Leonard, Elmore - Raylan Givens 03 Read Online Free PDF Page B

swallow a couple of times.
    "I called her up," Boyd said. "I told her the only reason I didn't take her out and shoot her, I saw she had no choice in what she done. I told her she showed spunk for a woman, not knowing what I'd do about it. I told her another reason was the Bible saying a man should see to the needs of his brother's widow, and that I intended to take care of her."
    "Bless your heart," Raylan said.
    "Don't get smart with me. I meant it."
    "Boyd, you use the Bible to get what you want, same as you use all this white supremacy bullshit to rob banks and raise hell, blow up a church in Cincinnati for the fun of it. See, I'm giving you the benefit you aren't mental. I know you aren't stupid enough to believe that mud people story."
    They stood facing each other across the table, the quart mason jar of moonshine between them, Boyd showing his size in a khaki shirt pulled taut across his chest. He appeared calm, his eyes showing interest.
    He said, "Raylan, the whole world's gonna become mulatta we don't separate the races quick. I believe that much and it's enough."
    Raylan only shrugged. "Then you'll die for it or go to prison."
    Boyd looked at him now like he was trying to decide something in his mind.
    "You'd shoot me, you get the chance?"
    "You make me pull," Raylan said, "I'll put you down."
     
    Devil had the map spread open on the table again, the one with the circles and arrows. He said to Boyd coming back in the house, "You kiss him goodbye?"
    Boyd said, "You want your jaw broke?"
    "I'm kidding with you," Devil said, waited for Boyd to sit down and hunched over next to him to point out on the map. "Here, we take 421 down across the Virginia line. East on 606 and we come to Nina, not an hour from here."
    "How many people?"
    "Less'n four hundred. Nearest deputies are at Big Stone Gap. Hit the town, the bank, the stores, bang bang bang, any place there's a cash register. Run up the flag...Which one?"
    "Rebel battle flag."
    "That'd be my choice. We show how a town can be taken over and secured with fifteen militia. How, the time comes, it can be done all over the Jewnited States."
    Boyd put his finger on a line Devil had drawn. "I don't see a road here."
    "It ain't on the map, Boyd, it's a four-wheeler trail through marijuana country, one of many the growers use. It takes us up to near 38 and we're back home."
    Now, as Boyd studied the map, Devil said, "Why'd you let him go? I could've put him away, easy."
    Boyd looked up. He said to Devil, "Stick to your recon." Looked at the map again and said, "What I do with Raylan's my business."
     
    Boyd had come outside with him to stand with his hands in his pockets, nodding toward the crest of a slope that had been strip-mined and stood bare against the night sky. He told Raylan they were cutting the tops off of mountains and letting the slag run down to ruin the creeks.
    Shaking houses to pieces with their blasting. He reminded Raylan how their dads had dug coal ten hours a day for eighty cents. How "me and you" would go into worked-out mines and chop into the pillars of coal holding up the roof, and run like hell if she began to cave. Remember? It was called robbing the mine. And how they stood on the picket line the year they struck Eastover and watched the courts back the company scabs and gun thugs. "Whose side's the govermint always been on, Raylan, us or the people with money? And who controls the money and wants to mongrelize the world?" That was his argument, why he felt he could rob banks and kill anyone wasn't white. There was no talking to him.
    Raylan said, "You're gonna stand in a lineup tomorrow, Harlan County courthouse, nine o'clock."
    "What'd I do now?"
    "You can show up or we'll come get you."
    He made his way down the mountain and through Evartspast his high school, the Home of the Wildcats, going toward Harlan till he swung off 38 to follow dirt roads dark as pitch, no sign other than jesus saves, and would have missed the house if a light wasn't