Alistair McIntyre - Shallow Creek

“You guys have done a bang-up job so far.”

She didn’t rise to this, but passed him her card. “Call me if you think of anything else that can help. My cell number is on the back.”

“Sure thing, Casey.” Brendan pocketed the card and continued past her.

“Do I need to detain you for your own safety?” Spee called after him as he walked to the exit.

“No, ma’am,” Brendan yelled back, noticing Marcus coming in through the front door as he approached.

The two men crossed paths and made eye contact briefly. Brendan stopped and watched his friend stride right past him.

“Hey—”

But Marcus ignored him and kept on walking. Brendan took the hint and stepped into the West Texas sun.

Chapter 37

The percussion section camping out in Brendan’s head had lightened up while he’d watched his brother’s drug barn, but now they pounded away in full force. He gingerly probed the back of his skull, the pain a sharp reminder of his futile battle with gravity the night before. Inhaling a few gallons of natural gas probably didn’t help either. Brendan poured himself another glass of water from the filtered pitcher in the fridge.

The cool liquid froze his whole mouth as it flowed over his tongue and down his throat, a typical sign of dehydration for Brendan. He stared out the kitchen window into the front yard, watching nothing at all.

Other than the general thumping inside his skull, he wasn’t really the worse for wear. Most of his injuries incurred at the hands of Fisher’s crew had healed enough not to remind him of their presence every time he moved. And the recent knock to the back of the head hurt his pride more than anything. Trapped by a bunch of amateurs. Next time would be different.

Special Agent Casey Spee had warned him to stay away, to keep out of it. Leave it to the professionals. Well, that wasn’t going to happen, but he did need to reconsider his approach moving forward. Now that he knew his brother was heavily involved, or at least high enough up that his subordinates feared him, Brendan needed a strategy for their next confrontation. Those guys in the barn were genuinely frightened at the prospect of disappointing Grant, something Brendan knew far too much about. With a heavy sigh, he crossed to the back of the house and exited onto the porch, where a pair of wicker chairs stood guard next to a glass-topped table. He sat down and let his mind drift back to the worst days of his life.

How old was he back then? Fourteen? That made sense. Grant was about to start his senior year at Shallow Creek High School, and Brendan was making the transition into ninth grade. The year before that, the Shallow Creek Coyotes had crushed their regular season competition handily, but had faltered in their first playoff game, burning out painfully. Grant had wrestled a rare case of the flu in the days prior to that game, and it showed when he played so badly that the coach was forced to sub in the backup quarterback at halftime.

Grant had been devastated, but since he still had his senior season remaining, and enough other good players returning as well, redemption was all but assured. The whole town was thinking State Championship, and they weren’t quiet about it.

So when the school year started, the varsity football team held a party of epic proportions. In their minds, the championship already sat in the mostly empty trophy case at the school. They all met at a gigantic bonfire outside of town, fueled by the hungry flames and untold numbers of beer bottles. Brendan shouldn’t have been there at all, but as the superstar’s younger brother, no one would dare tell him to leave.

While he sipped his one and only beer that night, feeling lonely and out of place, despite his older brother’s insistence that they stay close all night, Brendan slowly grasped Grant’s intentions. The invincible quarterback didn’t want a younger brother there; he wanted a designated driver. Grant hammered that point home when Brendan reached for a second beer. His brother swiped it from his hand, telling him one was enough.

Six hadn’t been enough for Grant, so Brendan hardly thought two would break any arbitrary limits. In spite of his own feelings, he acquiesced to his brother, not wanting to ruin his fun on his special night. As the night dragged on, a drunker and drunker Grant got caught up in more and more of the festivities, leaving Brendan to hang around on the outskirts of the raging fire alone.

Another hour dragged by and finally the fire burned down and the alcohol ran out. Grant stumbled over to Brendan and inaccurately tossed him the keys. After a few minutes of digging around in the dark, Brendan produced the keys and helped his brother mount the step into the passenger side of his old beat-up truck. Brendan sat at the wheel for a moment before inserting the key and turning the ignition. He’d driven a few times out on the backroads with his dad, learning the basic concepts of handling a vehicle on the off-chance he’d need to drive one.

And now he had that chance.

Grant’s head lolled back and forth drunkenly as Brendan put on his seatbelt and turned the engine over. He remembered very precisely telling Grant to put his damn seatbelt on, but his brother had laughed this off and told him to start driving before he puked all over himself. Confident in his driving abilities, Brendan pulled into the stream of pickups fleeing the sputtering bonfire and headed for the highway. After a few more urgent requests from Brendan, Grant eventually, and sloppily, installed his seatbelt.

After a few miles on the state highway, the procession of vehicles started to break up, with teenagers making their turns to head to homes on different sides of town. Brendan followed along until his left turn appeared suddenly in the dark. Adhering to procedure, he flicked his blinker on and made a hard left into the gap in the wide median.

The next sequence of events always got a bit blurry for Brendan.

Grant punched him in the shoulder, hard. That much he remembered for sure. Brendan had turned to admonish his drunken idiot of a brother, and in doing so had failed to yield to the oncoming truck darting towards them on the opposite side of the highway.

The impact was so damn loud. That was what Brendan recalled the most. Grant’s pickup spun wildly and settled in the middle of the grassy median, engine dead and silent. He didn’t find out until later, but none of the other kids flying by on the highway stopped to help, or even to check on them. They’d all been terrified of parents or cops finding them drunk.

The only help came from the driver of the other truck, who’d managed to slam on the brakes just enough to not end up dead himself. He wasn’t from Shallow Creek. He was passing through on a late call to a land-based oil rig. Brendan couldn’t remember what he did, couldn’t even remember his name.

But he remembered his face.

His vision was blurred and he had that hopeless feeling of being lost, despite knowing exactly where he was. His brain quickly tried to churn through the options of what to do next, but all of them ended with a fourteen-year-old kid facing a world of trouble, and soon.

But the man hadn’t been pissed. He’d carefully helped Brendan from the battered pickup, and he’d set him on the grass before checking on Grant. The man had then immediately run back to his truck to call the fire department.

The next couple of days zipped by, but that didn’t mean they were easy. Grant suffered a shattered leg and a cracked pelvis in the wreck, landing him in traction. Brendan’s impotent claims that he’d been the one who’d forced Grant to put his damn seatbelt on satisfied no one, especially his own father. Yes, Brendan could admit even to this day that he’d screwed up that night, but he also took responsibility for saving his dumbass brother’s life.