Dog Days of Summer (Damned of the 2/19th Book Four) - Finished

Sins of the Father Revealed

Doutree Family Farm
Independence Valley
Thurston County
United States of America
12 August, 1986
1400 Hours

"Done," Nancy said, pushing back in the chair. It made a shuddering noise on the linoleum. I reached up and felt the bandage she'd put on my neck after giving me six stitches. We all looked when the front door opened and Elizabeth came in, a pair of binoculars in her hand.

"They're all gone, Ant," Elizabeth said, "Ambulance, two fire trucks, a county mounty, all of them left after they pulled the wreck up on a trailer."

I nodded. I'd dumped Nuallan's body into his truck and then lit the wreck on fire. The truck burned, good and hot, and I knew it'd destroy the tissue evidence.

"How's your neck, Ant?" Elizabeth asked me. She'd been calling me Ant, not Annie, since she'd heard Nancy and John calling me that.

"Fine," I told her.

"Not fine," Nancy snapped, "If the bullet had been an eighth of an inch closer it would have sliced open his external jugular vein and the stupid bastard would have bled out."

"Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, nuclear weapons," I started.

"...and cumshots," John and Nancy finished with me.

The Doutree girls and my cousins all laughed at that.

"Your cousins can stay, Anthony," Mamma Doutree said. She was smoking a cigarette John had handed her. "Won't be easy, not without the boy's paychecks, but we'll make it work."

John shook his head. "No, ma'am, I can't abide letting you ladies sit here while everyone talks 'bout you round town behind their hands." He leaned against the counter and lit a cigarette. Nancy took it from him, I took it from her. He lit another and handed it to Nancy, then lit himself one.

"What should we do, Texas? Starve?" Elizabeth asked. She was drinking a beer and I noticed nobody said anything to her.

John rolled his shoulders. "Can I use your phone, privately, Missus Doutree?"

"One in my bedroom," She said, standing up. She beckoned at Bomber to follow her.

"Might not be a good idea to show me, Missus Doutree," John chuckled, following her into the wide hallway. It was where the two trailers had been pressed together and the outside walls removed.

"Why's that, Johnathon?" She asked him.

I looked at Nancy, who grinned at me, then at the other women and girls, who all looked a bit confused by the byplay.

"Because you're a handsome woman, Widow Doutree, and us Bomber men, we like 'em plump," He chuckled.

...I knew you were gonna say that, John...

Mamma Doutree laughed, an honest laugh, not a harsh and brittle one like she had been laughing.

"You young bucks, always thinking with the smaller head," She laughed.

Missy and other two younger girls looked outraged, the two older Doutree daughters grinned, along with my cousins.

"What's he doing?" Elizabeth asked.

"Handling things," Nancy said. She knew as well as I did who he was calling. Bomber's family was Texas money rich. Cattle, oil, uranium mines. One of the ten biggest ranches in all of Texas. He never really made an issue of the fact that his family was rich in a way me and Nancy couldn't really comprehend. He was John Bomber, Echo-Five-Actual, Special Weapons, Atlas, and my best friend since Reception.