hear him when he pulled into the yard. An old photo album was open on the table in front of him and he flipped through the laminated pages, hoping to get an idea of how big a fellow he was dealing with.
The first photo Denny saw was an old yellowed Polaroid of a man holding a turkey by its legs in front of Bryson Farm Supply. There was a little boy beside him holding the beard out on the turkey’s chest like a paintbrush and he was making a silly face with his tongue stuck out and his eyes crossed. The man was wearing overalls and had a ball cap propped tall on top of his head. He had on a pair of glasses with transition lenses shading his eyes. Another fellow stood off to the side unloading dog food from a pallet.
Denny flipped the page and there was a picture of that same boy a little older kneeling on one knee in a baseball uniform. He had a bucktooth smile and was holding on to the grip of a bat with the end of the barrel pressed into the ground. Something about the kid’s face looked familiar, like Denny had seen him before. Probably played him in high school, he thought.
A newspaper clipping held a photo of what looked to be an awards ceremony. Three men were standing shoulder to shoulder, each holding an opened display box in front of his chest. They were all dressed in Forest Service uniforms—dark slacks and lighter shirts—and the fellow in the middle towered over the other two. He was a head taller than either man and broad as a quarter horse. The photo was black and white but there were gray stripes in his beard and it hung to the center of his chest. If this was the man he’d come for, Denny knew he had his work cut out for him.
He closed the photo album and ran his thumb along the Old Hickory blade. The knife was sharp carbon steel patinaed the color of slate, the edge a bright silver shining. The wood handle felt balanced in his hand, but he knew it would get slippery covered in blood. He had to keep a firm grip and try not to let his fist climb up the heel or else he’d wind up slicing himself.
Make the first cut count and it won’t take long, Denny thought.
As soon as the man’s neck was open, his blood pressure would plummet and it didn’t matter what size you were once that happened. There were two things keeping you standing and those two things were inseparable. Cut off the air or cut off the blood and within thirty seconds it was lights the fuck out. He closed his eyes and pictured his sister. All he could do now was wait.