Carved in Bone

flashed back to my pot patch excursion with Waylon, and to the rage he’d shown when Orbin shot Vernon’s dog. “We need to find Waylon,” I said urgently. “Where’s Waylon?” Suddenly, magically—mercifully, even—Waylon’s truck stopped in front of the porch. O’Conner waved frantically and pointed toward the ridge just as another muzzle flash erupted. Without a word, Waylon roared to the treeline, then leapt from his truck and sprinted up the mountainside.
    As bullets continued to slam into the chopper, the aircraft wove and dodged toward the spot the shots were coming from, as if Orbin wanted to confront his assailant face to face. Sparks flew as a bullet glanced off the main rotor. Suddenly a spiderweb of fracture lines painted the front windshield, and the plastic bubble burst. The helicopter seemed to leap up in surprise, then pitched forward and rolled to the left, plummeting toward the valley floor.
    When it hit, it collapsed with surprisingly little resistance, the remainder of the Plexiglas windows shattering, the metal tail boom crumpling like cardboard tubing. The impact was followed by near silence—a few groaning aftershocks, little else. For some reason I was expecting alarms and sirens, so the quiet seemed eerie and wrong. Then, as O’Conner and I ran toward the wreckage, came the searing rush of intense flame. Within seconds fire engulfed the cockpit, making our approach—and his survival—utterly impossible.
    O’Conner shielded his face, peering into the flames. “Jesus. What a godawful mess. What the hell is going on here, Doc?”
    “I wish I knew. Just when I think things can’t get any worse up here, they do. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Cooke County over the years. I didn’t realize they were all understatements.”
    O’Conner took out a satellite phone—the nearest cell phone tower was several ridges away—and dialed the sheriff’s dispatcher. He told her the sheriff’s helicopter had just crashed and burned and that the pilot was dead. He gave directions, including a description of the kudzu tunnel, which the dispatcher asked him to repeat. Prompted, he gave his name. But he did not say that the helicopter had been shot down, and he did not stay on the line, as I could hear the dispatcher instructing him to. “When they get here, tell them about the shots. I don’t think it’s wise for me to be here when Tom Kitchings finds his brother dead in my front yard.” He turned and trotted toward the house.
    I was about to go after him when Waylon emerged from the woods and stumbled across the clearing toward me. “Got away,” he gasped. “Some boot tracks heading down the back side of the ridge—they’s a old logging road down there. Heard a ATV leaving about the time I got to the top. Sorry.” He bent over, hands on knees, to catch his breath. “Did find this, though.” He fished a knotted bandanna from a pocket and untied it, revealing five brass shell cases, about two inches long, shaped like miniature artillery rounds. “Winchester thirty-thirty,” he said. “Hunnerd-fifty-grain load; muzzle velocity ’bout twenty-four-hunnerd feet a second. Same ammunition used by half the deer hunters in this county.”
    “Waylon, did you touch these?”
    “Nossir. Picked ’em up with my hanky here.”
    “There might still be fingerprints on them. Hang onto them till the sheriff and his folks get here. Then make sure somebody gives you an evidence receipt for them.”
    For the first time since I’d met him, Waylon suddenly looked nervous. “Doc, the sheriff might take these better coming from you than from me,” he said. I frowned, puzzled. “He’s gonna be out for blood, and it might not be good for my health if I was to be the one to give him these. Can I turn ’em over to you, and let you give ’em to him?”
    “Sure.” I took the bundle from him and retied it. Then I pulled a small notepad from my back pocket and scrawled two makeshift evidence receipts. I signed and gave one to Waylon; I tucked the other away for later, to be signed by whoever I gave the brass to. “Keep that in a safe place,” I said. He nodded.
    I looked around for O’Conner, but he was nowhere in sight. “Sounded like Jim was going to make himself scarce for awhile,” I said.
    “Sounds like a good idea. Them Kitchingses don’t like me all that much, but they’s a whole lot less kindly disposed toward Jim.”
    “You think they’ll find him?”
    “Not if he