Chapter 10 - The Last Exit
Dale didn't care about the sheriff's badge, the hidden microphones, or the federal task force anymore; he was a cornered animal staring at the total collapse of his family's empire. With a wild shout, he raised his pistol, aiming straight across the hood of his truck toward my chest.
Before my finger could even twitch toward my coat, a heavy steel wrench whistled through the air with terrifying velocity.
Clang!
The heavy wrench caught Dale square across the wrist, knocking the pistol spinning out of his hand and into the dark brush with a dull thud. Dale howled in pain, clutching his broken wrist against his chest and stumbling backward into the side of his truck.
Grady lowered his hand from the throw, his face expressionless. “Bad pitch, Dale.”
Sheriff Vance dropped his shotgun completely, stepping back with his hands raised high in the air, looking frantically from Dale to the circle of thirty-five bikers closing in around the clearing. “I had nothing to do with the fire! That was all the Millers! I was just following orders!”
“You can tell that to the judge in Louisville,” I said, walking past Dale as he writhed in the mud, and tossing the leather-bound ledger directly into Jesse’s waiting hands.
Jesse caught the heavy book, pressing it against his chest as if it were a fragile, beating heart. He looked down at his grandfather, who was leaning heavily against the van door, breathing in ragged, shallow gasps.
“We got it, Amos,” Jesse whispered, his voice thick with unshed tears. “The house... the land... it’s all here.”
Amos didn't answer right away. He reached out with a trembling hand, touching the cover of the ledger, then looked past the circle of bikes toward the dark horizon where the sun had fully set behind the jagged ridge of the Cumberland Mountains.
“It’s not just land, boy,” Amos murmured, his milky eyes fixed on something none of us could see in the dark. “Look down the road. They’re still coming.”
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I turned, following his gaze toward the winding logging road that led deeper into the interior of the county.
Coming around the distant bend, three massive logging trucks with their high beams off rolled silently down the grade, their dual tires crunching softly on the gravel. They didn't have their lights on, and they weren't slowing down for the gate.
