Chapter 24 - Collin

Iturn back to the clearing and focus on the net with my dog inside. She's whining a little because the net is still swinging, but she's not thrashing, so that's good. "Hold on, Mercy. I'm coming." While I might not be carrying a gun—something that I will never do again—I always keep a pocket knife on me.

What's interesting, though, is that they left me a knife. It's stuck in the tree where the trap is set up. It's a really nice skinner knife with an engraved blade.

But I don't study it. I go over to the ropes and start sawing, holding the main rope so when the tension breaks, I can do what I can to slow the long fall down for Mercy.

She still hits pretty hard and cries out, but it's better than it could've been.

I go over to her and start untangling her from the net. It takes a good few minutes to do that, but finally she is free and back on her feet.

I'm bent down, lookin' her in the eyes. "You all right?"

She pouts a little, probably embarrassed that she got caught in a trap.

I pat her head. "It's OK. We all get caught every once in a while. Come on. Let's go."

I take the knife with me and look around, without seeming to look around, as we make our way back through the woods, over the bones, and down the first hill.

They're still watching me. I know that for sure. So I just keep going across the pasture, hit the next hill, and go down that one too before I let out a breath.

I'm sure they have cameras everywhere. That's how they knew I was up there. Because that boneyard, whatever it was, it wasn't where they stay. They saw me coming and they got their team together.

I've been trying to figure out how they disappeared like that. Like magic.

It's not magic. It's probably tunnels. And if I had rooted around a little, I'd have found them.

This leads me to the next question—who the fuck are they? Who has time to make a network of tunnels up in the hills? They wanted me to think they were mountain men and granny witches with those hanging bones. And maybe that boneyard is sacred ground. But then again, maybe it's not. Maybe it's just cover for somethin' else?

Regardless, there's an operation up in the hills above Disciple and these people have access to money, time, equipment, tunnels, and very nice weapons.

And I have a really strong suspicion that these men, whoever they are, are connected to the secrets that Jim Bob is holding dear.

I think a visit to Jim Bob's little stone building is in order.

But as I'm heading down the last hill, my phone buzzes. I answer. "Yeah."

"Where are you?" Amon says. "People been lookin' for you all morning."

"Who?"

He laughs. "Just Lowyn. She says she was tryin' to call you and it went straight to voicemail."

"I was up in the hills above the house. Mercy took off."

"What? That's impossible. Mercy don't take off."

"Well…"

"Before you start this story, are you home yet? Because we're going in to Revenant, remember? And I'm pulling up to your house right now."

"My house? Or Lowyn's house?"

"Same difference."

"We're coming down the hill. I can see you. Be right there."

When I come out of the woods I throw the knife, stickin' it in a stump. Because I'm not gonna tell Amon about what just happened. Not right away. I'm gonna talk to Jim Bob first. So when we get down to Amon's truck, I just direct Mercy into the back cab and get in the passenger seat.

"Damn." Amon is lookin' at my muddy boots. "She took you on a chase, huh? What was she after? Because my dogs do not take off. They track or they hunt. So she was doin' one of the two."

"She saw a rabbit."

"Ahhh," Amon groans, then turns and looks at Mercy. "We've had this discussion ten times already, Mercy girl. You went clean and now you gave in to the temptation. You're gonna be in a world of hurt tryin' to kick this habit again."

I just shake my head. And when I look back at Mercy, she's practically rolling her eyes because she knows damn well she's covering for me.

"In all seriousness," Amon says, "she probably needs a few more weeks of training at the kennel. I'll take her back with me tonight."

"Nah, that's OK. She's fine, Amon. She's good just the way she is."

"Ah-ha!" He points at me. "You love her, don't you? I knew it. I knew you'd keep a dog if I just gave you a little push."

I smile and look out the window. "Whatever." But he's right. I do like Mercy. She's not a pet, she's more like a partner. She's so well trained too. I can practically ignore her and she just knows what to do.

Amon talks about Sassy Lorraine's dognapping caper as we drive down the winding road into Revenant. The three towns are all located on a loop that cuts off the main highway right at Revenant, then takes you up into the hills to Disciple, curves around over the river, and goes back down to Bishop where the loop ends at the same highway where it began, but about twenty miles down the road.

So Revenant is actually pretty busy because of this fact. If the town wasn't owned—like one hundred percent owned—by the Revenant Corporation, there would be apartments and townhouses all over the damn place. But that corp owns about a thousand acres to the west and Bishop owns all the acres to the east. So try as they might, the developers will never take over Revenant because this land is in a perpetual contract with the Trinity that has no termination.

Disciple and Bishop are the same way. There will be no ‘progress' as far as the Trinity is concerned.

And it's nice, I think. Because even though I have not been in Revenant for over a decade—we came in on the Bishop side of things when we were buying the compound outside Disciple—it still looks the same. Other than new paint on the buildings and a newly blacktopped road through downtown, it's exactly how I remember it.

Of course, if you're gone twelve years then the people change. Lucas is my example A. Since the last time I saw him, he was ten and now he's some big-ass blond biker.

If Disciple is old-timey, and Bishop is historical, then I would describe Revenant as quaint. Which is not a word one typically uses to describe a biker town. But it's right on the river. Not only that, it's a wide part of the river so there's actually a little cove with a tiny fishin' marina. So the whole thing brings out a bit of character that one mostly finds in New England, and not West Virginia.

It's charming, I think. With the brightly painted Cape Cod buildings. Some are big, some are very small, and some are even stately. And when you mix all that in with the line of bikes parked diagonal and crowding every street in downtown, it's an appealing contradiction.

Every other bike parked down here doesn't even run. They are just props so the aesthetic of downtown maintains its biker roots at all times. Only every other bike, though. So bikers can come in from the city and get a nice space in front of a bar, or a hotel, or a restaurant.

Which means we have to park blocks away. But it's fine. Amon does that and then we head into the downtown area on foot, Mercy heelin' right at my left knee.