knew some of the main facts of the town before he’d begun his search for a place to found his own Little Europe. Elizabethton was a hair under fifteen thousand souls, many of whom hailed from families holding in this corner of Northeast Tennessee since the overmountain men of the Revolutionary War. It was the forgotten adjunct of the Tri-City area of the immediate region, surrounded by Bristol, Kingsport, and most immediately, Johnson City. Those towns had their industry, their highway connections to support them while Elizabethton was one step closer to the big mountains, and though these mountains held no coal, they did have water that could be caught and controlled. So, the Tennessee Valley Authority had come in and made Elizabethton what it was. Built its dams and gatehouses. Made the rivers into a commodity. But even with electric power, the people of the place remained largely unchanged. They were proud white men and women. Gavin counted on them to be.
“Sir, the sheriff’s got a minute if you can come on back.”
He went in and sat in one of a pair of green leather chairs facing Sheriff Holston and his antique walnut desk. Behind him the two flags of state and nation. The secretary stepped out and clicked the door politely shut.
“Mister Noon, I hope you didn’t think we needed anything more from you. If you were under that impression I’ll have to apologize for my deputies straightaway. They collected all the statements they needed when they were at your property . . .”
His stream of talk ceased at Gavin’s raised hand, his smile.
“Sheriff, I’ve had a chance to talk to everyone involved. Everyone involved on my side of the affair, at least, and I believe there’s been a grave misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?”
“Yes, I don’t think there’s any reason to make this any harder than it has to be. I’m not entirely sure any crime, any crime of intent that is, ever took place. It’s my understanding that Mister Pickens is incarcerated?”
Holston leaned back in his swivel chair until it creaked and strained like it was about to give way.
“Yes sir. He’s locked up until we can get the judge to see him. Probably won’t be until tomorrow afternoon.”
“Mister Pickens, he’s an older gentleman from what I can tell.”
“Yes, sir. He’s a codgerly seventy-three if I’m not mistaken.”
“I really don’t think this is all that necessary then, is it? I mean, it seems like the fact that he’s already been brought to the jail, that should be lesson enough, don’t you think?”
Holston leaned over a ledger, flipped some pages.
“I’ll have to say, Mister Noon, I’m not too fond of locking somebody up that’s been as much a part of the community as he has. I might not agree with his politics, but he’s served the county the better part of thirty years. Lots of little old ladies wouldn’t have their Rotary Club garden beds if it wasn’t for him. Still, no one would argue him being in the wrong. But if you realized that it was a matter of him target shooting in his front yard and not knowing you and your group had moved into the old asylum, then that might significantly change the complexion of things. The DA might be open to the possibility of revisiting some of the details of the incident. That place where you’ve moved in has been vacant for twenty years at least, and there ain’t nothing further up the holler until you get to state land. Might still stick a misdemeanor on him, but nothing that amounts to anything. If you’re of a mind that that’s what may have happened, at least.”
Gavin nodded, said, “That’s very reasonable. As new members of the community, my family and I are interested in neighborly relations. The last thing I’d want to do is cause any unnecessary friction. There’s no reason people can’t live beside one another despite whatever difference of opinion they might harbor. Don’t you think?”
Holston cleared his throat, said something about the wisdom in such a thought, stuck his soft hand across the desk. Gavin took it as he would a rare and complicated gift.
3
KYLE SAT in front of the woodstove with a bowl of canned chili and drank one of those craft beers made down the road in Johnson City. The beer was good and dark and he drank it with deliberate pauses between sips. Otherwise it would have been hard not to get carried away and slip over into a lazy buzz. He’d been close to useless for much of the afternoon once the deputy had driven him back and he’d sent Orylnne home for the day, told her as little about what had happened as he could, though he knew she’d find out the details soon enough. He was worried about Gerald, didn’t see any way out of things getting out of hand as soon as the word got out.
He had been on the laptop chatting with a couple of the guys from the veterans group. They were trying to schedule a time when they could all meet for their next reforestation project. Kyle had already set the seedlings aside in the greenhouse, ready to be loaded up and driven to the new site up on Buckhorn Ridge, but they needed to meet once to go over the map and settle all the particulars. They were working out the best time the next morning when he glimpsed something coming through that dark, the shafts of car headlights climbing the drive. He wasn’t expecting anybody, so he went back to his bedroom to get the .380 from his bedside table, tucked it into the back of his waistband and stepped out to see who had come up this far into the country unannounced.
He had to put his hand across his face as the vehicle swung its lights around. After the truck parked the lights stayed on for a minute before they cut. The big diesel engine ceased its chatter. As soon as the door cracked open and the driver hove himself out, Kyle knew who it was.
“I think I’ve had about enough good news from you today,” Kyle said.
“Boy, it’s only getting started,” Holston said as he came up the steps, his breath coming like it cost more than he was willing to invest. “You mind if we go in and sit by the fire? Any kind of cold is tough on these arthritic bones, and it sure can’t be doing your bare feet any good.”
Kyle looked down, only then realized he’d come out without his shoes.
“Yeah, come on. Just so you know, I’m armed,” he said, turned and lifted his shirttail to expose the handgun grip at the small of his back.
Holston grinned, lifted his jacket to reveal his Colt. He said, “Don’t worry. I’m comfortable with a man who supports the Second Amendment.”
Kyle showed him to the front room and told him to have a seat if he wanted it. The sheriff backed up to the wood stove and spread his hands out behind him like he was trying to catch a gust of wind, said he was all right to stand for a while.
“Want something to drink? I can put on some water for coffee or tea. There’s a couple of beers in there too if you’re off the clock.”
“What kind of beer you got?”
“Yee-haws. Porters.”
“That’s okay. I’m a Bud man. That hippie shit does something to my stomach.”
Kyle let the fridge door shut.
“Well, now that we’ve pretended we can get along for half a minute, you want to tell me what’s got you up here? I would have figured you’ve had enough to gloat about for one day without driving to the back of beyond for just a little more.”
Holston shook his head like he was trying to get something inside his brain to come loose.
“Charming. A real country gentleman, my mama would have called you, Pettus. A real country gentleman. But I’ve come out here on what I’d like to call a mission of mutual advantage. How surprised would you be if I told you that Gerald Pickens isn’t sitting in county detention? How surprised would you be to hear that he’s sitting out there in my pickup as we live and breathe?”
“I’d say you’d developed a heart or a brain tumor, one.”
“Maybe. But it’s the truth regardless. I was closing up the last of the paperwork when Gavin Noon, the man who owns