Chapter Six
They came at dawn, the way construction crews always did.
Muddy heard them before he saw them—truck engines growling up the fish-camp road, the crunch of tires on gravel, voices shouting instructions the way men shouted on a job site.
Clock in, do the violence, clock out. Frank Hebert ran his intimidation crew the same way he'd run a framing crew or a roofing crew.
Efficient. Organized. Brutal.
And completely unprepared for what was waiting.
Muddy had spent the night positioning. The fish camp sat on a spit of land that jutted into the river, with the water on three sides and a single road in.
The brush was thick along the approach, the ground soft from decades of river flooding, the mud flats treacherous for anyone who didn't know where to step.
Hebert's crew knew construction sites.
They didn't know the river.
"Six men," Hollow reported through the radio. The Sergeant at Arms had arrived with Crossroad and Burial three hours before dawn, positioning along the tree line that flanked the access road. "Hebert in front. They're spreading out."
"Let them spread." Muddy's voice was calm. "The mud will do the work."
He watched from the cabin window as Hebert's crew advanced. They moved with confidence—six men against a single target, numbers on their side, construction-muscle swagger in every step. They didn't see the trap. Didn't understand that the ground itself was fighting against them.
The first man hit the mud flat and went down to his thigh.
He screamed—surprise more than pain—and tried to pull himself free. The mud held. Three generations of river flooding had turned that stretch of ground into quicksand, and a man in steel-toe boots didn't have the weight distribution to escape without help.
"What the hell—" Hebert's voice carried across the clearing.
The second man tried to help the first. He sank too.
Muddy stepped out of the cabin.
"Morning, Frank."
Hebert spun, eyes going wide. Behind him, his crew was in chaos—two men trapped in the mud, two more trying to pull them free, the last two scrambling for solid ground and finding none.
"You son of a bitch," Hebert spat. "You set this up."
"I grew up on this water." Muddy walked toward him with the slow, inevitable pace of a river rising. "My family fished this stretch for three generations. Every sandbar, every mud flat, every piece of ground that gives and every piece that holds—I know it all."
Hebert went for his gun.
Hollow hit him from behind.
The Sergeant at Arms came out of the tree line like a ghost—silent, fast, his bare-knuckle fighter's fists connecting with Hebert's skull before the foreman could clear leather. Hebert staggered, and Hollow hit him again, dropping him to his knees in the soft earth.
"Stay down," Hollow said. His voice was gravel and glass.
Hebert didn't stay down.
He came up swinging—a wild haymaker that Hollow ducked easily—and tried to scramble for the road. Crossroad was there, blocking the escape route, and Burial emerged from the brush to cut off the river approach.
The trap was complete.
Muddy watched his brothers work with the particular satisfaction of a plan coming together. Hebert's crew was helpless—trapped in mud, disoriented, their construction-site confidence crumbling as they realized they'd walked into a kill zone.
"Call them off!" Hebert shouted. "Call them off, and we can talk—"
"We're past talking." Muddy closed the distance. "You came for the woman. You came for her horse. You came to my family's camp thinking you could clear another obstacle for Tatum's development."
"I was following orders—"
"So was I." Muddy's voice dropped to something cold and final. "The Destroyers ordered me to protect what's ours. The river road. The woman. This stretch of water your boss thinks he can pave over."
Hebert's eyes darted around, looking for escape. There wasn't any. Hollow had him boxed in, Crossroad covered the road, and the river waited behind Muddy like a patient executioner.
"Tatum will send more men," Hebert said desperately. "You can't fight the whole crew—"
"Watch me."
The fight that followed was brutal and short.
Hebert swung first—a construction-worker's punch, all power and no technique. Muddy stepped inside it, caught his arm, and used the foreman's own momentum to drive him face-first into the mud. Hebert came up spitting dirt, and Muddy hit him with a right cross that cracked bone.
Hebert went down. Got up. Came at Muddy again with the desperate fury of a man who knew he was losing.
Muddy met him with the patience of the river.
Every punch Hebert threw, Muddy slipped or blocked or absorbed without flinching. Every time Hebert advanced, Muddy gave ground—not retreating, but drawing him deeper into the soft earth, letting the mud suck at his boots, letting fatigue and frustration do the work.
"You fight like water," Hebert gasped. "Can't... can't get a clean hit—"
"That's the point."
Muddy caught Hebert's next punch and twisted, using leverage to bring the bigger man down. His knee found Hebert's chest, pinning him in the mud, and his hands closed around the foreman's throat.
"The river gives and the river takes," Muddy said quietly. "You came to take from us. Now the river's taking back."
Hebert's eyes went wide. His hands clawed at Muddy's grip, but the mud held his arms, and the weight on his chest pressed the air from his lungs.
"Please—"
"You threw her off her horse." Muddy's voice was flat, unemotional. Just facts. "You slashed her tires. You grabbed her bridle hard enough to hurt the animal. And when that didn't work, you came here to finish the job."
"Tatum ordered—"
"Tatum gave the order. You enjoyed the work." Muddy pressed harder. "I saw your face when you came at her Thursday morning. You weren't just following orders. You were having fun."
The pressure increased. Hebert's face went red, then purple. His struggles weakened.
"The river doesn't clock out," Muddy said. "And neither do I."
Frank Hebert died in the mud of the Walsh fish camp, his crew watching helplessly from the traps they'd walked into, the Mississippi flowing past like it had been flowing for ten thousand years.
The river gives and the river takes.
Today, it took.
The cleanup was efficient.
Hollow and Burial handled the surviving crew members—disarming them, freeing them from the mud, making clear exactly what would happen if they talked. Crossroad moved the trucks off the access road, hiding evidence of the assault.
Muddy found Tessa in the paddock shelter, her horse calm beside her, a rifle steady in her hands.
"It's done," he said.
She lowered the weapon. Her face was pale but composed, her eyes steady. "Hebert?"
"Dead."
She nodded once. No tears. No shock. Just the flat acceptance of a woman who'd grown up on a cattle operation where hard things happened and you dealt with them.
"What about the others?"
"Five survivors. They'll tell Tatum what happened, but they'll also tell him what it cost to come here." Muddy moved closer. "He'll think twice before sending another crew."
"Will he?"
"No." Muddy's voice was honest. "He'll send someone smarter next time. His project manager, probably. Glenn Carrier. The man who coordinates the sabotage and keeps the development on schedule."
"So this isn't over."
"It's not over until Tatum's in the ground." Muddy reached out, touched her face with one muddy hand. "But today, we won. Today, you're safe."
Tessa leaned into his touch—just slightly, just for a moment. Then she straightened, the fire back in her eyes.
"Where do we go now?"
"The compound. Destroyers headquarters in Clarksdale.
" Muddy looked around the fish camp—the cabin, the paddock, the dock stretching into the river.
His grandfather's place. His father's place.
His place, even without a boat. "This location's burned.
Tatum knows where it is now. We need somewhere more defensible. "
"What about my training?"
"We'll figure it out." He took the rifle from her hands, checked the safety, slung it over his shoulder. "The compound has space. We'll set up something."
"Something isn't a river-road straightaway."
"No. But something is better than dead." His eyes held hers. "You can't make nationals if Tatum's crew catches you alone."
She wanted to argue—he could see it in the set of her jaw, the tension in her shoulders. But she was smart enough to know he was right.
"Fine," she said. "Compound. But I'm not stopping training."
"Wouldn't dream of asking you to."
They loaded the horse into the stock trailer while the brothers finished cleanup. Hollow gave Tessa an appraising look as she handled the animal—the easy competence, the lack of panic, the rifle she'd been holding when Muddy found her.
"She's steady," Hollow said quietly.
"She's a barrel racer." Muddy watched her secure the trailer gate. "They don't rattle easy."
"She know what she's getting into?"
"She knows enough." Muddy turned to face the Sergeant at Arms. "She's mine, Hollow. Whatever that means, whatever it costs—she's mine."
Hollow studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded.
"About time you reached for something again."
They pulled out of the fish camp as the sun climbed above the tree line. The trucks carrying Hebert's surviving crew had already disappeared, heading back to Greenville to deliver the message Muddy had sent.
The river road belongs to the Destroyers. Come for what's ours again, and the river takes you too.
Tessa rode in the passenger seat, watching the Delta roll past through the window. The cotton fields stretched to the horizon, green and endless, and the Mississippi gleamed brown in the distance.
"What happens at the compound?" she asked.
"You meet the brothers. The old ladies. You get a room, space for your horse, time to figure out the next move."
"And Tatum?"
"Tatum's next." Muddy's hands tightened on the wheel. "The river bought us time. But Carrier's smarter than Hebert was. The next assault won't be laborers with construction boots. It'll be something calculated. Something we have to plan for."
Tessa was quiet for a moment. Then: "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For being there. For having brothers who showed up. For—" She shook her head. "For not letting them take this from me."
Muddy glanced at her. The morning light caught her profile—the strong jaw, the determined mouth, the fire that burned behind her eyes even when she was exhausted and scared.
"I told you," he said. "I'll always be there."
She reached across the cab and took his hand.
Her grip was strong, callused from reins and rope. She held on like she was anchoring herself to something solid.
Muddy held on right back.
The compound was an hour north. Tatum was still out there, planning his next move. And somewhere in the Delta heat, Glenn Carrier was learning that his foreman was dead and the barrel racer was still breathing.
The war wasn't over.
But for right now, driving through the cotton fields with his woman's hand in his—
It was enough.