“Son of a bitch,” Prescott muttered, gasping for breath. Sometimes Billy Dean could be such a bastard, running off ahead and all. He wondered if Billy had even hit the buck hard, probably just clipped him and they’d be chasing the wounded sumbitch for miles.
Prescott caught sight of some red spots on the dried grass near the trai
l, enough to change his mind and make him think that the deer had been wounded badly. Good. He couldn’t handle much more of this fast-assed traipsing through the wilderness. Truth to tell, Prescott enjoyed everything about hunting but the actual tracking of the prey. Oh, he liked to shoot a squirrel, buck or fox as much as the next guy. Even fantasized about killing himself a bear or a gator and having it stuffed, but all in all, hunting was a lot of work and he much preferred the beer, weed and a bit of crank now and again that went along with the actual hunt. He liked campfires and making up stories about whores and big game, all the while getting high. The hunting itself, the tracking game, the wounding game, the gutting game and the hauling out of the game was kind of a pain.
“Hey! Over here! Pres! C’mon. Just over the ridge…What the hell?” Billy’s voice came from down in a holler, one deep in shadow. Prescott followed the sound, noticed a few more splashes of fresh blood on the bent grass and curled up leaves on his way down an overgrown trail. Through tall pines and scrub oak, he eased his way down. The path was steep, cut into the side of a cliff, and precipitous enough that his hunting boots slid a time or two. Prescott’s heart was thumping. Holding on to his pa’s hunting rifle with one sweaty hand, Prescott feared he might pitch himself over the cliff. But all along the way down he spied a smattering of blood. Maybe Billy hadn’t lied, after all. Just because the boy was known for telling whoppers didn’t mean he hadn’t actually struck the whitetail in a vital organ.
Prescott eased his bulk through a thicket of saplings to a small patch of dead grass, a shadowy clearing in this dark ravine. Ringed by scraggly woods, the clearing saw very little sunlight.
Billy Dean was standing to one side of a snag that bore the charred bark of a tree hit by lightning. In front of the dead tree and Billy Dean was a thick mound. At first, Prescott thought it was the lifeless buck, but as he got closer he could see that he was wrong. Dead wrong. Billy Dean was scratching the side of his face nervously while staring down at a pile of dirt and rocks that was about seven or eight feet long and over two feet wide. Billy’s dad’s old dog was whining and pacing around the edge of the neat, unnatural heap.
“What is it? What you got there?” Prescott asked and noticed that the red dog held his nose up, into the wind.
“It’s a grave.”
“What you say?”
“A grave, man, look. And it’s big enough for a human.”
“No way…” As Prescott, breathing hard, walked closer, he saw that Billy Dean was right.
The dog whimpered, his fur shivering.
Prescott didn’t like the looks of it. A grave out here in the woods near Blood Mountain. No, he didn’t like it at all. “What d’ ya think we should do?”
“Dunno.”
“Dig it up?”
“Maybe.” Billy Dean nudged a pile of soft dirt with the barrel of his gun, something his daddy would skin him alive for if he ever caught him.
The hound was still acting weird. Jumpy. Whining and staring across the clearing. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
Billy Dean leaned down. “There’s somethin’ here. A ring…hell, yes, it’s a weddin’ band.” He reached down and picked up a gold band with several stones. Billy wiped it on his pants and a diamond, a big sucker, winked in the poor light. Smaller red gems glittered around the diamond as the nervous old dog whined. “Jesus. Look at the size of it. Must be worth somethin’.” Squinting, he studied the inside of the band. “It’s got something etched into it. Listen to this: To Barbara. Love forever. Then there’s a date.”
“Whose is it?”
“Someone named Barbara.”
“Duh! I know that.” Sometimes Billy Dean could be so damned dense. He might be able to run like a gazelle, but Prescott figured he weren’t no smarter than one of his daddy’s half-breed dogs. “But Barbara who? And why’s it here?”
“Who cares? Too bad, though. The inscription prob’ly means it’s not worth as much.”
“So what? You ain’t thinkin’ of stealin’ it.” But Prescott knew better. Billy Dean had a larcenous bent to him—not that he was bad, just poor and sick to the back teeth of never havin’ anything. The dog let out a low growl. Lowered his head. Prescott saw the reddish hackles rise.
“I’m not stealin’ nothin’. I just found it. Tha’s all.” Billy pocketed the ring, then before Prescott could say anything else, let out a whoop. “Looka there. Now don’t tell me this ain’t my lucky day. There’s the buck! Shit-o-day! Look at him. It’s a damned four-point!”
Sure as shootin’, the deer had dropped and breathed his last damned breath just on the other side of a pair of knotty oaks. Billy Dean had poked it to make sure it was really dead, and satisfied, was already unsheathing his knife, but Prescott didn’t help. He felt a chill as cold as the devil’s piss. It skittered down his spine from the base of his skull clean to his tailbone and it had nothin’ to do with the wind whippin’ and screamin’ down the holler.
No, it was somethin’ more.
A feeling, the kind that warned him of danger.
Just like ol’ Red, the hound.
Prescott glanced over his shoulder, his eyes squinting behind the smudged lenses of his glasses.