Merritt laughed. “Your daddy doesn’t own shit.” He was glancing back at three shallow holes he’d dug and the cheap shovel he’d dug them with. “You’re collecting product fast as a squirrel at first frost.”
He wondered: Did it have anything to do with some distant shots he’d heard earlier?
“Now, need to know: Some people came this way. In the last half hour. Three of ’em.”
“I don’t know.”
Merritt lifted the gun.
“Come on, man, okay, okay, yeah. Man, woman, a girl. Went over the Rapahan.”
“That river?”
“Yessir.”
“They have a run-in with you? I heard shots.”
“I don’t know.”
Merritt sighed long.
The boy whined, “They started it. This guy did. He was shooting at us! Just started for no reason.”
“With what?”
“Huh?”
“What kind of gun did he have?”
“I don’t know. A big one.”
“Funny since all the guns they had are burnt up, smoldering in a fire pit. And if there’s a Dick’s Sporting Goods ’round here, I missed it.”
The kid was looking at the ground.
No need to hassle him further. And the clock was running. “You traded shots. You and who else with you?”
“My sister, my aunt, my dad.”
“You hit any of them?”
“Believe so, yessir. The woman.”
“How bad?”
“Her leg, I think.”
Merritt turned and looked north. You could just see the flicker of lowering sun on the river. Wounded, she couldn’t move fast. Dusk would be coming soon, and they’d have to shelter.
“What’s between here and Millton?”
“Not much, sir. No towns.”
“Anything?”
“Few hunting cabins.”
“People in ’em?”