Chapter 16
Clawson Amleth Clawson had never had a headache quite this bad before. It had started just behind his right eye, worked its way through to the back of his skull like some worthy pioneer dominating a new land, and now raged throughout his head as an exquisite migraine. Because he was a drinking man, he tried to drown it out with some of his brother's--no, it was all his now--best liquors. A double-malt scotch. A shot of vodka. Hell, he even tried some of the wine that Jenny seemed to like so much, only to spit it out. Rotten grapes. Who in their right mind would drink that crap? Sitting in the darkness of the living room--he'd turned off all of the lights in the house as soon as Jenny had left for the store, as the brightness only seemed to make the headache worse--he brooded. What was Dane playing at? Every time the boy's name crossed his mind, Clawson felt another spike of pain. His heart thudded heavily, and his breath would shorten into gasping sprints. Anger, like meat at a buffet, was the dish he kept returning to, though he found little sustenance in it. Still, he was justified, wasn't he? Dane had stolen into his office, taken his gun, and had shot at Gwendolyn. There was plenty to rage against. Why not indulge some mental retribution? Images of delightful tortures and vindictive, petty retributions began to dance in his mind, courted by the alcohol and given permission by his anger. One such intellectual treat involved hypodermic needles, bleach, and the flesh beneath Dane's fingernails. It was gruesome, yes, but better than the kid deserved. What a piece of shit. Had he known the crap that Dane Sr. was leaving him, Clawson never would have taken the shot… He sipped at the scotch--he'd returned to that as a palate cleanser after pouring the entire wine down the drain where it belonged--and savored its complexities. He'd once read somewhere that drinking a scotch was like drinking rubber, wood, and leather all at once, but in the best of all possible ways. He was inclined to agree with that thought. Smacking his lips appreciatively, he considered that perhaps he still would've taken the shot. Really what he should have done was bring Junior along for the ride, taken care of the bitch and the pup at the same time. "Damn it all," he said. His hands, he noticed with a detached sense of remote concern, trembled just a bit. It probably came from too much drinking without enough in his stomach--he wasn't a young man anymore. He couldn't binge for hours at a time on an empty stomach and only have to piss twice in a night. Dane Sr. could, Clawson knew. He remembered that was one of the reasons why Jenny had been attracted to him…not the pissing part, but just his overall "cool" factor. Of the two Amleth boys, Senior had always been the better--better liked, better regarded, better served. People didn't betray Senior the way they did Clawson. Who could he trust, really, when he got right down to it? He hadn't heard from Paul yet. Jenny had been gone longer than expected… Frowning, he let his mind rove over his fiancé. She'd always caught his attention, even before she'd settled down with Dane. Her ambition was like Clawson's, her sense of the way the world ought to be, her ability to understand a complicated situation…her laugh. In fact, of the two brothers, Clawson was obviously the superior match. In that way, Senior had done his wife a great service, because his death had led her to the better of the sons, the one that she should have been with from the outset. Thinking about her, how he ached for her, how he could only think of the future by having her at his side made him suddenly anxious. He flicked his wrist to look at his smartwatch. It didn't activate. "Piece of--" He flicked it again. It remained blank. Muttering invectives in the dark, he tapped the display. It lit up, making him blink and squint at the comparative brightness. Forty minutes. She'd been gone for long enough. It was time she came home. Fishing his phone out of his jeans pocket, he scrolled through to Jenny's name, then pressed the Call button. It went immediately to voicemail. "Weird," he said to no one. He took another sip of scotch. He tried the phone again, only to the same response. On a whim, he fired off a call to Dane; much to his surprise, he got the voicemail without a ring. "Okay, then," he groused aloud, "Paul it is." That one rang. And rang. And rang. Then it went to the voicemail. Frowning, he scrolled through his recent contacts. Marshal Roman? No, he wouldn't know. He was probably still at the office. Clawson didn't have the number for Harmony--not that she would know anything. "Ryan Stern." He grimaced. Bringing in Dane's old friends had seemed like a good idea when he'd had it. They'd been eager for a chance--they knew that, with new management at Elsinore Ranch, there was room for some aggressive expansion. Abandoning Tim Brahns and the Northern Way Ranch had been easy: A couple of phone calls, a carefully worded email, and boom, Clawson had his spies. But instead of giving him information, they'd pretty much only given him frustration. They'd done jacksquat for him. Well, now might be a chance to have them be worth the time. They were currently holed up in the single motel that Noah boasted, a run-down heap not far from the grocery store. Once Clawson was able to get all of the paperwork done--if Marshal would do his damn job, in other words--he could get them on payroll, get them really involved. That would be nice, as it meant he'd finally have someone he could really trust to help him out. As it stood, however, they were sitting around, probably passing time watching porn or whatever they could get at that dive. He pressed the call button. A moment later, a voice answered, "Yes, sir?" "Hey, you're near the grocery store, right?" "Uh, yeah. We're at the motel." Clawson had a sudden suspicion, an itch that he needed scratched. "Do me a favor--step out onto the balcony and tell me if you can see my BMW in the parking lot. It's the blue one." "Um, hold on a sec." There was a pause and the muffled sound of a conversation--probably between Ryan and Greg, who Clawson assumed were queer, but everyone seemed gay these days--and then, "Um, no, nothing. There are, like, twelve or twenty cars. Most of them are trucks and minivans." Clawson snorted. "Look, I'm trying to find my wife--or Paul, you know, the sheriff. Neither one is answering my calls. Will you troll around and see if you can find them?" On a whim, he said, "You can even start up here--that's where Paul was last supposed to be." "Uh…yeah, sure. I guess. I'll get George and we'll head your way." "Just go up the canyon to the mountains. There's only one road; if he's on it, you can't miss him." "Do you want us to pick you up?" "Nah, just…try to find him." "We're on it." "Good." With that, he hung up. Part of him wanted to go out and join the hunt--he always felt better doing things himself, and the fact that he was stuck delegating rather pissed him off. But he also felt a distraction that he couldn't really pin down. Maybe it was the possibility of guilt, but that was probably the liquor talking. There wasn't anything to feel bad about. Everyone died at some point--and maybe that was part of what really irritated him about Dopey Dane Jr. The punk was acting all strange and typical snowflake-entitled-Millennial, as if he was the first person to have to suffer a break up, or see his mom remarry, or bury a father. Everyone lost their dad. It was the way of the world. Disney made a damn song about it. Clawson tried to sing it, but he couldn't really remember the tune, and not only that, he wasn't much of a singer. Besides, singing made his head hurt. Setting the phone down, he reclined and closed his eyes. It would be some time before Ryan and George could find anything. Honestly, Jenny probably would be back before they could even get here. But that was fine. They were proving their loyalty to him, which was, in most ways, much more important than anything they could actually do to help him. His mind circled around the different preoccupations, the glass returning to his lips repeatedly. It didn't take long before he started picturing Jenny on their wedding night--she wouldn't sleep with him before the wedding, which was just some prudish crap that she was hanging onto from her days as a Catholic, since he knew for a fact that she and Dane Sr. had taken a tumble more than once before their nuptials--and he kept himself in a fine fugue of drunken horniness up until his phone buzzed, pulling him from his indulgent reverie. He fumbled as his wrist and the phone took turns vibrating. He pulled the phone to the side of his head and said, his voice mostly gravel by now, "What?" He hadn't even looked at who was calling--probably Paul, honestly. Jenny wasn't particularly good about responding to calls or texts, despite the fact the phone was practically glued to her hand. "Clawson, you've got to get over here." It was George--or maybe it was Ryan. Come to think of it, he had only assumed that Ryan had answered his phone earlier; the two men were so similar that, even when looking at them, he had a hard time telling which had which name. "What do you mean?" he asked. The headache hadn't really faded, but his ability to care about it had. "What's 'over here' supposed to mean?" "Up the canyon. Near the graveyard. There's been an accident." The blood in his face drained, and despite how much he'd had to drink, he felt (almost) as if the news were enough to sober him up. "Who--" "Sir, it's…we found Jenny. And Paul." Clawson felt the room spin a bit, and it had nothing to do with the double-malt. "And?" "You'd better get here fast, sir." Without another word, Clawson headed to the garage, praying--to whom, he didn't know, since he'd turned his back on God before he'd learned to ride a bike--that there was enough charge in Jenny's stupid-ass hippy car to get him to the graveyard. |