Lori Armstrong - Mercy Kill

“Not a coincidence. I switched out sections with another guy when I saw the list of landowners and your last name.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to set the record straight with you about Anna. About my fucked-up life.” He nudged me with his shoulder. “And, South Dakota, I wanted to rib you personally about how significantly you’d downplayed the size of your ranch.”

I shrugged.

“Seventy-five thousand acres ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at.”

“We’re at eighty-five thousand now. I bought the adjoining ranch a few months ago.” Without an heir, Iris Newsome’s death left the Newsome estate in limbo. The state’s attorney had to dredge through legal documents dating back to Merle Newsome’s will. The will contained a stipulation that the entire property had to be offered to Gunderson descendants first, for fair market value, before it went on sale to the general market. Jake and I debated on whether we could afford it. But ultimately we knew we couldn’t afford not to snap it up. We struggled to make the down payment, and I didn’t feel a damn bit guilty about buying it.

“So when you switched sections with your coworker, did you hint around to your employers that I might be an easier mark because I owed you for saving my life?”

He faced me, his eyes shining with anger. “You believed I was here… Jesus Christ, Gunny, you’re the one who said you owed me. I saved you because it was the right thing to do. It’s the one decent thing I’ve done in my life, so don’t you dare taint it. Don’t. You. Dare.”

“I’m sorry. I thought-”

“Well, you thought wrong.”

Silence.

“Besides, this job is just a damn job. A shitty-paying one at that.”

I gazed at the filmy white clouds drifting across the stars. “So you’re not gung-ho about this pipeline project?”

“You ain’t gonna want to hear this, but it’s pointless to resist. The pipeline will go through, whether the landowners cry foul or not.” He pinned me with a look. “And no, I don’t have insider knowledge beyond what I’ve seen happen everywhere else.”

“I think you’re wrong. With the new administration in power and the focus on alternative energy sources, oil is the evil empire. And since one of the stipulations for getting the pipeline passed is that all-important presidential seal of approval… we might actually win this one for a change.”

“For a change? This is the first time a pipeline has been proposed.”

“But it’s not the first time the state has run over us, just like they do when it comes to the railroads.”

Eminent domain issues were the bane of landowners’ existence. Some folks mistakenly believe the greed and power of the railroad companies were history in the Wild West. Not so. Railroad companies still had a huge lobbyist presence in Congress. If a railroad conglomerate had permission to bisect your land with tracks, there wasn’t a lot ranchers could do. Except pray that the steel wheels screaming across the steel railroad track didn’t send sparks flying across the dry grass and start a raging prairie fire.

J-Hawk nudged me. “And you call North Dakotans pigheaded? You people are adverse to change of any kind, aren’t you?”

“Not if it’s good change.” I steered the conversation another direction. “How long have you been working for the evil empire?”

“A year.”

I frowned. “Wait. You’ve been out of the service… how long?”

“Three years.” Jason laughed. “I see you doing the math. Yep. I was blissfully unemployed for two solid years after I retired from active duty. Man, did that piss Melinda off. I did nothing but lay around the house. And when I started to put on weight? I thought she’d have a stroke, but I’d never be that lucky.”

“Looks to me like you’ve dropped a few pounds since the last time I saw you.”

“After I went back to work I began to lose weight. But before that? I’d porked out and hit the three-hundred-pound mark.”

“Holy shit. That was your way to retaliate? For her threatening to kill your kids? By becoming a fat bum?”

“That is the worst sort of punishment for her. People in her hometown knew I was unemployed. I sometimes filled out job applications, just so people were aware I needed work. Just so I could embarrass her into explaining why her husband, a college graduate, an Army Ranger and a twenty-year military veteran, applied for a job as a stock boy at the feed store.” He swigged his beer. “She was upset I retired from the military. She wondered if I’d be denying future Rangers my expertise by quitting while I still had lots of good years left to teach in the field.”

My mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. My retirement pay isn’t near what my tax-free deployment pay was. The poor woman had less money to burn and me to deal with every damn day.” J-Hawk tipped his head back and studied the night sky. “But know the best part? From the moment I got home she was a cat in heat. She was desperate to have another baby to lord over me. So desperate that she’d even screw her fatty husband all the freakin’ time. Of course, she thought I was a pussy-whipped idiot. When two years passed and my seed hadn’t taken in her always-fertile womb, she confronted me about taking fertility tests. That’s when I told her the truth.”

This wouldn’t be pleasant.

“On my last mission, during a stopover at Ramstein, I paid a doctor five grand cash to give me a vasectomy off the books. You should’ve seen the look on her face, Mercy. I told her since she threatened to kill my existing kids, I went ahead and eliminated any future offspring to save her the trouble of taking them out, too.”

The swig of beer stuck in my throat and spewed out my nose. J-Hawk slapped me on the back during the coughing fit. When I’d settled down, I looked at him. “I didn’t mean to laugh, because none of this is funny, but you really did even the score with her, didn’t you?”

His eyes took on a wicked gleam I recognized when dealing with the enemy. “You have no idea. I’m still not done screwing with her. A few months back I had a buddy in the insurance biz bring her papers to sign. Little did she know she’d just taken out half-million-dollar life insurance policies for each one of our kids, naming her as the sole beneficiary. So if an ‘accident’ befell one of them…”

“She’d immediately be under suspicion.” I smiled at him. Grinned, actually. “Clever. There’s the military strategy I admired.”

“It was the only way I could protect my kids by doing what I do best.”

“Good for you.” I yawned. “Sorry. This conversation has been anything but boring.”

“You’ve had a long day, and I’ve bent your ear long enough.” He hopped off the tailgate. “Thanks for talking to me, Mercy.”

“I’m really sorry for all the shit you’ve gone through.”

“You’ve gone through plenty yourself.”

“Somehow I thought being back here would be… easier.”

“War isn’t hell for some of us, Mercy. For some of us, the real hell is going home.”

I let that sink in. I heard J-Hawk’s vehicle start up. Saw the red flash of his taillights as he drove off toward town. I remained in the frosty air, looking at the twinkling stars, trying to process what I thought I’d known, with the truth I’d just learned. When my teeth started to chatter, I crawled in the truck cab and headed home.

Full moon fever wasn’t a myth. Folks in the bar business kept close tabs on that, but we weren’t due for a full moon for over a week.

So why had all the freaks come out? Clementine’s customers were an eclectic bunch. But tonight, even our oddball regulars were looking around guardedly, with one foot pointed toward the closest exit.