Morehouse’s eyes had grown round and white. “I’m only going to tell you one thing about Snake, Henry. The motherfucker is crazy, but crazy like a fox. What he’s done or ain’t done, nobody knows but Snake and the devil himself. And in case you didn’t know, he served as a sniper in Korea.”
A chill ran along Henry’s arms.
“You watch your ass after you leave here,” Morehouse said, in the tone of a fellow soldier. “Don’t stray far from cover.”
Henry glanced anxiously at his watch. “Please give me the bodies, Glenn. Without the bodies, Jimmy and Luther stay a kidnapping on the books.”
The old man shook his head. “Not today. You ain’t proved I can trust you yet. And I don’t want to read all this in the Beacon on Thursday. You prove I can trust you, I’ll tell you some things that’ll scorch your eardrums.”
Henry’s frustration finally boiled over. “I won’t print a damned thing you’ve told me! I swear it.”
Morehouse glanced at the wall clock. “Wilma’s gonna come up the driveway any minute. If she does, we’re both dead.”
Henry stood up and looked down at the old man. “No, you’re dead. Where did you dump those boys? I’ve heard the Jericho Hole, by Lake St. John, and I’ve heard the Bone Tree. Which was it? Or was it someplace else?”
“I don’t know where they are, Henry. I never did. The Bone Tree ain’t even a real thing. Don’t do this, man. Wilma would sell me out to Snake in a minute.” Every passing second was pushing Morehouse deeper into panic. “I’m beggin’ you,” he pleaded. “Get out now.”
The cell phone in the old man’s hand pinged. He peered at the LCD and his face went blotchy with panic. “Wilma’s down at the end of the road! Her dog got loose while she was gone, and she’s trying to get him into her truck. She’ll be here any minute!”
Henry wanted to push the old man to the wall, but if he did, he’d never get another interview with him. “I’ll go. But only if you’ll call me later.”
“It’s too late!” Morehouse wailed. “You can’t get out without her seeing you now!”
Henry thought about the topography outside the house. “Are you sure there’s no other way out? I came in a four-wheel drive.”
Relief washed over the old man’s face. “Drive right through the ditch at this end of the road, then head for the tree line. Park behind the trees until you see Wilma come in. Then you can work your way east toward the river. There’s a dirt track over that way that’ll get you to the levee road. But you gotta go now.”
Henry stuffed his Moleskine in his pocket and trotted to the door. “If you don’t call me before midnight, I’m coming back here.”
“I will, if I can. Otherwise tomorrow. Go!”
Henry opened the door and glanced up the gravel road. Seeing no vehicles, he ran to his Explorer. Ten seconds later he was nose-down in a ravine, fighting mud and gravity. With a lurch the Explorer slammed to a stop. For thirty awful seconds, his worn tires spun and whined in vain, and Henry sweated like he was being chased by a demon, not a leather-faced old woman. As his heart thundered in his chest, he realized that what he’d heard during the past hour had altered his life forever, as it would soon alter the world. He hadn’t even begun to process all that Morehouse had told him. Henry was no conspiracy theorist; he was the opposite, in fact. But the look in Morehouse’s eyes when he’d asked about Snake Knox and Martin Luther King had sunk into the marrow of Henry’s bones. With a squawk and a stink of burning rubber, the tires finally caught and carried Henry over the lip of the ditch. After one last glance at his rearview mirror, he gunned his motor and made for the tree line across the empty field.
CHAPTER 13
FORTY MILES DOWN the Mississippi River, Billy Knox waited in the study of the Valhalla Exotic Hunting Reserve, which his father stubbornly insisted on calling by its original name: Fort Knox. The massive compound straddled the boundary between Lusahatcha County, Mississippi, and West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, both of which lay on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River. Though much of Valhalla was surrounded and protected by impassable swampland for part of the year, a fourteen-foot-high fence kept trespassers out and valuable game species in. Trophy heads of African antelope, Canadian moose, and whitetail deer jutted from every wall in the lodge, while grizzly bears and alligators guarded the corners with lifelike menace. Behind Billy’s chair, a seven-hundred-pound hog with a spear in its back prepared for a charge. The Teddy Roosevelt décor pegged Billy’s cheese meter, but he hadn’t gotten up the nerve to take any of it down. His cousin Forrest liked the lodge exactly the way it was—the way his father Frank had liked it—and Billy didn’t fancy the consequences of desecrating the memory of Frank Knox.