35. Duke
DUKE
I’m going to beat the shit out of a man tonight.
My smile can probably be seen from Mars.
And I’m not a sick fuck. I’ve never enjoyed hurting people. I generally try to avoid it.
But this guy is practically begging for it.
He choked my girlfriend right in front of my eyes. It’s only fair that I make sure he knows exactly how that feels to experience.
I’m currently getting the rare opportunity for a phone call with my brother Sterling. He’s calling to check in on the ranch and his wife, Eden.
“She’s been good. She helps Dallas with her boys now that they’re both living in the bunkhouse. Eden is constantly dropping off baked goods here and at Holden and Rosie’s place.”
“I miss her cooking so damn much. Fuck.” His voice crackles through the secure line.
“You remember when we went to see her at that motel room?”
He doesn’t answer right away. I tap my boot on the floor, waiting.
“I do, yeah.”
“Did you tell her about what we did when she left?”
“No, but I know she suspects. I never got the chance to talk to her about it before I left.”
“She told Dallas something.”
He’s silent again. I have the phone on speaker to free up my hands as I paint the black and green camo face paint onto my skin.
“She’s a smart girl. I didn’t want to tell her about it before I left because I was worried she wouldn’t feel safe there.”
“Dallas knows. Unfortunately, I might have to repeat it.”
He sighs. “Whatever you do, make it disappear this time.”
He means the body.
“If it comes to that, I plan to. Wish you were here to help me with it.”
“As much fun as that sounds, I can’t be. Try not to scare my wife off before I can get back.”
“I won’t. She’s happy here. She and Dallas seem to have bonded.”
“Good. I have to go. I’ll be home in July, a few days before Eden is due.”
“Be safe.”
“Yeah, you too.”
He ends the call. I finish painting my face until my skin is covered in a camouflage mask. I look down at the blue dot on the phone. My name flashes on the screen above the moving target driving down the highway, headed toward Redford Ranch.
I grab the hunting rifle leaning up against the sink and load the bullets into the chamber.
I walk out to the living room when I hear deep voices. My two older brothers are there, waiting for me, dressed in dark camouflage with face paint matching mine.
“You ready?” Cash asks.
“Oh, yeah.”
“You’re looking forward to this, aren’t you?”
I nod, grinning.
He shakes his head and sighs, looking over at Holden. My oldest brother is cleaning his rifle, contemplating my twisted moral compass.
“The same rules apply that always have. We only kill him if we have no other choice. Tonight, we’re just going to scare him.”
“Does that mean I don’t get to enjoy it? Even a little bit?”
“No, Duke. You don’t get to enjoy it. Especially when we have the fucking sheriff breathing down our necks after not one, but two bodies were fucked with!” Cash’s eyes bounce between us. “Can someone explain to me that brilliant plan?”
The front door bangs open and slams shut before heavy footsteps reach the kitchen. Sam looks scary as fuck with his bow in one hand and his face painted to match ours.
“Sorry I’m late. Dolly was tied—never mind.”
All three of us groan.
He smirks as he leans up against the bar. “What’s the plan?”
Three sets of eyes look over at me. I hold back the smile this time, so they don’t all turn against me and think I belong in a mental institution for enjoying this night.
It’s not that I’m glad I have to commit a crime tonight. It’s that I enjoy justice being served, even if what he actually deserves is to die.
After this, I want Dallas to be able to wake up and enjoy her day without having to deal with an abusive co-parent hell-bent on ruining her life and endangering her kids while the state of Texas does nothing to stop it.
“He’s headed here now. I sent him several baiting messages from an untraceable phone, attempting to draw him here.”
“What kind of baiting messages?” Cash asks.
“They’re from a girl named Skylah. She’s this brunette who matched with him on a dating app and wants him to take her hunting on her grandfather’s land.”
Three pairs of eyes blink at me.
“And … he might think she’s fifteen.”
“The fuck?” Holden mutters.
“I thought the fake pictures I found online looked older, but when he asked if she was in high school and seemed to hope the answer was yes … I went with it. He asked to meet up right after I gave him her age.”
Sam groans, shaking his head. He reaches for the bottle of bourbon on the counter and takes a swig before handing it to me. “Here’s to ridding the world of another fucking pervert.”
I lift it to my lips and take a long, slow swig before passing it along to Cash.
“Amen, brother.”
I’m crouched down in the bushes, my rifle clutched tightly in my hand. Bright headlights are approaching. I wish I could see inside the vehicle.
My fists clench tighter when I see that it’s a red truck.
Bingo, motherfucker.
Finding out that Matt prefers them younger didn’t surprise me, but it did make me want to puke on the side of the road.
I don’t know how to tell Dallas or if I even should. She already thinks her ex-husband is a jerk, but him actively planning to meet up with an underage girl solidly lands him in the scum-of-the-earth category. I don’t know if that fact is something she can handle right now.
The place I asked him to meet up with “Skylah” is at the mile marker between FM 1453 and Sandhill Road. I told him it wasn’t far from the house she lived in and had to sneak out of.
What’s a grown man doing meeting up with a fifteen-year-old at ten p.m. on a deserted road? Nothing good.
The truck pulls to a complete stop before the door creaks open. The phone in my pocket starts buzzing. He’s calling the girl. I deny the call and send a text back to him.
Skylah
Is that you? A red truck just pulled up.
“Skylah?” he says into the dark.
I wrap my finger around the trigger. He’s in my sights right now. I could pull it and end this immediately.
But where’s the fun in that?
“It’s dark out here, baby. Are you okay?”
I will enjoy every fucking blow to this motherfucker’s body.
He takes another step closer before I grab the rope on the ground and start swinging the loop over my head. He turns toward the whizzing sound in the air.
His eyes are probably still adjusting to the dark, but I’ve been waiting in it for twenty minutes. Right when his face is pointed directly at me, I let it loose. It wraps around his neck beautifully before I yank it back. It tightens around him, and he screams like a little bitch.
“Aargh!”
I feel the urge to laugh.
Not funny. Be serious.
I jerk the rope closer. He falls to the ground. Cash spits out a curse.
“Don’t rip his head off, dammit. We gotta get him to Moonlight.”
“It ain’t far.” I spit in the dirt near his face, holding tightly to the rope as Matt thrashes on the ground.
“We’re still on old man Fleming’s place. We’ve got a few miles till we reach Moonlight,” Holden says.
Old Man Fleming’s death couldn’t have come at a better time.
I nod, trying to regain my composure. Lady Liberty snorts behind me.
“I know, girl. I’m anxious to get to the good part too. We’ll be there soon.” I pat her neck.
Matt stands up suddenly, attempting to run. The rope is already tight, far too taut for him to get out on his own. It jerks him back, like he ran into a clothesline.
“Whoa, whoa, calm down, Hayes. You’re all right. Panicking won’t make it end any faster.” Sam’s voice feigns a casual, calm tone.
Cash grabs my rope, following it up toward Matt, who kicks at him from the ground.
“Who the fuck are you people?!” he screams.
“No one can hear you. You know that? You’re so far out in the middle of nowhere. Not a soul is out here. Go ahead and scream as loud as you fucking want.” I hate how excited I sound. I can’t help it.
I’ve been looking forward to this.
Cash jerks him to his feet, grabbing one arm and looping it through a zip tie. He manages to grab the other one, despite Matt’s scrambling, and loops it in too. Then he tightens his wrists together behind his back.
It would’ve been a lot easier to do this with trucks and four wheelers, but it would have also been louder, and more likely, we’d have gotten caught.
Even though we are far out in the country, somebody driving by might have taken notice of a bunch of four wheelers in a field late at night.
And when Matt’s truck is found here after he’s reported missing, we have no connection to him other than some horse shit.
And a few piles of that isn’t enough to incriminate us.
We’ll be the top suspects for this crime, for certain, so we’re being careful and minimizing any possible evidence that we were here.
We’re two miles from Moonlight Ranch, Sam’s place. The back corner of his ranch shares a fence line with old man Fleming’s property.
It’s a convenient location that he was gracious enough to offer up to help us deal with this little problem and avoid any more possible bodies turning up on Redford Ranch … assuming nobody finds the ones already buried there.
“Load him up here,” I tell him.
Cash jerks him over to Lady Liberty, and it takes both of us to haul him up on top of her, belly down.
“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! What are you doing to me? Where are you taking me? I’ll give you whatever you want if you just let me go!”
“I’m gonna need you to calm the fuck down, buddy. We got a few more miles to go,” Cash says.
Holden is up on his horse and pulling Buttercup behind him. After securing Matt’s body with my rope and loosening it so he doesn’t die on the ride over, I swing up onto Buttercup’s back.
“Man, look at those stars. It’s such a nice night.”
“Shut up, Duke,” Holden barks.
“Duke Redford?” Matt says, clear anger in his tone.
“Yes, sir, sure is. Did you think you were just going to choke my girlfriend and get away with it?”
We’re riding toward Moonlight with Lady Liberty and Matt between the rest of us. Sam has his bow, Cash and Holden both have guns, and I have my rope, ready to tighten it if he falls off or something startles my mare.
“I swear, I’ll do anything. You can have Dallas. Is that what you want? I’ll go away, and I’ll never talk to her again.”
His words only ignite the boiling rage in me until it’s a furnace threatening to explode.
As if Dallas is that easy to let go of, to never speak to again. I can’t imagine tormenting a woman for years like he has and then acting like it could all just stop because he’s scared for his life now.
“Ah, shit, man, I wish you’d offered that option up sooner. We’re already out here, got the horses saddled up and everything. Plus, you know it’s me. I can’t really trust you not to say anything, you know?”
“I swear, I won’t tell a soul!”
“Tsk-tsk. Like I said, wish you’d thought of just leaving her alone sooner, maybe before you tried to kidnap her kids and endanger them.
Or maybe before you strangled and abused her.
If you wanted to be a good guy, you had a chance for that.
But that ship has sailed now, unfortunately for you.
And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I’m not at all, not even a little bit sorry we ended up here. You know why that is, Matt?”
I wait for him to answer, but he remains silent. If it wasn’t for his panting breaths, I would think maybe he suffocated.
“It’s because even though I seem like a fun-loving cowboy who rides bulls and competes in the swing dance competition and always has a smile on his face, deep down, I’m a sick son of a bitch who’s been waiting for the chance to strangle you until you die.
And now all my dreams are coming true tonight. ”