to think about the good respectable folks in this town ‘stead of catering to the scum.”
“First class, eh, Carter Lee?” Pruett said. “That what I have sittin’ next to me? Well, shit, I am honestly sorry. Here I was thinking since you walked in here that the God-awful stench of white trash came right in here with you.”
Pruett normally controlled himself better than this. He never allowed himself to be bullied into a bar fight; you couldn’t carry out the office he held and have an unchecked temper. But the sheriff had been drinking. And “fed up” didn’t begin to describe the assault he’d been feeling against his awful, inflammable pride.
“Least I don’t lower myself to playin’ grab-ass with my own wife’s killer ,” Carter Lee said.
James Pruett didn’t jump , so much as explode , sideways. When he drove his shoulder into Carter Lee Holcomb, he hit the man so hard it lifted Holcomb clear of the barstool. Pruett kept moving, as if he was carrying a practice dummy across the field, doing a fine football crossover step as he barreled through the five or six empty barstools between them and the pinewood wall at the front of the Wooden Boot.
As Pruett carried the stunned man through the air, Holcomb’s arms and legs flailed wildly, like a windmill that had lost its equilibrium. When Pruett slammed Carter Lee’s back into the solid wall, the man’s lung spewed a final reserve of breath, his red face went pallid, and the fight drained from his eyes. Pruett let Carter Lee drop mercifully to the floor, both the oxygen and the mighty pith stolen from him in just a few short moments.
The big man leaned down, face to face with the young roughneck—who was still searching for his wind—and looked him straight in the eyes: “You be careful who you think to bring up in conversation, Carter Lee. Next time, there won’t be any stopping it.”
The fight awoke a different kind of demon inside Sheriff James Pruett. Once the fever of bloodlust took him over, he felt rejuvenated—reborn—as if he could physically challenge his pain; as if he could bust his guilt the way a crack rider broke a wild mare. It felt so good to put Carter Lee Holcomb down.
Later, on his front porch, nursing his bum knee, he realized he’d not felt this good since long before Bethy died. There was a time in Vietnam when a young, scared boy decided it was time to find himself or get sent home in a bag. Some kids never figured that out—or at least they never were able to summon the requisite courage.
Pruett took a pull from a bottle of Beam and remembered the jungle hooch his platoon discovered one rainy afternoon, marching through the tangled middle of the Quang Tri Province. The sky still bellowed heavy rain, but the sun was also out, and water was literally turning to steam the moment it landed on the heated branches, leaves, and soil. It gave the whole scene a mystic, otherworldly feel.
And so a sense of deep foreboding came over PFC Jimmy Pruett when his commander instructed him to clear the small villa; a feeling of dread so overpowering that he froze for the first time in his forty-two days in country. Jimmy Pruett stopped in his tracks halfway to the entrance to the hut; fellow soldier PFC Jo-Jo Barney, walking half a step behind, nearly ran him over. The platoon commander barked at Pruett to move ahead, follow his orders.
But Pruett couldn’t move. He thought of his girl back home; he remembered the ashen, blood-caked faces of the friends he’d already seen zippered and shipped to a first-class burial in the States.
Eventually the platoon commander pulled him back by the straps on his pack and sent another man in his place. The hooch was empty, abandoned for weeks. That evening, when the platoon dug in and set up a perimeter, no one spoke to him. But they whispered to each other. Nineteen year-old Jimmy Pruett knew what was on the men’s mind: the putrid danger of a coward in their midst.
You could abide
“First class, eh, Carter Lee?” Pruett said. “That what I have sittin’ next to me? Well, shit, I am honestly sorry. Here I was thinking since you walked in here that the God-awful stench of white trash came right in here with you.”
Pruett normally controlled himself better than this. He never allowed himself to be bullied into a bar fight; you couldn’t carry out the office he held and have an unchecked temper. But the sheriff had been drinking. And “fed up” didn’t begin to describe the assault he’d been feeling against his awful, inflammable pride.
“Least I don’t lower myself to playin’ grab-ass with my own wife’s killer ,” Carter Lee said.
James Pruett didn’t jump , so much as explode , sideways. When he drove his shoulder into Carter Lee Holcomb, he hit the man so hard it lifted Holcomb clear of the barstool. Pruett kept moving, as if he was carrying a practice dummy across the field, doing a fine football crossover step as he barreled through the five or six empty barstools between them and the pinewood wall at the front of the Wooden Boot.
As Pruett carried the stunned man through the air, Holcomb’s arms and legs flailed wildly, like a windmill that had lost its equilibrium. When Pruett slammed Carter Lee’s back into the solid wall, the man’s lung spewed a final reserve of breath, his red face went pallid, and the fight drained from his eyes. Pruett let Carter Lee drop mercifully to the floor, both the oxygen and the mighty pith stolen from him in just a few short moments.
The big man leaned down, face to face with the young roughneck—who was still searching for his wind—and looked him straight in the eyes: “You be careful who you think to bring up in conversation, Carter Lee. Next time, there won’t be any stopping it.”
The fight awoke a different kind of demon inside Sheriff James Pruett. Once the fever of bloodlust took him over, he felt rejuvenated—reborn—as if he could physically challenge his pain; as if he could bust his guilt the way a crack rider broke a wild mare. It felt so good to put Carter Lee Holcomb down.
Later, on his front porch, nursing his bum knee, he realized he’d not felt this good since long before Bethy died. There was a time in Vietnam when a young, scared boy decided it was time to find himself or get sent home in a bag. Some kids never figured that out—or at least they never were able to summon the requisite courage.
Pruett took a pull from a bottle of Beam and remembered the jungle hooch his platoon discovered one rainy afternoon, marching through the tangled middle of the Quang Tri Province. The sky still bellowed heavy rain, but the sun was also out, and water was literally turning to steam the moment it landed on the heated branches, leaves, and soil. It gave the whole scene a mystic, otherworldly feel.
And so a sense of deep foreboding came over PFC Jimmy Pruett when his commander instructed him to clear the small villa; a feeling of dread so overpowering that he froze for the first time in his forty-two days in country. Jimmy Pruett stopped in his tracks halfway to the entrance to the hut; fellow soldier PFC Jo-Jo Barney, walking half a step behind, nearly ran him over. The platoon commander barked at Pruett to move ahead, follow his orders.
But Pruett couldn’t move. He thought of his girl back home; he remembered the ashen, blood-caked faces of the friends he’d already seen zippered and shipped to a first-class burial in the States.
Eventually the platoon commander pulled him back by the straps on his pack and sent another man in his place. The hooch was empty, abandoned for weeks. That evening, when the platoon dug in and set up a perimeter, no one spoke to him. But they whispered to each other. Nineteen year-old Jimmy Pruett knew what was on the men’s mind: the putrid danger of a coward in their midst.
You could abide
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